This calls for a celebration.
(Seriously, you have no idea how bad it was getting…)
Category: Uncategorized
One of my favorites — classic.
THE ROAD NOT TAKEN
| TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood, | |
| And sorry I could not travel both | |
| And be one traveler, long I stood | |
| And looked down one as far as I could | |
| To where it bent in the undergrowth; | 5 |
| Then took the other, as just as fair, | |
| And having perhaps the better claim, | |
| Because it was grassy and wanted wear; | |
| Though as for that the passing there | |
| Had worn them really about the same, | 10 |
| And both that morning equally lay | |
| In leaves no step had trodden black. | |
| Oh, I kept the first for another day! | |
| Yet knowing how way leads on to way, | |
| I doubted if I should ever come back. | 15 |
| I shall be telling this with a sigh | |
| Somewhere ages and ages hence: | |
| Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— | |
| I took the one less traveled by, | |
| And that has made all the difference. |
ROBERT FROST
Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning god, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body…
(walt whitman)
Thank you, newyorkismylady. You should really post more often.
Post-City Rundown
Remember the days here?
Remember the wonderful time we had here! Remember?
Letterpress wood type, Open Book, Minneapolis. So incredible!
JAMBO!
It feels like Sunday today, because I have skipped out on the past two days of class. I had a lovely time in the cities, nevertheless! There was plenty of design, good friends, and galactic pizza to claim fulfillment. Aside from a nosebleed in the middle of downtown (a whole story in itself), I’d say it was nearly amazing.
When we arrived in the city yesterday, the group was let loose to eat lunch at the establishment of our liking. While eighty percent of the group set out for Hooters (something appealing about fake breasts and terrible food that I must be overlooking?), a friend and I thought a food court on the 3rd floor of some whack building to be the better choice. Why? I don’t know. We were craving fried cat? Sushi? We love being surrounded by corporate, blimpified Americans? All of the above.
It was a place out of everyday life, one that everyone took for granted for lack of anything else to take it for. It was a place where the men and women of the business world came to out of convenience, where drug deals occurred, where tables were wiped down with dirty rags. Beautiful women, most African, were dressed in security guard and janitor uniforms alike. They were too beautiful to be doing what they were, and worse yet, they looked miserable doing it. The Subways and Pizza Huts and Chinese food huts glimmered alike, all with the sense of despair, that they would always be those places in those malls, meat and cheese and cat cuisine on the 3rd floor. To their right, a large storefront blared the name NEIMAN MARCUS, the greatest irony of all. The people who came here to eat didn’t have time to drop hundreds of dollars on shoes and purses and leather. They just wanted their goddamn footlong, Diet Coke, and a newspaper. They just wanted to go home.
Shortly after I’d began shoveling through my mound of orange chicken cuisine, my nose announced its disagreement. It decided to bleed, and bleed well, it did. It bled all the way on to the streets of Minneapolis, over my face and down onto my white blouse, for all the passerby to witness. The assault victim. The foreigner. Yes. The little girl standing on the corner with a nosebleed? Oh. I’m sorry.
I think I might get some sleep tonight, because tomorrow’s laundry day — and you know what that means: it’s laundry day.
Muchlove from Moorhead, muchlove always.
jc
The Collector
I WROTE THIS POEM in an attempt to describe my love for junk —
One man’s trash truly is another’s treasure.
Enjoy.
The Collector
I’m a trash-amasser,
Trash-compactor,
Collector, inspector,
Garbage harasser
Digging my way
Through your unwanted disasters
I’ll gladly take you home.
Paper, shaped plastic
Photos fantastic
Boxing and tags
Newspapers, classics
Magazine women, designs and, oh!
You’re abandoned?
I’ll gladly take you home.
You’re textured, you’re bright
Patterned and blithe
Inspiring and ripped
Stained, unrefined
You know I’ll love you
Your troubles are mine
I’ll gladly take you home.
Knick-knacks and fabric
Second-hand maverick
Stowing, stuffing,
Cramming and jamming
Pack rat and hero,
Junk-stricken and maddening
I’ll gladly take you home.
Passé and misused
I’ll dust off the abuse
The unfit, the ugly
The undeniably crude
You’ll be beautiful, I promise
I’ll improve and renew
I’ll gladly take you home.
We’re in this together,
Each day, the collector
Sifting, re-gifting
Recycling her matter
Scissors and fingers
Transform, make it better
I’ll gladly make you better.
So much it won’t fit
This collection of bits
Relishing, attaching
Feelings to irrelevance
Don’t know when I’ll need you
But you’ll always need me
I’m glad I took you home.
Outside My Window
I SAW THESE CLOUDS TODAY
as I was sitting in the recliner, facing the window.
I thought they were neat because they looked like mountains
and I’ve never had mountains outside my window before.
I took several photos of them,
imagined for a while what it would be like,
surrounded by mountains,
and then fell fast asleep.
It was a really wonderful thing.
If I can’t have mountains outside my window,
at least I can have a tree branch in my living room.
I’ve been reading up and designing a project around the Cuban Missile Crisis for the past several hours. Goodness. Time for a break to write a bit.
Today’s highlights:
• Holly bought a bag of cherry cordials. Riveting!
• I was grouchy for just 1/18 of this morning — a new record!
• Making another payment toward Eurospring = bittersweet!
• Our shower drain can breathe again after Mr. Maintenance paid a visit to 210!
• Nuclear war has not destroyed the world! HOORAY!
• I have declared a strike on cleaning up after others in the apartment!
The only thing that could make this day better would be a visit to Kroll’s for Shakey Monday and perhaps two, four, or ten arms around me.
love.
Morning in a Run-On
Eight in the morning, rising to the seventy-nine degrees of sultry that has consumed the room the morning after the storm and all is calm except the trees whipping around their autumn leaves dancing, falling, avoiding eye contact with those around me for fear I might fracture before long the shower never felt so pleasant, dragging the negative vibes, dusting cantankerous from my bones carrying me to a state of tranquil my mind at ease, I am approachable crimson, green, and gold outside my window flush against a charcoal sky blonde and beautiful, sanguine eyes bounce out the door the day is young and I feel alive.
LTLYM: Assignment #63
I RETURNED FROM WORK LAST EVENING HUNGRY AND INSPIRED.
I downed six meals, then picked up one of my favorite books, Learning to Love You More. I bought it last year at a Zandbroz store in downtown Fargo, and have skimmed through it once or twice, never quite taking the measures to make a project.
That changed last night. I picked up the book and leafed through the assignments, one by one until I found something that made me feel good.
Assignment #63: Make an encouraging banner.
I scraped together all of my paper Kinko’s bags (it’s the beginning of the year and my collection of supplies is sparse) and strung them along some old wire. The creation found a nice spot overhanging my bed — and the very first thing I see when I walk in the room.
My banner says “You will find it!” though I can’t give myself credit for this phrase. It’s actually a banner that a woman in Poland made, and there’s a photo of it in the book. It’s such an appropriate mantra for our lives, I believe, and mine in particular. Right now I am at a point in my life where things couldn’t be more confusing or frustrating. I don’t know what I want, and that which I do know, I don’t know how to reach it. I am constantly seeking companionship, happiness, peace, and harmony. I am seeking relaxation and friendship. I am seeking acceptance and merit. I am seeking love, prosperity, success. I am seeking myself!
This banner is just what I need right now, and it’s a blessing to have it hanging right there, in plain view, to see each and every day. Thank you to a woman in Poland for reminding me of what I am looking for and instilling the assurance that I will, indeed, find it someday!
love.
approximatelyes.com 