Sunday, July 31, 2011

preconditions

"What happens when busyness and sociability leave no room for solitude? The ability to engage in introspection, I put it to my students that day, is the essential precondition for living an intellectual life, and the essential precondition for introspection is solitude." 
        – William Deresiewicz

Thursday, July 28, 2011

the perks of being unemployed

decidedly include, but are by no means limited to, the preparation of elaborate lunches.

Friday, July 22, 2011

how our garden does grow



Hooray for summer, for green beans and fresh potatoes! I will freely confess: While I knew a fresh potato to be an exceptionally delicious thing to eat, I had no idea how much fun they would be to harvest. (Yes, I am the smallest of small-scale farmer/gardeners. No, I do not romanticize farm life. My mother grew up on a working dairy farm. I have already heard all about it. Now, let us move on.) Potatoes are fun to harvest because you have to stick your hand deep into the soil and then feel around, thinking: Is there a potato here? How big will it be? Oo, is that one? No, that's a stone. More dirt. Oh, wait!! A potato!!! It is better than finding Easter eggs, and much better than panning for gold, because when you are done, you get to cook and eat delicious potatoes!

the better part of valor

I should have known better because I did. Long before I met you, I said to myself: Indiscreet use of charm is a dangerous thing. 

I think about how careless you are with yours, to leave it lying around like so many suddenly unnecessary and summarily discarded sweaters. And when we, happy for an excuse, called you to return them, with hope in our throats you said oh, don’t bother, I’ve got another one. And even your rejection was charming, your ways charm us still, but we are crushed like so much ice, like a small and poorly planned uprising, like crocuses in a late snow.

We try to find out whether we can breathe underwater and look! We can. It is difficult, very difficult, and if you asked us we’d probably admit that we don’t actually like it, and yet we don’t admit it, we don’t think about that, we are instead proud of our ability, we are practically crowing, we are sure now that we can follow you to the bottom of the sea and we try to, we follow you down to where it’s very dark and we try to see but we can’t. By now we are very strong swimmers so we say, just wait a second, please, and we swim back up to the surface, strap flashlights to our heads, and plunge back into the darkness again, breathing as always with extreme difficulty. But it is dark, and you did not wait, and you are gone, and even though we look for a long time, we cannot find you.

Oh, I would reach for the moon and drown in a pool, I know. That’s the only way I’ve ever known how to be.

Sunday, July 17, 2011

my latest motto


(this wonderful print was done by Molly Meng)
 
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