week lily
Alex's day lily bloomed on the solstice. The petals lost their mettle the very next morning. Strewn about every which way in this cold, damp June. Summer here, summer there. Some are no and everywhere. I sat on the chair having washed out the day from my hair and talked about all the disappointments and joys of the day. Don't go, she said, we never talk like this anymore.
Earlier in the week, I was given a tour of a program for the down and trodden and walked away thinking about standing in front of the Rembrandts of the Rijksmuseum. This little nonprofit seemed to me like a work of art except you never put your hands on a masterpiece, you stand back and admire the infinitesimal in its magnificence, but this program seemed like a canvas completely whole and perfect and still desperate for your brush and stroke. I offered to help feeling like I'd just painted a moustache on the Mona Lisa.
People come so close to perfection through their passions and programs and wholehearted intentions, thrown up by the blanket of their biggest fans until their fingertips just barely graze the ozone before the arc collapses.
I hope when I fall, I am the kind of person who will spend my descent admiring the free sky above and not the kind who turns in anticipation of the coming earth.
Today I finished opening the last of my boxes relocating to my new office, and I found a toy soldier strung to a parachute, the kind I used to play with as a child. It had been given to me a few years ago by my daughter and I have the most abnormally unexplainable reaction to it every time I see it, am overcome with sadness and melancholy and then embarrassment because jesus christ this is stupid. It just seems so precious and poor and there is no way I'm not overthinking its significance, assigning it a provenance to which it has no claim.
I wasn't so unhappy, I have made it all up in my head. Maybe once, taken up by the spirit of Christmas, I tried to make some gifts for my parents, which they may have seen embarrassed by or indifferent to, and it is like this insignificant gift is a bond, a byte of genetic memory I've passed on to this strange little girl.
She's been asking me about god lately, and I am not sure what to say, so I often respond that I just hope she tries to respect other people's beliefs when what I really want to say is I hope she learns to bask in her own hopes and dreams.
Earlier in the week, I was given a tour of a program for the down and trodden and walked away thinking about standing in front of the Rembrandts of the Rijksmuseum. This little nonprofit seemed to me like a work of art except you never put your hands on a masterpiece, you stand back and admire the infinitesimal in its magnificence, but this program seemed like a canvas completely whole and perfect and still desperate for your brush and stroke. I offered to help feeling like I'd just painted a moustache on the Mona Lisa.
People come so close to perfection through their passions and programs and wholehearted intentions, thrown up by the blanket of their biggest fans until their fingertips just barely graze the ozone before the arc collapses.
I hope when I fall, I am the kind of person who will spend my descent admiring the free sky above and not the kind who turns in anticipation of the coming earth.
Today I finished opening the last of my boxes relocating to my new office, and I found a toy soldier strung to a parachute, the kind I used to play with as a child. It had been given to me a few years ago by my daughter and I have the most abnormally unexplainable reaction to it every time I see it, am overcome with sadness and melancholy and then embarrassment because jesus christ this is stupid. It just seems so precious and poor and there is no way I'm not overthinking its significance, assigning it a provenance to which it has no claim.
I wasn't so unhappy, I have made it all up in my head. Maybe once, taken up by the spirit of Christmas, I tried to make some gifts for my parents, which they may have seen embarrassed by or indifferent to, and it is like this insignificant gift is a bond, a byte of genetic memory I've passed on to this strange little girl.
She's been asking me about god lately, and I am not sure what to say, so I often respond that I just hope she tries to respect other people's beliefs when what I really want to say is I hope she learns to bask in her own hopes and dreams.
Comments
God, you see, is the parachute. We take leaps of faith and the parachute delicately delivers us wherever we need to be, whether we want to be there or not. Sometimes you get tangled in the cords attached to the chute. The cords represent free will, which often leads to death. Sometimes you just end up maimed. Results vary.
This will probably confuse and infuriate her, possibly increasing the likelihood of her becoming a stripper. Use the analogy at your peril is what I'm saying.
Or... what should we name yours?
So also the puppet you find makes me think of a ridiculous Christmas ornament I was given as a child. Pulling on its string now drains me a bit, as if I'd unplugged the well of experience and am left a confused child. I pretend to not see him when we hang up Christmas decorations now.