I woke up at seven, left around 8:30...stunning snowflakes, bitter cold. My fingers numbed on the suitcase handle, inside the gloves. Trampling perfect stars, piled delicately on the sidewalk, not packed. It was astonishing. I share that and feel that I have shared my heart. I am transparent at times; the simplest poem is a list, a window. To just see and luxuriate. I am becoming more of a sensualist every week. Only the simplest things are necessary, because they are not, at all, simple — the smell of rice. the six points of a snowflake. fingers numbing on my camera and my one knee dirty from kneeling. Amen.
[Saturday January 22nd, 2011 — 11:01p]
decisions:
*give very freely. human relations are not a conflict between mutually exclusive interests.
*purge my speech and writing of capitalist metaphors (e.g. invest, worth, value)
*reconsider abstraction — a rose is a rose is a rose; a snowflake is a snowflake, there is no such thing as a boyfriend, nothing stands for anything but rather only is, but not only which suggest impoverishment, an is is is, language and classifications to make things simpler but less beautiful and true? look, the snowfall. the sunlight. or both. nothing but. but so much.
[Saturday, June 18th, 2011 — 9:01p]
I love this, especially the first one. The simplest things are so rich. "nothing but. but so much."
ReplyDeleteI'm curious as to how, and why, you would purge your speech of capitalist metaphors. Do you mean not using such words in reference to anything, or not refering to those subjects as they apply in capitalist economics? And, why is that important to you? :) If you don't mind explaining...
I had the same questions as Jenica about capitalist metaphors. Interesting thoughts re: abstraction, too. How do you define abstraction? What makes something abstract versus concrete? I'm thinking of emotions, of things like love that admittedly have far too many definitions (and many incorrect ones), of things that we feel in our hearts but can't put to words.
ReplyDeleteLove the food for thought. Thanks for sharing. :)
Jenica and Heidi - Mm, it means not using those words unless I'm actually talking about how much money something costs. Because: they're not simple to replace, which suggests that they really say something about how we think. Life [friendship, people, relationships, etc] is not a consumer good; I wish to reject and protest, even if only to myself, that pattern of thinking. I have to post sometime about this conversation God and I have been having about that.
ReplyDeleteAs for abstraction! Yes, that's the one I've turned over far less in my head, and so I write "reconsider." I mean it in the sense of symbols, or something like the Platonic forms, if that helps. But this heads in the direction of philosophy of language, which I know as yet almost nothing about...
Holly - Now I understand. I'd love to hear some of that conversation :)
ReplyDeleteJenica - I'm making a note to write something.
ReplyDeleteI am grateful always to read these thoughts of your head and heart.
ReplyDeleteErin - Thought processes like joys are more complete when shared. <3
ReplyDelete