arete

So. It's February. Ever notice how no one ever says "February" phonetically? Then again, no one says "phonetically" phonetically, so why should they bother to say "February" the way it's spelled?

Humans do that too much. They say things they way they are spelled, or play by the exact rules.... But only when it helps them. "The devil is in the details", but only when the devil is beneficial. Every other time we just refuse to see him, because let's face it, he's scary.

Humans also don't do that enough. They don't pay attention to the specifics, or they bend the rules. But only if it suits them. "The spirit of the law, or the letter of the law". In most cases, people would argue that the leeway was for a greater cause. Usually, it's for their greater cause.

So what do we do? Do we start saying "February" exactly how it's spelled, but leave "phonetically" alone because we like the paradox?  Would that fix the incongruities we have between public virtue and self interest?

I'm going to act in self interest right now. I'm going to say "February" exactly how it is spelled, because I like the way it sounds.

Poetry and Bobbin Lace

Poetry and Bobbin Lace
Both are so delicate, to be crafted one stitch, one word at a time.
They are to be treasured and wrapped
In blue paper, and sold at the county fair.
But what happens when Lark Rise pushes Candleford
Into the future,
And poetry contests and hand-made lace are no longer
On the market?
Their value cannot be monetarily expressed anymore,
and the Blue Paper and the Crafted Words
are put into the attic that Minnie cleans so often at Ms. Lane's request.

Why do we write, if not to be read?
Why sew if it shan't be seen?
There are two sides of any craft, the
Seeing and the Doing.
Times change and the seeing of beauty will be lost to many.
But the Doing..... that persists in the heart of the crafter, the shaper, the maker.
Words unappreciated will make little difference in the world 90% of the time.
That's just a fact to be faced.
However, there are the Liesel Memminger's in the world, who craft the words
and then fell a delicate pathway through the throngs.

We do not write, we do not sew, truly, just to be Seen.
It is in the Doing of it that the joy and beauty come.

Come Back, My Love, For I Never Had You To Start

"Pensive they sit, and roll their languid eyes,
Nibble their toast and cool their tea with sighs,"

Oh the apathy of the people here,
And yet the tension is expressly clear.

"Or else forget the purpose of the night,
Forget their tea -- forget their apatite."

How far gone it seems are we,
from the past -- from ferocity.

-John Keats and Me

Elegy

"I do not know how elastic my spirit is."

Mr. Keats, I'm afraid you would be ashamed of this shrewdly blasphemous hipster land we call the modern day.

"There is a tenderness to the heart's affection you know nothing about."

Dear John, there is a tenderness it seems only your heart has captured; only your heart and one other. The only pair on earth that has captured the tenderness you speak of. For is not each person, each pair of people intensely unique? And yet no one is completely unique. And that is what allows us to love, but love uniquely for no love between any two people can be recreated by a different set of beings.

"You are the dew on the morning grass and the burning wheel of the sun." -Billy Collins

There is much that you are, and that you are not, Mr. Keats. You are half of a whole, a puzzle piece, and Litany. But in this case, you are not the bread knife, but you are the plum orchard. You are eaten rosebuds and coughing blood. You are the keystone to someone's life, and when you are removed, the arch of her world disintegrates.

Mr. John Keats, you are the bright star, you are the elegy.

Word

90's boy bands
Christmas Music
The Happiness Project that was Procrastinated
unfinished books
unfinished goals
unnatural contentment... apathy
dissatisfaction
Lists..... Listslistslistslistslistslists
dissatisfaction
indifference
validation
no opinions. no opinions.
procrastinator
hard worker
epitome of average
flake Big corn flake
White Blue Yellow
Wrong order
Right order
look back look back
self elision
explanation
no explanation
chair pillow
Isadora Duncan?
no
modern dancer
don't like
caveman
North
I wish
feeling sluggish
beatnik
am I?
don't want
be
is
am
was
were
Freakin' Faulkner
word

The Melodramatic Missing of a Missionary (or Several Missionaries, if You Will)

Dear ...........

After you left, I left your memory.

I left it right there by the side of my metaphorical road of life, because everything in my life is metaphorical.

My life is funny, grand, smashing, TOO SICK, adventurous, awkward and all sorts of good things that you left me with and I decided to keep.

I decided many things since you left, which is rather surprising for me, because as you know, I'm rather indecisive.

Know I'm missing you, though, because when you left I had learned all sorts of good things, but I felt missing-ness, too.

I felt a secondhand joy that bites the nose, because gosh, you were just an amazing kid doing stunning things, but my heart was a little hole-punched after you left.

Hole-punched after the rambunctious shenanigans we shared, because that is what the young 'uns do and we were definitely young 'uns and we still are young 'uns, but you are there and I am here.

And I am undulating in my life right now and you know exactly where you are going today, tomorrow, next week, six months, a year from now.

A year and you won't even know yourself and you won't even know me and I won't know you and I won't know I.

I won't be me and you won't be you, at least not the you that I knew and liked.
I knew it would happen before you left, I knew that when you get back I will see you in a different way, like an image in a refracted mirror created by laser-point pens and you will see me as if through a blurry contact lense in a mixed bag of emotions.

Mixed bag of funniness, grandness, smashingness, TOO SICK-ness, adventurousness, and I can guarantee that there will be some awkwardness.

There will be the things you left me with, but new things as well because while you were gone I had to take some string and clay and fill in the hole-punches.

Fill in the missing bits until "y'all" got back and could fill them in again.

Fill them in in a different way, because some of the clay cemented in the hole that "y'all" left in me.

"Y'all" left, not "you all" or "all of you" because my Texan friend filled in some of those holes with big smiles and constant "y'all-ing".

          You see, I had to do something to survive, because I've undergone a bit of identity crisis while you are away and I would like to warn you that when you get back I will not be the same as when you left me. People are not like that. We are not like your old room, or the books on your bookshelf. We morph and it's psycho.

          That is why I left your memory. Because you would morph too, and it would be for the best, but it would be painful to look back when you come back and I don't know you.
My one hope is that we'll still be somewhat friends.
I hope we will, and I hope you hope so too.
If you do, I think it might be so.

Yours truly,

...............

An Interesting Paradox

It's supposed to snow tonight. Five A.M. is what the weatherman said. But I don't know if I believe him. "Trust not in the arm of flesh." Or that's the gist of it, anyway.
What I do know is what I felt that night; what I felt in my pocket.  We were walking back in the dark, and it was windy and piercingly chill. The leaves were blowing down the sidewalk just like they do in the scary movies. I was wearing brown boots that crunched the blowing leaves as we walked. I put my hands in my pocket and I felt something. A pebble? No, a marble. It was cold and hard, and my fingers were cold and stiff, but within the lining of my pocket I clenched my cold fingers around the cold marble and suddenly both began to warm. An interesting paradox, like our philosophical discussions. The cold meeting the cold made both warm. I think I may have discovered cold fusion.