Retail Therapy

I'm not gonna lie.  It's been a rough weekend.  And yes, I'm aware that it's Wednesday, but I still feel like I'm waiting for Monday and the fresh beginning that comes with a new week.  

I've never been much of one to eat my feelings, stress happens (yes, in my life too believe it or not) and my stomach is the first to stage a rebellion.  My clicky-clicky-shopping fingers on the other hand, they are soldiers of the stanchest kind.  "What?" they say, "Feeling Blue?" they ask, "Why don't you come over here (Hello Etsy!) and look at this lovely necklace, this fabulous pair of shoes, or Ooh Ooh this amazing fedora?"  They have the best of intentions, but they are quick to try and spend my money for me.  

Luckily I've managed to hold them off the "Purchase" button for the last few days and instead been immensely gratified by several purchases from the month past showing up in a lumpy pile of brown paper packaging (this is of course one of my favorite things!).  Including, in all it's lilac-y glory, my new favorite shirt of all time.  Fits like a glove with a mass of artsy, twisted knots and braids down the front, don't be surprised if you see me in nothing but this shirt for the next week.  That said, I think you all should pay a little visit (with those clicky-clicky fingers in tow) to Afton River's Etsy Shop to drool over her well-made clothing.  And just so you know, I've got dibs on the "Gloria's Envy" dress!

See?  I'm feeling better all ready.  Who needs a therapist when you have Etsy?

The Friday Confessional

Confession Number 38:  I despise anything goopy, sticky, messy touching my face.  Face paint? Forget about it!  Chocolate, BBQ sauce, foamed milk, all these things I love, but I eat like a horse (lips curled carefully back, small bites with my teeth to ensure that every last morsel makes it all the way into my mouth).  But the real confession?  This is the reason I will lather love and affection on a baby from afar rather than cuddling - sticky baby hands on my face is a deal breaker.

Confession Number 92:  I always lick the spoon.  I have what some would call an unhealthy lack-of-fear of raw eggs (I know, I know) and love me some cookie dough.

Your turn, give me those confessions!

On the Art of Seeing

I just reread the chapter in Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek entitled "Seeing."  And "Seeing" has got me "thinking."

I know the way I see, and therefore experience life, is unique to me alone.  The sights that stop me in my tracks might mean nothing to someone else, and knowing that, I am ever grateful for the sense of seeing that I possess.  The ferns I have watched unfurl, an entire being uncoiling from a single spore smaller than the iris of my eye, the complete ecosystems that reside within a two inch square at the heart of a decaying redwood, these thing give me fodder to chew over for hours, no, days to come.  In the vast filing system of my mind there is a single tree clinging to a massive rock at sea, a vibrant purple sunset with perfectly vertical sheets of thunderstorms closing in, one young doe watching me in the Sierra Azul foothills, a deceased seal awaiting the carrion birds with the most stunning striated white markings.  

And the moss.  But you already know about me and the moss.

On a typical rainy day in the Chinatown district of San Francisco, in the midst of chattering throngs, whole smoked ducks, cheap slippers piled three feet high and the stench of the public, I found a bright orange bead stamped with symbols of good fortune in the muddy gutter.  I opened my eyes a little wider and found six more.  Good fortune, laying in the street, free for anyone who took the time to see.  

I am lucky.

"To look at any thing

If you would know that thing,

You must look at it long:

To look at this green and say

"I have seen Spring in these Woods"

Will not do.

You must be the thing you see;

You must be the dark snakes

  of stems and ferny plumes

  of leaves.

You must enter in

To the small silences between

  the leaves,

You must take your time

And touch the very place

  they issue from."

- J. Moffit

Run, January 11th 2009

I didn't even know what to make of the sunset

All bubble gum pink, pastel blue, covered in the palest gray wool.

It would have felt like a sugary-sweet nursery tale if not for the 

Aggressive shocks of verdant moss and the blood-crimson berries.

The odd song of the gulls kept me company 

As I ran through the park of naked trees, 

Each surrounded by the brittle brown aura of

Leaves long fallen.

The crows with their guttural gossip followed me

Past the melancholy of decaying tombstones

Thick moss, deep mud, punctuated by 

The occasional silk rose.

The dropping temperature invaded my throat

With its icy breath replacing my own

The rain stood in for sweat and 

My only defense was to just keep running.