“To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power.
Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never to forget.”
~Arundhati Roy, ‘The Cost of Living’
Posted by Hell and Earth.
Another of those of us seeking social justice and reasons. Ultimately it comes back to the why of it. Why are we here? What is our purpose? And the things that fascinate us and transform us along the way.
A new-to-me poet, Louise Glück has tossed me a morsel or two to enchant me and cause me to pursue her poetry. Better yet, here’s what she has to say about it all. (More in the way of actual poetry to follow.)
“It seems to me that the desire to make art produces an ongoing experience of longing, a restlessness sometimes, but not inevitably, played out romantically, or sexually. Always there seems something ahead, the next poem or story, visible, at least, apprehensible, but unreachable. To perceive it at all is to be haunted by it; some sound, some tone, becomes a torment — the poem embodying that sound seems to exist somewhere already finished. It’s like a lighthouse, except that, as one swims towards it, it backs away.” Louise Glück Photograph by Webb Chappell
I was reading along in my old diary posts when I considered I’ve been incredibly remiss about posting here. I’m not at all sure why. So then the decision was about selection. Choices. “It’s all about choices” someone I worked with always said. Said a lot anyway. It may be true.
Some Random Date
Just from my recall, responses I wish I had given. I don’t know why but I just thought of this last night. Apropos of nothing:
Me: (Calling my mother and getting her on the phone.) John (not his real name of course) and I are going to get married!
Mo: Well I want to wish you good luck because you are certainly going to need it.
I don’t know what I said after that, but I’m sure it was nothing creative. I’ve had a lot of years to think about it since then. What I wish I would have said:
Me: I guess that means you’re a no for the ceremony. (slight pause) A maybe on the reception?
September 18, 2023
Yep. That’s the actual date.
So where are you love—where have you been? I’ve been in a shoe, a box, a football-game bench but do not think I berate… Forgot again again? And the pain given up for whatever’s behind The wait.
I came here to note something down. Now I’m ready so I can go dumb.
Morbs! I have the morbs from all my thinking-about. Morbs is from morbid and is used as an abstract noun, originated in the 1880s. And I’m sure it’s a word that would fit in a current Urban Dictionary.
The above is just to show the groanings my mind goes through as it casts about for some meaningful topic or vision—or something—anything to merit a distraction. See? This is why people turn to drugs.
Picture From U.S. Dept. of Interior. Fireflies looking like tiny UFOs
Yesterday, of course. Happy birthday to the charming Claudette Colbert. Star of many a fine film and co-star to Clark Gable in It Happened One Night. A charming and fun movie to revisit.
Remembering Claudette Colbert, born 9/13/1903…Shown here in a publicity photo for one of the most notorious of the Pre-Code films “Sign of the Cross” (1932)
I’m sure I must have mentioned the code days when a B movie was something we didn’t dare partake in. Nevermind what would happen if you even looked at the promotions for an X-rated film. Likely we would go straight to Hell. The film noted above is from the days before, and likely one of those that drove “The Church” into action and the nuns in our school. On the bulletin boards each week the list of movies was posted, along with their grade.
I remember seeing Baby Doll listed along with the dreaded X. Naturally this was a surprise as the movie sounded so innocent. And from there came the baby-doll nighties with the little frills along the top, the slightly puffed sleeves and the matching shorts with elastic in the legs that made them stay high on the legs. An adventure in dreams they were, right along with the movie.
I’m returning more to what is considered a day-to-day normal. That is I don’t look around me in a degree of oddness as if things don’t quite fit. That they don’t fit is not the issue, and in fact nothing is at issue. The only practical question would not be what but why. But that is a gift of age: that we quit asking why.
Those first nights in rehab when I couldn’t move, go anywhere, made more of an impression on me than I thought. You become that. And I had to live on the surface, in the center of my mind. Any of the edges would have entrapped me and they were many and dark. Interesting that I didn’t pray. And I didn’t invoke The Buddha, or The Christ, or even “the guys.” But then I didn’t seek help. I sought nothing. And then, for a while I became someone else.
Writers Ink—Writing and Stuff 