Day 18: When I was at work supposedly working, I was actually on the computer writing poetry. Oh well. The warmer sunshiney days inspired this poem:
When warm air coaxes the wet of spring
out of the frost of evening
the harsh pale chill that has embraced us
melts away.
Transition like a gradual ache-
It's just enough, too much to take,
when, just like that, the seasons change and darkness
lifts away.
Shoots as fragile as a thread
push their way up through the dirt and dead,
reach for a sun impossibly far-
so far away.
They feel the tug and press toward the sky.
If they can do it, then why can't I?
I'll shed my shadows like a skin, press on and
find a way.
Day 19: The video explains it all...
Day 20: I invented an alphabet. Here are some pictures.
Now, when Tolkien did it, he picked symbols that were all pretty and flowy and looked nice. Some of mine look kind of wonky. Rather than doing a straight A = this, B = this, kind of alphabet, I went by phonetic sounds, which means I also have individual symbols for "th", "ch", "ph", etc. though I never remember to use them. Also, I used Tolkien's vowel symbols and his rule (in the Sindarin dialect of elvish, at least... Quenya is different) about putting the vowel over the consonant it precedes, unless there is no consonant after it, in which case you put it over a stem. This is pretty boring, so if I haven't scared you away by now, feel free to skip to the next one.
Day 21: I went to another graveyard, this time with my friend Mandy, and tried my hand at some artsy photographs. Here are a few of my favorites...
Day 22: We celebrated Zach's 26th birthday belatedly (his birthday is the 18th) when he and Laura were in town this weekend, so I made him a homemade card.
Day 23: I wrote the following poem. A few days earlier at work I had just helped over thirty middle schoolers write limericks for this after school program we do at the library, so I was in a very rhyming mood.
Some days it’s a chore, it’s a snore, it’s an absolute bore
But some days it’s all more, more, more.
I can’t moderate, deliberate, anticipate.
I always feel like I’m too late. I cannot wait. I must abate.
Some days it’s tragic, a drug-addict’s habit,
But other day’s it’s magic, automatic, ecstatic.
I know I should be disciplined, easing in, listening
to all the greats who insist haste won’t win any long-term race.
This flip-flop back and forth, fall-off-then-back-on-the-horse like it’s just a matter of course
It’s wearing me bone thin, I’m all up-turned chin and Cheshire cat grin, lying to myself that of course I’m gonna win
But the lies we try to apply to our lives won’t abide. They crumble and I stumble to hide.
The lies we tell ourselves, that one day I’m gonna see myself, my own book up on a shelf…
pitiful.
So some days it’s a blessing, the best thing. Some days it’s window-dressing.
It’s a cover for the other more nefarious hopes I harbor.
It’s something to blame, a game, a crying shame. A way people might know my name.
It’s the card I play to say I’m not okay with the dismal every-day, this job with low pay and no challenges per se, this life with its future stretching out, each day the same, all the way from present day to the stone that marks my grave.
I’m not okay, and so I say, “This isn’t it for me. This is what I do now, not what I want to be.” And I have this tucked away in a back pocket, worn thin with all the wear of taking it out to stare. But hope is just ambition that’s not going anywhere.
Some days it’s a lie, it’s a big don’t-know-why, it’s a shrug and a frown, an “at least I try.”
Other days it’s just me at a desk and the rest just sort of happens.
Those are the best days, lost in a daze, this world a haze, and something other, something more taking over and setting my mind ablaze.
I just pray today might be that kind of day.
Day 24: I really love doing silhouette art (probably because it feels like cheating). You can draw something in pencil, cut out around it, then erase the pencil marks and it looks like they were never there. I've been wanting to challenge myself recently to try to get better at cutting "freestyle," so I decided to do some silhouette art in reverse. Instead of cutting out a shape I wanted to use, I would cut the shape into the paper. Does that make any sense? Basically, the negative space would create the picture. This is a lot harder because if you screw up, you're stuck with it. I did the fairy you see below, and I did mess up a little (proportions are off, the wings are bigger than I wanted, etc.), but I'm gradually getting better at it. The black you see is my T-shirt behind the paper.
Day 25: Today's my cop-out day. The dermatologist cut a cyst off of my hand on Monday, and I have to keep a bandaid on it for the next week or so, but all the ones we have in the house are plain. So I attacked it with several sharpies and came up with this:
And because that didn't really feel like artistic achievement, I also wrote this haiku:
I am so weary.
The moon's wide eye in the sky
stays open. Mine close.
More to come. Bye for now!
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