When I saw you ahead I ran two blocks
shouting your name then realizing it wasn’t
you but some alarmed pretender, I went on
running, shouting now into the sky,
continuing your fame and luster. Since I've
been incinerated, I've oft returned to this thought,
that all things loved are pursued and never caught,
even as you slept beside me you were flying off.
At least what's never had can’t be lost, the sieve
of self stuck with just some larger chunks, jawbone,
wedding ring, a single repeated dream,
a lullaby in every elegy, descriptions
of the sea written in the desert, your broken
umbrella, me claiming I could fix it.
Last year, around this time, I was contacted to submit an entry for a Valentine's Day newspaper article in which several people shared their favorite quotes about love. I narrowed mine to part of the selection below--more text is included to give you its context and because it's so beautiful in it's entirety.
I forgot all about this until, last week at the library, I saw the book it's an excerpt from: The Solitude of Prime Numbers by Paolo Giordano. I didn't know at the time, of course, that my selection was a little prophetic.
Prime numbers are divisible only by one and by themselves. They hold their place in the infinite series of natural numbers, squashed, like all numbers, between two others, but one step further than the rest. They are suspicious, solitary numbers, which is why Mattia thought they were wonderful. Sometimes he thought they had ended up in that sequence by mistake, that they’d been trapped, like pearls strung on a necklace. Other ties he suspected that they too would have preferred to be like all the others, just ordinary numbers, but for some reason they couldn’t do it. This second thought struck him mostly at night, in the chaotic interweaving of images that comes before sleep, when the mind is too weak to tell itself lies.
In his first year at university, Mattia had learned that, among prime numbers, there are some that are even more special. Mathematicians call them twin primes: pairs of prime numbers that are close to each other, almost neighbors, but between them there is always an even number that prevents them from truly touching. Numbers like 11 and 13, like 17 and 19, 41 and 43. If you have the patience to go on counting, you discover that these pairs gradually became rarer. You encounter increasingly isolated primes, lost in that silence, measured space made only of ciphers, and you develop a distressing presentiment that the pairs encountered up until that point were accidental, that solitude is the true destiny. Then, just when you’re about to surrender, when you no longer have the desire to go on counting, you come across another pair of twins, clutching each other tightly. There is a common conviction among mathematicians that however far you go, there will always be another two, even if no on can say where exactly, until they are discovered.
Mattia thought he and Alice were like that, twin primes, alone and lost, close but not really close enough to touch each other. He had never told her that.
Came across this in the comments section of an article and thought, "This is not a bad way to approach the new year.":
Learn to love someone without expecting something in return from them.
This reminds me of something I journaled several months ago:
Isn't this how we are supposed to love in these post-9/11 days? To live so we have no regrets? So we don't later ask ourselves "What would have happened if I....?" To throw our love--and all its related emotions--out into the world and hope that it finds someone who at the least wants it and at the best reciprocates it? I want to stop demanding more than I have in the expectation that I should have it. And to just find the good things that have fallen out of the past few months. (This is a ridiculously cheesy analogy) but that maybe it could be like looking at the beautiful rain instead of the stormy clouds it falls from...
This is giving me great pause right now and I think I'll have to go reflect on this. I'll report back to you in 2013.
In early 2011, I wrote a list of goals that I have no desire to revisit now. Why? Because this year didn't go as planned. At all. The Year of the Unexpected. And it was (I am) all the better for it. Yes, there were low points--and it's not quite ending as I had hoped--but the past 52 weeks were worth it. 365 days during which the following people, events, songs, misc. things were there, and for that, I am eternally grateful*:
2. Singing "Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks" in a large music hall with The National and several strangers who were momentarily friends, just like this (although in a different location):
I could cry now for the happiness in my heart at that moment. All the very best of us string ourselves up for love...
3. The realization that I work with some freakin' amazing people including but not limited to:
* Sweet V., whose laugh makes me laugh. Every. Time.
* Cotton, with the most impressive cultural and vocabulary knowledge you'll ever encounter. Our team is simpatico. It's fait accompli.
* Hilarious T., Specpar, the Shawshank Redemption tunnel into ACL to grab a chicken cone, etc.
* Equally hilarious J., who understands music, the 90s, the impossible cuteness of Eli...and who I trust would kick any ill-mannered boy in the groin on my behalf. Not really. But she possesses the awesome spirit of someone who would do that.
* O., who I'm pretty sure I've been friends with since forever.
* My little brother, M.
* S., among other things, for the story of throwing the matchbook at her future husband and for listening to stories about Dave from Dallas. Good times. For reals.
* And...for...
* Too many others to list here. What I learned in 2011 is that, in taking the time to get to know the people you spend the most time with--even if it's in a work setting--you'll discover that the vast majority are worth getting to know.
4. Finally acknowledging my long-standing crush on Jeff Tweedy, following his interview for a PBS show during which I was an attentive audience member. Maybe this will explain it. Maybe not. If not, simply marvel at the music and the drum kit. P.S. I love you, NPR Music.
6. My running groups. Overwhelmingly supportive and encouraging. Can't wait to start again in just a few months.
7. Mi familia. It seems we rarely see each other, but when we do, we just pick up where we left off and laugh our way into some more memories. We also have some of the best photographs ever taken.
9. A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan. Words will fall short to try to describe how much I love this book. And, I got to hear her speak in-person. What the what? Amazing.
10. A visit to my alma mater to remember its beauty and memories and to rub a terrapin's nose for luck. And a visit to The Bagel Place. (Though, why did you have to close, Jungle Grille?)
11. Krissy (Krissy. Krissy.), my sister from a different mister. Though such language may freak you out.
16. Neighbors who are friends. There is a rumor that neighbors no longer care for each other. So, thanks to my neighbors, for choosing to live according to the opposite. And we have the license plate numbers of "suspicious vehicles" on our listserv to prove it. You're the best. Seriously. A big part of the reason that moving to this zip code has made me start to feel like this is really home (for now.)
This picture was taken not far from my neighborhood and is a metaphor:
several individual lights come together to make the world shine brighter.
Think about it, won't you?
17. Mannon and P-Tuck who consistently demonstrate that friendship can survive time-zone differences.
21. Visits to the same coffee shop every Sunday morning where they now know my name and drink. And I don't say that in a poser kind of way. Four-point-five journals completed over several iced mochas sitting among a crowd of familiars. My distant family of sorts. Some of the best quality time of the year. 22. Playing guitar. Again, no particular talent, though I did learn to play riffs for the first time. And I don't say that in a poser kind of way.
23. The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins and its subsequent unorganized book club at work, to be continued when the movie is released in March 2012. Life doesn't turn out the way you think. In fact, things often turn out in ways that you wished they wouldn't. But, we find ways to go on...and love wins.
24. Van Morrison: Brand New Day (A song for both an ending of one year and for the beginning of another that comes tomorrow. For the love of humanity, can anyone find me the Van Morrison Unplugged album in 2012?)
*Disclaimers: This list is neither exhaustive nor in any particular order. 24 acknowledgements, 2 for each month.
Bonus (or something I reallyreallyreally want to remember in 2012): In 2011, my car--by no fault of my own--was hit-and-run in the exact same spot. A smallish dent became a largish dent. Impossible you say? Bad luck you add? So it seems.
But, here is the silver lining: If the impossibility of bad can happen...then the impossibility of good can happen! Anything is possible, friends! Anything! With an expectant heart, I look to you 2012...
I wondered why you listened when I philosophized about stars, ashes, and the capitol building where a would-be statesman might be if he hadn't first run away with music.
Even after I was back here, walking with you along this street you call home, our lives never dwindled into an epilogue of predictability and too many nights in on the couch.
And all the answers came when you held my hand beneath those stars and blew away the ashes of my mistakes, showing me that we are building according to a greater design as we run to the music that carried us here.
Yesterday, I visited the mega-church mega-yard sale in my neighborhood. I rolled out of bed at 6:45 and made it to the sale by 7:10. I guess I'm one of those early birds. And here are my discoveries:
That big vase is going to be filled with something! Something, I tell you, but I don't know what yet. Let me pause to mention that all-white objects are difficult to photograph. Moving on...
Vintage fabrics & tableclothes. Bloggers love vintage fabrics & tableclothes like they love Pinterest and Etsy. It's how we roll.
I'll eventually to attach a hook to the back of the bowl and hang it on my dining room wall. I'm going for a 70's kitsch theme. More on the later.
No kitchen is complete without a rhinoceros butter dish. Oh, I don't use stick butter. But, it's a rhinoceros butter dish!! I'll hide something in there.
The fabric is an apron. It was deep pockets in which I plan to carry around a baster, spatula, timer, meat cleaver, and a full set of knives. A cook should always be prepared to draw the necessary utensil.
And now my favorite:
An early 1900's science book on hygiene and the ill effects of alcoholic beverages and spirits and opium. You'll see that, at the turn of the 20th century, bones were sewn together--if people were of the mind to call it that. The scientific advances we would make in the next 100 years...
Let's test our knowledge, shall we?
Do buckwheat pancakes ever taste not as well?
Ones woman's trash is another woman's treasure, my friends.
