Why we are here

[vaneramos]

Yesterday afternoon I waited in front of the Bulldog for schillerium, sipping an excellent latté and reading Natalie Goldberg to prepare for a writing seminar I will give this Saturday:

There’s an old adage in writing: “Don’t tell, but show.” What does this actually mean? It means don’t tell us about anger (or any of those big words like honesty, truth, hate, love, sorrow, life, justice, etc.); show us what made you angry. We will read it and feel angry.

In a second floor apartment someone practiced Bach cello suites with a window open. Higher still, a hammering of nails resounded from a balcony. The big maple shading one end of the patio had already spread its new leaves wide like palms in the sun.

When Craig arrived we hugged for a moment then sat near one another for two hours talking. I hadn’t seen him since Torvald’s memorial. We talked about why we are here.

The maple stands there photosynthesizing in the balm of afternoon, dropping spent flowers on the sidewalk. The cellist stops practicing and does something else. The sky is blue like the roof of a cathedral, but that’s an illusion. Behind it space reaches to infinity.

Comments

[kwintt.livejournal.com]

Beautiful! Calendulas or asters or strawflowers?
It's some asteracaea, isn't it? I can't see enough of the foliage to figure it out.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

They're simply good old dandelions! All my photos last spring were overexposed, so this time I took my light reading off the sidewalk.

[kwintt.livejournal.com]

how easily I am fooled - and I thought it was something exotic since they were so big in the shot. It shows that weed=flower, it's all a matter of vantage point, isn't it.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Having been a gardener, I must admit to some disdain for them. But on one or two days of the year, there is nothing more beautiful that a wide patch of sunny park grass covered in dandelion gold, or fluff.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

I enjoy writing that way and even feel strong with it, but often get distracted and forget. It's like forgetting to breathe deeply and meditate when I'm upset. Once I do, everything snaps into focus.

I read and admired some of Marge Piercy's poetry in Bill Moyers' book, Fooling With Words. I'll look up the title you suggested.

[artricia.livejournal.com]

Beautiful. I mean the words. The picture's nice, but the words!

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Thank you, it was a beautiful afternoon.

[rsc.livejournal.com]

Naturally the first thing I see in many of your posts is the subject heading and the lead photograph, so I tend to attach the heading as a caption to the photo. (This made me wonder, looking at your previous post, why tulips should induce anxiety.) In the present instance, if the "we" of the subject refers to the dandelions, the answer is "because some doofus introduced us from Europe a couple of hundred years ago".

Yes, right around now a yard or field full of dandelions is a lovely sight. And pure grass lawns are overrated (and at least as "unnatural" hereabouts as dandelions). But they can't be doing native species any good.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Hmm, humans are hardly doing native species any good either.

Yes, the connections between my photos and text are often esoteric or nonexistent. I hope you find them amusing. :-)