One good thing about the constant rain of the past few months is that flowers are so vibrant! Self’s side yard, where she hardly spends any time, has these pretty little flowers, osteospermum.
Posting for Cee’s Flower of the Day.
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For Cee’s Flower of the Day, self decided to post a picture of a plant she’s never posted pictures of before: her Euphorbia “Martini”, which she stuck in a pot and left on the porch a couple of years ago. She even forgot what it was called and had to poke around in the dirt for the plant label (She used to stick the plant label in the pot with each new plant, but has been lazy about it, the last couple of years.) It didn’t perform particularly well, so self considered throwing it out. Then, suddenly, with all the rain, it’s been looking great! So here it is, enjoying its 15 minutes of fame:
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Here are some suggestions from Cee:
Possible topics brown, geometric shapes, sidewalk, brick, pavers, outdoor mall, rainy, eating, food, candid, trees, tables, chairs, windows, red, green, etc. What else can you come up with?
Have fun this week.
Self’s picture was taken from the Jubilee Bridge, the Southbank end (she hopes that’s the correct name for the bridge. If Old Map Man is reading, can he correct her if she’s wrong?)
Self loves Southbank, there is such a vibe.
Of course, that’s the London Eye. Self was thinking: trees, geometric shapes, pedestrians, pavers!
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The quote from Louise Gluck is on p. 85 of Dear Memory:
- At the heart of that work will be a question, a problem. And we will feel, as we read, a sense that the poet was not wed to any outcome. The poems themselves are like experiments, which the reader is freely invited to recreate in his own mind. Those poets who claustrophobically oversee or bully or dictate response prematurely advertise the deficiencies of the chosen particulars, as though without strenuous guidance the reader might not reach an intended conclusion.
Victoria Chang: “Louise Gluck talks about how writing is the act of learning to know.”
It is very interesting how Chang, in writing about grief, ends up writing about writing.
Stay tuned.
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Self is really enjoying Dear Memory, the bursts of elliptical writing.
From the letter “Dear Teacher”:
- I stumbled into your poetry workshop even though I wasn’t studying poetry. I was one of the few graduate students there. I remember you at the head of a long, wooden table, presiding, as if your chair were a throne. The room was brown with wood everywhere. We were knights of poetry. Our plates were white sheets of paper filled with our own flesh. Your words were infinite. They were an entire country.
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Self’s desktop scrolls between images (a nice walk down memory lane!).
This was what was on her desktop when she powered up her laptop this morning:
This bag has great emotional weight. She bought it from Macy’s on sale, in 2016. She was renting in an apartment on Stockton, and would hang out at Union Square, where she never got over how the hot dog vendor charged her $16 for an All-Beef Frank.
Nevertheless, Macy’s had some good sales, such as this bag. It lasted her several trips (which is rare, because all her bags tend to snap their handles, the way she lugs her books around — she never got into kindle).
This picture was taken in the beautiful city of Cork, Ireland. She was cooling her heels in a room above the Paradiso vegetarian restaurant on Lannister Quay.
Posting for Claire’s Cosmos’s Share Your Desktop challenge.
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Self has two enormous lavatera bushes in her front yard. They seem to thrive on spotty watering and fertilizing, lol.
Not much else thrives in her front yard, but the lavataera just keeps going and going.
Posting for Cee’s Flower of the Day.
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Self was today year’s old when she learned that the Nordstrom at 500 Pine Street, downtown Seattle, is the Mother Ship, the original Nordy’s.
Here’s what was in one of the display windows, last weekend.
Posting for Cee’s Flower of the Day!
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This beautiful glass sculpture is Dale Chihuly’s Flower Form 2 (variation), in the lobby of the Sheraton Grand Seattle, where self is staying during the AWP Conference.
Posting for Cee Neuner’s Flower of the Day.
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For this Flower of the Day Challenge, self decided to go back through her archives.
She took these pictures when she visited the Oxford Botanic Garden, late May.
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This spring is going to be glorious. First of all, the rain! California’s blooms are blooming like never before. Self’s potted hydrangeas are exploding out of their pots. Today, self will head to the nearest plant nursey, not only in search of soil amendments, fertilizers, and all that good stuff, but also to buy snail repellents (because snails are so happy this time of year, yes)
Posting for Travel with Intent’s One Word Sunday.
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Am continuing with The Impossible City: A Hong Kong Memoir, which is fascinating, as much of a deep dive into self’s girlhood (she visited Hong Kong on Family trips, maybe five or six times in her childhood) as anything else.
Sentence of the Day:
- Wong Kar Wai’s Chungking Express, the 1994 film of canned pineapples, painful longing, and drug dealers, is your favorite film — it’s why you want to visit Hong Kong, really
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Self loves that she can join Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge (CFFC) this week. She has got a gallery of rides!
- The Rolls that has seen better days was near Spitalfield’s, East London.
- Beltane & Pop van was on the London Eye Pier.
- The bus was self’s ride from Belfast to Downpatrick, on her way to River Mill for a month of mad writing, last April.
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This section, about Chang’s miscarriage, is shattering.
My hospital wristband, the one that simply says baby boy, still sits inside my wallet like a tombstone. I imagine all the dead babies together somewhere on a large playground, swinging and sliding. And for the moment, I forget to grieve.
I had another doctor check just in case, hoping that it was a mistake. But the baby was still dead. Small black dots for eyes, paddles for hands. When the machine automatically printed out a picture of the baby, the doctor silently ripped it off and stuffed it in his pocket.
I paid a twenty-dollar copay to see a picture of my dead baby on a screen. On my way out, the doctor told me about his new Botox business and to come back soon. He would give me a discount.
— Dear Memory: Letters on Writing, Silence, and Grief, p. 98 -
Sometimes writing can feel like digging holes, planting and replanting things that might never turn into anything. My eyes point down when I’m planting, but the breath of something else is always in my ears. Sometimes that breath is mortality. Other times, that breath is history. Sometimes memory. Sometimes the moon. Oftentimes, silence.
— Dear Memory: Letters on Writing, Silence, and Grief, p. 77
Kanlaon 