2012|365|3

2012|365|3



January 3, 2012
Moon over the Cappella Tower.
Downtown Minneapolis

2012|365|2

2012|365|2



January 2, 2012
Drive home from Green Bay.
Goodnight Wisconsin.

2012|365|1

Inspired by my enjoyment of my friend Laura's recent 365 Project, I have decided to start my own 365 collage. I'll be posting one picture a day, everyday in 2012. Hopefully being on this space more will get me writing again... I also think 2012 is going to be a big year for me- there are a lot of changes coming my way and I'm looking forward to using this space to commemorate the transition process.

and so I bring you ...

2012|365|1


2012 started off with a bang! Katie and I went to Green Bay for a Packers game and it.was.awesome.



January 1, 2012

Lambeau Field, Green Bay, WI
Packers v Lions
Section 115, Row 20
Final: Packers 45, Lions 41

For Jean

I will tell you this about Thanksgiving. It is the day when she bursts into the house, flinging the doors wide, the bite of winter swirling at her back. Potatoes spill out of her hands. Pecan pies, ginger crèmes, peas and onions. She thrusts both hands in, no gloves, and mashes the potatoes with her palms, delicate wrist bones, strong fingers pushing flesh out of skin. She cooks, sings, spins across the kitchen floor, graceful in a way that does not come easily. This family has been damaged … torn apart and thrust together, asked to forgive things we do not want to name. She collects our secrets, our sadness, our old miseries. Free of the burden we don’t think to ask where she has stored them. The moment passes. She asks us to sit, to bow our heads. We eat with her prayer ringing in our ears. Her request for grace.

My Love Affair With Edna St. Vincent Millay

Sometimes the day is icky and rainy and I have a headache and I haven't had a good night's sleep in I don't know how long and I'm FINE ... everything is fine. But I miss being GREAT and sunny and happy and ... whimsical, you know? Sometimes I miss my damn whimsy! And then I come across a poem like this that takes my breath away...

Well, I have lost you; and I lost you fairly;
In my own way, and with my full consent.
Say what you will, kings in a tumbrel rarely
Went to their deaths more proud than this one went.
Some nights of apprehension and hot weeping
I will confess; but that's permitted me;
Day dried my eyes; I was not one for keeping
Rubbed in a cage a wing that would be free.
If I had loved you less or played you slyly
I might have held you for a summer more,
But at the cost of words I value highly,
And no such summer as the one before.
Should I outlive this anguish-and men do-
I shall have only good to say of you.

and I feel like I'm 14 again, sitting in my childhood bedroom with the smell of lilacs floating in through the window, just realizing sort of for the first time how absolutely huge and beautiful and raw and wild the world is, just awed by the scope and breadth of things.

I don't know. I'm in that kind of a mood ... it's a beautiful, fucked up kind of world we live in, dear readers. Go out and get dirty.

~M

PS The poem is by Edna St. Vincent Millay. I'm reading Savage Beauty by Nancy Milford and loving every minute of it. If I wasn't so delighted to be smack dab in the middle of discovering Millay as we speak, I would be kicking myself for not reading more of her work before this. She, and her work, are lovely.

Peace

A tiny bud of a smile on our lips nourishes awareness and calms us miraculously. It returns us to the peace we thought we had lost. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

I want to be calmed miraculously.

~ M

The Seedy Side of the State Fair

I know, I know. It's been months. Instead of pointing fingers and making biased accusations, let's just let bygones be bygones, shall we? Fast forward six months: I left my job at the preschool, moved back to Minnesota, started grad school, and discovered that I can fit 12 large green grapes in my cavernous mouth at one time. Needless to say, goals have been met.

I know what you're thinking. "Marie, your life is so rich and fulfilling! You're so busy and important! Why the sudden return to blogging?" Well, gentle reader, let me just say that the muse moves in mysterious ways. One day I'm idly cramming grapes in my mouth, Googling the Guinness World Record for the feat , and the next day inspiration is staring me in the face.

Like any good Minnesotan, I am deeply moved by crop art in all of its glorious forms. The seed art display at the Minnesota State Fair never fails to deliver, and this year was no exception. While magnificent and, dare I say, inspirational, Mr. C's piece (see above) has left me with a few questions. For instance; how did he choose which first ladies to render in seed? Why does Mr. C have a halo circling his head? Why does Laura Bush have a monkey on her shoulder? And for the love of salsa, what can cockatiels and Nancy Reagan possibly have in common?!?!

I pondered these questions as I left Mr. C's masterpiece and made my way towards the other seed art submissions. I wandered in wonder past an ipod, a portrait of Willie Nelson, and a copy of Obama's birth certificate. I ogled an eerily apt portrayal of Bill Cosby and was contemplating the possible blasphemy inherent in a depiction of the Virgin Mary when I came face to face with my future.

If I spend my latter years making portraits of my cat out of seeds, will you still be my friend?

~M