Everyday Ordinary Beauty

The end

Honestly, my heart just isn't in this anymore.
I struggle to find things to write about and that's never a good sign, is it?
So, this is the end.
Thanks for reading all my dribble.

Shift.Perspective

There is something about small changes in perspective that fill me with a sense of hope I don't think I'll ever be able to adequately find the words to express.
I know that I loose perspective often, that I like to see the world as black and white and I tend to take things pretty literally so when I have breaks in the routine, they tend to lead to me seeing things differently. A most welcomed difference.
Granted the change in perspective is usually brief and the immediate effects don't last very long but the insight gained in the small transistion back to reality is huge and usally leads to longer lasting change in the end.
These small changes in perspective are usually brought by any break in the usual. This Summer they were brought on by a trip to NYC, a pretty boring work-related conference, and an obvious but purposedly ignored realization about a person I know. Or used to know.
If I think about it too hard, I guess it could make me sad to know that I can't rely on these shifts in life to last. Yet, that's the beauty of them exactly.

Small and brief effects. Change overall.

An ode to Sushi,the fish, not the food

Sushi
Sushi
Sushi
Why do you foresake your food
Every day
Little blue beta fish
You swim round and round
In your bowl
I feed you
You reject the little brown pellet of nutrition
Or
You gulp it up only to open your mouth and let it go
Little blue bulimic fish
How you worry me so

Open mouth wider,insert foot deeper

The connections between my mouth and brain are busted. As evidence, stupid things keep floating out of my mouth at the worst times.

I'd like to issue an official apology, it seems that I keep saying things the wrong way. Opinions, statements and issues that sound so,well,stupid after I hear them leaving my mouth. If only I could grab the words as they float by and throw them away. Erase the moment. Start over. Again.

I'd like to say that I don't really mean what I've been saying the past couple of days, that it just came out the wrong way. I'd like to keep my opinions to myself but that would require a miracle. Instead I think I'll just write everything down and hand out my responses with more care and thought. To avoid further possible isolation.

The thought of the day seems to be :Maybe I should just stop talking

Brilliant thought of the week, Monday-style

Although it seems like an easy task, eating sushi at your desk and trying to type at the same time is to be avoided, if possible.

A little bathroom philosophy

Friday afternoon in the bathroom of bookstore, a woman out of the blue, told me:

"We all have to make space for each others needs, why that is the spirit of life and the best way to live."

Had she been reading my mind or was it visible from my face that I had just been thinking about a person to whom I needed to give more space to for thier needs just at that moment?

"Love is a feeling like a warm dark stone"

Honestly I do not have an obssesive personality about most things in life. With me, it's pretty much "easy come, easy go." One exception would be music. I love music, listen to it all the time, could not possibly imagine a world without music, desperatley want to take lessions in banjo, fiddle and guitar, and spend a good chunk of change on music and going to shows.

And when I discover a new artist or group, I always seem to find that one song on the cd that speaks to me the most and listen to it about twenty times a day. This week the goodness comes in the form of the song "Ship Out on the Sea" by The Be Good Tanyas, a folksy-wonderful group that is frankly, right up my alley. Besides being laden with banjo, mandolin, guitar and beautiful vocals it contains some lyrics that make me so happy and I find myself singing all day long:

"I'm in love with the garden
That is down the street
And the earth is a warm thing under my feet"

and

"Plant me in the garden
Don't you let me roam
Cuz love is a feeling like a warm dark stone"

Some songs just find you when you need them the most and leave a print in your brain. A sound print that it isn't easy to forget about it and this song has done it to me, for sure.

Talk to me

Living in a city, a moderate sized city like say, oh, Chicago can be a double-edged sword at times. I love all the people and at the same time feel that all the people are too much to deal with. I usually don't talk that much to strangers. Well, correction. I usedto talk to strangers, alot, until I moved to Chicago and then I learned that you can't chat it up with everybody and some caution should be used when approaching unknown folks.
Let's keep the sweeping regional assumptions in check, but I tend to think it was easier to talk to people in the moderate sized town in the South that I used to live in than in Chicago.
Why? People just seemed easier to approach and more willing to connect with other people. In bigger cities, there is a weariness surrounding people. It seems like the prevailing attitude is "What do you really want from me because I know you're not talking to me to be friendly?" And sometimes that's true. But sometimes it is about making that connection.
This week, I can prove both of those points to be true.
A friendly conversation with a stranger while I was eating my lunch Wednesday proved not to be about polite and idle chat but that she really, really, really wanted me to know that Jesus loved me. I wasn't angry or annoyed or even really disgruntled about the subject at hand. Instead what I felt was a small sense of being betrayed. I took a (very small) risk of talking to this stranger I opened myself up in a sense and shared some conversation and time with her and in the end, she just saw me as an opportunity to preach to. She wanted something from me, my soul perhaps, my pledge to love Jesus back, me to listen to her religious fervor. And I indeed, felt weary and hesitant to continue the conversation because she wanted something from me.
Also on that same day, I happened into a conversation with a lady in the bread aisle at a grocery store. She was friendly and full of good advice about avoiding ketchup and other evil condiments and fed up with the trendy carb obsession that permeates everything these days. She told me so much about her life and I deduced that really she was just lonely after experiencing the deaths of her husband and parents and wanted to talk to somebody about anything. Even if that meant smiling politely and seeming interested in water intake and the dangers of barbucue sauce, I was happy to be that somebody for her. She wanted something from me too, but it wasn't religious conversion or spare change or my phone number.
We all need that connection to people, even if we don't know each other, it feels good to realize that in a city of millions we can still take risks with each other and have positive outcomes.

The management would like to sum up the week by expressing the following brief statement

A day late and a dollar short, I am always a day late and a dollar short.

In case you were wondering

Yes, it is in fact, hot enough for me. Actually, it's a little too hot for me. I prefer mid seventies and a nice breeze if you really aand truly want to know.
Why do people feel compelled to ask "Is it hot enough for you?" when the weather starts to turn and head for that season we like to call Summer? Ok, so I understand that they are most likely just being friendly and making conversation and that the question is probably rhetorical in most cases. But, why do we as a species feel the need to make inane comments about the weather? Maybe it's the realization that we aren't in control of it, that it really is just something that happens to us and we want to be in control. So the need to comment, question and generally talk about natural forces occurs as a means to justify our existence. Or maybe the weather is a aconspiracy set up by the government to distract our attentions from what's really going on. In that case, I think the Feds have found something that works. People asking if it's hot enough for ya are really the enemy!
Yes it's hot. So hot that grumpy moods begin to show and I find it difficult to sleep at night. So hot that I want to jump in the shower every chance I get. But guess what? This happens every year and about this time so it really isn't throwing me for a loop. I get it. It's hot. Now can we talk about something else?

Because you always need at least one thing to gripe about

Dear workers of the world or really just the department of road work and anhiliation,
I know, I know, you are just doing your job and technically, you're probably not even finished just doing your job yet but I'd really like to point out the good work you've been doing downtown these past few days.Being appreciated is not over rated, ever, and I'd like to throw some major thank you's your way because those streets you've ripped up right in the middle of the intersection - man, those are H-O-T-T-T with three T's even. I love how, when I attempt to cross the street, I love how I trip and fall into the holes in the pavement. In fact those holes in the pavement kinda sorta match the holes on the sidewalk. Nice work! I mean, I would have never thought to have done that. Never in a million years. How long did it take to plan that out?Forever, I bet.
Oh, I know there probably isn't enough money in the budget to actually fix the streets what with the millions our dear mayor has elected to spend uglifying Millienium Park. Or maybe it's just too darn hot outside to pour the asphalt and cover the holes and rough bits? In any case, I think you should leave it just the way it is. It's perfect for falling and who does that enough these days?
Love,
Suzanne

All I can say right now

When sleepy, or rather sleep-deprived everything moves in slow motion. Everything including my brain, my fingers, my hands. Cars seem to move in slow motion but it's only me that has slowed down.

Fire down below!

What woke me up was the smoke and some shouting coming up from the second floor of our building. When I opened my door I saw that our entire apartment was filling up with smoke. I looked for flames and quickly and grogily concluded that it wasn't our apartment that was on fire. I flipped on the hallway lights and woke up Miriam who was sleeping in our living room. I felt the front door, in true fire safety fashion, and after I found that it wasn't hot I made my way down the thck bloom of smoke in the hallway. Coughing and gagging I opened the door at the bottom of the stairs and headed for the first floor apartment where I thought the fire was coming from. Nope, not warm to touch,no smoke billowing out from the door.
I headed back upstairs to find that Lacey had called 911 and Liz and Miriam where heading out the back door. I went back down to the second floor to tell them to get out and was greeted by a stunned neighbor who asked if I knew where the smoke was coming from. Apparently it was coming from his apartment because,well, the couch was on fire. I told him to get out again and went to find everybdoy. On our way down the back stairs, we encountered a firend of our neighbors who apparently, under several influneces fell asleep while smoking a ciggarette. He assured us that the building was not on fire and nobody was hurt but he burnt his arm. We went back upstairs to hear the roaring of fire engines and police cars. We greeted the three fire trucks and two police cars and told them it was a couch fire, not a building fire. At three in the morning, we had about eight people on the porch, twenty firefighters in out building, and a smoldering couch on the sidewalk.
I'm glad that nobody was hurt and while it's a shame that the couch was trashed at least it was only the couch that was trashed and not eight lives.

Food for thought

Something is amiss in the world of processed and packaged foods. Ok, alot is amiss and do we really have time to discuss it all? Quite frankly, no. But while searching for a favourite cheesy snack in the shape of goldfish, I saw some rather disturbing packaging on a different type of cheesy goldfish goodness. Now, being a processed food purist, I go for the traditional "cheddar" or whatever the cheese flavour it is seeking to imitate. I don't need the "flavour blasted" goldfish and I never want to put into my mouth something that advertises itself as "Xplosive." Xplosive? On a label for food? If you are eating some processed or maybe non-processed food please don't read the following, but when I see Xplosive it makes me think of diarhea and, well, that's not what you really want to associate food with is it? Then I think of,well, explosives. Either way it's not pretty.
I chose to forgo the goldfish and found something less chessy and Xplosive to satsify my snacking fulfillments and headed to the checkout line to be greeted by scarier advertisements. Wrigley's has a type of gum, excuse me but the name fails me at the momet, ( must be all those food colourings going to the brain) with two,uhm, interesting flavours. Ladies and Gents, I'd like you to meet "Grapermelon" and "Strappleberry." Oh god, where do I start?Just what is a grapermelon? Could there be such a fruit? Imagine a watermelon crossed with a grape. Strange to look at and I'm sure even stranger to chew in the form of gum. And what the hell is a strappleberry? I love berries, I've even eaten a gooseberry and some other oddly named berries, but a strappleberry?
I'd like to meet the marketing geniuses behind "Xplosive", "Grapermelon", and "Strapleberry" and ask a few questions. Maybe they'll all get together to invent a cheesy,fruity new kind of xplosive strapple-grapermelon- berry gum.Then we could top it with green ketchup and a squirt of pink margarine.
I don't know about you but I'm sticking to the genetically modified produce section.

That night

It was around one in the morning when I parked my car and walked around to the side of the house to my apartment. It was still steamy hot from the day before, July fourth. I was exhausted, beyond tired and my eyes and brain barely registered the baby bird laying on my porch. As I turned the key to the front door I gave it a second glance only this time I realized that it was hurt.
It was meekly flapping its wing and making a barely audible noise, a kind of cry for help, I suppose. Obviously hurt I knew I couldn't leave it there to die on my porch. So I ran inside to find a towel and an empty shoebox. My dog ran out the door after me happy to be outside and also curious about the visitor. I wrapped my hand in the towel and scooped up the broken body of the bird and placed it in the shoebox. I carried it in my arms as my dog sniffed around and found a place to pee.
I packed us all into my car. My dog in the front passenger seat, the dying bird in the box on my lap and drove to the emergency vet. I whispered the whole way there, "Please don't die, please don't die, please don't die. " At every stoplight I looked down to make sure it was still breathing, still holding on. As I pulled into the parking lot, I glanced down to see that its wings had stopped beating. Dead. Didn't make it. Almost. Made it.
I sat in the car for a few minutes debating whether I should bother going in. I sat with a dead bird in my lap and a barking dog in my car at 1:30 in the morning and I cried. For a lot of reasons, but mostly because I felt that I could have been faster in getting to the vet and possibly I could have saved its life. If I had sacrificed my dog's need to go out, If I hadn't taken so long in finding the shoebox. What if, what if, what if? I beat myself up and analyzed the situation from a thousand angles.I did go inside, barely saying a word, I shoved the shoebox at the doctor who answered the door and explained that it just died and I didn't know what to do. She smiled at me and took it away. I went back to the car and drove home and realized that doing all you can do is sometimes the only thing you can do. If you make every effort and the outcome isn't always what you want, you have to let that be. I can't rescue every dying bird, but I'll always try.