dear justin vernon, please make more music now

[concretekiss]

Surely, there will come a day I'll be the only one left here, rambling on all by myself.

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Men come into the shop with bluebirds chasing hearts in halos around their heads. They are my favorite, next to the elderly husbands. Some ask me to choose loose-cut flowers for them; What would I like, they ask. Would I think *this* is pretty, they ask, as though all girls like the same thing? Or as though I have the better taste to choose? It's a cute question, albeit odd to me. Instead of arranging an armload of blossoms I would want myself to give to another doe, which is somewhat depressing, I try to gauge demeanor and what hints of personality I notice to choose something compatible, that he would not look lost holding; Customary men date ladies who like roses and classical things. Scruffy boys date girls who love wildflowers and gerbers. The seemingly affluent or debonair get stargazers and delphinium. Not sure if it works, but I'm still learning.
I don't know of another place of employment where so many men walk in lovesick. It's not usually something a man wants to admit.

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The cold traps me into the apartment, which is necessary with the superfluity of my half-finished projects, boxes of boxes of notes to self, romantic fragments. I read somewhere that your living space is a reflection of your emotional interior. If it is cluttered, so must be your thoughts. If it is an attic of obsoletes and fossils, so must be your heart.
So I've hauled off about four boxes so far of donation items and the tower grows. I must extract these things quickly, before I over-analyze. Though I only want to hold dear things dear, I'm the sort of girl who can convince myself that everything is vital in some way.

I can't bear to part with my childrens' drawings and am wracking my brain as to what I can make with them; bind them into books, decoupage them onto a hope chest. I don't know. Currently they are in three large boxes, useful as cinder blocks.

Then there is a trunk of old books of poetry and confessions, I could have a bonfire that would drown a polar bear. For the first time in the 15 years I have been dragging it from home to home it has become incriminating evidence to me. I have a horrible fantasy of my family members finding these angst ridden, bloody hearted teenage lamentations while going through my things after I have died. I don't mind the mysterious receipts to hotel rooms, broken strings of beads, cassettes tape coils of ghost voices. They keep their secrets well.

There are not enough lifetimes to accomplish the ever-growing list of resolutions I continually set for myself, even without annual prompt, in self-admonishment or fantasy. I failed miserably to achieve the only (absolutely genius Gaynun) official resolution I made last year, to the point where I have a boy's t-shirt that I sniff and pet like a security blanket (look away. I am a monster.) BUT THAT'S OK.
I am poor as fuck BUT THAT'S OK. My dishes don't match but they still hold food. Even after getting laid off from a job of 3 years, and being too traumatized to be terrified, all told this has been one of the happiest years I've had in many. In my unemployed free time I have made more advancements in painting than all my years combined, getting me that much closer to having enough pieces for my own exhibition. I've traveled to beautiful places. my children have stayed happy and healthy. I go home from my current job often feeling wondrous, enchanted and fulfilled. And I loved and was loved back.

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The last poem I read of the year.
It's about much more than parenthood to me:

Mother and Child - Louise Glück

We’re all dreamers; we don’t know who we are.

Some machine made us; machine of the world, the constricting family.
Then back to the world, polished by soft whips.

We dream; we don’t remember.

Machine of the family: dark fur, forests of the mother’s body.
Machine of the mother: white city inside her.

And before that: earth and water.
Moss between rocks, pieces of leaves and grass.

And before, cells in a great darkness.
And before that, the veiled world.

This is why you were born: to silence me.
Cells of my mother and father, it is your turn
to be pivotal, to be the masterpiece.

I improvised; I never remembered.
Now it’s your turn to be driven;
you’re the one who demands to know:

Why do I suffer? Why am I ignorant?
Cells in a great darkness. Some machine made us;
it is your turn to address it, to go back asking
what am I for? What am I for?

Comments

[jujulilianan.livejournal.com]

well I don't write much, but as long as you ramble, I'll be here reading.
deal?
:-)


Also, I'd totally ask you for flower advice too if I came into your shop. I do like flowers, but I never really saw the point of them, and I don't really get the details which makes me feel like I might be doing it wrong whenever I try to buy them. I just know it usually makes most women really happy to get them, and it's nice to make someone you really like really happy. does that make me a playa? anyway - wildflowers and gerbers it is, next time. I don't even know what gerbers are....

[flightviolation.livejournal.com]

gerbers are a kind of daisy. one flower can have around 2,000 petals. the point of getting flowers for someone is they are pretty, and lots of girls have weaknesses for lovely things; jewelry, dresses, sparkly things, shoes made of chocolate and so on.
i think it only makes you a playa if you are giving gifts for selfish purposes? to make someone you care for happy doesn't count. :)
and i don't know about other ladies, but i like just about every flower. of course i have very very favorites but each one has at least one thing i can appreciate.

oh, and

[flightviolation.livejournal.com]

DEAL

what is yr favorite flower, out of curiousity?

[apresminuit.livejournal.com]

i have always been partial to stargazers; lilies in general, really (no attendant affluence, sadly)(nor funerals, gladly). i'm pretty keen on peonies as well. also, rununculus is criminally under-appreciated & rarely in stock anywherez... but so so wonderful, w/ the curlicues & all those volumptuous petals, all layered like feathers on a plump little hen. i'm totally jealous of your job!!

Re: what is yr favorite flower, out of curiousity?

[flightviolation.livejournal.com]

i can't pick just one kind but peonies are way up there. they are so huge and romantic and classical. stargazers are $6 a STEM, which is alot of why i say affluent. ya don't bring carnations home to yr trophy wife! they are that price tho because they are so long lasting and the smell is intoxicating.
the asiatics are beautiful too, tho less fragrant. and then i love coxcomb, honeysuckle, jasmine, gardenias, magnolias, and dahlias. if i keep thinkin i'll go even longer, ha!

[howard-cosell.livejournal.com]

"I have a boy's t-shirt that I sniff and pet like a security blanket" -- this puts me somewhere between "haha" and "awwwwww..."

I often wish my mom kept more stuff from my childhood. Binding them into books sounds like a great idea!

[flightviolation.livejournal.com]

yes, hi, i am some sort of wistful pathetic freak.

i have enough to make an encyclopedia set! then i have to figure out what to do with the larger ones that are too big for books. hmmmmm.

im in ur class, takin notes

[toy-of-thought.livejournal.com]

your photos make your life look the height of opulence -- waterfalls and every texture of green -- you don't let yourself be boxed in, not by time nor money nor despair. you're the engine who damn well does.

Re: im in ur class, takin notes

[flightviolation.livejournal.com]

i love you for saying this.

[quiet-flame.livejournal.com]

Oh I love your year. 2010 better be equally as good to you or more so or I will kick its ass.

Tim and I also exchanged t-shirts when we were first long-distancing it and would sniff them in bed, hoping for traces of B.O, putting them in ziplock bags afterward to preserve the scent. Love makes you a crazy person, I swear.

I love that poem. I love Gluck when she's like that and not waxing poetic about the names of plants.

[flightviolation.livejournal.com]

long distance is a total a-hole. fuckin all these other states in the WAY. there are no teleporters and you can't just go blowing up Utah.

i went looking up more poetry by Gluck hoping to be amazed, to find all these sequences about Persephone, droning on and thought oh come off it Louise!

[cowboyjesus.livejournal.com]

I could use some floral research, feedback, or general spying, S. This interests me.

The last one who was supposedly "for me" had a taste for small California poppies, which I liked as well. Years of observation have failed my understanding of what seems best for what certain personality. My enthusiasm in these matters hasn't failed. It's just as curious a thing as it was in the beginning.

One would think people of compatible interests would find certain things beautiful at the same time, like a squash farmer and a botanist specializing in the cultivation of them. There's a love story right there...maybe. That seems almost too practical for romance. But then again, time has taught me that it springs up in the most unpredictable places. (Why don't romantics symbolically give weeds then?)

That T-shirt idea has pheremone science behind it, so I don't see what's so monstrous about that? I wonder if they do that at E-Harmony.

[flightviolation.livejournal.com]

i don't know if the idea works, though, i just try it. like what if two opposites attracted? i would be choosing the wrong flowers for him.

poppy red is one of the most passionate colors i've ever seen. i am fascinated in what makes a plant a weed as opposed to a plant. morning glories are invasive and beautiful. when you think weed, you think unattractive.

[mojodragonfly.livejournal.com]

I'm fairly sure I pointed out last year that the gaynun thing would backfire in a wonderfully spectacular way. It had irony written all over it.

[flightviolation.livejournal.com]

you did. it was a good idea though, albeit tempting fate.
happy new year, d.

[tuckova.livejournal.com]

1. I will outstay you. If only to be sure I read everything you write.
2. A man once told me he would never give me flowers because I would be unpleasant about it. A lot of boys/men have told me this. P just showed up with roses on my birthday (first one) cause that's what is done. It didn't occur to him that I would be a judgmental horror. AND I'M NOT. I think of this often.
3. I'm a big fan of the concept of one or two pictures, the best ones (as selected by you or them) for every year. Not that I stick to it religiously, but. You can also take pictures or scan each one and store them on a flash disk. Wallpaper a room?
4. Keep the trunk. It is for your biographers or possibly your kids. Specify in your will who it will go to and entrust that person with what you want done.
5. I consider my job ending to be similar to yours, and hope for a similar happy ending. It is better to be poorer than to be sadder. This opens the door for more happiness.
6. MATCHING DISHES ARE BOURGEOIS! Well... they're like rhymed poems. When it's a perfect set, when it works right, then: it's great. I don't want to knee-jerk when I know that Millay's sonnets always speak my heart. But otherwise trying to contain all the varieties and colors of food onto one color plate is more restrictive than expressive.

[flightviolation.livejournal.com]

1. <3 i am reading you too, cher.
2. having standards or convictions does not mean you can't be thankful about flowers. those dudes can suck it.
3. wallpapering a room is giving me ideas! like taking a long roll of butcher paper and making a border out of the drawings. this way it can be rolled up!
4. another genius idea about the trunk, but some things really reeeeally need to be incinerated, they are so embarrassing.
5. hear hear, i would rather be worried about money than breaking my spirit
6. i look at matching dish sets sometimes. some are very lovely, like a well-to-do family. like my bff's cabinets are very... elegant. but it would mean giving up some of my favorites! my unicorn mug! my ceramic barrel beer stein! my bowl with a sacred heart on the bottom.

[chocolatebark.livejournal.com]

Last man standing, eh?

[flightviolation.livejournal.com]

well, maybe it will be you n me

[slomosexual.livejournal.com]

Some of my most treasured art holdings are drawings by your children.

[flightviolation.livejournal.com]

well that made me cry.

[inertiacrept.livejournal.com]

My mother is just now getting around to trying to process all of those boxes of shit that I generated when I was still pooping myself, and she tried to explain to me the marvelous wonder that the kid who generated the scribbles grew up to be me and how you can see, if you want to, real EVIDENCE of what would be my eventual life trajectory in all that crayon scratching. I just begged her to put it away and never show anyone EVER.

[inertiacrept.livejournal.com]

Phraseology clumsy by even my standards leads to the fair grammatical inference that my mother has boxes of my baby poop. Moms are weird!

happy new yearrr

[disorganization.livejournal.com]

hearts & hearts

Re: happy new yearrr

[flightviolation.livejournal.com]

backatyou pretty 1.

soft whaps

[the101dmnations.livejournal.com]

Hey girl!! The language of flowers is up there with summer stargazing and really good offhand dancing, knacks I lack and'd love. I forgot to take a resolution this year, but I think this was the last poem I read, the night I almost started a hilarious fire, in 2009.

And, shit, speaking of (I saw him play a free show in St. Louis, his backing band was his two former guitar students, dude's a total angel, he invited the crowd to come "get Wisconsined" with him after the show) Justin Vernon...

J and the Hilarious Fires

[flightviolation.livejournal.com]

i love the rhythm and line breaks and assonance in that one!
"speak me back to sense again" = oh, sigh

i saw bon iver at the paramount theatre as a side show frm acl fest. the acoustics were magic with his voice. he IS truly an angel. i fuckin cried.
thank you so much for the volcano choir link. the band name has been popping up as recommendation on last.fm but i didn't know he was hidden in it.