chronicle

ablaze camp tomorrow : )

life has been good and interesting. the days are passing fast and passing rains

"With this we grasp the opening tenets of the paradigm: if you want to ruin your life by not listening to what other people are saying to you, look after houseplants. But that's not all. When Maman is squirting water onto the plants, I can plainly see the hope that fills her. She thinks it's a kind of balm that is going to penetrate the plant and bring it what it needs to prosper. It's the same thing with the fertilizer, which she gives them by means of little sticks in the soil (in the mixture of potting soil, compost, sand, and turf that she has made up specially for each individual plant at the nursery over at the Porte d'Auteuil). So, Maman feeds her plants the way she feeds her children: water and fertilizer for the kentia, green beans and vitamin C for us. That's the heart of the paradigm; concentrate on the object, convey all the nutritional elements from the outside to the inside and, as they make their way inside, they will cause the object to grow and prosper. A little "pschtt" on its leaves and there's the plant ready to go out into the world. You look at it with a mixture of anxiety and hope, you know how fragile life can be, you worry about accidents but, at the same time, you are satisfied with the knowledge that you've done what you were supposed to do, you've lpayed your nurturing role: you feel reassured and, for a time, things feel safe. That's how Maman views life: a succession of conjuring acts, as useless as a "pschtt" with the spray gun, which provide a fleeting illusion of security.

It would be so much better if we could share our insecurity, if we could all venture inside ourselves and realize that green beans and vitamin C, however much they nurture us, cannot save lives, nor sustain our souls."

The Elegance of the Hedgehog; Muriel Barbery

-
you taught me the courage of stars before you left.
how light carries on endlessly, even after death.with shortness of breath, you explained the infinite.
how rare and beautiful it is to even exist.

i couldn’t help but ask
for you to say it all again.
i tried to write it down
but i could never find a pen.
i’d give anything to hear
you say it one more time,
that the universe was made
just to be seen by my eyes.

with shortness of breath, i’ll explain the infinite-
how rare and beautiful it truly is that we exist.