“In the Country of Resurrection”, Ada Limon

Ow. Sad.

I came across this quote by Haruki Murakami talking about how people are going to be hurt when it’s time for them to hurt, life is like that, and I think part of what draws me to his writing style is the amount of solidity, stolidity and acceptance he brings to the table. Anyhow, he goes on to say that you need grab whatever chance for happiness where you find it (similar sentiment to Stephen Dunn’s “Sweetness”), and that he estimates you get no more than two or three such chances in a lifetime. And of course, regret implied should we let them go. This sentiment reminds me of the fifth part of Mary Oliver’s poem “Sometimes”. And how I have burned one chance already, how sad, and just in general how sad to be so limited but also how many and how beautiful and I look forward to life.

I am writing this on a Friday night from NYC, Antonia’s new Airbnb to be precise. I have just finished backlogging the week of poetry. It makes me happy. I think I did less updating this week because I was having a good time doing research, which is nice. Also starting to get “busy” and the stress is piling. Just need to start doing things. I keep looking for these calmnesses in life and they are all over. Truly.

I am thinking again about how much I love sharing with people these days. I have agreed to see Kristine for coffee or something of the sort next week. I wanted to pass off a letter I wrote at the start, as well as the poems I have written regarding her. I think it’s beautiful to see oneself through the eyes of another, and unprompted. It’s really the unprompted part that ensures genuineness. Anyhow, I like to do this for people. I’m not sure how much people see it that way, not that it really matters. But even sharing things that remind me of a person falls in this category, here is a way I see you in form of something I associate with you and so on. In comparison to Mary Oliver’s berries in “I Don’t Want to Live a Small Life”, me, sending poems and bits and pieces to people I love. Perhaps this poem implies some amount of like please, take my love, which points back to the grief study from a day or two ago and so perhaps this is present in this sentiment that I’m sharing here, that I wish people saw it that way a little bit more (i.e. spoke my love language) and saw how beautiful I see it to be. I mean, I think it’s hard to do that though generally before 1) losing it or 2) doing it yourself and so on. And perhaps some people just aren’t really “that kind” of person, so to speak. I don’t know. I just enjoy it a lot.

To close this week (open close open close, see “Definition Study”), a Dermot Kennedy song that I took to today: “Something to Someone”. The heart is but a wiiiinding road. And so on. And so on. Maybe that phrase is replacing the how good. This song decently captures how I feel with regard to Rachel’s absence and such, as discussed above. The way his voice inflects at various points simply breaks me.

Sorry, one more, this song by Bon Iver, “The Wolves (Act I & II), in which I perceive myself to be more of the “you” so to speak than the “I”, which implies who the “I” is and so on. Feeling the “you” isn’t common in such media, and is interesting but often not great. Because it often implies otherness, which often means separation, meaning perhaps source of hurt in my case. I sorry.