monday morning.

Lately I’m finding inspiration in the simple words of other human beings, unguarded, off guard and generally observational. But the words are revelatory of the writer’s depth of thought and consciousness and ability to see a moment for more than just the physical actions being played out before them, while the figures of study unaware of their identity as actor in the everyday scene. For this everyday scene is suddenly a rupture from the mundane routine. And all that it takes is an Other, an observer, to feel the rupture. It becomes something else; or at least the false bottom drops away like one’s heart upon the decent of a rollercoaster, the future opens up and this gaping past-of-choices propels it. Like an hourglass where the sand slides through the narrow passage for but an instant, where above and below open wide like arms readying for an embrace, the moment slows for a point, just long enough to glimpse and maybe even to feel, before things change and the sands slide on.

A long way to reach something I look forward to every Monday: The Metropolitan Diary in the New York Times. I can’t get last Monday’s mention of stifled poetic possibility out of my head. And today, a whole bouquet of scenes to bloom all the week’s rest.

On tuning out {"On the L.I.R.R."}

On saving the world  and On the sweetness of New York, when all would seem bitter  {The first and the final letters}

Love.

It has been a few Tuesdays now, that there ran, in the Science Times section of the NY Times, an article about love. More specifically, an article about avoiding love--at least that's what the writer suggested. 

What ensued in my mind were absurd and tragic comedies of a Sleeper-esque machine in which love {well, in the literal case of Sleeper, physical love} is relegated to the flip of a switch. Where cognitive significance has disappeared, been forgotten and if remembered, thought of as silly.

Why would you bother to go through all of that time and effort when you can neatly take care of a craving in less than 30 seconds, then peacefully return to "regular life?" Why would you want to experience all of that distracting emotion when you have a particularly demanding week at work? Or, to use the writer's example, if you are in the midst of a mid-life crisis and become attracted to someone other than your significant other, why not just medicate oneself against desire? Instead of recognizing the situation, identifying the underlying issues and attempting to reach a common ground of understanding, why not just take the quick and smooth route in the form of a pill or elixir to stifle any unwanted {or wanted} urge? 

Yes, perhaps it could stop someone from doing something they may later regret. But it could also stop them from recognizing and addressing any deeper problems. Oh, and then there is very minor obstruction, just that human propensity to fall into something all-consuming and earth-moving... right, love. 

Here is the article, Anti-Love Drug May Be Ticket to Bliss written by John Tierney. 

Photo by the always lovely Danske.