Comparisons are odious.
—Popular 14th Century Saying
Today I finally unpacked my fountain pen collection. I also hung a dream catcher that my old boss at Cornell gave me when I left my job there in 1998. Since then, it had been hanging in my writing room window, all those years in the woods outside Corvallis. Now, finally, it’s back in front of me. It’s quite nice to have most of the stuff in my study off the floor as well. Others might call it clutter but these are, indeed, my talismans.
What else unearthed today? A paperweight J.’s father gave me, dolls bought at Voodoo Authentica in New Orleans now on the shelf across from my trio of kaleidoscopes, the rosewood prayer beads and the ones John brought back in their silk striped case from South Korea now hanging from the shelf as well. Two small, white marbled stones. One’s a pebble, really. The origami I bought at the Sacramento Amtrak station, the ones that later inspired a poem.
I also planted flowers—primroses for color in the perennial garden. Anemone and ranunculae in pots. Tiny grape hyacinth in pots, too. Sat out in the garden with one of the cats and watched the cargo feeder planes stream in as they do, daily between 5 and 6 pm. That somehow was comforting. Talk about a desperado after all the bickering, unnecessary fretting, and manufactured stress of being with family in NE Pa. J.’s in DC, backup for some Senate testimony tomorrow AM. I’m listening to the Juno soundtrack, glad I’ve learned to be happy in my solitude in this all-too-short, too-often misunderstood and made-overcomplicated life.
The public domain image above is a Swan Fountain Pens advertisement from the Big T, the yearbook published by Associated Students of the California Institute of Technology (ASCIT) in 1921.
Interests: Reading, writing, not arithmetic. The art and craft of poetry. Photography. Vegetable and flower gardening especially heirloom bulbs and dahlias. Movies in real theatres. Theatre on real stages. Art in real galleries. Crossword puzzles and, of course, Wordle. Singer-songwriters like Aimee Mann and Patti Griffin. All kinds of music especially 1930s jazz. Venice, Italy! The Dude abides.
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