free flowers

Were I Ross Gay, I would say,

my delight of the day: a jar of flowers upon my kitchen table, found "Free" item from a neighbor's curb, a few blocks away. Flowers I know not the name of, taken from a bush, I discerned upon a second walk-by within the week. Labelled "free" with a sign --one of two jars, Sunday early afternoon. I am not want to take free sidewalk goods, but flowers. 

Free, I realize as they are sitting, jarred, cut off from their life source, in fact the least free in fact they have ever been. Fated with their clipping. Their date to decay ticking from that point onward. Free? Jarred, not growing--subsisting, now, only, on a 3rd floor kitchen table, far from the earth from which they came.

Free: Without cost, the meaning of the sign, the indicator that they were mine for the taking. Though I saw, during the second passing, the second free-flower-picker left the glass there on the curb. I took mine: a roasted red pepper and artichoke tapenade stout jar--headed for the recycling anyhow, I gathered.

Free: without cost they were given to the homeowner, without cost given to me. Fragranced my rooms this week, of unknown name, from unknown person. Free. Emancipated? Liberated? No, but made or given spontaneously. Not bound by force. Having no trade restrictions, yes. Not fastened, except nesting in the jar. Frank and open in their own way, yes, their fragrance having something to say. Licentious? Favorable. Not allowing slavery? They are captured, now--but their open nameless buds' scent speaking of something not easily captured.

 

Solitude is fine, but you need someone to tell solitude is fine (-Honore de Balzac): aloneness, togetherness & authenticity

Reading Patricia Hampl's The Art of the Wasted Day includes her courting of solitude; solitude's courting of her. Makes me think of the deep desire for aloneness, for togetherness, how one holds the seed of the other. How Jesus going offshore, away from the crowds, is a confirmation to artists: the desire to be alone to be true. Rilke: "a lot that consists in this, that two solitudes protect and touch and greet each other." Authenticity, true voice, necessarily born out of aloneness -- yet language, Hampl says, "More than a painter, much more than a composer, a writer can never be alone. Our very medium is held in common, the language we are born into...Language is a shared resource, not individual, not unique, not self-made." Typography references: ~Mind your p's and q's --because those letters can easily get interchanged; "out of sorts" --sorts being the individual letters; to make sure they are all in their correct places. Why can a writer never be alone more than a painter? Isn't color and looking also a shared medium, and more immediate, making it easier to grasp, immediately? A writer can remain more insulated, inside. A stranger can catch a fleeting glimpse of a visual artist's work and have a response.

This flux: quiet/chatter; dilation/pointed fixation, need to receive and listen/need to share. Jesus on the boat getting away, amidst all the crowds. A retreat of artists: a common gathering; one punctuated by times to ourselves. We are not ourselves except who we are in relation to other people; a necessarily enkindling spark to ourselves not achieved except in communion, in relationship.  When in a crowd, we are aware of our particular reactions to a scene. When alone, we are reflecting on a scene its significance --for ourselves, but do so in a medium understandable to others--calling them to see it, too, for what it is.

There's a quote out there I think that communicates eloquently the idea: that we are not ourselves except who we are in relationship with other people. Desmond Tutu: "We need other human beings in order to be human. I am because other people are." Ubuntu: "I am because we are."  is true. The flux. The inward/outward. Exercise/sleep. Listening/talking. Sitting/walking. Nothing new.

I'm unfamiliar with Balzac, but find other quotes by him: 

"No man should marry until he has studied anatomy and dissected at least one woman." 

"Nobody loves a woman because she is handsome or ugly, stupid or intelligent. We love because we love." 

"When women love us, they forgive us everything, even our crimes; when they do not love us, they give us credit for nothing, not even our virtues."

"The heart of a mother is deep abyss at the bottom of which you will always find forgiveness."