Sidewalk Days

Lately I have been spending a lot of time alone, an inhibiting trend that tends to occur in this paradoxical world where many people exist while no random conversations do (unless it's asking for money or handouts, of course). The time spent alone has manifested itself primarily in the form of long walks, which rightfully occur more as the temperatures rise. I find my emotional state to be driven by apparent paradoxes as well: I've been doing a lot of thinking about how events shape our mental states, and whether it is possible to feel nostalgic about a place and time that has never been programmed into our psyches.

This song has been the flint for my ears to strike upon to spark this strange feeling. I don't know Japanese, and that's okay because I think this song might not be the same for me if I did. All I know is that it is perfect for those sidewalk days – the days that are so heavy you feel like you might sink beneath the pavement; where people don't shine quite as brightly as the trees do, so you take comfort in knowing that there's always a conversation partner underneath your feet, reminding you to slow down the world. But, as the :47 second mark also reminds me, nothing can last indefinitely – at some point or another, that sad string will work its way in to interrupt the sought-after content feeling, but it's what we do with that unexpected interruption that truly matters.

Baibaba Bimba, Tenniscoats

Midden

Listening to a poetry podcast, wherein Fanny Howe talks about her latest novel (and Conor O'Callaghan graces the world with his wonderful Irish brogue), sparked a thought in my head. Nothing groundbreaking, but perhaps interesting nonetheless: when asked when she wrote the opening, autobiographical essay, Howe stated that she wrote it many years before – an understandable response considering the content (her life) as a topic of consisted analysis. The rest of the book was a compilation of fragmented ideas that she had cut and paste into different stories. I paused the podcast (which I have yet to finish) and reflected on my writing: I often feel as if my thoughts are never coherent, never fully realized. I write down half-formulated ideas, something scratching on my brain and nagging me to let it out. So I find a place on my computer or a spare notebook and give it a home, but generally that's the last I see of it. Lately this has been bothering me, how much potential may be wasted because I don't have a larger plan for it, because I'm ignoring it (though "ignore" connotes an active refusal to acknowledge, doesn't it? "disregard," then?). After all, if these ideas bother me enough to write them down, they must mean something, right? This process of writing reminds me of the life of a pack rat, a rodent whose nomenclature tends to mimic my habits in many ways: they store and store and store because there's room for everything and everything can have a place, and leaving something out makes room for regret. It's all a matter of finding the right area of the nest to place it. Some ideas need space and time to permeate, to expand and embody a larger, possibly unexpected theme, whereas other ideas function more semiotically. They may need tweaking and cleaning, sure, but their presence, however large or small, can nestle their way into an even greater nest of writing.