A marvelous thing to be human
This week's prompt brought to you by Ilya Kaminsky
Hey guys! Here’s your reminder, for when things are slow and dull and mundane, to recall, remember and cherish all the love and light around you. If it doesn’t feel like it right now, believe me: I love you and joy is coming.
If you make it to the end of this newsletter, tell me in the comments about one thing that’s making you happy and smile right now.
T.J Agbo, Freedom, 2020
Interviewer: What are you now?
Baldwin: I’m trying to become a human being.
Interviewer: And when does one know when one’s reached that stage?
Baldwin: I don’t think you ever do. You work at it, you know. You take it as it comes. You try not to tell too many lies. You try to love other people and hope that you’ll be loved.— James Baldwin, from an interview featured in Conversations with James Baldwin
Carla Jay Harris, Snake Bearer IV (2018–19)
The Patience of Ordinary Things by Pat Schneider
It is a kind of love, is it not?
How the cup holds the tea,
How the chair stands sturdy and foursquare,
How the floor receives the bottoms of shoes
Or toes. How soles of feet know
Where they’re supposed to be.
I’ve been thinking about the patience
Of ordinary things, how clothes
Wait respectfully in closets
And soap dries quietly in the dish,
And towels drink the wet
From the skin of the back.
And the lovely repetition of stairs.
And what is more generous than a window?
Photo from 1968 by Argentinian photographer Pedro Luis Raota
I love short stories because I believe they are the way we live. They are what our friends tell us, in their pain and joy, their passion and rage, their yearning and their cry against injustice. We can sit all night with our friend while he talks about the end of his marriage, and what we finally get is a collection of stories about passion, tenderness, misunderstanding, sorrow, money; those hours and days and moments when he was absolutely married, whether he and his wife were screaming at each other, or sulking about the house, or making love. While his marriage was dying, he was also working, spending evenings with friends, rearing children; but those are other stories. Which is why, days after hearing a painful story by a friend, we see him and say: How are you? We know that by now he may have another story to tell, or he may be in the middle of one, and we hope it is joyful.
Andre Dubus, “Marketing”, Broken Vessels: Essays
GaHee Park, Valentine's Dinner, 2018
Keith Haring Journals, July 8, 1986
Also see: