Projects
Okay, as promised, another post today. I have to get as many in as I can before the computer is yanked away again! So I'm stashing some in 'draft' too, so I can post while I have a short break between house-sitting again.
I'm nursing a cold, and today just decided to curl up on the sofa and finally take on a copy of 52 Projects. Now I undertand why Amy posted about this book and this site, and why she has started a mail order idea. I think what I enjoy the most about this book is the author's (a man!) ease with language and the laying down of his soul. It gives me hope that someday I'll find a soulmate like that--someone who isn't afraid to speak his dreams or his fears. A relative rarity in Southern California, I'm afraid to say. But I digress.
Post Script: Kath at Red Current also just coincidentally posted about 52 Projects.
I like #29.
"Get a regular-sized envelope. Address it to someone special. Then, stuff it with as many things as you can: a letter, photographs, torn out magazine articles or newspaper clippings, photocopies of poems, a short story or passages from a novel, recipes, artwork, poems or stories you've written...Anything that can be folded up and put in the envelope. Make sure to stuff it so full that you need to use tape to keep it sealed. This envelope should have serious heft. Once it's sealed, get the proper postage put on it (definitely use stamps) and mail it off".
I have actually done this many times. It's fun to send a 'just because' with items to tell a person you're thinking of them. And it's fun to assemble as well.
Or #36.
"Stay up all night.
Think about it--all the shit that can go down in one night. The party of the century. The best talk ever. Sexual reckonings. A painting. A short story. A short film. Old friends, good scotch, and the conversations you never get tired of having. New friends, cheap drinks, and discussions about favorite movies. A long drive through the middle of nowhere, stopping to get a large coffee every time you see a gas station. Pounding grooves that keep your body swaying, going way past the point werher your legs feel tired. Talking and talking and just talking with the girl/guy who's going to change your life, for one night, for years, forever. The fight that finally ends it. You lay your cards on the table, over and over again. All this and more can happen in one night.
Just don't fall asleep".
You know, that's really true. We don't have to try so hard to create or plan or evoke the memorable moments of our lives...THESE are the moments. It's all about being there. Noticing. Taking it all in. It's the little day-to-day moments that somehow etch permanent places in our hearts. A laugh with a friend now moved away. The alley of an apartment we loved. A view that is changed. A place we sought out to read or write or contemplate our life. A person we loved once. A person now gone. Little sacred moments clicking away. We all tend to forget that things change, events change, places change. Elements we thought were forever in our childhood are now no more. It's not bleary, it's just a reminder to be grateful for what we have right now. It's a reminder to be present in right now versus forever planning for a someday.
Make your moments mean something, but better yet, take in the world around you and just smile.
I'm nursing a cold, and today just decided to curl up on the sofa and finally take on a copy of 52 Projects. Now I undertand why Amy posted about this book and this site, and why she has started a mail order idea. I think what I enjoy the most about this book is the author's (a man!) ease with language and the laying down of his soul. It gives me hope that someday I'll find a soulmate like that--someone who isn't afraid to speak his dreams or his fears. A relative rarity in Southern California, I'm afraid to say. But I digress.
Post Script: Kath at Red Current also just coincidentally posted about 52 Projects.
I like #29.
"Get a regular-sized envelope. Address it to someone special. Then, stuff it with as many things as you can: a letter, photographs, torn out magazine articles or newspaper clippings, photocopies of poems, a short story or passages from a novel, recipes, artwork, poems or stories you've written...Anything that can be folded up and put in the envelope. Make sure to stuff it so full that you need to use tape to keep it sealed. This envelope should have serious heft. Once it's sealed, get the proper postage put on it (definitely use stamps) and mail it off".
I have actually done this many times. It's fun to send a 'just because' with items to tell a person you're thinking of them. And it's fun to assemble as well.
Or #36.
"Stay up all night.
Think about it--all the shit that can go down in one night. The party of the century. The best talk ever. Sexual reckonings. A painting. A short story. A short film. Old friends, good scotch, and the conversations you never get tired of having. New friends, cheap drinks, and discussions about favorite movies. A long drive through the middle of nowhere, stopping to get a large coffee every time you see a gas station. Pounding grooves that keep your body swaying, going way past the point werher your legs feel tired. Talking and talking and just talking with the girl/guy who's going to change your life, for one night, for years, forever. The fight that finally ends it. You lay your cards on the table, over and over again. All this and more can happen in one night.
Just don't fall asleep".
You know, that's really true. We don't have to try so hard to create or plan or evoke the memorable moments of our lives...THESE are the moments. It's all about being there. Noticing. Taking it all in. It's the little day-to-day moments that somehow etch permanent places in our hearts. A laugh with a friend now moved away. The alley of an apartment we loved. A view that is changed. A place we sought out to read or write or contemplate our life. A person we loved once. A person now gone. Little sacred moments clicking away. We all tend to forget that things change, events change, places change. Elements we thought were forever in our childhood are now no more. It's not bleary, it's just a reminder to be grateful for what we have right now. It's a reminder to be present in right now versus forever planning for a someday.
Make your moments mean something, but better yet, take in the world around you and just smile.
1 Comments:
This sounds like a fascinating book - a new project for each week of the year? And by the sound of what you have written, the projects are not long-term things that turn into UFOs!
As for the special moment in our lives that are easily forgotten, it is amazing just how much one can remember if the memory is jogged. I am in the process of writing my life story - I have done 5 pages on the first ten years of my life, and I was astonished to find the more I wrote down, the more I remembered about those years, and I couldn't type fast enough to keep up! I think I might start a new blog for this project. The people who have read it so far have loved it, as it brought back memories for them too.
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