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Text of the page (random words):
nd again if i can find it but i wonder if my returns are less about the great works themselves and more about attempting to reclaim the magic that was in my initial moment of discovery and how my first experience with the work changed me but can these things be separated isn t it all intertwined the work the discovery of the work the way the work changes the viewer doesn t it all combine and add another layer to each person who sees the work part of me wants to tell everyone i know to get to the seventh floor of sfmoma before january 1st when the exhibition that holds the work i discovered friday stayed with for over an hour and then returned to with someone special on saturday for closer to two hours and share this experience with me but i hesitate i know my telling will subtract something from all the work can be and i even worry that the someone special i introduced to the work on saturday was unable to feel what i felt on friday when i walked into a particular room on the seventh floor of the museum without a single preconceived notion and felt myself begin to change there are stars exploding around you and there is nothing nothing you can do lyrics in this work i reference such as the above are drawn from parts of ásdís sif gunnarsdóttir s poem feminine ways posted by denise at 9 40 am 4 comments labels poetry stories thoughts thursday december 7 2017 joan didion on the rock imagining alcatraz 2017 i moved to san francisco seventeen years ago yet i ve never visited alcatraz i haven t had the desire with the exception of contemplating seeing ai weiwei s artwork there missing that exhibition was probably a mistake yes it was a mistake i meant to go but then kept thinking later later then it was gone but the idea of boarding a crowded ferry and being part of a large group of tourists shown around the island by a guide nope not appealing not at all i ve been thinking about joan didion lately she never leaves my mind for very long i decided to dip back into slouching towards bethlehem the first thing i turned to was her 1967 essay rock of ages the place she describes and its three inhabitants is enticing in a strange fairy tale sort of way in her first paragraph she begins to describe her attraction to this former prison it is not an unpleasant place to be out there on alcatraz with only the flowers and the wind and a bell buoy moaning and the tide surging through the golden gate but to like a place like that you have to want a moat and she continues in the next paragraph i sometimes do which is what i am talking about here later in the essay she explains how she tried dutifully to summon up some distaste some night terror of the doors locking and the boat pulling away and then she closes but the fact of it was that i liked it out there a ruin devoid of human vanities clean of human illusions an empty place reclaimed by the weather where a woman plays an organ to stop the wind s whining and an old man plays ball with a dog named duke i could tell you that i came back because i had promises to keep but maybe it was because nobody asked me to stay i finish reading and i m left wishing someone actually did ask her to stay and that i could somehow travel back to 1967 and find a way to become inhabitant number five at least for a little while slouching towards bethlehem by joan didion posted by denise at 3 07 pm 4 comments labels thoughts thursday november 9 2017 good bones light in the dark 2017 reading a poem like maggie smith s good bones presses hard it leaves a bruise but for me what also rises to the surface is a sense of feeling grounded walking on solid earth again such a relief after treading so lightly for so long hiding from what i feared or attempting to ignore it desperately concentrating all energy on the good the kind the beautiful but none of it ever really coming into focus always distorted by that greasy smudge of fear good bones just addresses it all puts the fear and sadness and everything else right out there makes us deal with it but note how smith ends the poem with the word beautiful terrible things are out there some of these things are within our control many are not beautiful things are out there too when i remember to acknowledge these conflicting truths fear loses some its power i can direct my energy and it is possible to clearly see what is good again this place could be beautiful right you could make this place beautiful excerpt from maggie smith s poem good bones posted by denise at 9 38 am 8 comments labels threepoemsthursday poetry thoughts monday september 18 2017 may sarton wisdom stinson summer 2017 i can tell you that solitude is not all exaltation inner peace where the soul breathes and work can be done solitude exposes the nerve raises up ghosts the past never at rest flows through it from may sarton s gestalt at sixty posted by denise at 11 41 am 8 comments wednesday july 12 2017 edward abbey desert solitaire ritual 2017 i ve always had a soft spot for individuals with a wild side on my feet again i explored the abandoned silver mines in the canyon walls found a few sticks of dynamite but no caps or fuses disappointing but there was nothing in that area anyway that required blowing up i climbed through the caves that led down to the foot of mooney falls 200 feet high what did i do there was nothing that had to be done i listened to the voices the many voices vague distant but astonishingly human of havasu creek i heard the doors creak open the doors creak shut of the old forgotten cabins where no one with tangible substance or the property of reflecting light ever entered ever returned i went native and dreamed away days on the shore of the pool under the waterfall wandered naked as adam under the cottonwoods inspecting my cactus gardens the days became wild strange ambiguous a sinister element pervaded the flow of time i lived narcotic hours in which like the taoist chuang tse i worried about butterflies and who was dreaming what there was a serpent a red racer living in the rocks of the spring where i filled my canteens he was always there slipping among the stones or pausing to mesmerize me with his suggestive tongue and cloudy haunted primeval eyes damn his eyes we got to know each other rather too well i think i agonized over the girls i had known and over those i hoped were yet to come i slipped by degrees into lunacy me and the moon and lost to a certain extent the power to distinguish between what was and what was not myself looking at my hand i would see a leaf trembling on a branch a green leaf i thought of debussy of keats and blake and andrew marvell i remembered tom o bedlam and all those lost and never remembered who would return to be lost again i went for walks i went for walks i went for walks and on one of these the last i took in havasu regained everything that seemed to be ebbing away edward abbey desert solitaire posted by denise at 9 28 am 2 comments thursday june 8 2017 it s called taproot space to breathe 2017 did you know there is a magazine out there without ads created for makers doers dreamers with sections titled head hands and heart yes it exists it s called taproot i m honored to have my writing in their latest issue grow in the heart section accompanied by a papercut illustration by the talented jennifer judd mcgee the people who pull this magazine together are the types who don t have a problem dedicating their first two pages as well as their last page to a peaceful floral print and this makes me happy we all need a little space to breathe thanks for doing what you do taproot issue 22 grow you can find more of my work in these earlier issues of taproot issue 6 water issue 3 retreat posted by denise at 8 01 pm 0 comments labels craft culinary domestic poetry stories thoughts friday june 2 2017 things i don t want to forget meadow trail may 2017 the young man with glasses and neat short pants who sat next to me in the cafe window and slowly drank his espresso and small glass of water without a sound his phone resting untouched on the counter before him seeing my mom s handwriting inside a small note card with a gold pineapple embossed on the front the taste of a warm foil wrapped burrito eaten in a meadow after a hike the afternoon there was a fleeting soft space between my apartment and the sandwich shop where bracing wind ceased sun shone and street sounds were muted the translucent green of the cresting wave i knew i couldn t capture with my phone the way i slice an apple the morning we sat at a picnic table and ate an entire loaf of brickmaiden s pain au gros sel salted potato as an impromptu breakfast the day all of the old men i saw in north beach had grandpa john s eyes posted by denise at 12 24 pm 12 comments labels culinary domestic stories thoughts travel thursday april 13 2017 fiddleheads lunch 2017 i ve seen young furled ferns while hiking and i have always admired their beauty but never had any idea if they were edible i did know some people ate a fern called fiddlehead so when i always interested in experimenting with a new fruit or vegetable saw them at the farmers market i snatched them up immediately and took them home once i got home things became a bit more complicated i tried to do some research online but as is often the case there were a variety of opinions and i wasn t sure who to trust for instance it wasn t exactly clear how i should clean the fiddleheads which cleaning specifics i should classify as necessary and which i could write off as too precious each fern was heavily decorated with brown papery threads i didn t know if the threads were only undesirable from a textural perspective or inedible i also learned quickly that the fiddlehead eaten raw or undercooked could make a person sick i saw the word toxins i saw carcinogenic and i saw clear instructions to thoroughly boil them to make them safe to eat the amount of boiling varied i started wondering if i should eat them at all but that went away quickly maybe i ve spent too much time with my daredevil father i moved forward i cleaned them up still unsure if they were quite right and boiled them for 15 minutes unfortunately the boiling meant that they lost their bright color the vibrant green you see in so many photos but i d decided that i wouldn t risk poisoning myself for aesthetic purposes while my penne boiled i made a new mess by trying to clean up my now boiled fiddleheads a bit more then i trimmed the bruised ends i surely could have done that earlier but and cut them into bite size pieces i thought some of the unfurled parts were too long i m one of those people that isn t fond of huge lettuce leaves in my salad or giant pieces of broccoli i cannot fit into my mouth in my stir fry the second cleaning and trimming was followed by a sauté in olive oil with garlic and capers i tossed the fully prepared fiddleheads with al dente penne and squeezed fresh lemon juice on top it really was a delicious lunch but i m not sure fiddleheads are worth the worry and preparation time wouldn t i have been pleased with any vegetable prepared with olive oil capers garlic and lemon i think so i know so still i might try preparing them again as with most things in life listening to advice reading instructions and watching what others do will only get you so far there is no substitute for hands on experience learning and the comfort that follows takes time my bowl is empty at the moment i appear to be alive and not feeling at all woozy cross your fingers for me posted by denise at 4 13 pm 10 comments labels culinary domestic stories thoughts tuesday march 21 2017 she s got a way transition 2017 of course i flip directly to the linda pastan poem and smack dab in the middle i find these lines i ve started to dismantle my life already throwing out letters from people i remember loving 14 15 and they stick like a bur to a sweater excerpt from linda pastan s poem plunder in the paris review no 220 posted by denise at 10 11 am 7 comments labels poetry stories thoughts wednesday february 22 2017 what today felt like wednesday february 22 2017 this afternoon as i was leaving my apartment building i saw a little boy maybe four or five years old with the viewfinder of a beat up digital camera held to his eye he was alone at the base of our front stairs i surprised him when i walked out the door he stepped to the side where i then saw his mother she told me he liked my stairs i told him to go right ahead and enjoy them then i looked back at them myself i d never really paid much attention to them before they are mostly terracotta tiles with what appear to be hand painted tiles showing on a stair face every so often they re a bit beat up but still in fairly good shape for a building standing since the 1920s it had been kind of a melancholy day up to this point but this observant little boy changed my view i know he helped me find this cloud he might have also made the sun feel warmer the air more brisk and even had something to do with my climbing up and down this city s hills at a quicker clip than usual thanks little guy wherever you are i hope when you are a man you are able to look back at those photos of our stairs and remember what today felt like posted by denise at 6 50 pm 21 comments labels domestic stories thoughts tuesday january 31 2017 1 31 2017 january is running out it will never be replaced i am tasting my tea watching steam lift from its surface i can make another cup just like this one but i cannot add another day to this month posted by denise at 9 30 am 12 comments labels culinary domestic poetry stories thoughts friday december 23 2016 addicted to hope fog 2016 i woke up thinking about expectations and disappointments today letdowns have always been and always will be a part of my life why because i m addicted to hope it s nothing new i don t know if i ve read too many books seen too many movies it s everywhere really plays musicals television blogs podcasts a conflict is introduced a resolution closes things out and even though the resolution isn t always positive it can be a letdown there will be another conflict with a better resolution there always is but long before most of these things were part of my life i was hopeful a believer when i was 4 years old and in kindergarten my teacher told our class we were going to china i was absolutely ecstatic i firmly believed her obviously why would she lie to us i rushed home to tell my mother when she thoughtfully tried to manage my expectations i was appalled she wasn t there she didn t know we were going to china when the day arrived and we sat on the floor eating bowls of poorly cooked white rice i was shocked and then deflated i d never really liked that teacher but this seemed a particularly cruel joke oh i forgot to mention that on my first day of kindergarten my introduction to the whole concept of school when most of the children were crying i was excited to visit this new place and meet new people and start learn...
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