- Walk into your friend's warm apartment that smells like hot chicken and tomatoes. Accept dinner. Accept jazz. Accept wine. Accept the view of the night sky. Don't feel like you need to swing in the hammock. Accept the dictionaries with the illustrations of beaked rodents and alcoves.
- Discover the 6-year-old unheard mix from Portland. Listen to it and think about sad, rainy Portland in sad, rainy Indiana. Remember that cycles are liberating and not merely circumscribing.
- Stop the car by the side of the highway when the wiper bolt comes loose and the semi blinds you with rain. Stand to the side of the car and allow the rain to soak you. Rain always stops, eventually.
- Don't bother to flirt or look helpless. Just ask for a wrench and the toolbox and helper will come along.
- Drink Kentucky bourbon in Kentucky. Don't worry about the empty ice trays.
- Think again about becoming a Quaker. Think about sitting in silence for an hour each week. Think about silence.
- Be gracious when given the slice of pot pie that most looks like pie. Be gracious about having friends who will feed you warm, comforting food.
- Act incredulous at the bar brawl that nearly breaks out. Hard rockin blues bands need bar brawls more that bar brawls need hard rockin blues bands. Act incredulous at the song that attempts to use "hammer, nail and screw" in a catastrophe of mixed metaphors. You need to be surprised more often.
- Listen to the sounds of the forest for a few minutes before reading the sign that tells you the experience of forest immersion is simulated. Learn that the forest sounds are all coming from the mouth of a multi-lingual artist.
- Eat oatcakes with fresh blackberries. Be honest, again.
- Put on the Funk Mix and feel the Funk deep where it is meant to be felt.
- It doesn't matter how long since you've picked up a paintbrush. Minute by minute tells you what to do. You need long strokes, long wordless strokes.
Sunday, March 16, 2008
12-step list in the second person even though you are skeptical of the second person
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3 comments:
I am not that skeptical of the second person. But I know you're not talking to me. Darn second person. Does it stand second in line? Does it resent the first person's prestige?
Oh, I've written in the second person before. I think it can be done well. No comment on this post. But I think it's rather like a still life of fruit. So often done poorly that the bar is pretty high for it to be done well.
you could also be Buddhist. or Daoist. or lots of other things. you wouldn't have to be Quaker. but you can if you want, of course. [this comment also in second person. except not really--is it? just like vanessa says, "I know you're not talking to me" which implies the spoken/written first person addressing an audience...]
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