jolie laide: Create

jolie laide

I started this when I lived in Brooklyn and struggled for grace in a city that grants moments of beauty and ugliness breathtakingly close to one another. Now I live in a place where things are a different kind of ugly and the beauty is pedestrian. I struggle with that.

4.05.2006

Create





I am leaving for work in the morning, standing on the high stoop for a moment, relishing the solidity of the house at my back. It has just rained and the air is so fresh, perfectly chilled, and the sunlight is brilliant, bouncing from windows to puddles. The garbage is tucked to the curb, as is my beat-up car. The guys across the way are chatting and sweeping the sidewalk, bobbing their heads to those headed to the subway.

I had awoken in the middle of the night with a sensation of drowning, lungs full of the seawater of loss. But now I step off for a day with my head up. Not with the confidence of being beloved, as I would like, but with the assurance that today I will build and create, and for that I am so grateful.

2 Comments:

Blogger Dr. S said...

I know this exact set of feelings so well, and you get it so right. Excellent pairing of word and image, too. Know that your writing and pictures are beloved, anyway!

2:59 PM  
Blogger ttractor said...

Thanks Dr S! I hope your paper goes well, you travel delightfully, and see wonderful things.

and thank you for the belovingness!

3:42 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home