Sunday, December 16, 2007

raindrops on roses

I’ve been reading Three Beautiful Things for a while now and I’m regularly surprised at how much beauty Clare finds in her everyday life. I think my eyes were calibrated differently, set to a lower frequency, tending to the grey.

I encounter things I find striking, bizarre, shocking, bemusing and sometimes even mildly pleasing - but rarely beautiful. Nevertheless, I pick up these pieces and make them into something new. As my old friend Elliot would say - ‘these fragments I have shored against my ruins’.

Last week I offered up a blast from the past, this week a few fragments from the last week -

Many people say that putting up their Christmas tree is an annual occasion for frowns, frayed nerves, bitten lips and crossed words. But not here, not today. And I wonder why? are we so different? so much fitter happier more productive? or perhaps we just have greater perspective, about ourselves and our tree. Its a little pyramid of lights in the corner of one room. That’s all. Its not a test of perfection, of evenly spaced reflections. Not an indicator of how well our Christmas will go or how much we care about it or each other. Its just a few extra glimmers in another night together.

...

As she opens the door to leave a ghost of the cold morning enters to take her place.

...

Twinkles reflect in the windows, multiplying all by themselves until tree-light stars form new constellations.

...

As he tells me how he took a few days away, changed his number, changed his locks - I think how much harder it is to change your mind, admit you’re wrong and leave the past behind.

...

A knock on wood, a bump in the night - tart ripeness flung from green - a yellow present on the window sill - the ongoing revelations of my lemon tree.

4 comments:

polona said...

i think your titbits are a delightful read, no matter what you write about. and there's beauty in your writing even if the topic is less than beautiful.

jo :: feather and thread said...

i agree very much with polona - and these little pieces of your week are especially sparkly... - now you can have a lemony christmas...x

An Xiao said...

Beautiful - very much zuihitsu (thought scribblings).

Clare said...

Thanks for writing about 3BT. I've always had a pretty loose definition of beauty -- some of the items are definitely barrel scrapers; others were really not beautiful at the time and only became so afterwards; still others appeal to me, but not to anyone else.

I believe firmly that you make your own beauty; and in writing 3BT, I cling to the idea that people want to read what I think beautiful, not what I think they think is beautiful.

I've stuck your blog on my Google reader subscriptions. I'm really glad you commented on 3BT, or I wouldn't have found your pleasing fragments. They remind me of some of the 'lost' Greek and Latin poetry I had to read at uni.