C.B. Potts's Blog, page 5

Monday Morning

MFK Fisher wrote a bit I liked about the sea change, how a trans Atlantic crossing altered everything about one; you boarded the ship one person and arrived at port another. The change was worked in slow and subtle ways; I think perhaps the magic came in that there wasn't much to do save be and read and see and think. She of course spent days making love and eating well - that is how one used to get a book deal.

Summer holds the promise of the sea. At least this one has. I went in one end...

Friday Afternoon

Later, I have to drive up the mountain to pick up Harmony from her friend's house. Once upon a time, the mountain was home to some of the deepest iron mines in the country. The iron from here wound up in the Brooklyn Bridge, the George Washington Bridge, the Golden Gate Bridge, and more. There was a prison for a while; now there's not. There's a train depot that's been reconfigured into a museum that is, as far as I can tell, never open. Once I bought a crossbow there from a m...

Onward, Upward, Forward

Last night was not good; today will be better. Even if everything breaks into a million pieces, it's not like I don't know where the super glue is. Resiliency is based in the absolute confidence that one might be knocked off balance, even down, but one's never going to stay there, until one is, and today? Is not that day.

Come with me, my ferocious darlings. If there are songs to sing, we'll sing them. Fights to fight? We'll win them. Monsters to explain particle physics to...

The Things That I Would Tell You

Sometimes you have to go outside and stand with your bare feet against the ground. Don't do anything, just stand there. Listen and be still.Taking off your shoes removes the illusion that we are separate from the Earth; that ever over our head is anything but miles and miles and miles and miles of empty. There's such statistical fragility in the things we take for granted. Breathing is a million miracles.

It's hard to see the beauty you look at everyday. It's good to go - you h...

Saturday Afternoon

It has been a busy day. I wrote an essay, worked on a big editing project, and mowed the lawn. I need to take a lot of breaks whilst mowing - all this rain means the grass has gotten high and the mower gets bogged down - and it takes me about twice as long as it takes Tim, but I'm holding the idea 'this is not a competition' in my mind and am going forward from there.

I have decided to recommit myself to getting fitter. It's easy to slip off the bandwagon, but the heart needs t...

Thursday Morning

I know I said I'd be writing more. And yet things keep happening which consume a lot of my mind, but I'm not free to write about - discretion is a new skill for me, but it's very very necessary. Nothing personal, all professional - but work is so very central to who I am, and right now there is a big Gordian knot in front of me and I can not find my sword.

Life would be so much easier if people would only act and think the way I think they should. Of course, if we took that to its...

Tuesday Morning

I believe we have two selves: the person who we are, and the person who, through a series of social and cultural constructs, we have agreed to be. Each role we take on has its own set of expectations and obligations. I imagine people who are inherently good do not find it difficult to meet these expectations and obligations; their authentic self is in alignment with their chosen self. There is no disconnect to be overcome; there are no longings to be ignored, resentment does not snap at your...

Monday Afternoon

It is an upside down day and I am writing this so my day doesn't entirely get away from me. I am not a fuzzy pet-parent type of person; animals are animals, ultimately, and animals are very different than children, but this morning was very distressing with the cat. Everyone's going to be okay but it was scary and Nadia had a four color meltdown as a result; she is usually rock solid calm so this was something. Not something good.

I'm resolved to make 5 LJ posts a week to get thing...

Tuesday Morning

I wrote a poem. Here it is:

Some of the things
she was sure he hated
he really, really loved.

A spring rain falling
feels better than you think
wet weight like a woman
makes you glad to breathe
every gasp a revelation

And the sun beating down
burns just enough
through the flesh, to the bone
baking you into time
to see and be remembered

Cold winds blowing
slide knifelike through you
it hurts, but you're alive
everything has consequences
and your mind leaps like a deer.

He wouldn't give up none of it
thoug...

Wednesday Morning

You can not explain Viet Nam. Not Viet Nam, the country, or the people of Viet Nam, or even the war - all of those things can be explained; albeit not eloquently by me. But there is another Viet Nam, the Viet Nam that came home in changed men and women, carried like a cancer - deep inside and killing, sometimes quick, sometimes slow.

If any one event is a pebble thrown into the puddle of our lives, creating ripples that change the way we see, the way we move, the way, ultimately, that we are,...