Forecast: Plenty of Piaf

Life is too short to be wasting it on music I don't like. If a piece of music doesn't open up a room I'm in, I don't want to listen to it. Music creates new rooms for me, sometimes entire mansions. There are almost always walls, but sometimes no roof or a floor.

Last night while waiting for friends to arrive for a meeting at the house I put on an album by Edith Piaf, (recorded in Mono!), and everything became a set for a French movie. The room was black and white and looked like it needed the despeckling filter in Photoshop. That's what I love about music. I can't even remember the title of the album I was listening to (it was a gift from my brother), but the music transformed a moment in my life and transported me to another place for a little while.

If the music inspires and creates a safe space for me to dream, or a space that's filled with color and movement, I'll listen. I won't remember the label or who produced it, but I will remember the room it put me in, the color of the walls, and if the room had a floor.

Trivia: Edith Piaf's matron of honour at her wedding in 1952 was Marlene Dietrich.

Oddity: Piaf singing La Vie en Rose turns my living room into pointillism.

Excitement: Rain all weekend. More Piaf in store for me.

Fragments of Spring

Stapled to the telephone pole
where her classmate died
two wilted bouquets of roses
form a Y.

.

A woman waves with a cigarette in her hand,
her long hair gathered at the bottom
with a rubber band, loose pink pajama pants
flop in the breeze. Her son's hand grips
the green seat of the school bus.

.

Today I clean the baseboards,
tomorrow I paint the hall floor,
Friday I take over the world.

Arrhythmia

The nurse asks: “What do the extra beats feel like?” and I say I don’t know. What I want to say is it feels like I am hugging a bag of feathers. That I am reading another one of those really long poems by a poet who uses tildes in between stanza breaks and is so very in love with the way his words look on paper. It feels like the sound the piano makes when you step on the damper pedal hard and then release. That’s probably too much information for his form, so I say “It feels like I shouldn’t take my heart for granted. I’m nervous. I hate it here.” It feels like I’m falling through the stars. Hole, hold, black hole murmur.

Clothesline

Tuesday March 2nd clomps across the busy street in heavy boots. It is double-freaking-parked, it is pocked with potholes, it is a clothesline full of old towels.

There's nothing particularly wrong with today, other than I can't seem to find my focus. I've had a series of pretty good days in a row where I've been writing and creating, and thinking good thoughts. Today, nothing but old towels and everything has a grey noise.

On the upswing, my stitches came out while I was in the car today! Healing complete.