"In a market in Baltimore, Maryland, an elderly man stood in front of me in the cash-out line. We each had a basket of groceries. When it came time for the man to put his onto the conveyor belt, he acted quickly, efficiently, but with a sublimely conscious intent. He arranged his food on the moving belt, the oranges as a Cezanne still life, the cereal box as a Mondrian square against the black rubber, the yogurt containers as round, white, Miro-like punctuation marks on the damp background. In the space of seconds he made an entrancing composition, a pleasant sense of order to reflect the house of his mind. In a few minutes the items were plopped in bags and he was off. I never saw him again, but because of those oranges on the thick black rubber, I tried to stop myself before I tumbled my groceries, bruising the fruit, denting the cereal box, onto the belt in my usual haphazard externalization of my internal associative jumble.
In a manner of speaking, I had watched a poet of the everyday. One could be a poet of the everyday, and not even have to write that poem down, or worry about whether it was good, or try to publish it. I had witnessed a span of seconds of someone else's art of living, in a supermarket in Baltimore"
'The Paper Garden; Mrs Delany begins her life's work at 72,' Molly Peacock
page 164 - 165
A beautiful paragraph and a wonderful thought, which I have been musing upon today.
Oh to be a "poet of the everyday."
I called my parents. As a result a sort of resolution is forming. Little steps.
Emerson had a specialist appointment regarding her heart murmur. She is three weeks old today and it hasn't gone away, as is does in some cases. She has been referred to a cardiologist at another hospital.
Despite other signs being positive, I can't help but feel tense about the whole thing.
Everyone at the hospital referred to her as a 'he', despite her pink onesie. I think of the word 'Emerson' as being feminine, while others must think of it as being masculine?
"Internal associative jumble" indeed.
