Lines of Flight
To connect: A 30-something, a dusty loft, Villeneuve.
She had needed me those days I was gone. "J'étais dans la maaarde"--this is my greeting as I walk in that door for the first time after two and a half weeks. And so I'm immediately given two tasks: clean up the grapes and cheese and crackers and orange juice and the soiled plates left out over night after a board meeting; clear out the refrigerator, but don't throw out the mushrooms. I go back to the kitchen and snack on a few crackers. Minor terrorism. And I don't throw out the mushrooms, but I survey the situation--the corn, its summer husk molding to the side (how has this escaped us?), the various styrofoam boxes containing blacks and greens and frothy fungus, foaming at the mouth. Oh yes, she had needed me those days I was gone.
And so I return to the job. Dressed to the nines, at least, but collecting someone's half-chewed cracker (soft on the incised edge) and listening to her explain to the new intern that the organization is pretty relaxed.
To resist: A 30-something, a dusty loft, Villeneuve.
Villeneuve is not really an impressive street. Between St-Urbain and St-Denis streets one finds a splattering of supermarkets and upscale salons. But it is a quiet street, where winter becomes a time zone, where seasons recall the past. Boeuf Rouge market, the red brick with a bull head gracing the line between the front door and the balcony of the second-story apartment--this year's candidate for the Threshold of Joy. ToJ, of the Madison variety, was a statued fountain, seemingly abandoned, disused, at the top of a hill behind the zoo. No matter what state I found myself in, nor what chill or sweat, arriving on the path that moves past the statue, I traversed some emotional threshold, and felt instantaneous joy and peace. This year, strangely, it's the image of an old-school grocery store with a vintage sign.
Lines of flight. Relating and derelating all of this. Rearrange, I suppose. Not just the juice boxes in the fridge. Shuffle the joy into the menial, spread it out. Bring it all together. Resist, subvert, redefine, and thrive.
She had needed me those days I was gone. "J'étais dans la maaarde"--this is my greeting as I walk in that door for the first time after two and a half weeks. And so I'm immediately given two tasks: clean up the grapes and cheese and crackers and orange juice and the soiled plates left out over night after a board meeting; clear out the refrigerator, but don't throw out the mushrooms. I go back to the kitchen and snack on a few crackers. Minor terrorism. And I don't throw out the mushrooms, but I survey the situation--the corn, its summer husk molding to the side (how has this escaped us?), the various styrofoam boxes containing blacks and greens and frothy fungus, foaming at the mouth. Oh yes, she had needed me those days I was gone.
And so I return to the job. Dressed to the nines, at least, but collecting someone's half-chewed cracker (soft on the incised edge) and listening to her explain to the new intern that the organization is pretty relaxed.
To resist: A 30-something, a dusty loft, Villeneuve.
Villeneuve is not really an impressive street. Between St-Urbain and St-Denis streets one finds a splattering of supermarkets and upscale salons. But it is a quiet street, where winter becomes a time zone, where seasons recall the past. Boeuf Rouge market, the red brick with a bull head gracing the line between the front door and the balcony of the second-story apartment--this year's candidate for the Threshold of Joy. ToJ, of the Madison variety, was a statued fountain, seemingly abandoned, disused, at the top of a hill behind the zoo. No matter what state I found myself in, nor what chill or sweat, arriving on the path that moves past the statue, I traversed some emotional threshold, and felt instantaneous joy and peace. This year, strangely, it's the image of an old-school grocery store with a vintage sign.
Lines of flight. Relating and derelating all of this. Rearrange, I suppose. Not just the juice boxes in the fridge. Shuffle the joy into the menial, spread it out. Bring it all together. Resist, subvert, redefine, and thrive.
posted by jordan at 10:02 AM
3 Comments:
Dazzling writing doused with French educate. Jordan you wake me think I need to know more French.
Lovely blog . . . no saccharine heard . . . the trash in my kitchen is denied such a singing of praises. Keep up the exhibitionism!
jordan
i liked your blog, too. but i left my thesaurus at home and will have to simply call it: "good".
Post a Comment
<< Home