OUT-OF-RANGE APPLES

 26 of #100daychallenge

I am nine minutes early today. That's because there is so much chaos or progress in my wake. Things like kitchen cleanliness are not 100%, the dining room table is a mess, as is the library and my bedroom.

I wonder why process and progress are not more evaluated and valued. It's true my bedroom doesn't look a whole lot different than it did this morning. However, I did move a large bookshelf out and my nice, newly revived and waxed chest in, and there are now blankets and linens in it. I pulled up the last of the carpeting in my room AND found my sterling silver nasturtium leaf earring that had been missing. (Those earrings date back to 1985. I bought them on the day I was liberated from working for the UAM Development Department and on to Colossal Pictures.) I have an under-the-bed bin for all of my shoes that I can never find. These are successes. My room is still a mess, but it is an order of magnitude closer to being organized. I also got all of the freshly ironed clothes hanging in the hallway into the closet. Is this not a victory?

Les chassures, enfin réunies.

I wish I could stay up for about three days with no interruptions and no downside to get a lot done. I don't fancy any more drugs that would facilitate that as that usually ends in a big crash.Powering through a lot of things would be helpful. As it is, slow progress will have to do.

As Debee and I hit day 25 of our #100day challenge, we decided to add another part. She will write in her journal daily. I will read for 30 minutes uninterrupted, dedicated. My reading is often happenstance rather than a period of set-aside concentration. I picked up Kathy Valentine's (of the Go-Gos) memoir, All I Ever Wanted, and found it to be both well-written and compelling. Her candor is something to aspire to. And I made real progress in actual attention rather than stolen moments.

CARRYING A LADDER

We are always

really carrying

a ladder, but it’s

invisible. We

only know

something’s

the matter:

some precious

crashes; easy doors

prove impassable.

Or, in the body,

there’s too much

swing or off-

center gravity.

And in the min,

a drunken capacity

access to out-of-range

apples. As though

one had a way to climb

out of the damage

and apology.

— Kay Ryan, The Best of It: New and Selected Poems, Grove Press, New York 2010