Q and A
… responsibility for everything
Saturday June 21, 2014
Q. Writing down my thoughts?
A. Easy.
Q. Capturing prosey-deas, finger-painting my mind’s sky?
A. Child’s play.
Q. Describing feeling?
A. … another matter entirely.
Institutions – church, state, community, workplace, family, friendships – consistently fail to inflate our flattened balloons, fail to lift us from despair, fail to make us feel fully filled no matter how much filler (food, drink, exercise, hobby, retail-therapy, psycho-babble, DIY) we consume.
Q. Why?
A. It isn’t in their job description, not their responsibility. We are all self-accountable for that.
Awakened by magpies outside my window – I can describe that.
When you – wildly dressed or wearing peculiar expression ~ I capture mood, describe mood, think in ink about your mood.
Words, however, pale to capture feelings.
They come to life when I am alone (state of being of which I’ve become quite fond), not selfishly guarded. Peacefully sipping …
The way I feel, this way I describe how I feel is not only valuable to me, in feeling it – but valuable to two others.
First, those precious few who have similar feelings (maybe we could start a club … ).
Second, those who don’t feel that way but wish they did, including those who feel some other way but share this struggle to paint pain on some canvas, or spray joy on paper for all to see …
Word language does not include that smile on our face – our satisfied grin of understanding. Not versions we give to another, but how we glow in an empty room when that empty room is our most delicious companion.
Writing about summer on its first day?
I chose something else entirely.
Mark Kolke
197,024
column written/ published from Calgary
morning walk: 10C/50F, steady wind spraying misty-rain turning to driven drizzle washed our faces, Gusta eating fresh grass (probably to kill the taste of something she ate in the tall grass) and I was pondering those dog poems from Billy Collins – edges of the sky seem to be curling up clear so this afternoon’s golf might be dry …
Reader feedback / comments always welcome:
At the risk of being labeled as a nerd in a lab coat, I must take exception to your description of the tilting earth. It's ALWAYS spinning around on a pole that is tilted at an angle of about 23.5 degrees, rather than being absolutely perpendicular to the orbital path. In January, the tilt makes the northern hemisphere appear to lean back and expose more of the south pole to the sun, resulting in summer for that hemisphere. Today is the maximum apparent "leaning forward" on the opposite side of the sun when more of the north pole is exposed to the sun (all day and all night), resulting in summer for us (or a reasonable facsimile if you live in Calgary). There is a cool (if you're a nerd) interactive illustration of this that you can find at http://astro.unl.edu/naap/motion1/animations/seasons_ecliptic.swf . As for the changes in the direction (not the angle) of tilt, that's a whole other story called "precession" where in 13,000 years or so, Polaris will no longer be the north star, because the north pole has wobbled around in a circle (still at an angle of 23.5 degrees with respect to the orbit) so that Vega will be closest to being the north star. So the tilt doesn't change, the earth wobbles around so that the north pole traces a circle with respect to the rest of the universe. You can see a diagram of this at http://astro.wsu.edu/worthey/astro/html/lec-precession.html . So there. Inner nerd satisfied. Happy summer!, CM, Calgary, AB
