Spring! Hello black capped chickadees! Hello drumming woodpeckers! Hello bikers and runners and walkers with dogs! Hello green shoots and damp earth and soft air! Water gently lapping the shore, echoing voices, ringing bells! Hips (hopefully) healing and backs growing stronger! A wonderful morning for a walk through the neighborhood and to the river.
I wasn’t willing to stop and stare, so I could be mistaken, but it looked like a woman was taking her dog on an easter egg hunt — with the dog searching for the eggs while the woman encouraged them. If that wasn’t what I saw, I will still believe it was. Is that a thing, people arranging egg hunts for their dogs? I hope so!
I’m continuing to work on crown of color sonnets. I’m on the final one, no. 7, blue. I want to link this sonnet back up with the first one, so I’m ending with green. I’m thinking of returning to the green poem I drew from a lot, Oread by H.D.. Something about the sky not being pure blue but a mix of blue and green, or sometimes just green — especially in the spring and summer when green takes over the gorge. I’m leaving these last few sentences in, but as I worked on it more, I decided to go in a different direction. I’m taking lines from a beautiful essay about a blue wall in Leadvilleand writing about my efforts to make blue meaningful even though I can’t always see it.
Walked with Delia through the neighborhood. Since I’m writing this a few days later, I don’t remember much, only the broad swatch of Siberian Squill in a front yard at the northwest corner of 46th avenue and 34th street. Bunches of little flowers peeking out from a big boulder, covering a small swell of grass, hiding behind a fir tree. When I glanced at one flower, it looked light purple, but when I took them all in at once, they were blue. A strange sight to see the color switch from purple to blue, purple to blue, as I shifted my gaze.
Last night and this morning my glutes ached, so no running today. I did some more research and I think the exercises in this video might help. Future Sara will let us know!
a pain in the butt
Walked with Delia and Scott. Warmer today, windy too. My favorite sound: the wind rushing through a big pine tree. I noticed some dry leaves skittering in front of us as we walked east. Heard the St. Thomas bells and their extra long chimes at noon. Saw lots of runners and walkers and bikers. Scott talked about how farmers are getting screwed by the new tariffs, and I talked about Indigo. A few times my back ached — was it a spasm? Not sure.
indigo
For the past few days, I’ve been working on a crown of color sonnets, using the words of other writers (cento). The plan is to write 7 sonnets, with each one setting up the next with its color mentioned in the last line. I started with green, then went to orange, then yellow-red, then purple. I wasn’t sure what would come next — I thought it would probably be blue — but in the last line of the purple sonnet indigo appeared. I haven’t studied indigo that much, so before writing a sonnet about it, I’d like to spend some time with it.
Indigo began working its way into my sonnets a few days ago, when I attempted to list colors I’d seen on my run in using the ROYGBIV system. I couldn’t recall seeing anything indigo. Then yesterday, while looking for a passage by Oliver Sacks on yellow I encountered this description (which I read a few years ago, but had forgotten):
I had long wanted to see “true” indigo, and thought that drugs might be the way to do this. So one sunny Saturday in 1964, I developed a pharmacologic launchpad consisting of a base of amphetamine (for general arousal), LSD (for hallucinogenic intensity), and a touch of cannabis (for a little added delirium). About twenty minutes after taking this, I faced a white wall and exclaimed, “I want to see indigo now—now!” And then, as if thrown by a giant paintbrush, there appeared a huge, trembling, pear-shaped blob of the purest indigo. Luminous, numinous, it filled me with rapture: It was the color of heaven, the color, I thought, which Giotto had spent a lifetime trying to get but never achieved—never achieved, perhaps, because the color of heaven is not to be seen on earth. But it had existed once, I thought—it was the color of the Paleozoic sea, the color the ocean used to be. I leaned toward it in a sort of ecstasy. And then it suddenly disappeared, leaving me with an overwhelming sense of loss and sadness that it had been snatched away. But I consoled myself: Yes, indigo exists, and it can be conjured up in the brain. For months afterward, I searched for indigo. I turned over little stones and rocks near my house, looking for it. I examined specimens of azurite in the natural history museum—but even they were infinitely far from the color I had seen. And then, in 1965, when I had moved to New York, I went to a concert in the Egyptology gallery of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In the first half, a Monteverdi piece was performed, and I was utterly transported. I had taken no drugs, but I felt a glorious river of music, four hundred years long, flowing from Monteverdi’s mind into my own. In this ecstatic mood, I wandered out during the intermission and looked at the ancient Egyptian objects on display—lapis lazuli amulets, jewelry, and so forth—and I was enchanted to see glints of indigo. I thought: Thank God, it really exists! During the second half of the concert, I got a bit bored and restless, but I consoled myself, knowing that I could go out and take a “sip” of indigo afterward. It would be there, waiting for me. But when I went out to look at the gallery after the concert was finished, I could see only blue and purple and mauve and puce—no indigo. That was nearly fifty years ago, and I have never seen indigo again.
His description of standing in front of blank wall reminded me of my mood rings experiment: facing a blank wall, staring at it, waiting for my blind spot to occur. I wonder, could I see indigo doing this (and without the drugs)?
I recall reading something about indigo and debates over whether or not it existed. I’ll have to look for that source.
At the time, because I was working on a yellow poem, I didn’t dwell on the indigo. But later that day, it returned in a Mary Oliver poem — I was looking for another orange poem:
Poppies/ Mary Oliver
The poppies send up their orange flares; swaying in the wind, their congregations are a levitation
of bright dust, of thin and lacy leaves. There isn’t a place in this world that doesn’t
sooner or later drown in the indigos of darkness, but now, for a while, the roughage
shines like a miracle as it floats above everything with its yellow hair. Of course nothing stops the cold,
black, curved blade from hooking forward— of course loss is the great lesson.
But also I say this: that light is an invitation to happiness, and that happiness
when it’s done right, is a kind of holiness, palpable and redemptive, Inside the bright fields,
touched by their rough and spongy gold, I am washed and washed in the river of earthly delight—
and what are you going to do— what can you do about it— deep, blue night?
A thought occurs to me in reading this — actually, a reminder: here in the city, on a street with street lights and security lights and light pollution of other kinds, a deep, blue night is impossible to see. And, ever since the family farm in the UP was sold in 2005, I rarely am in a place remote enough to lack light.
bike: 30 minutes basement
Finally had a chance to finish up the first episode of The Residence and start the second one. Wow, it’s good. One moment that I couldn’t quite figure out, even with the audio description: Cordelia Cup encounters the male chef sitting on the floor, against the wall and under a row of knives. He looks motionless and dead to me, but no one reacts and the audio description says his eyes followed Cordelia as she left the room. I watched again and still couldn’t tell. His eyes looked dead to me, but that happens a lot — that is, when I actually see someone’s eyes.
Took a late morning walk with Delia and Scott on an overcast day. The theme: critters! Birds and dogs and little kids. As Scott said, the stars of the show were the 2 very big eagles perched at the top of a tall tree on edmund. Some walkers across the road pointed them out to us. At first I couldn’t see them. Scott was describing where they were and I tried to spot them, but I couldn’t see anything, only the feeling that there was something there. Somewhere in my head an idea occurred to me as I scanned the branches — there’s a blob there — but it never turned into an actual thing I was seeing. And then, suddenly, it did. A dark form with a white head, perched on a branch. A few minutes later, I saw the other one too. Still, stoic, only shifting its wings once. Wow!
Other critters: the energetic voices of little kids on a preschool playground, a tiny giggle from a girl getting out of a car, the feebee of a black-capped chickadee, a dog I’ve encountered before that likes to plop down in the middle of the road and not move.
It was chilly — I wore my gloves — but it felt like spring. Spring! Scott talked about some problem he was having with his plug-in involving time codes and microsoft not recognizing standard ones and Helsinki and sisu. I talked about my latest experiment: a crown of sonnets compromised of other people’s words about color. They’re connected by the last line of the one poem mentioning the color of the next one. So far I’ve done green and orange and yellow-red. I’m set up to start purple. I’m thinking of doing blue and metallics or silver, and green-brown-gray. Not sure about that last one — maybe just brown, but ending with a green line to bring it full circle?
I finally decided to start watching the Apple+ show, See. A plague has wiped out all but 2 million people. The survivors are blind. At the time of the series, centuries later, vision exists only as a myth. The first episode begins in a remote village. I wanted to watch it because I’m curious how blindness is represented in the show. I should add that I am watching the show with audio descriptions on; I don’t think I’d be able to watch without them. My first question: what do they mean by blind? They never specify. Is it pure darkness, or can they detect some light?
The blind villagers function normally; they navigate with long sticks and dogs and ropes that are strung up all around the village. Also: wind chimes and bells. Many of them have extremely good hearing.
If you’re lying, I will hear. Nothing escapes my ears. I hear doors closing in your voice.
Just as I was stopping my bike, the evil queen appeared. I’m not sure what her deal is yet — I just know that she’s evil and she wants to kill the two babies that have just been born in the village because she hates their father and has a bounty on his head.
Do I like this show? Not sure. I’ll keep watching. One thing that was difficult — the fight scene between the queen’s henchmen, the witch finders, and the village, led by Jason Momoa. It was long and very visual — so much audio description.
While I ran I listened to the mood playlist: energy. Not sure why this is the case, but running actually helps loosen up my back when it feels a little tight. I only ran a mile, but it was enough. Now I’m tired and hungry!
before the run
In his introduction of the poem-of-the-day for the slowdown poetry podcast, Major Jackson says,
Today’s marvelous poem reminds me we exist in liminal zones where the extraordinary renders the ordinary visible and uncanny, an assertion of the imagination that makes our world shimmer.
The ordinary as uncanny, shimmering. I love this description and Heather Christle’s work for this reason. My lack of functioning cone cells makes more of the world uncanny and shimmering. Often, things are not quite and almost. Everything seems to be vibrating and pulsing, soft and slow. And my reliance on peripheral vision means I am much more aware of movement. Before, when my central vision worked, I had an easier time blocking that movement out, but now I see all of it. While this is a problem, it is also offers the possibility of seeing the world differently, of accessing the magic and wonder of it.
How do you say ‘inopportune’ in a small forest of cell phone towers disguised as bizarrely regular trees? I am asking in case it happens, because anything can and even does. Sometimes I want to shrink and move into a miniature model village mostly because the particular green of the imaginary grass corresponds with how my body believes joy would feel if joy were to happen here on Earth, where my eyes receive light in this certain way: limited, but not without pleasure. As a child I visited one model village so extensively constructed I fell into a state of complete wonder— ‘They thought of everything!’ even the person running late for the train, and the window left slightly open to the storm— and I should like to request the arrival of this sensation in response to the world at its actual scale— just imagine! Someone has even gone to the trouble of filling the egg cartons individually with smooth brown eggs and one—such detail!— has broken, but not enough to be noticed before the carton has been paid for and brought home. Sometimes artificially I will induce this feeling in myself by going silent at a large restaurant gathering, pretending —until it is real—that each person is speaking from a highly naturalistic script, having carefully rehearsed each tiny gesture, the mid-sentence reach for the salt, and I fall immediately in love with my companions, in awe of their remarkable talent for portraying with such detailed conviction the humans I know as my friends.
I can’t quite put it into words, but this poem speaks to a conversation Scott and I were having last night. He was pointing out all of these minute details about our environment, like how the pinball machine was set up and leveled, and how that process affects game play and your enjoyment of it. There was something about the attention to the details and learning more about all the (almost) invisible things required to make a thing work properly and then describing that work as “care” work that is echoed in this poem.
Future Sara, will this make sense to you? It connects to being oriented toward care and wonder and finding delight in the small details.
A beautiful morning for a run! Wind in my face as I ran north, at my back heading south. Bright sun, sharp shadows, deep blue almost purple river. Raced a wind whirled leaf and won. Greeted Dave, the Daily Walker. Heard voices down in the gorge. Noticed ice on the edges of white sands beach. Thanked a man for stopping to let me run past and he kindly replied, you’re welcome miss. He was listening to music without headphones and carrying a bag of something — groceries? More than one of the benches was occupied. Encountered runners and walkers, a biker and a roller skier. In the last mile, I zoomed past someone running down the hill and under the lake street bridge.
I did my beats experiment again today.
mile 1: triples — open door / open door/ go inside / go inside / go outside / go outside / hello friend / hello friend / old oak tree / strawberry / opening / up the hill / on my toes / forest floor
mile 2: started with the metronome set to 180 bpm, but that was too fast. Locked in with 175. By the end of the mile I barely felt my feet strike the ground, only heard the beat — I had made it inside of the beat!
mile 3-4: doin’ time playlist. The first song was “Time Stand Still“/ Rush. The first line: “I turn my back to the wind” I heard this as I was running with the wind at my back.
Freeze this moment A little bit longer Make each sensation A little bit stronger
I thought about freezing the moment and the difference between stopping time and suspending (or being suspend in) it.
a few hours later: I’m reading the book, American Spy, and I just came across this bit about looking people in the eyes:
At Quantico they’d taught us the so-called classic signals that some one was lying: if they glanced up to the right before they speak, or if they won’t look you in the eye.
My immediate reaction: that’s how I look at a person’s face. I try to find the approximate location of their eyes by looking off to the side, near their shoulder — this is me looking at them through my good, peripheral vision. Then I stare into the spot, which is usually fuzzy nothingness to me. Does that mean I’m always lying? Of course not.
I was pleased that this discussion continued:
None of what I’d learned worked as well as listening to my instincts. I’ve always been good at ferreting out decption. I’m not entirely sure what my ability to detect a liar is based on–subtle cues maybe, suconscious awarenss, an intuitive talent for reading microexpressions. I don’t know and I’ve found that the more I try to understand it the less effective I am.
Right. As Georgina Kleege suggests in Sight Unseen, looking someone in the eye doesn’t have this magic power that many (most?) people seem to think it does.
Good job Sara! You wanted to run outside even though you should give it at least another day for your back to recover, and you didn’t. You biked instead. And you biked for 5 more minutes today, which was the plan. I felt stronger than yesterday. Could this be the spring/summer I bike more?
Watched more of Fame. Somehow I missed the screen that read, Junior Year. Did they have one? They didn’t have a great speech by the acting teacher, describing the focus of the year. Bummer.
I watched the rest of sophomore and all of junior year. Doris and Ralph get together, Irene Cara sings “Out Here On My Own,” Leroy hooks up with the waspy ballerina. The Rocky Horror Picture Show — a cool documenting of the history of it. As I listened to “Time Warp” I thought about creating a Time playlist — “Too Much Time On Hands,” “Time Warp,” “Summertime,” Hazy Shade of Winter,” “Seasons of Love,” “Time After Time.” I think this interest in time is always there, simmering beneath the surface, but today it’s here for two other reasons: 1. talking to my older sister recently and hearing about her latest work on time travel and 2. the lines/ideas I gathered about time in past entries and just reread — 6 march 2024, 8 march 2024.
Time. Moments. Minutes. Pace. Linear, circular, looping. Dragging. Flying. Seasons. Beats — foot strikes, heart rate. Inside Outside On the Edge of. Too much. Too little.
If nothing else, it’s time to gather together my discussions of time and post them on unDISCIPLINED.
more OR
Yesterday afternoon Scott and I went to Arbeiter Tap Room to write and drink beer. I picked out some favorites from my “or” list:
At Any Given Moment You Might Feel This or This or This, but Rarely at the Same Time
Ardor arbor or forest fortitude or sorrow’s origins or porphyrion interiors or befores or no mores or mortal organs or distorted mirrors’ evaporating forms or spores adored or dictators abhorred or terror ignored or
walk: 40 minutes neighborhood 45 degrees
A blue sky, empty, at the start. A blue sky, mixed with fluffy and streaky clouds, halfway through. Bright, warmer, breezy. The snow on the streets is almost all melted. Only a few streaks. The field at Cooper has a flat layer of snow but no mini-mountains this year. This is the field where the plows dump the snow. Usually by March it has transformed into the badlands, with lumps and hills and jagged craters of dirty snow. Not much snow to plow or dump in the winter of 2024-25.
added, 9 march 2025: This morning, as I read past 9 march entries, I remembered a few more things from the walk:
the wind passing through the brittle leaves on a tree, sounding like water falling — not like rain, but like a cataract
the wind passing through a giant cottonwood causes it to sing like a door creaking open — creeeaaak
a white plastic bag stuck high in the tree — the quick flash of white reminded me of the moon
peripheral vision
I’m reading Peter Swanson’s book The Kind Worth Killing and this reference to peripheral vision came up:
A few years earlier I’d gone out fishing with a colleague, a fellow dot-com speculator who was the best open water fisherman I’d ever known. He could stare out at the surface of the ocean and know exactly where the fish were. He told me that his trick was to unfocus his eyes, to take in everything in his visual range all at once, and by doing that he could catch flickers of movement, disturbances in the water. . . . I decided to use this same trick on my own house. I let everything sort of blur in front of my eyes, waiting for any motion to draw attention to itself, and after I’d been staring at the house for less than a minute I caught some movement through the high window. . . .
My eyes are always mostly out of focus and I often see flashes of movement. In fact, it can be very distracting and irritating how my eyes, without wanting to, are drawn to the movement. One particularly form of movement I can’t not see: someone’s twitching legs, especially out of the corner of my eye at a band concert.
Where people shoveled yesterday, the path is mostly bare with a few streaks of slippery ice, but where they didn’t it is not. Slabs of thick, untouched snow. The slick spots were the most unwelcome, especially with my tight lower back. Aside from the ice, it was wonderful to be outside. Bright blue sky, chirping birds, warm sun. So warm that I took off my hat.
At one point Scott mentioned how the strip of grass between the sidewalk and road is not called a boulevard everywhere. It’s a regional thing. He couldn’t remember what else it was called and where he heard about it, but I did — at least where he heard about it; I couldn’t remember what else it was called. He heard about it from me, during one of our runs together. I couldn’t remember much else, so I had to look it up. Yep — here it is:
I described a New Yorker article I was reading before we left about forensic linguistics. My description included misplaced apostrophes, devil strips, and Sha Na Na.
A linguist solved a crime in which someone left ransom notes that read, “Put it [the money] in the green trash kan on the devil strip at the corner 18th and Carlson.” Here’s the important part in the article:
And he knew from his research that the patch of grass between the sidewalk and the street—sometimes known as the “tree belt,” “tree lawn,” or “sidewalk buffer”—is called the “devil’s strip” only in Akron, Ohio.
Wow, I’ve amassed a lot of information on this blog. Some of it I always remember, and some of it comes back when my memory is triggered, like today.
bike: 30 minutes basement
I wanted to move my legs and get my heart rate up today so I biked. Watched part of Fame — the end of freshman year and the beginning of sophmore year. Two scenes I especially recall: 1. when Mrs. Sherwood shames Leroy for not being able to read in class — terrible and 2. when the acting teacher instructs the students to pay attention to the details — chewing, talking — of their life:
I want you to observe yourself doing ordinary everyday things. You’ll be asked to duplicate those here in class. An actor must develop an acute sense memory so concentrate on how you deal with things in your world. How you wash your face or hold your fork or lift your cup or comb your hair. Observe and study your own mechanicalness. See if you can catch yourself in the very act of doing something or saying something. See if your actions and reactions fall into patterns and what those patterns are. And in particular, pay close attention to the physical world. Isolate and concentrate on the details.
from Fame –first year (1980)
I’ve been doing this with my vision for several years now, partly because I’m curious and partly because I think it’s necessary for me to function. To isolate and understand and work around the strange and unexpected ways my eyes work (or don’t work).
I could also imagine using this exercise while running or walking as a way to achieve “extreme presence” (from CAConrad). Focusing on breathing or the lifting of the foot or the swinging of the arms, etc.
It felt good to bike. My back didn’t hurt at all. Only my left knee, a little, which is normal. Maybe I’ll do a week of biking. Could I work my way up to an hour on the bike?
conjunction junction, what’s your function?
In late fall or early winter, I wrote a haunts poem about all that the gorge could hold. I named it And. This morning, I found another poem with that title:
Read the poem “And” and listen to it several times. Jot down some notes.
Pick a conjunction other than and — or, but, for, nor, yet, so. Make a list of words that contain your chosen conjunction.
Turn your list of words into a poem. “Keep the sound of the word in the air as long as possible through rhyme and repetition.”
I think I’ll choose “or.” When I was writing my and poem in November, I told Scott about it on one of our runs. He mentioned how “and” and “or” work in his coding of web databases:
A mile later, Scott described how you code and in css (where and means both this and that must exist to make a statement true) and how you code or(where or means either this or that can exist to make a statement true). I was fascinated by how and was restrictive and narrowing in the code while orwas expansive. In my poem, I’m understanding and as generous and open and allowing for more possibilities not less. I told Scott that I might need to write an or poem now. And is accumulation, more layers while or is a stripping down.
And = all these things can be true, and moreOr = at any give time, any one of these things could be true
51 degrees! Sun! Less layers — instead of 2 pairs of tights only 1 with shorts, no jacket or gloves or hat covering my ears. Before I started, as I walked towards the river, the birds were noisy. I imagined them calling out, spring spring spring. Since it was so nice, I decided to run on the winchell trail on the way back. The first part of the trail was all mud. Remembering how I fell last week, I carefully walked today. The rest of the path was dry.
I chanted in triple berries — strawberry/blueberry/raspberry
10 Things
the soft knocking of at least 1 woodpecker
2 people on the edge of the trail, looking out at the river
2 big black forms coming out of the Winchell Trail — turkeys? No, 2 humans
a brief glimpse of my shadow off to the side, looking strong, straight
a view of the river — pale blue with silver, snowy edges
thick, wet mud — brown, uneven
a small black something on the side of the path — a hat? a bag? a bag.
voices above me — one high, one low
2 people standing by the fence near the 38th street steps looking out at the river
This morning, I made an appointment to be evaluated for a vision study at the U of M. They’re developing virtual reading glasses that can move words out of a person’s blind spot. Will I qualify? Is my central vision too bad, my blind spot too big? Or, is it not big enough? Whatever happens, part of the evaluation is a vision assessment, which I’m hoping will give me more information about the status of my central vision. Talking with the scheduler, I recall her saying, there are no cures for many of the central vision diseases so we’re focusing on developing helpful tools instead. I like that approach.
My motivations for signing up for this study are (in order of importance):
free eye exam — free, as opposed to $500-$`1000 exam connecting with people working on vision loss curiosity about new technologies
It’s great that these selfish motivations could also lead to the development of a tool for enabling people to read with their eyes (as opposed to with their ears).
I’d like for reading to be easier, but I’m adjusting to and enjoying audio books, so I’m not devastated by this aspect of my vision loss.
I just came across this old Twilight Zone episode — I had saved it in my reading list. It seems fitting to add it to this conversation about reading and vision, as an example of how fully sighted people imagine vision loss as a nightmare.
One more day to rest my back. It only feels a little sore, so I think it’s okay, but I’m trying to be cautious. This is the longest break (5 days) I’ve taken in a year? I’m not sure. Another morning walk with Scott and Delia. Sunny and spring-like. All the snow has melted, almost all of the puddles have evaporated.
Picked up a new pair of Brooks’ Ghosts in the early afternoon. I’ll save them for after late April/early May, once sloppy season is done . Black with white and gray. On my walk I wore my bright yellow Saucony’s — the ones that hurt my feet last year. I’m going to give them another chance. Maybe they’ll work this time?! Forgive me, future Sara.
the purple hour
No purple hour last night. I slept straight through, only waking up briefly at 5:30 when Delia jumped on the bed. This sleeping straight through only happens a couple times a month.
In non-purple hour purple thoughts, yesterday afternoon I finished listening to/reading along with JJJJJerome Ellis’ Aster of Ceremonies. So good! The connection to purple is: purple asters, a big chunk of the book is printed in purple ink, I envision the Stutter/pause as purple. Here are some passages I want to remember:
Dr. Bejoian, a speech therapist I worked with from 2012-2013, taught me a technique called soft contact. “If you’re struggling to say a word that starts with p, b, or m, try starting the word as softly as possible.,” she said. Sometimes this made the syllable hard to hear. “Pause” could sound like “awes”; “brain” like “rain”; “master” like “Aster.” I want to follow this softness offered by the Stutter. Thank you, Dr. Bejoian.
For most of my life, my relationship to my stutter was rooted in shame, anger, and despair. I responded to these emotions by trying, and failing, to master my stutter through various means: undergoing hypnosis; making a fist while I stuttered, opening the first to release the work; talking in singsong; expanding my diaphragm while speaking; saying my name is “John”(my middle name) or “Shawn.” Failure has led me to a grove of unknowing. If I can’t master the Stutter, what can I do? What might it mean to try to Aster my stutter?
Aster of Ceremonies (123) / JJJJJerome Ellis
Follow the softness. I love this idea and generosity (to Self and Stutter) it offers. My vision gives softness too, not in sound, but in image. Things that are never in sharp focus are never harsh or exact, but fuzzy and gentle.
Teach me to Aster You. Teach me to treat You as an Elder that has so much to teach me. I will surrender and attend to Your ensemble of blossoms. Your Dandelion Clock* will be my timekeeper. I will seek not to overcome You but to come with You; not to pray to be rid of You, but to pray for your continued presence in my life. To stay with the mystery You steward.
What might it mean to Aster You? To pray that You Aster me? Instead of “I speak with a stutter,” what if I “advertised” to someone by saying: “I speak with an Aster. My speech is home to a hundred blooms. These silences you may hear hold more than I could ever know. Thank you for your patience as I pause to admire their beauty.”
Aster of Ceremonies (124) / JJJJJerome Ellis
I was incredibly lucky to find, a few years into my diagnosis, Georgina Kleege’s book, Sight Unseen. Her generous approach to her own central vision loss — including not understanding it to be a death sentence and giving attention to how her seeing works and to challenging assumptions about the infallibility of vision — helped me to be curious about how seeing works and to develop my own relationship with both being without seeing and seeing in new ways. Even as I struggle with not being able to see that well, I also welcome the new knowledge my strange seeing/ not-seeing is giving me. I imagine Ellis’s “astering the Stutter” to share some similarities.
Ellis connects their Stutter to the Aster and to the many plants (he names them Elders) that their ancestors relied on. They feel a strong connection to these Elders. Such a powerful idea to bring all of this things — ancestors, plants, a glottal Stutter — together. Wow! Inspired by this approach, I’m thinking about how I experience my central vision loss in relation/beside the gorge and the eroding rocks and relentless, remembering river. What ceremonies could I create to honor the different layers of rock? The seeps and springs and floodplains? How does the wearing away of stone, the persistence of water, and my eroding cone cells open a door to a new space in which to dwell to explore to learn from? ooo — I like this idea. I want to give a little more time to thinking through how Ellis makes their connections, and how I can make mine.