first edit: 8/12/2013
by Banuk
It’s a grey Sunday afternoon. If one were to listen to the poetry behind it, it’s elegiac. The feel of an unfulfilled longing – for a life ought to be? Or of a life gone by? Who knows, what she knows is this: it’s a grey Sunday afternoon.
She sits at her kitchen table, blankly staring at the fresh roses. She mastered the habit of buying herself a bouquet when her account balance is on the red. This happens about twice a month. It gives her a sense of balance – buying roses. A way to balance out poverty with beauty.
If there’s anything she’s ever so remorseful of about certain undeniable facts on her life, it’s that: being trap in poverty while being cursed by the viciousness of beauty. And it is ever more pervasive today, at this exact moment, happening on a grey Sunday afternoon, right at her kitchen table.
She would never know it, but what she really feels is similar to the pain and joy of giving birth; much like the sweet torture of an artist’s soul, or the vague understanding in a child’s heart whose dog just died - the understanding that it had to die. She would never know it, but the tremble she feels is what a painter feels when something has to be said; the rhythm she hears is exactly what the poet hears when something has to be sung – and so a poem is born and a painting is made; a life is gone and a life has begun.
The poverty of her inexperienced life fails her to understand, but the silence in her kitchen – today, on this grey Sunday afternoon - allows her to see glimpses of something sublime: something beautiful, good and true. All at the same time.
Behind the silence is a kind of connection - between the poor and the beautiful inside her. But she will never know this. She will probably never know too that what she’s really doing is running away from the outcries of her famished soul. This she does, while keeping a distance from the excess of her lovely heart. She’s almost tempted to ask why she does this – run away. She’s almost quite sure of the answer, but she sees the dishes and she figured she should do it. Yes, clean that ephemeral mess. And so she does.
After doing the dishes, she’s almost tempted to sit at the kitchen table and stare blankly at the red roses again - and longer this time. But from the corner of her eye she catches a glimpse of the laundry pile. Something tells her, she should get that done now. And leave the roses-staring while pondering about the existential mess of her ordinary life. So she did the laundry instead.
Had she sat at the kitchen table and stared at that red roses longer she would have inevitably ended up thinking about life's big questions, particularly the meaning of her own existence. She finds this question very scary. Lumps on the throat, sweaty back of the neck, butterflies in the stomach, sudden onset of diarrhea - this is what happens when she has to deal with this big scary life question. So she thinks she's smart enough to choose to do laundry instead.
By not sitting still, she fails to lear that not knowing is more frightening than knowing fear itself. But perhaps she will never know this, because, like most people these days, she didn’t listen to the beauty of this poor grey Sunday afternoon.
by Banuk
It’s a grey Sunday afternoon. If one were to listen to the poetry behind it, it’s elegiac. The feel of an unfulfilled longing – for a life ought to be? Or of a life gone by? Who knows, what she knows is this: it’s a grey Sunday afternoon.
She sits at her kitchen table, blankly staring at the fresh roses. She mastered the habit of buying herself a bouquet when her account balance is on the red. This happens about twice a month. It gives her a sense of balance – buying roses. A way to balance out poverty with beauty.
If there’s anything she’s ever so remorseful of about certain undeniable facts on her life, it’s that: being trap in poverty while being cursed by the viciousness of beauty. And it is ever more pervasive today, at this exact moment, happening on a grey Sunday afternoon, right at her kitchen table.
She would never know it, but what she really feels is similar to the pain and joy of giving birth; much like the sweet torture of an artist’s soul, or the vague understanding in a child’s heart whose dog just died - the understanding that it had to die. She would never know it, but the tremble she feels is what a painter feels when something has to be said; the rhythm she hears is exactly what the poet hears when something has to be sung – and so a poem is born and a painting is made; a life is gone and a life has begun.
The poverty of her inexperienced life fails her to understand, but the silence in her kitchen – today, on this grey Sunday afternoon - allows her to see glimpses of something sublime: something beautiful, good and true. All at the same time.
Behind the silence is a kind of connection - between the poor and the beautiful inside her. But she will never know this. She will probably never know too that what she’s really doing is running away from the outcries of her famished soul. This she does, while keeping a distance from the excess of her lovely heart. She’s almost tempted to ask why she does this – run away. She’s almost quite sure of the answer, but she sees the dishes and she figured she should do it. Yes, clean that ephemeral mess. And so she does.
After doing the dishes, she’s almost tempted to sit at the kitchen table and stare blankly at the red roses again - and longer this time. But from the corner of her eye she catches a glimpse of the laundry pile. Something tells her, she should get that done now. And leave the roses-staring while pondering about the existential mess of her ordinary life. So she did the laundry instead.
Had she sat at the kitchen table and stared at that red roses longer she would have inevitably ended up thinking about life's big questions, particularly the meaning of her own existence. She finds this question very scary. Lumps on the throat, sweaty back of the neck, butterflies in the stomach, sudden onset of diarrhea - this is what happens when she has to deal with this big scary life question. So she thinks she's smart enough to choose to do laundry instead.
By not sitting still, she fails to lear that not knowing is more frightening than knowing fear itself. But perhaps she will never know this, because, like most people these days, she didn’t listen to the beauty of this poor grey Sunday afternoon.