Good Grief
Prompts for the First Half of April
Charlie has made a new home and stands beside one of the windows in his flat, and he looks out onto the neighboring building’s roof. If the window opened, he’d jump out from the ledge, land there, and make his way up to the peak. That, or remain inside his flat, reach his hands out and touch the shingles as if touching the pages of a book he admires.
Charlie reaches into a stack of books and pulls out a copy of Uncle Vanya. He reads aloud, “I used to think every fool was out of his senses, but now I see a lack of sense is a man’s normal state, and you are perfectly normal.”
Charlie says, “Enough sadness, Anton! Is that what you wanted? It worked!”
Send a postcard, Charlie says, and follows with more declarations! Life is fleeting, life is fleeting, says imaginary Chekov.
Make words your own, make your own things very well, and make each the exception.
A little spring rain does not make anyone any less horny. I have never met a soul who doesn’t like, doesn’t desire to fuck.
People are getting it on everywhere, and that makes the world a better place. We fuck, we shower, we cook and eat, we plant vegetables, we do not support wars, we live here, and we live there. A friend of mine moved to Germany this week. I said, Teach me how to say something. That something turned out to be schatzy gehe ich ins markt. Honey, I’m going to the market.
Yesterday, I was at a supermarket. While there, I chatted with a man visiting from Osaka. He had a terrific haircut. His name was Yuta. He was looking for a snack. We talked about ice cream sandwiches because we happened to meet on that aisle. He admitted to having a hard time deciding but was in no hurry.
It was only this morning that I reflected I hadn’t even stopped to think whether I wanted any snacks or not, or to look around and examine things. Had I done so, things would have been different. I would’ve gotten Chili Cheese Fritos. I would have considered plums. I would’ve sniffed Elmer’s Glue. I would have leaned in and read labels. Yet, somewhat certain it was time to leave, I purchased what I’d gathered and left. The bright sun sent glints off the windshields of vehicles in the parking lot.
I was missing all my friends and being in a car with them, and driving as fast as we could with the windows down. On my face were my glasses, and on top of my head was one of my father’s worn-in baseball caps.
Good grief. The world can be wonderful and horrible when you think about the state of things. I wanted my clackety keyboard to sort/of/say that, but something much more and with better words, something casual though, like I like it with some beauty in there. Life was calling for metaphors and writing, and honestly, I was failing because I couldn’t come up with any. Despite all the political shitstorms being purposely blown across our daily world, I was too alive to let that stop me from wanting to breathe. Around me, there weren’t any heavy fumes in the air to keep that from happening. If there were, from a semi of grocery stock pulling in, I would have held my free hand up to my face and sniffed deeply, registering the scent, my scent, one of the many, and discovered another unknown.
Words from recent conversations & life + one word from Sigrid Nunez writing about Susan Sontag’s The Volcano Lover.
This month, I’m posting fewer prompts in the posts, as I’d rather provide something useful. It seems most helpful.
You can go anywhere with a prompt.
a poem
fiction
memoir
essay
airplane window
bat mitzvah
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Theodor Borowski thumbnail and post
Who is the man in the photo?