Life, The Universe, and Everything – Page 3

At the time of typing, the outside temperature is 30 degrees with a “feel” of a whopping 18 whole degrees. (Fahrenheit. -1/-17 for those of you in Celsius). It’s supposed to be in the teens and single digits next week.

Why do I live in a place where the air hurts my face?

Oh, right. Seasons. Cold is the price I pay for proper seasons and autumn.

Feh.

At least the sun is sort of shining? Kinda?

Joking aside, winter is a hard time of year for me. The short days and limited sunlight set off my seasonal affective disorder, the bone-deep cold makes my chronic pain worse, and the ice and snow make mobility issues extra challenging, all of which makes me less inclined to get outside and try to do anything. Just getting out of bed in the morning is a Herculean task.

The political landscape lately is not helping. It’s a terrifying time to be a marginalized demographic.

……

Ya know what? I’m not gonna think about that right now. I don’t need the panic attack.

This year, one of the things want to do is really lean into the idea of “Be The Weird You Wish To See In The World”. Things are tough, and they’re gonna get worse for a lot of folks, and dammit, we really need some whimsy up in this place. Along that line, I’ve decided that I want to start making music again.

Specifically, I want to learn to play the kalimba. It’s a portable instrument that was created in Africa about 3,000 years ago, and sounds like a lower toned music box, and I adore them. (Fun fact: I accidentally made one when I was younger by dismantling a broken music box, scavenging the tine bar, and attaching it to a bit of wood. I used to sit under a feral old crab apple tree and play with it.) I want to learn it and I want to take it and play it outside and add just a little more music to the world. If I somehow end up spawning a few urban folktales in the process, even better.

(Side note: if you want to help with that, I’ve got a ko-fi goal for one.)

As a bonus, it’s one more thing I can make videos with.

Send warm thoughts. I really want to get back out with the camera, but these damned freezing temperatures are killing me.

I originally wrote this in an old life, some years ago. It’s the most true thing I’ve ever written about myself, my guiding star, and a good starting point for this new life.

* * * * * *

I collect odd things.

No. That’s not right. I collect ephemeral, liminal things and interesting curiosities.

A dried (probably cursed) pomegranate in a small birdcage. Several souls, carefully bottled and labeled after washing, stored in a velvet-lined box. Flowers painted in moonlight. Somewhere around there’s a star, wrapped in a scrap of silk. Threads of rose and nettle. Ghosts, moth dreams, roadside gods…you get the idea.

I also collect unusual humans…a mixed media painter who makes amazing abstract art in soap; a soapmaker and herbalist who also creates beautiful jewelry and wall art out of wire and found objects; a professional muse…

Sometimes, I even collect places. An empty rest area in Maine at 2:15 in the morning in late October. A chimney with no house deep in the woods in mid-March. A parking lot antique shop of abandoned amusement park paraphernalia run by retired carnies, only open when the stars are right.

I don’t know what to do with this, to be honest. I suspect that, in a different world, I’d have a table or shop tucked away in a corner of a bazaar or open-air market where I’d trade a story or curiosity for a coin or two, or have a little travelling wagon that would appear or disappear with the seasons for the same.

My little curiosities and ephemerals have a harder time in a world that has certain…

expectations

of how Things Are Supposed To Work and it doesn’t like strange little collectors and purveyors of art and other oddities like me. We are messy and don’t fit into neat little boxes. Still, I collect my curiosities, my cursed fruit and weird little monsters, and someday, hopefully, I’ll figure out how to share them the way that they need to be.

Category: Life, The Universe, and Everything

Winter Is A Terrible Time For Whimsy

Dishwasher Souls, Goblin Markets, and Other Curiosities