February 3, 2017

Shabbat shalom, y'all. I bring to you an offering of two poems and a story. The first, "Good Bones" by Maggie Smith:

Good Bones
by Maggie Smith

Life is short, though I keep this from my children.

Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine

in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,

a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways

I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least

fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative

estimate, though I keep this from my children.

For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.

For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,

sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world

is at least half terrible, and for every kind

stranger, there is one who would break you,

though I keep this from my children. I am trying

to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,

walking you through a real shithole, chirps on

about good bones: This place could be beautiful,

right? You could make this place beautiful.

I love that poem. This second poem is by me, and you gotta use your mouse to move around a bit to make it work. I trust you can figure it out.

Both of these poems are almost dirges, but I hope you find them inspiring. Yes, the world is at least fifty percent terrible, but yes, we can start to make it beautiful.

I want to thank this blog and community - literally every single person who has posted something over the five years of its existence for inspiring me. My first post was a collection of silly images I had collected over months of depressed browsing on imgur, and just last week I launched a new online magazine called Wide Open Games which is 100% full of personal writing that I honestly don't think I would be able to do without the example, encouragement, and inspiration of this blog.

So thank you.

Seeing everyone's creativity really is a gift. Julia Cameron says in "The Artist's Way" (an incredible book that I cannot recommend highly enough and the copy of which I own was given to Tricia by Aya, FYI) that "Creativity is God's gift to us. Using our creativity is our gift to God." I believe that. And I believe using our creativity is one way to make the world "beautiful, right?" I'm trying to put all I've seen modeled here into practice with my new pieces, and while it's incredibly scary to launch a business and put my art into the world while knowing absolutely nothing about doing so, it also feels really good.

Also, I think you'll really like Wide Open Games. It's full of interactive art, emotions, personal essays, Judaism, and poems. What's not to love? asks your grandma, pinching my metaphorical magazine's cheeks. I'd be thrilled and honored for you to check it out.

That's it from me. Can't think of anything else too exciting going on or coming up in my life right now. Should be pretty smooth sailing these next few months. Nothing big happening. No milestones or lifecycle events or...

OH SHIT!

Tricia and I are getting married in LESS THAN TWO MONTHS! WHAT THE FUCK WHEN DID THAT HAPPEN? AHH! Phew. Damn. I'm excited :-) And if you wanna read an actual thoughtful reflection on us taking the leap, you'll just have sign up for my damn zine, ok?

Thanks, and shabbat shalom.