Loose Leaf Notes

1. I don’t do emojis because they’re too small for me to see, because I can’t find them on my phone and if I do find them I don’t know how I did and don’t know how to make them go away.

2. I’ve been looking at plant images for hours like a cop looking at mug shots, trying to solve a case. In this “case,” it’s a relentless invasive weed that I still haven’t identified. See below.

3. Stalking the wild pink trillium HERE.

4. LOOK what you made me do.  Who does this remind you of?

5. “The Irrepressible Charms of Mandy Patinkin’s Quarantine Videos – This is so much better than reality TV, real people for real….   We’ve written before in this space about the singular presence that Mandy Patinkin is as a performer, but over the last few months his followers on Twitter and YouTube have been treated to a different side of the veteran actor — one that finds him in quarantine with his family. Beginning in mid-April, Patinkin’s son Gideon began uploading short glimpses of his parents to Patinkin’s Twitter feed. Now numbering in the dozens, these short clips have been nothing short of a revelation. At turns joyful, hilarious, fraught and indignant, the videos see the couple adapting to their unexpected and extended break from regular life…” Thanks to TT’s Leanna for turning me on to this.

6. When Joe came home from a weekend helping our son at the soft opening of the Old Marshall Jail Hotel he gave me a hug and the best compliment saying, “You’re my type.”

7. Someone posted some flowers on Facebook with a caption that read, “I hope I don’t offend anyone with these pictures of my bloomers on line.”

8. Speaking of flowers, you have to see THIS. 

9. When poetry becomes dictation / it’s like having an imaginary friend / that no one (but you) believes in / and no one wants to meet / When poetry becomes a distraction / it’s like holding your ear to the moon / and listening for the ocean / where everyone knows / the sky should be

10. “Spring is here, the park is gloriously in bloom, and I sit on a sunny bench watching the young on the running path, working hard out of their fear of mortality, and I feel the great privilege of being in my late seventies, all my ambition gone, enjoying life itself, not aiming for distinguishment. All those decades I tried to be intelligent, to be in the know and to maintain a cool sense if irony, an elegant detachment from the mundane, and now that rock-climb is over: it takes no effort whatsoever to be an old man. You sit in the park and savor your happiness and let the young do the suffering…” Garrison Keillor

11. “Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing. We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don’t really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It’s just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.” – Pema Chödrön

12. We’re all in our places with bright shining faces.

13. Funny how his name is Chauvin and chauvinistic means: the belief in the superiority or dominance of one’s own group or people, who are seen as strong, virtuous and supreme, while others are considered weak, unworthy or inferior.

__________Thirteen Thursday