Mix n' Mum
It's Friday, January 5. Doesn't it seem like this week should also be a holiday? Here's the Potpourri.
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Mix n' Mum
At the grocery store's floral section I saw the pink mums and the white mums next to each other and appreciated the combination. "Which one do I choose?" I thought to myself, before stumbling upon the obvious.
I've only ever bought one type of flower for my kitchen table; that was my routine and I stuck to it. To vary the routine hadn't occurred to me, even though the doubtless humanity-old art of flower arrangement and the even older cosmic art of biodiversity had been marketing themselves beautifully all my life.
I did not invent color but I am responsible for bringing it into my life, and thus I am happy.
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Sailing the CSS
I was fine at HTML back in the baud old days (that's a modem pun). But CSS confused me and I never pushed through to learn it. Buttondown's customization options seem to run on CSS, so it may now be time for me to learn.
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Poetry Challenged
I completed the December challenge to write a poem each day. In the process I met a lot of other talented writers, offered my flowers to their verses, and got lots of beautiful responses to my own work. It was truly creatively stimulating and I already miss it. I think writing in a vacuum is something I did for a long time, but it's become unsatisfying; writing in a setting with some implied community is much easier, much more purpose-driven. That's also why this newsletter is so important to me, as it connects me to people in my life, and even creates a space for new connections such as the one that led me to this poetry group.
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Stimulus Package
I read a little blurb about a musician visiting a historical instrument at a university and being "creatively stimulated" by hearing and playing it. I think I have the same response to good writing, although I'm hazy as ever as to what I want to do with that stimulus. I wrote thirty-one poems last month and I'm proud of nearly all of them, but that next step of "show this to more people" just isn't materializing in my brain, and this seems to happen any time I finish a major writing project. Not sure what's up with that. At the same time, why does anything have to be up with that? If I'm motivated by creativity in community, it makes sense that "the market" is not my community. But as with everything I doubt it's that simple, and greater readership also affords more opportunities for connections, and thus more opportunities, so I shrug and say it's complicated.
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Gratitude
We had a health scare in the family. The relevant party is home now and recovering, but I was preoccupied with that for most of the week. I'm very grateful for the health of everyone I love, and I'm working on my own health as a form of reciprocity. Of course, working on my own health pays off most directly for me, myself, and I (my three dependents).
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KHAAAAAAN!
You may have noticed that I'm no longer using my sugary sobriquet, Dara K. Marzipan. That's because I've decided to go back to the stylish switchblade of my given name. In honor of the change, I offer this, after Coleridge:
For Marzipan did Dara Khan
A stately Potpourri decree
Where rich-lived life and language ran
In fragments smooth and cool as flan [sic]
Down to the RSS feed.
—Dara Khan