something shimmers, something is hushed up

T H I S   R O O M
by John Ashbery

The room I entered was a dream of this room.
Surely all those feet on the sofa were mine.
The oval portrait
of a dog was me at an early age.
Something shimmers, something is hushed up.

We had macaroni for lunch every day
except Sunday, when a small quail was induced
to be served to us. Why do I tell you these things?
You are not even here.

John Ashbery, “This Room” from Notes from the Air: Selected Later Poems. Copyright © 2007 by John Ashbery 

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I have a half an hour of quiet left: I squandered my other two and a half hours of quiet by laying on my bed thinking about a bird call I cannot identify—and then in a flurry of guilt—by placing an order online for a bunch of household items in need of replacement. I also worried about my kindergartener who reportedly fell hard on the way to school—both hands deep in his pockets, no doubt fingering some crusty piece of Manhattan schist. Maybe too I wiped the breakfast crumbs from the table, reheated my coffee; I surely browsed amber necklaces on Etsy for twenty minutes. 

In a few minutes I will make my way a few blocks north, toward the park, and into the cloistered stone walls that surround the Catholic school where my daughter goes to preschool. I will stand a little away from it all, the mothers and teachers and nannies, feeling both pride and dread by small degrees. But mostly responsibility: the vague anxiety of being a mother heightened by the vigilance of a small business owner. Always ready for things to go awry.  

But for a moment I have this quiet. And a poem by Ashbery that reminds me of a less earnest Rilke. Something shimmers, something is hushed up.

photo friday: shadow diptychs

All the photos in these diptychs were taken with my iphone while walking in my neighborhood this week. The scenes look more wintry than is fair--it's been a very lovely Spring and flowers are blooming everywhere.

In other humdrum news, I finally finished one of the more complicated dresses I've been sewing for Genevieve. It's very green. Photos of the dress, and other clothes I've made, will hopefully be up soon--with or without children in them.

We've also been informed that due to a high demand for kindergarten spaces, the preK program is being cut next year at the school across the street. So there goes my having to worry about whether to send Ike there. My neighbor has been hosting a small Waldorf co-op preschool in her apartment once a week, where Ike and four other 3-year-olds sing songs, make bread or soup, followed by an hour or more of outdoor play. The moms have been talking about renting a classroom at the Catholic high school (also across the street but in a Northern direction) for next year. Perhaps now we have more reason to make it work.

See, this is all very humdrum. I could write some of my more lengthy reflections on introversion, but really, I don't want to. I just want to get back to my sewing.

And I'm looking forward to Julia's diptychs, and any other shadow photos or diptychs posted. Next week I want to try: shooting up, that is, pointing the camera in an upwards direction (as opposed to other sorts of shooting up). This will not be an easy assignment for me, as I don't really like looking up to take photos.