2014 Ode to the Worst of the Sensorium

A writer's journal is not the same as a gratitude journal. What's stands out, is striking, begs to be remembered, catches one's fancy is often positive, but not always. Certainly, though, when I look back on the year and select the "best of" there's a tendency to pick the nicer moments, images, sounds and smells.

So this year, I've decided to do a "worst of" post - maybe it will become a tradition. Coincidentally, it was a rather rough year so there were many standout "worst" moments to choose from.

However, the "worst of" post is not inspired by hard times, rather by a really lovely poem. When I heard Molly Tenebaum read "Ode to the Ugly Colors," at the AWP Conference is Seattle, I noted how she made something wonderful out of keen observation of less appealing features (her entire collection The Cupboard Artist makes the every day delightful).

At first, I thought of adding a "worst of" section to each Sensorium post, but I didn't want to draw my attention too much to the dreary as I walked in the world (it could turn this into the opposite of a gratitude journal), so I decided on just one wrap up post.

We have to face what is ugly to make it into something beautiful. As writers, everything deserves our attention. Embrace darkness as well as light. We go ad astra per aspera, through hardships to the stars. As Margaret Atwood said at the end of one interview, asked if she had anything else to add, "Keep hopeful. It’s a chore."

Taste: vinegar
Sight: father's face folded into tears; tubes of blood; gray upturned waxen faces
Sound: "Fuck you!" "good cancer"; mother's anguish; "No, Rainbow, No!"; "Lithium can be a miracle drug."; snapping pumpkin seeds; cracking knuckles
Touch: sobbing, heaving shoulders; painful sitting; drooping eyelids, heavy chest, slowness of movement - exhaustion; acorn burrs; a scraped knee; a trembling dog
Smell: Purell; fried dead animals; a room filled with sweet stagnant breath; urine-soaked clothes
Extra: a restaurant named for body parts; Father's Day in the psychiatric ward; the horror of holidays

"I will not measure you out anymore distress than you need to write your books. Do you want any less than that?" — "The Young Man With a Carnation," Isak Dinesen 

"I stride along with calm, with eyes, with shoes, / with fury, with forgetfulness." — Pablo Neruda 

"Everything is plundered, betrayed, sold,
Death's great black wing scrapes the air,
Misery gnaws to the bone.
Why then do we not despair?
By day, from the surrounding woods,
cherries blow summer into town;
at night the deep transparent skies glitter with new galaxies."
— Anna Akhmatova