Shel Graves' Sensorium

Taste: avocado, blueberry, cocoa Sight: neon pink, green, purple, orange and black butterfly pajamas; bumblebees on stalks of pale green flowers with purple centers; father's face folded into tears Sound:  " Keep hopeful. It’s a chore. " — Margaret Atwood; mother's anguish Touch: yoga in the park Smell: Vampire Blood incense; a waft of patchouli in a parking lot Extra: seeing something for the first time and discovering the unknown; discovery; "I stride along with calm, with eyes, with shoes, / with fury, with forgetfulness." — Pablo Neruda Grateful for: the globe; walking "Walking is an indicator species for various kinds of freedoms and pleasures: free time, free and alluring space, and unhindered bodies." — Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust: A History of Walking

Taste: fennel, avocado; sweet Russian Trumpeter Imperial Stout, Skagit River Brewery Sight: a thin white woman in a long flowing white dress skipping beneath a supermoon; a big black man carrying a glistening boa constrictor around his neck on an 86 degree day fingering the tail in one hand; Passion flower-passiflora Sound: skateboard wheels on the sidewalk Touch: heat-salt encrusted sweat; 88 degrees Smell: on a hot day: licorice, sugar cone and incense Extra: dread; uselessness of anger; an unreliable narrator; Hemmingway-esque six words: Dad walked naked into a pond.; red-haired muscular pale-skinned 20-something year old virgin; long-maned creme and beige spotted horses lying in a field of pink and white wildflowers Grateful for: dreams

Taste: lemon cayenne; raspberry caramel Sight: two awesome 80 year olds Sound: cacophony; "Fuck you!" Touch: runny nose, itching eyes; walking-peripatetic Smell: smoke Extra: her otherworldly, compassionate, soulful gaze  “A truly good book is something as natural, and as unexpectedly and unaccountably fair and perfect, as a wild-flower discovered on the prairies of the West or in the jungles of the East. Genius is a light which makes the darkness visible, like the lightning’s flash, which perchance shatters the temple of knowledge itself--and not a taper lighted at the hearthstone of the race, which pales before the light of common day.” ― Henry David Thoreau, Walking Grateful for: a quiet demeanor;  "Dreamer of World Peace," statue of Peace Leader Sri Chinmoy at Lake Union, installed November 7, 2010 

Taste: espresso cupcake, black forest cake Sight: blue hydrangeas, pink roses; sweetpeas; the summer evening light falls through the leaves   Sound: theremin; squealing dryer Touch: peripatetic Smell: unscented flowers, light rose   Extra: Lady Astronaut of Mars ; ad astra per apera; the psychological horror of holidays; dread Grateful for: walking; ideas

Taste: Campfire Stout, High Water Brewing, marshmallow and chocolate, "S'mores" Sight: green strawberry, daisy, a rat, a bumblebee; blue hydrangeas pink peonies Sound: 'This chair belongs to me."; feet walking - step, step, step; sad, jazz singer Lana Del Rey Ultraviolence Touch: feet on pavement, feet on grass; posture upright, open Smell: toast Extra: suicidal family; porn, cigarettes and pulled pork; "I wish that I could put up yesterday's evening sky for all posterity, could preserve a night of love, the sound of a mountain stream, a realization as it sets my mind afire, a dance, a day of harmony, ten thousand glorious days of clouds that will instead vanish and never be seen again, line them up in jars where they might be admired in the interim and tasted again as needed." — The Faraway Nearby , Rebecca Solnit   Grateful for: books

I have a lot of reading to do. I may need to take a book-cation (go somewhere beautiful to read) just to catch up. At the beginning of Rebecca Solnit's talk, "Other Ways of Telling: Stories that Make and Break Our Lives," this month at Seattle Arts & Lectures , I purchased: The Faraway Nearby , Men Explain Things to Me , and Wanderlust: A History of Walking . Hat tip to The Elliott Bay Book Company . Wanderlust had been on my to-read list for a long time (walking and reading being two of my favorite things), and then I just had to pick up the other two. Before the lecture I had only read, A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster . I felt a great affinity for that book, but I hadn't thought I needed to read so many of Rebecca Solnit's books. Her ouevre covers a wide range of topics. Either you are interested in one or the other or not, so I had thought. Before she began speaking, I even mused that I might regret my p...

Taste: bitter hops; bitter coffee Sight: still life skulls and flowers - vanitas paintings Sound: the silence of an empty office; sighing Touch: drooping eyelids, heavy chest, slowness of movement - exhaustion Smell: Vampire Blood Extra: rage, exhaustion, stress, prolonged suffering; When will these stories ever get written? Grateful for: solar sails for space - the Sunjammer Project