thatnicolechick.com
today's lesson
well, as it turns out, something can make me smile today. maybe it’s a sign?
sigh. i’ll live with it, whatever that means.
The original is great, but this version makes me feel something completely different. If I was to take all of my perfect moments, memories, and feelings and roll them into a song, the outcome might be something like this.
What a hauntingly beautiful cover.
Retro posters for the movie ‘Up’. I really like these posters. I’d love more things to be advertised this way. This is the world I want to live in. But then again, I really love retro-futurism. It must have started with the Carousel of Progress at Disney World. No wonder I really love shopping for candy at Cracker Barrel. Ah…simpler times.
life would be so much easier if i knew exactly which bridges to burn, which bridges to cross, and which bridges had a troll living below them.
wake
the box is pale blue
smooth
and inside
a plastic looking man
who i swear i’ve never met
the room is filled with strangers
all who seem to remember
the day i was born
or who tell me
“you’ve got your father’s eyes”
the lights are too bright
and my head is pounding
across the room
my mother is nodding
maybe she understands something i don’t
and that’s all i can see
through the water in my eyes
circa 2003
drawing love
when I was six
I drew love
like it was easy
two stick people
smiling up from their home
on a piece of construction paper
little lines meant
for little arms connected
to show they were holding hands
a crooked red heart
carefully shaded above their heads
because love was always red
when I was four
I drew love
like it really was
just the crooked heart
heavy red marks
bursting out of the lines
12/08/04
the Lepidopterist
he looked around at his collection, priding himself on the pieces collected over the years. one with an understated beauty. another with vibrant colors. a third which was so rare he could hardly believe his luck. all boxes were his own. his life’s work. a deliberate exercise in preservation.
his first had been from new england. he had been fourteen and had absolutely no experience with anything. he was sitting on a rickety porch swing with sweaty palms, waiting on a girl who may or may not have been the girl of his dreams. as he waited he noticed it by the porch light. jerking up and down, no real grace about the movement, but he was fascinated. it was rather plain, a muted grey, and certainly nothing he would have chosen today, now that he was more knowledgeable.
he was short for his age and had a bit of trouble catching it. he had to jump up and down a bit, but after about five minutes he clapped his hands together, trapping the moth inside of them. a wing was injured, but he didn’t care. this was his first, and when something is your first, you don’t really notice things like that.
he put his find in a safe place, on the upper ledge of a window frame, and hoped the summer breeze wouldn’t blow it down. the girl came along shortly after and they were on their way. the next morning he remembered and found the moth. it was still there.
he spent that afternoon carefully pinning the moth into a shadow box he had purchased at a craft store up the road. when the final pin was in place, he admired his work. for not knowing what he was doing, he thought he did pretty well.
now he has countless boxes. each one a protective cocoon for the object inside. each one more carefully preserved and more carefully selected than the last. but that’s to be expected. that’s what you get with experience.
