Accordions are happy instruments.
Money was so low when I last paid my bills that, when I happened to be in a bookstore buying a One Fish Two Fish as a gift, I went and bought the Elizabeth Bishop book I have qualms about. She didn't aim to publish its contents. But she's dead. And we want to know more about her, or to know her more, every bit as much as we want to see more of her work, right?
I couldn't help myself. I picked it up just to look & knew that I wanted to spend more time with it. There aren't many books I acquire & aim to have in the house any more, but. It's a mainstream sort of book of poetry, as poetry for sale goes these days, but. I'm not sure I like voting with my dollars for this resurrection and the project's/editor's way of possessing her, but.
But I'll probably post a snippet or two here, from some of what kept me from putting the book back, in the end. Though I do wonder whether money having been so low wasn't the biggest reason I walked off with the volume.
I wonder if money will be so low next month that I'll end up with a new tea kettle.
I've kept myself from buying a tea kettle (to replace the sad-shape thrifted Revereware one I've had for years) cuz I love tea kettles so much. If I let myself get started, see, I might look up and find I have 8 tea kettles, each lovely in its own way.
But lately I feel a desire to abandon this fear of abandon. It's a miserly strategy, after all, when it comes right down to it. Miserly with one's self. So what if I were to look up and have 12 lovely tea kettles, and some amount of additional debt? I've got debt from quite a lot that's given me less pleasure than they surely would be providing, were I going nuts for them that way---and we'll all be dead soon enough anyway. Besides, it doesn't necessarily follow that surrendering to such a desire leads to excess, wantonness, dangerous profligate slippery slopes.
What I've got in mind for the off-the-cliff, w-t-f first: a two-tone harmonica whistler, alerting me pleasantly that the water molecules are really movin' now.
