Luminous, Infinite

My dad started building his own plane, a Mustang II, when I was a toddler. The Stang, as my dad referred to it, figures in many of my earliest memories. My dad worked all week and gave flying lessons on the weekend, but he always made a little time for his plane. I liked to watch him work on it -- he had a perfectionistic streak in regards to all things mechanical and his engagement was intense. I have always thought you know people best from observing them when they are doing something that makes them most themselves.

He never finished his plane, despite all those years. It's not surprising that I learned about the joys of the long project from him and that it gives me some patience when I work on something that never seems like it will be finished. The Stang is still in the garage, surrounded by his tools, as if it's waiting for him to start working on it again. After all, he'd take long breaks from it, but he'd always return, eager to begin where he'd left off, sure that he was getting closer to the day it would leave the garage for the big blue sky.

Michelle's Spell of the Day

"A place belongs forever to whoever claims it hardest, remembers it most obsessively, wrenches it from itself, shapes it, renders it, loves it so radically that he remakes it in his own image." Joan Didion.

Fire on the Mountain

one part silver tequila
one part fresh-squeezed lime juice
one floater of mescal

Benedictions and Maledictions

Luminous, Infinite

I got busy shoveling dog shit, my friend
said about missing a party. It’s weird how
you forget stuff, she’d remarked in the same
tone she’d pronounce something luminous
or infinite. Something beautiful against
something ugly, she’d say about an arty
photograph, the story of my love life for
years. Her boyfriend had a cleft-palate and
had been kind and hopeful and rich. Love,
in its wondrousness, did not solve everything.