Image to Imagination: Pen Pal Letter #4

To Whom It May Concern:

A picture is worth a thousand words, and I usually record a few hundred of them.

I am never more inspired to write than when I’m looking at things. And by that, I mean really seeing things for what they are. Seeing the longing on the faces of those strangers whose paths I cross on the sidewalk. Seeing the rain speckling my window and the way the blinds divide up that view. Seeing the stardust cascading to the ground as a meteor shoots overhead.

Okay, not all of those sights are true.

I would not claim to be a visual person. Sounds are far more likely to catch my attention than sights, but they don’t inspire me to write the way that images do. So much so that two pen pal letters in a row are all about pictures.

I was scrolling through Pexels once again this morning, and poetic snippets kept coming to me one after another. These snippets have yet to be fleshed out into full poems and there is no guarantee that the final poems that build themselves around those words, phrases, and lines will have anything to do with the pictures that originally inspired them, but they have their roots in those images nonetheless.

I went to an art museum yesterday. I didn’t go there for the art, I went for an event that they were having, but I stayed to look at some of the art anyway. Just three rooms total. I definitely would have liked to see more, but I was so tired or under-caffeinated or both and I really could not see myself being able to give the art the attention that it deserved.

So I left. Got some food. Came home. Spent a tired evening on the couch. And I finally went to bed.

Today, I woke up and found myself inspired by images, but none of that inspiration can fully make up for what I missed out on yesterday. What I miss out on every day when I am too tired or inattentive to really see the world around me.

What I write will never be complete, but then again, neither will any photograph. I can’t see the eyes light up and soften. A video isn’t really complete either. I can’t touch or taste or smell. Nor is an in-person view. I can never know the whole story.

But that doesn’t mean that these things are not worth capturing and worth saving.

I am but a saver of sights. And words are my medium.

Wishing you all the best.

Sincerely,

-Joy

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photo by me

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Wishing

coffee on table.

empty mug that rests on a coaster.

beside it sits calendar,

the top of a stack that also contains journal and notebook.

rubber band next to that,

its first purpose no longer necessary,

now awaiting a new one.

there is also speaker

and laptop

and hand writing this message

in pencil on creamy white paper

in yet another notebook.

Anyway, I hope you’re doing well.

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Photo by Angela Roma from Pexels

Observations

This morning, I heated a mug full of water in the microwave, steeped a green tea bag in it for a few minutes, then added some lemon juice and a little bit of maple syrup. When I looked out the sliding glass doors at my balcony, I could see an orange mum and a tiny pumpkin that will be gifts for someone else. I also could see a yellow mum with burlap wrapped around its pot that will remain on the balcony for the foreseeable future. There’s a pink box that was once filled with cupcakes that were gifted to me but is now empty because all of its contents had been eaten. It balanced on top of a peanut butter jar on the dining room table.

These are imperfect sights, ones that I’m not sure I want to remember, but I am writing them anyway because something about them seems profound.

In many ways, I am my surroundings. I mean this both in the sense that the clutter level around me is usually an indicator of my mental state, and in the sense that I am an amalgamation of everything that I have ever seen or heard or touched or smelled or tasted.

I worry that I’m only truly present when I’m writing. That I just let life pass me by unless I go into the moments with the intention of recording them. I don’t know if that’s a problem or not.

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Photo by Karolina Grabowska from Pexels

Schrodinger’s Pepper

When I moved into my first apartment, there was a dried pepper in one of the drawers in the kitchen. I thought it was bizarre. It wasn’t like it was tucked way back in the drawer. It was up near the front, fully visible. So strange. I remember deciding to get rid of it before filling that drawer with silverware.

When I moved out of my first apartment, there was a dried pepper in that same drawer in the kitchen. I had never removed it. I don’t know what I was thinking leaving it in there for those two years, if I left it in for a profound reason or maybe as a prank on my later self. Perhaps I was just lazy or I simply forgot. My memory of tossing it was probably just wrong.

I did throw it out then before saying goodbye to that space. I didn’t want them to see it during our security deposit check (though obviously they had missed it before we moved in).

But now I have a new theory about the appearance of that pepper. Maybe, just maybe, I did throw it away when we first moved in. Maybe that particular drawer just generates dried peppers. And if that’s true, that means that the next people to live there had the same baffling experience that I did. I kind of like the idea of that space forcing people into a unifying discovery. I kind of like the idea that my memories may happen once again.

So cheers to Schrodinger’s pepper that may or may not be in that drawer. I’ve decided which option I want to believe in, and it’s the unlikely one, full of whimsy and universality.

Photo by Karolina Grabowska from Pexels

Voice and Reason

In college, I had a summer where I taught English to some grad students and their families a few nights per week. The gig was done on a volunteer basis and was fairly informal overall, which is good because I did not have any experience teaching adults. Additionally, most of my students already spoke English with a fair amount of fluency; they were mostly there to brush up on some grammar, to be able to ask a teacher questions from their day-to-day experiences in English, and for social interaction.

I adored teaching in this context. Interacting with (and learning from) people all over the world led to some very deep, complex, and nuanced conversations, and it was really fulfilling to problem-solve and simplify the vocabulary within these really complex issues without watering down the topic itself.

Nonetheless, I had one situation where I was at a complete loss for what to tell my students. One student was asked by another where she was from. “Taiwan,” she responded, at which point the question asker turned to me and asked, “Where is Taiwan?”

I don’t remember who began to answer that question, whether it was me or the Taiwanese woman herself (she was more than capable of doing so, but the inquiry was directed at me and in my memory she and I locked eyes and it seemed like she wanted me to answer, though that portion of the memory may be false). Regardless of who did the speaking, all that was said was “Taiwan is a country that–“

“No, it not,” another lady chimed in. “Taiwan is not a country.” She was one of the three students from China seated at the far end of our longish table, listening the conversation that had been going on. She was very matter-of-fact about her statement, and I don’t think she truly realized the hurtfulness in her words.

The original question asker, unaware of the deep-rooted issues behind this disagreement, looked very confused. “Taiwan is not a country?”

“The US recognizes Taiwan as a country,” I hurriedly explained. “And it’s located in the Pacific Ocean near China.”

I left the topic there. The question asker was still clearly confused, all of the people from China were tense, the woman from Taiwan was upset, but I did not know as a 21-year-old college student how to mediate such a conflict. I didn’t know if it could be mediated at all. These places were their homes; I was not going to be able to change any of their minds.

I also knew that I had some biases when it came to this topic. Growing up, I had friends who lived just a few houses over from me who were Taiwanese, and I’m pretty sure that I had more Taiwanese classmates than Chinese classmates in school. It’s entirely possible that I was aware of Taiwan as a country before I became aware of China. I obviously take Taiwan’s side.

Now that I am no longer a child, I know that those childhood experiences influenced my thinking on the matter, but I also know more about the conflict now, and I am pretty sure that I would still stand with Taiwan. Those biases, though, as well as my dislike of conflict and my fear of losing respect from some of my students, made me doubt whether my voice was worth raising on the topic. So I just stuck to the facts and didn’t add my opinion. I still don’t know if that was the correct choice.

Photo by Yaroslav Shuraev from Pexels

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I’d like to thank everyone for being so kind in response to my last post. I may have been a tad dramatic in some of my wording of it. I was sincerely just trying to gauge whether the people who read my poetry would be interested in reading other things, too. The great thing about writing as a hobby is that I get to write whatever I want. Whether (or at what point) I publish that writing to the internet is an entirely different consideration.

I know that back before I narrowed the focus of this blog, my poetry seemed to be preferred over anything else I published, which is how I found myself in the niche I’m in. I don’t regret that; in fact, I feel like having a narrow range of content has helped me to grow and find fellow bloggers with a similar interest.

With all that said, you can consider this post as part of a trial run of posting a greater variety of content to this platform. If it goes well, I’ll continue to post other things. If it doesn’t, I’ll either keep my prose in draft-form or make a new blog to contain it.

Thanks again, everyone! Peace out!

Rewriting, Rewriting

I write a version of the same poem everyday.
It pours from my lips in a whispered breath
and stays stagnant,
its letters etched upon the air.

This poem is a reminder to keep going,
to try–
to try something, anything.

Most days, my brain hopes to convince me
that staying is better,
that out there is scary,
that out there is sad,
that I will get lost if I dare
venture away from safety.

I only ever tell you
about the days when the poem wins,
the days when it drowns out the other voice,
and I stand up and face the world,
mighty in the morning’s victory.

But those aren’t the only days,
so I will keep rewriting, rewriting
until my poem is better
or until I’m better.

Photo by Lisa Fotios from Pexels

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If you like this poem, here are some other similar poems:

• The Radio
• O, Poem-maker
• This Skin

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Six Word Stories

Photo by Dids from Pexels

This is different from the poetry that I normally write, but I had some ideas for six word stories kicking around in my head, and I figured that I would share three of them with you!

Up late.
Old date.
Clean slate.

She was so gorgeous.  Stupid boy.

The wind howls. The wolf doesn’t.