ten good things

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because small things grow great:

01. dried hydrangeas on my desk.
02. anna g. and chocolate ice cream and anna-buns.
03. a small white room with a big window. when i couldn't pray last semester, i just prayed for that.
04. indian food and oak park and glittering snow with a friend last weekend.
05. professors who are willing to come help you letterpress at 7pm on a friday night.
06. my night reading lamp. so much joy from such a small thing.
07. so many loved people coming a long way to help me celebrate my senior art exhibition.
08. drawing class, which i think will prove to be my favorite class of all time ever.
09. the scent of homemade granola in my hair. actually, sometimes that's a bad thing. right now it's good.
10. when peace comes unexpectedly.

and this song!

[winter anna, last year]
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on being useless

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"It's hard to pay attention when there is so much nothing to take in, so much open land that evokes in many people a panicked desire to get through it as quickly as possible."
(Kathleen Norris, Dakota: A Spiritual Geography)

Sitting on a train for thirty-six hours certainly evoked in me a panicked desire to get through that endless North-Dakota-Montana-land as quickly as possible. But it also forced me to realize I had no power to make the train go any faster. I had thirty-six hours to be completely useless. For a task-driven person like myself, that's really hard.

"Everything you need to get done before you die isn't going to get done," or so says my drawing professor. Where did we get this idea that everything has to be useful? Drawing doesn't work like that. Sitting on a train doesn't work like that. Really spending time with people doesn't work like that. Loving someone doesn't work like that. A lot of things with value do not produce — and that's alright. Now just to actually believe that.

Other things today: this best restaurant in Lincoln Park and Angel Olsen.

[michael at glacier national park, montana]
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