Where Did Last Week Go?

(Last Sunday, Will and I took a walk with the goal of finding ten interesting things. We called this stick we found "Singing Opera Lady." Photo credit: The Man)

It is a strange thing to lose an entire week. Where did it go? Is it hiding under the couch? Did the dog chew it into little pieces?

I have no answers. What I know for sure: I did a school visit. I didn't do much cleaning. I wrote in the mornings. The weather was wet, humid and gloomy, inviting armies of mushrooms to invade my front yard.

What happened to last week? What happened to fall? Where is my cool, crisp air? Why are mushrooms so disgusting?

The funnest thing I did last week was make lists of interesting things I saw throughout the day. This is a good exercise if you feel a need for minor league delight. Given the icky mushrooms in my yard, I needed all the delight I could get. It takes a lot of delight to counteract a mushroom attack.

Some of the things I saw as I made my way through the week that disappeared:

1. A periwinkle blue mailbox.

2. A private street sign that read "Blue Dog Road." (Isn't that a great street name? I wish I lived there.)

3. A little girl on Our Fine School's playground twirling around in a red, sparkly skirt.

4. A license plate that read "FishFndr." Is that Fish Finder? Or Fish Funder? Or maybe Fish Founder?

5. A woman wearing big curlers walking her dog.

6. A crow eating a potato chip.

These are not especially amazing sights, but they cheered me up and made me glad I'd taken the time to look around. Did you know there's a carport in my neighborhood with a chandelier hanging from the ceiling? I've walked past this carport over a hundred times in the last few years, but only noticed the chandelier last week, and only because I was actively looking around, wanting the world to delight me, if only for five minutes.

So that's sort of what happened to last week, that and mushrooms and really bad allergies that made me feel sleepy all the time.

I am going to leave you with the last stanza of one of my favorite poems, "I Am Waiting" by Lawrence Ferlinghetti. If you want to read the whole poem, you can go here.

(And don't worry, this week doesn't seem to be going anywhere. I guess it likes it here.)


I am waiting
to get some intimations
of immortality
by recollecting my early childhood
and I am waiting
for the green mornings to come again
youth’s dumb green fields come back again
and I am waiting
for some strains of unpremeditated art
to shake my typewriter
and I am waiting to write
the great indelible poem
and I am waiting
for the last long careless rapture
and I am perpetually waiting
for the fleeing lovers on the Grecian Urn
to catch each other up at last
and embrace
and I am waiting
perpetually and forever
a renaissance of wonder