Daily: Bottom

When I find myself asking, again and again, what is the least I can accept in a relationship styled like this, that's a sign.

When I find myself trying to make myself as small and quiet as I can without losing myself completely, that's a sign.

When I'm worried or upset about something but don't believe bringing it up can help, that's a problem.

I want people to delight in my mind. I want them to delight in my emotional range and amplitude. I want them to respect and value my skills.

I want the response to discomfort to be opening up the windows and letting light in, not locking me out.

I want to feel like a team, not like an enemy.

I want to share values with someone: each of us has a part in making the world a better place, the world itself can provide us with joy through the patterns in it, intimacy and connection are skills worth cultivating, living well is a skill that requires cultivating, people make meaning through their choices and that meaning is an important thing to make.

I want to be around people who not only understand when I'm making a joke, but who maybe smile or laugh at it.

I want partners who reach out for me first sometimes, who tell me what's on their minds, who can open their hearts.

I don't want this.

Daily

I don't like Mary Oliver. Her work feels trite, lacking in nuance, more like a motivational poster than the echo of a person's insides.

Nonetheless I'm spending a lot of time walking carefully, censoring myself, making myself small and invisible and unassuming to keep people comfortable lately. I'm keeping company with people who find no joy in me; quite the opposite.

I want a better poem but I can't find one and so Mary Oliver it is.

I don't want to live a small life

I don’t want to live a small life. Open your eyes,
open your hands. I have just come
from the berry fields, the sun

kissing me with its golden mouth all the way
(open your hands) and the wind-winged clouds
following along thinking perhaps I might

feed them, but no I carry these heart-shapes
only to you. Look how many small
but so sweet and maybe the last gift

I will bring to anyone in this
world of hope and risk, so do
Look at me. Open your life, open your hands.

Mary Oliver

I have the feeling that ee cummings has written something closer but all I get are approximations of the target:

Now i lay(with everywhere around)
me(the great dim deep sound
of rain;and of always and of nowhere)and
what a gently welcoming darkestness—

now i lay me down(in a most steep
more than music)feeling that sunlight is
(life and day are)only loaned:whereas
night is given(night and death and the rain

are given;and given is how beautifully snow)

now i lay me down to dream of(nothing
i or any somebody or you
can begin to begin to imagine)

something which nobody may keep.
now i lay me down to dream of Spring

and maybe...

i am a beggar always
who begs in your mind

(slightly smiling, patient, unspeaking
with a sign on his
chest
BLIND)yes i

am this person of whom somehow
you are never wholly rid(and who

does not ask for more than
just enough dreams to
live on)
after all, kid

you might as well
toss him a few thoughts

a little love preferably,
anything which you can’t
pass off on other people: for
instance a
plugged promise-

the he will maybe (hearing something
fall into his hat)go wandering
after it with fingers;till having

found
what was thrown away
himself
taptaptaps out of your brain, hopes, life
to(carefully turning a
corner)never bother you any more.

Daily

I don't like Mary Oliver. Her work feels trite, lacking in nuance, more like a motivational poster than the echo of a person's insides.

Nonetheless I'm spending a lot of time walking carefully, censoring myself, making myself small and invisible and unassuming to keep people comfortable lately. I'm keeping company with people who find no joy in me; quite the opposite.

I want a better poem but I can't find one and so Mary Oliver it is.

I don't want to live a small life

I don’t want to live a small life. Open your eyes,
open your hands. I have just come
from the berry fields, the sun

kissing me with its golden mouth all the way
(open your hands) and the wind-winged clouds
following along thinking perhaps I might

feed them, but no I carry these heart-shapes
only to you. Look how many small
but so sweet and maybe the last gift

I will bring to anyone in this
world of hope and risk, so do
Look at me. Open your life, open your hands.

Mary Oliver

I have the feeling that ee cummings has written something closer but all I get are approximations of the target:

Now i lay(with everywhere around)
me(the great dim deep sound
of rain;and of always and of nowhere)and
what a gently welcoming darkestness—

now i lay me down(in a most steep
more than music)feeling that sunlight is
(life and day are)only loaned:whereas
night is given(night and death and the rain

are given;and given is how beautifully snow)

now i lay me down to dream of(nothing
i or any somebody or you
can begin to begin to imagine)

something which nobody may keep.
now i lay me down to dream of Spring

and maybe...

i am a beggar always
who begs in your mind

(slightly smiling, patient, unspeaking
with a sign on his
chest
BLIND)yes i

am this person of whom somehow
you are never wholly rid(and who

does not ask for more than
just enough dreams to
live on)
after all, kid

you might as well
toss him a few thoughts

a little love preferably,
anything which you can’t
pass off on other people: for
instance a
plugged promise-

the he will maybe (hearing something
fall into his hat)go wandering
after it with fingers;till having

found
what was thrown away
himself
taptaptaps out of your brain, hopes, life
to(carefully turning a
corner)never bother you any more.