Number of rejections this week: 2
Coincidence?
Last weekend, we ventured to Pismo Beach and Morro Bay for a much needed family retreat. We spent most of our time collecting seashells on the beach. Amaya loves the ocean and has no fear of going into the water. She actually coerced me to join her, even though I was in a dress, and even though the water was so cold it burned my feet.
But it was worth it. The cold water seemed to resonate and wake my senses. Despite, Andy trying to eat the sand and hermit crabs, the trip was a success.
Also, Amaya picked up a dead jellyfish. She didn't get stung. It was a clear beautiful mass of jelly-like substance; malleable, heartless, brainless.
For further meditations on jellyfish (although this was written in an entirely different context), you could read my essay, Jellyfish here: http://www.mississippireview.com/2009/Vol15No4-Oct09/1504-100809-scheid-jellyfish.html
Also: have been reading At The Water's Edge, by Carl Zimmer (http://carlzimmer.com/books/watersedge/index.html) and am overwhelmed with floods of fascinating and confusing information. I'm only on page 79, and have so many questions, but am enjoying living in that space of wonder.
As Rilke says, "Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves. Do not seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions." In other words, live in the chaos of confusion.
Phylogeny. Ontogeny. Mesenchyme. Recapitulation.
The patterns that connect all life forms are fascinating; how similar we all are (animals, alike); how a slight shift from the pattern of life formation could create something different (fins for swimming, hands for exploring, claws for digging), but in the beginning (at the embryo stage), we are all so similar.
"The Swiss found that some of the same key genes that form a human arm form the front fin of a zebra fish, and in a pattern that's practically identical at first" (Zimmer 71).
Speaking of being one with nature (ha!), last night I dismantled several black widow webs in the backyard. Apparently, they're water-resistant. And their webs are similar in texture to fishing wire. No joke. In order to annihilate these intricate beauties, I had to use the broom.
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