1.
Sorrow is a legion of worn women with crepe skin and black shawls and brooms. The whispering of the straw scrapes the floor as they quietly shunt dust out the door, shake the crumbs from billowing tablecloths that churn and coil in the wind, held tight by gnarled fists.
When they are finished with their task, they leave, and droopy washerwomen with sloppy buckets troop in and mop the floors to a golden shine. At sunrise, the house sparkles like a white onion slid out of its crinkled skin, naked, lovely, virginal. It is beautiful because the Son has made it beautiful in its time.
2.
Mirth is coarse and bubbly, a fishwife with the figure of a champaigne bottle and cheeks red, red. More, more, she cries, and bubbles out over the street, tripping on her skirts and laughing as spectators stop and stare. She sucks grapes from their skins, and the purple drabs scattered on the ground grow legs and scurry away.
3.
I would give more for a wedding than for sorrow or mirth because I can be sure of it. Once it happens, it is forever. The cost is high. No wishywashy churning about, no wallowing in oodles of emotion – there is hard action in it, like granite or lead – hard and heavy, immovable. I wish I didn’t use so many adjectives, but I have had no experience of this sacrament. It remains a perpetual possibility caught in the fringes of my mind. Its wings whir, but I cannot see it, only feel its shadow cross my forehead. Run, it seems to say, then, Wait. The struggle between light and dark cannot end. The bride wore white, and the groom wore black. Holding together yin and yang is as expensive as diamonds and as common as sand.
4.
I know this happens after marriage. I know this is not marriage. Marriage puts sealing wax on the envelope, and a birth stamps it with an unforseen insignia. The man knows that when he and the woman are entrusted with a living lump of themselves with curling, little hands and velvety ears, the rest of the world turns from a playground to a city, loses its significance for pleasure as the universe is coiled into a tiny ball of pink softness and wet mouth. He knows the baby is weak, but its weakness encircles his neck with the strength of a ball python, and he and the woman are sealed in service together.
5.
It is white metal, tarnished easily, like the human heart. I might venture to suggest that we admire it for its durability. As the world changes, it remains steadfast. I care not for silver, except for the stamps we put on it. I print in silver the words “sister,” and the words are given silver’s strength to hold my frail, fleshly sister in my frail, fleshly heart past when both our frail fleshly bodies have turned to dust, and wildflowers sprout where our hands once met. The bird sings, and the worm makes his way through wooden doors, and a silver word slices like a disk through the earthy heat of it all, singing its silent song.
6.
I always see nubbins of gold, round, bulging nubbins. It has an ugly ring in my mind, mostly because of the value we give it. It is like girls with large bosoms and rouged cheeks – born aloft as a symbol of status, used to incite envy and to satiate carnal desire. All that is gold does not glitter – that is, the real gold has no shine. Mine deeper than the surface if you wish to find a wife. Dive into your soul, even if it means holding your breath past comfort. When your lungs are fit to burst, ask yourself in that split moment, “What do I value, and why?”
7.
I must put a sentence for each, at least a sentence. Yet this is a most silent sound: the sound of a solitary sitter in the night, on his bench, in the moonlight, watching the clouds race by as a nearby dormitory of bunkbeds breaths the heavy sighs of sleep. Sure, he sees more, but when even the cows huddle down in the grass with their calves nosing at their bellies, and the rabbits find their cozy nests and sleep in a pile of family, the lonely watcher almost weeps.
8.
Young Nok says a kiss is like a cherry blossom. The pink petals fall at the slightest breeze, infusing the moist air. I think a kiss is more like playing the violin. You must sink into the ground like a fat man in his armchair, sigh before you begin, feel the blessed firmness of terra and remember that the sky is very far away.
9.
Nine is three times three, a magical multiplier. Wishes never got me anywhere, but they say you ought to be careful about them nonetheless. Nine for a wish. Wishes are costly, like weddings, but squared in cost because their ghostliness is triple dangerous. Ghosts are underestimated until they solidify into monsters. (I’m sorry. This was not a very good blurb.)
10.
Why are fairy tales and folklore so purposely difficult? It’s like in Howl’s Moving Castle when Michael mentions that a spell always has a rune to it – something obtuse to prevent hasty wizards from doing something they might regret.
I don’t know what this bird is. Truth is important, so I’m not going to extrapolate from a vacuum.
Notice how things have changed since “one.” At first, I waxed romantic. My soul felt beautiful – what a profound mind this Amelia has! How innocent, how pure, how lovely! Now the irritation has manifested itself, and the impatience spikes out like a cat’s angry fur or ferrofluid. Why is the world so stupid?
Hah. While we’re at it, why am I so stupid?
This is where practicing scales takes you. To Frustration with yourself and everything arounder you. At least you shatter illusions in the meantime.