Recipe for Good Momentum in September of This Year

[fflo]

  Sleep plenty. Start before 2
  most nights. Hydrate. Eat
  often, and take lots of time
  with plan, and gather, and
  prep. And, as you & she would
  aim: more than one thing.
  Willy-nilly. Avaunt! Heigh-ho.

  Don't worry about money. It's o.k.;
  smart enough, for now---fret not.
  See every movie you might like,
  and breakfast with any who will.

  Take walks. Spend hours with
  the dying leaves. Get a little
  chilly and go inside to warm up.
  Remember the bathtub. Love Chet
  well (that may leave thee ere long).

  Try the steering fluid. Sell the
  Jeep. You can do it. It can end its
  motoring days with another. Just
  take out the sentimental rocks.

  Finally: don't even try not to
  think of that one, but practice
  giving up wishes. They're right,
  Polly's Buddhists, though you're
  not altogether with them. Now go on

  and sing songs to yourself, and ponder
  inertia, cuz it applies to motion, too.

  Mix well, until firm. Serves one.

  Enjoy.



Of course this comes out with thoughts of that little Larry Ferlinghetti that fits so well on a postcard, the list recipe poem I used to do variations of in my head (as Denise used to write her own personalized "My Favorite Things" now & then):


     Recipe For Happiness Khaborovsk Or Anyplace

  One grand boulevard with trees
  with one grand café in sun
  with strong black coffee in very small cups.

  One not necessarily very beautiful
  man or woman who loves you.

  One fine day.

                               --Lawrence Ferlinghetti


Is that a great poem, or what? Of course the lover-of-you is great, but so are the strong coffee and the very small cups. And the bisexuality, and the un-"looks"ist-ness. And the way the last line, like "Serves six. Enjoy!" (all my mother's recipes seemed to end with "Enjoy"), is almost implicitly a conclusion/product of the cooking, as well as a step/ingredient.

Okay, I just went up and tacked on that last two lines in mine. Though the recipeness of the title is kinda oblique/afterthought by then. Yeah, I think they should be cut. Do you?

[Poll #343741]


(Thanks for the cantaloupe, BAM. And for the cantaloupe thought.)

Comments

[lovelikeyeast.livejournal.com]

Wow. I really love this, fflo. It's good to see you fixing something so nourishing for yourself, in all senses. Every so often, the act of writing casts a spell for me. It manifests things. It commits them (to paper, even!), things that are otherwise subject to the limbo of indecision and waffling. Mmm, waffles.

I smell a pot of soup on the stove already. And I would love to be one of the folks breakfasting/movie'ing with you. To fall!

p.s. - I like the last 2 lines, though the "firm" throws me off, as I think of you as more fluid and I'm resistant to not recognizing you at the end of your recipe. So much for my impartial opinion...

[fflo.livejournal.com]

Rah and wah-hooo! We shall movie and breakfast. Which shall we do first?

Fiddling with words in lines and thinking what I'd like them to include, convey, feel of, call up---that act right there, while not exactly pleasurable, often leaves me, if I'm liking anything about what the words ended up doing, with a sort of post-magickal-manifestation feeling.

The "firm" was going for the idea of coalescing this resolve into something that stays together. There are the two meanings in "Serves one," too, and the mixing also passes the working-metaphorically test. But the ending without the tacked-on lines goes back to the "momentum" in the title. It's a recipe in a loose sense.

Thanks for calling me "fluid," though! I like the idea of being fluid. (I'm a very water-sign-y kinda gal, after all.)