Word of the Week - 138

From "Letters to a Young Poet," by Rainer Maria Rilke. Translated by Joan M. Burnham. New World Library: 2000.

Word of the Week:  FERVENT



Yes, "completely baked" as spoken by Benjamin in THE GRADUATE would qualify as fervent.  Definitely feverish.

Fervent is never half-baked, never tepid, never neither-this-nor-that.  It is passionate, fiery hot,  may appear obsessive.  Heartfelt.

What is the point of showing up with indifference?  Let them talk.  "She seemed, well, awfully intense.  I'm not sure that is considered good manners."  Probably not.  This is life we're talking about.  As Mary Oliver says, "your one wild and precious life."  Be a shame to get over-excited about that and all the wonders it contains.  Perhaps I need to sit back down with a cool cloth to my forehead.

As I write this, we are having oddly balmy winds, none of the chance of showers forecast as late as this morning, and the neighborhood Amazon parrots are shrieking through the skies as though warning us of something.  They do a lot of jabbering so we don't take them seriously.  The point is that I sit at my table on the second floor, amid the trees where I can see no cars nor dwellings.  An hour ago a crow with a wingspan of several feet found delicacies in the palm tree just beyond my window.  His departure sounded like an old window shade that had been yanked down, then let go to flap and shudder.

Rilke knew that our ordinary moments are filled with texture, brilliance, joy, sorrow, sights and events to make our hearts leap or thud.  Best to take nothing for granted, to see it all as miraculous for the everyday is our most intimate universe, the room in which we spend the most time, the place it all happens.  Even peak events are cushioned by the everyday.  It is that with which we most surely need to fall in love, if we have not.  I had a stamp made that says, "Fall in love with everything," then I realized there are some situations in which that is difficult, many in fact, but as a goal, an aspiration, it seems a not bad fit.  I use the word love more and more, realizing that I do love so much.  I do, in loud and giddy and probably unladylike ways.  The list is longer every day.

I occasionally visit the Jet Pens website, perhaps to look at bottled inks.  Some of the colors, with names like Apache Sunset, Heart of Darkness or Dragon Catfish Pink, make me think of fervent correspondence.  Is there really any other kind?

Ink, glorious ink

Pilot Petit1 Mini Fountain Pens - Fine Nib

In my fiction pages this morning, a character discovers her fountain pen is missing, has obviously been taken.  She offers as proof the ink stain on her middle finger, which she describes as unavoidable, one of the joys/pitfalls of writing with actual liquid ink.  In case you don't know about Jet Pens, they are heaven-on-earth for kids like us, the writing and drawing fanatics, nerds, collectors and glorified doodlers.  Not that I necessarily imagine reading a letter written in glowing Apricot Orange would be easy on the eyes, I am still captivated by it with lust in my heart.  I plan to order at least a few of these before the sun sets.  We can let our dancing fingers go wild here.

In the realm of making one's mark, Rubbermoon Stamps is preparing to introduce a new line of stamps and, for the first time, stencils, all of a Mid-Century Modern persuasion.  They are not yet available through the website and will probably first be offered through etsy.  A visit there now will not be time ill spent.

Rubbermoon sample, stamps and stencils by Kristen Powers using new products.

Had I not had a live-in tutor, my son, I might never have learned how to do even the limited things I do with a computer.  Pencils, ink and paper have called to me all my life.  Their voices have not become muted as another form occupies my time.  If anything, as the choices expand, so does the desire for them.  Such simple bliss, going back to drawing with a stick in dirt or wet sand.  None of it will last forever or even come close.  We get to make our marks.  For the moment, it is enough.