The art of losing isn’t hard to master...
practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant to travel.
- from One Art, Elizabeth Bishop
Welcome dear readers,
It’s been a long time since I’ve written here – well before the world turned itself strange. My writing feels unsure of itself, lost.
This summer my writing literally was lost. I had gone to Bali and had mailed off postcards to friends and family and to incoming students. I was feeling pretty pleased with myself, having spent time matching people to postcard image, writing the bon mots one does on vacation.
And then they didn’t arrive. The fall came and went and there were no postcards. Nobody called me to say they had received mail from far away.
My anticipation turned to irritation and then to a ridiculous sullenness. (I had wanted credit for sending those postcards!) By the time the winter arrived, I had decided they were lost. Lost at sea. All of the postcards drifting down into the ocean, entertaining the mermaids and mermen, nibbled at by crabs, received by the universe of sand and water. And with that story to amuse myself, it was OK. OK to have lost them.
As Elizabeth Bishop writes:
The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
Emily