10 July 2006

So and so

So I got a short email from a friend this morning and it made me feel so astonishingly good that my first thought was that I must, MUST go out and find a teeny tiny frame for it and hang it on my wall.

So I decided that I need to have some kind of room of my own, finally, once and for always, where part of the décor is that framed email times, oh, say a couple dozen, or a hundred or a thousand.

So I never really thought of hanging letters like art, but why not? I may be visually-oriented, but sometimes a thousand words are certainly worth a picture.

So I was thinking I could also start a binder of letters, the kind that lift me like today's little cyber note did. I get letters that'll do this sometimes, only once in a great while typically, but I must say that I've received a few lately from one amazing new friend and an older pal or two, words that have touched me deeply.

(So I hope these writers recognize that I'm talking about them should they happen to pop in and read this.)

So one day if you come to my house and I drag you into some little spidery corner of my basement where I've stapled up a few old bedsheets to simulate walls and I have letters and emails clapped into thrift store frames and pinned precariously here and there, just smile and tell me I'm really great with interiors.

So these so's are my way of paying homage to a certain sweet so-and-so because she seasons her sentences with them so scintillatingly.

(P.S. So I'm glad to be back.)

10 comments:

dalene said...

So glad you are back. You have been missed terribly.

I know what you mean about notes from friends. I have a little blue silk pouch in which a friend gave me some wonderful silk slippers and I use it to house some of my favorite love letters--all from my articulate and appreciative girlfriends. I make it known on occasion that no one need speak at my funeral. Instead those who are willing can take a turn to read these treasured love letters.

And now I will have to get your address and send you some love notes in longhand--a perfect addition to sheets suspended from spidery corners.

Geo said...

Ah! Some of your emails have already been selected as exhibition pieces for the Musty Museum! Handwritten? Nice, nice!

(Thanks for missing me, even a little, but especially terribly.)

Jamie said...

YAY! You're BACK! XOXOX

Becca said...

I've missed you too and love the idea of hanging your meaningful words.

LuckyRedHen said...

Either your room can be viewed as "cute" and "therapeutic" but, given the opportunity, it could also look "unibomber" if all you have are letters. I say add some flora, color, ribbons and pictures! Maybe some letterpress (hint, hint).

Geo said...

James: Yes, I'm earthside again. Did you get the postcard I sent you from Saturn?

Becca: I'm glad we'll have the chance to un-miss each other on Saturday!

Hennie: Well, bless my bombs! You've discovered my dangerous anti-social alter-ego! I guess I'll have to make sure now that nobody ever enters my "inner sanctum"--can't risk any whistle-blowers, can I?

At this point, I'm not going for any "look". Whatever kind of decoratively dicey hideaway I claim for myself in the short-term is only intended to give me some mental space from the "shoulds" I already live with. I think words on the "walls" or even nothing at all will be plenty attractive for me if it's a corner I can run to and have a little room to meditate and refresh. Hey, a mere hole in the ground would suffice sometimes, but with one of those there would always be the danger that someone might come along and fill it up while I was resting inside.

Feng Shui, Jonathon Fong, Arts and Crafts, Scandinavian Modern, and all the other styles I love will have to wait till my budget catches up with my dreams. Meantime, there's soul value in my spidery basement not-for-public-view letter walls. I'll keep the flowers upstairs where I actually spend most of my time.

Robert Louis Stevenson said: "To know what you prefer instead of humbly saying Amen to what the world tells you you ought to prefer is to keep your soul alive."

BTW, I'm sorry I forgot about letterpressing lucky red hens. We'll pick up that conversation again. I've just had a month from Hades.

Carina said...

I love the idea of putting up sheets and pinning meaningful things to them. I got a mental image of a dark basement, with one window streaming light, and rows of white sheets pinned with paper.

Rachel said...

I can totally picture it, geo, and i love it! I had a really lame version of your cool wall in my freshman college dorm called "the wailing wall of inspirational tidbits"---just quotes and well, tidbits of stuff that i loved. come to think of it, i guess it wasn't that lame after all. yours is just more personal.

Chemical Billy said...

My wall would be covered with your words, Geo.

Geo said...

azúcar: Aren't you photogenic! Wow!

Your mental image of my basement is likely more photogenic than the real thing, but the spirit of the space is the same.

rachel: Not lame at all! I also have an old photo of a young Greta Garbo tacked to the inside of my hall closet so when I go to get tablecoths or towels or games or napkins or Mr. Potato Head (for small visitors, I promise), I see her lovely profile. Maybe that is lame.

billy: I cringe to think that somebody's dart board is covered by the words that come out of my mouth sometimes. I seem to do much better with the added buffer of a pencll or a keyboard in my hand. Dare I remind you of my latest flare-up of foot-in-mouth disease, which earned me my husband's elbow in my ribs:

The New Woman: (in regard to their landing after their first hot air balloon flight): "We're lucky we didn't land on a house!"

Big Mouth: "You're lucky a house didn't land on you!"