Meaningful Mud's Monthly Mu - July 2024
"move with rhythm, roll with vowels"
Hey there,
And welcome to Meaningful Mud’s Monthly Mu July edition. Thank you for your being here and for giving this a read.
This past month I moved apartments. It was alerting the ways in which the signing of a new lease was accompanied by a refreshing emotional lease on life. With this realization that one chapter was nearing its end and giving way to a different beginning, an intensity, vividness and presence animated and infused my days. What two months ago was only an ordinary walk to the pool or grocery store or a regular stroll in the park suddenly became a series of cherished and sentimental encounters to celebrate and acknowledge (although I must confess that carefully choosing my cashews and handpicking my cucumbers is always somewhat of a spiritual experience).
The revealed knowing that this might indeed be the last time that I will be walking amongst these trees or talking to this cashier or sitting on this bench, at least for a considerable period, imbued these moments with a richness, gratitude, splendor and sacredness, reminding me to linger that much longer and soak it all up.
Despite my best efforts to phase it out of my lexicon, I am guilty as charged for using the phrase “unforeseen future” in my day-to-day dealings. Both tautological and utterly false, the future is the unforeseen, the never seen, or just not what it used to be, as I existentially joke with my brothers.
Whilst our routines create an illusion of relative stability and certainty, affording (or robbing) us of the privilege of archiving the mortal and perishable, we forever live in precarious proximity to the transient and terminal; to various endings and beginnings and openings and closings in their diverse forms.
Indeed, each evening the setting of alarms around the world is a poignant practice and explicit expression of hope and faith that we will be here to experience and feel the morrow.
Indeed, as Mary Oliver poetically proclaims, “it is a serious thing just to be alive on this fresh morning in the broken world.”
What a time to be alive!
Wishing us all a month of lingering that much longer, of setting alarms and fresh fresh mornings.
I thank you again for your being here and hope you enjoy this little July offering.
And lastly, may we always be stuck in Meaningful Mud.
Take great care.
Tyler
Packing up my apartment and processing all I have accumulated over the years to sustain this one life brought back to mind one of my most cherished passages:
“...In the end, that was life: a few plates, a favorite comb, a pair of slippers, a child’s string of beads. He wanted to believe that he was different, that in ten minutes he could be on his way to anywhere in the world. But he knew that it was impossible, wherever he landed, not to form attachments. He would miss the short, tinted wine glasses in his Trastevere cupboards, the shrinking trapezoid of sunlight cast on his bed in the afternoons. And he knew that in his own way, with his camera, he was dependent on the material world, stealing from it, hoarding it, unwilling to let it go.”
- Jhumpa Lahiri, Unaccustomed Earth
Poetic Ponderings
Postscript
Seamus Heaney
And some time make the time to drive out west Into County Clare, along the Flaggy Shore, In September or October, when the wind And the light are working off each other So that the ocean on one side is wild With foam and glitter, and inland among stones The surface of a slate-grey lake is lit By the earthed lightning of a flock of swans, Their feathers roughed and ruffling, white on white, Their fully grown headstrong-looking heads Tucked or cresting or busy underwater. Useless to think you’ll park and capture it More thoroughly. You are neither here nor there, A hurry through which known and strange things pass As big soft buffetings come at the car sideways And catch the heart off guard and blow it open.
Sonic Suggestions
With summer having confidently and unapologetically arrived in my part of the world, I am reminded of Arcade Fire’s clarion call:
Children, wake up
Hold your mistake up
Before they turn the summer into dust
Also, does summer ever have to really apologize for arriving?
Enjoy the tunes!
As I say in every edition and will continue to do so - thank you for reading and for your being here. It is really not taken for granted!
Please also consider forwarding this little offering to a loved one, friend or stranger and feel free to reach out should you wish to share any comments, critiques or suggestions.
Wishing you all a jazzy July!
My favorite read, every month