thoughts, words, deeds

building a nest

Pick 3 random items that all have something in common and write a creative piece about that 'something'.

I thought a long time about the definition of random and of common and finally decided that the blog might get into essay length if I went there, and I didn’t have time for that today. I mean, how can I, who lives inside my head, choose three random items, when because I’m in my head, they have some thread linking them together in a row in my mind. Otherwise I wouldn’t think of them, one after the other. And that commonality may only exist for me, but that is yet another commonality. These are things I think of when I think of random things.

So, after doing my head in for a while on that count, I concluded that I would just have to wing it. I chose three things (random or not): laundry, unpacking, and beads. I know that unpacking is an action, but it’s also a chore, and so it is a thing. Laundry because I’ve been doing that all day, and finally have clothes fit for tomorrow. Unpacking because I unpacked five book boxes while reading all evening. I’m looking for a specific book that I haven’t found yet, but I still have at least two more boxes of paperbacks left to go. Beads because they’re evil, just like unpacking and laundry. They’re not quite as evil as glitter, but close, because you open them and they jump from your fingers and land on the other side of the room in some crack in the floor that they’ll remain in until you go barefoot across that place, at which time, they’ll hurt. And then, there are beading needles. And they’re tedious. But shiny.

And that’s what connects them, now that I’ve thought it out. They’re all tedious things that are repetitive and I want to avoid for as long as possible, but there is always a reward at the end. Clean clothes, and books and shiny objects on my cross-stitching that makes the picture glow.

And so, the something in common would be the reward of tedious labor. Which brings me to a poem (because it’s April and I’m in a poem-ish mood):

it must grow tedious,
the flying out and back,
with a twig, a blade of grass,
a scrap of thread pulled
from the knee of red overalls
hanging on a line,
a shining bit of glass
found in the dirt by
curious eyes,
a long strand of hair,
a beak full of mud,
a mass of packing fluff—
but when they’re done,
they’ve built home,
and they sing their triumph
before the first egg is laid.