Sound familiar?

Week in Seven Words #329

apiary
I don't know about the beekeeping on the premises until suddenly there are clouds of them around box hives on each side of the path. The part of my brain that isn't screaming reminds me that conserving bees is important, so isn't this wonderful? So wonderful.

cames
Petals lit up like stained glass in the low-slanting afternoon light.

ossicones
A man and child dressed as giraffes are reading by a pond. They could be characters from the picture book spread out between them.

parried
The ambulance circles through the cemetery's front drive, to where an old woman sits with her head in her hands on a bench. The EMTs kneel beside her for awhile. Eventually, she waves them off and leaves under her own power.

picking
On a search for a subway platform that isn't blocked by construction, I walk through a part of the city new to me. The buildings are indistinct in afternoon haze. A man on a stoop toys with a guitar.

rooted
Leaves and blossoms draped over weathered stone. Small American flags on a bright yellow lawn.

vexation
He's at my elbow, telling me I'm taking photos of the wrong things. "What's so interesting about that? Take a picture of this! See?"

Who are you? (Anyone) - For My Brothers and Sisters in the Failure Business

Seymour Krim's essay, "For My Brothers and Sisters in the Failure Business," was a Deal Me In read, a gripping one that explores a way of being I recognize.

I like the essay's intensity, its frankness and the way Krim gives it a thick texture. It feels like dough to knead and pound on.

Our secret is that we still have an epic longing to be more than what we are, to multiply ourselves, to integrate all the identities and action-fantasies we have experienced, above all to keep experimenting with our lives…

The ‘failure business’ he writes about is the life of imagining yourself as different personae and trying to act them all out, rather than dedicating yourself to any one thing. The failure he describes comes from trying to be too many things, in a society (specifically, the US) that seems to make that possible and offer endless choices (though for many people, this isn't the case, and the US he describes here is largely a dream itself).

When do you stop fantasizing an endless you and try to make it with what you’ve got?

It becomes addictive. It leads anywhere and nowhere. I like that he explores how self-defeating it can be, but at the same time not without its rewards. Sometimes it even pays off for people in practical terms. But the risks are steep. What happens when you realize you have little to show for the passing years? (Though you can also ask what "little to show" means. People can change profoundly and enrich themselves in ways that aren't obvious if you don't know them intimately.)

But if you are a proud, searching ‘failure’ in this society… then it is smart and honorable to know what you attempted and why you are now vulnerable to the body blows of those who once saw you robed in the glow of your vision and now only see an unmade bed and a few unwashed cups on the bare wooden table of a gray day.

I like how this essay is a wry celebration and a lament. Krim writes with bitterness, but not without passion. He embraces disillusionment without sounding broken.

Week in Seven Words #328

chainsaws
I hear the anger behind their words more than the words themselves. It's a smug, desperate, vindictive anger that rips through their speech.

clustering
Men in black coats gather at a bus shelter by an abandoned lot. Rain dribbles off their hats.

ferociously
Rounds of Monopoly Deal, with groans, squeals, and eyes narrowed over fanned cards.

furtively
Tables pushed together in a U-formation soon bear a load of beer, soda, and nachos with melted cheese. Between the chairs, a cockroach creeps, tasting possibilities.

innocently
When he finds out I'm Jewish, he asks why people hate Jews. The Jews are in danger, he says. He's a third grader who has never, to his knowledge, met a Jew before.

tide
Returning from a weekend away to an ocean of laundry.

transcendently
As an adult, she finds coloring books relaxing. Some of the pages she's working on show mythic creatures. Using colored pencils, she makes a phoenix shimmer with fire.

Turgenev, narrating an event he says he has no right to witness

When living in Paris in the late 19th century, Ivan Turgenev got invited to a behind-the-scenes look at a public execution. “The Execution of Tropmann” is what he wrote in response. (And what I recently read for Deal Me in 2017.)

The essay ultimately questions the use of capital punishment - and, more strongly, capital punishment carried out in front of a public audience.

But Turgenev tries not to hammer readers with his point-of-view. His approach is to lay out a narrative of the hours leading up to the execution.

Encounters with Strangers in Three Short Stories

Title: Good Climate, Friendly Inhabitants
Author: Nadine Gordimer
Where I Read It: World Literature: An Anthology of Great Short Stories, Drama, and Poetry

A middle-aged white woman working at a garage in South Africa finds herself in a dangerous situation when she takes up with a guy she barely knows.

There’s a strong disconnection between the woman, the world around her, and the needs within her. She’s lonely and has fallen out of touch with her daughter. The only people she might turn to for advice or assistance are the “boys” (really, adult black men) who work at the garage. She isn’t honest with herself, and lives in a society that discourages various kinds of honesty. The lies she tells herself leave her vulnerable to unscrupulous or unstable people, and will maybe prevent her from reaching out for help from people whose worth she comes close to seeing but won’t (or can't) allow herself to see.

Week in Seven Words #327

circumfluous
During the blackout, we're both downstairs, and the only ones awake in the house. We move as if we're underwater. The candlelight wavers against the cabinets.

claims
Suddenly, there's a dog on my lap. She gives me a look - "You got anything to say about that?" - then inspects the room from her new vantage point.

puffed
On a walk through a cold drizzle, we enter a street full of mansions. They seem like inflated bouncy castles, mushrooming from the dark green lawns.

surfaces
He's easygoing when he's awake, says there's no need to worry about things. I find out he has nightmares. ("Call the police!" he urges in his sleep.)

survey
Every room is tidy and lovely. I pause in each, anticipating the days of rest.

tart
This is the weekend of pie. One richly lemon, the other rhubarb and apple. Leave me the filling and a fork, and I'm good.

zookeeping
I help him build a giant zoo with blocks and plastic fences to make the pens. It's intricate and cramped. He has elaborate reasons for why different animals should be corralled together. Under his supervision, they wouldn't dare attack each other.