Exercises in patience – The curious case of footwear and a new project (there is too many of those)

For me, finding ideas to write about has never been especially hard – they are everywhere. I’ve always struggled more with the labour of bringing them out in the world in such a way the chaos within me becomes understandable to others as well. I often get to a point where something is nearly done and then leave it unedited and unpolished and start something new because I can see where it’s going and turn away because hey, we know what that is now, don’t we all? I hide my impatience inside the love I hold for mismatched things and unfinished business. I also tend to work with a thousand projects at the same time –

Now I feel like should assure you that I am able to meet deadlines when it’s actually necessary! Just don’t tell me there’s a fluid date which will expand into eternity, I will wander out of time. And space.

For the month of November, I want to try something that combines bit of both – continuity and labour with acceptance and use of ideas. Nothing fancy, just a blog post every day with a a picture & poem in it, either in English or Finnish or both. I’d also love to get other people involved, but I will get around that tweak tomorrow to not have too much information on one post.

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November 3th 2020 – This poem is yet to be named, but it’s from the beach in the above picture where I had my morning coffee with a seagull.

The November sunrise softened the sand on the shore
into something my bare feet were eager to experience
without the supposedly water-proof hiking boots
which, I admit,
are now carry-around footbaths
with the threads undone from where they were holding it together.

I bought those shoes in an attempt
to shelter myself against water streams, puddles and rainfall
against cold damp socks
rusty nails, twigs, and mud

but my feet are bare and restless
struggling to get through the sole of the boot
touch the seabed

and I let them

slow me down

I breathe in the rhythm of what I was made for without all this resilience
we built for ourselves to feel protected.