A Winter's Day Well Spent: Another Slow-life Diary Entry.
Notes on 'M Train' by Patti Smith & fragments from a Sunday morning spent gardening.
Mon. February 19, 2024
I spent yesterday morning turning in assignments and putting plants in the garden soil. I crouched in the soil wearing a grey zip-up jacket, some random pajama pants, and my nearly four-year-old lowtop burgundy converse. The neighbor’s black cat jumped into the garden bed with me, nudging my hand, attempting to get me to pet it all the while I was transplanting the three plants my mother and I bought from the farmers market a few days before.
I planted two already-flowering strawberry plants and a budding Calendula flower into the bed side-by-side. The act of digging a hole into the soil with my bare hands, removing the plant from it’s plastic pot, and placing it into the hole- then covering with fresh soil and watering it, quieted every thought.
I petted the cat, stroking its soft black fur and nuzzling its head with my hand. The cat purred, delighted to be receiving attention. Its sibling spotted us and trekked over. I repeated the petting action to that cat too before grabbing my watering pail and going inside of my house to refill it. I walked into my front yard and watered the various flowers we planted in pots and near the nearby tree. A few days ago we put down a Daisy mix and Daffodils into a few pots.
After spending some time outside, I decided to come back inside and belt “Tennessee Whiskey” by Chris Stapleton whilst finishing the rest of my Sunday chores: folding laundry, putting my fluffy quilts into the washing machine, mopping my room, and making my bed.
After getting home from dinner at a local BBQ spot, my family and I all decided to do a few consecutive reading sprints.
I’ve been gradually trudging through the last of my to-be-read list for winter. My most recent read being M Train by Patti Smith. She’s a writer that I deeply resonate with because of her ability and care to provide grave detail for such nothingness: a mug of coffee, a piece of whole grain toast, habitual cafe visits, browsing shelves at a bookstore, and even losing a coat that you’re very fond of that you wear daily. Within the memoir Smith also slides in quite a bit of her own grief from the loss of her husband. Its not my favorite memoir because there was some quite awkward and uncomfortable moments (for example: Smith expresses the urge to urinate of Sylvia Plath’s grave…) that I just could’ve gone without reading.
However, there were a few beautiful lines are sprinkled within this story that I want to share with you. Here are my two favorite quotes:
“Then there are scores of notebooks, their contents calling— confessions, revelations, endless variations of the same paragraph— and piles of napkins scrawled with incomprehensible rants. Dried out ink bottles, encrusted nibs, cartridges for pens long gone, mechanical pencils emptied of led. Writer’s debris.” (M Train, pg. 27)
“We want things we cannot have. We seek to reclaim a certain moment, sound, sensation. I want to hear my mother’s voice. I want to see my children as children. Hands small, feet swift. Everything changes. Boy grown, father dead, daughter taller than me, weeping from a bad dream. Please stay forever, I say to the things I know. Don’t go. Don’t grow.” (M Train, pg. 209)
I’ve written quite often about the gradually growing love I have for stories that center the mundane. That love is definitely influences my liking of certain books. I’ve just grown a deep appreciation for novels and stories that are actively de-influencing a hustle-culture, capitalist life within a society that has been beckoning you since grade school to “change the world”.
I’ve been allowing myself to simply enjoy the orbit of the world, the cycle that nature exists within, to dig in the soil, plant flowers, read tons of novels, drink tons of tea, and to love deeply whilst treating everything with love.
Yulani’s comment under
‘s daily affirmation (“There is nothing to become.” Feb. 19, 2024): A reminder I need everyday. My heart is a sappy thing and I crave to just be.
There is so much beauty in the mundane. Thank you for this post, it made me slow down, imagine the sensations, and brought me to a much greater awareness of the space around me. So necessary. And "M Train" sounds just brilliant - I'll definitely check it out!
perfect. I feel like this is the embodiment of a perfect Sunday written down, smoothed out for us to access. As usual, I feel grateful to be invited into your intimate diary space. Patti Smith became a favourite American writer of mine too during my degree years. The same thing can be said for you too Yulani, as far as the care in details, and the offerings of the most simple things with such a beautiful eye.