12/8/10

I have one last candle flickering; not a candle any more, just a flame, sitting on my menorah, dangling it's legs over the rim of the candleseat. The candle is gone, but the flame is all, “It's a beautiful night, I'm not yet ready to turn in. You all go ahead without me; I'll catch up later.”. And then he just sits and watches and smiles warmly.

Those who do not understand why I still use the menorah I made in preschool, and not an expensive “nice” menorah I’d have been bought or been given or had made more impressively, they are looking for a work of art, judging everything by a standard they don’t even understand. They don’t see that I see something I created, something that resonates with me, something I’ve used. Where I see a cross-section of tree rings, they see wax needing to be scraped off, evidence of use obscuring bare utility, residue obscuring shine. They don’t understand that residue can be beautiful. Or they only understand selfishly, conflating their opinion about their own residue with universal truth, and ignoring as ugly what another perceives as beauty.

You’re feeling poetic.
I’m feeling poetically.