NOTE: This post originally appeared in Everyday Bliss -the blog before Bliss Habits.
Yesterday, we spent the day in San Francisco. We do that sometimes, my hubby and I like to go and do very regular stuff, go to a farmers market, walk around town, get a cup of coffee and generally walk around acting like we still live there. Paying homage to the part of our selves who would still like to do so. We love that city and while our suburban lifestyle is much better suited for our family life we do miss it!
While we were hanging around the farmers market we were entertained by acrobats and musicians, The girl enjoyed dancing, chasing sea gulls and grabbing fresh samples from all the colorful vendors. We had to buy a bunch of carrots with the greens still attached and a softball size peach because Sweets had already appropriated large bites out of them before we could move on. I can imagine how hard it is not to think all that beautiful food ay her perfect eye level isn’t there just for her taking!
At one point, I decided it was time to distract her so my Sweetie could get some real shopping done so we looked in other directions for distraction. A drum trio and a mariachi band provided a small distraction but then we hit pay dirt! A most fascinating man was sitting atop a milk crate in the middle of all the activity furiously typing on a very small typewriter. Of course my girl had never seen one of those and Zach, the typist, was very sweet to show her exactly how it worked. Mesmerized by his frenetic pace, we watched for a moment and then I read the sign he had posted next to his seat which said that Poems were written on the topic of our choice would be written for a donation of our choosing. When we happened upon him he was working on a wedding poem for someone.
What fun! Of course humility was the topic I was interested in exploring so I requested a five dollar poem on humility. Since we were there with him and he was at an impasse on his wedding poem (needed the last name of the person requesting the poem) he took out a piece of paper, rolled it into the typewriter and began to write our poem with the same earnest pace we had already seen demonstrated. A few short moments later he economically tore the paper on which our poem was typed out of the typewriter and signed the small parchment.
human
will it to be
must think advance
forward guarded and
given many at the
moments noticed
in totality is
obviously so
much bigger
with sun and
trees and
continuously
existing what
we think is
physically
in context
quite humbled
to be the mere
matter of fact
Z Houston
How enjoyable!! What a fun way to end the week! You can find Zach Houston on line here.
“My academic focus is primarily on language and trope. I operate a performance/literature/business/art piece referred to as The Poem Store, a project that consists of exchanging free verse poetry about anything you want, composed on a manual typewriter, in exchange for a donation.”
As usual my humility experience has left me wanting… unlike my other virtues which seem to benefit from being amplified every time I look at humility I am left feeling as if I may never actually grasp it. I can definitely see why Ben Franklin felt the need to study it his entire life! My appreciation has definitely been improved but I really can’t say that I have identified any upsurge in my experience of Bliss as a result of it.!
How did Humility week play out over in your world?