bricolage?

 “I’m a born bricoleur. I love the way that things that are otherwise discrete and self-contained start to suggest things once they are forced into a dialogue with something else.”-- John Akomfrah

I'm not sure if this post is an example of bricolage or bad writing but here are some amusing things - perhaps they talk to each other? (Anything talks if you listen hard enough)

a) I've been trying to see just how many patterns I can wear at once - it begun as a game but now I do it in all seriousness. The most was 6 (socks, bag, skirt, top, jumper, coat, 7 if you counted earrings, 5 if you don't count 2 badges on my coat as a 'pattern') This lady manages to do so beautifully and if it were still a game she'd be the top scorer.

b) This Poem made me laugh (that bit about the cabbage) and then stop and think. I remember writing in the list book Yings and Chari gave me in secondary school that my 'party trick' was disappearing, something I've practiced a couple times this week, leaving an ANOJ meeting early so I had time to prepare for my class and leaving formal early when I felt ill. There's something humbling about this poem and also I feel that a wrong reading of it easily suggests retreat rather than renunciation. Retreat in the easy, comfortable, thoughtless sense as opposed to the hard-thought decision of renunciation (for a better alternative) - I suppose the question is where do you reappear to after having disappeared from the first place?

The Art of Disappearing
Naomi Shihab Nye

When they say Don’t I know you?
say no.
When they invite you to the party
remember what parties are like
before answering.
Someone telling you in a loud voice
they once wrote a poem.
Greasy sausage balls on a paper plate.
Then reply.

If they say We should get together
say why?

It’s not that you don’t love them anymore.
You’re trying to remember something
too important to forget.
Trees. The monastery bell at twilight.
Tell them you have a new project.
It will never be finished.

When someone recognizes you in a grocery store
nod briefly and become a cabbage.
When someone you haven’t seen in ten years
appears at the door,
don’t start singing him all your new songs.
You will never catch up.

Walk around feeling like a leaf.
Know you could tumble any second.
Then decide what to do with your time.

c) The Mandarin word for butter is literally translated 'cow oil' which sounds so unappealing.  I've been thinking about how much joy words and their multiple meanings give me. One of my favourite parts of writing the most recent draft of my dissertation was looking up words in the middle english dictionary and sifting through all their various meanings. Words like 'sweetness' and 'wonder' and 'boystows'. And I still wonder (although now when I use that word i think of its many other meanings!) about 'cleave' and 'whatnot'!