The Gravity of the Everyday

[Photo, “What’s Important,” by Valerie Everett. Found on Flickr and used under a Creative Commons license.]

From whiskey river:

Why I Wake Early

Hello, sun in my face.
Hello, you who made the morning
and spread it over the fields
and into the faces of the tulips
and the nodding morning glories,
and into the windows of, even, the
miserable and the crotchety —

best preacher that ever was,
dear star, that just happens
to be where you are in the universe
to keep us from ever-darkness,
to ease us with warm touching,
to hold us in the great hands of light —
good morning, good morning, good morning.

Watch, now, how I start the day
in happiness, in kindness.

(Mary Oliver)

…and:

Advice to Myself

Leave the dishes.
Let the celery rot in the bottom drawer of the refrigerator
and an earthen scum harden on the kitchen floor.
Leave the black crumbs in the bottom of the toaster.
Throw the cracked bowl out and don’t patch the cup.
Don’t patch anything. Don’t mend. Buy safety pins.
Don’t even sew on a button.
Let the wind have its way, then the earth
that invades as dust and then the dead
foaming up in gray rolls underneath the couch.
Talk to them. Tell them they are welcome.
Don’t keep all the pieces of the puzzles
or the doll’s tiny shoes in pairs, don’t worry
who uses whose toothbrush or if anything
matches, at all.
Except one word to another. Or a thought.
Pursue the authentic — decide first
what is authentic,
then go after it with all your heart.
Your heart, that place
you don’t even think of cleaning out.
That closet stuffed with savage mementos.
Don’t sort the paper clips from screws from saved baby teeth
or worry if we’re all eating cereal for dinner
again. Don’t answer the telephone, ever,
or weep over anything at all that breaks.
Pink molds will grow within those sealed cartons
in the refrigerator. Accept new forms of life
and talk to the dead
who drift in though the screened windows, who collect
patiently on the tops of food jars and books.
Recycle the mail, don’t read it, don’t read anything
except what destroys
the insulation between yourself and your experience
or what pulls down or what strikes at or what shatters
this ruse you call necessity.

(Louise Erdrich, from Original Fire: Selected and New Poems)

Not from whiskey river:

I am waiting for my cappuccino, standing at the bar. Next to me, an attractive young woman with red hair and freckles, clearly a foreigner, has also ordered a cappuccino. Serving at the bar is a young man with curly dark hair. With an air of nonchalance, he places her cup down. It has a lovely froth, with a perfect creamy heart in the middle. I peek at her reaction and notice her surprise. She is not used to receiving a heart for breakfast. The barman says nothing, does not even look at her. Then my cappuccino arrives — no heart, just a banal cappuccino like any other. Simply a drink, no love message.

I must admit a slight feeling of envy for those two. But that is not the point. What is important lies in their interior, secret world.

(Piero Ferrucci, The Power of Kindness [source])

…and then there are these classic moments from 1999’s Office Space. Milton (Stephen Root) is a hapless clerk; Peter (Ron Livingston), a co-worker; and Bill Lumbergh (Gary Cole), their boss at a soulless corporation known as Initech.

[Scene: Milton’s cubicle, under the banner. He’s on the phone with Peter.]

[Below, click Play button to begin this excerpt from Office Space. While audio is playing, volume control appears at left — a row of little vertical bars. This clip is 00:44 long.]

[audio:thatsgreatmilton.mp3|titles=’Excerpt from ‘Office Space”|artists=Stephen Root et al.]

Milton: I– I said I don’t care if they lay me off, either. Because, I told — I told Bill that if they move my desk one more time then I’m — I’m quitting — I’m going to quit. And I told Dom too, because they’ve moved my desk four times already this year. And I used to be over by the window and I could see the squirrels and they were married. But then they switched from the Swingline to the Boston stapler. But I kept my Swingline stapler because it didn’t bind up as much and I kept the staples for the Swingline stapler.

Peter: Okay, Milton.

Milton: And, oh, no, it’s not okay because if they make me — if they — If they take my stapler then I’ll– I’ll have to — I’ll set the building on fire.

Peter: Okay well, that sounds, uh, that sounds great. Uh, I’ll talk to you later, all right? Bye.

[later]

[Scene: Milton’s cubicle. He hears Bill talking and eavesdrops.]

Bill: …stapler off my desk…

[Milton puts his Swingline stapler somewhere else. The guys laugh.]

Bill: …anyway, sounds great, Bob. I’ll see you in a few. [They walk off.] Hey, Milton, what’s happening?

Milton: Uh… sir…

Bill: Uh, I’m going to have to ask you to move your desk. Now, if you could get it to go as far back against that wall as possible, that would be great.

Milton: No, no, because I was, I was—

Bill: That way, we’ll have some room for more boxes and things we need to put in here.

Milton: No… sir…

Bill: Uh— [sees the Swingline] Oh, there it is.

Milton: No. No.

Bill: Let me just get that from ya. [Picks it up.] Great. So if you could get to that as soon as possible, that would be terrific. Have a nice lunch, Milton. Bye.

[He walks off.]

Milton: Okay. I’ll set the building on fire.

[later]

[Scene: Milton’s cubicle. He’s organizing papers.]

Milton: F… C… P…

Bill: Hi, Milton. What’s going on?

Milton: I, I, I, I, I didn’t receive my paycheck this week.

Bill: Uh, you’re gonna have to talk to Payroll about that.

Milton: I, I did and they, and they said—

Bill: Uh, we’re gonna need to move your desk downstairs into Storage B.

Milton: No…I…I…

Bill: Uh, we have some new people coming in and we need all the space we can get.

Milton: No…no…no…no…but…but…but…I, I, I—

Bill: And if you could could go ahead and get a can of pesticide and take care of the roach problem we’ve been having that would be great. [He walks away.]

Milton: I can’t… Excuse me. I believe you have my stapler?

[later, and finally]

[Scene: Initech. Morning. Milton is talking to an secretary. Lumbergh hasn’t gotten to work yet.]

Milton: … to Mr. Lumbergh and he told me to talk to Payroll and then Payroll, they told me to talk to Mr. Lumbergh. And I still haven’t gotten my paycheck and they stole my stapler and they told me to move my desk to Storage Room B and there was garbage all over it and I don’t appreciate that.

Secretary: Um, why don’t you go and sit at your desk. Mr. Lumbergh should be here any minute.

Milton: Mr. Lumbergh—

Secretary: Just go and sit at your desk.

Milton: But—

Secretary: Oh?

Milton: Okay, I, I, I’m going to set the building on fire. I tell him, if I don’t get my stapler [the secretary leaves] I’m going to have to get my stapler back because it is my stapler. [He goes into Mr. Lumbergh’s office] It’s my stapler, the Swingline. It’s been mine for a very long time.

I’m amazed that no one has done a YouTube compilation of all these scenes.