Saturday morning

Thinking about things:

star

blue sky

shadow

spring moment

dream

These words are on my refrigerator. On the side that faces the window. Arranged just like they are above. They are magnetic cut-out words I exhibit from a collection I gathered years ago. Mostly from other people's refrigerators.

I remember when I placed these cut-out words on my refrigerator. It was probably 2001 when I did this. Or maybe during the spring of 2002. Their ordering on the side of my refrigerator has stayed pretty much the same over the years. Even though I move them around occasionally for cleaning purposes and sometimes I try to position them in a newly imagined way, I have not found another grouping that suits the words or me. [To be honest, I used to have the cut-out word WOMAN right next to blue. But I took it away one day.] I like the way these words make a little essay in need of explication and interpretation.

These cut-out words are positioned a few inches beneath two ceramic magnets my sweet son Shanan gave me when we visited Zabar's on Broadway in New York City when he lived across town on East 89th Street. At the time Shanan worked at CBS on West 57th Street. I checked with Shanan and he thinks this visit was most likely in 1998 or maybe 1999. I know it was winter and cold and I think it may have snowed recently although I might be remembering another visit. But I do think it was a lovely day the day we visited Zabar's. I remember walking there. I think I either met Shanan after he finished work or we went together on a Saturday.

One magnet has an Italian espresso maker on it and the other has a stoneware mixing bowl [the heavy duty kind with a blue band] and a whisk and spoon. Both ceramic magnets look like they were hand painted. Or at least I imagine that they were. I think they are finely made and sturdy. I remember we found the magnets upstairs at Zabar’s and we both knew immediately that they needed to be bought for each other. They were just the kind of remembrances both of us esteem.

These ceramic and cut-out word magnets seem to have beckoned me to notice them last Saturday. This noticing sent me to my computer to spend some time [a few days actually] remembering about such simple and wonderful things.