There’s magic everywhere.

It’s not just in the dew-coated woods, with its plush carpets of moss and lichen-covered log benches.

It’s not just in the the sunset, where the bold colors bleed until they’re bent to the will of the black night.

It’s not just in snowflakes and spiderwebs and raindrops on roses.

Magic’s in the “ordinary” stuff, too.

What’s ordinary?

In a Christmas special of Doctor Who, the 11th Doctor is told that some random girl isn’t important. He replies:

“Nobody important? Blimey, that’s amazing. You know, nine hundred years of time and space and I’ve never met anybody who wasn’t important before.”

Brilliant.

And just like how nobody is really “unimportant,” I think nothing is truly “ordinary.”

Poetry is good at highlighting this.

We’ve been talking about poetry in school. I used to write a lot of poetry; I’m excited to get back into it!

One of the fundamentals of poetry–the easiest places to start–is with comparisons.

These are the two basics:

• Concrete to concrete
  • My phone is a portal, pulling me into fathomless, faraway worlds
• Abstract to concrete
  • Fear is a puddle. In it you see yourself, and if you don’t tread lightly it will cause you to slip.

That got me thinking (as poetry should): one of the most universal ways that humans tie-down these abstract concepts of love, hate, desire, fear–it’s all with “ordinary” objects.

Think about it!

In order to fathom that which is too large for words, we highlight that which is ordinary. We hold it in higher esteem.

My favorite movie of all time is Moulin Rouge. If you don’t know that movie, it’s about love. The big statement of that movie starts off with a abstract-to-concrete comparison: “Love is like oxygen!” (can you tell the main character is an idealistic writer himself?)

If poets use ordinary objects to attempt to express the uncommunicable, then are those objects truly that ordinary?

Or is something only as plain as you make it out to be?

It’s a matter of perspective (isn’t it always?)

My mentor, Brad Pauquette, told me that no comparison is random. You might think one is, but it isn’t. In your randomness is your perspective and whole personality.

That’s enough food for thought to feed you all week!

When you look at something, what do you see? What does that say about you? Perhaps a chair is a companion, always there to hold you when you need holding. Perhaps a chair is a crutch, propping you up because you cannot stand without it.

Those two “random” comparisons say very different things about a person. But the way you see something can–and likely will–change over time. Same with that which is “ordinary.” What’s plain now might not be if you just shift your perspective a little. If you give it more than second’s thought, ordinary fades away.

“Ordinary” is an ocean.
It’s dull in the dark,
Stretching on and on
In endless grey.

But in the moonlight
It glitters
It transforms into diamonds
And the poets can’t keep their pens away.

Keep chasing the ordinary

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