Buon Compleanno!

The art of losing isn't hard to master; so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day.

Accept the fluster of lost door keys,

the hour badly spent.

The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:

places, and names, and where it was you meant to travel.

None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look!

my last, or next-to-last, of three loved houses went.

The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones.

And, vaster, some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.

I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture I love)

I shan't have lied.

It's evident the art of losing's not too hard to master though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster. -- Elizabeth Bishop, One Art

Happy 55th Birthday Benny!


Today, my father would have turned 55-years-old. Instead he died when he was only 45. So young. As was I at the time. Thinking back at me then, I wish I could hug that sad little teen. Especially when I re-read this poem that I wrote that year. Breaks my heart all over again

In the years since his passing there was an empty seat at three of my graduations, a missing parent at my wedding and so many ups and downs that I wasn't able to share with him. I know he would have especially enjoyed seeing my byline in the paper and hanging it up in his restaurant, knowing what college I went to and that I got my masters degree, scaring my boyfriends, hearing about my different raises, seeing my little apartment in Manhattan ... heck, I can go on and on why it sucks that he passed away, but more than anything else, I just miss my friend.