wee glimpses

Sometimes acts of kindness really stir me up all the way down to my feet. Yesterday after a long long Saturday of work, helping college students with various silkscreen projects, managing chaos, nearly removing one of my uninsured fingers on a lithography press bed, I tried to squeeze in a last minute freelance project to make the month a little more comfortable. I felt like every hair on my head was standing on end and swiftly ruined four overpriced American Apparel t-shirts due to a pinhole in my screen and bright red ink trailing around on my shirt cuff. I was fighting off tears, due to this closing of what seemed a neverending week, and my complete lack of craftmanship in the medium I like to call my own.

One of the continuing education students who I consider a friend after chatting over the last semester had stuck around to help me clean the silkscreen studio; a truly generous person. As I debated whether to sob or throw a temper tantrum over my defaced shirts--both quite attractive options--he pointed me in the direction of a Chelsea odd shop that sells about 100 different styles of tighty whities and some very affordable Fruit of the Loom Ts. He then helped me reprint all my new shirts front and back as I regained my composure and began to act my 26 years again.

I had to drop off my now near-perfect shirts near the apartment he shares with his wife and as we walked downtown he described his siblings who all still live in Brazil, and I thought about how insanely comforting new conversations can be.