Admit One

I was recently invited to join an ATC swap with the theme "Put a Heart on It."  It's been a long time since I made an ATC so I wasn't sure I'd even remember how to do it! Silly me! I had packed up most of my crafty paper supplies so I had to look around and use what I could find. A page from an old book, a bit of paper napkin, an old ticket, a button from my sewing basket and some cardboard off a box that came in the mail. Pretty simple but so fun to do. Now I remember why I love playing with paper!

Some days

Finding out that my job has been eliminated, looking for a new job and trying to decide if I even want another job has me feeling a bit "lifted by the ribs" these days. Some days I feel fine about what's happening, some days I feel angry and some days just helpless.

Some Days

Some days I put the people in their places at the table,
bend their legs at the knees,
if they come with that feature,
and fix them into the tiny wooden chairs.

All afternoon, they face one another,
the man in the brown suit,
the woman in the blue dress,
perfectly motionless, perfectly behaved.

But other days,
I am the one who is lifted up by the ribs,
then lowered into the dining room of a dollhouse
to sit with the others at the long table.

Very funny,
but how would you like it
if you never knew from one day to the next
if you were going to spend it

striding around like a vivid god,
your shoulders in the clouds,
or sitting down there amidst the wallpaper,
staring straight ahead with your little plastic face?

Billy Collins