I find trimming down sentences—for the sole purpose of fitting them into a certain space—extraordinarily draining. But shouldn’t the practice of writing be uplifting, inspiring, invigorating? Therefore, when I started to write out the movements for my next video (From the ground up #3), I decided for expressible sentences, even if they might take up more space. Turns out they don’t even take up that much more space. All good.

Also today:  I’ve stumbled upon two workers who were trimming plants. I took a few pictures because they were doing a whole lot of things I teach in my “From the ground up” series:  kneeling, squatting, sitting on their feet, heels under the pelvis, in many different ways. Much to my delight (and amazement) they were extraordinarily skilful at it. I teach these movements as something special, but for these two men these movements are extraordinarily ordinary. They squat and kneel often, o! so often, minutes at a time, totalling hours per day, day after day. And despite all that kneeling and squatting, whenever they get up they seem to stand up so straight, and stand up at so much ease, that I wonder if I should cry out in delight or envy.

When I was back up in my apartment I was still thinking about these two workers. I was standing in front of my window, which is overlooking the city, and was drowning deeply in my thoughts. I was thinking about how people back home in Austria move. If no one does a certain kind of thing, how can we know of its existence? And likewise, if everyone does a certain kind of thing, how can we become aware of its value?

Finally I pulled myself away from my pondering and concluded: „That’s what poems are for. To capture the essence of things that are remarkable, so they can be passed on.” Turns out—when I was looking at the last sentence of today’s blog post—that today I was able to create something slightly remarkable myself, I wrote a blog post that bore a poem as fruit (for you to pick):

In poems
sentences don’t need to be trimmed.
They need to be seeded;
briefly sprouted at most.