upon this have i stumbled
an archive of the things that i have stumbled upon this month, which have stuck, for better or for worse. mostly for better.
I have been thinking a lot about “stickiness” — maybe because I am writing a thesis about memory, maybe because I saw a display of post-it notes at the National Museum of American History, or maybe because sticky things, well, stick. On walls, and between fingers, and also in our minds. Mostly I’ve been thinking about how they stick in our minds.
What makes something “sticky” to us? Why, in an art gallery, am I drawn to this painting and not the one next to it? Why, years later, do I remember the exact restaurant table at which we sat, but not the food we ordered? Why am I writing about these things when I could have written about anything else in the world? As you know by now, I don’t really have answers—only questions. And ideas. So I’m going to try a new idea here, and we’ll see if it’s sticky enough to stick. I’m hoping it is.
The idea is to archive all the things upon which I have stumbled in the past month, which have stuck with me: poetry, stories, books, articles, artwork, quotes, websites, whatever. I’m thinking I’ll update the archive once a month. But before we get to this month’s archive, a brief explanation of the title, “upon this have i stumbled.”
I have been thinking about the idea of “stumbling” with the same curious nonchalance as I have been thinking about “stickiness.” The word stumble implies for me rather negative images—maybe because I grew up in the church, where we often used stumble to reference folly or sin. But even outside of the church, stumble insinuates some kind of failure: an unintended falling, something that has kept you from getting to where you want to be. What stumble implies is accidents. What our negative association with stumble implies is that we are abominably afraid of accidents.
But Diana Khoi Nguyen, the artist-in-residence at my university, advises us after nearly every lecture and office hour to “leave room for accidents.” She calls it noodling, derived from the practice of catching catfish with bare hands. “It’s fucking terrifying,” Diana has exclaimed many-a-time. Catfish live in holes, she tells us, so in order to noodle, you have to stick your hand into a black crevice and hope something happens, praying that your hand emerges okay in the end. And it does.
As I continue chipping away at my thesis, and also as I write creatively, I want to noodle more often. I want to rest in the non-knowing, to dance in that in-between stage of discovery. I think reclaiming the word, “stumble,” has a lot to do with these practices.
When we stumble, we’re forced to reckon with our sense of balance. Suddenly the world is a little tilted, and we’re reminded of our mortality, our humanity, the fact that we have a choice. Stumbling reminds us we can stop. Also that we can go.
I love the phrase “stumble upon,” also because the word “upon” holds such magic. (The first time most of us stumble upon the word “upon” is through the age-old introduction, “once upon a time.”) The combination of stumble and upon mixes realism with magic, quickness with pause, and choice with a little bit of fate. It denotes a kind of “Chaos Theory,” as poet Clint Smith writes:
but what I mean to say is that it would have been such a tragedy if something happened that would have prevented me from meeting you like a butterfly who didn’t realize it was flying in the wrong direction.
When we stumble upon something, it stumbles upon us too. I don’t know if I believe in love at first sight, but maybe this is an argument for some iteration of such love. Something simply sticks. And sticks. And keeps sticking.
So, without further ado, upon these things have I stumbled. Through them have I learned to love, just a little bit more.
“Study Abroad,” an ekphrastic poem by Cassie Burkhardt
“At Your Convenience,” a short story by Nancy Nguyen
“Persimmons,” an essay-esque piece by Emily Parzybok
“Melody,” a orchestral song by Myroslav Skoryk
“Love Elegy in the Chinese Garden, with Koi,” a poem by Nathan McClain
“Tinder Bio,” microfiction by Christina Irmen
“The Weight of Our Living: On Hope, Fire Escapes, and Visible Desperation,” an essay by Ocean Vuong
“A Poem for Tenderness in the Face of Violence,” podcast episode with Poetry Unbound and Pádraig Ó Tuama, inspired by Ocean Vuong’s poem “Seventh Circle of Earth”
“Man in Boat, 1988,” an ekphrastic poem by Vi Khi Nao
“Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person,” an op-ed by Alain de Botton
“Will Smith Did a Bad, Bad Thing,” a substack article by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
“When War Makes a Child,” a poem by Tatiana Dolgushina
“You Wonder If You Can Write Something,” a poem by Susan Browne
“Five Poems for Ukraine,” poems by Kim Stafford
