Sarah Mellstrom
I met Sarah Mellstrom in 2005 in the midst of my senior year of college. We worked together at the local coffee shop in Northfield, Minnesota. She was taking a year off from Connecticut College after switching majors multiple times: Art, Russian, etc.
Sarah has a very pure face. She has a little piercing underneath her lower lip. She constantly wore little red scarves, elfin-comfort shoes, and wore her hair in braids or pinned up 19th-century style. She looks as if transported from the 19th century. As far as I know, she has no concern for current fashion or trends. She likes to sing, draw, play the melodica, the recorder, and read for fun. She dislikes most rock music. She is my better half.
Sarah believes in the potential for utopias, and is constantly visiting them. She experiences disappointment and then searches for a new one. She loves Russian literature, poetry, and Ingrid Bergman films. She is a romantic who seeks authentic human connection. She disdains many aspects of the Modern World. She is disgusted with New York City. She is currently living in a small community on an island in Ireland where she fishes, farms, and teaches art to children. She also sends me long and beautiful emails and sometimes letters, some of which I will excerpt here, and give the best sense of her personality:
also i am quite completely obsessed with abandoned houses and have been gradually exploring them on this island braving collapsing staircases and the island Garda (police force) both in order to have aesthetic experiences w/o drug use, feeling completely fulfilled currently by my discoveries uncovering pieces of the island's past like letters and heirlooms which have been neglected by the people here as an embarrassment
i really went into an artistic trance today when i was exploring some ruins i cannot really describe it but i will say that i found the largest bee in the entire world and also a flower bright purple and red hanging
I just talked to my mother on the phone and told her she shouldn't have given birth to me.
Is that terrible? It's true.
I am not happy here but I am a lot more reasonable.
i was regarding san francisco by google maps the other day just to think of where you were in relation to me. we are in nearly opposite locations if perhaps similar mental states
i am also in love with myself though.
I met an 89 year old blind goat farmer who makes cheese and ice cream and chocolate and such things. He had a beautifully melodious voice, as was evidenced that evening following the closing of the conference, when everyone stayed and shared music. It seems that everyone here is a talented musician, regardless of what they might do in the public sphere.
I have accidentally discovered the worst smell in the entire world!!!
If you want to create the worst smell in the entire world, begin by gathering snail shells on the beach. Pay no heed to their contents, as there may be gruesome gastropod remains clinging to the spirals. These must be soaked in a closed glass jar of water upon returning to one's abode, for a period of approximately three days.
Following this, they will be loose enough to either slip out into the liquid of their own volition or pulled out with a small piece of toilet paper (avoid touching them by all means). Some will be translucent, allowing for a brave glimpse into their internal organs. Pour this entrail-clouded water into a cup in order to separate it from the shells (which you want to retain) and the entrails (which you do not).
This is the WORST SMELL IN THE ENTIRE WORLD!!!
I hope you are smelling some interesting things lately.
I am so tired of these people and of trying to prove I am good. I have only good intentions for the world and none of them are nourished here I am only hurt by careless disrespect and dispassionate academics. I hope all those drunkards rot in their cubicles while sensible people are living in nature preserves.
Bleah bleah bleah. Sometimes I think I will never do anything great.
i am accepting everything.
i feel like a buddha.
i am like a ghost with no substance. i pass through things and people and places and absorb so many details but cannot make even the lightest impression on any of them. and no body notices me even though I wear something red every day and all they wear is grey and faded blue.
regarding the Captive Mind: bear with it until you fall in with the rhythm of the intellectual prose style: it sounds overbearing but is in fact beautiful once it breaks you in. slavic males. sigh.
is this some one you once inclined towards as a blossom in the field?
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Sarah, Boliou 2006.
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Sarah admiring borscht in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.
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Me and Sarah. Last days in bucolic Northfield together.
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A painting of Sarah in New York.