by Alan Hanson

0a. “For billions of years since the outset of time every single one of your ancestors has survived. Every single person on your mum and dad’s side successfully looked after and passed on to you life.” - Mike Skinner

0b. A brittle and vibrant evolution of mushy.

1. To be tender and open to the soft carousel of the world. To be present and affected by beauties ranging from simple to extreme:

• Beauties of simplicity: Leaves, well-positioned picture frames, inescapable melodies, caution, coincidence, efficient packaging, toothpicks.
• Beauties of extremity: On-time public transportation, sincerity, unity of age, city planning, trees, oxygen, discovery, unspoken connections, flight.

2. To create and respect Edge around the Softs. Mishyness is sturdy and skeletal; a framework of bravery and forwardness that charges ahead in tandem with the open-yet-well-cared-for-wounds of the Soft.

3. An exhibition of quiet Mishyness that bubbles in the heart:

You are walking through a quiet neighborhood simultaneously balancing day-to-day anxieties with an optimistic hopefulness and excitement for the unknown and the foundations created, without your existence, in the past. You have a minimal interest in jazz and a less-than-polished brass band rehearses inside your downy chest where it is always after-hours and slightly sweaty. The skin on the bottom of your feet buzzes and hums; glad that you are alive and using the tools handed to you from a nebulous, intangible progenitor. The trumpets pump your blood and you still look both ways before crossing the street. You are electric and delicate, always.

4. An Extreme Yearning To Find Others Who Are Mishy. A wholeheartedly silly yet intense want to bottle the light in one’s eyes when they recognize Mishyness in an other. The light intensified by the scenario in which you discover an other’s Mishy flashlight in midnight wooded areas: a work conference in Des Moines, in line for the bank, your cousin’s college graduation party, the mall, civil services.

5. You are a rubber band. You are Mishy and alive.