I HAVE A CRAZY
Crazy love of things.
I like pliars,
and scisssors.
I love
cups
rings
and bowls -
not to speak, of course,
of hats.
I love
all things,
not just
the grandest,
also
the infinite
ly
small-
thimbles,
spurs,
plates,
and flower vases.
Oh yes.
by Pablo Neruda
I did my undergraduate honors thesis on Neruda. I was a fiery feminist but it did not occur to me to do the thesis on a chick poet. Times have changed since 1975.
I love all things, too, by the way. All of them.
Monday, November 27, 2006
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
A Thanksgiving lesson or two
Holiday memories are dancing through me. This might be a good sign.
I'll tell a Thanksgiving story, since it's turkey time.
My daughter had never been around a baby before Isabelle joined our family. Katie was always crabbing when Isabelle was around. "Don't ever expect me to babysit!", Katie liked to exclaim, even though no one ever asked her to. "Rugrats, that's what babies are. I'm never going to have kids!"
Margaret and I always thought Katie was jealous of our adorable Isabelle. Katie did not remember that we had doted on her as much as we then doted on the Bibbster. We probably worshipped Katie even more attentively because she was the first niece. Katie was a fine, fine specimen of super deluxe babyhood, I assure you.
Until Isabelle came along, Katie was the only girl that my sister, my brother David and I adored unreservedly. Suddenly, she had to share our definitely doting hearts with the gorgeous plumpling/interloper, Isabelle Valentine.
Oh my gosh, I.V. was a stunning delight. She was also a super deluxe baby. All the babies in my clan are super deluxe babies. Isabelle was born with the most hair I've ever seen on a baby, dark and curly. Her eyes were big and blue. Nowadays, she is blonde but back then, she had thick, dark hair.
Isabelle openly adored Katie. In her little world, Katie was the only other child. I always thought that Isabelle noted that Katie was from her generation, not mine, that she and Katie had bonds of young femalehood or something. Katie was the closest person in size and age to Isabelle. Plus Katie was a teenager, cool and vivacious. Katie is a natural brunette with big brown eyes but at the time of this Thanksgiving, she kept it blonde with foiled highlights (that I paid for).
When Katie walked into the room, Isabelle only had eyes for her. When Katie would flounce up to the top story of our house, her private domain, Isabelle would follow her to the bottom of the curving stairwell and cry out for Katie to pay attention to her. We kept the stairwell blocked when Isabelle came over because otherwise, even though she could barely crawl, she intrepidly tried to climb up the stairs after her cousin. Our curved stairway was particularly treacherous because the stairs were open: our darling delight could have fallen.
At this time, Isabelle was not exactly talking. She was making lots of lovely sounds and all of us, even Katie, had no trouble carrying on intelligent conversation with Isabelle.
It was so adorable the way Isabelle adored her big cousin Katie. It was equally adorable how Katie believed she had no use for Isabelle.
Until Isbee's first Thanksgiving.
Isabelle was nine months old. There are many schools of thought on what is the most perfect age of a baby. My sister says that I think every age a kid can be is perfect, she says I have no objectivity in this regard. I confess to a slight bias about nine-month-olds although two-year-olds dazzle me, of course. And three year olds. Nine-month-olds are all roly-poly perfection. They light up if you smile at them. They interact verbally, albiet not so much with words. And they let you bury your face in their tummy so you can make them laugh and as they laugh, they tend to crab your hair with their chubby fists and wrap their plumply perfect legs around your head as well and when they laugh at what you are doing, you are in a perfect heaven.
Isabelle's first Thanksgiving had a tense beginning. My mother had come to Minneapolis to spend Christmas 'with the girls'. Margaret and I should have known better but we had little fantasies that our mother would morph into a good grandmother and gitchee-goo our daughters. We are still waiting for mom to pay attention to our kids and ourselves. as it happens. But for some reason, probably because Isabelle was new and my sister's fantasies about a real grandma were freshly minted, we had invited mom to spend Thanksgiving with us.
Mom arrived a couple days early. On the day before Thanksgiving, with Katie at school, Margaret, Isabelle and I took Grandma to The Mall of America, the ultimate shopping experience. We stopped at a Starbucks and while my sister was in gettingn our lattes, mom picked a fight with me. I don't remember what she said, just that I was blindsided by her cruelty. "Mom," I said calmly, "I am not going to rise to your bait. We are going to have a great day together."
When my sister returned to the car, Mom twisted around to face her in the backseat and said, "Your sister's mental illness is in full bloom today. Hoo-boy, it's going to be a rough day."
"What did you do, Therese?" asked Margaret. She handed round our coffees, questioning with her eyes in the rearview mirror.
"I didn't do anything and, as I just told Mom, we can put this behind us and have a good day together."
"Your sister is lying. She picked a fight with me when you weren't here and now she wants to wiggle out of it."
I was crying by now.
"Well," said Margaret, "I wasn't here but can't we just put whatever happened behind us and do as Tree says and just have a fine day together?"
Mom was temporarily defeated. I think this was the first time she had ever blindsided me and I had not freaked out. In the past, I would have responded to her verbal abuse with heaps of my own invectives. In the past, I would have been screaming insults and my sister would have believed mom when she said I was acting crazy. But when Margaret had gotten pregnant with Isabelle and the rest of our unhappy clan disowned her, I had invited her to come live in Minneapolis so I could help her and have her and the baby near me to love. We were still uncertain with each other, after a lifetime of seeing each other through our family's dysfunctional lens but by the time mom showed up for Isbee's first Thanksgiving, Margaret and I were friends, perhaps for the first time in our lives.
"Shall we go to the mall? Or go home?" I asked, dangling my keys in the air.
"Let's go to the mall. I think Isabelle wants to meet Santa Clause," said my sister, gurgling as she spoke and nuzzling our Bibbsey.
We made our way from St. Paul to the freeways leading to the great Mall of America. There was an awkward silence in the car. I can't speak for Margaret but I was praying that I would remain calm, that we would get past the unhappiness and, yes, still have a nice day.
Mom took a sip of her latte, which was piping hot. "What is this?!" she snarled, "This isn't what I asked for."
"Yes it is, Mom," said Margaret cheerfully. "I asked you if you wanted regular coffee or a latte and you said you wanted a latte. That's a latte."
"Well," mom said, still snarling. Her lip actually curled. "This is not my idea of coffee." Then she rolled down her window just a few inches and stuffed the cardboard coffee cup out the small opening. We were on the freeway, going at least fifty miles per hour. The hot coffee whipped back on the car, a light spray coming back into the car. Mostly on mom.
"Your sister is crazy, your sister is unwell, I can't drink that coffee, I can't spend the day with your crazy sister, I can't live another day being the mother of your crazy sister," mom spoke in a kind of chant, with hysteria rising in her tone. She went on and on, her claims grew wilder, as did her voice. She was hysterical. She started screaming, "Let me out of this car immediately. Stop this car right now."
It was horrible, especially since Isabelle, our darling, was in the backseat hearing it. I was still on a freeway, driving fast. I told mom I would pull over at the next exit, that I would take her back to my house or wherever she wanted to go.
She started trying to open the car door, as we zoomed along. She was twisting and turning and moaning. She was shrieking and with each breath she said something unkind about me. Only me.
When I came to an exit ramp, I pulled off, stopped the car and turned to Mom and I said, "We are in Bloomington, which is a long way from my house. You can get out if you want to but I will take you back to the house, Mom, if you would like me to."
"Take me back to the house."
I did. We all sat in a stony silence.
When we got to my house, I gave her a spare set of keys and told her to make herself at home, that I was not going to come in and listen to her abuse. This was literally the first time in my whole life that I did not get sucked in by mom's behavior. Until this day, after a life time of conditioning that started in my crib, I always believed her when she said her unhappiness was my fault. I had never seen her so hysterical. It seemed to me that when I remained calm, she flipped out, as if I had altered the nature of her reality or something. I was crying, hard, as I waited for everyone to get out of my car. "You really can't talk to me this way, Mom. It's not right. We both need time to calm down." This was also new behavior: normally, once mom and I got triggered, I would have been railing at her a long time, out of control, unable to compose myself, unable to stop ranting until I grew exhausted.
My sister took her daughter and rushed to her car, fleeing the scene.
It felt great to drop her off and pull away, to take care of myself instead of her. It was an early, unfamiliar taste of my personal power to feel calm while my mother was being mean to me.
I stayed away for just an hour or so. When I got back to my house, mom had packed and left. Both my sister and I were shocked, that she would be so disruptive with a holiday and the kids.
When mom got back to Chicago, she told her side of things to my brother Dave, who made several angry phone calls to yell at me for ruining his holiday. My sister got on the phone and told David it was not my fault but my mom has blamed me for every thing that ever went wrong ever in our entire family's history all my life and this was all David knew. He added to my suffering when he told me flatly that he did not believe me and he did not believe Margaret, that he knew that I had been my crazy, destructive self.
Margaret and Isabelle came over Thanksgiving morning, as we had planned. We readied our feast together. At first, I think, Margaret and I were acting cheerful and chipper for the kids benefit. In our family, until this point, every holiday was punctuated by some crazy scene like we had experienced the day before. I don't think either one of us had ever experienced simply going forward and forgetting the ugliness of the fight. As the day unfolded, as we settled into adoring Isabelle and Katie and fixing dinner, we realized we were having a very nice day.
Katie, in full-blown adolescence, stayed upstairs most of the day. But there was a balcony on her floor that overlooked most of our living space. She talked to us from time to time as she moved about her part of the house.
The smell of our meal filled the house. Our love for each other helped us push the ugliness away. We stopped clucking about what had happened with mom. David stopped calling to yell at me.
Katie finally came down, just before we sat down to dinner.
As she plopped onto the sofa, right next to Isabelle, she was all smiles. My Katie has the most beautiful smile I've ever seen. She wore braces for about four years and I loved her smile the best when she had braces. She would look all cool and sophisticated and then smile, revealing the braces and she looked young and vulnerable and not at all grown up. In my mind's eye, as I recall this day, Katie had the braces on but in real life, her braces were gone by the time she started high school. Anyway, she smiled my beautiful Katie's smile, as she slid next to her infant cousin.
Isabelle instantly began glombing onto Katie, patting her, cooing, seeking Katie's attention.
Katie looked around, questioningly.
"You don't know what to do, do you?" I said to her.
"What do you mean?" Katie said.
"You don't know what to do with a baby. Let me show you."
I came over to the girls, knelt down in front of Isabelle, pulled her down so she lay flat on the sofa and I buried my face in her tummy. Isabelle gurgled her delight and wrapped her hands and legs around my head. After a few moments, I pulled my head back and then buried it once more in Isabelle's tummy.
"You try it." I said to Katie. "I call this 'the tummy test'. Isbelle, can Katie test your tummy?" It is also possible to blow on the baby's tummy, right on their skin, if you really want to have fun.
And she did. Katie buried her face in Isabelle's tummy. This made both of the girls very happy. They played like this until we sat down to eat.
After dinner, I offered Katie another lesson. I showed her how to play peekaboo with a baby. Again, Katie played with Isabelle.
Isabelle was ecstatic. She had been worshipfully watching Katie for months and Katie had never before given her much attention.
Soon the girls, my lanky teenager and our crawling infant were romping through the house, with Katie calling "I'm going to get you!" and Isabelle squealing in flight but also delight. Over and over, Katie would 'get her', take her down on the floor, bury her face in her tummy and then start all over.
When Margaret and Isabelle left, Katie said, "You know, Mom, I always thought that people played with babies for the babies' sake. I found out today that people play with babies for themselves, not for the babies. That was so much fun."
My mother raised six children (I use the word 'raise' loosely) and I don't think she ever figured out that she could have fun with her kids, for her sake, not just ours.
I'll tell a Thanksgiving story, since it's turkey time.
My daughter had never been around a baby before Isabelle joined our family. Katie was always crabbing when Isabelle was around. "Don't ever expect me to babysit!", Katie liked to exclaim, even though no one ever asked her to. "Rugrats, that's what babies are. I'm never going to have kids!"
Margaret and I always thought Katie was jealous of our adorable Isabelle. Katie did not remember that we had doted on her as much as we then doted on the Bibbster. We probably worshipped Katie even more attentively because she was the first niece. Katie was a fine, fine specimen of super deluxe babyhood, I assure you.
Until Isabelle came along, Katie was the only girl that my sister, my brother David and I adored unreservedly. Suddenly, she had to share our definitely doting hearts with the gorgeous plumpling/interloper, Isabelle Valentine.
Oh my gosh, I.V. was a stunning delight. She was also a super deluxe baby. All the babies in my clan are super deluxe babies. Isabelle was born with the most hair I've ever seen on a baby, dark and curly. Her eyes were big and blue. Nowadays, she is blonde but back then, she had thick, dark hair.
Isabelle openly adored Katie. In her little world, Katie was the only other child. I always thought that Isabelle noted that Katie was from her generation, not mine, that she and Katie had bonds of young femalehood or something. Katie was the closest person in size and age to Isabelle. Plus Katie was a teenager, cool and vivacious. Katie is a natural brunette with big brown eyes but at the time of this Thanksgiving, she kept it blonde with foiled highlights (that I paid for).
When Katie walked into the room, Isabelle only had eyes for her. When Katie would flounce up to the top story of our house, her private domain, Isabelle would follow her to the bottom of the curving stairwell and cry out for Katie to pay attention to her. We kept the stairwell blocked when Isabelle came over because otherwise, even though she could barely crawl, she intrepidly tried to climb up the stairs after her cousin. Our curved stairway was particularly treacherous because the stairs were open: our darling delight could have fallen.
At this time, Isabelle was not exactly talking. She was making lots of lovely sounds and all of us, even Katie, had no trouble carrying on intelligent conversation with Isabelle.
It was so adorable the way Isabelle adored her big cousin Katie. It was equally adorable how Katie believed she had no use for Isabelle.
Until Isbee's first Thanksgiving.
Isabelle was nine months old. There are many schools of thought on what is the most perfect age of a baby. My sister says that I think every age a kid can be is perfect, she says I have no objectivity in this regard. I confess to a slight bias about nine-month-olds although two-year-olds dazzle me, of course. And three year olds. Nine-month-olds are all roly-poly perfection. They light up if you smile at them. They interact verbally, albiet not so much with words. And they let you bury your face in their tummy so you can make them laugh and as they laugh, they tend to crab your hair with their chubby fists and wrap their plumply perfect legs around your head as well and when they laugh at what you are doing, you are in a perfect heaven.
Isabelle's first Thanksgiving had a tense beginning. My mother had come to Minneapolis to spend Christmas 'with the girls'. Margaret and I should have known better but we had little fantasies that our mother would morph into a good grandmother and gitchee-goo our daughters. We are still waiting for mom to pay attention to our kids and ourselves. as it happens. But for some reason, probably because Isabelle was new and my sister's fantasies about a real grandma were freshly minted, we had invited mom to spend Thanksgiving with us.
Mom arrived a couple days early. On the day before Thanksgiving, with Katie at school, Margaret, Isabelle and I took Grandma to The Mall of America, the ultimate shopping experience. We stopped at a Starbucks and while my sister was in gettingn our lattes, mom picked a fight with me. I don't remember what she said, just that I was blindsided by her cruelty. "Mom," I said calmly, "I am not going to rise to your bait. We are going to have a great day together."
When my sister returned to the car, Mom twisted around to face her in the backseat and said, "Your sister's mental illness is in full bloom today. Hoo-boy, it's going to be a rough day."
"What did you do, Therese?" asked Margaret. She handed round our coffees, questioning with her eyes in the rearview mirror.
"I didn't do anything and, as I just told Mom, we can put this behind us and have a good day together."
"Your sister is lying. She picked a fight with me when you weren't here and now she wants to wiggle out of it."
I was crying by now.
"Well," said Margaret, "I wasn't here but can't we just put whatever happened behind us and do as Tree says and just have a fine day together?"
Mom was temporarily defeated. I think this was the first time she had ever blindsided me and I had not freaked out. In the past, I would have responded to her verbal abuse with heaps of my own invectives. In the past, I would have been screaming insults and my sister would have believed mom when she said I was acting crazy. But when Margaret had gotten pregnant with Isabelle and the rest of our unhappy clan disowned her, I had invited her to come live in Minneapolis so I could help her and have her and the baby near me to love. We were still uncertain with each other, after a lifetime of seeing each other through our family's dysfunctional lens but by the time mom showed up for Isbee's first Thanksgiving, Margaret and I were friends, perhaps for the first time in our lives.
"Shall we go to the mall? Or go home?" I asked, dangling my keys in the air.
"Let's go to the mall. I think Isabelle wants to meet Santa Clause," said my sister, gurgling as she spoke and nuzzling our Bibbsey.
We made our way from St. Paul to the freeways leading to the great Mall of America. There was an awkward silence in the car. I can't speak for Margaret but I was praying that I would remain calm, that we would get past the unhappiness and, yes, still have a nice day.
Mom took a sip of her latte, which was piping hot. "What is this?!" she snarled, "This isn't what I asked for."
"Yes it is, Mom," said Margaret cheerfully. "I asked you if you wanted regular coffee or a latte and you said you wanted a latte. That's a latte."
"Well," mom said, still snarling. Her lip actually curled. "This is not my idea of coffee." Then she rolled down her window just a few inches and stuffed the cardboard coffee cup out the small opening. We were on the freeway, going at least fifty miles per hour. The hot coffee whipped back on the car, a light spray coming back into the car. Mostly on mom.
"Your sister is crazy, your sister is unwell, I can't drink that coffee, I can't spend the day with your crazy sister, I can't live another day being the mother of your crazy sister," mom spoke in a kind of chant, with hysteria rising in her tone. She went on and on, her claims grew wilder, as did her voice. She was hysterical. She started screaming, "Let me out of this car immediately. Stop this car right now."
It was horrible, especially since Isabelle, our darling, was in the backseat hearing it. I was still on a freeway, driving fast. I told mom I would pull over at the next exit, that I would take her back to my house or wherever she wanted to go.
She started trying to open the car door, as we zoomed along. She was twisting and turning and moaning. She was shrieking and with each breath she said something unkind about me. Only me.
When I came to an exit ramp, I pulled off, stopped the car and turned to Mom and I said, "We are in Bloomington, which is a long way from my house. You can get out if you want to but I will take you back to the house, Mom, if you would like me to."
"Take me back to the house."
I did. We all sat in a stony silence.
When we got to my house, I gave her a spare set of keys and told her to make herself at home, that I was not going to come in and listen to her abuse. This was literally the first time in my whole life that I did not get sucked in by mom's behavior. Until this day, after a life time of conditioning that started in my crib, I always believed her when she said her unhappiness was my fault. I had never seen her so hysterical. It seemed to me that when I remained calm, she flipped out, as if I had altered the nature of her reality or something. I was crying, hard, as I waited for everyone to get out of my car. "You really can't talk to me this way, Mom. It's not right. We both need time to calm down." This was also new behavior: normally, once mom and I got triggered, I would have been railing at her a long time, out of control, unable to compose myself, unable to stop ranting until I grew exhausted.
My sister took her daughter and rushed to her car, fleeing the scene.
It felt great to drop her off and pull away, to take care of myself instead of her. It was an early, unfamiliar taste of my personal power to feel calm while my mother was being mean to me.
I stayed away for just an hour or so. When I got back to my house, mom had packed and left. Both my sister and I were shocked, that she would be so disruptive with a holiday and the kids.
When mom got back to Chicago, she told her side of things to my brother Dave, who made several angry phone calls to yell at me for ruining his holiday. My sister got on the phone and told David it was not my fault but my mom has blamed me for every thing that ever went wrong ever in our entire family's history all my life and this was all David knew. He added to my suffering when he told me flatly that he did not believe me and he did not believe Margaret, that he knew that I had been my crazy, destructive self.
Margaret and Isabelle came over Thanksgiving morning, as we had planned. We readied our feast together. At first, I think, Margaret and I were acting cheerful and chipper for the kids benefit. In our family, until this point, every holiday was punctuated by some crazy scene like we had experienced the day before. I don't think either one of us had ever experienced simply going forward and forgetting the ugliness of the fight. As the day unfolded, as we settled into adoring Isabelle and Katie and fixing dinner, we realized we were having a very nice day.
Katie, in full-blown adolescence, stayed upstairs most of the day. But there was a balcony on her floor that overlooked most of our living space. She talked to us from time to time as she moved about her part of the house.
The smell of our meal filled the house. Our love for each other helped us push the ugliness away. We stopped clucking about what had happened with mom. David stopped calling to yell at me.
Katie finally came down, just before we sat down to dinner.
As she plopped onto the sofa, right next to Isabelle, she was all smiles. My Katie has the most beautiful smile I've ever seen. She wore braces for about four years and I loved her smile the best when she had braces. She would look all cool and sophisticated and then smile, revealing the braces and she looked young and vulnerable and not at all grown up. In my mind's eye, as I recall this day, Katie had the braces on but in real life, her braces were gone by the time she started high school. Anyway, she smiled my beautiful Katie's smile, as she slid next to her infant cousin.
Isabelle instantly began glombing onto Katie, patting her, cooing, seeking Katie's attention.
Katie looked around, questioningly.
"You don't know what to do, do you?" I said to her.
"What do you mean?" Katie said.
"You don't know what to do with a baby. Let me show you."
I came over to the girls, knelt down in front of Isabelle, pulled her down so she lay flat on the sofa and I buried my face in her tummy. Isabelle gurgled her delight and wrapped her hands and legs around my head. After a few moments, I pulled my head back and then buried it once more in Isabelle's tummy.
"You try it." I said to Katie. "I call this 'the tummy test'. Isbelle, can Katie test your tummy?" It is also possible to blow on the baby's tummy, right on their skin, if you really want to have fun.
And she did. Katie buried her face in Isabelle's tummy. This made both of the girls very happy. They played like this until we sat down to eat.
After dinner, I offered Katie another lesson. I showed her how to play peekaboo with a baby. Again, Katie played with Isabelle.
Isabelle was ecstatic. She had been worshipfully watching Katie for months and Katie had never before given her much attention.
Soon the girls, my lanky teenager and our crawling infant were romping through the house, with Katie calling "I'm going to get you!" and Isabelle squealing in flight but also delight. Over and over, Katie would 'get her', take her down on the floor, bury her face in her tummy and then start all over.
When Margaret and Isabelle left, Katie said, "You know, Mom, I always thought that people played with babies for the babies' sake. I found out today that people play with babies for themselves, not for the babies. That was so much fun."
My mother raised six children (I use the word 'raise' loosely) and I don't think she ever figured out that she could have fun with her kids, for her sake, not just ours.
all wifi all the time
Here in Mountain View, there is free google wifi all the time, even here at the bus stop. How cool is that?!
I sheepishly confess that I am going to wait thirty minutes to take a bus home. It's a ten minute walk and I started to walk it but I should be in bed, not roaming the streets of this beautiful city. Usually I walk but I feel weirdly weak. Why am I writing all these little blog bits. It's like I have my primary relationship with my blog.
I sheepishly confess that I am going to wait thirty minutes to take a bus home. It's a ten minute walk and I started to walk it but I should be in bed, not roaming the streets of this beautiful city. Usually I walk but I feel weirdly weak. Why am I writing all these little blog bits. It's like I have my primary relationship with my blog.
I feel hungover
I feel like my body is full of bad chemicals. I am queasy, achey and sluggish. I overslept. Should I drag myself to the pool? I'm gonna but I won't push myself once I am in the water. If, after a few laps, I don't feel better, I'll stop.
I must be sick, which would explain why I sat around and cried as hard as I can cry for a long time last night. I haven't cried like that in a long time. My first thoughts upon awakening this morning were about giving away Katie's Samantha. "I can't give away Katie's Samantha," I said to myself. "She's gone," I next heard myself say, "It doesn't matter what you do with Samantha. Let them both go." Then I began this day crying.
No wonder I feel lousy.
Update: I went swimming and stopped after ten laps. I must have the flu. I feel awful.
I must be sick, which would explain why I sat around and cried as hard as I can cry for a long time last night. I haven't cried like that in a long time. My first thoughts upon awakening this morning were about giving away Katie's Samantha. "I can't give away Katie's Samantha," I said to myself. "She's gone," I next heard myself say, "It doesn't matter what you do with Samantha. Let them both go." Then I began this day crying.
No wonder I feel lousy.
Update: I went swimming and stopped after ten laps. I must have the flu. I feel awful.
Monday, November 20, 2006
back in the pool
It is cold and wet in Mountain View. A mist gives everything a dreamy aura. I pretend the day holds mysteries especially for me.
It is going to be so cold when I strip down to my swimsuit and plunge into the pool.
It is going to be so cold when I strip down to my swimsuit and plunge into the pool.
Sunday, November 19, 2006
to market to market
to market to market
to buy a fat pig
then home again, home again
jiggity jig
This little ditty from my childhood is clacking through my thoughts this morning as I head out to my weekly farmers market.
to buy a fat pig
then home again, home again
jiggity jig
This little ditty from my childhood is clacking through my thoughts this morning as I head out to my weekly farmers market.
Saturday, November 18, 2006
Claude Debussy
I had an art buddy in law school. His name was Gary. Between college and law school, Gary had worked in a NY City gallery that represented Jasper Johns. He did not consider me an adequate art buddy: I didn't know anywhere near enough about art compared to him. But it was slim pickings in law school. So he and I spent a lot of time hanging out in galleries and museums. One of our favorite habits was to pour over art books at Gary's apartment (he lived in a bona fide penthouse overlooking downtown Minneapolis: Gary was rich) and Gary would give me lectures about art. He needed someone to tell all his knowledge to and I drank it thirstily.
While Gary delivered his lectures, he also played a lot of classical music. I fell in love with Debussy and Gary made fun of me, telling me Debussy was femmy, romantic music and I was a sap to love Debussy. He said the fact that I loved Debussy was a sign of how ignorant I was. I was a sap in those days because I should have told Gary to fuck off but I didn't because he was my art buddy. Ever since then, I've been ashamed of my dirty secret: I love Debussy's romantic smaltz. I longed to point out to Gary that he was the one who owned and played Debussy in the first place but I was shy and shame-based. Now that I am thinking back, I think Gary was an asshole but he hid it with with his erudition and urbanity.
Right now I am loading a bunch of Debussy onto my iPod. I can't wait to listen.
Gary owned a Jasper Johns. The penthouse, the Johns, the Debussy. . .
While Gary delivered his lectures, he also played a lot of classical music. I fell in love with Debussy and Gary made fun of me, telling me Debussy was femmy, romantic music and I was a sap to love Debussy. He said the fact that I loved Debussy was a sign of how ignorant I was. I was a sap in those days because I should have told Gary to fuck off but I didn't because he was my art buddy. Ever since then, I've been ashamed of my dirty secret: I love Debussy's romantic smaltz. I longed to point out to Gary that he was the one who owned and played Debussy in the first place but I was shy and shame-based. Now that I am thinking back, I think Gary was an asshole but he hid it with with his erudition and urbanity.
Right now I am loading a bunch of Debussy onto my iPod. I can't wait to listen.
Gary owned a Jasper Johns. The penthouse, the Johns, the Debussy. . .
we need darkness to emerge into order (out of chaos? or into?)
A story in today's Chronicle (this post originally written in Nov 2006), reprinted from the LATimes, by Thomas H. Maugh II caught my attention.
'Dark energy, the enigmatic force that is causing the universe to expand, has been present as a constant for at least 9 billion years, a finding that eliminates many theories' about it. This finding supports but does not prove Einstein's idea of a cosmological constant that explains the balance between the expansion of the universe and the gravitational pull of stars and other matter. He theorized that there is a repulsive form of gravity (dark energy)that exists in space. Einstein abandoned his theory but it got renewed interest when dark energy was discovered in the 1990's.
. . . Dark energy is analogous to dark matter in that scientists have extreme difficulty seeing it and measuring it. They can only infer its presence primarily by measuring its effects on visible matter. Dark energy accounts for 70% of the total energy in the universe, scientists believe. (Wow.)
There are three views of dark energy, the article said. One is similar to Einstein's cosmological constant (don't you just love that phrase: cosmological constant!), that dark energy remains a constant in the cosmos. The second theory posits that dark energy is similar to electromagnetic fields and proposes that its strength changes. The third theory is that we don't understand gravity yet.
If we aspire to think clearly, it is possible to see beyond the phrase 'dark energy' and see that these scientists are talking about a beautiful phenomenon in our cosmos. Shakespeare wrote, somewhere, 'there is nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so'. This line has always stayed with me because I believe it deeply. I read the article I am writing about on my way to SFMOMA today. I read it before I overheard the tour guide say that Anselm Kiefer's work is full of darkness. I didn't have time before the Herzog movie to mention the article. I walked into the museum thinking about the great beauty in Kiefer's darkness only to hear that docent say that there was little beauty in Kiefer's work. She actually said scholars have written that there is little beauty in Kiefer's work. Gasp. Here I am drowning in the beauty of his vision, if not the physical beauty of his work (his work is visually breathtaking).
For me, Kiefer's most beautiful works are his darkest ones. I mentioned last week that I especially love his piece "The Hierarchy of Angels". I wrote about my inner experience but I did not describe the piece. It happens to be the one work in the Kiefer retrospective that I have spent a lot of time with so I have had a chance to develop an inner relationship with it. Kiefer's "The Hierarchy of Angels" belongs to Walker Art Center and it was on view throughout all the years I was a tour guide at the Walker. I didn't usually use the piece in my tours, unless it was an adult tour, because at first glance, the piece seems to represent Armageddon, complete desruction of civilization. It is the title of the piece that reveals its light. The piece itself is, especially at first glance, very dark. It is a gigantic canvas, darkly abstract. In its abstraction it gives off an aura of great destruction. If one wants to project post-WWII Germany's struggle with the legacy of Nazi-ism (sp?), the piece is very dark. There is what appears to be an old propeller from an airplane. When you look at the rocks scattered on the canvas, it is possible to see these rocks as bombs dropped by the plane. If you think the rocks are bombs and the propeller is a war plane (this is an entirely reasonable reaction to have), then the piece is about a past or, perhaps, a future armageddon.
One of the many perks of being a tour guide was that I could slip into the museum before it was open to the public, under the guise of finalizing details for a tour, and enjoy the art in silence and privacy. There was a bench in front of 'Hierarchy of Angels' when it was on display at the Walker and I would often sit in front of it and go up and down the hierarchy of angels. Not many Americans know the full hierarchy of angels, although some of the hierarchies are referenced in the great hymn by Christina Rosetti called 'In The Bleak Midwinter". She does not mention all the hierarchies but she mentions several, which is more than most people do. Most anthroposophists have studied the hierarchy of angels because Steiner wrote about them. Being a serious student of Steiner, and vividly aware that I needed angels, or supersensible beings, to help me get through this life, I was magnetically drawn to Kiefer's 'Hierarchy of Angels".
We still have to deal with the title Kiefer has chosen for the piece. He portrays dark energy with the propeller, the rocks, the sense of destruction but he has called this piece "The Hierarchy of Angels". Each rock, which might still be seen as a bomb, is labeled with one of the hierarchies. What if Kiefer is suggesting that beings are spread out in the universe, spiraling through the heavens? What if he is suggesting that these little beings were 'dropped' here and there by, what, what force might that be? If Kiefer is suggesting that beings were dropped here and there, not just any beings but the entire hierarchy of angels, well, Kiefer's vision is not dark, not at all. And we cannot ignore the title. Surely angels are light. He titled this dark, visually grim piece with an uplifting, light-filled name: angels! And he paid homage to the hierarchy of angels. That's a lot of light piercing a dark cosmos, the whole hierarchy of angels.
If we know anything about the hierarchy of angels, as it was originally written by Dionysius the Areopagite in the fifth century , we know that the man who first wrote about the nine hierarchies of angels believed that the angels moved through the cosmos in a kind of spiral. Then the propeller becomes, perhaps, the dark energy that moves the cosmos in its spiral, moving the hierarchies of beings that are in the universe to help its destiny unfold. The name of the piece lifts it out of dark energy and into the inherent radiance of the cosmos. Thus it is absolutely not a dark piece.
If the scientists in the newspaper article that caught my attention today and Kiefer are correct, then there is more dark energy in the cosmos we find ourselves in than there is light energy. Does this portend darkness for the known universe? Only if we associate the word dark with evil. It is my belief that any darkness, be it the dark energy embedded in the cosmos and studied by astrophysicists or the darkness in human hearts that lead to things like the Holocaust, can always be transformed. No, I take that back. I go further. I believe all darkness will always be transformed. Nothing is good or bad but thinking makes it so. Dark energy is good. It is that simple.
I don't know where I am going with this. I am lonely for companions in my journey. My individual cosmos is not peopled with very many people. I have to find my thinking partners in artists I will never meet. Nobody I know (yet: he is coming, I affirm my man will appear) has time to listen to my thoughts or hang out in art museums with me watching old movies or, even, reading all the stuff I'm writing in this blog. The blog is a tiny representation of the writing I am doing daily.
SFMOMA mounted a major retrospective of Anselm Kiefer's work just as I moved to CA. I went to the show at least once a week the whole time it was up. It was gobsmacker. I literally spent several hours in the galleries every time I went and I have made it a lifelong practice to never spend more than an hour at an art museum. I go to museums frequent, take in a few pieces deep into my being. I can only hold so much. I am unlikely to ever see a major Kiefer retrospective again so I soaked it up as best I could while I had the chance.
Out of all the artists' whose work I have loved, I love his the most. I knew, before that Kiefer retrospective, that the human eye literally needs darkness in order to be able to see. What we actually 'see' is the contrast between light and dark. Without darkness, we see nothing. I dove into the surface of darkness in Kiefer's work because his larger message is that light is what matters. His work fits the Jack Gardner poem I have left on my blog, the one I have just shut down but for about six posts. And so does the moving story in the Heather McHugh poem I left up, the one about the man burned with an iron mask on his face so he could not speak. The poem is on the blog, you can read it. The Catholic Church burned a man to death because he did not beleive what they told him to believe. And poetry, the poem reminds us, is what that burned-to-death man was thinking but could not say while he burned.
There is so much darkness around us. I am lost in darkness now, as anyone who actually cares about me knows. I am lost and no one can help me. I have to find light, or not find it. And that is basically the essence of Anselm Kiefer's work, certainly the essence of Gardner's 'Brief for the Defense' (still here on this blog) and McHugh's moving poem that I have left on this blog. Read those poems. Attentively. Please.
'Dark energy, the enigmatic force that is causing the universe to expand, has been present as a constant for at least 9 billion years, a finding that eliminates many theories' about it. This finding supports but does not prove Einstein's idea of a cosmological constant that explains the balance between the expansion of the universe and the gravitational pull of stars and other matter. He theorized that there is a repulsive form of gravity (dark energy)that exists in space. Einstein abandoned his theory but it got renewed interest when dark energy was discovered in the 1990's.
. . . Dark energy is analogous to dark matter in that scientists have extreme difficulty seeing it and measuring it. They can only infer its presence primarily by measuring its effects on visible matter. Dark energy accounts for 70% of the total energy in the universe, scientists believe. (Wow.)
There are three views of dark energy, the article said. One is similar to Einstein's cosmological constant (don't you just love that phrase: cosmological constant!), that dark energy remains a constant in the cosmos. The second theory posits that dark energy is similar to electromagnetic fields and proposes that its strength changes. The third theory is that we don't understand gravity yet.
If we aspire to think clearly, it is possible to see beyond the phrase 'dark energy' and see that these scientists are talking about a beautiful phenomenon in our cosmos. Shakespeare wrote, somewhere, 'there is nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so'. This line has always stayed with me because I believe it deeply. I read the article I am writing about on my way to SFMOMA today. I read it before I overheard the tour guide say that Anselm Kiefer's work is full of darkness. I didn't have time before the Herzog movie to mention the article. I walked into the museum thinking about the great beauty in Kiefer's darkness only to hear that docent say that there was little beauty in Kiefer's work. She actually said scholars have written that there is little beauty in Kiefer's work. Gasp. Here I am drowning in the beauty of his vision, if not the physical beauty of his work (his work is visually breathtaking).
For me, Kiefer's most beautiful works are his darkest ones. I mentioned last week that I especially love his piece "The Hierarchy of Angels". I wrote about my inner experience but I did not describe the piece. It happens to be the one work in the Kiefer retrospective that I have spent a lot of time with so I have had a chance to develop an inner relationship with it. Kiefer's "The Hierarchy of Angels" belongs to Walker Art Center and it was on view throughout all the years I was a tour guide at the Walker. I didn't usually use the piece in my tours, unless it was an adult tour, because at first glance, the piece seems to represent Armageddon, complete desruction of civilization. It is the title of the piece that reveals its light. The piece itself is, especially at first glance, very dark. It is a gigantic canvas, darkly abstract. In its abstraction it gives off an aura of great destruction. If one wants to project post-WWII Germany's struggle with the legacy of Nazi-ism (sp?), the piece is very dark. There is what appears to be an old propeller from an airplane. When you look at the rocks scattered on the canvas, it is possible to see these rocks as bombs dropped by the plane. If you think the rocks are bombs and the propeller is a war plane (this is an entirely reasonable reaction to have), then the piece is about a past or, perhaps, a future armageddon.
One of the many perks of being a tour guide was that I could slip into the museum before it was open to the public, under the guise of finalizing details for a tour, and enjoy the art in silence and privacy. There was a bench in front of 'Hierarchy of Angels' when it was on display at the Walker and I would often sit in front of it and go up and down the hierarchy of angels. Not many Americans know the full hierarchy of angels, although some of the hierarchies are referenced in the great hymn by Christina Rosetti called 'In The Bleak Midwinter". She does not mention all the hierarchies but she mentions several, which is more than most people do. Most anthroposophists have studied the hierarchy of angels because Steiner wrote about them. Being a serious student of Steiner, and vividly aware that I needed angels, or supersensible beings, to help me get through this life, I was magnetically drawn to Kiefer's 'Hierarchy of Angels".
We still have to deal with the title Kiefer has chosen for the piece. He portrays dark energy with the propeller, the rocks, the sense of destruction but he has called this piece "The Hierarchy of Angels". Each rock, which might still be seen as a bomb, is labeled with one of the hierarchies. What if Kiefer is suggesting that beings are spread out in the universe, spiraling through the heavens? What if he is suggesting that these little beings were 'dropped' here and there by, what, what force might that be? If Kiefer is suggesting that beings were dropped here and there, not just any beings but the entire hierarchy of angels, well, Kiefer's vision is not dark, not at all. And we cannot ignore the title. Surely angels are light. He titled this dark, visually grim piece with an uplifting, light-filled name: angels! And he paid homage to the hierarchy of angels. That's a lot of light piercing a dark cosmos, the whole hierarchy of angels.
If we know anything about the hierarchy of angels, as it was originally written by Dionysius the Areopagite in the fifth century , we know that the man who first wrote about the nine hierarchies of angels believed that the angels moved through the cosmos in a kind of spiral. Then the propeller becomes, perhaps, the dark energy that moves the cosmos in its spiral, moving the hierarchies of beings that are in the universe to help its destiny unfold. The name of the piece lifts it out of dark energy and into the inherent radiance of the cosmos. Thus it is absolutely not a dark piece.
If the scientists in the newspaper article that caught my attention today and Kiefer are correct, then there is more dark energy in the cosmos we find ourselves in than there is light energy. Does this portend darkness for the known universe? Only if we associate the word dark with evil. It is my belief that any darkness, be it the dark energy embedded in the cosmos and studied by astrophysicists or the darkness in human hearts that lead to things like the Holocaust, can always be transformed. No, I take that back. I go further. I believe all darkness will always be transformed. Nothing is good or bad but thinking makes it so. Dark energy is good. It is that simple.
I don't know where I am going with this. I am lonely for companions in my journey. My individual cosmos is not peopled with very many people. I have to find my thinking partners in artists I will never meet. Nobody I know (yet: he is coming, I affirm my man will appear) has time to listen to my thoughts or hang out in art museums with me watching old movies or, even, reading all the stuff I'm writing in this blog. The blog is a tiny representation of the writing I am doing daily.
SFMOMA mounted a major retrospective of Anselm Kiefer's work just as I moved to CA. I went to the show at least once a week the whole time it was up. It was gobsmacker. I literally spent several hours in the galleries every time I went and I have made it a lifelong practice to never spend more than an hour at an art museum. I go to museums frequent, take in a few pieces deep into my being. I can only hold so much. I am unlikely to ever see a major Kiefer retrospective again so I soaked it up as best I could while I had the chance.
Out of all the artists' whose work I have loved, I love his the most. I knew, before that Kiefer retrospective, that the human eye literally needs darkness in order to be able to see. What we actually 'see' is the contrast between light and dark. Without darkness, we see nothing. I dove into the surface of darkness in Kiefer's work because his larger message is that light is what matters. His work fits the Jack Gardner poem I have left on my blog, the one I have just shut down but for about six posts. And so does the moving story in the Heather McHugh poem I left up, the one about the man burned with an iron mask on his face so he could not speak. The poem is on the blog, you can read it. The Catholic Church burned a man to death because he did not beleive what they told him to believe. And poetry, the poem reminds us, is what that burned-to-death man was thinking but could not say while he burned.
There is so much darkness around us. I am lost in darkness now, as anyone who actually cares about me knows. I am lost and no one can help me. I have to find light, or not find it. And that is basically the essence of Anselm Kiefer's work, certainly the essence of Gardner's 'Brief for the Defense' (still here on this blog) and McHugh's moving poem that I have left on this blog. Read those poems. Attentively. Please.
I missed my star
A Ritual to Read To Each Other
If you don't know the kind of person I am
and I don't know the kind of person you are
a pattern that others made may prevail in the world
and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.
For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,
a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break
sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood
storming out to play through the broken dyke.
And as elephants parade holding each elephant's tail,
but if one wanders the circus won't find the park,
I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty
to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.
And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,
a remote important region in all who talk:
though we could fool each other, we should consider—
lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.
For it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give—yes or no, or maybe—
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.
—William Stafford
If you don't know the kind of person I am
and I don't know the kind of person you are
a pattern that others made may prevail in the world
and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.
For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,
a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break
sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood
storming out to play through the broken dyke.
And as elephants parade holding each elephant's tail,
but if one wanders the circus won't find the park,
I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty
to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.
And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,
a remote important region in all who talk:
though we could fool each other, we should consider—
lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.
For it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give—yes or no, or maybe—
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.
—William Stafford
It was an awesome movie
Stroszek.
I'm not sure how to spell it but wow.
The film is 'famous' for its closing scene of a dancing chicken. The dancing chicken is worth the price of admission, tis true.
But.
Wow. Gosh. Golly. Jeepers.
There is an amazing scene in which a doctor takes the main character to the preemie department in a hospital. He picks up a brawling, naked, red infant that actually looks like a bona fide premature infant. Gosh, how was Herzog allowed to film such a new human being, screaming at life?! I bet it was a new baby but not an actual preemie. The doctor is trying to encourage the leading man and he picks up the crying baby by its hands, using only his two forefingers. The baby grasps firmly on the doctor's forefingers, screaming nonstop. "Look," says the doctor, "This baby is fighting for its life. Look how it hangs on. You can hang on too." Watching that little baby, screaming so hard, turning itself so red, I had a faint perception that I was watching something other than a human, that I was watching "A BEING" adrift in this cosmos. I had a sense that we are all odd creatures like the ones in the bar scene of Star Wars or like the dancing chicken, perhaps. We are all vulnerable, tender and hanging on.
I cried. Tears of joy. How fine to be a creature that can create and/or behold the razzle, dazzle greatness of life. The art of the scene with the premature baby was a fine as art ever gets.
The little baby reminded me of visiting a college boyfriend who had had an emergency appendectomy. He was bored in the hospital and I said "Let's go look at the babies." We did. At first Bob said "We can't do that, that's just for the people who have babies." I said, "Let's go and find out" and to out delight, we were allowed to look at the babies. You might think the new babies are the main show but, speaking for myself, I also got deep pleasure watching the new relatives adoring the new babies. The whole show was awesome.
I was unsure about Herzog before today but on my way out, I bought a ticket to see Fitzcarraldo next.
I am happy once more.
I'm not sure how to spell it but wow.
The film is 'famous' for its closing scene of a dancing chicken. The dancing chicken is worth the price of admission, tis true.
But.
Wow. Gosh. Golly. Jeepers.
There is an amazing scene in which a doctor takes the main character to the preemie department in a hospital. He picks up a brawling, naked, red infant that actually looks like a bona fide premature infant. Gosh, how was Herzog allowed to film such a new human being, screaming at life?! I bet it was a new baby but not an actual preemie. The doctor is trying to encourage the leading man and he picks up the crying baby by its hands, using only his two forefingers. The baby grasps firmly on the doctor's forefingers, screaming nonstop. "Look," says the doctor, "This baby is fighting for its life. Look how it hangs on. You can hang on too." Watching that little baby, screaming so hard, turning itself so red, I had a faint perception that I was watching something other than a human, that I was watching "A BEING" adrift in this cosmos. I had a sense that we are all odd creatures like the ones in the bar scene of Star Wars or like the dancing chicken, perhaps. We are all vulnerable, tender and hanging on.
I cried. Tears of joy. How fine to be a creature that can create and/or behold the razzle, dazzle greatness of life. The art of the scene with the premature baby was a fine as art ever gets.
The little baby reminded me of visiting a college boyfriend who had had an emergency appendectomy. He was bored in the hospital and I said "Let's go look at the babies." We did. At first Bob said "We can't do that, that's just for the people who have babies." I said, "Let's go and find out" and to out delight, we were allowed to look at the babies. You might think the new babies are the main show but, speaking for myself, I also got deep pleasure watching the new relatives adoring the new babies. The whole show was awesome.
I was unsure about Herzog before today but on my way out, I bought a ticket to see Fitzcarraldo next.
I am happy once more.
Live from SFMOMA
I am waiting for another Werner Herzog movie. I don't even know the name of it but I am trying to see all the Herzog movies which are being shown in conjunction with the Kiefer show. The choice of Herzog was all wrong for Kiefer. A Fassbinder retrospective would have been better. Actually, it should have been Wim Wender. Or, better still, a careful selection of German filmmakers. Herzog bores me, really, but I can't to to Kiefer movies so I keep coming, waiting for something to be revealed.
But I digress.
I opened my laptop to write about something that just happened in the museum. I was walking through the Kiefer show and came upon a tour lead (sp?) by a museum docent (I assume). I stopped to listen to her. Aghast, I listened to her talk about how Kiefer is widely regarded as a very dark artist, that his work is all about the German legacy of Hitler and there is little beauty in his work. From a museum docent?! Presumably, the museum trained her,presenting her with the museum curator's view of Kiefer. It is now an hour later and I am still sputtering inwardly.
Kiefer about darkness?! No, no, no, he is about beholding the everpresent light in the darkness, which is very beautiful.
Then this docent said "Kiefer has said he does not understand beauty. I just read a quote about beauty that I will leave you with since I can't leave you with Kiefer's thoughts on beauty. "Beauty is something that grabs the attention, touches the spirit and confuses everything."
I asked her to cite the author. She didn't remember who said it. Then I said "Kiefer has grabbed my attention, touched my spirit and left me less confused."
I hope this Herzog movie is better than the one I saw last Saturday.
On a bright note, I got to watch the Phil Collins movie all the way through. I am in love with all peoples. Everyone is so tender, vulnerable, fragile and striving towards light. I kept imagining that myself getting up in the darkened gallery where the Collins' film runs in a continuous loop and dancing with the British rock music. I kept wishing I had a friend with me who would get up and dance with me. There is absolutely no reason for people to note dance in there. I'll tell you who I really wanted to dance with: my daughter around age ten.
But I digress.
I opened my laptop to write about something that just happened in the museum. I was walking through the Kiefer show and came upon a tour lead (sp?) by a museum docent (I assume). I stopped to listen to her. Aghast, I listened to her talk about how Kiefer is widely regarded as a very dark artist, that his work is all about the German legacy of Hitler and there is little beauty in his work. From a museum docent?! Presumably, the museum trained her,presenting her with the museum curator's view of Kiefer. It is now an hour later and I am still sputtering inwardly.
Kiefer about darkness?! No, no, no, he is about beholding the everpresent light in the darkness, which is very beautiful.
Then this docent said "Kiefer has said he does not understand beauty. I just read a quote about beauty that I will leave you with since I can't leave you with Kiefer's thoughts on beauty. "Beauty is something that grabs the attention, touches the spirit and confuses everything."
I asked her to cite the author. She didn't remember who said it. Then I said "Kiefer has grabbed my attention, touched my spirit and left me less confused."
I hope this Herzog movie is better than the one I saw last Saturday.
On a bright note, I got to watch the Phil Collins movie all the way through. I am in love with all peoples. Everyone is so tender, vulnerable, fragile and striving towards light. I kept imagining that myself getting up in the darkened gallery where the Collins' film runs in a continuous loop and dancing with the British rock music. I kept wishing I had a friend with me who would get up and dance with me. There is absolutely no reason for people to note dance in there. I'll tell you who I really wanted to dance with: my daughter around age ten.
Friday, November 17, 2006
freckles!
I have not spent this much time outside under the sun since I was a kid. I forgot that I used to freckle each summer as a child. Well, my freckles are back. My face and back are full of them. Now I am fantasizing that I will tan. If I do, it will be the first tan of my life. I think people's biochemistry can change as they age. Maybe I can get a tan, eh?!
I want a chamois towel
I am tired of dragging a wet bath towel around after my swim. It takes too long to go back to my apartment and drop off my swim gear. I need one of those chamois towels.
After my swim this morning, I am going to find a sporting goods store and buy one. Contemplating this small purchase makes me happy. I am glad to see myself practicing good self care.
After I find my new chamois, I am going to the De Young museum to catch the sunset from up in the tower.
I love it when I have my little quests.
After my swim this morning, I am going to find a sporting goods store and buy one. Contemplating this small purchase makes me happy. I am glad to see myself practicing good self care.
After I find my new chamois, I am going to the De Young museum to catch the sunset from up in the tower.
I love it when I have my little quests.
Thursday, November 16, 2006
In a Dark Time
In a Dark Time by Theodore Roethke
In a dark time, the eye begins to see
I meet my shadow in the deepening shade;
I hear my echo in the echoing wood--
A lord of nature weeping to a tree.
I live between the heron and the wren,
Beasts of the hill and serpents of the den.
What's madness but nobility of the soul
At odds with circumstance? The day's on fire!
I know the purity of pure despair,
My shadow pinned against a sweating wall.
That place among the rocks--is it a cave,
Or winding path? The edge is what I have.
A steady storm of correspondences!
A night flowing with birds, a ragged moon,
And in broad daylight the midnight come again!
A man goes far to find out what he is--
Death of the self in a long, tearless night,
All natural shapes blazing unnatural light.
Dark, dark my light, and darker my desire.
My soul, like some heat-maddened summer fly,
Keeps buzzing at the sill. Which I is I?
A fallen man, I climb out of my fear.
The mind enters itself, and God the mind,
And one is One, free in the tearing wind.
I should have devoted my life to poetry: to reading it and writing it. Is it too late, I wonder?
In a dark time, the eye begins to see
I meet my shadow in the deepening shade;
I hear my echo in the echoing wood--
A lord of nature weeping to a tree.
I live between the heron and the wren,
Beasts of the hill and serpents of the den.
What's madness but nobility of the soul
At odds with circumstance? The day's on fire!
I know the purity of pure despair,
My shadow pinned against a sweating wall.
That place among the rocks--is it a cave,
Or winding path? The edge is what I have.
A steady storm of correspondences!
A night flowing with birds, a ragged moon,
And in broad daylight the midnight come again!
A man goes far to find out what he is--
Death of the self in a long, tearless night,
All natural shapes blazing unnatural light.
Dark, dark my light, and darker my desire.
My soul, like some heat-maddened summer fly,
Keeps buzzing at the sill. Which I is I?
A fallen man, I climb out of my fear.
The mind enters itself, and God the mind,
And one is One, free in the tearing wind.
I should have devoted my life to poetry: to reading it and writing it. Is it too late, I wonder?
Is Caltrain part of the police state?!
I boarded Caltrain about 5:30 p.m. The train started to move with the doors still open and, er, with people still boarding. I saw one woman leap up onto the train stairs and several of my fellow passengers and I also saw the guy behind her fall to the ground. Being sentient beings, we voiced concerned as a conductor passed by.
"I didn't see it," he said, "So it didn't happen."
A cute young guy with, I think, an Italian accent (but very good American English) was very indignant. He leaped up. all long and lean, and walked along behind the conductor saying "What do you mean it didn't happen? We all saw it? Don't you care."
"Do you know how many times I hear people complain buddy? I can't listen to all of you," said the conductor. I can personally attest that I have seen this particular conductor be an asshole on other occasions, which is pretty sad because I've only lived here a month and I don't ride the train daily.
"Give me your name," said the cute Italian boy.
"I'll tell you what I am going to give you," said the conductor with a small penis. I am certain he is poorly endowed because this is about the only thing I can think of that would explain his obvious insecurity about his manhood. "I am going to put you off the train at the next stop."
"Yeah, right," said Italo man, "You and who else?" He was lean but wiry. The small conductor was pasty.
When we arrived at San Antonio Road, after everyone else had detrained (is that what they say?), Little Big Man approaches Italian hunk and says, "All right, buddy, this is your stop. Get off now."
Italian boy refused. Little Dick practically sputtered and said "Oh yeah, well, I'll show you," only he just huffed off the train, into the dark.
A few other passengers scurried forward to be near the Italian cutie and his very beautiful, long, lean, blonde girlfriend and listen to the excitement. I suppose some people were frustrated because the train was not moving but those of us clustered around the crusader (I was sitting right next to him all along so I saw everything!) were pulling out cell phones and calling Caltrain and uttering their outrage.
"You didn't do a thing."
"He's an asshole all the time. I ride this train every day and he's always a jerk."
"I guess George Bush has been president too long. Civil liberties are dead." This comment rated a hooting cheer in response so I disclose to you that it was my line that got the laugh. "Good one!" the girlfriend said.
"Everyone has to call. Let's stand together."
It was fun. As much fun as a petty abuse of power can be.
After what seemed like a long wait, a man came up to my Italian hero, flashed some identification but not a badge and said he was an assistant in a sheriff's office. My lawyer's ears did not hear him say he was a sheriff. He said he worked for a sheriff's office. He didn't even say he worked for the Sheriff in Santa Clara County, the jurisdiction in which we all sat.
"I am asking you politely to get off this train and talk to me," said the sheriff's assistant. He looked like a former jock gone to chub, a jughead.
"Is he under arrest?" I interceded.
"No, he's not under arrest," said sheriff's boy, "But the police will come if he doesn't get off this train and talk to me."
"If he gets off the train, then the train will leave and the conductor, who is in the wrong, will have won." I was fuming. I turned to our crusader, who was not masked but he could have been a Knight for Civil Liberty, and said, "I am an attorney and my advice to you is to ask him if you are under arrest. If you are under arrest, get off the train with him. Otherwise, wait for the police."
"Am I under arrest?" asked the young Italian.
"No," said the sheriff's helper, "But if the police come. . . "
"I'll wait for the police."
Then the would-be cop disappeared and everyone started yammering indignation once more.
"He didn't do anything."
"He was perfectly polite."
"What is happening in this country?"
"Can you believe this?"
And most folks in our car were calling Caltrain. Some people were probably just calling their rides to tell them the train was late.
Sheriff's boy comes back on with the conductor and says, "Look, you better come off with me right now."
"I'm waiting for the police," said the well-intended hero.
I started to say something and the sheriff's assistant actually said to me, "Ma'm, we are conducting an investigation and you are interfering. I am going to have to ask you to keep quiet." Well, of course I wanted to respond but I didn't because I didn't want to get kicked off the train.
"Look," said the conductor, "If you don't get off the train, and you force us to call the police (ah-ha, we had called their bluff), you will be cited for trespassing and banned from Caltrain."
"I have to get to Gilroy. If I apologize, will you let me stay on the train?"
There was a chorus of "don't apologize! You haven't done anything wrong." It made me sad to see him capitulate but, of course, he had no choice.
"I can't do anything now to stop this," said the conductor.
"Will you at least give me your name so I can file my complaint?"
"No, I don't have to give you my name."
How about your employee number or your badge number or something?"
"I don't have to tell you anything."
The fine young adult stood up and apologized to everyone in our car for keeping them waiting but he, told us, "I did it for the principle. This is so wrong."
A few of us cheered him.
Then he got his bike and he and his girlfriend disappeared into the dark. While he was getting his bike, the girlfriend said, "I want everyone to be careful getting off the train. Remember what happened to that guy back at Palo Alto. Take care of yourselves."
Then the train sat for a lot more time. A few of us made a few comments and even joked about the gestapo and the erosion of civil liberties (ha, ha, ha) but then someone said, "I wonder what is holding us up now?"
"I am afraid to go over there and ask," I said, "They might yank me off the train and there isn't another train that stops at Mountain View for an hour."
"I am so glad you said that," said a little Asian woman. "I was just about to ask what is holding us up but I don't want to get thrown off the train either."
I don't know about my fellow passengers but right about then, I was feeling quite solemn as I contemplated that a train car full of Americans had been hushed into a small, silent fear.
After a long, collective silence, the train started up again.
"I have noticed that more and more of the train personnel have been getting more and more unpleasant," said one lady.
"I think they must be under pressure to perform with less and less resources. Stress like that is going to show up with the passengers," I said. "I've got my eye on another prick of a conductor. I'll tell you a story. A few days ago, as I got off the train, after noting several times when the conductor was a meretricious asshole to several passengers, he went up to a pregnant woman sitting on the handicap bench at the Mountain View station, just as I walked by the bench. She looked like she was ready to pop that baby out on the spot. He asked her if she needed handicap assistance to get on the train. 'No', she said, "I sat down here because I couldn't walk another step.' "I could cite you for holding up the train. You can't sit there.' 'I'm pregnant, is that a disability?" Then I interrupted them and asked her "Is this guy being an asshole?" With that, the commandante conductor withdrew and I told her he had been an asshole on my whole ride."
The pregnant woman said she was going to call and complain but I had a feeling right then that calling was futile.
I did call about Little Big Man tonight. As soon as I got home.
As the Italian guy rolled his bike off the train, I raised my fist and called out "Fight the power!"
"I didn't see it," he said, "So it didn't happen."
A cute young guy with, I think, an Italian accent (but very good American English) was very indignant. He leaped up. all long and lean, and walked along behind the conductor saying "What do you mean it didn't happen? We all saw it? Don't you care."
"Do you know how many times I hear people complain buddy? I can't listen to all of you," said the conductor. I can personally attest that I have seen this particular conductor be an asshole on other occasions, which is pretty sad because I've only lived here a month and I don't ride the train daily.
"Give me your name," said the cute Italian boy.
"I'll tell you what I am going to give you," said the conductor with a small penis. I am certain he is poorly endowed because this is about the only thing I can think of that would explain his obvious insecurity about his manhood. "I am going to put you off the train at the next stop."
"Yeah, right," said Italo man, "You and who else?" He was lean but wiry. The small conductor was pasty.
When we arrived at San Antonio Road, after everyone else had detrained (is that what they say?), Little Big Man approaches Italian hunk and says, "All right, buddy, this is your stop. Get off now."
Italian boy refused. Little Dick practically sputtered and said "Oh yeah, well, I'll show you," only he just huffed off the train, into the dark.
A few other passengers scurried forward to be near the Italian cutie and his very beautiful, long, lean, blonde girlfriend and listen to the excitement. I suppose some people were frustrated because the train was not moving but those of us clustered around the crusader (I was sitting right next to him all along so I saw everything!) were pulling out cell phones and calling Caltrain and uttering their outrage.
"You didn't do a thing."
"He's an asshole all the time. I ride this train every day and he's always a jerk."
"I guess George Bush has been president too long. Civil liberties are dead." This comment rated a hooting cheer in response so I disclose to you that it was my line that got the laugh. "Good one!" the girlfriend said.
"Everyone has to call. Let's stand together."
It was fun. As much fun as a petty abuse of power can be.
After what seemed like a long wait, a man came up to my Italian hero, flashed some identification but not a badge and said he was an assistant in a sheriff's office. My lawyer's ears did not hear him say he was a sheriff. He said he worked for a sheriff's office. He didn't even say he worked for the Sheriff in Santa Clara County, the jurisdiction in which we all sat.
"I am asking you politely to get off this train and talk to me," said the sheriff's assistant. He looked like a former jock gone to chub, a jughead.
"Is he under arrest?" I interceded.
"No, he's not under arrest," said sheriff's boy, "But the police will come if he doesn't get off this train and talk to me."
"If he gets off the train, then the train will leave and the conductor, who is in the wrong, will have won." I was fuming. I turned to our crusader, who was not masked but he could have been a Knight for Civil Liberty, and said, "I am an attorney and my advice to you is to ask him if you are under arrest. If you are under arrest, get off the train with him. Otherwise, wait for the police."
"Am I under arrest?" asked the young Italian.
"No," said the sheriff's helper, "But if the police come. . . "
"I'll wait for the police."
Then the would-be cop disappeared and everyone started yammering indignation once more.
"He didn't do anything."
"He was perfectly polite."
"What is happening in this country?"
"Can you believe this?"
And most folks in our car were calling Caltrain. Some people were probably just calling their rides to tell them the train was late.
Sheriff's boy comes back on with the conductor and says, "Look, you better come off with me right now."
"I'm waiting for the police," said the well-intended hero.
I started to say something and the sheriff's assistant actually said to me, "Ma'm, we are conducting an investigation and you are interfering. I am going to have to ask you to keep quiet." Well, of course I wanted to respond but I didn't because I didn't want to get kicked off the train.
"Look," said the conductor, "If you don't get off the train, and you force us to call the police (ah-ha, we had called their bluff), you will be cited for trespassing and banned from Caltrain."
"I have to get to Gilroy. If I apologize, will you let me stay on the train?"
There was a chorus of "don't apologize! You haven't done anything wrong." It made me sad to see him capitulate but, of course, he had no choice.
"I can't do anything now to stop this," said the conductor.
"Will you at least give me your name so I can file my complaint?"
"No, I don't have to give you my name."
How about your employee number or your badge number or something?"
"I don't have to tell you anything."
The fine young adult stood up and apologized to everyone in our car for keeping them waiting but he, told us, "I did it for the principle. This is so wrong."
A few of us cheered him.
Then he got his bike and he and his girlfriend disappeared into the dark. While he was getting his bike, the girlfriend said, "I want everyone to be careful getting off the train. Remember what happened to that guy back at Palo Alto. Take care of yourselves."
Then the train sat for a lot more time. A few of us made a few comments and even joked about the gestapo and the erosion of civil liberties (ha, ha, ha) but then someone said, "I wonder what is holding us up now?"
"I am afraid to go over there and ask," I said, "They might yank me off the train and there isn't another train that stops at Mountain View for an hour."
"I am so glad you said that," said a little Asian woman. "I was just about to ask what is holding us up but I don't want to get thrown off the train either."
I don't know about my fellow passengers but right about then, I was feeling quite solemn as I contemplated that a train car full of Americans had been hushed into a small, silent fear.
After a long, collective silence, the train started up again.
"I have noticed that more and more of the train personnel have been getting more and more unpleasant," said one lady.
"I think they must be under pressure to perform with less and less resources. Stress like that is going to show up with the passengers," I said. "I've got my eye on another prick of a conductor. I'll tell you a story. A few days ago, as I got off the train, after noting several times when the conductor was a meretricious asshole to several passengers, he went up to a pregnant woman sitting on the handicap bench at the Mountain View station, just as I walked by the bench. She looked like she was ready to pop that baby out on the spot. He asked her if she needed handicap assistance to get on the train. 'No', she said, "I sat down here because I couldn't walk another step.' "I could cite you for holding up the train. You can't sit there.' 'I'm pregnant, is that a disability?" Then I interrupted them and asked her "Is this guy being an asshole?" With that, the commandante conductor withdrew and I told her he had been an asshole on my whole ride."
The pregnant woman said she was going to call and complain but I had a feeling right then that calling was futile.
I did call about Little Big Man tonight. As soon as I got home.
As the Italian guy rolled his bike off the train, I raised my fist and called out "Fight the power!"
Open House by Ted Roethke, poet
OPEN HOUSE by Theodore Roethke
My secrets cry aloud.
I have no need for tongue.
My heart keeps open house,
My doors are widely swung.
An epic of the eyes
My love, with no disguise.
My truths are all foreknown,
This anguish self-revealed.
I'm naked to the bone,
With nakedness my shield.
Myself is what I wear:
I keep the spirit spare.
The anger will endure,
The deed will speak the truth
In language strict and pure.
I stop the lying mouth;
Rage warps my dearest cry
To witless agony.
My secrets cry aloud.
I have no need for tongue.
My heart keeps open house,
My doors are widely swung.
An epic of the eyes
My love, with no disguise.
My truths are all foreknown,
This anguish self-revealed.
I'm naked to the bone,
With nakedness my shield.
Myself is what I wear:
I keep the spirit spare.
The anger will endure,
The deed will speak the truth
In language strict and pure.
I stop the lying mouth;
Rage warps my dearest cry
To witless agony.
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
we know the world's gone mad
I am not obsessed with Starbucks, I swear. I go there everyday after my swim and have a cup of drip (the cheapest drink) and crave things I do not eat. It is just about the only retail establishment I frequent so Starbucks is my filter on what's up in the economy as filtered by corporate marketing.
I don't go to Starbucks for the coffee. I go for the purple, plush armchair positioned perfectly in the sun. I have tried other coffee shops here in Mountain View but none of them provide armchairs.
I am writing the bulk of my novel in the Mountain View Starbucks. If Starbucks would like some product placement in my novel, however, it will cost them. Perhaps they would like to give me a pass for one free drink every day for the rest of my life? Then I could give Starbucks a little ink in my book. I could have Willa, well, go to Starbucks every day after her swim.
Starbucks is a great metaphor for what's gone wrong here in America. I remember when they used to sell just coffee. I remember when getting a shot of espresso was unfamiliar. Gradually, they brought in carbohydrates to go with the coffee. Gradually, they began to make all those big, sweet drinks. Now they sell all kinds of stuff and the retail display space in each store grows larger and larger, displacing things like my purple plush chair.
I just read that Starbucks is going to open thousands of new stores all around the world, within the next couple years. What drives such rapaciousness? I can't quantify it but I have a hunch that all that has gone wrong is represented by Starbucks expansion all around the globe.
Even as I am vaguely repulsed by their corporate hunger, I still want to go there every day. What has gone wrong with me?!
My Starbucks, probably all of them, is now selling little teddy bears dressed up for formal holiday parties. Each day as I walk past them, I want to buy a male and a female teddy bear, just to have the fun of picking them up, dancing over to the register, chatting with the guest services agent (they used to call these folks sales clerks: what do they call them now?). Do they giftwrap?
When my strong urges to buy these teddy bears overtake me, I know I am doing something wrong with my days.
I don't go to Starbucks for the coffee. I go for the purple, plush armchair positioned perfectly in the sun. I have tried other coffee shops here in Mountain View but none of them provide armchairs.
I am writing the bulk of my novel in the Mountain View Starbucks. If Starbucks would like some product placement in my novel, however, it will cost them. Perhaps they would like to give me a pass for one free drink every day for the rest of my life? Then I could give Starbucks a little ink in my book. I could have Willa, well, go to Starbucks every day after her swim.
Starbucks is a great metaphor for what's gone wrong here in America. I remember when they used to sell just coffee. I remember when getting a shot of espresso was unfamiliar. Gradually, they brought in carbohydrates to go with the coffee. Gradually, they began to make all those big, sweet drinks. Now they sell all kinds of stuff and the retail display space in each store grows larger and larger, displacing things like my purple plush chair.
I just read that Starbucks is going to open thousands of new stores all around the world, within the next couple years. What drives such rapaciousness? I can't quantify it but I have a hunch that all that has gone wrong is represented by Starbucks expansion all around the globe.
Even as I am vaguely repulsed by their corporate hunger, I still want to go there every day. What has gone wrong with me?!
My Starbucks, probably all of them, is now selling little teddy bears dressed up for formal holiday parties. Each day as I walk past them, I want to buy a male and a female teddy bear, just to have the fun of picking them up, dancing over to the register, chatting with the guest services agent (they used to call these folks sales clerks: what do they call them now?). Do they giftwrap?
When my strong urges to buy these teddy bears overtake me, I know I am doing something wrong with my days.
marmalade is tasty & maple runs in the spring, right?
The A. A. Milne poem about the king who likes a little bit of butter on his bread has been echoing in my thoughts. The guernsey, when asked for some butter for the king's bread replies "They say that marmalade is tasty if very thinly spread". So the maid tells the queen who tells the king and the king says I am not a fussy man but I do like a little bit of butter on my bread.
The kids at Starbucks are pushing maple scones. If they are to be believed, maple scones are scone perfection. They are also pushing a holiday confection called "cranberry bliss". People working in test kitchens with theme marketing backgrounds must bake and bake and bake until they come up with cranberry bliss. The kids have to sample it to get sales moving so I have tasted it, an indulgence I regret. Yuck. Cranberries were not meant to go with cream cheese frosting although I concede that the snippets of dried cranberry spinkled on the cream cheese is holiday festive.
I feel like shrieking, revealing my insanity to the Starbucks gathered, "I am not a fussy woman. I like my lemon scones. Leave the king and me be."
Just to show how well-mannered I can be, I have not pointed out to the kids at Stabucks that their maple promotion is ill-timed. Surely maple syrup runs in the spring, even here in California? Starbucks seems to think pushing maple is somehow related to the falling leaves but, um, back home in the Midwest, sap runs in the spring. Right?!
The kids at Starbucks are pushing maple scones. If they are to be believed, maple scones are scone perfection. They are also pushing a holiday confection called "cranberry bliss". People working in test kitchens with theme marketing backgrounds must bake and bake and bake until they come up with cranberry bliss. The kids have to sample it to get sales moving so I have tasted it, an indulgence I regret. Yuck. Cranberries were not meant to go with cream cheese frosting although I concede that the snippets of dried cranberry spinkled on the cream cheese is holiday festive.
I feel like shrieking, revealing my insanity to the Starbucks gathered, "I am not a fussy woman. I like my lemon scones. Leave the king and me be."
Just to show how well-mannered I can be, I have not pointed out to the kids at Stabucks that their maple promotion is ill-timed. Surely maple syrup runs in the spring, even here in California? Starbucks seems to think pushing maple is somehow related to the falling leaves but, um, back home in the Midwest, sap runs in the spring. Right?!
Monday, November 13, 2006
another Kiefer influence. . .
Robert Fludd, an alchemist and MD in sixteenth/seventeenth century, was the first person to write about the circulatory system in the human body. According to WIKI/encyclopedia, Fludd got it right. He analogized the human circulation system/microcosm to mirror the macrocosm of heaven. The heart corresponded to the sun and the blood corresponded to the planets. The planets, of course, circulate around the sun and the blood, basically, circulated around the heart.
I am loving the idea of considering the human body a microcosm for the heavens. This is similar to my understanding of how Rudolf Steiner, the founder of Anthroposophy, viewed the human body. Every element of the human body mirrors supersensible realities.
WIKI might not be a definitive authority but I don't know where to look, in this moment, for more on Fludd.
Fludd was a lightning rod that many scientists of his time (modern science was just beginning) focussed on to eschew his old, alchemical ways. Fludd ushered in the Renaissance's rejection of a mystical approach to science.
Now I am thinking of Goethean science. If only we had listened to Goethe instead of Newton. . .
I am loving the idea of considering the human body a microcosm for the heavens. This is similar to my understanding of how Rudolf Steiner, the founder of Anthroposophy, viewed the human body. Every element of the human body mirrors supersensible realities.
WIKI might not be a definitive authority but I don't know where to look, in this moment, for more on Fludd.
Fludd was a lightning rod that many scientists of his time (modern science was just beginning) focussed on to eschew his old, alchemical ways. Fludd ushered in the Renaissance's rejection of a mystical approach to science.
Now I am thinking of Goethean science. If only we had listened to Goethe instead of Newton. . .
Sunday, November 12, 2006
I fumble, I stumble, one of my first poems
I am all sixes and sevens.
I am all mixed up.
I don't want to be who I am
I don't know who or what
I fumble, I stumble, I grumble.
I whine.
I am unlovable.
I am unkind.
I am unfixable.
I am a mess.
I am beloved.
I am fine.
I am all mixed up.
I don't want to be who I am
I don't know who or what
I fumble, I stumble, I grumble.
I whine.
I am unlovable.
I am unkind.
I am unfixable.
I am a mess.
I am beloved.
I am fine.
Friday, November 10, 2006
OK: I'm going pink
In July, I attended Blogher '06, a fantastic conference full of beautiful, bawdy, brilliant, blogging babes. At this conference, I met a blogger named Liz Henry who, at the time anyway, had blue hair. I read somewhere, probably on someone's blog, that when asked 'hey liz, why do you dye your hair blue?" Liz replied, "Because I can." Her reasoning, I am certain, is rooted (this was not intended as a pun) in the idea that women have a right to own their image and they have been pressured to compress themselves into narrow societal strictures that really, in my humble opinion (I cannot speak for Liz! I scarcely know her.)are all about pleasing others (mostly males) instead of themselves.
Blue hair, indeed!
I am going to get pink highlights. Why? Because I can.
After I go pink, I will try to figure out how to post a photo of me with pink hair. I should have a photo on my blog anyway.
Thank you, Nancy White, for your supportive comment. I needed that encouragement.
Blue hair, indeed!
I am going to get pink highlights. Why? Because I can.
After I go pink, I will try to figure out how to post a photo of me with pink hair. I should have a photo on my blog anyway.
Thank you, Nancy White, for your supportive comment. I needed that encouragement.
Friday, November 03, 2006
in the mind of westerners
In the mind of westerners, love is usually understood as being the kind of positive feeling and attraction that one has for others of his/her own species, which in its higher levels helps an individual to be drawn to Reality. From this point of view the lover must learn the ways of love; but this is very elementary.
For the Sufis, love is not in the realm of sentiments or feeling but is rather, a divine attraction, the drawing of the lover by God towards God. Here the stress is not so much on the effort of the lover but rather on the pull of God. For this reason, Sufism says that love is 'that which comes', like a raging flood, and the Sufi looks forward to its coming and carrying him/her away.
We have said that Love is the ruler of the heart, the heart encompassing the soul, and the words convey the perceptions of the soul. Therefore all that can be said about Love cannot truly express it, since Love is beyond the realm of idle talk.
Dr. Javad Nurbakhsh (Present Master of Nimatullani Sufi order)
For the Sufis, love is not in the realm of sentiments or feeling but is rather, a divine attraction, the drawing of the lover by God towards God. Here the stress is not so much on the effort of the lover but rather on the pull of God. For this reason, Sufism says that love is 'that which comes', like a raging flood, and the Sufi looks forward to its coming and carrying him/her away.
We have said that Love is the ruler of the heart, the heart encompassing the soul, and the words convey the perceptions of the soul. Therefore all that can be said about Love cannot truly express it, since Love is beyond the realm of idle talk.
Dr. Javad Nurbakhsh (Present Master of Nimatullani Sufi order)
Thursday, November 02, 2006
as rumi says . . .
"When I am In Love I am ashamed of all I have said about love.
Although a commentary in words makes many things clear.
yet wordless Love is clearer and more illuminating.
Like the pen which was busily writing
until it came to Love, then it split and shattered."
Although a commentary in words makes many things clear.
yet wordless Love is clearer and more illuminating.
Like the pen which was busily writing
until it came to Love, then it split and shattered."
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
a mini-triathlon?
I have always thought I'd like to do a mini-triathlon. I can do the swimming easily. I haven't ridden a bike in years but in law school, I had no car and even biked in Minnesota winters. The thing that has held me back from letting this become a full-blown fantasy is the running. I've never been a runner. I don't want to be a runner.
But my inner voice has begun to whisper that now might be my triathlon moment. There is a chick triathlon training club in Mountain View. Yup, I checked.
Dreaming aloud, letting myself try on the idea of wanting it.
But my inner voice has begun to whisper that now might be my triathlon moment. There is a chick triathlon training club in Mountain View. Yup, I checked.
Dreaming aloud, letting myself try on the idea of wanting it.
today has become tomorrow
The pool opens for laps at 10:30.
Water is about to boil. I had exactly enough coffee to make this morning's cup. There is just enough cream in my fridge for one cup,too.
The sun is shining.
SFMOMA is doing a Werner Herzog retrospective.
And now I have money to buy tacos in the Mission.
But, first, twenty five laps.
Water is about to boil. I had exactly enough coffee to make this morning's cup. There is just enough cream in my fridge for one cup,too.
The sun is shining.
SFMOMA is doing a Werner Herzog retrospective.
And now I have money to buy tacos in the Mission.
But, first, twenty five laps.
