If You Forget Me
I want you to know
one thing.
You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.
Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.
If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.
If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.
But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine.
Pablo Neruda
Wednesday, March 26, 2014
If You Forget Me, a poem by Neruda
Saturday, March 22, 2014
he's a dead man
Once, at least 20 years ago, I was at a dinner party comprised of parents from our Waldorf School. The hostesss was the wife of a teacher at the school. She had invited a female, German teacher and that teacher's much younger, American boyfriend.
It was a pleasant enough dinner but the German chick decided she wanted to leave early. I didn't know her at all then. It was a little odd, the way she rushed out. Maybe it was cultural differences. Maybe it was her boyfriend. I say this because after they had their winter gear on, suddenly the boyfriend, who had barely spoken said "Want to hear a joke?"
It was a very dirty, long joke and the whole time he told it, which seemed to take forever, his date kept saying "They don't want to hear this" and "We need to get going". The chick's face was beet red. Her anger obvious to everyone but, seemingly, the boyfriend.
He doggedly finished his joke. The rest of the gathered did not laugh. We politely bid the couple adieu. As soon as the front door has closed on them, the two remaining males said, almost in perfect unison, "He's a dead man." Then the guys went on, laughingly, to say she was going to ream him for telling that joke, esp. after she kept begging him to stop. These two men were having affairs and were in love with one another's wives. One of the two new couples is still together. The hostess and her lover lasted only a few months of hot monkey love.
I was astonished by what those guys said, about the departed boyfriend being a dead man. I didn't think he had done anything wrong, I didn't get why the girlfriend/teacher had been so upset. I had seen she was upset but I don't think it was the joke. I think they left early and hurriedly over something else but I have no idea what it was.
It was interesting, too, to hear two married men's thinking. One of whom was having an affair with the hostess and his wife was not present but she was having an affair with the hostess' husband. For some reason, she had not come to dinner, even though her lover was there. Come to think of it, those two couples had five kids altogether and I bet the left-out wife was providing child care. We were cool people but in Waldorf World, two married teachers hooking up and their five kids suddenly playing musical chairs was not something that could happen on the down low. The kids talked about their new musical homes lifestyle. As I think on it, it was an odd conglomeration of people. There might have been all kinds of stuff going on I didn't know about. It fascinates me still that those two guys knew the hapless, much younger (like 12 or more years younger, like 22 to her pushing 40) was in trouble. And I am pretty sure the kid had absolutely no idea he was in trouble. They had not been together very long, barely knew one another. And they did not stay together long.
"He's a dead man." I used to fantasize contacting the 'dead man' and ask him what, if any repercussions he had experienced after that dinner party. If I had done that, shit would have rained down on me.
It was a pleasant enough dinner but the German chick decided she wanted to leave early. I didn't know her at all then. It was a little odd, the way she rushed out. Maybe it was cultural differences. Maybe it was her boyfriend. I say this because after they had their winter gear on, suddenly the boyfriend, who had barely spoken said "Want to hear a joke?"
It was a very dirty, long joke and the whole time he told it, which seemed to take forever, his date kept saying "They don't want to hear this" and "We need to get going". The chick's face was beet red. Her anger obvious to everyone but, seemingly, the boyfriend.
He doggedly finished his joke. The rest of the gathered did not laugh. We politely bid the couple adieu. As soon as the front door has closed on them, the two remaining males said, almost in perfect unison, "He's a dead man." Then the guys went on, laughingly, to say she was going to ream him for telling that joke, esp. after she kept begging him to stop. These two men were having affairs and were in love with one another's wives. One of the two new couples is still together. The hostess and her lover lasted only a few months of hot monkey love.
I was astonished by what those guys said, about the departed boyfriend being a dead man. I didn't think he had done anything wrong, I didn't get why the girlfriend/teacher had been so upset. I had seen she was upset but I don't think it was the joke. I think they left early and hurriedly over something else but I have no idea what it was.
It was interesting, too, to hear two married men's thinking. One of whom was having an affair with the hostess and his wife was not present but she was having an affair with the hostess' husband. For some reason, she had not come to dinner, even though her lover was there. Come to think of it, those two couples had five kids altogether and I bet the left-out wife was providing child care. We were cool people but in Waldorf World, two married teachers hooking up and their five kids suddenly playing musical chairs was not something that could happen on the down low. The kids talked about their new musical homes lifestyle. As I think on it, it was an odd conglomeration of people. There might have been all kinds of stuff going on I didn't know about. It fascinates me still that those two guys knew the hapless, much younger (like 12 or more years younger, like 22 to her pushing 40) was in trouble. And I am pretty sure the kid had absolutely no idea he was in trouble. They had not been together very long, barely knew one another. And they did not stay together long.
"He's a dead man." I used to fantasize contacting the 'dead man' and ask him what, if any repercussions he had experienced after that dinner party. If I had done that, shit would have rained down on me.
another fabulous thing today
The music at the market was especially good. There were three different groups of musicians. Well, one guy played alone but his sound was great. He played a metal drum roughly in the shape of old-fashioined flying saucer candy. Anyone remember the flying saucer candy, back when dimestores had penny candy sections? His drum was a pounded-out metal thing, repurposed from something else. His instrument made a really beautiful noise.
Hearing lots of very good music added to my joy. I guess I am tracking how joy and happiness come to me or something.
Hearing lots of very good music added to my joy. I guess I am tracking how joy and happiness come to me or something.
one more note, then the pool, then . . . .
Geez, with my hair partially bleached, I am going to have to wear a swim cap and take careful care of it. Clorine from the pool and bleach from the foil make for straw hair.
something different about my farmers market today
It must be the great weather but kids were out in droves. I've been doing my food buying at my Saturday market for several years. I used to ride the bus to the Grand Lake market because prices are lower and I like it's vendor selection a bit more. I hate, however, the bus ride so I stopped going and just have sucked up the fact that the Berkeley Sat market has higher prices than even the market at the Ferry Building in SF, one of SF's most popular spots.
Today, kids, little ones, were literally running under foot. I saw three kids fall when they stumbled on the poorly repaired streets, the kid crying and looking for a parent's sympathy.
Interesting. It has been barely winter, with almost no rain or cold. I guess spring just affects folks. Parents wanted to be outdoors with their kids.
There were two clusters of adorable young people seeking signatures for a petition to raise the minimum wage. When they asked for my name, I said Tree but then I said "You better put me down as Therese, I am registered to vote as Therese, my legal name. I don't want my signature tossed because you used my nickname." The young men, college age I am sure, were each adorable, at both places. At the second place when I said I had already signed, all the guys, and it was all guys, each thanked me and one asked for a hug. And when I passed the first group on my way back home, they all greeted me with "Hi Tree, thanks again."
these kids were lit within and spreading joy just by being alive on a sunny beautiful day. Happy to be alive.
Now, the outdoors and many hours until sunset. Out to get me more Vitamin D.
Today, kids, little ones, were literally running under foot. I saw three kids fall when they stumbled on the poorly repaired streets, the kid crying and looking for a parent's sympathy.
Interesting. It has been barely winter, with almost no rain or cold. I guess spring just affects folks. Parents wanted to be outdoors with their kids.
There were two clusters of adorable young people seeking signatures for a petition to raise the minimum wage. When they asked for my name, I said Tree but then I said "You better put me down as Therese, I am registered to vote as Therese, my legal name. I don't want my signature tossed because you used my nickname." The young men, college age I am sure, were each adorable, at both places. At the second place when I said I had already signed, all the guys, and it was all guys, each thanked me and one asked for a hug. And when I passed the first group on my way back home, they all greeted me with "Hi Tree, thanks again."
these kids were lit within and spreading joy just by being alive on a sunny beautiful day. Happy to be alive.
Now, the outdoors and many hours until sunset. Out to get me more Vitamin D.
seeing a child see the world's magic
Seeing a child, any child but especially one you love unreservedly, see that the world is full of magic is wonderful. I miss that so. I understand why being a grand parent would be so great. I am so much wiser now, and life has tenderized me.
I agree with this feminist quote wholeheartedly
I myself have never been able to find out what feminism is; I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat or a prostitute.
- Rebecca West, in "Mr. Chesterton in Hysterics" in The Clarion, (14 November 1913)
when men imagine a female uprising . . .
When men imagine a female uprising, they imagine a world in which women rule men as men have ruled women.
- Sally Kempton, as quoted in Notes for Participants, National Forensic League's Lincoln-Douglas Debate on Feminism and Gender Equality (November 11, 1995) by Twiss Butler, National Organization for Women
overheard outside the 'Y', in the golden tunnel
Two little boys had things with wheels so they went down the wheelchair ramp. It's not just for wheelchairs, I know. I suppose that is an old fashioned way to refer to the ramp. Oh well. I'm old.
One boy had a tiny bike, no training wheels. The other boy, much smaller, had a scooter.
The dad had gone down the steps and was savoring watching his boys somewhat awkwardly traverse that ramp. Dad kept saying "Watch out for pedestrians". Truth told, the pedestrians had to watch out for the boys. Their focus was on rolling their wheels. Each of them could barely control their wheels. It was delightful. The doting father loving his boys, the boys proud of doing down the ramp by themselves.
When they both got on the sidewalk, dad called out "Now we're going this way," and he pointed, "and there are lots of pedestrians so ride single file."
The bigger boy took off. He was at ease actually riding his bike on a flat sidewalk so he shot ahead.
The little boy said "Hey, look at me, I'm being nice by letting you go first."
No one responded to him so he repeated it, "I'm being nice by letting him go first." This time his dad acknowledged him.
"That's right, buddy," dad said, "You are being nice. Good for you."
So much love in what is probably a routine Saturday trip to the Y.
In my personal, uninformed opinion, the little boy was putting on a brave face and staked out the "i'm being nice" territory because he had been his brother's equal on the ramp, the two of them rolling side by side but once the bigger kid shot ahead, the smaller one remembered "Oh, I'm smaller." He had not chosen to let the big brother get ahead.
Good parenting, I think. The kid was giving himself positive messages, instead of squabling about who got to be in front, he made it about being nice.
I definitely am in the golden tunnel.
One boy had a tiny bike, no training wheels. The other boy, much smaller, had a scooter.
The dad had gone down the steps and was savoring watching his boys somewhat awkwardly traverse that ramp. Dad kept saying "Watch out for pedestrians". Truth told, the pedestrians had to watch out for the boys. Their focus was on rolling their wheels. Each of them could barely control their wheels. It was delightful. The doting father loving his boys, the boys proud of doing down the ramp by themselves.
When they both got on the sidewalk, dad called out "Now we're going this way," and he pointed, "and there are lots of pedestrians so ride single file."
The bigger boy took off. He was at ease actually riding his bike on a flat sidewalk so he shot ahead.
The little boy said "Hey, look at me, I'm being nice by letting you go first."
No one responded to him so he repeated it, "I'm being nice by letting him go first." This time his dad acknowledged him.
"That's right, buddy," dad said, "You are being nice. Good for you."
So much love in what is probably a routine Saturday trip to the Y.
In my personal, uninformed opinion, the little boy was putting on a brave face and staked out the "i'm being nice" territory because he had been his brother's equal on the ramp, the two of them rolling side by side but once the bigger kid shot ahead, the smaller one remembered "Oh, I'm smaller." He had not chosen to let the big brother get ahead.
Good parenting, I think. The kid was giving himself positive messages, instead of squabling about who got to be in front, he made it about being nice.
I definitely am in the golden tunnel.
the first robin sighting each year in our Waldorf School
At my daughter's Waldorf School, the then-school administrator would invite all the children in the school to keep an eye out for their first robin siting. The very first child to see a robin each spring 'won'. I don't know if there was an actual prize. My daughter didn't seem to get into robin watching. Maybe I was neglectful. I couldn't do everything, remember everything. I did plenty of wonderful giving to her, truly I did.
Then the school administrator would, in the weekly newsletter, keep the whole school updated on robin sightings until spring was in full bloom and lots of birds about.
I miss having kids in my life, seeing children get excited about buds breaking open and stuff like that.
Then the school administrator would, in the weekly newsletter, keep the whole school updated on robin sightings until spring was in full bloom and lots of birds about.
I miss having kids in my life, seeing children get excited about buds breaking open and stuff like that.
Happiness, lucky lucky me
My many fans want to know everything I bought, right? lol
*Three pink lady apples from the seconds bin: blemished but tasty and much cheaper. I didn't eat apples for about ten years after I was diagnosed diabetic. On my antiinflammatory nutrition program, I know that if I eat a wide variety of foods, I get all the probiotics, micronutrients and any nutrition I need without any supplements. So I have taken to eating a still fairly rare apple. I pick out the smallest ones I can find, always thinking about carbs. Carbs mean more insulin, to much insulin means weight gain and this chick is on a roll of winning by losing.
*Chard has been shown, in some scientific studies, to encourage Type One diabetic pancreas' to eke out a little more insulin so now I eat chard regularly. I didn't like it. I have discovered a tiny splash of tamari (wheat-free soy sauce) after braising chard in garlic infused EVOO (extra virgin olive oil -- organic of course, same with garlic, organic). I hate chard raw or cooked without that tang of tamari then, the magic of cooking, I frakking love it.
*I could steam my gluten-free organic tortillas and gobble up the whole dozen, if, that is, I could handle that many carbs. I basically don't eat any grains anymore except for occasionally indulging in these awesome organic tortillas. The tortilla guy remembers me and we joke. I eat them sparingly because I have vowed to be done with all grain bur organic corn tortillas. I love them. Say, I could still eat pupusas without cheese, they are made of corn, too. Next time I am in the Mission, which might be today, I'll ask at my favorite pupuseria, Elsy's, at 25th and Mission.
When I am happy, lit from within, men notice me. A guy in my building just asked me out and he's been here four years and never talked to me before. I told him I have a boyfriend. Wanna know why? Because I have always said any man who knew me fat but wasn't interested in me, wasn't going to get me interested in him when I lost a lot of weight. I'm still fat. I don't want to overstate things but I am steadily, and quickly, losing. almost fifty pounds since September. Soon my dream of onederland will be upon me and soon thereafter, like six months, I intend to weight what I weight when I got pregnant in 1981. I don't expect to ever weight my all-time adult low weight again, which came after I gave birth. I lost about 26 or more pounds, probably more cause I didn't see the oc until I was two months preggers and I had lost a lot by then. I barfed for 9 months, well, 8.3, she came a little early, the little plum.
I consulted with my microgreens vendor. She noted I hadn't been at the market last week. I was aat a workshop in Novato, eh? Plus, she commented, "You have nto bought sorrel for awhile." For some reason, I have to feel happy and feel love for myself to buy sorrel. I love sorrel. I wonder if any brujas use it in love potions. Not necesarily romantic love potions, just about LOVE.
I guess I am feeling, feeling drawn to the growing power of warm weather and lots of sunlight.
*And the first strawberries are a bit like seeing one's first robin.
*kale. Kale is high in fiber. I know from friends who juice it. I was given a juicer by an acquaintance but have never used it. He told me he was experimenting with using all the pulp sucked out to make juice by making flax seed crackers. I bet that would work. If I did it, which I won't, I think I'd try some seasoning on flax and kale pulp crackers. It should work, esp. if one has a food dryer,. I'd begin with a tiny dash of tamari, for a little goes a long way. What else would work? A fun thing to think about when I get over this burst of taking longer to report on my half day thus far than the burst of activity took.
*Spinach
*Three pink lady apples from the seconds bin: blemished but tasty and much cheaper. I didn't eat apples for about ten years after I was diagnosed diabetic. On my antiinflammatory nutrition program, I know that if I eat a wide variety of foods, I get all the probiotics, micronutrients and any nutrition I need without any supplements. So I have taken to eating a still fairly rare apple. I pick out the smallest ones I can find, always thinking about carbs. Carbs mean more insulin, to much insulin means weight gain and this chick is on a roll of winning by losing.
*Chard has been shown, in some scientific studies, to encourage Type One diabetic pancreas' to eke out a little more insulin so now I eat chard regularly. I didn't like it. I have discovered a tiny splash of tamari (wheat-free soy sauce) after braising chard in garlic infused EVOO (extra virgin olive oil -- organic of course, same with garlic, organic). I hate chard raw or cooked without that tang of tamari then, the magic of cooking, I frakking love it.
*I could steam my gluten-free organic tortillas and gobble up the whole dozen, if, that is, I could handle that many carbs. I basically don't eat any grains anymore except for occasionally indulging in these awesome organic tortillas. The tortilla guy remembers me and we joke. I eat them sparingly because I have vowed to be done with all grain bur organic corn tortillas. I love them. Say, I could still eat pupusas without cheese, they are made of corn, too. Next time I am in the Mission, which might be today, I'll ask at my favorite pupuseria, Elsy's, at 25th and Mission.
When I am happy, lit from within, men notice me. A guy in my building just asked me out and he's been here four years and never talked to me before. I told him I have a boyfriend. Wanna know why? Because I have always said any man who knew me fat but wasn't interested in me, wasn't going to get me interested in him when I lost a lot of weight. I'm still fat. I don't want to overstate things but I am steadily, and quickly, losing. almost fifty pounds since September. Soon my dream of onederland will be upon me and soon thereafter, like six months, I intend to weight what I weight when I got pregnant in 1981. I don't expect to ever weight my all-time adult low weight again, which came after I gave birth. I lost about 26 or more pounds, probably more cause I didn't see the oc until I was two months preggers and I had lost a lot by then. I barfed for 9 months, well, 8.3, she came a little early, the little plum.
I consulted with my microgreens vendor. She noted I hadn't been at the market last week. I was aat a workshop in Novato, eh? Plus, she commented, "You have nto bought sorrel for awhile." For some reason, I have to feel happy and feel love for myself to buy sorrel. I love sorrel. I wonder if any brujas use it in love potions. Not necesarily romantic love potions, just about LOVE.
I guess I am feeling, feeling drawn to the growing power of warm weather and lots of sunlight.
*And the first strawberries are a bit like seeing one's first robin.
*kale. Kale is high in fiber. I know from friends who juice it. I was given a juicer by an acquaintance but have never used it. He told me he was experimenting with using all the pulp sucked out to make juice by making flax seed crackers. I bet that would work. If I did it, which I won't, I think I'd try some seasoning on flax and kale pulp crackers. It should work, esp. if one has a food dryer,. I'd begin with a tiny dash of tamari, for a little goes a long way. What else would work? A fun thing to think about when I get over this burst of taking longer to report on my half day thus far than the burst of activity took.
*Spinach
Men notice when you lose weight,stop wearing hiding clothes & get cute new haircut
I always wear my rain jacket. In cold weather, I wear sweaters. It's like a windbreaker but a Marmot long one loaded with pockets. I wear it for the pockets. My bus pass goes in a certain one, my cash in another, my wallet in another. And there is a sleeve pocket where I always stash one or two twenty dollar bills just in case. I forget that money is there and then when my debit card is stolen and it takes ten days to get it replaced, I have that cash.
This is about going out with peddle-pusher length yoga pants, a knit, bosom-and-weight-loss revealing body line and guess what happens? People pay more attention. Maybe it is true, that blondes have more fun. And it felt so good to see my reflection in store windows and see for myself the loss. I tend not to see it, esp. when I wear my now five years old Marmot constantly.
I did start out with the Marmot. I only had the nerve to wear the figure revealing outfit because, I reasoned to myself, the jacket will hide this cleavage. It's hot and sunny. I began to sweat. My blouse was wet. So I removed the jacket It made digging out money for each buy require a bit of effort.
Woman, oh woman (my feminist version of the phrase 'man oh man') I felt great, feel great.
I am in the golden tunnel.
A few months ago a friend said "All you need to get out of this depression is to have two or three men interested in you." I said "No way two or three men are ever going to be interested in me." My friend said "You crazy."
My friend was right. Male attention was what I wanted, needed and now have.
Mabe my real changes have been inner ones. . . . .
This is about going out with peddle-pusher length yoga pants, a knit, bosom-and-weight-loss revealing body line and guess what happens? People pay more attention. Maybe it is true, that blondes have more fun. And it felt so good to see my reflection in store windows and see for myself the loss. I tend not to see it, esp. when I wear my now five years old Marmot constantly.
I did start out with the Marmot. I only had the nerve to wear the figure revealing outfit because, I reasoned to myself, the jacket will hide this cleavage. It's hot and sunny. I began to sweat. My blouse was wet. So I removed the jacket It made digging out money for each buy require a bit of effort.
Woman, oh woman (my feminist version of the phrase 'man oh man') I felt great, feel great.
I am in the golden tunnel.
A few months ago a friend said "All you need to get out of this depression is to have two or three men interested in you." I said "No way two or three men are ever going to be interested in me." My friend said "You crazy."
My friend was right. Male attention was what I wanted, needed and now have.
Mabe my real changes have been inner ones. . . . .
a supercalifragilistic day and it's only half over
*found out the wrap shop next door sells falafel by the piece. It's gluten-free and the dipping sauce is not only dairy-free but free free. When I don't want to cook, right next door is organic falafel.
*wild hedgehog mushrooms. I have never had them before but can't wait to cook them. I am eating some mushrooms nearly every day. But these wild hedgehogs are $20 a pound so I won't be eating my $7 all week. I predict they are gone by sundown tomorrow.
*organic strawberries at, thus far, only one vendor. Lush, sweet, low-glycemic and mine, all mine.
*organic guacamole made by the great organic tortilla place. I eat half an avocado nearly daily, like sliced on my breakfast egg or eat some with refried pinto beans (homemade ones are much cheaper than store-bought and guaranteed organic). I also put half an avocado in raw green smoothies when I am lazy. need to boost my vegie proportions for the day and in a few minutes, I have kale, avocado, sorrel, watercress, cinnamon and, now and again, berries. Just think how great my perfectly ripe strawberries are going to be
*gluten-free polenta filled with greens from my organic baker pal
*jumbo pastured eggs. The guy selilng was super cute. I asked him how I could buy pastured eggs at Berkeley Bowl for $3.59 but his were $8. He said "At the BB, you don't get to talk to me and come out and visit my farm." I said "Sold!" He said "Which ones do you want?" I pointed to the one with all jumbo eggs. He said "Jumbos are another buck." I had already given him eight so I pulled out my cash and peeled off another dollar. "When I see a jumbo egg land on my cast iron skillet, knowing it is for me, I feel like a princess. It's worth a dollar to feel like a princess." He laughed. Then I said "And at the Berkeley Bowl, nobody cares if I feel likek a princess." He said "See you next week, princess."
I am in the golden tunnel
*wild hedgehog mushrooms. I have never had them before but can't wait to cook them. I am eating some mushrooms nearly every day. But these wild hedgehogs are $20 a pound so I won't be eating my $7 all week. I predict they are gone by sundown tomorrow.
*organic strawberries at, thus far, only one vendor. Lush, sweet, low-glycemic and mine, all mine.
*organic guacamole made by the great organic tortilla place. I eat half an avocado nearly daily, like sliced on my breakfast egg or eat some with refried pinto beans (homemade ones are much cheaper than store-bought and guaranteed organic). I also put half an avocado in raw green smoothies when I am lazy. need to boost my vegie proportions for the day and in a few minutes, I have kale, avocado, sorrel, watercress, cinnamon and, now and again, berries. Just think how great my perfectly ripe strawberries are going to be
*gluten-free polenta filled with greens from my organic baker pal
*jumbo pastured eggs. The guy selilng was super cute. I asked him how I could buy pastured eggs at Berkeley Bowl for $3.59 but his were $8. He said "At the BB, you don't get to talk to me and come out and visit my farm." I said "Sold!" He said "Which ones do you want?" I pointed to the one with all jumbo eggs. He said "Jumbos are another buck." I had already given him eight so I pulled out my cash and peeled off another dollar. "When I see a jumbo egg land on my cast iron skillet, knowing it is for me, I feel like a princess. It's worth a dollar to feel like a princess." He laughed. Then I said "And at the Berkeley Bowl, nobody cares if I feel likek a princess." He said "See you next week, princess."
I am in the golden tunnel
some nuns are waycool, like this woman
Be sure to hit the cc at the bottom of the youtube screen so the Italian is subtitled into English.
This young woman, when asked why she chose to perform at The Voice Italy, she said "Because God gave me gifts, gifts are to share, I am here to give my gift to you." Her sweet sincerity is so moving.
The Virgin Spring by Ingmar Bergman
My undergraduate university showed a classic film every Monday night, in the only large, auditorium style classroom on the campus. The university was proud of having very small classes with a very low student to faculty ratio, and proud that all faculty had doctorates. There were no large lectures except in sciences like biology, chemistry and physics. Everyone taking those subjects would have a large hall lecture each week and then two small lab classes with never more than a dozen students and a doctorate.
I got a full academic scholarship to some Big 8 university. I trembled at the thought of going to such a big school with many thousands of students. Fortunately, the school I went to gave me an almost free ride. I picked it because it was small, sixteen hundred students, and because it was known for its academic rigour. Boring. Get to the movie, Tree.
The Virgin Spring was not the first movie I saw in that science hall. The first one was shown as a part of Freshman Studies, a course all freshman had to take that was an overview of general humanities. In Freshman Studies, we watched another Bergman film, the name I cannot recall. What I remember is that the film is noted for a very long, single camera shot of a conversation in a carriage, the camera going back and forth as each person speaks. I guess the story didn't take with me the way The Virgin Spring did.
The Virgin Spring penetrated my whole being. A sweet, beautiful young girl, about the age I was when I was incested, is sent to buy candles at the church. A maidservant accompanies her but abandons her, not that a maid could have saved her from the two herdsmen who raped and killed the beautiful, innocent, even angelic child. She approached the herdsman and offered to share her lunch with them, so they raped and killed her.
A part of me died when I was seven. Maybe that is why the movie rended my being into many broken bits. I couldn't shake the scene in the woods for weeks. It is a very beautiful, shadowed glen, a magical nurturing forest in which nature heals us. One minute, heaven on earath, the next minute, hell for that poor child.
I just read the Wikiedia review. The herdsman take the child's clothing and then, unknowingly, stop at the girl's home. Her family offers them food, and the herdsman offer the girl's clothing for sale. The parents realize they have murdered their beloved child. The father kills the herdsman and the boy with them, who did not do anything to the child and was too small to save her but the father did not know this. And he was blind in rage.
My mom was blind in rage when she found out my father was incesting me and she killed me by beating me 100 times with my dad's belt. She hit me as hard as she could, counting out every single stroke. She paused when she grew tired. My father, at least eight inches taller than my mom and a large, physically powerful man could have simply retrained her. Instead he stood alongside her, watched her belting my backside, legs, buttucks and back, leaving welts, sometimes two if one of her lashings hit both legs. A few times Dad would say "Mary Ann, that's enough, you can stop now." She said "No, I said 100, it has to be 100. She has to learn."
My mom was out of her mind. It was 1960, the year The Virgin Spring came out. She had, then, three other children and had dropped out of college after one year to marry my father. How would she support us? Child support was not enforced back then. So her mind chose to blame me, as I had seduced my father.
It was the death of me because I realized, in my hours of crying hard afterwards, that I was all alone in this world. I still am. As I cried, I went over all the adults in my world, trying to think of someone who could help me. Aunts? They would talk to my folks, who would be mortified that I had aired the dirty linen and it would not have stopped me. I knew nothing about social services, like child protection. I thought about asking my best friend's mom, who lived next door, but she was a bit of a flibbertigibbit and she alllowed her husband to smack my best friend around, although her father never molested. Once, though, when she needed a haircut and he was drunk, for he was a serious alcoholic, he ordered her to get her bangs out of her eyes. She could not get her bangs to stay out of her eyes. She and I discussed strategies and decided we'd just stay in her room until her mom came home and let her deal with the father's drunken anger. My friend wore her hair in a pixie cut so she either didn't have barrettes, which could have pulled her hair back from her eyes, or we just didn't think of barrettes. I remember both of us trembling in that bedroom. I felt reasonably safe, believing her father would not hit a child from another family. He was angry, drunk and bored. Looking to entertain himself, I think, as drunks sometimes do, he called her out into the living room. Neither she nor I disoabeyed our parents. Christ, after my beating, which was the only time my mother ever struck me, I fell all over myself trying to please her to avoid another one. My friend may have had struggles she never told me. I know she was embarrassed that I saw her father drunk that day. She had never told me her dad was a drunk. I knew. Everyone in the neighborhood knew. But between her and I, we were just happy together and never discussed either of our private family lives. I sure never told her I had been brutally beaten. I was ashamed that I had such a bad mother. Sometimes I internalized mom's twistedness and blamed myself, as she did, for dad molesting me, and for mom beating me.
I got a full academic scholarship to some Big 8 university. I trembled at the thought of going to such a big school with many thousands of students. Fortunately, the school I went to gave me an almost free ride. I picked it because it was small, sixteen hundred students, and because it was known for its academic rigour. Boring. Get to the movie, Tree.
The Virgin Spring was not the first movie I saw in that science hall. The first one was shown as a part of Freshman Studies, a course all freshman had to take that was an overview of general humanities. In Freshman Studies, we watched another Bergman film, the name I cannot recall. What I remember is that the film is noted for a very long, single camera shot of a conversation in a carriage, the camera going back and forth as each person speaks. I guess the story didn't take with me the way The Virgin Spring did.
The Virgin Spring penetrated my whole being. A sweet, beautiful young girl, about the age I was when I was incested, is sent to buy candles at the church. A maidservant accompanies her but abandons her, not that a maid could have saved her from the two herdsmen who raped and killed the beautiful, innocent, even angelic child. She approached the herdsman and offered to share her lunch with them, so they raped and killed her.
A part of me died when I was seven. Maybe that is why the movie rended my being into many broken bits. I couldn't shake the scene in the woods for weeks. It is a very beautiful, shadowed glen, a magical nurturing forest in which nature heals us. One minute, heaven on earath, the next minute, hell for that poor child.
I just read the Wikiedia review. The herdsman take the child's clothing and then, unknowingly, stop at the girl's home. Her family offers them food, and the herdsman offer the girl's clothing for sale. The parents realize they have murdered their beloved child. The father kills the herdsman and the boy with them, who did not do anything to the child and was too small to save her but the father did not know this. And he was blind in rage.
My mom was blind in rage when she found out my father was incesting me and she killed me by beating me 100 times with my dad's belt. She hit me as hard as she could, counting out every single stroke. She paused when she grew tired. My father, at least eight inches taller than my mom and a large, physically powerful man could have simply retrained her. Instead he stood alongside her, watched her belting my backside, legs, buttucks and back, leaving welts, sometimes two if one of her lashings hit both legs. A few times Dad would say "Mary Ann, that's enough, you can stop now." She said "No, I said 100, it has to be 100. She has to learn."
My mom was out of her mind. It was 1960, the year The Virgin Spring came out. She had, then, three other children and had dropped out of college after one year to marry my father. How would she support us? Child support was not enforced back then. So her mind chose to blame me, as I had seduced my father.
It was the death of me because I realized, in my hours of crying hard afterwards, that I was all alone in this world. I still am. As I cried, I went over all the adults in my world, trying to think of someone who could help me. Aunts? They would talk to my folks, who would be mortified that I had aired the dirty linen and it would not have stopped me. I knew nothing about social services, like child protection. I thought about asking my best friend's mom, who lived next door, but she was a bit of a flibbertigibbit and she alllowed her husband to smack my best friend around, although her father never molested. Once, though, when she needed a haircut and he was drunk, for he was a serious alcoholic, he ordered her to get her bangs out of her eyes. She could not get her bangs to stay out of her eyes. She and I discussed strategies and decided we'd just stay in her room until her mom came home and let her deal with the father's drunken anger. My friend wore her hair in a pixie cut so she either didn't have barrettes, which could have pulled her hair back from her eyes, or we just didn't think of barrettes. I remember both of us trembling in that bedroom. I felt reasonably safe, believing her father would not hit a child from another family. He was angry, drunk and bored. Looking to entertain himself, I think, as drunks sometimes do, he called her out into the living room. Neither she nor I disoabeyed our parents. Christ, after my beating, which was the only time my mother ever struck me, I fell all over myself trying to please her to avoid another one. My friend may have had struggles she never told me. I know she was embarrassed that I saw her father drunk that day. She had never told me her dad was a drunk. I knew. Everyone in the neighborhood knew. But between her and I, we were just happy together and never discussed either of our private family lives. I sure never told her I had been brutally beaten. I was ashamed that I had such a bad mother. Sometimes I internalized mom's twistedness and blamed myself, as she did, for dad molesting me, and for mom beating me.
Friday, March 21, 2014
first time I bought officiallly organic food
In 1976, I moved from Chicago to Minneapolis for grad school. The Twin Cities of Minnesota had a food co-op system. Shopping at those co-ops was cheaper than regular grocery stores. This was before there was an Annie's, Organic Valley, and all the products that now fill food co-ops and Whole Foods like stores. In 1976, the food co-op I joined sold almost everything in bulk, making it cheaper.
I was particularly impressed by bulk spices. Way cheaper than the small jars of spices.
I didn't always buy organic after that. As the movement grew, and processed, putatively organic food became more common, prices rose. I remember a friend raving to me about the pastured chickens fed vegetarian feed and how much better they were. I was a single mom. I had priced those organic chickens. They cost about twice as much as the junk chicken I bought. I felt guilty.
I fed my kid lots of organic food. She had a vegetarian phase in grade school and I supported that.
I was particularly impressed by bulk spices. Way cheaper than the small jars of spices.
I didn't always buy organic after that. As the movement grew, and processed, putatively organic food became more common, prices rose. I remember a friend raving to me about the pastured chickens fed vegetarian feed and how much better they were. I was a single mom. I had priced those organic chickens. They cost about twice as much as the junk chicken I bought. I felt guilty.
I fed my kid lots of organic food. She had a vegetarian phase in grade school and I supported that.
The Grand Budapest Hotel: no spoilers!
Someone invited me to see The Grand Budapest Hotel today, their treat, so I suggested the budget matinee. I don't think I have paid full evening price for a movie more than a handful of times since they started budget matinees. There weren't always budget matinees.
I am thinking of how my dad used to talk a lot about how movies cost five cents and for two cents you got huge candy bars and unbelievably big bags of popcorn. Gosh, when I first paid full price to see films as a kid, it cost a quarter, adults were thirty five cents. When budget matinees started, to fill up theaters that had, until then, sat empty until the dinner hour and evening, cost a buck, then two, then three. Today, in Berkeley, $8.50 for the budget. Pay full price. Even when someone else is paying, I prefer not to. The principle. I will do it if it works out for the party I am with but it aint easy.
Anyway. The movie. It is one of those movies with an endless series of cameo appearances of well known, even famous movie stars. Ray Fiennes has the lead, Willem Dafoe is at his sinister best (I heart me Willem!), Bill Murray, Ed Norton, Tilda Swinton. Much of the fun is recognizing all these movie stars you've seen before and seeing them in unfamiliar, even preposterous roles.
In the credits, they say Wes Anderson, the director was influenced by an actual writer who died long ago. Who knows if that is true?
The story is supposedly the story in a book by an unnamed writing, the book called The Grand Budapest Hotel. The story really isn't the point. The characters, the stars, absurdity with a backdrop of exquisite, mostly winter natural beauty.
It's fun. Not 100% my cup of tea. I would have happily waited to rent it on iTunes for half of what my ticket cost.
Oh, the audience applauded at the end, for a long time. Do people do that now at the movies? I don't remember hearing applause before at a movie. It was prolonged clapping, even a little cheering.
The best part was having a date with a friend who took me out because = I have been sick, needing to spend time.
See? I haven't ruined the plot. I had fun but getting it from the library next year would have been fine. There are many other movies running now I would have rather seen. Go with the flow.
We Type 2's in the Enneagram hide our own wishes and try to please others a bit too much.
I am thinking of how my dad used to talk a lot about how movies cost five cents and for two cents you got huge candy bars and unbelievably big bags of popcorn. Gosh, when I first paid full price to see films as a kid, it cost a quarter, adults were thirty five cents. When budget matinees started, to fill up theaters that had, until then, sat empty until the dinner hour and evening, cost a buck, then two, then three. Today, in Berkeley, $8.50 for the budget. Pay full price. Even when someone else is paying, I prefer not to. The principle. I will do it if it works out for the party I am with but it aint easy.
Anyway. The movie. It is one of those movies with an endless series of cameo appearances of well known, even famous movie stars. Ray Fiennes has the lead, Willem Dafoe is at his sinister best (I heart me Willem!), Bill Murray, Ed Norton, Tilda Swinton. Much of the fun is recognizing all these movie stars you've seen before and seeing them in unfamiliar, even preposterous roles.
In the credits, they say Wes Anderson, the director was influenced by an actual writer who died long ago. Who knows if that is true?
The story is supposedly the story in a book by an unnamed writing, the book called The Grand Budapest Hotel. The story really isn't the point. The characters, the stars, absurdity with a backdrop of exquisite, mostly winter natural beauty.
It's fun. Not 100% my cup of tea. I would have happily waited to rent it on iTunes for half of what my ticket cost.
Oh, the audience applauded at the end, for a long time. Do people do that now at the movies? I don't remember hearing applause before at a movie. It was prolonged clapping, even a little cheering.
The best part was having a date with a friend who took me out because = I have been sick, needing to spend time.
See? I haven't ruined the plot. I had fun but getting it from the library next year would have been fine. There are many other movies running now I would have rather seen. Go with the flow.
We Type 2's in the Enneagram hide our own wishes and try to please others a bit too much.
women are foolish to pretend they are equal to men . . .
"I think women are foolish to pretend they are equal to men, they are far superior and always have been."
William Golding
to a blogger acquaintance, who I don't think ever reads my blog. . but . .
I am working hard to forgive the way I feel about how you treated me in relation to my sixtieth birthday. I have never had a friend treat me that way. You have written that I acted in what was, for you, irrevocably beyond a line of what you could accept. The combination of how you treated me in relation to my milestone birthday and then your negative, bigoted characterization of me as 'being such a borderline' when you don't really understand it at all. . . .
over and over, I pray, at least daily and often more than once a day, to let go of the hard feelings I have. For my sake. When I cannot feel forgiveness, I hurt myself.
You have written I have no credibiilty with you and said, many times, that you fear and distrust me. That means I was unwise to give you credibility, and to trust you. Every time you said "I fear you" you were warning me that I should fear you.
over and over, I pray, at least daily and often more than once a day, to let go of the hard feelings I have. For my sake. When I cannot feel forgiveness, I hurt myself.
You have written I have no credibiilty with you and said, many times, that you fear and distrust me. That means I was unwise to give you credibility, and to trust you. Every time you said "I fear you" you were warning me that I should fear you.
can you remember who you were
Can you remember who you were efore the world told you who you should be?
I don't think I can remember who I was before the world started telling me who I was supposed to be. How I would love to remember.
craving carbs
I can go for several months without craving carbs. Something must trigger me into carb cravings.
I am deep into intense, wild craving for carbs.
I have some butternut squash. That's carb-y.
Fruit has carbs.
That's not what I am craving. I am craving ice cream with sugar. Hmmm. What flavor would I go with? Lemon cookie by Three Twins. It is purely organic, with no carrageenan or anything but purely organic ingredients. The difference in taste jumps out with the first lick. I could also go for cardamon. And something chocolately whose name I am blanking.
I want ice cream.
I'll have to settle for a couple slices of cantaloupe but it is not cutting the crave.
I am deep into intense, wild craving for carbs.
I have some butternut squash. That's carb-y.
Fruit has carbs.
That's not what I am craving. I am craving ice cream with sugar. Hmmm. What flavor would I go with? Lemon cookie by Three Twins. It is purely organic, with no carrageenan or anything but purely organic ingredients. The difference in taste jumps out with the first lick. I could also go for cardamon. And something chocolately whose name I am blanking.
I want ice cream.
I'll have to settle for a couple slices of cantaloupe but it is not cutting the crave.
Rudolf Steiner on beings active in spring
In his lecture ‘The Four Seasons and the Arch Angels’
speaks of how in Springtime two groups of beings become particularly
active in the world, though unseen by ordinary consciousness. Each is
seeking to gain a foothold over the Soul-life of human beings, and
though their ambitions are never realized, nevertheless they affect us,
creating imbalances.
The Ahrimanic Beings (which work through
the cold hardening and calcifying processes) seek to draw humanity down
into the earth and to become solely an earth being and materialists in
thought and deed.
The Luciferic Beings (at work in the
dissolving, inflaming processes) seek to draw humanity off the earth –
‘to give up’ our earthly home.
So in Springtime, these unseen forces
disturb the rightful balance within us. However, as a great Spring
imagination can arise the picture of the Christ Impulse of Love standing between
these two opposing forces, holding the balance as World Healer.
Rudolf Steiner also speaks of the Arch
Angel Raphael (known in ancient times as Mercury and who carries the
healing staff) as the Spiritual Being who carries the forces of healing
to Humanity. Just as the Arch Angel Michael oversees the forces of
Autumn, so Raphael, as servant to the Christ Being, has inspired the art
of healing throughout the ages.
In the Book of Tobit from the Apocrypha
of the Old Testament, Raphael is named as the Angel who accompanies
Tobias on his journey to find the secret of how to heal his blind
father.
Join me in greeting Raphael's healing power to balance the supersensible beings, angels, seeking to draw us off balance.
As I have posted recently, being human is hard, a constant call to do our work.
As I have posted recently, being human is hard, a constant call to do our work.
Gone old Winter's ache and grief
Glory be, glory be,
Every field, every tree
Comes to life, comes to leaf
Gone old Winter’s ache and grief
Come the Spring, throstle sing
Lambs in meadow leap and spring
Hey ding-a-ding ding
Joan Wyles
spring has now unwrapped her flowers
spring has now unwrapped her flowers
day is fast reviving
life with all its growing powers
toward the light is striving''
all the world with beauty fills
all the world with beauty fills.
Gold the green enhancing
Flowers make glee among the hills
and set the meadows dancing.
I don't know who wrote this song. My daughter learned it in Waldorf and taught it to me when we worked in our family garden. All our neighbors would remark on their pleasure, with windows open greeting spring, hearing us sing. There were other songs. This is my favorite so I remember it best.
She had to teach it to me so we sang it one line at a time and over and over until I had it down. She was happy, I thought, and I sure was. Being with her always lit me up in a way nothing else ever has.
I grieve feeling lit by her presence. I grieve her rejection.
day is fast reviving
life with all its growing powers
toward the light is striving''
all the world with beauty fills
all the world with beauty fills.
Gold the green enhancing
Flowers make glee among the hills
and set the meadows dancing.
I don't know who wrote this song. My daughter learned it in Waldorf and taught it to me when we worked in our family garden. All our neighbors would remark on their pleasure, with windows open greeting spring, hearing us sing. There were other songs. This is my favorite so I remember it best.
She had to teach it to me so we sang it one line at a time and over and over until I had it down. She was happy, I thought, and I sure was. Being with her always lit me up in a way nothing else ever has.
I grieve feeling lit by her presence. I grieve her rejection.
whenever you spend money, you are voting for the world you want.
Do you want a GMO, pesiticde, drug-profit-driven-health-care world?
Emily Dickinson on Spring, two poems
Emily Dickinson
A Light exists in Spring
Not present on the Year
At any other period —
When March is scarcely here
A Color stands abroad
On Solitary Fields
That Science cannot overtake
But Human Nature feels.
It waits upon the Lawn,
It shows the furthest Tree
Upon the furthest Slope you know
It almost speaks to you.
Then as Horizons step
Or Noons report away
Without the Formula of sound
It passes and we stay —
A quality of loss
Affecting our Content
As Trade had suddenly encroached
Upon a Sacrament.
Emily Dickinson
A little madness in the Spring
Is wholesome even for the King,
But God be with the Clown —
Who ponders this tremendous scene —
This whole Experiment of Green —
As if it were his own
balloon game for cooperating, giving another happiness
at some conference, people were asked to enter a room filled with filled balloons. Each person's name was on one balloon. They were asked to find their own balloon in five minutes. Chaos ensued and in five minutes, no one had found their balloon.
Then the facilitator asked everyone to find one balloon, any balloon, and give it to the person whose name was on it.
This would be fun to do, demonstrating collaboration and giving happiness to others. In giving happiness, we receive it.
Then the facilitator asked everyone to find one balloon, any balloon, and give it to the person whose name was on it.
This would be fun to do, demonstrating collaboration and giving happiness to others. In giving happiness, we receive it.
Rilke on spring
Gosh I love Rilke. This is a very short piece.
Spring has returned. The Earth is like a child that knows poems.
~Rainer Maria Rilke
today is special because . . . .
the sun came up
the moon went down
it's warm and sunny
I had a great, healthy breakfast
I feel halfway okay
but then again, I haven't moved much
but the most special part of today is: my new haircut and blonde hair. I can't wait to blow dry it after my swim. I am going to bring some spray-ish foam, put a teeny tiny bit in my hair before I dry it so my new bangs won't keep falling in my eyes. I wanted it pretty much exactly how it is now but I don't like hair falling in my eyes.
Today I revisit an aspect of younger selves when I fussed about my hair. I never fussed that much but this new cut truly is my all time favorite one.
If I get the blow dry right, I'll take photos and post the new look on G+, my blog and Facebook, which I don't interact with much anymore. I read frends' posts but rarely write anything there.
Today is special because I am happy.
the moon went down
it's warm and sunny
I had a great, healthy breakfast
I feel halfway okay
but then again, I haven't moved much
but the most special part of today is: my new haircut and blonde hair. I can't wait to blow dry it after my swim. I am going to bring some spray-ish foam, put a teeny tiny bit in my hair before I dry it so my new bangs won't keep falling in my eyes. I wanted it pretty much exactly how it is now but I don't like hair falling in my eyes.
Today I revisit an aspect of younger selves when I fussed about my hair. I never fussed that much but this new cut truly is my all time favorite one.
If I get the blow dry right, I'll take photos and post the new look on G+, my blog and Facebook, which I don't interact with much anymore. I read frends' posts but rarely write anything there.
Today is special because I am happy.
on being safe to be who I am
With all friends, I feel safe to be myself.
I am vulnerable to predatory males who deride me, project their own negativity, even mental illness, onto me. I feel unbalanced, then once unbalanced
I am vulnerable to predatory males who deride me, project their own negativity, even mental illness, onto me. I feel unbalanced, then once unbalanced
we all learn it is not safe to be who we really are: Parker Palmer
Do you want to show up in the world with more of your true values and gifts, connecting with others in authentic ways? Hear from our founder, Parker J. Palmer, in this short introduction to the vision of the Courage & Renewal approach. Parker talks about how as human beings we are born whole, integral, with no distinction between what's going on inside of us and what's going on outside. As adults we may ask, "Whatever happened to me? How did I lose that capacity to be here as I really am?" We have to find a way to build a bridge between our identity and integrity as adults and the work that we do in the world.
Wislawa Szymborska, Nobel winner, chick poet
Possibilities
I prefer movies.I prefer cats.
I prefer the oaks along the Warta.
I prefer Dickens to Dostoyevsky.
I prefer myself liking people
to myself loving mankind.
I prefer keeping a needle and thread on hand, just in case.
I prefer the color green.
I prefer not to maintain
that reason is to blame for everything.
I prefer exceptions.
I prefer to leave early.
I prefer talking to doctors about something else.
I prefer the old fine-lined illustrations.
I prefer the absurdity of writing poems
to the absurdity of not writing poems.
I prefer, where love's concerned, nonspecific anniversaries
that can be celebrated every day.
I prefer moralists
who promise me nothing.
I prefer cunning kindness to the over-trustful kind.
I prefer the earth in civvies.
I prefer conquered to conquering countries.
I prefer having some reservations.
I prefer the hell of chaos to the hell of order.
I prefer Grimms' fairy tales to the newspapers' front pages.
I prefer leaves without flowers to flowers without leaves.
I prefer dogs with uncropped tails.
I prefer light eyes, since mine are dark.
I prefer desk drawers.
I prefer many things that I haven't mentioned here
to many things I've also left unsaid.
I prefer zeroes on the loose
to those lined up behind a cipher.
I prefer the time of insects to the time of stars.
I prefer to knock on wood.
I prefer not to ask how much longer and when.
I prefer keeping in mind even the possibility
that existence has its own reason for being.
By Wislawa
Szymborska
From "Nothing Twice", 1997
Translated by S. Baranczak & C. Cavanagh
From "Nothing Twice", 1997
Translated by S. Baranczak & C. Cavanagh
Phenomenal woman (that's me!) by Maya Angelou
Phenomenal Woman
Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I'm telling lies.
I say,
It's in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.
I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It's the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.
Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can't touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them
They say they still can't see.
I say,
It's in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.
Now you understand
Just why my head's not bowed.
I don't shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It's in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need of my care,
'Cause I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.
I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I'm telling lies.
I say,
It's in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.
I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It's the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.
Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can't touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them
They say they still can't see.
I say,
It's in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.
Now you understand
Just why my head's not bowed.
I don't shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It's in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need of my care,
'Cause I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.
Maya Angelou
Sing the body electric: Walt Whitman - long & worth it
I Sing the Body Electric | ||
| by Walt Whitman | ||
1I sing the body electric, The armies of those I love engirth me and I engirth them, They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them, And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the soul. Was it doubted that those who corrupt their own bodies conceal themselves? And if those who defile the living are as bad as they who defile the dead? And if the body does not do fully as much as the soul? And if the body were not the soul, what is the soul? 2 The love of the body of man or woman balks account, the body itself
balks account,
That of the male is perfect, and that of the female is perfect.
The expression of the face balks account,
But the expression of a well-made man appears not only in his face,
It is in his limbs and joints also, it is curiously in the joints of
his hips and wrists,
It is in his walk, the carriage of his neck, the flex of his waist
and knees, dress does not hide him,
The strong sweet quality he has strikes through the cotton and broadcloth,
To see him pass conveys as much as the best poem, perhaps more,
You linger to see his back, and the back of his neck and shoulder-side.
The sprawl and fulness of babes, the bosoms and heads of women, the
folds of their dress, their style as we pass in the street, the
contour of their shape downwards,
The swimmer naked in the swimming-bath, seen as he swims through
the transparent green-shine, or lies with his face up and rolls
silently to and from the heave of the water,
The bending forward and backward of rowers in row-boats, the
horse-man in his saddle,
Girls, mothers, house-keepers, in all their performances,
The group of laborers seated at noon-time with their open
dinner-kettles, and their wives waiting,
The female soothing a child, the farmer's daughter in the garden or
cow-yard,
The young fellow hoeing corn, the sleigh-driver driving his six
horses through the crowd,
The wrestle of wrestlers, two apprentice-boys, quite grown, lusty,
good-natured, native-born, out on the vacant lot at sundown
after work,
The coats and caps thrown down, the embrace of love and resistance,
The upper-hold and under-hold, the hair rumpled over and blinding the eyes;
The march of firemen in their own costumes, the play of masculine
muscle through clean-setting trowsers and waist-straps,
The slow return from the fire, the pause when the bell strikes
suddenly again, and the listening on the alert,
The natural, perfect, varied attitudes, the bent head, the curv'd
neck and the counting;
Such-like I love--I loosen myself, pass freely, am at the mother's
breast with the little child,
Swim with the swimmers, wrestle with wrestlers, march in line with
the firemen, and pause, listen, count.
3 I knew a man, a common farmer, the father of five sons,
And in them the fathers of sons, and in them the fathers of sons.
This man was a wonderful vigor, calmness, beauty of person,
The shape of his head, the pale yellow and white of his hair and
beard, the immeasurable meaning of his black eyes, the richness
and breadth of his manners,
These I used to go and visit him to see, he was wise also,
He was six feet tall, he was over eighty years old, his sons were
massive, clean, bearded, tan-faced, handsome,
They and his daughters loved him, all who saw him loved him,
They did not love him by allowance, they loved him with personal
love,
He drank water only, the blood show'd like scarlet through the
clear-brown skin of his face,
He was a frequent gunner and fisher, he sail'd his boat himself, he
had a fine one presented to him by a ship-joiner, he had
fowling-pieces presented to him by men that loved him,
When he went with his five sons and many grand-sons to hunt or fish,
you would pick him out as the most beautiful and vigorous of
the gang,
You would wish long and long to be with him, you would wish to sit
by him in the boat that you and he might touch each other.
4 I have perceiv'd that to be with those I like is enough,
To stop in company with the rest at evening is enough,
To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing, laughing flesh is enough,
To pass among them or touch any one, or rest my arm ever so lightly round
his or her neck for a moment, what is this then?
I do not ask any more delight, I
swim in it as in a sea.
There is something in staying close to men and women and looking on them,
and in the contact and odor of them, that pleases the soul well,
All things please the soul, but these please the soul well.
5 This is the female form,
A divine nimbus exhales from it from head to foot,
It attracts with fierce undeniable attraction,
I am drawn by its breath as if I were no more than a helpless vapor,
all falls aside but myself and it,
Books, art, religion, time, the visible and solid earth, and what
was expected of heaven or fear'd of hell, are now consumed,
Mad filaments, ungovernable shoots play out of it, the response
likewise ungovernable,
Hair, bosom, hips, bend of legs, negligent falling hands all
diffused, mine too diffused,
Ebb stung by the flow and flow stung by the ebb, love-flesh swelling
and deliciously aching,
Limitless limpid jets of love hot and enormous, quivering jelly of
love, white-blow and delirious nice,
Bridegroom night of love working surely and softly into the
prostrate dawn,
Undulating into the willing and yielding day,
Lost in the cleave of the clasping and sweet-flesh'd day.
This the nucleus--after the child is born of woman, man is born
of woman,
This the bath of birth, this the merge of small and large, and the
outlet again.
Be not ashamed women, your privilege encloses the rest, and is the
exit of the rest,
You are the gates of the body, and you are the gates of the soul.
The female contains all qualities and tempers them,
She is in her place and moves with perfect balance,
She is all things duly veil'd, she is both passive and active,
She is to conceive daughters as well as sons, and sons as well as
daughters.
As I see my soul reflected in Nature,
As I see through a mist, One with inexpressible completeness,
sanity, beauty,
See the bent head and arms folded over the breast, the Female I see.
6 The male is not less the soul nor more, he too is in his place,
He too is all qualities, he is action and power,
The flush of the known universe is in him,
Scorn becomes him well, and appetite and defiance become him well,
The wildest largest passions, bliss that is utmost, sorrow that is
utmost become him well, pride is for him,
The full-spread pride of man is calming and excellent to the soul,
Knowledge becomes him, he likes it always, he brings every thing to
the test of himself,
Whatever the survey, whatever the sea and the sail he strikes
soundings at last only here,
(Where else does he strike soundings except here?)
The man's body is sacred and the woman's body is sacred,
No matter who it is, it is sacred--is it the meanest one in the
laborers' gang?
Is it one of the dull-faced immigrants just landed on the wharf?
Each belongs here or anywhere just as much as the well-off, just as
much as you,
Each has his or her place in the procession.
(All is a procession,
The universe is a procession with measured and perfect motion.)
Do you know so much yourself that you call the meanest ignorant?
Do you suppose you have a right to a good sight, and he or she has
no right to a sight?
Do you think matter has cohered together from its diffuse float, and
the soil is on the surface, and water runs and vegetation sprouts,
For you only, and not for him and her?
7 A man's body at auction,
(For before the war I often go to the slave-mart and watch the sale,)
I help the auctioneer, the sloven does not half know his business.
Gentlemen look on this wonder,
Whatever the bids of the bidders they cannot be high enough for it,
For it the globe lay preparing quintillions of years without one animal or plant,
For it the revolving cycles truly and steadily roll'd.
In this head the all-baffling brain,
In it and below it the makings of heroes.
Examine these limbs, red, black, or white, they are cunning in tendon and nerve,
They shall be stript that you may see them.
Exquisite senses, life-lit eyes, pluck, volition,
Flakes of breast-muscle, pliant backbone and neck, flesh not flabby, good-sized
arms and legs,
And wonders within there yet.
Within there runs blood,
The same old blood! the same red-running blood!
There swells and jets a heart, there all passions, desires, reachings,
aspirations,
(Do you think they are not there because they are not express'd in
parlors and lecture-rooms?)
This is not only one man, this the father of those who shall be fathers
in their turns,
In him the start of populous states and rich republics,
Of him countless immortal lives with countless embodiments and enjoyments.
How do you know who shall come from the offspring of his offspring
through the centuries?
(Who might you find you have come from yourself, if you could trace
back through the centuries?)
8 A woman's body at auction,
She too is not only herself, she is the teeming mother of mothers,
She is the bearer of them that shall grow and be mates to the mothers.
Have you ever loved the body of a woman?
Have you ever loved the body of a man?
Do you not see that these are exactly the same to all in all nations and
times all over the earth?
If any thing is sacred the human body is sacred,
And the glory and sweet of a man is the token of manhood untainted,
And in man or woman a clean, strong, firm-fibred body, is more beautiful
than the most beautiful face.
Have you seen the fool that corrupted his own live body? or the fool
that corrupted her own live body?
For they do not conceal themselves, and cannot conceal themselves.
9 O my body! I dare not desert the likes of you in other men and women,
nor the likes of the parts of you,
I believe the likes of you are to stand or fall with the likes of the
soul, (and that they are the soul,)
I believe the likes of you shall stand or fall with my poems, and
that they are my poems,
Man's, woman's, child, youth's, wife's, husband's, mother's,
father's, young man's, young woman's poems,
Head, neck, hair, ears, drop and tympan of the ears,
Eyes, eye-fringes, iris of the eye, eyebrows, and the waking or
sleeping of the lids,
Mouth, tongue, lips, teeth, roof of the mouth, jaws, and the
jaw-hinges,
Nose, nostrils of the nose, and the partition,
Cheeks, temples, forehead, chin, throat, back of the neck, neck-slue,
Strong shoulders, manly beard, scapula, hind-shoulders, and the
ample side-round of the chest,
Upper-arm, armpit, elbow-socket, lower-arm, arm-sinews, arm-bones,
Wrist and wrist-joints, hand, palm, knuckles, thumb, forefinger,
finger-joints, finger-nails,
Broad breast-front, curling hair of the breast, breast-bone, breast-side,
Ribs, belly, backbone, joints of the backbone,
Hips, hip-sockets, hip-strength, inward and outward round, man-balls, man-root,
Strong set of thighs, well carrying the trunk above,
Leg-fibres, knee, knee-pan, upper-leg, under-leg,
Ankles, instep, foot-ball, toes, toe-joints, the heel;
All attitudes, all the shapeliness, all the belongings of my or your body
or of any one's body, male or female,
The lung-sponges, the stomach-sac, the bowels sweet and clean,
The brain in its folds inside the skull-frame,
Sympathies, heart-valves, palate-valves, sexuality, maternity,
Womanhood, and all that is a woman, and the man that comes from woman,
The womb, the teats, nipples, breast-milk, tears, laughter, weeping,
love-looks, love-perturbations and risings,
The voice, articulation, language, whispering, shouting aloud,
Food, drink, pulse, digestion, sweat, sleep, walking, swimming,
Poise on the hips, leaping, reclining, embracing, arm-curving and
tightening,
The continual changes of the flex of the mouth, and around the eyes,
The skin, the sunburnt shade, freckles, hair,
The curious sympathy one feels when feeling with the hand the naked
meat of the body,
The circling rivers the breath, and breathing it in and out,
The beauty of the waist, and thence of the hips, and thence downward
toward the knees,
The thin red jellies within you or within me, the bones and the
marrow in the bones,
The exquisite realization of health;
O I say these are not the parts and poems of the body only, but of
the soul,
O I say now these are the soul!
| ||
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Thursday, March 20, 2014
a Stonewall story
A gay friend of mine just told me this story. First I told him about the first time I went to NYC. I don't remember in this moment what my first time in NYC was like. It is hard to think of my dull tale after my friend's sweet one.
He was a young, beautiful gay man who agreed to accompany an older, disabled, wheelchair-bound gay man to NYC. The first thing they did was take a taxi to Stonewall, where gays hung out but were constantly harassed by cops. One day, the bar clientele had enough and they rioted. It started a revolution for gay rights. Huzzah for the Stonewall riots.
Here's the sweet part: when they arrived at Stonewall, getting out the guy's wheel chair, my friend pulling out his wallet to pay, the cab drive, a NYC cabdriver, said the ride was free.
I love this little story.
He was a young, beautiful gay man who agreed to accompany an older, disabled, wheelchair-bound gay man to NYC. The first thing they did was take a taxi to Stonewall, where gays hung out but were constantly harassed by cops. One day, the bar clientele had enough and they rioted. It started a revolution for gay rights. Huzzah for the Stonewall riots.
Here's the sweet part: when they arrived at Stonewall, getting out the guy's wheel chair, my friend pulling out his wallet to pay, the cab drive, a NYC cabdriver, said the ride was free.
I love this little story.
The Bliss of With by James Broughton, poet and filmmaker
The Bliss Of With by James Broughton
I
You have come to me out of antiquities
We have loved one another for generations
We have loved one another for centuries
You teach me to trust the voice of my voices
You teach me to believe my own believings
You touch the palpability of my possibilities
Together we reflect what our mirrors conceal
Together we upgrade the sun in our meridians
We remain open night and day to transcendence
You are incompletely disguised as a mortal
You are the eternal stranger I have always known
I saw your wings this morning
I saw your wings this morning
Deepen your roots. Extend your branches. by James Broughton
“Easter Exultet” by James Broughton
After a rocky start in Washington D.C., this poem offered great encouragement:
Shake out your qualms.
Shake up your dreams.
Deepen your roots.
Extend your branches.
Trust deep water
and head for the open,
even if your vision
shipwrecks you.
Quit your addiction
to sneer and complain.
Open a lookout.
Dance on a brink.
Run with your wildfire.
You are closer to glory
leaping an abyss
than upholstering a rut.
Not dawdling.
Not doubting.
Intrepid all the way
Walk toward clarity.
At every crossroad
Be prepared
to bump into wonder.
Only love prevails.
En route to disaster
insist on canticles.
Lift your ineffable
out of the mundane.
Nothing perishes;
nothing survives;
everything transforms!
Honeymoon with Big Joy!
By James Broughton from “Little Sermons of the Big Joy”
Sunday, March 09, 2014
a light exists in spring by emily dickinson
It's not quite spring. That's March 21st, right? But I am feeling spring with the time change and the light is definitely different. Maybe the light in me is different. That would be great. I need a light change.
A light exists in spring
A light exists in spring
Not present on the year
At any other period.
When March is scarcely here
A color stands abroad
On solitary hills
That science cannot overtake,
But human naturefeels.
It waits upon the lawn;
It shows the furthest tree
Upon the furthest slope we know;
It almost speaks to me.
Then, as horizons step,
Or noons report away,
Without the formula of sound,
It passes, and we stay:
A quality of loss
Affecting our content,
As trade had suddenly encroached
Upon a sacrament.
Not present on the year
At any other period.
When March is scarcely here
A color stands abroad
On solitary hills
That science cannot overtake,
But human naturefeels.
It waits upon the lawn;
It shows the furthest tree
Upon the furthest slope we know;
It almost speaks to me.
Then, as horizons step,
Or noons report away,
Without the formula of sound,
It passes, and we stay:
A quality of loss
Affecting our content,
As trade had suddenly encroached
Upon a sacrament.
Emily Dickinson
Wednesday, March 05, 2014
water is life, humankind fracks itself
I was playing around earlier today, googling about Paul Bunyan. I found a website that lists the six towns across the USA, from Maine to CA but several in Minnesota, that have 23 to 26 foot statues representing Paul Bunyan. It was just passing silliness that I indulged.
I had recalled the Paul Bunyan statue that was on the route from Minneapolis to Lake Mille Lac. My ex husband and I occasionally used his landlady's cabin on the lake. We honeymooned there, actually. To get to the lake and the cabin, you turn at the Paul Bunyan statue in Brainerd.
The blurb about the Paul Bunyan statue in Brainerd included a warning about Brainerd diarrhea that first appeared in 1983. I looked up Brainerd diarrhea on wikipedia and read that it's causes are unknown, it always lasts months, it is virulent diarrhea, and it sometimes lasts years. Antibiotics don't help. Nothing seems to treat the condition but it eventually goes away.
Gee, do ya think there might be something in the water? Wikipedia said some blame raw milk but raw milk would contain whatever is in the water.
If you boil water during outbreaks, it seems to boil away whatever makes people sick. Gee, what's going on in the drinking world, the groundwater, the whole watershed that makes people sick even after water has been processed at a water filtation plant? Is there any fracking going on near Brainerd? If not fracking, what environmental degradation is being tolerated for the sake of local jobs. I am all but certain that the water that sickens people in Brainerd for months or years is connected to some human activity and very likely for-profit activity. Nature does not pollute herself. Humankind does.
Water. Come on. Why do we keep letting people pollute what we need to live, kill off bees and butterflies, degrade our soil and food with pesticides and genetic engineering?
I had recalled the Paul Bunyan statue that was on the route from Minneapolis to Lake Mille Lac. My ex husband and I occasionally used his landlady's cabin on the lake. We honeymooned there, actually. To get to the lake and the cabin, you turn at the Paul Bunyan statue in Brainerd.
The blurb about the Paul Bunyan statue in Brainerd included a warning about Brainerd diarrhea that first appeared in 1983. I looked up Brainerd diarrhea on wikipedia and read that it's causes are unknown, it always lasts months, it is virulent diarrhea, and it sometimes lasts years. Antibiotics don't help. Nothing seems to treat the condition but it eventually goes away.
Gee, do ya think there might be something in the water? Wikipedia said some blame raw milk but raw milk would contain whatever is in the water.
If you boil water during outbreaks, it seems to boil away whatever makes people sick. Gee, what's going on in the drinking world, the groundwater, the whole watershed that makes people sick even after water has been processed at a water filtation plant? Is there any fracking going on near Brainerd? If not fracking, what environmental degradation is being tolerated for the sake of local jobs. I am all but certain that the water that sickens people in Brainerd for months or years is connected to some human activity and very likely for-profit activity. Nature does not pollute herself. Humankind does.
Water. Come on. Why do we keep letting people pollute what we need to live, kill off bees and butterflies, degrade our soil and food with pesticides and genetic engineering?
Monday, March 03, 2014
my mom's silverware
When my mom married her second husband, she decided it was wrong to use the silver flatware she had gotten as wedding gifts when she married my dad. When I got married, years into her second marriage and my sister about thirteen years old, mom first said I could have all her silver. Little sister had a tantrum and she could have wicked tantrums. Mom said she had already given it to me.
My sister was always a skillful manipulator. And I was a chump. I had a pair of perfect, never-played-with Raggedy Ann and Andy's that our maternal grandmother had made for me. Grandma died before she could make my sister a pair. I loved those dolls but I was keeping them pristine to give to my little girl someday.
Once, while visiting at our dad's in Chicago, when I was in college and baby sis was, maybe, 8, she cried each day of her visit about how sad she felt when she was in Ohio and remembered that Ann and Andy were all alone with me off at college. She later performed in lots of plays. Acting talent, I guess.
She cried so much that I thought her sadness about the dolls being alone was genuine. She was like one of my own babies to me, born when I was 14. She and I spent far more time together during the first four years of her life than she spent with our mother or father. I was hopelessly devoted to my baby. When Mom moved out of state, after promising her divorce judge that she would never remove the two kids she was taking (ages 4 and 7, both of them as much my babies as hers, and me sending more time with them than mom who was going to college full time, working part time to pay her tuition and me passing up normal high school activities to take care of the babies, fix dinner on weekdays (dad cooked on weekends) and the laundry. Laundry for 8. Dinner for 8. I usually did the grocery shopping daily because I did not have a car, and I had to haul the two kids. I had to go daily because I could only carry groceries for one dinner for 8 people. Mom lied to the judge and ripped my babies out of my heart. I didn't know where they were for a long time and I cried about it most days my first year of college.
Here is how my sweet mother told me where she was. She sent a card. It said "The children and I now live in X Town, State. This is our address if you want to write to them. Love Mother P.S. I have remarried." The P.S. part hurt the most, not because she had found another chump, a rich one this time. Her marriage meant my babies were not coming back. True, true, being in college, I was not likely to spend a lot of time with them, other than long Christmas college vacations and long summers. I probably would have gone to law school if my babies were in Chicago.
I didn't know my sister had faked the crying about my rag dolls until fairly recently, like in 2007. She laughed a lot while telling me how she tricked me out of my dolls, how she felt entitled to them since grandma made them and I didn't play with them. If she had told me that, I would not have given them to her. They were for my future daughter, mine to do with as I chose. It wasn't my fault grandma got too old to make rag dolls.
Her disclosure of her fake rag doll performance opened my eyes to my sister. Our brothers and our dad had been telling me for years she was a G-D bitch. And my dad considered referring to any female as a bitch to be so far beyond the realm of polite that I think it was the only time I ever heard him say bitch. He told me to wake up, that she didn't care about me.
Perhaps if I had known what a skillful actor my sister was, or known she had faked me out of my prized, made-by-grandma rag dolls, I don't think I would have done what I did with the silver. Remember, mom had said I could have it. that she had given it to me and my sister would get other things. One thing my sister got that I never got was lots of clothes, very fancy vacations with mom and Hubby #2 and lots of spending money.
Mom's silver was not in great shape. It's pattern was Damask Rose. I loved it.
My ex-husband was quite angry when I said my sister could split the silver in half, choose whichever pieces she wanted. The little conniver picked all the large, expensive serving pieces, counting each big piece as equal to a teaspoon, so she also got several placesettings. He almost pulled his hair out yelling at me for letting a kid, about thirteen, make a decision when mom had already given it to us.
I did let her have it. Additionally, my sister gave me the most damaged pieces, almost worthless pieces. I was disappointed, just as I had been sorry to lose the dolls my grandma made me
And there is this: when I lent her the dolls, emphasizing it was a loan, I said she could only have them if she didn't play with them, if she just kept them company on a shelf as I always had. She agreed but then she played with the dolls constantly, which makes a case for her having them. My mom had those dolls repaired at least a couple times because Margaret wore them out. Mom would assure me that the doll repair person had used the same stuffing so the inner doll was the same one I had loved.
Another thing that really got to me: Andy's legs were replaced with non Raggedy Ann and Andy fabric for legs. Those dolls have a very specific look and it is still possible to find the right striped fabric for the dolls' legs. How I hated those mismatched legs. The two dolls no longer perfectly matched.
When Margaret ultimately did give the dolls to my daughter, badly torn and the patchwork falling apart, she kept Annie's good dresses. My grandma had given Annie a wardrobe of choices and she put a way-too-big, way-too-worn-out, totally un Raggedy Ann like dress on Ann.
My sister, btw, had many Raggedy Ann's and Andy's, perhaps a dozen. She had way more dolls than I ever had. So I had told her she had to call them Ed and Elizabeth so they kept their own identities, didn't get lost in her crowd of rag dolls. She actually did that. She loved calling the best ones Ed and Elizabeth.
She had lots of fun with my dolls. So did my baby brother, who was often drafted into the doll play so he could hold Ed and talk for Ed and walk Ed down the aisle the day they got married by my sister. Brother and sister dolls marrying?! Oh well.
Much later, when my daughter was in college and no longer living with me or near me, and my sister newly divorced, I realized I had never used the junky silver that sis had chosen for my share. My ex and I had bought our own. I think we bought it in a duty fere shop on our honeymoon in Jamaica. My ex hated the damask rose pattern. I still love it. I would love to have some damask rose, altho silver flatware has no meaning to me now.
Get this. When Mom's husband died, and she moved in with one brother, she gave me her flatware, which was not silver but was very high quality. I still have it. I thought of my rag dolls and my sister's manipulation with the silver at the time of my wedding when most would think I deserved a special wedding present. Yet when my sister found out, when visiting me one day and I served her some food, that I had mom's flatware, she blew a gasket. "Why should you get it? I am the one who grew up with Ron and Mom. You were nothing to Ron. I grew up using that flatware. It should come to me." Sister overlooked the fact that she had gotten all the good silver, she was still in college, I was a married woman with a house to stock and I actually needed some flatware since Frank and I had no usable silverware. Note: I spent very little time with my stepfather. I was in college, I lived abroad a lot and then law school in MN, even further from Mom and Ron. I didn't mind her saying I was nothing to Ron. I don't think she knew how much Ron spent on my custody battle fees or sister would have had a tantrum about that.
I don't remember why but after her divorce after a very brief marriage that lasted about three months to a very rich man that she had openly married solely because he was rich, she sold 'her' silver, which included mine. She never offered me a share from that sale of my silver. I think as soon as hubby #1 realized she really had married him only because he was rich, the marriage was over. They got married in Las Vegas at a chapel that specialized in dressing all the people in the wedding in midieval costumes, like a pretend kiddie wedding. My niece wore a princess gown with one of those long pointy caps with veils tailing off it. A childish wedding, surreal. As soon as she got named on her hubby's bank account, she invited her high school friends to take a Caribbean cruise with her, leaving her child behind with her new husband who was at U. of Michigan law school, which likely required a lot of work. When she got back from the cruise, she announced that she was going to Israel and taking mom. Mom had just been diagnosed with advanced colon cancer. Her doctor urged mom to postpone any travel and have the surgery asap.
How my baby brother sputtered in anger as he told me, about a thousand times, how angry he was that he took our seriously sick with colon cancer mom to Israel. It was not like mom had ever wanted to go to Israel, not our devoutly Catholic mom. Sis was showing off her hubby's wealth but she had also been advised by the rabbi mentoring her conversation to Judaism had suggested she not finalize her conversion until she visited Israel. Ironically, the Pope visited Israel while mom and sis were tehre and mom got to actually see the Pope of the Catholic Church. From a distance, within acrowd.
Her first husband was a social Jew, had never gone to synagogue or even had a bar mitvah. He kept telling sis he didn't care what religion she espoused because he was a confirmed atheist. She believed, however, that her Jewish mother-in-law might be more accepting if she converted. She wanted to insinuate herself with all those rich people and she thought converting would do it.
That rabbi must have been a good teacher. When sis returned from Israel, she said she could never convert to Judaism. She had not liked Israel and not liked Israelis. She said to me, although I doubt she said this to her then-husband, that she had experienced Jews as greedy, loud, overbearing and, overall, ugly of spirit. No, she declared, she dropped the whole conversation thing. Gee, maybe sis is a bigot? She has railed at me for being so liberal. And she got fired from a public high school because she seemed to treat the black kids with overt bigotry. Privately, she complained constantly about how unfair it was that she had to teach gangster black kids. I never said this to her but she deserved to get fired. African American children have a right, and society has a duty to fulfill this right, to be taught by non-racist teachers. After she married her second husband, a French artist who seemed to spend hours daily reading racist shit about Arabs, she also began to despise Arabs. She lived in Egypt for two years, in Kuwait for one. When I said I thought she and her husband were racists, she said I was naive and misinformed. It was creepy to hear her go on about all the proof that Arabs are racists and want to destroy all non-Arabic non-Muslims. She said 'they' allowed Asian Muslims, such as in Thailand, thrive for now. It was helping them take over the world but if you read the right books, you learned that in the long run, only Arab Muslims were deemed worthy to live. Islam is not a hateful religion. Look at how some in this country butcher Christianity. Sure there are bigoted Muslims who use religion to justify hateful action. There are lots of Christians in this country who use their religion to justify their unjust behavior.
'The whole conversion thing' had been a completely sis-generated tension. No one had cared that she convert to Judaism and then she ended up insulting them, Jews, Israel and more. Peter's maternal grandparents had grown up in Israel, emigrated to the USA in the late forties for opportunity. The grandfather never amounted to anything but the grandmother was a pistol, a harddriving woman determined to build serious wealth. And she did. When she did, the NYTimes gave her a full page obituary -- a full page is very rare in the NYTimes. In the obituary, it described how she began buying one small apartment bilding in Brooklyn, so she could bring relatives over and they had a place to live right away. Soon she realized Manhattan was the real estate to get rich on. She owned, altho the family has now sold it to Donald Trump, a boutique hotel on the corner of 59th & Madison Ave, right across the street from the flagship Bloomingdale's store. Plus she acquired many apartment towers. And the land under the Lever Building. The Lever Building was a special, big-deal building. I wonder why the developers only leased the land. The obituary outlined much of her real estate career and then said "The only woman in real estate with comparable holdings is Leona Helmsley but Leona married her real estate empire. This woman built her empire all by herself, a tiny Jewish woman immigrant." Even that grandmother, who was still alive when my sis married her grandson, liked my sister and said she didn't care if she converted. No one in the family was religious. Sis was just revealing how obsequious she could be.
I always struggled to believe the guy went ahead and married her when she was so open about only marrying him for his money. My sis is very beautiful and her first husband is almost homely. He might be homely but I have a hard time seeing any human as ugly.
So sis got mom's silver, I got mom's flatware which was actually expensive and still exactly the same as the day mom gave it to me about 25 years ago.
My share of mom's silver? When sis was divorcing her first husband, even though he gave her $250K and a small townhouse and paid for all its furnishings, she tried to sell everything she could of value. I don't remember why, now, but when she moved to sell mom's silver, I gave her my share to sell and let her keep the money. Or maybe she just kept it, although to be fair, my sister was generous with me when she was rich. And I did live with her and my niece for about six months and that's when I gave her my silver.
I hated that silver from the moment I saw that my thirteen year old sister had given me all the damaged pieces. I came to hate it after listening to my ex-husband endlessly and angrily gripe about how stupid my mom was, how stupiid I was, to let a child divide that silver when it was already ours. To that, once in awhile, I would remind Frank that his parents had not given us anything, not even something of no value. No token gift for their son on his wedding day. And although I would never choose the pattern of mom's flatware, I like its qality. The pattern is fairly simple but it is not quite my taste. I like it because it has heft in my hand, I have all the serving pieces and it looks brand new when it is 35 or more years old.
My sister was always a skillful manipulator. And I was a chump. I had a pair of perfect, never-played-with Raggedy Ann and Andy's that our maternal grandmother had made for me. Grandma died before she could make my sister a pair. I loved those dolls but I was keeping them pristine to give to my little girl someday.
Once, while visiting at our dad's in Chicago, when I was in college and baby sis was, maybe, 8, she cried each day of her visit about how sad she felt when she was in Ohio and remembered that Ann and Andy were all alone with me off at college. She later performed in lots of plays. Acting talent, I guess.
She cried so much that I thought her sadness about the dolls being alone was genuine. She was like one of my own babies to me, born when I was 14. She and I spent far more time together during the first four years of her life than she spent with our mother or father. I was hopelessly devoted to my baby. When Mom moved out of state, after promising her divorce judge that she would never remove the two kids she was taking (ages 4 and 7, both of them as much my babies as hers, and me sending more time with them than mom who was going to college full time, working part time to pay her tuition and me passing up normal high school activities to take care of the babies, fix dinner on weekdays (dad cooked on weekends) and the laundry. Laundry for 8. Dinner for 8. I usually did the grocery shopping daily because I did not have a car, and I had to haul the two kids. I had to go daily because I could only carry groceries for one dinner for 8 people. Mom lied to the judge and ripped my babies out of my heart. I didn't know where they were for a long time and I cried about it most days my first year of college.
Here is how my sweet mother told me where she was. She sent a card. It said "The children and I now live in X Town, State. This is our address if you want to write to them. Love Mother P.S. I have remarried." The P.S. part hurt the most, not because she had found another chump, a rich one this time. Her marriage meant my babies were not coming back. True, true, being in college, I was not likely to spend a lot of time with them, other than long Christmas college vacations and long summers. I probably would have gone to law school if my babies were in Chicago.
I didn't know my sister had faked the crying about my rag dolls until fairly recently, like in 2007. She laughed a lot while telling me how she tricked me out of my dolls, how she felt entitled to them since grandma made them and I didn't play with them. If she had told me that, I would not have given them to her. They were for my future daughter, mine to do with as I chose. It wasn't my fault grandma got too old to make rag dolls.
Her disclosure of her fake rag doll performance opened my eyes to my sister. Our brothers and our dad had been telling me for years she was a G-D bitch. And my dad considered referring to any female as a bitch to be so far beyond the realm of polite that I think it was the only time I ever heard him say bitch. He told me to wake up, that she didn't care about me.
Perhaps if I had known what a skillful actor my sister was, or known she had faked me out of my prized, made-by-grandma rag dolls, I don't think I would have done what I did with the silver. Remember, mom had said I could have it. that she had given it to me and my sister would get other things. One thing my sister got that I never got was lots of clothes, very fancy vacations with mom and Hubby #2 and lots of spending money.
Mom's silver was not in great shape. It's pattern was Damask Rose. I loved it.
My ex-husband was quite angry when I said my sister could split the silver in half, choose whichever pieces she wanted. The little conniver picked all the large, expensive serving pieces, counting each big piece as equal to a teaspoon, so she also got several placesettings. He almost pulled his hair out yelling at me for letting a kid, about thirteen, make a decision when mom had already given it to us.
I did let her have it. Additionally, my sister gave me the most damaged pieces, almost worthless pieces. I was disappointed, just as I had been sorry to lose the dolls my grandma made me
And there is this: when I lent her the dolls, emphasizing it was a loan, I said she could only have them if she didn't play with them, if she just kept them company on a shelf as I always had. She agreed but then she played with the dolls constantly, which makes a case for her having them. My mom had those dolls repaired at least a couple times because Margaret wore them out. Mom would assure me that the doll repair person had used the same stuffing so the inner doll was the same one I had loved.
Another thing that really got to me: Andy's legs were replaced with non Raggedy Ann and Andy fabric for legs. Those dolls have a very specific look and it is still possible to find the right striped fabric for the dolls' legs. How I hated those mismatched legs. The two dolls no longer perfectly matched.
When Margaret ultimately did give the dolls to my daughter, badly torn and the patchwork falling apart, she kept Annie's good dresses. My grandma had given Annie a wardrobe of choices and she put a way-too-big, way-too-worn-out, totally un Raggedy Ann like dress on Ann.
My sister, btw, had many Raggedy Ann's and Andy's, perhaps a dozen. She had way more dolls than I ever had. So I had told her she had to call them Ed and Elizabeth so they kept their own identities, didn't get lost in her crowd of rag dolls. She actually did that. She loved calling the best ones Ed and Elizabeth.
She had lots of fun with my dolls. So did my baby brother, who was often drafted into the doll play so he could hold Ed and talk for Ed and walk Ed down the aisle the day they got married by my sister. Brother and sister dolls marrying?! Oh well.
Much later, when my daughter was in college and no longer living with me or near me, and my sister newly divorced, I realized I had never used the junky silver that sis had chosen for my share. My ex and I had bought our own. I think we bought it in a duty fere shop on our honeymoon in Jamaica. My ex hated the damask rose pattern. I still love it. I would love to have some damask rose, altho silver flatware has no meaning to me now.
Get this. When Mom's husband died, and she moved in with one brother, she gave me her flatware, which was not silver but was very high quality. I still have it. I thought of my rag dolls and my sister's manipulation with the silver at the time of my wedding when most would think I deserved a special wedding present. Yet when my sister found out, when visiting me one day and I served her some food, that I had mom's flatware, she blew a gasket. "Why should you get it? I am the one who grew up with Ron and Mom. You were nothing to Ron. I grew up using that flatware. It should come to me." Sister overlooked the fact that she had gotten all the good silver, she was still in college, I was a married woman with a house to stock and I actually needed some flatware since Frank and I had no usable silverware. Note: I spent very little time with my stepfather. I was in college, I lived abroad a lot and then law school in MN, even further from Mom and Ron. I didn't mind her saying I was nothing to Ron. I don't think she knew how much Ron spent on my custody battle fees or sister would have had a tantrum about that.
I don't remember why but after her divorce after a very brief marriage that lasted about three months to a very rich man that she had openly married solely because he was rich, she sold 'her' silver, which included mine. She never offered me a share from that sale of my silver. I think as soon as hubby #1 realized she really had married him only because he was rich, the marriage was over. They got married in Las Vegas at a chapel that specialized in dressing all the people in the wedding in midieval costumes, like a pretend kiddie wedding. My niece wore a princess gown with one of those long pointy caps with veils tailing off it. A childish wedding, surreal. As soon as she got named on her hubby's bank account, she invited her high school friends to take a Caribbean cruise with her, leaving her child behind with her new husband who was at U. of Michigan law school, which likely required a lot of work. When she got back from the cruise, she announced that she was going to Israel and taking mom. Mom had just been diagnosed with advanced colon cancer. Her doctor urged mom to postpone any travel and have the surgery asap.
How my baby brother sputtered in anger as he told me, about a thousand times, how angry he was that he took our seriously sick with colon cancer mom to Israel. It was not like mom had ever wanted to go to Israel, not our devoutly Catholic mom. Sis was showing off her hubby's wealth but she had also been advised by the rabbi mentoring her conversation to Judaism had suggested she not finalize her conversion until she visited Israel. Ironically, the Pope visited Israel while mom and sis were tehre and mom got to actually see the Pope of the Catholic Church. From a distance, within acrowd.
Her first husband was a social Jew, had never gone to synagogue or even had a bar mitvah. He kept telling sis he didn't care what religion she espoused because he was a confirmed atheist. She believed, however, that her Jewish mother-in-law might be more accepting if she converted. She wanted to insinuate herself with all those rich people and she thought converting would do it.
That rabbi must have been a good teacher. When sis returned from Israel, she said she could never convert to Judaism. She had not liked Israel and not liked Israelis. She said to me, although I doubt she said this to her then-husband, that she had experienced Jews as greedy, loud, overbearing and, overall, ugly of spirit. No, she declared, she dropped the whole conversation thing. Gee, maybe sis is a bigot? She has railed at me for being so liberal. And she got fired from a public high school because she seemed to treat the black kids with overt bigotry. Privately, she complained constantly about how unfair it was that she had to teach gangster black kids. I never said this to her but she deserved to get fired. African American children have a right, and society has a duty to fulfill this right, to be taught by non-racist teachers. After she married her second husband, a French artist who seemed to spend hours daily reading racist shit about Arabs, she also began to despise Arabs. She lived in Egypt for two years, in Kuwait for one. When I said I thought she and her husband were racists, she said I was naive and misinformed. It was creepy to hear her go on about all the proof that Arabs are racists and want to destroy all non-Arabic non-Muslims. She said 'they' allowed Asian Muslims, such as in Thailand, thrive for now. It was helping them take over the world but if you read the right books, you learned that in the long run, only Arab Muslims were deemed worthy to live. Islam is not a hateful religion. Look at how some in this country butcher Christianity. Sure there are bigoted Muslims who use religion to justify hateful action. There are lots of Christians in this country who use their religion to justify their unjust behavior.
'The whole conversion thing' had been a completely sis-generated tension. No one had cared that she convert to Judaism and then she ended up insulting them, Jews, Israel and more. Peter's maternal grandparents had grown up in Israel, emigrated to the USA in the late forties for opportunity. The grandfather never amounted to anything but the grandmother was a pistol, a harddriving woman determined to build serious wealth. And she did. When she did, the NYTimes gave her a full page obituary -- a full page is very rare in the NYTimes. In the obituary, it described how she began buying one small apartment bilding in Brooklyn, so she could bring relatives over and they had a place to live right away. Soon she realized Manhattan was the real estate to get rich on. She owned, altho the family has now sold it to Donald Trump, a boutique hotel on the corner of 59th & Madison Ave, right across the street from the flagship Bloomingdale's store. Plus she acquired many apartment towers. And the land under the Lever Building. The Lever Building was a special, big-deal building. I wonder why the developers only leased the land. The obituary outlined much of her real estate career and then said "The only woman in real estate with comparable holdings is Leona Helmsley but Leona married her real estate empire. This woman built her empire all by herself, a tiny Jewish woman immigrant." Even that grandmother, who was still alive when my sis married her grandson, liked my sister and said she didn't care if she converted. No one in the family was religious. Sis was just revealing how obsequious she could be.
I always struggled to believe the guy went ahead and married her when she was so open about only marrying him for his money. My sis is very beautiful and her first husband is almost homely. He might be homely but I have a hard time seeing any human as ugly.
So sis got mom's silver, I got mom's flatware which was actually expensive and still exactly the same as the day mom gave it to me about 25 years ago.
My share of mom's silver? When sis was divorcing her first husband, even though he gave her $250K and a small townhouse and paid for all its furnishings, she tried to sell everything she could of value. I don't remember why, now, but when she moved to sell mom's silver, I gave her my share to sell and let her keep the money. Or maybe she just kept it, although to be fair, my sister was generous with me when she was rich. And I did live with her and my niece for about six months and that's when I gave her my silver.
I hated that silver from the moment I saw that my thirteen year old sister had given me all the damaged pieces. I came to hate it after listening to my ex-husband endlessly and angrily gripe about how stupid my mom was, how stupiid I was, to let a child divide that silver when it was already ours. To that, once in awhile, I would remind Frank that his parents had not given us anything, not even something of no value. No token gift for their son on his wedding day. And although I would never choose the pattern of mom's flatware, I like its qality. The pattern is fairly simple but it is not quite my taste. I like it because it has heft in my hand, I have all the serving pieces and it looks brand new when it is 35 or more years old.
Sunday, March 02, 2014
don't let us get sick
The post just above this one is of Jill Rupule singing this song by Warren Zevon, a longtime musician who wrote this song a long while back. Please listen to Jill. I don't like Warren's voice and I think Jill hit's it just right. A sweet, poignant song, esp. for aging folks like me.
"Don't Let Us Get Sick"
Don't let us get sick
Don't let us get old
Don't let us get stupid, all right?
Just make us be brave
And make us play nice
And let us be together tonight
The sky was on fire
When I walked to the mill
To take up the slack in the line
I thought of my friends
And the troubles they've had
To keep me from thinking of mine
Don't let us get sick
Don't let us get old
Don't let us get stupid, all right?
Just make us be brave
And make us play nice
And let us be together tonight
The moon has a face
And it smiles on the lake
And causes the ripples in Time
I'm lucky to be here
With someone I like
Who maketh my spirit to shine
Don't let us get sick
Don't let us get old
Don't let us get stupid, all right?
Just make us be brave
And make us play nice
And let us be together tonight
"Don't Let Us Get Sick"
Send "Don't Let Us Get Sick" Ringtone to your Cell
Don't let us get old
Don't let us get stupid, all right?
Just make us be brave
And make us play nice
And let us be together tonight
The sky was on fire
When I walked to the mill
To take up the slack in the line
I thought of my friends
And the troubles they've had
To keep me from thinking of mine
Don't let us get sick
Don't let us get old
Don't let us get stupid, all right?
Just make us be brave
And make us play nice
And let us be together tonight
The moon has a face
And it smiles on the lake
And causes the ripples in Time
I'm lucky to be here
With someone I like
Who maketh my spirit to shine
Don't let us get sick
Don't let us get old
Don't let us get stupid, all right?
Just make us be brave
And make us play nice
And let us be together tonight
Saturday, March 01, 2014
If You Forget Me by Pablo Neruda
My undergrad university required a thesis in our major to graduate. I wrote mine on Neruda, on his prose poetry. Looking back, in the early days of feminism, it never occurred to me to write about a chick writer.
If You Forget Me
I want you to know
one thing.
You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.
Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.
If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.
If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.
But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine.
one thing.
You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.
Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.
If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.
If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.
But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine.
Pablo Neruda
