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.
Friday, March 21, 2014
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
