Here's a junk photo I took, paired with my new obsession of Pablo Neruda.
and suddenly I saw
the heavens
unfastened
and open,
planets,
palpitating plantations,
shadow perforated,
riddled
with arrows, fire and flowers
Sometimes our accidents reveal so much.
I'm not sure I need an even more immediate way to publish my thoughts, so this may be for a limited time only.
I don't have much to add to this poem, other than a delicate picture from my backyard and an emerging realization that intuition, insight, poetry come at the strangest times, searching for us.
POETRY
And it was at that age...Poetry arrived
in search of me. I don't know, I don't know where
it came from, from winter or a river.
I don't know how or when,
no, they were not voices, they were not
words, nor silence,
but from a street I was summoned,
from the branches of night,
abruptly from the others,
among violent fires
or returning alone,
there I was without a face
and it touched me.
I did not know what to say, my mouth
had no way
with names
my eyes were blind,
and something started in my soul,
fever or forgotten wings,
and I made my own way,
deciphering
that fire
and I wrote the first faint line,
faint, without substance, pure
nonsense,
pure wisdom
of someone who knows nothing,
and suddenly I saw
the heavens
unfastened
and open,
planets,
palpitating plantations,
shadow perforated,
riddled
with arrows, fire and flowers,
the winding night, the universe.
And I, infinitesimal being,
drunk with the great starry
void,
likeness, image of
mystery,
I felt myself a pure part
of the abyss,
I wheeled with the stars,
my heart broke loose on the wind.
- Pablo Neruda
Because I simply cannot resist the beauty that manifests each new day in my garden:
By this time, like one who had set out on his way by night, and travelled through a region of smooth or idle dreams, our history now arrives on the confines, where daylight and truth meet us with a clear dawn, representing to our view, though at a far distance, true colours and shapes.
- John Milton
As a sort of follow-up to my last post, I've been meaning to post the Prayer of St. Francis. I loved this since I sung it in church choir as a teenager.
I think his prayer resembles the Serenity Prayer - in fact, I believe AA uses both of these prayers to teach health, surrender, and responsibility. It hits on the point where what I love about Christianity combines with what I love in Buddhism, Taoism, and other healing schools of thought.
Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.
Today has been a peaceful one, and I've been reflecting on some of my most satisfying friendships. Despite all the crummy things in life there are to complain about, I realize that I've always had good friends. At each difficult turn in life, there has been at least one person who amazes me in his or her capacity to reach out and make a profound impact in my life.
These people are positive, insightful, and seek out the well-being of others. They have responsibility down to an art.
On a blog a few months ago, I read a teacher's description of students who have "generosity of spirit:"
She explained that there are often students in her classes who are not only smart and intellectually curious, but who also have a knack for stepping back and letting other students shine, who are willing to really listen to their classmates and respond to their ideas and concerns, and who approach their own work and fellow students with a certain kind of acceptance and understanding.
While I think this characteristic is great for the classroom, I think it's even greater for life. And these are some of my friends, who have let me and others shine. This post is for them, for you, for what you do. And for me, as I am learning from you.
Look what I found this morning when I moved the snow shovels out of the flower bed by the back door:
I planted these a few months ago because yellow was the first color I wanted to see of spring. Sunny, springy yellow. I think I chose wisely.
This morning I went to Coffee Noir, a new coffee shop on 1035 E and 200 S. They're giving out everything free this weekend while they're starting out and training their employees.
This shop is in our old stamping grounds, and I'm happy to see a cute little coffee shop there instead of the old cigarette store.
The owner Ben is the nicest person and will be happy to see you stop by. If you don't like coffee, grab an Italian soda or a muffin--it's all on the house.
This video has embedding disabled, but it's worth a view on a very important issue.
Can I tell you how much I love little furry kittens?
As Hobbes (no, not that Hobbes, but the one from Calvin and Hobbes) famously said, "I just think animals are so cute." There's a real genuine quality about them that's simple and uncomplicated.
Hooray for happy ponies.
My senior seminar was on the PRB, and this painting is in one of my top 10 from that group. I love her stance. I can relate to that tired, achy, stretchy feeling.
She knows not what the curse may be
And so she weaveth steadily
For about two months I've been breaking a favorite habit of mine: public radio. I can't stand to listen to the obsessive reporting on the financial crisis. Although I've been listening regularly for eight years now, I find that the last thing I want to wake up to is news of more helpless people everywhere, everyday. Seriously. I've had enough.
This leaves a big gap in my life. What do I use in the mornings to wake me up and accompany my morning routine? What about my 20-30 minute commute each way to work?
I've taken refuge in my iPod, especially since my commuting car has an iPod hookup. Thanks to several generous iTunes gifts we received for Christmas, I've found great refuge in music and audiobooks, and I've discovered they leave me in a much better mood than our current news.
Here are some of the artists or bands I've newly found in my search for distraction from depressing news:
OK, so nothing too shocking on the list, but I'm going for escape and not the deepest, weirdest cuts. Anything else I should add for a happy distraction?
This weekend I saw an opening film, Coraline. Because this is another stop-motion animation film by the same director of the Nightmare Before Christmas, I expected a sort of dark comedy. But this movie was creepy. Very creepy.
There's this principle that more something is similar or familiar, yet a fake, or not actually the thing it resembles, the more repulsive it is. This movie capitalizes on this principle, creating an alternate world to Coraline's own. Except everyone has button eyes. And they're weird. It's all very odd, but well done.
February rain, and a sunshiny morning jog afterward, is an awakening experience.
Obviously, there's one creature at home who's not doing much jogging.
I want to thank Christina, Dave, and Baby Theo for being such good sports on the 3+ hour tour of the Draper Temple. I now have a dream that one day they will give priority to people who actually have open house tickets, or people with nursing babies, or people who are visiting from a different denomination so that they don't have to wait 2 hours at a stake center to board a bus. It is a gorgeous temple though, isn't it?
And I want to thank Gatsby for pointing out Moroni's rad new look.
I know my upper-division university writing students are in a vulnerable place as they attempt to learn how to properly research and present a thesis of their own unique understanding as colleagues to professionals and professors alike.
But I just can't help but share one topic: "Email or Snail Mail: Which Should You Choose?"
One might ask, How will this topic add unique insight and contribute to the academic conversation? Another question might be, Who is the real or intended audience for this paper, 10 years after everyone has had the Internet pumped into their homes?
Well I'll tell you, this paper presents unique arguments. The main pro of email is that you can get a free account from lots of places. And the biggest con of snail mail? Anthrax.
Have you tried the Genuis sidebar in iTunes? You know, it takes what you have in your library and figures out new playlists for you based on what playlists other people have made?
Because I am the type to get in a rut, this has been amazing at pulling out all kinds of songs I forgot I had in my library, or songs Kevin downloaded, and making a playlist around certain subtle moods.
I do want to know, though, why it insists on putting the Carpenters "Merry Christmas, Darling" in so many of my playlists. There it is, next to Beck's "Where It's At" or Feist's "1234." But I swear I have other songs in my library.
I'm thinking of loading up Lex de Azevedo's "A Time to Love" soundtrack to mess with everyone else's playlists.
I wouldn't even call the day I took this picture of downtown a particularly clear one.
Hey sky, remember me?
May this Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day be an especially reflective one. And as we go forward with new oportunities, may we be the change we wish to see in the world.
There are times in a marriage that are golden. And when a certain husband finds a certain favorite painting for his wife and gives it to her, without even really knowing how much she has admired it, you have one of those times.
Then he tells her he loves it because it reminds him of the beauty of the "divine feminine." It's not just gold, it's platinum.
It may be an absolute week from hell, but last night I found this fleeting vision as I walked to my car. By the time I was on the freeway, the clouds had closed in and it was gone.
"My continuing passion is to part a curtain, that invisible veil of indifference that falls between us and that blinds us to each other's presence, each other's wonder, each other's human plight."
-- Eudora Welty
Homer : Well I won the belching contest at work. (belches in Jay's face, everyone laughs)
Jay : Nice, Homer. (belches longer and louder, car alarms go off outside)
Lisa : Wow! How many Pulitzer prize winners can do that?
Jay : Just me and Eudora Welty.
--The Simpsons, "A Star is Burns"
I love the quote from Eudora Welty (actually, I love both of the above quotes). This hits on my favorite philosophy from grad school, Emmanuel Levinas' post-modern ethics.
Lately I've had words on the tip of my tongue for others--why didn't they say this thing I wanted them to say? Why can't I get this friend of mine to be the kind of friend I want them to be? Why do they have to keep doing these things they do? (No friends, I'm not talking about you. These are examples.)
It's very easy for my to become absorbed by my own thought and perceptions. This self-absorption makes me want to create other people in my own image--hey, how can that be bad? It means that I can set up expectations, with or without informing the other party, and then wonder why they didn't say the thing I expected them to say or do what I expected them to do. They don't because they're not me. They're other.
I would say that the "veil of indifference" Welty refers to is only exists because to us it appears to be a reflection, that veil that tricks us into thinking that the other is actually the same with us, that we have some control over the other, that we are free and they are confined to our minimal understanding of them. That we know all their deepest thoughts.
Stepping beyond that, I begin to see those around me for who they are, for their otherness wrapped up in their infinite number of experiences and thoughts that are different than mine. At first I'm learning to be OK with this, that I can't make someone be who they're not. But I hope for more than that. I hope that eventually I will learn to love them precisely because I cannot make them be who they are not. Because in that otherness, I learn to see the immense enormity that is another human soul. Also, the idea that I don't know everything actually brings me hope (I'll explain this sometime if that seems odd).
I love how Welty describes this thought process as a passion. I don't know that discovering others' otherness is yet a passion for me, but I want to move that way.
Celestial white winter's light
Slippy, drippy
Stopped, ossified
Surfeit and superabundance
Fixated, roaring in static
Even a feral-born cat knows how to make herself comfortable under soft, warm blankets.
Here's to the new year with happiness, love, and comforts for all.
We’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.
One of Kevin's family traditions is to go on drives to look at the lights on people's homes at Christmas. This turns into the quest for trees that have been done up really well (each branch illuminated with light, as opposed to the sloppy wrap-around). But it also leads us to find the odd and amusing lighted outdoor decor that people will put in front of their homes. So over time, a bizarre decoration has become just as good to see as a professional-looking light job.
One Christmas Eve, we split the family up in two cars equipped with walkie-talkies to communicate between vehicles. We had a great time joking back and forth, and occasionally poking fun at the decorations we saw, until the fire department came on our walkie-talkies, asking us if everything was OK, and we realized they had heard our conversations. Oh, the embarrassment.
To build on that, I thought I'd share some treasured Christmas light "gawking" fun. In less than 30 minutes of driving, we found the following beauties:
"No, Frosty! Don't do it!" Nothing like a glam, gleaming Frosty right on the edge.
I still don't get these huge blow-up lawn decorations. This one is a Christmas tree with a sled stuck in it on the right and a Santa hanging off it on the left. It's amazing how many people put up sorry-looking "hang 'em high" Santas in different forms (hanging from poles, banners, places of business), but the sight of this deflated Santa cracked me up.
I don't know how to explain this house, as its mysteries are many and astounding. This house is one of the best.
On the right, we have in a basement window a glowing floating Santa head, beaming out with a detailed mouth. Above in the window there's something that looks like it may once have been a Tweety Bird, but the lights have faded and it's indistinguishable. I think it looks like an alien or a fetus.
One the left we have these smiley faces on sticks, with a big light shining on them for all to see. All I want to know is why.
While I realize that having chickens is not realistic anytime soon, I found something better in Heifer.org. For a couple of years I've been getting their catalogues of gifts that buy livestock for developing communities. The beneficiaries of your gift give offspring of their livestock to another community member, so it's a gift that keeps on giving. And the chicks are so cute.
Perhaps some of your friends and family may not be thrilled to receive a charitable donation as a gift, but I am sure others would be. Six geese a-laying cost $20, and could provide 450 eggs a year to a poor family.
It's better than feeding the Walmart beast, is it not?
I make sure to watch Mr. Krueger's Christmas every year. It's the last film Jimmy Stewart made, and it even stars the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.
What a special man Willy Krueger is, going about his custodial duties, never complaining. He refuses to let his loneliness get to him, and burns with Christmas spirit and imagination. And he's a cat person to boot! The scene where he imagines he's at the manger has one of the most honest and open prayers I have heard.
Ever driven across the desert on I-15 between the Arizona canyon and Las Vegas? Have you seen the Joshua trees? I guess they're all over the Southwest and even in Northern California, but they're certainly scarce here. While they grow in St. George, they don't even make it up to Cedar City's frigid altitudes. But we have one here in the SLC.
I disovered this Joshua tree a couple years ago on a lunchtime walk, but it took me this long to get a picture. It's not a great picture taken in the dark, and the xeriscape looks so strange contrasted with the Temple Square trees behind it (side note: horses!). I've adopted this tree as a fish out of water. Do you know of any others on the Wasatch Front?
I realize that I posted on this just last April, but a friend reminded me of it, and I started thinking more about the questions I had then on this poem.
I am not convinced that this poem is about the merits of pursuing the alternate path, but instead is about questioning the decision to travel the unworn path. At the end of the poem, the narrator sighs and thinks about that other road that he always had intended to go back and take, but life got away from him before he was able to travel back.
May I indulge in an alternate reading? Even though the title usually is understood as the road the narrator took, the more I think about Frost's title, "The Road Not Taken," the more I become convinced that the road not taken is the one the narrator did not take. Both paths were roads, which by definition must have some passage and travellers to keep their status (he wasn't bushwacking through the brush). And Frost never says that his road was the one not taken, but only "want[ing] wear," "grassy," and "less travelled by." That leads me to conclude that the title and focus of the poem is the other road, the road of conformity, which keeps its place as an absent presence through the poem.
What if this is the pensive meditation of the non-conformist on what could have been? What if it is the uncertainty that is granted about battles that were fought against the mainstream, and the questioning if that path was worth it in the end? The poem doesn't seem to answer these questions for me, but raise them.
As far as I can tell, this is quite a drastic change from the way this poem is touted by outsiders and minorities of all kinds. But now that I see it this way, I can't help myself in thinking that it is the artist that wonders what life would have been like if he'd been like everyone else instead. In the words of a Christmas carol, Do you see what I see? Does that ruin it, or add new meaning to you?
The Road Not Taken
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
I love Christmas music. I have a hard time restraining myself to listen only after Halloween (except I allow myself to listen to The Carpenter's Christmas album when it snows for the first time of the season).
But there are some songs that just bug me when they come on the store speakers or the radio. Now, if you don't feel that way, and if it's going to bug you to have me disparaging your favorite song, stop reading here.
Here is my list of Christmas songs that must go:
Any I left off the list?
With health insurance costs rising, a lot of companies are trying to incentivize healthy behaviors. Our health insurer encourages fitness by paying everyone $60 who records at least 30 minutes of exercise for 100 days of the year. In June Kevin and I decided that we would go for it, and this week we finished our 100 days, which is a 55% exercise rate. Not that it was hard to exercise (I end up walking at lunch for a half hour most days), but my problem is that I couldn't remember to write it down and lost my chance to record a lot of days with my forgetfulness. But we did it, and now we each get $60.
What do I plan to do with mine? I plan on going out to eat!
I love watching how the clouds will change Mt. Olympus and Twin Peaks. They will filter, reflect, and hide light on the mountains and bring snow or rain to change the entire color palate. What a cool canvas.
On a related note, when I drove to work this morning on the I-15 corridor, I looked straight ahead but I could not see one inch of downtown. There was just one dark curtain of a cloud that they freeway went through, with a rainbow right in front. Rainbows in Utah in December are certainly a rare sight.
This year we cut down our juniper tree on the left side of our house, which is good for all reasons except that we can't put Christmas lights on it anymore. Sure, I love junipers in the desert. In fact, I'm all about changing Utah's state tree to the juniper (our state tree is the Colorado blue spruce--yes, it has another state's name in it, although we usually leave that part out). But despite my love for the juniper, I'd like them to stay in the desert and out of my yard.
I think Kevin did a great job with the lights, especially on the gnarly hibernating trumpet vine. We're experimenting with the blue LEDs this year. Also note those very clipped rose bushes along the driveway.
My favorite decoration for Christmas is our Christmas tree. We bought this one seven years ago, and it's getting a little fragile, but still good enough. We aren't purists, but for some reason have always loved the way the white lights look in our home. These are snow lights, where every other one is a frosted white light.
When Kevin and I go on trips, instead of buying souvenirs, we buy Christmas tree ornaments. These keeps our house from being cluttered with foreign kitsch during the rest of the year, and it makes decorating the tree ultra fun as we can remember the places we've been together.
Here are a few highlights:
This is from the old cat shop in Seaport Village in San Diego. It's a ball with three very fat cats on it in Santa hats. Hmmm... remind you of any kitties you know?
This jester is from Shakespeare's birthplace in Stratford-upon-Avon. There's something that feels so Christmasy about England, and Shakespeare did write Twelfth Night to be performed on January 6th, the 12th day of Christmas in King James' court, so why not have a court player from Shakespeare's home on my tree?
This one is extra special. This Navajo story teller was bought in Pipe Springs, Arizona for me by Kevin's Grandpa who isn't with us anymore. However, it's just one of the many things that reminds me of him and his ever-giving ways.
These two aren't from trips, but they are two of my favorites. The one on the left is from 2006, and the two little cardinals are in their new home. Kevin and I bought this to commemorate buying our home that year. The one on the right really spins. I got it when I was a girl because I had a hamster that would climb up and down stairs and I'd make up super-hero stories about her. I just can't believe they thought to make a hamster wheel ornament.
This last one is from our honeymoon in Mexico. It's a teacup turned on its side with a little nativity inside. I still keep it wrapped in the newspaper the shop owner wrapped it in. I don't think it's even supposed to be an ornament, but since we got married at Christmas time, it will always remind me of our first Christmas together.
