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6月29日 HopeThe holiday weekend is fast approaching, and while I have to work, I hope the rest of you will have a chance to relax and appreciate your friends, families, and the freedom which makes all this possible. There are several friends both in my personal circle, as well as in cyberspace who are struggling with some serious personal challenges. For you, especially, I offer the following poem.
HOPE
Teasing it out, buying bread And trying to buy time, Watching the giddy shine Of humming bird Returning to the bee-balm, The lowering storms Riding over and past us, And the monarchs, their figured wings Vivid as stained glass, Gliding, hanging on for the full count like last batters in the in the bottom of the ninth, or discrete cells intact beneath the microscope, and everywhere the dead waking in the proffered resurrection of midsummer hosta and mint, cannas and black-eyed susans, marigolds and the sun, with jeweled exactitude rising on the brimming mornings of the world.
Carol Tufts 6月25日 Art: Chalk and SteelCHALK & STEEL
Every year the city of Pasadena sponsors a competition, where artists are invited to render in chalk on the local sidewalks an original or facsimilie of a known work. In conjunction with this event, people are invited to show off their antique or classic automobiles on the adjacent street. Since the price is right (free admission) and it was a nice day, we decided to avail ourselves of the opportunity. As in many similar spectacles, the audience is often more entertaining than the exhibit. This year, I would have to call it a toss up. However, since I have a policy of not posting photos in public venues without the permission of the subject, you'll have to be satisfied with the following photos of chalk and steel. 6月21日 The Emperor's QuestAfter posting some serious stuff, I felt it was time to take a break, and switch to someting more light hearted. The mental images I had when I first read the next item cracked me up, so I decided to share the story with you. If you find yourself unamused, I'm sorry, but that's not my problem.
There once was a powerful emperor who needed a new chief Samurai. So he put up posters throughout the land saying he was searching for a new chief Samurai. But after 2 months, only 3 Samurai applied for the job, a Japanese, a Chinese, and Morris. So he interviewed all three.
The emperor first asked the Japanese to demonstrate why he should be his chief Samurai. The Japanese opened a little silver box and out flew a little fly. Whoosh went his sword and the fly dropped dead in two pieces. The emperor was impressed.
The emperor then asked the Chinese to demonstrate why he should be his chief Samurai. The Chinese opened a small pearl box and out flew a smaller fly. Whoosh, whoosh went his sword and the fly dropped dead in four pieces. The emperor was very impressed.
Then the emperor asked Morris to demonstrate why he should be his chief
Samurai. Morris opened a small gold box and out flew a wasp. Whoooooossshhh, whoooooossshhh, whooooooossshhh, whoooooossshhh, whoooooossshhh went Morris's sword, but the wasp was still alive and buzzing around the emperor.
The emperor was very disappointed and asked Morris, "After all your sword play, why is the wasp not dead?"
Morris replied, "A circumcision is never intended to kill." 6月17日 Father's Day MemoryTomorrow is Father's Day. We have chosen this one day to celebrate that special bond that exists between fathers and their children, and to honor the person who has given so much of his life to us. It is a relationship which may not always been easy, but has, hopefully, always been filled with love. For many, especially for those whose fathers came from the pre-war generation, the level of communication may have been less than either desired, at a time when fathers were expected to be strong, and mostly silent. For some, fathers were absent for a variety of reasons during the growing up years. But all of us have felt the ties, or at least the desire, for that which binds us. Here is my tribute, posted last year, to both my parents. Dad, I still miss and love you!
MEMORY
One writes against memory, not with it. One writes to measure loss. Today is the anniversary of my father’s death; tomorrow is the anniversary of the loss of my mother. Like the gradual glitch of shifting faults, almost unnoticed, the loss of both parents brings one to the edge of abyss of one’s own mortality. The realization of their absence in my life creates a viscosity in my heart; a space in my bulwark against the world that I realize will remain forever unfilled.
Tonight I grieve, as I have grieved over them from the moment of their passing. I do this not out of filial duty, but out of immense respect for who they managed to be, given the severe exigencies of their war-torn lives, and out of love – their greatest gift to me. Their love enveloped me in a cloak that is with me to this day. She set me free – literally. She sent me into the arms of a free world, giving me up so I may escape the tyranny that bound us all at the time, knowing that by so doing, she may never see me again. He gave me all that he was capable of giving, and worked tirelessly to make a new, better life for us. She gave me humor and grace, the ability to love that which is beautiful, to sorrow over another’s pain, taught me the importance of friendship, and the need to help another whenever I could. He gave me determination and perseverance, showed me the satisfaction to be found in a job well done, and taught me that only my best effort was acceptable. Neither one was perfect, and as I grew up, I slowly learned to forgive them for that. And as I matured, and developed the ability to see people and the world from several perspectives, I came to realize that they were, indeed, extraordinary people.
There is no experience quite as stunning as when there is nothing where something has always been. I still find myself wanting to pick up the phone, call one of them, and tell them about some event in my life. It has been over 2000 years since Virgil penned “sunt lacrimae rerum” – “There are tears in things.” So I shed my tears, replay in my mind a kaleidoscope of images from our lives together, and work to be worthy of their memory. An individual life can appear to be isolated and without purpose unless recognized as contributing continuity to lives that precede it and follow it endowing each human span with rich universality. For life goes on, then it goes on some more.
6月14日 DoubtlessDoubtless
This dense nebula
of tiny blackpoll warblers
sensing the shortness of light,
ready to lift into flight -
surely there are sceptics among them -
the one who flies out of formation
there at the ragged edge
the one who never leads nor seems to follow
the one who tails behind
but rises nonetheless
no heavier than a soul
and at journey's end
arrives, doubtless, with the rest.
Veneta Masson 6月10日 PEOPLE AND THE WORLDPEOPLE AND THE WORLD
If you haven’t seen the movie “An Inconvenient Truth”, you have a lot of company. Describing the results of global warming upon our Earth, it provides a graphic and powerful vision of the losses we have already suffered, and will continue to endure as a result of our neglect of our home. Those of you who were alive (or conscious) in the 1960’s and 1970’s will remember the Zero Population Growth Movement, and its attempts to make the world realize the disastrous affects uncontrolled population growth would cause the Earth and its inhabitants. I certainly remember rallies, covers of Time and Newsweek, along with other media coverage of this issue. Looking around now, I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen this topic in the news. Has the problem been solved? Hardly!
By mid 2003, the US population has ballooned to 291.5 million, and the world to 6.3 billion, with a projected doubling time at current growth rate of 53 years. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to understand the pressures such growth will create on already limited resources. So how did such a huge issue affecting all of us disappear from our radar screens? I think I’ve found the answer when I attempted to log on to the website of ZPG (Zero Population Growth), the organization that spearheaded the effort to keep this topic at the forefront of the world leader’s consciousness. They no longer existed, having changed their name in 2002 to the “Population Connection”. This sadly tells me all I needed to know. Like the title of the movie, the world and its leaders would much rather ignore inconvenient truths. And if I had any doubts, I only needed to look at the box office scores – 2 million viewers since its opening of a tremendous movie about our impact on the environment as opposed to 100 million viewers for the opening of X-Men. God help our children, for we’re certainly not. 6月6日 MutedMuted
Here, she is drowning,
pulled under unseen currents.
Cold windows close her
with darkened panes.
If glass were truly liquid,
it might pool against her breath.
Here is where she is frozen.
If only stars could drop
to comfort the ground,
call themselves cold.
The days of mostly night
descend over tight silence.
She walks through rooms
of dried promises, occasional cobwebs,
the residual wave of hard words.
Each small step might lead
to catastrophe or merely a sigh,
the rare strength of relief.
She cannot name the sob she swallows
here in this house without heat,
or she would ask how to get out,
what it would take to feel warm.
JK Stangeland
6月2日 How long is a year?I received a message from my friend Marge the other day, congratulating me on the one year anniversary of my blog. For those of you who know Marge from prior visits to her Space, this kind of thoughtful attention is in context with her character - while pleasantly surprising, it is not shocking. What is shocking (at least to me) is that a WHOLE YEAR has gone by since I posted my first missive here. Like many other things about life, the time seems a lot shorter to me. On the other hand, considering the number of new acquaintences and kindred souls I have found in this period, it seems longer, as well. Sometime during the past year, I remember riffing on the subjective appreciation of time in a piece brilliantly titled "Time". (Inspiration is often in short supply during the wee hours of the morning.) I'll shut up now. Here, instead, are some other paradoxes or oxymorons for you to consider. (Thanks, Fulton.) Hope you have a relaxing weekend.
1. Is it good if a vacuum really sucks? 2. Why is the third hand on the watch called the second hand? 3. If a word is misspelled in the dictionary, how would we ever know? 4. If Webster wrote the first dictionary, where did he find the words? 5. Why do we say something is out of whack? What is a whack? 6. Why does "slow down" and "slow up" mean the same thing? 7. Why does "fat chance" and "slim chance" mean the same thing? 8. Why do "tug" boats push their barges? 9. Why do we sing "Take me out to the ball game" when we are already there? 10. Why are they called "stands" when they are made for sitting? 11. Why is it called "after dark" when it really is "after light"? 12. Doesn't "expecting the unexpected" make the unexpected expected? 13. Why are a "wise man" and a "wise guy" opposites? 14. Why do "overlook" and "oversee" mean opposite things? 15. Why is "phonics" not spelled the way it sounds? 16. If work is so terrific, why do they have to pay you to do it? 17. If all the world is a stage, where is the audience sitting? 18. If love is blind, why is lingerie so popular? 19. If you are cross-eyed and have dyslexia, can you read all right? 20. Why is bra singular and panties plural? (I said this before, but it bears more reflection.) 21. Why do you press harder on the buttons of a remote control when you know the batteries are dead? 22. Why do we put suits in garment bags and garments in a suitcase? 23. How come abbreviated is such a long word? 24. Why do we wash bath towels? Aren't we clean when we use them? 25. Why doesn't glue stick to the inside of the bottle? 26. Why do they call it a TV set when you only have one? 27. Christmas - What other time of the year do you sit in front of a dead tree and eat candy out of your socks? |
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