Category Archives: songs/poetry

p.s.

Yesterday I neglected to mention how I’m celebrating my anniversary today. Curious?

🙂

P.S.: This is my odd synchronicity for today….I have always had a round belly (except for that one year that I was having chemo and I dropped to 70lbs). Anyways, I hate it. Well, I’m not the only one with the belly issue…(you’ll want to scroll down past the fish people part of Amanda’s blogentry to get what I mean and then watch the following vid set to the music of my all-time fav DD song, the one that I listen to daily at the end of my workouts where I do my damn situps to try to get rid of my belly)….

on wolves, coyotes and gentle men

Just finished reading Amy Irvine’s memoir, Trespass. It’s a well-wrought story of a Jack-Mormon woman’s relationship to the land, in the style of Terry Tempest Williams. One of the threads in the story is about her relationship with Herb, a SUWA lawyer that she dubs the “lion man.” Late in the book she shifts his identity from lion to coyote. She writes [note that she’s speaking about a picture of the two of them near Lake Powell]:

“Herb, as usual, looks invincible. In this particular instance, it is as if the recessive climactic conditions that threaten the region [of Southern Utah]–combined with the stresses in our life–only strengthened his resolve to flourish.
Now as I stand in the home he has built, it is the photo that helps me grasp that he is not a lion an at all. He is pure Coyote–decadent, passionate, and possessing an inherent tendency to thrive in the worst of times.
But there’s more. He has his arms around me in a desperate sort of way–as if he’s trying to uphold my burgeoning mass [note: Amy is pregnant]. What strike me now, in thinking about the photo, is how he falls into anything that resembles the work of a savior–that this is how he gets duped into trying to hold the entire world in his hands…It’s not wonder that he feels so at home in Deseret–where God and biology are in perfect agreement that men and Canis latrans should take as much territory as possible. But, for all his sparkles and grins in that one photographic moment, his eyes are dark and resigned. It is the glimmer of resentment. The part that blames me for his hind legs’ getting caught in the snares of convention and duty. This part is his in our troubled equation…
His response was that of any trapped creature: to chew his paw off and run” (341-342).

This section of Amy’s book made me think of a poem that I posted way back in the early days of this blog, speaking about John and GameBoy:

There are Men Too Gentle to Live Among Wolves

There are men too gentle to live among wolves
Who prey upon them with IBM eyes
And sell their hearts and guts for martinis at noon.
There are men too gentle for a savage world
Who dream instead of snow and children and Halloween
And wonder if the leaves will change their color soon.

There are men too gentle to live among wolves
Who anoint them for burial with greedy claws
And murder them for a merchant’s profit and gain.
There are men too gentle for a corporate world
Who dream instead of Easter eggs and fragrant grass
And pause to hear the distant whistle of a train.

There are men too gentle to live among wolves
Who devour them with apetite and search
For other men to prey upon and suck their childhood dry.
There are men too gentle for an accountant’s world
Who dream instead of Easter eggs and fragrant grass
And search for beauty in the mystery of the sky.

There are men too gentle to live among wolves
Who toss them like a lost and wounded dove
Such gentle men are lonely in a merchant’s world
Unless they have a gentle one to love.
-James Kavanaugh

I think this is a tough world for most men. They are taught to repress emotion and/or are encouraged to act tough or even violently, even as they hunger for intimacy. At the same time, in our culture, they are shuttled into the role of breadwinner or provider. The burden of this makes it difficult for them not to play up to the men with the IBM eyes or the wolves of the corporate world. There seems so little space for men to play, to express creativity, to choose a profession that’s a passion rather than a “responsible choice.”

For many years I’ve been dependent on John to bring home the bacon, to provide health insurance, and to make my life (and our children’s lives) comfortable materially. It’s a huge burden that is not without emotional and physical cost. I am often unsurprised when I hear stories from friends of their husband’s mid-life crises. It’s no wonder that so many men “chew [their] paw off and run” to a place where they can live a fleeting fantasy for awhile.

Yes I realize that part of being an adult is doing things we don’t enjoy too much. The slogging mundanity of daily household chores, the endless errands that are required to keep a family outfitted and fed, the days of busywork at a job that depletes one’s soul. And I wonder, why does it have to be this way? And how can I remove myself and my beloved from this madness? How can we create a space to live and to thrive even as middle-class corporate America seems destined to suck the life right out of us? Where is the oasis in this desert? Where is the Innisfree where “peace comes dropping slow”?

Your thoughts?

manifest


peach blossom, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

Manifest plainness,
Embrace simplicity,
Reduce selfishness,
Have few desires.
~ Lao-tzu (604 BC – 531 BC), The Way of Lao-tzu

[I’ve posted this bit of poetry before, but it bears repeating]

The peach blossoms have been replaced by almond-sized green nubs, getting ever closer to peaches with each passing day. Yum!

🙂

Make me smile (and shed a few tears)…


lotsa roses, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

–taking catnap lessons from Elly. And I just love that her favorite nap spot is on the pillow where I prop my left leg. She curls up next to it as if to take that edge of pain away.

–Apparently my big climbing rose is still blooming like crazy. Those coffee grounds I was feeding it all winter–they are working their good magic. I suspect that by the end of the week I’ll get to take a look-see for myself. In the meantime the kids have cut a big bouquet for my table. (Do you know that even though my original injury was in the garden, I want more than anything to return….)

–Friends. There really aren’t enough words to say for the friends who’ve brought (delicious) food, who have visited, who have cared for my children. You people rock!

–I am even more wordless when I think of John during these past few days. I’ve buried my head in his chest and just sobbed–he’s watched every needle going in and has been strong. He’s insisted at being at each doctor appointment and in making sure that I’m not getting my medications muddled up (“the shot glass on your nightstand, that one holds the next dose, dear”). Even while under increasing pressure at work, he’s holding up strong. I am so sorry for the toll on him that this has been. I’m sorry for the way that his needs are continually compromised because of mine.

–And of course I’m smiling because I am feeling better. I am nearly pain-free now and I go to the doc in a few hours to see if I can start back (slowly) into my regular routines again. Best of all, the redness and swelling in my leg is nearly gone. Though I don’t doubt that I’ll have some longterm healing and scarring around the wound site, for the most part my leg is looking quite healthy now.

–just as I’m typing this,Regina Spektor’s “On the Radio” came onto my iTunes playlist.. In so many ways this has been ‘my song’ for the past few years.

🙂

gonna get bettah…

I was feeling sorta grumpy and dumpy this morning and then John started streaming some Regina Spektor tunes and it was like the sun started shining in my heart (which had nothing at all to do with the fact that it was 101 freakin’ degrees in our fine town today)….

amazing

Yesterday CatGirl played a beautiful rendition of “Amazing Grace” on her flute for our Friends’ Meeting annual Christmas party. It was, perhaps, an unorthodox choice of song for the holiday, but it’s so hauntingly beautiful on the flute that I encouraged her to play it anyways. And there was a great spirit in the room as she played, the melody filling the space and touching each person.

Later in the day I noticed that she and I were both humming the tune–it was spinning in our heads and wouldn’t leave! Even though Christianity no longer resonates as strongly with me as in past years, the sentiment of the song continues to stir my heart. As I was thinking about it this morning I found this trailer on youtube for the “Amazing Grace” movie based on Adam Hochschild’s book Bury the Chains. The trailer is a worthwhile watch for all of you who enjoy this tune and who are inspired by those who fight for human rights and equality.

happy hannukah…

A vid from last year of duet with GameBoy and his cello teacher. The sound on this clip was compressed a bit funnily so it doesn’t exactly match the cello playing. But it’s a lovely piece of music anyways, I think. You can also get a little view into what Christmas looked like in our 650 sq ft apartment. 🙂

my soul is in bloom

From someone who loves flowers as I do (Persisting Stars):

If you’ve never been thrilled to the very edges of your soul by
a flower in bloom, perhaps your soul has never been in bloom.”

~Audra Foveo ~

lantana red

Being perfect artists and ingenuous poets, the Chinese have piously preserved the love and holy cult of flowers; one of the very rare and most ancient traditions which has survived their decadence.
And since flowers had to be distinguished from each other, they have attributed graceful analogies to them, dreamy images, pure and passionate names which perpetuate and harmonize in our minds the sensations of gentle charm and violent intoxication with which they inspire us. So it is that certain peonies, their favorite flower, are saluted by the Chinese, according to their form or color, by these delicious names, each an entire poem and an entire novel:
The Young Girl Who Offers Her Breasts,
or: The Water That Sleeps Beneath the Moon,
or: The Sunlight in the Forest,
or: The First Desire of the Reclining Virgin,
or: My Gown Is No Longer All White Because in Tearing It the Son of Heaven Left a Little Rosy Stain;
or, even better, this one:
I Possessed My Lover in the Garden.
~Octave Mirbeau, Torture Garden

Note: The picture above is from some lantana in my garden. I only wish I could grow peonies. Because they are poetry.

the doorway


red oak lettuce, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

h/t to Superhero for this gem

Praying

It doesn’t have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch

a few words together and don’t try
to make them elaborate, this isn’t
a contest but the doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak.
-Mary Oliver

The photo above is of a red leaf lettuce plant in my garden. Yum!