[thanks to PeterF for this wonderful graphic!]
It is Memorial Day, a federal holiday in the United States for honoring and mourning military personnel who have died while serving in the United States Armed Forces. I should be using In Flanders Fields (which I recall memorizing in sixth grade) as today's poem. Thank you for your service... ❤
Obviously, no picnics are happening, both because of the coronavirus as well as the torrential downpours experienced today and yesterday. I continue to be in hibernation mode, segueing from this weekend's Sex and The City marathon to The Starless Sea novel, which still captivates. We were supposed to have a family meet-up this morning and now, instead, hubby and I will pop over to the Hollybrook library (like I need more books, right?), which re-opens today. One person at a time. Understood. One of us will browse, while the other stands in the doorway, then switch... :-)
Had the most wonderful experience Saturday night, when I was invited by my long-time friend BrianW (The Breadman!) to a Virtual Campfire of Camp Jews Don't Camp (his tribe in real-life every year at the Kerrville Folk Festival, which normally begins every Memorial Day weekend and goes on for 18 days). What?!? Yes! I went once, in 1999 (with BW), only for the weekend, and the memories are forever warm and vivid.
So, Brian and a few friends organized an event on Zoom, from 10 p.m. to after midnight, one tune per person, just like a song circle, which takes place post-festival until the wee hours. I was mostly there for those whose music I've loved and admired for decades: Eric Schwartz, Annie Wenz, Eric Gerber, Ellis Delaney, Cliff Eberhardt, David LaMotte, Chris Chandler, Dan Pelletier, Chuck Brodsky, Gina Forsyth, Gregg Cagno... and semi-newbies Kirsten Maxwell, Kora Feder, Scott Cook, Louise Mosrie, Shanna in a Dress. The songs pendulumed between hilarious and heartwarming, and I finally broke my two-month non-drinking streak with some hibiscus-cucumber sparkling sake I had in the fridge (hey, I wasn't alone, right?). The entire evening was positively (on so many levels) soul-filling, and Brian did such a great job coordinating and emceeing. I was so wired that, when I finally opted out about 1 a.m., I staying up for another two hours watching the aforementioned SATC marathon (the second-time-around Aidan years: "you broke my heart!!!").
Speaking of Ellis, before she sang the subject song (my new sig line)...
"strange days we're living in,
like some kind of dream
we've got the world in our pocket,
popping up on little screens
I've got a distracted mind,
wrapped up in a restless heart
how do we break free to see the lighter side
of the way things are?"
...she related it to the times we were in, stating that people were baking now more than ever. Oooh, pie! This recipe sounds yum, and easily veganized... :-)
SONG: Pie for Breakfast by Ellis Delaney
BOOK: Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert
POEM: Self by James Oppenheim
Once I freed myself of my duties to tasks and people and went down to the cleansing sea...
The air was like wine to my spirit,
The sky bathed my eyes with infinity,
The sun followed me, casting golden snares on the tide,
And the ocean—masses of molten surfaces, faintly
gray-blue—sang to my heart...
Then I found myself, all here in the body and brain, and all there on the shore:
Content to be myself: free, and strong, and enlarged:
Then I knew the depths of myself were the depths of space.
And all living beings were of those depths (my brothers and sisters)
And that by going inward and away from duties, cities, street-cars and greetings,
I was dipping behind all surfaces, piercing cities and people,
And entering in and possessing them, more than a brother,
The surge of all life in them and in me...
So I swore I would be myself (there by the ocean)
And I swore I would cease to neglect myself, but would take myself as my mate,
Solemn marriage and deep: midnights of thought to be:
Long mornings of sacred communion, and twilights of talk,
Myself and I, long parted, clasping and married till death.
QUOTE: "The only cure I have ever known for fear and doubt and loneliness is an immense love of self." ~ Alison Malee
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