You and Me on the Rock (Brandi Carlile)

Today is our 48th wedding anniversary.  WTF.  Crazy, right?!?

Oh, and if you're doing the math at home:  17,520 One Days at a Time... 🤣

A Happy Marriage, One Gesture at a Time by Susan Semenak

"Really great marriages are not the result of long hours of hard work, but of everyday behaviours and attitudes, seemingly small gestures that show your spouse that he or she is noticed, appreciated, respected, loved and desired," Orbuch writes in her just-published book 5 Simple Steps to Take Your Marriage from Good to Great (Delacorte Press), which is based on the study's findings.

MONTREAL – What makes couples happy? What makes marriages last? It's the small stuff, it turns out: Telling him he looks great in his jeans. Bringing her coffee in bed in the morning. Sneaking off without the kids from time to time. Taking turns doing the laundry.

Terri Orbuch, a Michigan-based research professor and marriage- and-family therapist, spent more than 22 years charting the love lives of 373 married couples in the U.S. government-funded Early Years of Marriage Project, the longest-running study of marriage conducted in North America.

The secrets of happy couples, Orbuch and her team of researchers found, were surprisingly simple.

"Really great marriages are not the result of long hours of hard work, but of everyday behaviours and attitudes, seemingly small gestures that show your spouse that he or she is noticed, appreciated, respected, loved and desired," Orbuch writes in her just-published book 5 Simple Steps to Take Your Marriage from Good to Great (Delacorte Press), which is based on the study's findings.

When couples in solid relationships run into trouble, or experience "the blahs," they often focus on what's wrong, as do many self-help books and marriage counsellors, Orbuch said in a telephone interview this week. But she found focusing on their strengths and taking a few minutes every day "to fix the little things" had a greater impact on happiness.

"It's not those big challenges that couples experience that eat away at happiness so much as the seemingly minor issues that accumulate over the years," Orbuch said. "We're so busy with work and family and exercise and shovelling snow and doing the groceries that people too often put their relationships on the backburner." Here are a few of the secrets Orbuch gleaned from happy couples for making a good marriage great:

Read the rest of the article here... 

SONG:  You and Me on the Rock by Brandi Carlile

BOOK:  What Makes a Marriage Last: 40 Celebrated Couples Share with Us the Secrets to a Happy Life by Marlo Thomas, Phil Donahue

POEM(S):  New Vows by Sierra DeMulder

When my best friend got married,

he walked down the aisle to a song

about death. Isn’t that what marriage is

all about? he laughed. A promise

to be together until one of you dies?

I regret my wedding vows, too focused

on the benign—our boundless laughter,

how I cherish just waking up together.

I should have said, I take thee and all

the treachery that aliveness guarantees.

I should have said, I will help bury

your elders. I take your hand and your heart 

murmur; the cancerous growth above

your father’s ear. I take your family

history of alcoholism and give you back

a possible covenant of dementia, miscarriage, 

high blood pressure. In sickness and in

car accidents. In sickness and in the mundane. 

Shared calendars and anniversaries spent 

arguing about our budget. You told me once 

Great Danes have a short life expectancy, 

only 6-10 years if you’re lucky, and I cried: 

who would sign up to love something

so impermanent? O, beloved, we have

been so happy lately, it’s making us nervous. 

And isn’t that what marriage is all about:

a love so darling, so hallowed and exposed,

we both volunteer to be its keeper—when

the joy runs dry, when the body fails—

not because but in glorious spite of

the unpalatable, impossible fact that

someday one of us will wake up first

only to find ourselves alone.

Me First by Billy Collins

We often fly in the sky together,

and we’re always okay—there’s our luggage now

waiting for us on the carousel.

And we drive lots of places

in all manner of hectic traffic,

yet here we are pulling in the driveway again.

So many opportunities to die together,

but no meteor has hit our house,

no tornado has lifted us into its funnel.

The odds say then that one of us will go

before the other, like heading off

into a heavy snow storm, leaving

the other one behind to stand in the kitchen

or lie on the bed under the fan.

So why not let me, the older one, go first?

I don’t want to see you everywhere

as I wait for the snow to stop,

before setting out with a crooked stick, calling your name.

Habitation by Margaret Atwood

Marriage is not

a house or even a tent

it is before that, and colder:

the edge of the forest, the edge

of the desert

                the unpainted stairs

at the back where we squat

outside, eating popcorn

the edge of the receding glacier

where painfully and with wonder

at having survived even

this far

we are learning to make fire

Marriage by Ellen Bass

When you finally, after deep illness, lay

the length of your body on mine, isn’t it

like the strata of the earth, the pressure

of time on sand, mud, bits of shell, all

the years, uncountable wakings, sleepings,

sleepless nights, fights, ordinary mornings

talking about nothing, and the brief

fiery plummets, and the unselfconscious

silences of animals grazing, the moving

water, wind, ice that carries the minutes, leaves

behind minerals that bind the sediment into rock.

How to bear the weight, with every

flake of bone pressed in. Then, how to bear when

the weight is gone, the way a woman

whose neck has been coiled with brass

can no longer hold it up alone. Oh love,

it is balm, but also a seal. It binds us tight

as the fur of a rabbit to the rabbit.

When you strip it, grasping the edge

of the sliced skin, pulling the glossy membranes

apart, the body is warm and limp. If you could,

you’d climb inside that wet, slick skin

and carry it on your back. This is not

neat and white and lacy like a wedding,

not the bright effervescence of champagne

spilling over the throat of the bottle. This visceral

bloody union that is love, but

beyond love. Beyond charm and delight

the way you to yourself are past charm and delight.

This is the shucked meat of love, the alleys and broken

glass of love, the petals torn off the branches of love,

the dizzy hoarse cry, the stubborn hunger.

QUOTE(S):  “Marriage is not a noun; it’s a verb. It isn’t something you get. It’s something you do. It’s the way you love your partner every day.” ~ Barbara De Angelis

"Basically the secret to a long-lasting marriage is memory loss and well-meaning lies and beach margaritas." ~ Jenny Lawson

(Don’t Fear) The Reaper (Blue Öyster Cult)

Seven weeks today since Eric's death.

Yesterday was our second week attending the bereavement group; Sarah went to a yoga class instead (she's been very dedicated!), and Chico actually came with me again.  The overarching sentiment seems to be that after the meeting I feel drained, but mostly relaxed and peaceful.  My melancholy emanated from the fact that they (mostly widows, with a few widowers) have lost their life partners, and I almost felt guilty my husband is not only still alive, but supportive.  I don't take that for granted, even with the forever-absence of my child.  

Great news!  I actually heard back from the therapist I reached out to last Friday; her husband (who does her scheduling) called me yesterday, we had a very long conversation, and he said that, although she currently had no availability, he would do what he could to get me in.  I informed him that I had the power of the purple candles on my side, and darned if I didn't hear from him *this* morning, confirming a 3 p.m. appointment tomorrow (I then spent time filling out the paperwork).  She sounds amazing, and I am counting my blessings... ॐ

Chico and I watched two more home movies Sunday afternoon; two impressions:  they're like Robert Altman's films, in which everyone is talking over everyone... and the recurring theme, since they mostly are of Christmases together, is "save the bows!".  Ha... 🤣

Boundless thanks to Michele for sending me this article (through the actual mail!) a few weeks ago:  We Don't Recover from Grief, and that's Okay by Eleanor Haley  Found out that it had since morphed into a book, which I ordered for myself and, discovering how wonderful it is, sending copies to Sarah, Rob, and Duyen.  I am using it like a workbook, marking it up with notes, highlighted passages, and Arlo Guthrie's proverbial "circles and arrows".  And, as The Band sings:  "Take what you need and leave the rest".  What a great resource... 💖

My binge-watch continues (two episodes a night); a bit of googling revealed this most perfect "review":  "Its sadness isn't the reason why I'll never get over it though, but rather its raw depiction of grief.  Six Feet Under isn't so much a show about death as it's a show about coping with death... Death may be inevitable, but it doesn't take away the pain it brings."

SONG:  (Don’t Fear) The Reaper by Blue Öyster Cult

BOOK:  What's Your Grief?: Lists to Help You Through Any Loss by Eleanor Haley MS, Litsa Williams MA LCSW-C

POEM:  Me First by Billy Collins

We often fly in the sky together,

and we’re always okay—there’s our luggage now

waiting for us on the carousel.

And we drive lots of places

in all manner of hectic traffic,

yet here we are pulling in the driveway again.

So many opportunities to die together,

but no meteor has hit our house,

no tornado has lifted us into its funnel.

The odds say then that one of us will go

before the other, like heading off

into a heavy snow storm, leaving

the other one behind to stand in the kitchen

or lie on the bed under the fan.

So why not let me, the older one, go first?

I don’t want to see you everywhere

as I wait for the snow to stop,

before setting out with a crooked stick, calling your name.

QUOTE(S), both from Six Feet Under:  "You think it's a day like any other, but what you don't realize is that anything can happen, and then it does.  It happens."

"Why do people have to die?"

"To make life important.  None of us know how long we've got.  Which is why we have to make each day matter."

This Will Be Our Year (The Zombies)

What the h*ll - how about one more New Year post... before we move on to the business of living it (instead of writing about it... :-)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Proof

Alcohol and American Life

The New York Times

December 30, 2008
Notes on a Holiday
By The Editors

Thoughts, recollections and a satirical cocktail recipe on the year’s most alcohol-laden day, kindly offered by various Op-Extra contributors:

Suzanne Vega, Measure for Measure:

New Year’s Eve and drinking. Sometimes they go together, but not always. I have spent many austere New Years Eves alone re-reading old diaries, making resolutions and not drinking, but I will admit those are not the most fun.

The most fun was in 1989 at a party given by the band They Might be Giants in Brooklyn. Still the best New Year’s Eve party ever. Given in an apartment over a funeral parlor. I went with my sister and my then-boyfriend. We drank and danced. My boyfriend got mad and went home early. I stayed. I danced with my sister, and we stepped on the plug to the jukebox plunging the whole room into darkness and silence for a minute. What fun! Then she went home, then John Flansburg who was throwing the party went home. Then everybody else went home, and I was the last guest to leave. The sun came up gently as a car came to get me at 7 in the morning, and I said goodbye to John Linnell’s sleepy, smiling face. What a nice memory. A lovely ride home over the Brooklyn Bridge.

The second most fun was New Year’s Eve 1999. Remember Y2K? What a scam. I bought a black silk ball gown for the occasion in case the world fell apart that night. Seemed like the right thing to do. My sister and I went to my ex-boyfriend’s house (the same man that had been my boyfriend 10 years before!) and we drank a lot and danced and had a lot of fun, until I sent her flying into the radiator under the window across the room. I let go of her hand by mistake. She hasn’t danced with me since. She says it’s because I always do the Hustle and date myself. Whatever. I still remember the snowflakes softly coming down at 5 am as I caught a cab home in my ball gown.

Well, none of us drink the way we used to since we lost our brother Tim to alcoholism at the age of 36. Lately when I go out with my husband on New Year’s Eve, some of the nightlife looks scary. I watched someone who was so drunk she lay down in the crosswalk on Houston Street while her friends tried to get her on her feet before the traffic started up. I didn’t watch to see what finally happened. I suppose moderation will be the key for me for this New Year’s Eve, and that is O.K. with me.

* * *

Glenn Eichler, Proof:

Recipe: “The Blurry Zeitgeist”
3 parts Champagne
1 part vodka
1 part strawberry brandy
1 part smugness over past year’s accomplishments
1 part regret over realizing past year’s accomplishments were actually failures
1 part momentary burst of resolve followed immediately by 1 part deflating inertia
1 part nagging fear over possibility of … what was it again?
1 part self-congratulation over successfully keeping pre-New Year’s resolution to avoid marketing exec neighbor at current party
1 part cautious optimism over Obama cabinet picks
1 part bitter disappointment over Obama cabinet picks
1 part utter disbelief at Caroline Kennedy
1 part inexplicable anxiety over not remembering what earlier nagging fear was about
1 part dawning awareness that marketing exec neighbor is approaching
1 part fleeting concern over possibly forgetting to TiVo “The Biggest Loser”
1 part sinking realization that earlier nagging fear was about odds of contracting early-onset Alzheimer’s
1 part self-pity over getting stuck conversing with marketing exec neighbor
1 part self-congratulation at not being marketing exec neighbor
1 part euphoric recollection of definitely remembering to TiVo “The Biggest Loser,” thus reducing likelihood of early-onset Alzheimer’s
1 part self-loathing over TiVo full of “The Biggest Loser”
Shake well and serve with metaphysical hangover.
Happy New Year!

* * *

Jim Atkinson, Proof:

This New Year’s Eve will be the fifteenth that I will pass completely sober. I celebrate the New Year booze-free because I’ve long since quit drinking at all. But might I suggest to the majority of Americans who still do tipple — especially on New Year’s Eve — that they consider passing the last holiday of the year stone cold sober as well? After all, this is nothing if not a time for considering new paradigms, and 24 hours spent in sober reflection on — instead of Bacchanalian escape from — what we should have learned in the previous year might be just the right way to bring in the new one. Especially this year, when we need desperately to remember that while we ignored history and allowed it to repeat itself, even amidst the rubble left by the Second Coming of the Great Depression, we somehow managed to make history too, by electing an African-American president. Both are matters of sufficient import to be recalled and appreciated in the absence of stupor.

* * *

Peter Holsapple, Measure for Measure:

By the time I had moved from Los Angeles to New Orleans in 1993, probably the drinkingest city in America, my own alcohol problem was enormous. But I just thought I was having a lot of fun. The band I moved there with was a fine excuse to get together with five close friends, a case of beer, a few bottles of champagne and tequila, and make some music: New Orleans was a perfect destination to continue the party, which we did. After the band broke up, I moved upstairs from a bar I played at so the commute home wouldn’t be quite so deadly.

My charmed life went on, immersed in boozing, unchecked by concerned friends or myself, escalating exponentially until I ended up charged with D.W.I. one night on the way home from a show where I had only drunk about three glasses of red wine. I spent a night in Orleans Parish lock-up in a room with 25 of my newest friends and a drain in the middle of the floor. The humiliation was more than I could stand. I drank cautiously a few more months, slowing to a crawl, until I decided that New Years’ Eve 2001 would be the end of it.

I moved after Katrina washed my home and a lot of my past away, and I now live with my family in North Carolina, where I grew up. New Years’ Eve now means breaking out a bottle of Martinelli’s Sparkling Apple Cider and trying to stay up for the changing of the years, not always making it through, either.

Sometimes I think I miss the conviviality of hoisting a few with my fellows, but as I raise my glass nowadays, I toast the rebuilding of my shambolic life over seven years and look forward to the next 365 days, which will come at me one at a time. That, I can handle.

* * *

Darrell Brown, Measure for Measure:

I am an adult child of an alcoholic. There are a lot of us out there. I was never a drinker. My job in life was the designated driver, the designated shoulder to lean on, the designated superhero to clean up the mess whenever it was needed. I do have a very strong and benevolent shoulder I inherited from my mom.

Finally, last year before New Year’s Eve, I made the long-delayed decision to let go of a few of my dearest addict friends. I was tired of feeling like the bad guy all the time. To paraphrase the song, I didn’t have time for the pain anymore. Not in 2008. It was one of the hardest things I have ever done. It hurt. But that’s what happens when you betray your own addictive behavior — it rebels and squirms. I thought my heart would die.

A year has passed since then. I survived. I’ve healed some, and my health and sanity has returned. With this distance in place, I now feel I can again love these people who were so dear to me. I can look back with fondness and smile at the memories of most of our time together.

To another year of health.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

P.S. Thanks to Scott at Pretty Goes with Pretty (via SMM) for the heads-up on the song which prompted today's post!

SONG: This Will Be Our Year by The Zombies

BOOK: The Joy of Ritual: Spiritual Recipes to Celebrate Milestones, Ease Transitions and Make Every Day Sacred by Barbara Biziou

POEM: New Year's Day by Billy Collins

Everyone has two birthdays

according to the English essayist Charles Lamb,

the day you were born and New Year's Day--

a droll observation to mull over

as I wait for the tea water to boil in a kitchen

that is being transformed by the morning light

into one of those brilliant rooms of Matisse.

"No one ever regarded the First of January

with indifference," writes Lamb,

for unlike Groundhog Day or the feast of the

Annunciation,

this one marks nothing but the passage of time,

I realized, as I lowered a tin diving bell

of tea leaves into a little body of roiling water.

I admit to regarding my own birthday

as the joyous anniversary of my existence

probably because I was, and remain

to this day in late December, an only child.

And as an only child--

a tea-sipping, toast-nibbling only child

in a colorful room this morning--

I would welcome an extra birthday,

one more opportunity to stop what we are doing

for a moment and reflect on my being here on earth.

And one more might be a small consolation

to us all for having to face a death-day, too,

an X in a square

on some kitchen calendar of the future,

the day when each of us is thrown off the train of time

by a burly, heartless conductor

as it roars through the months and years,

party hats, candles, confetti, and horoscopes

billowing up in the turbulent storm of its wake.

QUOTE: "New Year's Day is every man's birthday." ~ Charles Lamb

Why Can't It Be Christmastime All Year (Rosie Thomas)

Hi, Honeys - I'm home!

Just back late last night from transporting a family of five via minivan through three states/four households and a motel/1600+ miles in 8 days - equal amounts calm and chaos, delight and depression, exhilaration and exhaustion... and we slept peacefully in our own beds last night, albeit already missing the company of long-distance family...

So much ground to cover (pun intended) - here's a sampling of magic moments:

~ We left home in Florida about midnight Friday (passing our intended departure time by 2 hours), driving straight through to Aiken, South Carolina where we arrived a bit after noon - stopped at a Cracker Barrel on the way for breakfast (where I reprised their fluffy-in-the-middle, crispy-around-the-edges pancakes - yum!).

~ The weather turned bitter cold for two days, but thankfully we had coats/scarves/gloves/hats/boots to ward off the worst - it actually was a nice change of pace from the 80+ degree days we'd left behind...

~ We took my husband's stepmom (who lives in Batesburg, about 30 miles away) out for lunch to a local barbeque place, where she ate well and chatted animatedly - afterwards, we visited the cemetery where we buried R's dad a little over a year ago, and it was an emotional moment for all of us...

~ Went to lunch the next day at the health food store/restaurant where my niece K works - great products and delicious food (I will be attempting to re-create the carrot ginger bisque soon!).

~ We resurrected my husband's family tradition of playing penny poker on Christmas Eve (which we celebrated Monday, December 22 since we had to get back on the road the following day) - we took turns dealing and choosing which format (5 card draw/7 card straight/Texas Hold-em, etc.) and wild cards (deuces and one-eyed Jacks, baseball, Follow the Queen, etc.).

~ It was a treat to have my recently-acquired laptop on the trip, where I could do quick e-mail checks so my ever-growing inbox wouldn't seem quite so daunting a week later - I also wrote out and mailed my holiday cards from the motel...

~ The drive from my husband's sister's house in South Carolina to my mom's home in Georgia is about 3 hours, and we arrived there about 4 p.m. Tuesday - we immediately made a grocery store run and cooked a nice dinner for mom that evening (chicken, rice, steamed green beans, roasted yellow squash)... with store-bought pie for dessert...

~ I've mentioned before that my mom is in declining health, and it was frightening to see how much worse she was since the end of October, when I was up there for the Dar concert - she is on oxygen 24/7 now (we had a tank delivered to my sister's house so Mom could spend a few nights) and, even then, she gets easily out of breath. My brother and sister call her daily, with my brother stopping in every weekend to see what she needs/do things around the house and my sister visiting at least that often, as well as getting mom to all her doctor appointments.

Mom has amazing friends and neighbors, who also check on her regularly - however, my brother, sister and I need to have an in-depth conversation as to exactly what our long-term hopes/plans are for mom (in-home caregiver, assisted living facility, moving to Florida... and in with us, etc.). With both diseases (kidney and pulmonary fibrosis) being chronic and progressive, it has become increasingly more difficult for mom to care for herself, even slowing down substantially - this trip was a wake-up call for me, and it was hard to keep my composure when all I wanted to do was weep openly and often...

~ A fireplace is a treat for us, so we bought firewood and kept a nice fire burning Tuesday night, while we watched How the Grinch Stole Christmas and White Christmas (with Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye and Rosemary Clooney) - classic...

~ Over to my sister's the next day (Christmas Eve), where we ate our traditional Chinese food and finished wrapping presents/stuffing stockings/readying ourselves for Santa's arrival - I had forgotten our stockings back in Florida, so we improvised with Santa hats from the local dollar store!

~ My 12-year-old niece actually let us sleep until 9 Christmas morning, whereupon we all went downstairs and opened presents - we kept things simple and budget-limited this year, yet my children still managed to amaze/delight me with their choices: from Sarah... a gorgeous "be the change you wish to see in the world" silver necklace and a book, Why a Daughter Needs a Mom, to which she added personalized statements on each page (positively sobworthy); from Rob... a beautiful sage green dragonfly vase; from Eric... another necklace, this one silver and lapis; from mom... the movie of Mamma Mia! and a check; from my brother Brad... a Target gift card (yay!); from Mari... our family vacation photo in a Blessings frame, a Dance Sing Laugh Love plaque, a sun/moon for the patio, some tall drink glasses and, best of all, a book she made herself on the computer of all her favorite/most-used/best-requested recipes, which she gifted to everyone (hey, Mari... I don't think you stuck to the limit... :-)

~ My husband and I gave each other... drumroll, please... a new bathroom, on which work should begin tomorrow morning (fingers crossed) and hopefully be finished by week's end - it will be nice to have two again!

~ We stayed in our pajamas, eating Mari's delicious strada and quiches and drinking mimosas and totally lost track of time... so our college friend Steve and his wife Betty (who we knew were coming about 11 for a visit) totally caught us off-guard when they arrived promptly - had a grand time with them until they left about 2... whereupon we began preparing a mouth-watering lunch of ham, hashbrown casserole, shrimp and grits, green beans and rolls.

~ Overheard from our menfolk cleaning up in the kitchen after dinner (while we women sat at the table, still sipping wine), after the garbage disposal had noisily run: "I don't know what it was... but it's gone now!"...

~ We curled up on the couches later that evening to watch back-to-back movies of Mamma Mia! and Sex and the City (accompanied by dessert of the peanut butter and apple pies we didn't have room for earlier) - at that point, my poor sister (chipper and organized and active since we got there) started feeling sick and went up to bed...

~ Went back to mom's about noon Friday where we took it easy (meant to play Scrabble but never got around to it) - Mari joined us later, still not feeling well, and we kept the fire going all night, more for comfort than warmth...

~ Saturday morning came much too early and it was back in the car for the 12-hour drive to Florida, where traffic was horrible most of the way until we hit the Turnpike - it was wonderful to pick up the dog from our friends who were keeping him and finally get back home... where I've spent most of the day puttering and re-acclimating (laundry and shopping and e-mail, oh my!).

As we were watching the Grinch only a few days ago, I listened closely to the last song, which hit me in the heart - took me a while to find the snippet online... but worth the effort, as it totally seems to sum up our holiday experience ("just as long as we have we" indeed... :-)

"Welcome Christmas

Bring your cheer

Cheer to all Whos far and near

Christmas Day is in our grasp

So long as we have hands to clasp

Christmas Day will always be

Just as long as we have we

Welcome, Christmas while we stand
heart to heart and hand in hand."

P.S. More SMM here, here and here...

SONG: Why Can't It Be Christmastime All Year by Rosie Thomas (I can't seem to find the lyrics, but here's the YouTube video/recording)

BOOK: A Christmas Memory by Truman Capote, Beth Peck (illustrator)

POEM: Despair by Billy Collins

So much gloom and doubt in our poetry -

flowers wilting on the table,

the self regarding itself in a watery mirror.

Dead leaves cover the ground,

the wind moans in the chimney,

and the tendrils of the yew tree inch toward the coffin.

I wonder what the ancient Chinese poets

would make of all this,

the shadows and empty cupboards?

Today, with the sun blazing in the trees,

my thoughts turn to the great

tenth-century celebrators of experience,

Wa-Hoo, whose delight in the smallest things

could hardly be restrained,

and to his joyous counterpart in the western provinces,

Ye-Hah.

QUOTE: "I sometimes think we expect too much of Christmas Day. We try to crowd into it the long arrears of kindliness and humanity of the whole year. As for me, I like to take my Christmas a little at a time, all through the year. And thus I drift along into the holidays - let them overtake me unexpectedly - waking up some fine morning and suddenly saying to myself: "Why, this is Christmas Day!" ~ David Grayson

Seize the Day (Ellis Paul)

Ellis Paul, who I first saw open for Dar in January 1998 (god, that sounds forever ago!), will be performing in a friend's house concert series in two weeks - it's been altogether too long since I've heard him up close and personal... and, whenever I do, I request this song... and he always honors... :-)

SONG: Seize the Day by Ellis Paul

BOOK: Seize the Day: A 365 Day Devotional by Charles R. Ringma, Dietrich Bonhoeffer

POEM: Aimless Love by Billy Collins

This morning as I walked along the lakeshore,

I fell in love with a wren

and later in the day with a mouse

the cat had dropped under the dining room table.

In the shadows of an autumn evening,

I fell for a seamstress

still at her machine in the tailor’s window,

and later for a bowl of broth,

steam rising like smoke from a naval battle.

This is the best kind of love, I thought,

without recompense, without gifts,

or unkind words, without suspicion,

or silence on the telephone.

The love of the chestnut,

the jazz cap and one hand on the wheel.

No lust, no slam of the door –

the love of the miniature orange tree,

the clean white shirt, the hot evening shower,

the highway that cuts across Florida.

No waiting, no huffiness, or rancor –

just a twinge every now and then
for the wren who had built her nest

on a low branch overhanging the water

and for the dead mouse,

still dressed in its light brown suit.

But my heart is always propped up

in a field on its tripod,

ready for the next arrow.

After I carried the mouse by the tail

to a pile of leaves in the woods,

I found myself standing at the bathroom sink

gazing down affectionately at the soap,
so patient and soluble,

so at home in its pale green soap dish.

I could feel myself falling again

as I felt its turning in my wet hands

and caught the scent of lavender and stone.

QUOTE: "It is necessary to write, if the days are not to slip emptily by. How else, indeed, to clap the net over the butterfly of the moment? For the moment passes, it is forgotten; the mood is gone; life itself is gone. That is where the writer scores over his fellows: he catches the changes of his mind on the hop." ~ Vita Sackville-West

Girl with a Hay Rake (Jack Harris)

From Today's Writer's Almanac:

Today is the birthday of poet Billy Collins, (books by this author) born in New York in 1941. Collins is both a critically acclaimed and popular poet, a unique combination in the world of modern poetry. Collins began writing poems at age 12. He devoured all the poetry he read, especially the contemporary poems in Poetry magazine. In an interview, Collins explained, "I remember reading a poem by Thom Gunn about Elvis Presley, and that was a real mindblower because I didn't know you could write poems about Elvis Presley. I thought there was poetry — what you read in class — and then when you left class there was Elvis. I didn't see them together until I read that poem."

Collins began selling his poems to Rolling Stone for $35 a pop in the 1970s. He married Diane Olbright in 1977 and published his first book of poems, Pokerface, that year, but it wasn't until the publication of Questions About Angels in 1991 that he began drawing critical attention. His other major poetry collections are The Apple that Astonished Paris (1988), The Art of Drowning (1995), Picnic, Lightning (1998), Sailing Alone Around the Room: New and Selected Poems (2001), Nine Horses: Poems (2002), and The Trouble with Poetry and Other Poems (2005). Collins' style is light, humorous, and fond of extended metaphor. He uses mundane situations as diving boards into the larger philosophical questions of life. His poem "Forgetfulness" starts this way:

The name of the author is the first to go
followed obediently by the title, the plot,
the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
which suddenly becomes one you have never read,
never even heard of,

as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor
decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,
to a little fishing village where there are no phones.

Collins said, "Usually I try to create a hospitable tone at the beginning of a poem. Stepping from the title to the first lines is like stepping into a canoe. A lot of things can go wrong."

A friend introduced me to the wondrous words of Billy Collins quite a few years back - I seem to have misplaced the friend... but I found the poet... and both remain cherished...

Today's theme? - paintings described in songs, poems and prose.. :-)

SONG: Girl with a Hay Rake by Jack Harris

BOOK: Art: The World's Greatest Paintings Explored and Explained by Robert Cumming

POEM: Fishing On The Susquehanna In July by Billy Collins

I have never been fishing on the Susquehanna
or on any river for that matter
to be perfectly honest.
Not in July or any month
have I had the pleasure — if it is a pleasure —
of fishing on the Susquehanna.

I am more likely to be found
in a quiet room like this one —
a painting of a woman on the wall,

a bowl of tangerines on the table —
trying to manufacture the sensation
of fishing on the Susquehanna.

There is little doubt
that others have been fishing
on the Susquehanna,

rowing upstream in a wooden boat,
sliding the oars under the water
then raising them to drip in the light.

But the nearest I have ever come to
fishing on the Susquehanna
was one afternoon in a museum in Philadelphia,

when I balanced a little egg of time
in front of a painting
in which that river curled around a bend

under a blue cloud-ruffled sky,
dense trees along the banks,
and a fellow with a red bandana

sitting in a small green
flat-bottom boat
holding the thin whip of a pole.

That is something I am unlikely
ever to do, I remember
saying to myself and the person next to me.

Then I blinked and moved on
to other American scenes
of haystacks, water whitening over rocks,

even one of a brown hare
who seemed so wired with alertness
I imagined him springing right out of the frame.

QUOTE: "The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means and hold it fixed so that a hundred years later, when a stranger looks at it, it moves again since it is life." ~ William Faulkner

The Jungle Line (Joni Mitchell)

I'm still glowing from Herbie Hancock's Grammy award for his jazz homage to Joni - interesting analysis below... :-)

A Victory for Jazz, or Just Grammy Being Grammy?
By Ben Ratliff

The New York Times
February 12, 2008

When something newsworthy or popular or positive happens to a jazz musician — a big award, say — many in the jazz world feel astonished for about four seconds, then quickly act very smug. You know: We’ve been sitting here patiently, full of our aesthetic virtue, so used to being ignored, and the world has finally come around to our point of view. Are we happy about it? More to the point, what took you so long?

Are we entitled to feel that way about “River: The Joni Letters,” by Herbie Hancock, being named album of the year at the Grammys on Sunday ? We could, but it would be silly. Perhaps the speculation is true that Amy Winehouse and Kanye West split the vote. And yes, it is very unusual to see a record of such modest sales win the big prize. But inasmuch as it is a jazz album, it is precisely the kind of jazz album that would win this award.

First, let’s just get this over with: Where were you in 1965, Recording Academy, when Mr. Hancock made his venerated album “Maiden Voyage”?

But look one year further back to 1964. “Getz/Gilberto” won, and besides “River,” it is the only more or less jazz album in 50 years of the Grammys to have earned this award. There might be instructive logic there to unravel why “River” beat some records that are far more successful and far more emblematic of their time. (“River” has sold around 55,000 copies, whereas Kanye West’s “Graduation” has sold two million.)

“Getz/Gilberto” was a collaboration between the jazz saxophonist Stan Getz and the bossa nova musician João Gilberto, with his wife at the time, Astrud Gilberto, as occasional singer. It shares some important qualities with “River.”

Both are quite beautiful, though practical: experiments with strong ideas made moderate. Both are syncretist collaborations between a flexible jazz musician and a famously uncompromising genius who invented his or her own style — two musicians of putatively different worlds. Both feature light-voiced singing on a little less than half the tracks.

And on both, the drums sound chastened. (When a jazz record with really assertive, swinging rhythm wins album of the year, then jazz enthusiasts can feel smug. “Good taste” — an idea that means quite a lot in this category of the Grammys — can be telegraphed quickly by reducing the role of the drums.)

“River” isn’t just a jazz record. It is a singer-songwriter record. (Norah Jones, Tina Turner, Corinne Bailey Rae, Leonard Cohen and Luciana Souza are on it, all singing Joni Mitchell songs, as is Ms. Mitchell herself.) It is soft-edged and literate and respectable. It seems, at least, intended as an audience bridger. And it also a very Grammy-ish record, not just because Mr. Hancock, and others on it, have won various Grammys in the past.

Institutions like to congratulate themselves, and giving the prize to “River” can be understood as a celebration of the academy’s more high-minded pop impulses. The best album category, in particular, is often a corrective or an apology for any excesses or shortcomings of the present.

It can amount to a sentimental, history-minded celebration of album culture. At this point it can conjure and lament a lost world of musicians and styles from the 1970s or before, those who actually played instruments, sometimes very well, and trusted their listeners to pay attention to them in 40-minute chunks. From the last 15 years of the award this idea could explain the victories of Ray Charles, Norah Jones, Steely Dan, Santana, Bob Dylan, Tony Bennett and Eric Clapton. (It doesn’t explain Celine Dion, but if we perfectly understood the mind-set of academy members we wouldn’t watch the show.)

Some of what “River” accomplishes as a jazz record is serious indeed. Mr. Hancock’s version of Duke Ellington’s “Solitude” is the modern jazz process itself: a complete reharmonization of a familiar song, with rhythm that keeps vanishing and reappearing. Wayne Shorter’s saxophone playing on many tracks, including his own “Nefertiti” and Ms. Mitchell’s “Edith and the Kingpin,” is casually brilliant — some kind of strange, subconscious vernacular. And though Ms. Mitchell has never called herself a jazz singer, her vocal performance on “The Tea Leaf Prophecy” has a rhythmic assurance that a lot of self-identifying jazz singers could use.

It’s a cool-tempered album, almost drowsy. In so many ways it does seem a strange choice, not just in its modest commercial profile but in that it’s the first album to win this particular award for either Mr. Hancock or Ms. Mitchell. Yet it is also august and exquisitely acceptable: precisely the qualities that this category of the Grammy Awards tends to orient itself around.

[ L.A. Times follow-up article added 2/24/08 ]

SONG: The Jungle Line by Joni Mitchell

BOOK: Jazz Styles: History and Analysis by Mark C. Gridley

POEM: Nightclub by Billy Collins

You are so beautiful and I am a fool

to be in love with you

is a theme that keeps coming up

in songs and poems.

There seems to be no room for variation.

I have never heard anyone sing

I am so beautiful

and you are a fool to be in love with me,

even though this notion has surely

crossed the minds of women and men alike.

You are so beautiful, too bad you are a fool

is another one you don't hear.

Or, you are a fool to consider me beautiful.

That one you will never hear, guaranteed.

For no particular reason this afternoon

I am listening to Johnny Hartman

whose dark voice can curl around

the concepts on love, beauty, and foolishness

like no one else's can.

It feels like smoke curling up from a cigarette

someone left burning on a baby grand piano

around three o'clock in the morning;

smoke that billows up into the bright lights

while out there in the darkness

some of the beautiful fools have gathered

around little tables to listen,

some with their eyes closed,

others leaning forward into the music

as if it were holding them up,

or twirling the loose ice in a glass,

slipping by degrees into a rhythmic dream.

Yes, there is all this foolish beauty,

borne beyond midnight,

that has no desire to go home,

especially now when everyone in the room

is watching the large man with the tenor sax

that hangs from his neck like a golden fish.

He moves forward to the edge of the stage

and hands the instrument down to me

and nods that I should play.

So I put the mouthpiece to my lips

and blow into it with all my living breath.

We are all so foolish,

my long bebop solo begins by saying,

so damn foolish

we have become beautiful without even knowing it.

QUOTE: "A jazz musician is a juggler who uses harmonies instead of oranges." ~ Benny Green

Lullaby for Ruth (John William Davis)

Last night was the "official" full moon, but I didn't have a chance to post about it... since I was viewing it, enveloped in a dimensional cloud cover... from the steaming warmth of my jacuzzi... sipping La Fin du Monde beer... deep in conversation with Danny Schmidt after his show at the Luna Star Cafe a few hours previous...

John William Davis appeared at the same cafe this evening and, being a respectful and appreciative admirer of his music as well, I had to attend - this is a song he wrote for his daughter...

SONG: Lullaby for Ruth by John William Davis

BOOK: The Moon's Lullaby by Josephine Nobisso, Glo Coalson (Illustrator)

POEM: Moon by Billy Collins

The moon is full tonight

an illustration for sheet music,

an image in Matthew Arnold

glimmering on the English Channel,

or a ghost over a smoldering battlefield

in one of the history plays.

It's as full as it was

in that poem by Coleridge

where he carries his year-old son

into the orchard behind the cottage

and turns the baby's face to the sky

to see for the first time

the earth's bright companion,

something amazing to make his crying seem small.

And if you wanted to follow this example,

tonight would be the night

to carry some tiny creature outside

and introduce him to the moon.

And if your house has no child,

you can always gather into your arms

the sleeping infant of yourself,

as I have done tonight,

and carry him outdoors,

all limp in his tattered blanket,

making sure to steady his lolling head

with the palm of your hand.

And while the wind ruffles the pear trees

in the corner of the orchard

and dark roses wave against a stone wall,

you can turn him on your shoulder

and walk in circles on the lawn

drunk with the light.

You can lift him up into the sky,

your eyes nearly as wide as his,

as the moon climbs high into the night.

QUOTE: "By night only crazy things, like the full moon and the whippoorwill and us, are busy." ~ Charles Olson

Christmas in the Ashram (Chris Rosser)

Two Santas from rival department stores walk into a bar and get into a fight. Fortunately, a comma and a period are in the same bar. They get together and separate the two Clauses.

Ba dum pum... or should I say pa rum pa pa pum?... :-)

SONG: Christmas in the Ashram by Chris Rosser

BOOK: Lights of Winter: Winter Celebrations Around the World by Heather Conrad (Author), Deforest Walker (Illustrator)

POEM: Shoveling Snow With Buddha by Billy Collins

In the usual iconography of the temple or the local Wok

you would never see him doing such a thing,

tossing the dry snow over a mountain

of his bare, round shoulder,

his hair tied in a knot,

a model of concentration.

Sitting is more his speed, if that is the word

for what he does, or does not do.

Even the season is wrong for him.

In all his manifestations, is it not warm or slightly humid?

Is this not implied by his serene expression,

that smile so wide it wraps itself around the waist of the universe?

But here we are, working our way down the driveway,

one shovelful at a time.

We toss the light powder into the clear air.

We feel the cold mist on our faces.

And with every heave we disappear

and become lost to each other

in these sudden clouds of our own making,

these fountain-bursts of snow.

This is so much better than a sermon in church,

I say out loud, but Buddha keeps on shoveling.

This is the true religion, the religion of snow,

and sunlight and winter geese barking in the sky,

I say, but he is too busy to hear me.

He has thrown himself into shoveling snow

as if it were the purpose of existence,

as if the sign of a perfect life were a clear driveway

you could back the car down easily

and drive off into the vanities of the world

with a broken heater fan and a song on the radio.

All morning long we work side by side,

me with my commentary

and he inside his generous pocket of silence,

until the hour is nearly noon

and the snow is piled high all around us;

then, I hear him speak.

After this, he asks,

can we go inside and play cards?

Certainly, I reply, and I will heat some milk

and bring cups of hot chocolate to the table

while you shuffle the deck.

and our boots stand dripping by the door.

Aaah, says the Buddha, lifting his eyes

and leaning for a moment on his shovel

before he drives the thin blade again

deep into the glittering white snow.

QUOTE: "In the old days, it was not called the Holiday Season; the Christians called it 'Christmas' and went to church; the Jews called it 'Hanukkah' and went to synagogue; the atheists went to parties and drank. People passing each other on the street would say 'Merry Christmas!' or 'Happy Hanukkah!' or (to the atheists) 'Look out for the wall!' " ~ Dave Barry

Four Legs Good, Two Legs Bad (Christine Kane)

I saw the accompanying cartoon on my friend sharon's blog and, given the topic of today's post coupled with my love of all things Oz, just had to borrow - it's so appropriate!

Okay, I said I would talk about my dog one of these days - meet Rocky Raccoon, my Shih-Tzu (who my friend Brian calls "a piece of sh*tzu... :-)

We bought Rocky from my friend Kimmie when he was three months old (twelve years ago), because it turned out her boyfriend was allergic - actually, we brought him home to spend one night as a trial basis, which has turned into over a decade of mutual love. The first night here he fell into the swimming pool... which he still gives a very wide berth when he's in the backyard - he earned his name because of the black raccoon mask marking across his otherwise white face... and he looks like a cross between an Ewok from Star Wars and Gizmo from the movie Gremlins. We quickly learned his floor-length coat wouldn't be practical in this household (or this heat) so we gave him a puppy cut in the first few weeks we had him, which we've maintained ever since - so much easier...

I was one of those moms who said we'd *never* have a dog - now I can't imagine what we'd do without Rocky. It's typical of the breed to be loyal to everyone in the household, not just one particular person - he loves my husband for the nightly walks they share, my son Robby for feeding and watering, my daughter Sarah because he can jump up on her bed and sleep, my son Eric for playing fetch and rough-and-tumble and me for cuddling/scratching/petting while I'm reading.

I've always called Rocky "the best dog" because he hardly ever barks, he's loving and attentive and he rarely has an accident - just recently we realized his age, took note of the breed's lifespan (11 - 14) and began to get a bit melancholy. He still acts like a puppy, so it's hard to reconcile the equivalent in dog years - I imagine we'll soon have to prepare for the day he leaves us but I just can't do that right now, preferring to enjoy the time we have left...

Another friend sent the following essay not too long ago... and I set it aside just for this occasion - I really do love my Rockstermuffiin... <3

P.S. The book for today's post is Kathy's choice for our mid-December discussion group gathering - K has labs, so she knows of what she speaks!

Remember, if a dog was the teacher you would learn things like:

~ When loved ones come home, always run to greet them.

~ Never pass up the opportunity to go for a joyride.

~ Allow the experience of fresh air and the wind in your face to be pure ecstasy.

~ Take naps.

~ Stretch before rising.

~ Run, romp and play daily.

~ Thrive on attention and let people touch you.

~ Avoid biting when a simple growl will do.

~ On warm days, stop to lie on your back on the grass.

~ On hot days, drink lots of water and lie under a shady tree.

~ When you're happy, dance around and wag your entire body.

~ Delight in the simple joy of a long walk.

~ Be loyal.

~ Never pretend to be something you're not.

~ If what you want lies buried, dig until you find it.

~ When someone is having a bad day, be silent, sit close by and nuzzle them gently.

[ Added 11/13/07: On the flip side, I just read the following in a forwarded e-mail and had to share: Handle every situation like a dog. If you can't eat it or hump it, piss on it and walk away. ]

SONG: Four Legs Good, Two Legs Bad by Christine Kane

BOOK: Marley & Me: Life and Love with the World's Worst Dog by John Grogan

POEM: Dharma by Billy Collins

The way the dog trots out the front door

every morning

without a hat or an umbrella,

without any money

or the keys to her doghouse

never fails to fill the saucer of my heart

with milky admiration.

Who provides a finer example

of a life without encumbrance -

Thoreau in his curtainless hut

with a single plate, a single spoon?

Gandhi with his staff and his holy diapers?
Off she goes into the material world

with nothing but her brown coat

and her modest blue collar,

following only her wet nose,

the twin portals of her steady breathing,

followed only by the plume of her tail.

If only she did not shove the cat aside

every morning

and eat all his food

what a model of self-containment she

would be,

what a paragon of earthly detachment.

If only she were not so eager

for a rub behind the ears,

so acrobatic in her welcomes,

if only I were not her god.

QUOTE: "If you think dogs can't count, try putting three dog biscuits in your pocket and then give him only two of them." ~ Phil Pastoret