Watching the Wheels (John Lennon and Yoko Ono)

Such a great birthday yesterday; I hit the ground running in the local community outreach garden, which I have committed to do once a week.  It kicked my *ss, but in the best possible way; I was dirty but happy (and delighted to wear a pair of the adorable gardening gloves Melanie sent... 😍 )

Chico and Rob took me out for lunch (Pollo Tropical has a vegan wrap - yum!).  Came home, showered, napped, then headed to Sarah and Colin's for an early dinner from Parlour Vegan (and Eric surprised me there, when I thought he had to work!).

Was delighted by the plethora of phone calls, texts, e-mails, gifts, and thoughtfulness in general all day from family and friends near and far.  I remain grateful for my support circle, which is sometimes a parallelogram, which is perfectly fine as well... 💞  

Lower back.  Ouch!  Upper hamstrings.  Eek!  More stretching in my future so I can kick the garden's *ss this time, instead of the other way around... 😁

It is indeed Feel Good Friday and, as is tradition, five items below of beauty, interest, and humor to brighten your day/weekend/week.  Enjoy! 

~ The 2021 Met Gala Is Going Plant-Based—Here’s Why:  Yes, people eat at the Met Gala. And this year, for the first time ever, the chef-curated menu will be 100% plant-based.

~ So Many Tchotchkes, So Little Time:  Instagram stores that specialize in knickknacks are booming. Blame the pandemic.

~ ‘Wicked’ Hits the Road, Carrying the Hopes of Broadway Tours:  The production, which starts Tuesday in Dallas, is the first Broadway tour back onstage, a test as American theaters seek to rebound from the pandemic shutdown.

~ Our Buy Nothing Project Mission:  We offer people a way to give and receive, share, lend, and express gratitude through a worldwide network of hyper-local gift economies in which the true wealth is the web of connections formed between people who are real-life neighbors. (thanks and love to Michele for the heads-up to this wonderful project... ❤ )

~ The Extraordinary Presence of Frida Kahlo

SONG:  Watching the Wheels by John Lennon and Yoko Ono

BOOK:  Great Quotes For Gardeners: Reflection, Inspiration, And Some Humor For Those Who Love Gardens by Craig Hlas

POEM:  I Would Like by Jane Hirshfield

I would like

my living to inhabit me

the way

rain, sun, and their wanting

inhabit a fig or apple.

I would like to meet it

also in pieces,

scattered:

a conversation set down

on a long hallway table;

a disappointment

pocketed inside a jacket;

some long-ago longing glimpsed,

half-recognized,

in the corner of a thrift store painting.

To discover my happiness,

walking first

toward

then away from me

down a stairwell,

on two strong legs all its own.

Also,

the uncountable

wheat stalks,

how many times broken,

beaten, sent

between grindstones,

before entering

the marriage

of oven and bread—

Let me find my life in that, too.

In my moments

of clumsiness, solitude;

in days of vertigo and hesitation;

in the many year-ends

that found me

standing on top of a stovetop

to take down a track light.

In my nights’ asked,

sometimes answered, questions.

I would like

to add to my life,

while we are still living,

a little salt and butter,

one more slice of the edible apple,

a teaspoon of jam

from the long-simmered fig.

To taste

as if something tasted for the first time

what we will have become then.

QUOTE:  "First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do." ~ Epictetus

The Red Thread (Lucy Kaplansky)

From today's Writer's Almanac... about one of my favorite poets:

It's the birthday of the poet William Stafford, born in Hutchinson, Kansas, in 1914. He usually wrote poetry in the early morning. He sat down with a pen and paper, looked out the window, and waited for something to occur to him. He wrote about farms and winter, about the West and his parents and cottonwood trees.

He wrote,

In the winter, in the dark hours, when others

were asleep, I found these words and put them

together by their appetites and respect for

each other. In stillness, they jostled. They traded

meanings while pretending to have only one.

And about his own writing, Stafford said, "I have woven a parachute out of everything broken."

It's been an interesting (in the Chinese definition of the word) week - I already mentioned the full day of appointments for my friend on Tuesday... and Wednesday evening, Reba called and asked if I would come over Thursday to keep her company when the funeral home delivered Vic's cremains. We chatted while waiting, and went up to a local bagel place afterwards for an early lunch - I then picked up my friend for a follow-up doctor's appointment, at which point they removed her stitches and set up home physical therapy visits.

Somewhere along the way, I must have pulled something in my back (lifting her wheelchair in and out of my car), and I've been experiencing electrical twinges ever since - I did my walk yesterday which made it feel worse (and not better, as I had hoped), so I sat with the heating pad last night, took two ibuprofen last night before I went to bed and it does seem less painful this morning. Will do more stretching soon and walk again this afternoon - this cannot happen...

I've also been thinking about how wise the Universe is, in that every time I help someone else out, I'm paying it forward in semi-compensation and gratitude for those who are helping my mom - there are so many generous spirits in Georgia, doing what needs to be done to make her life easier... and I am glad I can be someone else's angel down here...

Speaking of my mom... I'll be leaving early Wednesday morning for a week-long visit with her, returning late Tuesday night - she was ecstatic when I called to tell her, especially after I emphasized it was spontaneous and not because of anything her doctors said (it's been full-disclosure all along, and will continue to be). I asked her to make a list of things she needs done around the house so I can help in that regard - I also want to do some cooking for her, and portion food out to freeze so she always has something healthy and easy on hand.

Then we'll just chill and chat and bond (oh my!)... with an evening reserved for a meeting with her, me, my sister and brother to discuss short- and long-term options - there are some tentative plans in the works I really can't divulge right now. I'm also bringing a few books and my walking shoes, so I can continue my vision of self-nurturing - as long as I'm still unemployed, I might as well take advantage of this opportunity to spend some quality time with mom...

P.S. SMM...

SONG: The Red Thread by Lucy Kaplansky

BOOK: Connections: The 5 Threads of Intuitive Wisdom by Gabrielle Roth

POEM: Ask Much, The Voice Suggested by Jane Hirshfield

Ask much, the voice suggested, and I startled.

Feeling my body like the trembling body of a horse

tied to its tree while the strange noise

passes over its ears.

I who in extremity had always wanted less,

even of eating, of sleeping.

Agile, the voice did not speak again, but waited.

"Want more" --

a cure for longing I had not thought of.

But that is how it is with wells.

Whatever is taken refills to the steady level.

The voice agreed, though softly, to quiet the feet of the horse:

a cup taken out, a cup reappears; a bucketful taken, a bucket.

QUOTE: "When you tug at a single thing in nature, you find it attached to the rest of the world." ~ John Muir

Book of Love (Dar Williams)

So... here's the report on the Dar-part of my long weekend in Atlanta... :-)

We arrived at Eddie's Attic a bit before 6 p.m. (when the doors were supposed to open) and met up with my college friend Steve (who I hadn't seen in over a year) and his new wife Betty (who I'd never met) - Steve has joined us on Dar excursions in the past, so it was already shaping up to be a dear and comfortable evening. There was a young woman in a wheelchair waiting in line... and my mom, with her ongoing health issues, is now on oxygen - Eddie (the owner) and Bob (another employee) came out to carry/escort the young woman and Mom up the long flight of stairs so they could get settled before they allowed the rest of the crowd to enter (very thoughtful and classy).

Our reserved table was about three rows back (what a wonderful, intimate listening room!), with Steve and Betty right behind us… and I had a chance to catch up a bit with Blair, there with her husband Jason (impossible to believe her Nora is already 2 years old!) - we ordered drinks and dinner and, while we were waiting for the food to arrive, Betty and I decided to check out the merch table before the show started.

I was trying to decide which T-shirt to buy (I finally settled on the short-sleeved blue with the tree coming out of the writing woman’s head – okay, that sounds strange, but it’s very cool) – the fine print on the care instructions tag reads: “Take care of your shirt and the earth: wash cold and hang dry. Take care of yourself: eat good food and make sure to rest sometimes.”… and being bamboo/hemp/organic cotton… it is, as Amy W. noted in a previous post, amazingly soft… :-)

But I digress: as I was chatting with the merch girl (hi, Orrie!), who already had a semester off school and decided to quit her job at Starbucks to take advantage of the opportunity to tour with Dar… I heard someone behind me say, “There she is…” and it was Dar! – we hugged and chatted and I had the occasion to remind her of a song request I’d e-mailed to Patty to pass on… as well as discuss a potential Florida show (fingers crossed!). I asked if she’d be doing a meet-and-greet between shows, since we were only staying for the All Ages first one (and sweet sharon goldberg had sent me Promised Land posters, which I hoped to get signed) – she said she wasn’t intending to be visible at that time, but told me where we could find her. We said goodbye and I purchased my shirt and went back in, just as Eddie was introducing Dar…

The set list was pretty much as I’ve seen posted here for previous shows – Heather Lloyd (who has another musical incarnation at http://www.ilyaimy.com/) was terrific on djembe and harmony vocals, subtle when called for and strong when required. Bryn Roberts was equally captivating on keyboards and harmony vocals – I especially loved watching him watching Dar tell her always-charming between-song-stories, and delighting in the audience reaction.

Since it was the early show, there was no opening act but, since the tour up to this point had included Shawn Mullins (and he’s an Atlantan), he sang a few songs with Dar and then showcased one of his tunes, Beautiful Wreck, on which Dar harmonized – Dar quipped afterwards that it wasn’t a good song to have eye contact on… “you’re a beautiful wreck”… “no, *you’re* a beautiful wreck”… :-)

And the moment came where Dar began the story of Vince Gill and Amy Grant having a baby… so I knew what was to follow… and she then said, “this song is a request from Susan Moss to her mother Connie” (it was from Mari and Julia too), nodded in Mom’s direction, saying “it’s good to see you again” (they’d met a few years back at The Variety Playhouse) and proceeded to play The One Who Knows, at which point Mari and I started to weep… and Julia looked at each of us, wondering what was going on. Mom semi-gasped an “oh”… then “thanks, Dar”… then grabbed my hand… then *she* started crying – Dar followed this with The Babysitter’s Here, which we’ve always considered “Julia’s song”. Someone later asked if we were four generations – I said no, only three but that, since I was 13 years older, I’d always considered myself Mari’s second mother anyway (which Mari can confirm)...

The audience was enthusiastic (our show as well as the next was sold out) and Dar was relaxed, in stunning voice and appreciative of the warm reception – we filed out as they prepared for the second show and spotted Dar in a corner of the bar area, whereupon she nodded to us (Mari, Julia, Betty and me) to come over, where we chatted some more, she signed our posters and Julia had a chance to tell Dar she did a book report on Amalee (which I’d given as a birthday present a few years ago). The second show was fast approaching and we reluctantly said goodbye, chattering excitedly and sighing blissfully on the 45-minute drive home.

Thanks, Mom, for raising us to be Ones Who Know… thanks, Mari, for all the driving (and *so* much more!)… and thanks, Julia, for being the coolest kid ever – thanks to Dar for providing us with yet another occasion to make memories… <3

P.S. And another Star Maker Machine post - yay!

SONG: Book of Love by Dar Williams

BOOK: Backstage Pass: Interviews With Women in Music by Laura Post (foreword by Dar Williams)

POEM: Autumn Quince by Jane HirscLhfield

How sad they are,

the promises we never return to.

They stay in our mouths,

roughen the tongue, lead lives of their own.

Houses built and unwittingly lived in;

a succession of milk bottles brought to the door

every morning and taken inside.

And which one is real?

The music in the composer's ear

or the lapsed piece the orchestra plays?

The world is a blurred version of itself --

marred, lovely, and flawed.

It is enough.

QUOTE: "Never make your home in a place. Make a home for yourself inside your own head. You'll find what you need to furnish it - memory, friends you can trust, love of learning, and other such things. That way it will go with you wherever you journey." ~ Tad Williams

D. B. Cooper (Todd Snider)

This news story came across the AP wires this morning... at about the same time this poem's e-newsletter arrived in my inbox - somehow, in my metempsychotic (I learned a new word today!) brain, they seemed to fit... :-)

FBI Hopes Chute Opens Up Skyjacker Mystery
Investigators Analyzing Parachute for Link to Suspect D.B. Cooper
by PIERRE THOMAS, JACK DATE and THERESA COOK

March 26, 2008

It's dirty and it's old, but a piece of cloth found in a Washington field might hold the key to solving one of the FBI's most enduring mysteries.

On Nov. 24, 1971, an unassuming man wearing a business suit and appearing to be in his mid-40s allegedly hijacked and threatened to blow up a Northwest Orient Airlines plane traveling from Portland, Ore., to Seattle if he did not get four parachutes and a $200,000 ransom.

When the plane landed in Seattle, the suspect, known only as Dan Cooper or D.B. Cooper, allowed the passengers and two flight attendants off the plane, and the officials handed over the money, in $20 bills, and the parachutes.

According to the FBI, Cooper simply told the remaining crew to "fly to Mexico" after they took off from Seattle.

"Back in the early '70's, late '60's, hijackings weren't uncommon. The philosophy of the day was cooperate. Comply with his demands and we'll deal with it when the plane lands," said Larry Carr, an FBI special agent who manages the case out of the bureau's office in Seattle.

In a daring getaway, Cooper jumped out of the speeding 727, thousands of feet over the Pacific Northwest, during a raging storm. Cooper disappeared, and is still missing today, despite a massive manhunt.

In 1980, the case was put in the spotlight once again, after a young boy found $5,800 in $20 bills from the ransom money decomposing along the banks of the Columbia River.
But no Cooper.

Countless suspects have emerged, but none have turned out to be the mystery man. In 2001, the FBI extracted a DNA sample from the J.C. Penney tie he was wearing on the flight and left behind before jumping, but that sample hasn't matched up with anyone in the investigators' sights.

Cooper's story became the stuff of lore, even a movie. Now, more than three decades later, the FBI has the possibility of a breakthrough.

Two weeks ago, two children discovered a parachute buried in the dirt, in a field approximately 100 miles south of Seattle. Investigators still need to excavate part of the chute's remains.

"It's the right color, it's the right size. It's definitely the right location, so the investigation will tell," said Carr.

He told ABC News he hopes the forensic tests on the chute will be completed this weekend.

He noted that parachutes buried in the middle of nowhere aren't something found very often, so the find could offer a big break in the case if it pans out.

But does the parachute belong to Cooper? Will they find his remains? Or is this a tantalizing clue that will again lead to disappointment? Stay tuned.

SONG: D. B. Cooper by Todd Snider

BOOK(S): D. B. Cooper - Portrait of an American Hijacker by Biographiq (2008)

Norjak: the Investigation of D B Cooper by Ralph P. Himmelsbach (1986)

POEM: Metempsychosis by Jane Hirshfield

Some stories last many centuries,

others only a moment.

All alter over that lifetime like beach-glass,

grow distant and more beautiful with salt.

Yet even today, to look at a tree

and ask the story Who are you? is to be transformed.

There is a stage in us where each being, each thing, is a mirror.

Then the bees of self pour from the hive-door,

ravenous to enter the sweetness of flowering nettles and thistle.

Next comes the ringing a stone or violin or empty bucket

gives off-

the immeasurable's continuous singing,

before it goes back into story and feeling.

In Borneo, there are palm trees that walk on their high roots.

Slowly, with effort, they lift one leg then another.

I would like to join that stilted transmigration,

to feel my own skin vertical as theirs:

an ant-road, a highway for beetles.

I would like not minding, whatever travels my heart.

To follow it all the way into leaf-form, bark-furl, root-touch,

and then keep walking, unimaginably further.

QUOTE(S): History, like a vast river, propels logs, vegetation, rafts, and debris; it is full of live and dead things, some destined for resurrection; it mingles many waters and holds in solution invisible substances stolen from distant soils." ~ Jacques Barzun

"Civilization is a stream with banks. The stream is sometimes filled with blood from people killing, stealing, shouting and doing the things historians usually record, while on the banks, unnoticed, people build homes, make love, raise children, sing songs, write poetry and even whittle statues. The story of civilization is the story of what happened on the banks. Historians are pessimists because they ignore the banks for the river." ~ Will Durant

I Am a Rock (Simon and Garfunkel)

Hey, I never said this Valentine's Day countdown was going to be all wine and roses - one must honor lost love as well, right?

Homestead is only an hour south of me and I've yet to visit this landmark - soon, I've promised myself...

Coral Rock Castle: The House that Heartbreak Built

2/6/2008

Ever been dumped?

Most of us have. And we've got all sorts of stories about how we've tried to win back the object of our affections.

Did you make a mix-tape full of her favorite songs in hopes of warming her heart, a la John Cusack's music geek character in High Fidelity? Or, for a more romantic gesture, you might have serenaded your sweetheart with a boombox outside her bedroom window (John Cusack again, as Say Anything's prototypical "sensitive guy," Lloyd Dobler). Or you might have just left a bunch of pathetic messages on your ex's answering machine, though we have a feeling your success rate's not so high in that case (unless you're John Cusack).

We know of just one man who could beat Cusack's celluloid record for romantic obsession: Ed Leedskalnin, a Latvian immigrant who spent his whole life pining away for Agnes Scuffs, the sixteen year old girl who ditched him just days before their wedding. After Agnes left him, Leedskalnin was absolutely heartbroken, and pledged to win her back. His method of choice? Building a rock garden in honor of his sweetheart, which he called Coral Rock Castle.

The "castle," located in Homestead, Florida, is no mere monument – it's a huge, sprawling structure, with a nine-ton gate, a 28-ton sun dial, a water well, a fountain, a heart-shaped table, and a 5,000-pound throne, along with a range of other curiosities. In total, the grounds include more than 1,100 tons of oolic limestone.

Leedskalnin began building the castle in 1923, and never let up until his death in 1951. He worked only at night, and gave ten-cent tours of the unfinished palace throughout his lifetime. Sadly, Leedskalnin's lost love, Agnes Scuffs, never came to see the magnificent stone garden that he had built in her honor. Her throne would remain empty forever.

We know it already sounds pretty strange, but here's the weirdest part: Leedskanin, who was only five feet tall and 100 pounds, and had only a fourth grade education, reputedly assembled the entire massive structure himself, with no help – even though some of the individual stones weigh as much as 30 tons, which is heavier than the blocks in the Egyptian pyramids.

Over the years, plenty of people have come up with their own theories about how the lovesick Leedskalnin constructed the amazing monument. Some believe that he was aided by extraterrestrials, or that Leedskalnin himself had supernatural powers. Even the great Albert Einstein had been unable to deduce Leedskalnin's methods, though some engineers believe that Leedskalnin used a block-and-tackle system, which is a common engineering technique. (Though not so common for a fourth-grade dropout.)

Whether or not he was some sort of superhero, or had a race of alien amigos to help him build his palace, it's certain to say that Ed Leedskalnin was one of a kind. We just don't know how Agnes let him slip away.

SONG: I Am a Rock by Simon and Garfunkel

BOOK: Love Rocks Postcard Book by Gardner Juliane

POEM: Burlap Sack by Jane Hirshfield

A person is full of sorrow

The way a burlap sack is full of stones or sand.

We say, "Hand me the sack,"

But we get the weight.

Heavier if left out in the rain.

To think that the stones or sand are the self is an error.

To think that grief is the self is an error.

Self carries grief as a pack mule carries the side bags,

Being careful between the trees to leave extra room.

The self is not the load of ropes and nails and axes.

The self is not the miner nor builder nor driver.

What would it be to take the bride

And leave behind the heavy dowry?

To let the thin-ribbed mule browse in tall grasses,

Its long ears waggling like the tails of two happy dogs?

QUOTE: "Man is harder than rock and more fragile than an egg." ~ Yugoslav Proverb

Anyway (Suzzy and Maggie Roche)

“Zero Church” is a collection of 17 non-denominational prayers... a result of work we [Suzzy and Maggie Roche] began at Anna Deavere Smith's Institute on the Arts & Civic Dialogue. “The Institute focuses on artistic collaboration & discovery while exploring issues of race, identity, diversity, and community.”

We collected prayers from people of many walks of life and set them to music. Many of the prayers were written by the folks who gave them to us... some are more traditional. Guest vocalists include Terre and David Roche, Dr. Ysaye Barnwell (from Sweet Honey & The Rock), Joel Bard, Ruben Martinez & Francis Bok.

For all those who have been inquiring about the song “Anyway,” which is on “Zero Church”, we have heard from the original author of the words! His name is Kent Keith and he wrote “The Paradoxical Commandments” in 1968 as part of a booklet for student council leaders. Since then the “Commandments” have traveled thoughout the world and taken several different forms. There is in fact a version on the wall of Mother Teresa’s orphanage which is slightly different from his original text...it is called “Anyway”... however, the version which was given to us is yet a third version and Kent Keith doesn't know the exact origin. However it was entitled “The Final Analysis.” I urge anyone who is interested in this song to check out Mr. Keith's website.

SONG: Anyway by Suzzy and Maggie Roche

BOOK: Anyway: The Paradoxical Commandments: Finding Personal Meaning in a Crazy World by Kent M. Keith, Spencer Johnson

POEM: Optimism by Jane Hirshfield

More and more I have come to admire resilience.
Not the simple resistance of a pillow, whose foam
returns over and over to the same shape, but the sinuous
tenacity of a tree: finding the light newly blocked on one side,
it turns in another. A blind intelligence, true.
But out of such persistence arose turtles, rivers,
mitochondria, figs -- all this resinous, unretractable earth.

QUOTE: "As I grow older I pay less attention to what men say. I just watch what they do." ~ Andrew Carnegie

The Truth of a Woman (Kristina Olsen)

My friend M posted this YouTube link to her website not too long ago... and I've since received it from other friends as well - I found the film collage brilliantly creative... and, combined with today's song and poem, perfectly suited. Enjoy!

SONG: The Truth of a Woman by Kristina Olsen

BOOK: Painting Women: Cosmetics, Canvases, and Early Modern Culture by Patricia Phillippy

POEM: Red Berries by Jane Hirshfield

Again the pyrocanthus berries redden in rain,
as if return were return.

It is not.

The familiar is not the thing it reminds of.
Today's yes is different from yesterday's yes.
Even no's adamance alters.

From painting to painting,
century to century,
the tipped-over copper pot spills out different light;
the cut-open beeves,
their caged and muscled display,
are on one canvas radiant, pure; obscene on another.

In the end it is simple enough-

The woman of this morning's mirror
was a stranger
to the woman of last night's;
the passionate dreams of the one who slept
flit empty and thin
from the one who awakens.

One woman washes her face,
another picks up the boar-bristle hairbrush,
a third steps out of her slippers.
That each will die in the same bed means nothing to them.

Our one breath follows another like spotted horses, no two alike

Black manes and white manes, they gallop.
Piebald and skewbald, eyes flashing sorrow, they too will pass.

QUOTE: "Art is the only thing you cannot punch a button for. You must do it the old-fashioned way. Stay up and really burn the midnight oil. There are no compromises." ~ Leontyne Price