Bad weather and breakfast
May 15, 2012 § 4 Comments
“A friend is someone who stays with you in the bad weather of life, guards you when you are off your guard, restrains your impetuosity, delights in your wholeness, forgives your failures, does not forsake you when others let you down, and shares whatever he is having for breakfast — moon pie, cold pizza, or fish and chips.” – Brennan Manning, Reflections for Ragamuffins
Little brother’s wedding
April 27, 2012 § 1 Comment
He still seems too young to me, but he always will, I think. He’s the little brother and it can’t be that he’s a grown-up. Even though he’s got a grown-up job, a grown-up apartment, and now, a wife. He makes his own decisions. He makes his own life. My job is to let him, and support him, and love him. (And sometimes play the big sister, even so.)
My sister and her husband and I hopped in their Taurus for a 9-hour drive down to Missouri, where we were met with heat and sunshine. We ate pasta with asparagus and white sauce out on the deck overlooking the Lake of the Ozarks.
Oh, water and boats.
The next day we had some time to explore Lake of the Ozarks State Park. (When you are the sister of the groom, as opposed to the sister of the bride, your wedding responsibilities are somewhat less extensive, so you can do these things!)
The day was misty and a little chilly, but it felt good to get out and hike together.
We saw dogwood trees and columbine. We scrambled up rocky bluffs.
Ah, green.
Some of us dawdled. Others were pressed for time: last-minute shopping for gift wrap and jewelry needed to happen before dinner!
I tend to resist rehearsal dinners, being a little on the shy side. They sometimes seem like an obligation to spend more time with people when the whole wedding day is going to be a crowd for hours and hours. And yet I’ve nearly always enjoyed the rehearsal dinners I’ve gone to. Know why? (1) They usually feel more relaxed than the wedding day proper. (2) You get to know people. Particularly, the family and friends of the person that is marrying the person you are really there for. In the best circumstances, this is a happy and encouraging thing! I don’t know my brother’s wife’s family at all, so it was great to spend dinner chatting with her aunt and uncle, talking about horses with their daughter, and listening to the grandmother’s stories.
Ah, and then the wedding day. This involved some reception set-up and some pictures. And moseying around while other people took more pictures.
We even had an early afternoon siesta on the beach.
Then, le mariage.
Laughter and tears, as always.
At the reception we told stories about growing up with these crazy kids that had now just married each other. And you know those baby-to-wedding photo montage videos? I know everyone does them, but they still get me. Especially, of course, this one. Flashes of memories of my brother over all this time that I’ve known him. Realizing that our lives, because we’re siblings, will always be intertwined. We shared childhood. And seeing Kim grow up gave us a glimpse into her experience of the world. She and Chris made the cupcakes (my favorite was the chocolate with cream filling) and after we all scarfed dessert, the newlyweds headed off for the Virgin Islands.
Where they still are, probably standing knee-deep in turquoise water. Lucky ducks.
And we, their friends and family, are back here, waiting to support and love them in this new journey. Congratulations, you two!
Silly, dreamy love songs
April 27, 2012 § Leave a comment
Happy to hear this one today, for no particular reason. Or maybe because it’s spring.
Embracing the Sky
March 13, 2012 § Leave a comment
Reader-friends. I’ve been remiss in not telling you about my older brother and his amazing book. So here’s the story.
My brother Craig is a young man, college graduate, and remarkable poet. His body challenges him with the trappings of autism and mild cerebral palsy, but his mind is just as sharp as yours and mine. In 2000, he took a year off between high school and college to write a book of poems. (I get to claim a little credit here since I was the one to suggest he do so!) And not long into the following year – his first year of college – Jessica Kingsley Publishers in London, England, picked it up. I still remember that phone call from my mother: “Someone’s publishing Craig’s book!”
For a guy like Craig, who struggles to communicate with speech but sails forward in writing poems and papers by typing, with support, on a computer keyboard, having a book get published is a major victory – and a chance for the rest of the world to hear him as he really is. These are poems beyond disability because they allow readers to see not the outside guy but the reflective artist inside.
Having completed his degree in English literature, he’s hard at work on a second collection of poems these days. I’ve been spending time with him during these at-home days and listening to the new ones come forth. Remembering that voice. And realizing how some of you have yet to discover it!
So, let me encourage you to have a look. Here’s a link: Embracing the Sky by Craig Romkema.
I rest me in the thought
March 13, 2012 § Leave a comment
This is my Father’s world,
and to my listening ears
All nature sings, and round me rings
the music of the spheres.
This is my Father’s world:
I rest me in the thought
Of rocks and trees, of skies and seas;
His hand the wonders wrought.
-Maltbie Davenport Babcock, This Is My Father’s World, 1901
Paradelle
February 22, 2012 § 2 Comments
Have you heard of this form? Poet Billy Collins made it up, to parody strict structured forms of poetry, with a footnote following his “Paradelle for Susan” that explains the rules for this (hardy-har-har) “French fixed form . . . of the eleventh century.”
I read the poem without at first realizing that he had made it intentionally awkward, though I did wonder about those dangling prepositions – because even while poetry lets you bend most grammatical rules, this was a bit much. I pointed these out to my mother (also a writer) and said, “Only Billy Collins could get away with that!”
I read the poem again and thought, How unnecessarily difficult!
And then I thought, I need to try it. I have liked writing sestinas, after all.
It turns out that while Collins proposed this form as a joke, subsequent poets have (a) not realized it and/or (b) decided to work with it, anyway. Red Hen Press has even published an anthology of paradelles that I’m curious to page through. So even if the revered Mr. Collins thinks this sort of thing is silly, the word nerd in me enjoys the puzzle, the playing with language.
Here’s some more info about the paradelle story and structure, and some examples: Paradelle, POA.
And here is my first attempt (feel free to give it the good ol’ workshop critique!):
—–
A Paradelle for Change
Where the bluebells end
Where the bluebells end
We come to the edge, laughing.
We come to the edge, laughing.
The end edge where we come
To the laughing bluebells
Is jagged, steep, a mile above
Is jagged, steep, a mile above
The river’s bending path.
The river’s bending path.
Above the jagged path,
Bending river, is a steep mile.
We fear not the gap. Hands hold
We fear not the gap. Hands hold
Together. We unfold our wings.
Together. We unfold our wings.
Our wings unfold, not fear. We, together.
The gap. We hold hands.
Where is the edge? The laughing
River’s mile gap above fear? We come,
We to the blubells, together.
A jagged,steep path. Not the end.
Hands bending, we unfold.
Our wings hold.
—–
Anyone else want to have a go? Send or link me to yours!
Roads ought to wind
February 21, 2012 § 2 Comments
At least a little. It allows us surprises.
Do you know what I found beyond this turn? A view reaching across open green hills. Warm sunshine. A bookstore.
So love the world
February 14, 2012 § 1 Comment
Thanks to Darling Magazine for bringing a handful of world-reaching nonprofits, and the business No One Without, to my attention. And another way to think about what this day can mean.
Sandpiper
February 9, 2012 § 6 Comments
When I was maybe thirteen, we were reading a collection of short stories as a family (we were great readers, together and on our own). I don’t remember the name of the book, but one story told of a woman who had gone to the beach to deal with her grief. She befriends a little girl at the edge of the water, a child with a tendency to find the happy things of the world. The girl has leukemia, or something like that, though the woman doesn’t know this until later on. If I’m remembering correctly, the child dies. But the girl loved sandpipers, and left the woman with a drawing of one and a bidding to be joyful (again, if memory serves me . . . has anyone else read this tale?). The title of the story I do remember: “A Sandpiper to Bring You Joy.” This phrase comes to mind so often for me, at random times, and always when I come across anything to do with sandpipers. I love it, and I don’t know why, except perhaps because of how it involves such a small, natural thing offered for the uplifting of another’s spirit.
Photo Credit: US Fish & Wildlife Service
So. Here you go. A sandpiper to bring you joy.
More thoughts on dirt: art from the soil
January 27, 2012 § Leave a comment
Masaccio: The Tribute Money
The fresco painters of the Italian Renaissance found themselves in a peculiar position with respect to color. They had available to them a large number of vegetable- and mineral-derived pigments, but the technique of fresco (that is, working on wet plaster) limited them largely to the earth’s palette, because the alkali in the plaster tended to decompose and disperse the vegetable-based dyes. The very rich colors of Masaccio’s frescoes are almost all derived directly from the soil. The reds, browns, and yellows are from ochre. The green is from a reduced clay called terre verte. The umber came straight from the earth of Sienna. The whole Christian drama is expressed in the colors of the earth.
– William Bryant Logan, Dirt: The Ecstatic Skin of the Earth
Kinds of Honey 