Poem??

I've been reading Edna O'Brien's new book, The Little Red Chairs.   And there's this on page 13 (author, if not O'Brien, unknown), though the italic formatting is mine:

"Santa didn't come

His brother took his place

Santa's dead.

Santa's dead?

That's what he said.

Annihilated on his sled?

 That's what he said.

Well, this is it, son,

This is it.

Dark, dark shit....

Good question!!

Finally I have my hands on Robert Henri's book, The Art Spirit.  On page 82, he asks,

Why do we love the sea?  It is because it has some potent power to make us think things we like to think.

 So....What are these things we like to think??

Dancing on the Steps of Coffman....

All Night They Are Dancing

[In prowling around for photos on a collection of jump drives, I found some old poems I wrote back when I lived in Minneapolis.  I'll start with this one.  I was in my Native American poetry phase, and I loved their cadence.]

All night they are dancing on the steps of Coffman
All night the nations are dancing on the steps of Coffman

Homely boy is dancing
Filled with grace,
Wheeling like a gull behind a tractor.

Old Asian man is dancing
Filled with light
Light his steps and light
The space between
His elbows and knees,
Pumping up and down
Like puppet limbs.

Old Asian man is dancing
With old Caucasian woman.
She wears a red raincoat. 
She wears a plaid hat.
She is lovely, old Caucasian woman.
Her oxfords carry her ancient feet like chariots.

Beautiful people are dancing
On the steps of Coffman
Adorned in costly shirts and cutoffs
On the steps of Coffman.

Their hair is richly plaited
Their hair is dyed bright red and black and yellow.

The married couples are dancing.
In ecstasy they are dancing, making one
Out of self they are dancing.
Out of breath they are dancing.
They pinch each other’s behinds as they pass.

Like a wind that winds among the cottonwoods
The people are dancing.
Like leaves of the cottonwood they bow to each other
Like leaves of the sacred tree they make
Holy space between them.

Gentle are the faces they show to one another.
Kindly and fine are the patterns they make.

In dignity and beauty they are dancing
In joy and enthusiasm the people are dancing.

Music sounds from the steps of Coffman
An old dog wears a red bandanna.

The people are awaiting heaven—
The people are creating heaven.

Verbum Sap 3

My friend Mary Lou gave me this motto that she got from the Self-Esteem group at St. Vincent's:
"I correctly take myself into consideration first in all matters."

I asked her what her take was on panhandlers, as I wrestle with this all the time.....She does not fork
over her money.  She said "We are very different in this, Mary Ellen.  I have savings and take care of
myself first."  ok ok.  I get it.  It's hard for me to pass beggars on the street, and there are MANY here in DC.  Mary Lou lives in Soho, NYC, and as you might imagine, there are ample opportunities in that area for her to give away her funds to needy people, also.  But she does not.  And I honor her attitude.  $aving$.  Mary Lou does not have a toilet in her apartment--it's down the hall, and the bathtub is in the kitchen--but she has savings!! and volunteers her time in many ways--something I haven't done in years.  Learning something new and valuable every single day, here.  My dear therapist Jackie used to say "we have to get you over your vow of poverty."  ha.  Yas'm.

 

Painting....

tried oil pastels for a change....this is a copy of a picture, "Burano Houses" by Margaret Evans in her book Pastels, first published in 2008 by Collins, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers. www.collins.co.uk.  

I love working with pastels, even though I don't know anything about it.  Need to get some good fixative to keep the pastels on the canvas board.  I've done two coats of what the Blick guy recommended, but I want something stronger.

And so it goes.  I'm trying to do some clouds, but not getting very far.  There are all kinds of clouds, though...cirrus, stratus, cumulus and infinite combinations thereof.  Hmmm...

Verabum sap 2

One of my former bosses used to say "If you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there,"  Yes!  One of my horoscopes this morning talks about knowing what I want being the first step
toward getting it.  Kinda the same, huh?  It also suggests finding a small dream/desire/longing and identifying that, then doing something to get it.  OK...Israeli/Turkish coffee?  Don't think they sell this ready-to-brew hereabouts....

Paragraphs I love...

Sarah Schulman's Girls, Visions and Everything  has loads of fabulous paragraphs.  Here's one of my favorites:

"Where's Kwame?"

"Arthur took him to the movies.  Every month or so Arthur decides that he wants his son to have exposure to some average American culture so he'll know what people are talking about if he ever crosses Fourteenth Street.  That's the theory anyway.  So he takes him off to the movies.  Halfway through, of course,  all the sexism and racism and gratuitous violence get to be too much.  Arthur gets disgusted and they have to walk out.  Poor Kwame's almost six and he doesn't know movies are ever over.  He thinks they're like the sky, cinematically endless."

When Vacation Is Only 3 Days....

...in a lovely environment.  Nothing like a skyful of

clouds, birdsong, glorious green trees in the mountains.  Bonus:  saw my first Monarch butterfly in years.  Love how they fly.  Tiger Swallowtail, too!!  No bears or deer, though they have been seen there.

Blow the Polls!!!

My first (and probably only) office job in Iowa was for a survey research firm for the broadcast industry, and one of the things I can state with certainty is that you can make a poll say anything you want it to.  So never fear, Hillaryites, and don't get all bloated with pride, Trumpsters (even more than you are).  It's all smoke and mirrors. Holding us all in the light.

Where do socks hide?

Piet Hein said "Losing one glove is certainly painful but nothing compared to the pain of losing one glove, throwing out the other, and finding the first one again."  This applies to socks, too.  Socks are
very important to me, especially since I take public transportation and do a lot of walking to get here
and there.  If the socks are too skinny for the day's shoes, I get tired.  And if the socks are too thick, I just can't manage at all. This is especially true if I want to wear boots, which I find the best footwear for walking.  All that aside, I really love colorful socks.  Last year my daughter Sally sent me three pairs of wonderful colorful socks that she bought at the shop where Annie was working.  I also got
these fabulous mis-matched socks from my grandson Ian and his wife for Xmas one year.



Quite attractive!  Little kids point at them on the metro....More about socks hiding....to be continued.

oh, the tee shirts you see!!

Saw one yesterday on an insouciant woman sauntering up Connecticut Ave:  It said
BOUJOUR, BITCHES!!  I think I love it, and I found it online, too.  For a mere $6.  I
need to find the provenance....maybe it's from the RNC in Cleveland, and if so, I don't want
that.

Friday Again?

YUP, Bad Grandma has survived another week, and here's wot she's discovered.  Used to be, the hardest part of meditating for her was keeping her eyes shut for 20 minutes at a time, 2x a day.  Since she can't hear, she always wanted to keep at least one eye partly open so she could see if anyone else came in  the room (remnant of a childhood fright that has lingered waaaay too long).  So the wise woman at TM said, "Find a safe place." Easy enough--there' a lock on her bedroom door, so she goes in there, locks the door behind her,  sits for 20 minutes with her eyes shut,  saying a made-up mantra
to herself, and she has been doing this for the past week or more by way of practicing for the formal TM.  Enjoys it hugely.  It feels so restful!  After a couple of days of this, she noticed there are a number of 20-minute stretches on the metro and the bus between when she gets on, and when she reaches her stop.  So she started closing her eyes and thinking of the made-up mantra.  Piece of cake!
Now she can "meditate" before bedtime and use travel time to do it. 
Has she noticed any results from this?  Well, not really.  It's fun while she's "meditating," but once she opens her eyes after 20 minutes, she's back in her life circus, which does tend to go on and on.  The point of all this was to bring down her high blood pressure without PILLZ.  And yes, her BP is down,
and although her doctor wants it lower, it hasn't gone back up to scary levels.  AND she has started dreaming again.  Frequently--and long dreams, too. AND this morning she remembered the most effective diet she has ever been on.  She got it almost 40 years ago and lost a pile of weight.  It's not difficult--she just eats regular food--things like lettuce, spinach, celery are free--she can eat as much of those as she
wants.  She's allowed 5 servings of fat/day, but this is another piece of cake.  1 serving of fat usually means 1T of butter or oil or mayonnaise.  But it also can mean 1 strip of bacon or 5 nuts.  In her inimitable way, she figured that 5 peanuts actually meant 10 peanuts after the shell is gone, since there are two nuts per shell--sometimes 3! And she also started using all of her fat quota for peanuts.  So 5 fat things in peanuts is equal to 50 peanuts!!!  An excellent serving.

Anyway, Bad Grandma does love keeping her eyes shut for 20 minutes 2xevery day.   

Thank God it's Friday!!

The library is still open, and so is the bank.  Also, I am reminded of that old New England (?) saying, "Wear it out, use it up, make do, do without" as I declutter my entryway.  It's quite restful to know I can still do all of that.  And there are free movies at the Sackler today & tomorrow, I think. And I think there is a free art studio event at the Portrait Gallery this afternoon.  I used to go, but I quit when I realized I was the only one over age 6.  But now I want to get in some practice on very basic
art techniques.  Something they dint teach me in first or second grade. 

Verbum sap.....

Sister Cyril Clare ('S'tercee'), our liturgy teacher in the convent, used to say "Verbum sap sat est."  Or "A word to the wise is sufficient." 

Today's word to the wise comes from Al-Anon's Daily Reminder:

Perhaps we expect a "good" parent to nurture and support our feelings, or a "loving" spouse to comfort and hold us when we are afraid, or a "caring" child to want to pitch in when we are ill or overwhelmed. While these loved ones may not meet our expectations, it is our expectations, not our loved ones, that have let us down.

Love is expressed in many ways, and people we know  may not be able to express it in the way we would like. But we can try to recognize love whenever and however it is offered. When it is not, we don't have to feel deprived. With the encouragement and support of others, we learn to treat our needs as important and appropriate, and to treat ourselves as deserving.

Today's Reminder

Today someone may or may not be able to give us what we desire. And no one person will ever offer all that we require. If we stop insisting that our needs be met according to our will, we may discover that all the love and support we need is already at our fingertips. 

Good Poach!!

Happy last day of March, 2016.....Here's an especially readable item I poached from Belgian Waffle, who got it from the London Review of Books--:

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n07/terry-castle/diary

Yes, I am for Hillary.  What would you expect??

first news from Belgian Waffle....

One of my very very favorite bloggers is Belgian Waffle.  Yes, from Belgium, but not a real waffle.
This is what she had to say on the day of their horrors last week:

http://www.belgianwaffling.com/2016/03/22-march.html

Also, she has a book coming out very soon:  We'll Always Have Paris--Trying and Failing to be French.  Can't wait!!

Saturday, Feb 6, 2016

This time is an auspicious one for me.  My dad's birthday yesterday (2/5), my pal Cathy's birthday today (2/6), my old h.s. boyfriend Bob's birthday, (2/3).  I feel surrounded by these high-powered Aquarians--with whom the spheres have united me for mutual learning.  Unfortunately, I feel
inferior to these folks in many ways, but I've loved them all and appreciated their appearance
on my stage for so long. L'chaim, all!!  Let's be glad and rejoice. 

BLIZZARD!!

!  Pepco (local power outfit) has called me to warn me about power outages, and wot to do, etc.  I am touched, but holy crap..... nobody ever called us in Fargo, ND, and told us wot to do when  we had REAL blizzards.  Everyone is totally excited about this "blizzard" coming.  I forget that where I live now is the SOUTH.  Not to sound snarky, but they don't know wot a BLIZZARD is.  They think of it as a big snowstorm.  They have never experienced the bitter cold, and they have never gone outside to play in such a storm, and built snow forts, where the temperature inside is less than freezing. I love my life, I love my childhood...and here I am in the City of Satan.

crossword puzzles are good for your brain....most often...

OK, I admit to being a crossword fan.  but sometimes I am stumped.  The Thursday NYT crossword this week starts with "ARCTIC RESIDENT' 4 letters.  My immediate response was "POLE."  But Poles do not live in the Arctic as a rule, even though there are two of them--North and South.  All the other suspects don't fit:  Inuit (5 letters), eskimo (6 letters), ice (3).  Bear with its 4 letters fits, but the cross word clue is "school allowance" (8 letters).  Whatever the hey that might be if it starts with B.  I'll have to keep on checking the cross words.  #2 is "immortal flower in 'Paradise Lost'."  Milton??...and so it goes. Feliz Sabado, y'alls!

New Year....

Love this quote from the 27-year-old Albert Camus:

"We have not overcome our condition, and yet we know it better. We know that we live in contradiction, but we also know that we must refuse this contradiction and do what is needed to reduce it. Our task as [humans] is to find the few principles that will calm the infinite anguish of free souls. We must mend what has been torn apart, make justice imaginable again in a world so obviously unjust, give happiness a meaning once more to peoples poisoned by the misery of the century. Naturally, it is a superhuman task. But superhuman is the term for tasks [we] take a long time to accomplish, that’s all."

Thanks from Brainpickings.org