You never know what we'll churn up in cleaning a stall
When I first began reading contemporary poetry (for pleasure, independent of classroom assignment), I often sensed the poem existed as a single line or two, with the rest of the work as window dressing.
Now I read the Psalms much the same way, for the poem within the poem, or at least the nugget I’m to wrestle with on this occasion. Psalm 81, for instance, has both the “voice in thunder” and “honey from rock.” What exactly are those in my own experience?
What was the best year of your life and how did it look?
Pondering the possibilities for my most perfect year, I see how much even the best was tainted.
’72, I had the high of the ashram but it involved going through a lot of psychological muck and growth to get there. See Yoga Bootcamp for the parallels.
’73 was the whirlwind with my future wife, but I was laboring at subsistence pay, at best. See Nearly Canaan for the parallels.
’83 encompassed both my divorce and an exhilarating engagement with the young cellist who promised to be The One. It was also crushed in long workdays as a shirtsleeves manager in a newsroom, no matter how engaging I found the challenge professionally.
’86, I was deeply ensconced in a self-awarded sabbatical, but generally loveless. The core of my fiction was drafted in this period, and my circle of friends included Mennonites and my introduction to part-singing.
’99, the excitement of the ultimate woman in my life, as well as our frustrations in trying to find a home we could afford along with some emotional upheavals at the office.
2021, my exile to Eastport in what became a heavenly writer’s retreat, resulting in the publication of Quaking Dover the next year. It did mean being apart from my family and friends back in Dover for much of the time, but included exploring the fantastic outdoors of the waters and woodlands around me as well as the artistic stimulation of my new community.
So here I am now, with what’s turning into the home of my dreams in the sunset of this life.
My goal of having our family operating on a Quaker Meeting decision-making process.
Yes, trying to find concesus with young children in the house. We’re all on board, right?
Let’s just say I failed here. My, was a naïve when I jumped in as a stepdad in my mid-50s!
Not just because of a rebellious younger member, whom I deeply adore. But also because of the parent/adult dynamics and tensions.
No doubt, I pictured myself as the clerk, that is moderator. The mother, however, is what the one in the movie My Fat Greek Wedding Declared, the throat, ultimately rules.
Saint Paul should stand fully corrected regarding the head of the household. The mother’s is great theology.
Just how are decisions really made in families? I’d love to listen in on the discussions.
I’ve been on a flippant streak.
Hope others have seen it as light-hearted or even funny rather than offensive.
Usually, it’s to get either the spiders she fears or the dust she’s allergic to.
Yes, some chores can be seen as acts of love or devotion.
Even if I would rather avoid housekeeping altogether.
Being a classical music fan induces a peculiar sense of history. If you love fine paintings or theater or literature, you may encounter something similar.
I found some of this being stirred up while sitting through a concert where Debussy was the oldest music performed. He was still considered “modern” when I began attending concerts in 1959 or so. He died in 1918, shortly before my parents were born. Not that far back, then.
For additional perspective, some major Romantic-era composers like Tchaikovsky, who died in 1893, or Saint-Saens, 1923, or Puccini, 1924, weren’t all that distant from me at the time, though it seemed they were much more ancient, say closer to Mozart. The span between them and me at the time would fit into my own life now.
I do recall hearing a live performance of the Tchaikovsky fourth symphony under Lukas Foss and the Buffalo Philharmonic and during the rapturous applause afterward have the gentleman sitting beside me lean over and say, “You should have heard it under Reiner in Cincinnati, as my wife and I did.” That would have been only 50 years after its composition, and this was 30 or so years later.
What is striking me is how much harder it’s been for new music to catch on since then. I don’t think it all has to do with the attempt to write in more original – and often strident – styles.
There’s also a looping of generations, as would happen when a ten-year-old heard something from someone who was 80 relating something he or she had heard at age ten from an 80-year-old’s encounter at age ten with an 80-year-old from age ten. It wouldn’t be hard to have two-century span at hand.
Now, as for naming compositions from the last 50 years that have entered the standard repertoire, it would be a shockingly short list.
This thing of feeling a day off, morning after morning. You know, thinking it’s Wednesday when it’s Tuesday … or the other way around.
Or feeling you’re a month behind the calendar. You rarely feel you’re ahead, do you?
Sometimes we’re even on the same page that way.
You’re not the artist you thought you were.
Or musician.
Often, you were much better.
Or my standards were too low.
My question was only, “What’s going on with someone who has” a certain sun sign with these rising and moon signs.
The astrologer, Hollywood actress, then told me, “Let her go. She’s trouble. You love her very much, don’t you.”
I had witnesses who were astonished. My question had been gender-neutral.
