because i'm tired. healthy and happy, yes, but sooo busy, and thus, tired. Maybe because I'm learning this.
working on some ideas for posts, though. i'll write something soon.
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Saturday, December 25, 2010
One of My Favorite Christmas Poems
Journey of the Magi
T.S. Eliot
T.S. Eliot
A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty, and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.
Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.
All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we lead all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I have seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty, and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.
Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.
All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we lead all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I have seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.
Monday, December 13, 2010
Monday, November 29, 2010
Comforting
When your family is in Arizona because your brother and his wife and two little girls are moving, and you're at home alone, at the foothill of the mountain with a snow-packed and -drifted lane, your lungs rigid with bronchitis, it's super nice to get a call at 10 PM from your aunt next door, letting you know that she and her husband, your dad's youngest brother, will be over in an instant, ready to drive you to the doctor or the ER or just bring you soup, if you think you need it.
It's good to know you can count on family. Thanks, Nancy.
It's good to know you can count on family. Thanks, Nancy.
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Sound Mind
The more I live the life of music the more I am convinced that it is the freely imaginative mind that is at the core of all vital music making…An imaginative mind is essential to the creation of art in any medium, but it is even more essential in music precisely because it is the freest, the most abstract, the least fettered of all the arts. --Aaron Copland
Sometimes,
when my brain is littered
with pieces of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier,
heaps of String Quartets,
Shostakovich Symphonies, Rachmaninov Etudes
and Requiems;
when my mind begins
to lounge amidst
the supple sexiness of Melody Gardot's ballads and songs--
the verve with which
The Paris Combo spins a joking scale--
the poignant throb inside
an Orpheus and Euridice--
it's all I can do to remain
sanely, confidently
connected to the balance of a world outside myself.
So much sound sings and I am possessed.
Inexplicably, I turn
inward
and listen,
beguiled by the musics of other men.
It is an ecstasy,
becoming lost and not lost among
the antecedents and their consequents
(these: the questions worked out and answered by Chopin and Chicago and Sinatra),
and I find peace.
But I am afraid, too,
when my sound mind is seduced--
I remember Beethoven
muttering and humming his symphonies to himself, hair-wild and stammering on a street.
outside
apart
alone
An apostle or an amusement:
a crazy man people quickly pass.
Sometimes,
when my brain is littered
with pieces of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier,
heaps of String Quartets,
Shostakovich Symphonies, Rachmaninov Etudes
and Requiems;
when my mind begins
to lounge amidst
the supple sexiness of Melody Gardot's ballads and songs--
the verve with which
The Paris Combo spins a joking scale--
the poignant throb inside
an Orpheus and Euridice--
it's all I can do to remain
sanely, confidently
connected to the balance of a world outside myself.
So much sound sings and I am possessed.
Inexplicably, I turn
inward
and listen,
beguiled by the musics of other men.
It is an ecstasy,
becoming lost and not lost among
the antecedents and their consequents
(these: the questions worked out and answered by Chopin and Chicago and Sinatra),
and I find peace.
But I am afraid, too,
when my sound mind is seduced--
I remember Beethoven
muttering and humming his symphonies to himself, hair-wild and stammering on a street.
outside
apart
alone
An apostle or an amusement:
a crazy man people quickly pass.
Things That Just Fit
- an old pair of perfect jeans
- a quiet corner of the library
- chai tea after a blizzard
- mom's arms
- neruda
- movies at midnight
- merry-go-rounds
- english toffee on Christmas eve
- A 440
...we're playing together again!!!
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
All You Need is Love (and, Perhaps, a Laugh or Two)
I drove home last week to have lunch with my cute mom and dad. After discussing our common ground and diverging thoughts on Boyd K. Packer's talk, I smiled at my parents and teased, "Well just look at our little Mormon modern family: you've got a son who's gay, a son who's married to a non-member, a son who's currently being pursued by (gasp) a fabulous black girl, and a son who'd travel back in time to 1890 just so he could farm and earn a living at it. Who would've thought?"
We shared a laugh, and then my mom said, "Yeah. Not quite what we pictured, but it's what we've got. And we love each of you, no matter what."
No, life doesn't always comply with the picture you paint in your head. I'm quite certain my parents envisioned a completely different outcome when they first embarked on the process of rearing a family. But, being the beautiful people they are, they've adjusted their vision, walked forward in faith and shown us that love is really all you need.
We shared a laugh, and then my mom said, "Yeah. Not quite what we pictured, but it's what we've got. And we love each of you, no matter what."
No, life doesn't always comply with the picture you paint in your head. I'm quite certain my parents envisioned a completely different outcome when they first embarked on the process of rearing a family. But, being the beautiful people they are, they've adjusted their vision, walked forward in faith and shown us that love is really all you need.
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