Contentment

We're slowly easing into setting up house (nothing on the walls yet though) and holiday decorating around here, gradually adding layers of Christmas cheer and trying to talk ourselves into feeling like it's almost December. Mostly I'm just feeling very grateful for the ordinary joys of my life right now and for a few minutes to just sit and be. A raise of the glass to Billy Collins who, as always, captures the sentiment perfectly:

I Ask You

What scene would I want to be enveloped in
more than this one,
an ordinary night at the kitchen table,
floral wallpaper pressing in,
white cabinets full of glass,
the telephone silent,
a pen tilted back in my hand?

It gives me time to think
about all that is going on outside--
leaves gathering in corners,
lichen greening the high grey rocks,
while over the dunes the world sails on,
huge, ocean-going, history bubbling in its wake. 

But beyond this table
there is nothing that I need,
not even a job that would allow me to row to work
or a coffee-colored Aston Martin DB4
with cracked green leather seats.

No, it's all here,
the clear ovals of oranges, a book on Stalin,
not to mention the odd snarling fish
in a frame on the wall
and the way these three candles--
each a different height--
are singing in perfect harmony.

So forgive me
if I lower my head now and listen
to the short bass candle as he takes a solo
while my heart
thrums under my shirt--
frog at the edge of a pond--
and my thoughts fly off to a province
made of one enormous sky
and about a million empty branches.
~Billy Collins 

. . .

p.s. Well, my short, comments-off experiment is over, folks. It felt too much like I was prattling on at you with my hands over my ears (lalalala). I discovered I like the back-and-forth exchange (or at the very least the possibility) rather than shouting out into the universe with my ears closed. Less megaphone, more conversation.  Comments feature, activate. 

I really do love the emails, though, so thank you for those and feel free to write anytime.
basic.annie@gmail.com 

Let this be heaven

My grandma woke up with this poem running in her head and recited it to us at breakfast on Sunday, before we walked down to Wildwood sunday school under the trees. 

Oh, God, let this be heaven—
I do not ask for golden streets            
Or long for jasper walls
Nor do I sigh for pearly shores       
      Where twilight never falls
Just leave me here beside these peaks      
       In this rough western land,
I love this dear old world of thine—       
      Dear God, You understand.

Oh, God, let this be heaven—
I do not crave white, stainless robes      
       I’ll keep these marked by toil.
Instead of straight and narrow walks      
       I love trails soft with soil;
I have been healed by crystal streams,     
        But these from snow-crowned peaks
Where dawn burns incense to the day      
       And paints the sky in streaks.

Dear God, let this be heaven—
I do not ask for angel wings      
       Just leave that old peak there
And let me climb ‘til comes the night—      
       I want no golden stair
Then when I say my last adieu      
       And all farewells are given
Just leave my spirit here somewhere
Oh, God, let this be heaven!

~HR Merrill,  1930s
Wildwood cabin resident
BYU English and Poetry Professor
(this hangs in my grandparents' cabin) 

Amen. This canyon might not be everyone's idea of heaven, but it's mine. What's your idea/hope of heaven's geography?

Over the fall of a sparrow

I woke up to such sad news this morning, the loss of a dear aunt, one of my mom's younger sisters. Mary.

I'm thinking of her today. Of her hilarious laugh and great humor, her devotion to family traditions and good meals, her brilliant mind, her compassion, her long and valiant efforts to stay aloft. 

My mom sent this a bit ago, a few words written by my dad this morning (thank you, Dad, I hope you don't mind I'm including this here). I think they sum up my feelings perfectly.

. . .

FreeFall
for Mary

I heard that a thousand birds fell out of an Arkansas sky the other day,
Red-winged blackbirds I think they were.
And not only in Arkansas but in Louisiana, Kansas even Sweden
All over the world these blackbirds, starlings, and sparrows
Beautiful, fragile, delicate birds, falling out of the night time sky
It breaks your heart 

Yesterday a bird fell out of the sky in Utah,
And I don’t know exactly why or what the reason was
Was its navigation system impaired? Was it buffeted by fierce winds?
I think it finally just gave up all hope of reaching a warmer, safer land
And then this beautiful, fragile, delicate bird fell out of the night time sky
It just breaks your heart 

M.Bentley
January 5, 2011
Logan

Paging EB White

Today was Lauren's pre-op day, filled with blood tests + medical interviews + an echocardiogram + waiting. (More on that in a bit.) If you have to be in a succession of waiting rooms, you could do worse than bringing along the Letters of EB White. The copy I have is satisfyingly tattered, a book that my parents gave to great-Grandma Brockbank in 1977 (the inscription is on the inside cover) and then later, meandering down through the line, it was given to me.

I'll admit I'm harboring a little long-held literary crush on Elwyn Brooks White. I can’t get enough of his New England wit and quick humor, his ease with sentiment and words. I knew he could write well, of course, but this open window to his personal friendships reveals much more of his warm soul and side glancing winks.

Back just two weeks after marrying his bride, Katherine, he sent her this poem*:

The spider, dropping down from twig,
Unwinds a thread of his devising; 
A thin, premeditated rig
To use in rising. 

And all the journey down through space, 
In cool descent, and loyal-hearted, 
He builds a ladder to the place
From which he started. 

Thus I, gone forth, as spiders do, 
In spider's web a truth discerning, 
Attach one silken strand to you
For my returning.

Oh, those silken strands. Lately (and abundantly) I have felt their tug.

When I was in DC for meetings last week I felt it, triggered by the universal law that the needs and happenings at home seem to escalate as soon as I leave town!  One trip to the doctor, one trip to get an xray (everyone's fine), sad events at school...all within 36 hours. G valiantly kept the clockwork ticking, homefires burning, and fort held down in my absence--although he had to go in to work at 5:30 on Saturday morning to do some catching up from all that parenting. He graciously quipped, "well it was my turn to take someone to the doctor at least once in their lifetime" (true that!) but still. Thank goodness for cell phones and text messages, those latter-day placeholders for actual connection & conversation.

Tomorrow's surgery will be another tug. Truly, I am confident she will be fine. All will be well. We're all chins up, keeping calm and carrying on around here. But right now all I can see is the impossibly delicate weight of those silken strands.

*Hello, early glimmers of Charlotte's Web! His granddaughter Martha later commented that Charlotte typified Katherine, through and through.

This is just to say

Okay, couldn't resist that. I love that poem, love Matthew MacFadyen for that matter.

  

. . .

 

So (with apologies to William Carlos Williams):

This is just to say 

I am not gone or sad or done or quit.

I have posted the words

(which were in my mind, last week)

elsewhere.

Forgive me.

They were reruns

And might be familiar.

...

 

This is also just to say

Sam got his braces off

Louie got a regrettable haircut along with a cut paw

& is going on 5 trips to the vet

& wearing a cone of shame and plastic boot to go out

(poor puppy)

The sun is out

the rains and floods are lifting (10 inches of rain!).

Laundry is done and folded on the window seat.

Revisions on my QP are underway

I'm prepping for a guest lecture this week

at BU School of Public Health

Maddy was just in her school's drama night

Tonight Sam has a chorus concert

Tonight there are artichokes and new potatoes and peas

and rice pilaf for dinner

The clocks have sprung forward

Spring, you are welcome anytime.