tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8148812997863418002024-03-13T12:30:15.597-07:00Finite MusingKevinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17544169845246026558noreply@blogger.comBlogger347125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-814881299786341800.post-80150639916519063982021-04-06T04:11:00.003-07:002021-04-06T04:11:30.141-07:00A New Beginning - Moved to Madeira<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-SvI7H87t5iUPjhANzB3uku40D7grCR3kqnqepdCcdxpjQRpZ0FqEtq6au6izLB05aiGX05R0Gb8LQgcpTQzdHV-7DX023-aCRcWFci85DF4Fh0UfJwfWRTGop6PjWcyJ-CCKhICvYpE/s1414/IMG_Frangipani_20210406_104606_processed.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1414" data-original-width="1414" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-SvI7H87t5iUPjhANzB3uku40D7grCR3kqnqepdCcdxpjQRpZ0FqEtq6au6izLB05aiGX05R0Gb8LQgcpTQzdHV-7DX023-aCRcWFci85DF4Fh0UfJwfWRTGop6PjWcyJ-CCKhICvYpE/s320/IMG_Frangipani_20210406_104606_processed.jpg" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p>As I type this blog entry it's about 11 AM here in Campanário on the island of Madeira. The upper balcony has the best view down the valley to the Atlantic ocean and sitting here affords me the fresh air and sounds of our new home. Roosters crow at each other across the valley, dogs bark at anything moving or out of place, the occasional goat bleats from one hillside or another, pigeons (or maybe a neighbor raises doves?) coo back at the roosters, and song birds chirp and warble from all directions all the time. Every quarter hour bells toll from the church tower over the hill to our right. Heavy trucks labor slowly up the road down below us, struggling up the incline as they pull out of one tunnel and run up the hill into the next tunnel. A neighbor hammers at something in his garden and someone somewhere calls someone's name. The cool breeze coming up the valley smells of the clean ozone of out-at-sea mixed with verdant and floral notes.</p><blockquote>A happy rural seat of various view;<br />Groves whose rich Trees wept odorous Gumms and Balme,<br />Others whose fruit burnisht with Golden Rinde<br />Hung amiable, Hesperian Fables true,<br />If true, here only, and of delicious taste:<br />Betwixt them Lawns, or level Downs, and Flocks<br />Grasing the tender herb, were interpos'd,<br />Or palmie hilloc, or the flourie lap<br />Of som irriguous Valley spred her store,<br />Flours of all hue, and without Thorn the Rose:<br /><br /> - From <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">Paradise Lost, Book 4</a>, by John Milton </blockquote><p></p><p>Today the horizon between sea and sky is just visible. The weather this past week has been unseasonably cold (we are told) and frequently the sea is smudged into the sky by a fat thumb of haze such the end of the valley is a wall of ombré blue. From palms to potatoes, cabbages to sugar cane, bananas to orchids, everything grows and blooms here, side by side. Most of the homes around us have large vegetable gardens terraced beside, above, or below them. Meticulous rows of well-tended crops put our little overgrown lowest-plot of land to shame. A ceder, a fig tree, and hillside scrub make up our garden so far. Give us time, good neighbors!</p><p>Our house, like most houses here, is built on the vertical. Some are arranged to flow down hill, level by level, others run up hill, and very few are single story. It's a function of the very vertical nature of the island's topography. Houses, like gardens, are terraced. Ours runs down from the road: carport at road level, kitchen/livingroom/utility down one more level, bedrooms down the next, and a smaller sitting room with fireplace at the lowest level. Each level has a balcony or terrace, all facing the same valley/sea direction.</p><p>I'm not sure how long it will take for this to really sink in, but this is our new permanent home. Well, as permanent as anything in life really isn't, anyway. A small village countryside clinging to steep sub-tropical hills on a small island way out in the middle of the Atlantic ocean; a bit of Portugal closer to Morocco than Europe.</p><p></p><div></div><blockquote><div>From the balcony, glittering birds were visible</div><div>circling an indigo stain of current</div><div>that wound like a river through the pullucid ocean.</div><div><br /></div><div>Perhaps the current was a wake, still trailing</div><div>phosphorescent from the night before,</div><div>left by other, distant islands that proceed us.</div><div><br /></div><div>And beyond the current and circling birds, the horizon</div><div>marked a distance we'd cross again in the dark.</div><div>Once on an island, it made no difference where we went</div><div>so long as we stayed at sea.</div><div><br /></div><div> - From <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?contentId=36880" target="_blank">Island</a>, by Stuart Dybek</div></blockquote><div></div><div>We arrived on the island a bit over one week ago, in the midst of one of the most powerful thunderstorms I have ever seen and one, we are told, this island has rarely (if ever) seen before. We are still waiting for the tropical weather to manifest (it is only 14 C as I sit typing, mid-day) and we have even had to invest in a portable heater for the living room as homes here generally have no built-in heat or AC - another function of sub-tropical life. We have the fireplace on the lower level, but keep forgetting to buy matches, so we don't know yet if that makes any difference for the floors above when lit.</div><div><br /></div><div>For now, we are busy finding our way around the complicated twisting hillside roads and freeways, getting the things we need to finish furnishing our home with at least the basics of everyday life, and taking care of the little technical issues that come with setting up in a new place. When and where, for example, is garbage and recycling picked up, what is the closest best grocery store, how do we obtain proof of our local existence-in-residency for customs to let our few small shipped boxes through to be delivered, etc.?</div><div><br /></div><div>More than anything, though, we are full-time engaged in soaking in this new, beautiful, and amazingly different adopted homeland of ours, thankful we are able to make this move, and pinching ourselves to prove it isn't just a big happy dream.</div><div></div><blockquote><div>sea-fresh floral breeze,</div><div>small red roofs flowing down hills</div><div>into endless blue</div><div><br /></div><div> - Haiku, 2021-04-06 (Me)</div></blockquote><p><br /></p><p>[Note: I will commit to keeping my Finite Musing blog re-kindled and regularly active from our new location, for the two or three who might be interested.]</p><div></div>Kevinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17544169845246026558noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-814881299786341800.post-41630894128373660632020-11-30T08:37:00.001-08:002020-11-30T08:41:42.480-08:00As dawn overtakes a small backlit screen<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRzb7WCewVHRMRld3AWX6UGrlxIc5UUx3V9D1VAgG8x3k9-ODHsHjuB55a4vIAXQeDrSUQvnfDzOCH0SArnyM0XvIkVHY4StmApZxp_FucC9XCBJxmvlJ20hL51ptufxfn4Q53FqH1gFA/s1728/IMG_Hunter_20201130_082423_processed.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1156" data-original-width="1728" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRzb7WCewVHRMRld3AWX6UGrlxIc5UUx3V9D1VAgG8x3k9-ODHsHjuB55a4vIAXQeDrSUQvnfDzOCH0SArnyM0XvIkVHY4StmApZxp_FucC9XCBJxmvlJ20hL51ptufxfn4Q53FqH1gFA/s320/IMG_Hunter_20201130_082423_processed.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p>The wind is thrashing the house in gusts that shake the windows and whistle over the gutters this early and dark November morning. It's not quite 5:00 AM and I am already up and sitting here in my windowed corner seat. The wind isn't actually pushing through the window panes behind me, but my soul feels just as if it were. I feel colder than the temperature in the house suggests I should.</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">In the center of things<br />between the pressing of the window and air<br />---a small space---<br />there is a meeting that defines<br /> nothing, everything </blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"> </blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"> - Rachel Sherwood, from <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">Windows</a></blockquote><p style="text-align: left;"><i><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/57627/windows-56d23b51a5ac1" target="_blank"></a></i></p><blockquote style="text-align: left;"><blockquote style="text-align: left;"></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="text-align: left;"><p style="text-align: left;"><i><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/57627/windows-56d23b51a5ac1" target="_blank"></a></i></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: left;"><i><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/57627/windows-56d23b51a5ac1" target="_blank"></a></i></p><p style="text-align: left;">It has been almost a full year since I last wrote anything in this space, and what a wind-slammed storm of a year it has been, this pandemic year.</p><p>The politics of a leader's narcissism and the opportunistic indifference of those who have actively stood by has leveraged the biases of our citizens to further secure the transferred power and wealth of the already privileged. <br /></p><blockquote><p>...we ought never to have let actors<br /> enter the city, with their songs<br /></p><p>& long noses, making a joke<br /> even of our deaths. Take them,<br />those who have died with those <br /> still living. Dispose of them some way.</p></blockquote><p></p><blockquote> - Tom Disch, from <i><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?contentId=31734" target="_blank">In a Time of Plague </a></i></blockquote><p>In April we should have moved to Mexico, except that the world closed down in the weeks just before then. Our flight was cancelled, as were most of our plans. We spent a lot of our home-tied time making new plans and putting them into action. Now, with luck, we might be off to Portugal as early as February.</p><p>The sun is almost up now, and through the rain and the light of early morning I can see the hummingbirds returning to our little red feeder, still swaying in the last light winds. This light passing through the windows behind and beside me augments then overtakes the illumination from my phone's little back-lit screen. It is time to make the coffee.</p><blockquote>I lived in the first century of the world wars.<br />Most mornings I would be more or less insane,<br />The newspapers would arrive with their careless stories,<br />The news would pour out of various devices<br />Interrupted by attempts to sell products to the unseen<br />I would call my friends on other devices;<br />They would be more or less mad for similar reasons.<div><br /> - Muriel Rukeyser, from <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">Poem (I lived in the first century of world wars)</a></div></blockquote><div><a href="https://www.blogger.com/#"></a><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: adobe-garamond-pro; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 1em; text-indent: -1em; vertical-align: baseline;"></div><p></p><blockquote> </blockquote><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p></div>Kevinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17544169845246026558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-814881299786341800.post-24098802650842401892019-12-18T11:09:00.000-08:002019-12-18T11:09:03.783-08:00Light ghosted, lit within<div class="tr_bq">
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<br />
It is an early, dark, and cold December-Wednesday morning as I pick this blog up from where I last left it off. As I inch toward retirement and relocation in a few months, I hope to have more time to spend processing out-loud here, for my usual target audience of one.<br />
<br />
Retirement is the commute I am making and musing about today.<br />
<br />
[Walks in from stage left, toward the small folding card table and chair -center stage- with paper and pen on it. Pulls the chair back and sits down. Picks up pen and starts to write, reading aloud...]</div>
<div class="tr_bq">
<br /></div>
<div class="tr_bq">
I think the truly difficult part of retiring from a many-years-in-one-place career is that we come to see ourselves, mostly, as the reflection-of-ourselves from a consistent core group of people who surround us on a near-daily basis. A group of people we come to spend as many hours with — and sometimes more — as those we love and hold most dearly. When we walk away from that singularly steady mirror, we can easily lose sight of ourselves. If we measure our value, our existence, by how we're seen, this loss can be paralyzing. Even a well-centered soul will have to adapt to this loss of reflection to some extent.</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Lit from within is the sole secure way<br />
to traverse dark matter. Some life forms — <br />
certain mushrooms, snails, jellyfish, worms — <br />
glow bioluminescent, and people as well; we<br />
emit infrared light from our most lucent selves.<br />
Our tragedy is we can’t see it. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
We see by reflection. We need biofluorescence<br />
to show our true colors. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
- Robin Morgan, <i><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/143931/the-ghost-light" target="_blank">The Ghost Light</a></i></blockquote>
And the process of retiring - the days, weeks, months between the formal declaration, date setting, and finishing out the time remaining - is a gradual fading process. The mirror reflects us less and less with each passing week.<br />
<br />
Still called on, still required to show up, still absolutely expected to be working, still absolutely working, but less present nonetheless. When the conversation turns to future things, to planning or discussing the next steps of some project or vision, I fade a little bit more. "You won't have to deal with that!" or "You won't even be here!" become common lines, complete with laugh-track.<br />
<br />
In the past I've seen this from the co-worker viewpoint. By the end, you hardly expect them to show up for meetings or workplace events at all. They are all but gone even before they have actually left. Now that I am on the other end of this process, it feels familiar and strange. There are times I want to shout, "Hey, I'm still here, you know! I am still working and contributing!" and yet there are already other times when I want to acknowledge that I'm no longer that invested in something happening six months from now (thinking, "Why am I even sitting in this meeting?").<br />
<br />
Of course, this is exactly as it should be, since I won't be here to experience the future whatevers, and have little say in what those who will should or shouldn't do. But it is <i><b>odd</b></i> to experience.<br />
<br />
We're told we should know when to retire. We're told to have a plan <i><b>for</b></i> retirement, or something to retire <i style="font-weight: bold;">to</i>. Nobody talks about the actual <i><b>process</b></i> of retiring, though. How are you supposed to act while you inch your way toward that publicly announced last day on the job?<br />
<br />
Like a poor cell phone connection that cuts in and out, or nodding off while watching television, my participation in workplace conversations comes in and out of focus depending on the topic under consideration. Getting the budgeting process for the new year under way - check. Overseeing progress on goals - certainly. Setting next year's goals - um... Strategic planning and visioning - well, toss the old dog a bone and let him speak.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
light fingers the house with its own acoustics<br /> - C. D. Wright, <i><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47844/floating-trees" target="_blank">Floating Trees</a></i></blockquote>
There is this growing sense of being left behind, as the workplace moves ever forward while I step off to the side. This, too, is exactly as it should be. Part of retiring is stepping back and letting others step forward in your place.<br />
<br />
<br />
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<br />
<blockquote>
One Christmas there were only<br />
three of us, so we sang </blockquote>
<blockquote>
the round with one part missing.<br />
I still listen to the fourth part — </blockquote>
<blockquote>
that’s the real ghost. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
- Chase Twichell, <i><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/58146/the-ghost-of-tom" target="_blank">The Ghost of</a></i></blockquote>
I don't want to leave the wrong impression here or seem unduly maudlin about all of this. A ghost, after all, is a soul who didn't move on when they should have/could have, and I have no intention of being a ghost. I'm excited about my future, looking forward to this next phase of my life, and quite ready to stand down here at work. I feel fortunate to have this option to retire now, to live abroad if I choose, and to travel.<br />
<br />
And let's be clear: this isn't being done <b><i>to me</i></b>, but rather is something <i><b>I am choosing to do</b></i>. My coworkers are not being mean or inconsiderate, and there is nothing whatsoever wrong with any of their actions related to any of this. It's only that my action (choosing to retire) is changing the reflection I see in the mirror as time moves forward. It changes the way I am reflected back to myself, and that is both interesting to observe and at least a little bit disconcerting.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
A song? What laughter or what song<br />
Can this house remember?<br />
Do flowers and butterflies belong<br />
To a blind December?” </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
- Robert Graves, <i><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/53977/ghost-raddled" target="_blank">Ghost Raddled</a></i></blockquote>
So the trick in this retiring process, I guess, is learning by and shifting from an external reflection of ourselves for our directional bearing, toward navigating by our own internal light.<br />
<br />
[Puts down pen, pushes back chair from table and stands. Then walks stage left and exits, leaving only the table, chair, and a single bare bulb for light on stage.]<br />
<blockquote>
The ghost light<br />is what they call the single bulb hanging<br />above the bare stage in an empty theater. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
- Robin Morgan, <i><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/143931/the-ghost-light" target="_blank">The Ghost Light</a></i></blockquote>
Kevinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17544169845246026558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-814881299786341800.post-56702957462969154732018-08-29T08:16:00.000-07:002018-08-29T08:16:54.372-07:00I should leave it at thatAs I head out the door this morning I pass by the hall closet and grab a jacket off its hanger. Finally, a cool summer morning. It feels good, right even, to this Pacific Northwest native son. As Timothy Egan writes in <i>The Good Rain: Across Time & Terrain in the Pacific Northwest</i>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
From June till September, nearly every day is perfect, with the 10,778-foot volcano of Mount Baker rising from the tumble of the Cascades to the west, blue herons and bald eagles crowding the skies, killer whales breaching offshore. The water is exceptionally clear, the result of a twice-daily shift-change in tide, when it sweeps north toward the Strait of Georgia, then back south toward the Strait of Juan de Fuca. In some places, the rip tides create white water like rapids on a foaming river. Being is bliss.</blockquote>
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<br />
Being is bliss. Making time to be present for that awareness, though, is not always easy. It takes effort to pull back from (as Walt Whitman calls it) "...the procreant urge of the world."<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
There was never any more inception than there is now,<br />Nor any more youth or age than there is now,<br />And will never be any more perfection than there is now,<br />Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now.<br /> - Walt Whitman, from <i><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45477/song-of-myself-1892-version" target="_blank">Song of Myself (1892 version)</a></i></blockquote>
I love Whitman for many things. Chief among them are his ability to distill, in his writing, the act of being present, and his ability to be wholly and apologetically comfortable with himself.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Welcome is every organ and attribute of me, and of any man hearty and clean,<br />Not an inch nor a particle of an inch is vile, and none shall be less familiar than the rest.<br /> - Walt Whitman, from <i><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45477/song-of-myself-1892-version" target="_blank">Song of Myself (1892 version)</a></i></blockquote>
When summer cools down for a few days, like it is doing here now, I find it so soothing. As if I was suddenly aware of something that had been bothering me, but only through the awareness of its sudden absence.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Yet have I drawn a lesson from the spot,<br />And shrined it in these verses for my heart.<br />Thenceforth those tranquil precincts I have sought<br />Not less, and in all shades of various moods;<br />But always shun to desecrate the spot<br />By weak repinings, sickly sentiments,<br />Or inconclusive sorrows.<br /> - Henry Timrod, from <i><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48892/the-summer-bower" target="_blank">The Summer Bower</a></i></blockquote>
So I'll leave it at that.<br />
<br />
<i><br /></i>
Today's Commute Playlist:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><i>Sherlock Holmes</i> (audiobook read by Stephen Fry)</li>
</ul>
Kevinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17544169845246026558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-814881299786341800.post-19983170188195756462018-01-09T09:39:00.000-08:002018-01-09T14:01:38.839-08:00Early morning dark, rain falling, weekday-getting-ready routine, mildly melancholy-infused thoughtsLike a small campfire under a heavy canopy of conifer trees, the living room end table lamp creates a hub of visual warmth and light once I switch it on this dark early morning. The light radiates outward across the living room in fading concentric circles. Out the apartment window I can see cars moving slowly and quietly through the intersection of my little Hollywood-set-esque "downtown." The occasional pedestrian, hood up and slouching against the falling rain, shuffles sleepily in and out of the Starbucks across the road. Somewhere outside I hear a dog barking energetically for a few seconds, then back to the relative silence of the street and rain. The street lights glow, just like my end table lamp, and reflect in the rain puddles and the shimmering wet of the cobblestone-like street below. Most of the storefronts are only partially illuminated, still closed until an hour of morning yet to come.<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
In a future that feels almost like a past I’m positive is there—<br />
But where? I think my life is still all conversation,<br />
Only now it’s with myself. I can see it continuing forever,<br />
Even in my absence, as I close the windows and turn off the lights<br />
And it begins to rain.<br />
- John Koethe, from <i><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/52743/ninety-fifth-street" target="_blank">Ninety-Fifth Street</a></i></blockquote>
Celebrating our differences is one thing, living them is still something else. We are still sorted and described by the things that make us different (which, I suppose, is what the whole notion of "difference" is all about). As Kermit so famously sang, "It isn't easy being green." Kermit also sang:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Why are there so many songs about rainbows and what's on the other side?<br />
Rainbows are visions, but only illusions, and rainbows have nothing to hide<br />
So we've been told and some choose to believe it<br />
I know they're wrong wait and see<br />
Someday we'll find it, the rainbow connection<br />
The lovers, the dreamers and me<br />
- from, <i>The Rainbow Connection</i>, written by Paul Williams and Kenneth Ascher</blockquote>
Early morning dark, rain falling, weekday-getting-ready routine, mildly melancholy-infused thoughts, I suppose. What is the freedom of choice? "...an individual's opportunity and autonomy to perform an action selected from at least two available options, unconstrained by external parties." (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_choice" target="_blank">Wikipedia's definition</a> works as well as any I've seen). But, really, what isn't "unconstrained by external parties" in a connected society? Every free choice is a negotiation with some sort of cost or consequence, maybe very small or maybe large.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Still, my grandmother takes my hand downtown<br />
pulls me right past the restaurants that have to let us sit<br />
wherever we want now. <i>No need in making trouble</i>,<br />
she says. <i>You all go back to New York City but<br />I have to live here</i>.<br />
- Jacqueline Woodson, from <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/58424/what-everybody-knows-now">what everybody knows now</a></blockquote>
<div>
<br />
Life is nothing, if not complicated.<br />
<br />
But I like a rainy tuesday early morning like this one. I move to the kitchen and turn on the back right stove burner, the smallest burner where my little espresso pot, already set up last night with finely ground yerba mate, waits. I microwave a cup of whole milk, and wait for the pot to build up pressure and force the water up through the mate and into the upper chamber. Combine: my mate latte is ready. The only latte choice remaining is whether to take the time to enjoy it here or pour it into my thermos and enjoy it when I get to campus. I grab my thermos.</div>
Kevinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17544169845246026558noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-814881299786341800.post-5343724674775200622017-10-27T09:56:00.000-07:002017-10-27T09:56:30.474-07:00Hacking Gavin's woodpileFriday, ever popular and confident, swaggers in with sunshine in his face and the weekend in his back pocket. The colors along the lane leading to the freeway are all oranges, yellows, and reds, made fluorescent by the morning sun's backlighting.<br />
<br />
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<br />
One can be tired, stressed, worried, distracted, disquieted, frustrated, angry, or even indifferent, but in that singular visual moment when Friday works his magic with sunlight and color it is all forgotten. This is a living-in-the-moment gift, a being present present.<br />
<br />
Just don't turn on the news.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
And everywhere the free space fills<br />Like a punctured diving suit and I'm<br />Paralyzed in the face of it all<br />Cursed with the curse of these modern times<br /> - Bruce Cockburn, from <i><a href="http://cockburnproject.net/songs&music/gw.html" target="_blank">Gavin's Woodpile</a></i></blockquote>
Living in the moment can be difficult, though, when the information rushing in is all so horrific and hard to fathom. When I feel increasingly disconnected from the society in which I live because the risen order of the day is ripping access to life itself, let alone quality of life, from so many while fundamentally reshaping our nation's evidenced values to reflect the narrow self-interest of a very select few.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I remember crackling embers<br />Coloured windows shining through the rain<br />Like the coloured slicks on The English River<br />Death in the marrow and death in the liver<br />And some government gambler with his mouth full of steak<br />Saying, "If you can't eat the fish, fish in some other lake.<br />To watch a people die -- it is no new thing."<br />And the stack of wood grows higher and higher<br />And a helpless rage seems to set my brain on fire.<br /> - Bruce Cockburn, from <i><a href="http://cockburnproject.net/songs&music/gw.html" target="_blank">Gavin's Woodpile</a></i></blockquote>
Like many, I struggle to balance staying informed, engaged, and active with the earnest desire (if not need) to shut all the news out. I'm reminded of another Cockburn lyric (from <i><a href="http://cockburnproject.net/songs&music/bw.html" target="_blank">Broken Wheel</a></i>) that didn't pop up on today's commute playlist:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Way out on the rim of the galaxy<br />The gifts of the Lord lie torn<br />Into whose charge the gifts were given<br />Have made it a curse for so many to be born<br />This is my trouble --<br />These were my fathers<br />So how am I supposed to feel?<br />Way out on the rim of the broken wheel</blockquote>
and...<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
No adult of sound mind<br />Can be an innocent bystander</blockquote>
Then I see Friday morning sunshine glowing through fall leaves again as I pull into the parking lot on campus, like a magnificent stained glass window—only better, and I hear:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Rain rings trash can bells<br />And what do you know<br />My alley becomes a cathedral<br /> - Bruce Cockburn, from <i><a href="http://cockburnproject.net/songs&music/toara.html" target="_blank">Thoughts On A Rainy Afternoon</a></i></blockquote>
Surely there is a way to reclaim that which should be holy from the dystopia of the, "...curse of these modern times." Breath in deeply and savor these discovered golden moments like a talisman, keep our focus on people always as distinct and unique individuals, and draw on this to champion the change we need and want.<br />
<br />
Today's playlist: all songs from a Bruce Cockburn playlist<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Maybe the Poet</li>
<li>When the Sun Goes Nova</li>
<li>Thoughts On A Rainy Afternoon</li>
<li>Stab At Matter</li>
<li>Gavin's Woodpile</li>
<li>Turn, Turn, Turn</li>
</ul>
Kevinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17544169845246026558noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-814881299786341800.post-30480803458600497822017-10-17T11:42:00.000-07:002017-10-17T11:42:34.979-07:00Poetry and photographyTuesday morning, wet and grey. The coloring leaves of the trees along my commute route glisten and hang heavy in the steady rain. They slice through the visual dull of roads and skies like yellow and orange flames painted along the side of a flat-grey muscle car from the 70's. They pop.<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmfptyO8vwDW8Pchv0XB3sptuDkkoY-tJk2sj-TAPcSGkiTwT7JVd1t3Gc8s3ElAo7E6SM5Awig6uA-J8sOkyfC1owD8VRdH0J8iopm0PTB5ImexZgLkfuLxTWQeBHQK3WgKSX7sh_r3g/s1600/IMG_20171013_100006_378.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmfptyO8vwDW8Pchv0XB3sptuDkkoY-tJk2sj-TAPcSGkiTwT7JVd1t3Gc8s3ElAo7E6SM5Awig6uA-J8sOkyfC1owD8VRdH0J8iopm0PTB5ImexZgLkfuLxTWQeBHQK3WgKSX7sh_r3g/s320/IMG_20171013_100006_378.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
I read a fun article on the Poetry Foundation site earlier this morning, comparing observational photography to poetry. Of the former, the author says, "With observational photography, emotion recollected in tranquility is only relevant if you have managed to capture it at the time. If there’s poetry, it’s often only by being quick." (Seamus Murphy, from <i><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/articles/144356/two-and-a-quarter" target="_blank">Two and a Quarter</a></i>)<br />
<br />
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<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Big hippie<br />This day was so slow<br />And i can see you feel it too<br />Sometimes you wish you knew karate<br />Oh, the things that you could do, like<br />Crossing in between the greens<br />Just because you want to<br />Not because you ought to<br />Oh, how can you ever explain<br />They can never feel your pain<br />Neither can you </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
- Fountains of Wayne, from <a href="https://play.google.com/music/preview/Tfywkvoubu6fajklhqfekvuuycy?lyrics=1&utm_source=google&utm_medium=search&utm_campaign=lyrics&pcampaignid=kp-lyrics&u=0#" target="_blank">Go Hippy</a></blockquote>
To be sure, there can be a fine line between observational and less-passive, more directive forms of photography, and "quick" can also require patience while you wait for just the right quality of natural light, time of day, or alignment of naturally-occurring circumstances to capture that special poetic moment. Very similar, in fact, to finding just the right word or turn of phrase.<br />
<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<br />The solstice gable of my roof is dialing<br />Noonaway gardens and the flutes are gone,<br />The first leaf slowly flutters summer down,<br />Yet here, anew, causing the light to be,<br />The children are coming slowly up the stairs,<br />The leaded stained-glass window on the landing<br />Shattering rainbows over the bannister. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
- Thomas Hornsby Ferril, from <i><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?contentId=28549" target="_blank">The Children Are Coming Slowly Up the Stairs</a></i></blockquote>
Because poetry, too, has its quick moments. When a poet captures in words, however carefully selected, a specific memory-based moment in time they are no less observational than the photographer. Is it any different when the poet's words also conjure up a specific personal memory in the reader's mind? Murphy shares several quotes from Seamus Heaney's poem, <i><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47555/digging" target="_blank">Digging</a></i>, to illustrate his point. Heaney is describing a specific memory from his own past, but his words perfectly capture a sound from my own past, too:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Under my window, a clean rasping sound <br />When the spade sinks into gravelly ground: <br />My father, digging.</blockquote>
In observing life both the photograph and the poem can bear witness both what we see on the surface and what we feel for what we have seen.<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjieixHCDLfDyxFc7GU0Ihjo-snPBUCx9XaquHLY5Gxign4Rx5H0bUPywxtbQlYEvakzP-F93X6YSwi27Dp6XUWil3PzX3zZHbjBOOPYVUz5Oaz06wuBudwJEdQYwuRgYOhTrwpDLEU0rU/s1600/IMG_20170318_090641_044.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1080" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjieixHCDLfDyxFc7GU0Ihjo-snPBUCx9XaquHLY5Gxign4Rx5H0bUPywxtbQlYEvakzP-F93X6YSwi27Dp6XUWil3PzX3zZHbjBOOPYVUz5Oaz06wuBudwJEdQYwuRgYOhTrwpDLEU0rU/s320/IMG_20170318_090641_044.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
For he chases the balled up poems which I discard on the<br /> floor and so enjoys them despite their imperfections.<br />For he can move each ear by itself.<br />For from the side I can see through his eyes like water.<br />For he is easy in this life.<br />For he carries no cash.<br />For he does not have any pockets.<br />For he saves nothing, not even a bone. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
- Hunt Hawkins, from <i><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?contentId=34094" target="_blank">My Cat Jack</a></i></blockquote>
<i><br /></i>
Today's Playlist:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Tamba Trio, <i>Moça Flor</i></li>
<li>Antonio Carlos Jobim, <i>Águas de Março</i></li>
<li>Glen Campbell, <i>The Impossible Dream</i></li>
<li>Spamalot, <i>The Song That Goes Like This</i></li>
<li>India Arie, <i>Strength Courage & Wisdom</i></li>
<li>Anita Baker, <i>Giving You The Best That I Got</i></li>
</ul>
<br />
<br />
<br />Kevinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17544169845246026558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-814881299786341800.post-77511315403638888282017-09-26T08:37:00.001-07:002017-09-26T15:07:56.727-07:00Just being me<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Happy as something unimportant<br />
and free as a thing unimportant. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
- Anna Swir, from <i><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48642/happy-as-a-dogs-tail" target="_blank">Happy as a Dog's Tail</a></i></blockquote>
Sometimes I find I don't really know how to relax and just be myself in a given moment. I can live in my head, over-thinking and making complexities where they don't need to exist. Memories from a minute ago, an hour ago, a day ago, a month, a lifetime, get re-lived and analyzed, as if I could construct some alternate reality for them if I re-live them enough. I find myself trying to understand life, intimately, rather than live it as it comes. I'm not talking about fatalism or determinism, just the ability to, as the quaint little prayer goes, "accept those things I cannot change and [have] the wisdom to know the difference."<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I grow a little stiff with, a little lean with, a little faint with, a little<br />
worn with seeming.<br />
I must need to conquer my mind.<br />
The roses dead because of drought<br />
because whoever lives here cares enough<br />
to let their roses die. I must<br />
need to conquer the notion<br />
anything needs conquering. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
- Ari Banias, from <i><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/90294/the-happy" target="_blank">The Happy</a></i></blockquote>
Then, on less frequent occasions (though more and more frequently), I settle into my self, my time, and space (some would no doubt say I am being fully "present") and, like a breath exhaling, I spread out and relax. Is contentment the same thing as happiness? Maybe; probably. I know I'm finding more and more of that now.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
To come to things—swift<br />
as a ray of light, or a look.<br />
To live as I write: spare—the way<br />
God asks me—and friends do not. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
- Marina Tsvetaeva, from <i><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/55420/i-am-happy-living-simply" target="_blank">I am happy living simply</a></i></blockquote>
The musician who goes by the name of Perfume Genius recently wrote a song (<i>Just Like Love</i>):<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Sleeve cut just off the shoulder<br />
You are christening the shape<br />
They'll talk<br />
Give them every reason<br />
For child, you walk </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Just Like Love</blockquote>
Of that song, Perfume Genius says, "I saw this Facebook video of a boy, probably around seven, wearing a dress he had fashioned from a blanket, sashaying through his house while his mother applauded and cheered him on. He was so proud. It was such a beautiful thing, but bittersweet because I knew his spirit would change soon, that he’d become self-aware and ashamed, at some level. The song is about how divine he is, then and always — that he was born perfect."<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Feeling and being me<br />
Is good as good can be.<br />
I claim my own identity. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I am as happy as a flower<br />
Perfuming its one hour<br />
With a sweet sense of power. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
- Katherine Wisner McCluskey, from <i><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?contentId=15698" target="_blank">Wholly Happy</a></i></blockquote>
When you are a lifetime of practiced at being what you are not, it takes a while to relax. It does, though, get better.<br />
<br />
Today's Playlist:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Perfume Genius: <i>Just Like Love</i></li>
<li>Bill Frisell: <i>Fields of Alfalfa</i></li>
<li>Carl Jackson & Merle Haggard: <i>Must You Throw Dirt in My Face</i></li>
<li>Calder: <i>9-Vessel</i></li>
<li>Brian Withycombe: <i>My All</i></li>
<li>Donavon Frankenreiter: <i>Dance Like Nobody's Watching</i></li>
<li>ELO: <i>The Whale</i></li>
<li>Bruce Cockburn: <i>Justice</i></li>
</ul>
Kevinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17544169845246026558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-814881299786341800.post-48714994356283221612017-09-13T13:40:00.000-07:002017-09-13T13:40:44.506-07:00FuturamicWednesday morning wanders quietly by, as much passing as present. A sense of forward movement is created by this apex of midweek.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
If this is Wednesday, there’s a demo on the green at 11. Took B to his first down at Quonset Point in August. Blue skies. Boston collective provided good grub for all. Long column of denims and flannel shirts. Smell of patchouli made me so wistful, wanted to buy a woodstove, prop my feet up, share a J and a pot of Constant Comment with a friend. Maybe some zucchini bread. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
From <i><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47843/living-56d2289b5783f" target="_blank">Living</a></i>, by C. D. Wright</blockquote>
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<br />
Like an old Olds 88 I recently saw at a local car show - life is feeling "futuramic" of late: dynamic and shifting, constant change (and, maybe, growth), new horizons.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
My sister woke me very early<br />
that morning and told me<br />
“Get up, you have to come see this<br />
the ocean’s filled with stars” </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
- From <i><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/143948/future-memories" target="_blank">Future Memories</a></i> by Mario Melendez</blockquote>
Speaking of future, my favorite musician/poet has a new album (his 33rd studio album!) coming out this Friday. Bruce Cockburn's <a href="http://brucecockburn.com/tag/bone-on-bone/" target="_blank"><i>Bone On Bone</i></a> sounds like another gem and, "...touches on many subjects close to Cockburn’s heart, including the poet Al Purdy, life in Trump’s America, and the complexities of personal spirituality."<br />
<br />
A poet/songwriter who loves poets:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Pokers in the counting house counting out the bacon<br />
matter's getting darker in the universe they're making<br />
they love the little guy until they get a better offer<br />
with the dollar getting smaller they can fit more in their coffers<br />
and the doings on the corner neither sung nor seen<br />
they're circling the shopping carts at Sherbourne and Queen<br />
I resemble that assembly but I'm not the same<br />
Al Purdy's poems are the name of my game<br />
the winds of fate blow where they will<br />
I'll give you 3 Al Purdy's for a twenty dollar bill </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
- Bruce Cockburn, from <i><a href="http://cockburnproject.net/songs&music/tap.html" target="_blank">3 Al Purdys</a> (<a href="http://nodepression.com/article/listen-bruce-cockburns-new-album-bone-bone" target="_blank">you can listen to this song here</a>)</i></blockquote>
Of the song, Cockburn says, "Then I had this vision of a homeless guy who is obsessed with Purdy’s poetry, and he’s ranting it on the street. The song is written in the voice of that character."<br />
<br />
And I'm feeling futuramic; that is the voice of my character for, at least, this moving-forward Wednesday.<br />
<br />Kevinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17544169845246026558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-814881299786341800.post-25280949002745811672017-09-05T08:21:00.001-07:002017-09-05T08:21:16.453-07:00Ancient and compellingMonday having been the Labor Day holiday all of yesterday, he comes this morning dressed as Tuesday. The sky has that peculiar orange-tinged brown of coming snow, even though it is already nearly 70 (F)/21 (C) and a little muggy, on its way to a forecast high of 93/34.<br />
<br />
It could be Ash Tuesday, from the looks of it, but without pancakes. There is even something not unlike snow gently filtering down around me.<br />
<br />
I came out this morning to find my car covered in a dusting of very fine ash, the skies smokey, the light heavily filtered and looking for all the world like it did during the recent solar eclipse, and ash falling ever so lightly from the skies. Today's forecast simply says, "smoke."<br />
<br />
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<br />
The Norse Ridge fire in the Wenatchee National Forest is raging and the winds are bringing its output our direction today. The cremation dust of so many trees swirls around us.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
...like the girl<br />at a bend near the Museum gazebo: she tips<br />a throe of ashes from a brassy urn,<br />kneeling, not pious, just there, slanting her head<br />as if to speak to the passing, do it right,<br />shrug fine ores into the river—it takes so long<br />to cast away so little left of kin or friend<br />to Schuylkill, Delaware, Chesapeake, Atlantic,<br />someone she knew, walked gardens with, and must have loved. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
- W. S. Di Piero, from <i><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/52962/the-ash-bringer" target="_blank">The Ash Bringer</a></i></blockquote>
I had Al Stewart's <i>Year of the Cat</i> queued up on my phone this morning, so it proceeded to create an ad hoc playlist built around that song. Nostalgia music, most of which I hadn't heard in many years.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
But kissed unconscious between Medicine Bow and Tombstone<br />He shall love at the precipice brink who would love these mountains.<br />Whom this land loves shall be a holy wanderer,<br />The eyes burned slick with distances between<br />Kennebunkport and Denver, minted of transcience.<br />For him shall that river run in circles and<br />The Tetons seismically skipping to their ancient compelling music<br />Send embassies of young sierras to nibble from his hand. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
- Thomas McGrath, <i><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47617/the-topography-of-history" target="_blank">The Topography of History</a></i></blockquote>
Old tunes, if not "ancient compelling music," with which to drive through the ashes of ancient and compelling woods on this rather ad hoc Ash Tuesday start of the work week.<br />
<br />
Today's playlist:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Al Stewart, <i>Year of the Cat</i></li>
<li>Little River Band, <i>Reminiscing</i></li>
<li>Bread, <i>If</i></li>
<li>The Hollies, <i>Long Cool Woman (In A Black Dress)</i></li>
<li>Blood, Sweat, & Tears, <i>Spinning Wheel</i></li>
<li>Cat Stevens, <i>Wild World</i></li>
</ul>
Kevinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17544169845246026558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-814881299786341800.post-25985609592408190012017-08-08T08:36:00.000-07:002017-08-08T08:49:33.804-07:00Lions through the smokeRed sun rising again this morning, much like it set last night. Last night it looked overly large and swollen, like one of the itching mosquito bites on my legs. This morning it just looks a bit weary, tired of trying to reach us through the fire-smoke haze that brownly particulates the air with ash from the BC wildfires up north.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Can you imagine the air filled with smoke?<br />
It was. The city was vanishing before noon<br />
or was it earlier than that? I can't say because<br />
the light came from nowhere and went nowhere. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
- from, <i><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/40230/smoke-56d21df39cbcb" target="_blank">Smoke</a></i>, by Philip Levine</blockquote>
Crossing the Ballard Bridge this morning that same weary sun cast a lovely red reflection of itself, stretched out toward me like a stripe of Oscar-night reception red carpet along the water below. I thought about stopping to try and capture the image in a photo, but as anyone who knows the bridge also knows, that isn't really possible. Not without consequences!<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Smoke, like memories, permeates our hair,<br />
our clothing, our layers of skin.<br />
The smoke travels deep<br />
to the seat of memory.<br />
We walk away from the fire;<br />
no matter how far we walk,<br />
we carry this scent with us. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
- from, <i><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/53449/smoke-in-our-hair" target="_blank">Smoke in Our Hair</a></i>, by Ofelia Zepeda</blockquote>
The campus has the quiet sort of busyness of summer quarter as I pull in this morning. I'm digging out of email and tasks from a week off: consequences.<br />
<br />
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<br />
We went up to BC for the week. We were supposed to be in a cabin on a lake in the middle of the wilderness area where all the forest fires are burning, but with the area evacuated and roads closed, that wasn't possible. So we spent our week in Vancouver and on Vancouver Island, basking in unusually warm weather and breathing wood smoke like we were sitting on the wrong side of a bonfire all day. Despite the change in plans and the smoke, it was a lovely week away. I finally got to meet some of Darren's Vancouver friends in person. Good people and gracious hosts!<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Rain forest<br />
Mist and mystery<br />
Teeming green<br />
Green brain facing lobotomy<br />
Climate control centre for the world<br />
Ancient cord of coexistence<br />
Hacked by parasitic greedhead scam -<br />
From Sarawak to Amazonas<br />
Costa Rica to mangy B.C. hills -<br />
Cortege rhythm of falling timber. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
- Bruce Cockburn, from <i><a href="http://cockburnproject.net/songs&music/iatf.html" target="_blank">If A Tree Falls</a></i></blockquote>
So the sun is blood red, the air smokey, some of those "mangy B.C. hills" are burning (as is America's democracy), my inbox is overflowing, and, for whatever reason, I'm still feeling good. Very much like another Cockburn tune that didn't come up in this morning's random shuffle playlist:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Sun's up, uh huh, looks okay<br />
The world survives into another day<br />
And I'm thinking about eternity<br />
Some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I had another dream about lions at the door<br />
They weren't half as frightening as they were before<br />
But I'm thinking about eternity<br />
Some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Walls windows trees, waves coming through<br />
You be in me and I'll be in you<br />
Together in eternity<br />
Some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Up among the firs where it smells so sweet<br />
Or down in the valley where the river used to be<br />
I got my mind on eternity<br />
Some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
And I'm wondering where the lions are...<br />
I'm wondering where the lions are... </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
- Bruce Cockburn, from <i><a href="http://cockburnproject.net/songs&music/wwtla.html" target="_blank">Wondering Where the Lions Are</a></i></blockquote>
They're out there, very real and still pacing through the smoke, but at bay for now.<br />
<br />
Today's playlist:<br />
<ul>
<li><i>Olsen Olsen</i>, Sigur Rós</li>
<li><i>Please Forgive Me</i>, David Gray</li>
<li><i>I Tried to Leave You (Live)</i>, Leonard Cohen</li>
<li><i>For Those That Are There</i>, Kyle Asche Organ Trio</li>
<li><i>Naima</i>, Karrin Allyson</li>
<li><i>Turpentine</i>, Brandi Carlile</li>
<li><i>No More "I Love You's", </i>Annie Lennox</li>
<li><i>Íllgresi, </i>Sigur Rós</li>
<li><i>Lonely People</i>, Augustana</li>
</ul>
Kevinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17544169845246026558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-814881299786341800.post-72281548332127072552017-07-11T08:40:00.000-07:002017-07-11T08:40:34.718-07:00While it lastsLast night was cooler than it has been for a while, and it felt wonderful. We of the Pacific Northwest are comfortable with cooler weather, and also with complaining about weather. For many here, perfect weather is no colder than 70 F (21 C) and no warmer than 72 F (22 C), with humidity in the 30% range. This fits our regional fashion sense of wear-whatever-you-want, since almost anything you wear will be comfortable at that temperature. Stocking cap in mid-summer? Shorts in mid-winter? Jeans to the opera? Buttoned up shirt to Starbucks? Sure.<br />
<br />
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<br />
So the cool of evening felt good after several searing (I tell you!) evenings in the upper 70s or low 80s.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
You have come,<br />After sun-stung days,<br />As gold greatly wished -<br />Dearer<br />Than the loveliness of all songs. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
- Mark Turbyfill, from <i><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?contentId=13712" target="_blank">To A Cool Breeze</a></i></blockquote>
This morning's drive to campus was still weather-cool and traffic was light. Van Morrison was playing:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Foghorns blowing in the night<br />Salt sea air in the morning breeze<br />Driving cars all along the coastline<br />This must be what it's all about<br />Oh this must be what it's all about<br />This must be what paradise is like<br />So quiet in here, so peaceful in here<br />So quiet in here, so peaceful in here </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
- from <i><a href="https://play.google.com/music/preview/Tfpivpk26lo6se6yh6viu3bz7jq?lyrics=1&utm_source=google&utm_medium=search&utm_campaign=lyrics&pcampaignid=kp-lyrics&u=0#" target="_blank">So Quiet In Here</a></i></blockquote>
No scheduled morning meetings means I'll be able to look forward to actually working on a few projects and to-dos. "Oh, this must be what it's all about" during the relative quiet of summer quarter. "So quiet in here, so peaceful in here."<br />
<br />Kevinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17544169845246026558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-814881299786341800.post-70971119015120287362017-05-10T08:51:00.000-07:002017-05-10T08:51:39.249-07:00Best friendsTuesday the rains finally stopped and the storms began again, and this blog has (temporarily, I assure you) become a much more personal diary of journey than is its norm.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
You'd think the sky would run out of water,<br />
but it won't; it just keeps coming down. I need someone<br />
to marvel at the breath escaping from me.<br />
Do you have a natural resource you prefer to exploit?<br />
Does someone think of you and turn the channel?<br />
How would you ever know? </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
- Todd Colby, from <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/90910" target="_blank"><i>You'd Think the Sky Would Run Out of Water</i></a></blockquote>
Yesterday the sun warmed our well-watered part of the world in full spring wattage. Yet while the sun glowed down from bright blue skies the storms gathered again and broke inside. And Facebook outed me all over again, despite its very clear assurances to the contrary; my change in relationship status ('it's complicated') <i>was</i> posted to my wall. Damn!, but fair, I suppose.<br />
<br />
I didn't sleep much last night. I'm up at 4:00, making yerba mate, reading, and writing.<br />
<br />
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<br />
This is how you work through the painful process of converting a very happy and solid 35-year long marriage into not-a-marriage, while looking to preserve the best and deepest friendship you have ever known (or will likely ever know).<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Tuesday when you opened your eyes your<br />
Room was a cold disaster. Arranged<br />
Around you, its own disorderly life </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Took stock of you like a crazy pendulum<br />
Swung over your head like a demonstration<br />
In a science museum, your hands were numb, </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
- V. R. Lang, <i><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?contentId=27261" target="_blank">From "Poems to Preserve the Years at Home"</a></i></blockquote>
So this is the hard part of coming out at age 55: collateral damage. I think I may have been the last person standing to realize that you cannot be both a gay man and also married to a wife. Not if either of you want a fulfilling life moving forward. Yesterday, both Melissa and I realized that together, after a series of very difficult and honest conversations. We had previously talked about various possible future configurations, but yesterday was a breakthrough day in terms of <i>really</i> understanding that our futures will necessarily lie in bifurcation. To use the word that is ever so much harder to acknowledge: divorce.<br />
<br />
Its not a bad thing, in the end. We aren't coming apart because we don't love each other, we're coming apart because we <i>do</i>. Our futures will remain connected in friendship and mutual support, and we're very much committed to preserving that as a necessary part of both our lives moving forward.<br />
<br />
We're not rushing our fences, as this isn't anything that has to happen quickly. There are no current partners-in-waiting, no second lives to take up at this point. Its just that we both now know where we are going in our suddenly much-changed personal world.<br />
<br />
The what-if question I keep coming back to is whether, knowing all of this, I would have had the courage to "come out." I don't think I could have stopped my initial and accidental "stumbling out" over lunch with my son that day, but I could have chosen to stop there. Rather than moving forward and telling Melissa I could have circled back to Tristan and asked him to just forget what I had said and let it go. I certainly stared into that possibility yesterday as Melissa and I talked. Is it too late to just stop this process and go back to denying who I am in order to preserve our relationship? I would, if we could.<br />
<br />
As I contemplated what that would be like, having now tasted freedom from all those oppressive years of constantly denying who I am, though, I found myself staring back into an abyss of hopelessness that was so visceral it quite literally almost made my knees buckle. The notions of abyss and vertigo are often tied together, and for good reason. It must have shown in my eyes because Melissa felt it, too. It became our break-through moment of truth, painful as it was.<br />
<br />
For all of this, we are now at peace with our future. We don't have it all figured out, we don't have any clear timeline, and there are going to be many complicated details yet to work through. What we do have is a clear vision of how we want to preserve our friendship, stay a significant part of each others lives, and hold hands through this process.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
There is a joy in the journey,<br />
There's a light we can love on the way.<br />
There is a wonder and wildness to life,<br />
And freedom for those who obey. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
- Michael Card, <i>Joy In The Journey</i></blockquote>
When I first started reading others' accounts of life after coming out (while married) I was frustrated that there were no success stories that didn't involve eventual separation and subsequent friendship (unless you count "open" marriages). OK, now I understand why and also see the value of setting each other free to experience fulfilling lives while still holding on to the deep friendship already forged by time together. I don't think I could possibly have understood that without having been through these last several weeks, nor could I have ever envisioned our journey leading to this.<br />
<br />
It helps, of course, to have been married to one of the most amazing women I have ever known. My coming out process has been hers as well, and these out-of-the-ordinary blog entries represent a shared story. Melissa has been reviewing them before I post, since electing to share this mutually-experienced process with others has to be a mutual decision. A mutual decision by two very-best friends.Kevinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17544169845246026558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-814881299786341800.post-82075009224529725412017-05-02T21:06:00.000-07:002017-05-02T21:06:22.895-07:00Assembly requiredIn a departure from my normal blog programming the previous post was my public "coming out" as a gay man announcement. I heard from many people after that post, offering words of support and love. I've heard from others that sharing my journey has helped them, too. I am very fortunate to know so many wonderful people and to live in a place and time where there is relatively high acceptance of the spectrum of LGBTQ people.<br />
<br />
I have to say, a couple weeks past that declaration, that being "out" is an amazing experience. Now that I'm not spending so much energy hiding who I am, I find I have much more energy for others. I enjoy interacting with people more than before, now that those exchanges no longer bring the constant worry about accidentally giving too much away. I'm happier and much more relaxed. I feel whole and complete for the first time in my adult life. It is amazing gift.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I was given a cell with a window. There was a certain light at evening.<br />
I was given nothing but the air, and the air dazzled.<br />
- Joy Katz, from <i><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/92803" target="_blank">All You Do Is Perceive</a></i></blockquote>
I find I have gone from navigating being gay to still navigating being gay, but now through a different user interface (UI). It's kind of like switching from Waze to Google Maps on my phone. Both apps do a really good job of helping me navigate, but one UI focuses on avoiding and/or re-routing around problems and the other UI focuses more on what I can do along the way or when I arrive. Where I used to have to constantly self-monitor to keep from letting my orientation be seen (avoiding problems), I now get to experience what it means to live a whole and honest life (what I can do along the way) while also navigating the wide variety of opinions and feelings people have about and toward LGBTQ people.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
In the last days of the fourth world I wished to make a map for<br />
those who would climb through the hole in the sky. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
My only tools were the desires of humans as they emerged<br />
from the killing fields, from the bedrooms and the kitchens. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
For the soul is a wanderer with many hands and feet.<br />
- Desiray Kierra Chee, from <i><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/49621" target="_blank">A Map to the Next World</a></i></blockquote>
I'm also already learning what microaggressions about LGBTQ people feel like when received first hand. That didn't take long!<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"...microaggressions point out cultural difference in ways that put the recipient’s non-conformity into sharp relief, often causing anxiety and crises of belonging..."<br />
- from the article, <i><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/09/microaggressions-matter/406090/" target="_blank">Microaggressions Matter</a></i>, Simba Runyowa, The Atlantic, 9/2015</blockquote>
Since coming out I've had a few well-meaning and supportive acquaintances make it subtly clear that while they support my personal journey, they would rather I kept it to myself. To their credit, they really are trying to be nothing but supportive and I very much honor and appreciate their effort on my behalf. It's just that they also have an implicit bias (we all do!) that creeps into their words, and that bias now includes me - specifically me as a gay man. Not unexpected but still, ouch.<br />
<br />
The message (the microaggression) is: be gay if you must, but don't make me uncomfortable in the process. "Why do gay people feel like they have to announce their sexual orientation to the world? - I don't flaunt my heterosexual orientation everywhere." or "Your right to stretch your arms stops at the next person's nose." or "I hope you won't start telling gay jokes now." or "This doesn't have to impact the way you do your job or go about your business."<br />
<br />
Oh, but it does if I'm honest.<br />
<br />
When I came out I knowingly gave up one of the dominant-culture privileges under which I had been operating. Heterosexual orientation underpins almost every aspect of daily life in our culture/society. Roles, interactions, expectations, tone of voice, assumptions, vocabulary, laws, rights, and more, are all based around hetero-normative standards and assumptions. Being gay in a hetero-normative society means that just existing is disruptive. In other words, gay people don't have the option to be ourselves and also be politely invisible at the same time. That's what being in the closet is.<br />
<br />
Which is why I made the decision to be publicly "out" in the first place, and why I believe it is important (if not unavoidable, as I am now finding) to be visibly so. So, to that end, <a href="https://teespring.com/GayTee#pid=212&cid=5819&sid=front" target="_blank">I bought a new hoodie</a> that also plays to my sense of humor:<br />
<br />
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<br />
Also, I'm discovering I was naive about the ease with which my wife and I would be able to continue on as if nothing much had changed. We've both come to see, as we continue to talk and process (and laugh and cry), that this is a much more complicated journey for us to sort through. We both now see that the future is going to look different than the past, but we cannot yet see what "different" looks like. That's very unsettling to a 35 year marriage and the stability we have both known. My wife remains the amazing person I have always known her to be, and she has determinedly supported my decision to come out and gamely engaged the challenges that come with that decision. This is asking a lot of any wife, and I know it.<br />
<br />
I find myself unpacking memories at odd moments, too, as does my wife. Memories that now have explanations which were either not readily apparent at the time, or things which I couldn't honestly explain at the time. Small things take on new significance as we look backwards. "Oh, that's why you...." or "Do you remember that time I..., well that was really because...." Backwards is easier to examine than forwards. I frequently find myself saying, when asked how this aspect of the coming out journey is going, that, "it's complicated."<br />
<br />
But mostly, coming out as a gay man has been very liberating, to an extent I could never have imagined. It is a precious gift, but some complicated assembly is clearly going to be required.Kevinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17544169845246026558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-814881299786341800.post-12288001895539294412017-04-15T19:00:00.000-07:002017-04-15T19:00:57.254-07:00I am a gay man<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
Lunch with my adult son, seated at a small corner table at the Blue Star Cafe in Seattle, discussing the complexities of the past. It is a conversation that requires being frank and open so all of my usual guards and defenses are, by very intentional design, down. The conversation is, in turns, brutally honest and mundane. There is air to clear and also things to catch up on. Somewhere in the twists and turns of this conversation, though, I lose my usual composure and hear myself admit something I have never acknowledged before. Never ever said out loud to <i>anyone</i> else, ever: <b>I'm gay</b>.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Maybe the poet is gay<br />
But he'll be heard anyway<br />
- Bruce Cockburn, from <i><a href="http://cockburnproject.net/songs&music/mtp.html" target="_blank">Maybe The Poet</a></i></blockquote>
Why did I let that happen, after 55 years of carefully, painstakingly maintained self-suppression? Why <i>then</i>, when I had no plan or thought to suddenly be "outed" and was so good at making sure that could/would never happen? I suppose, on reflection, because in that moment and in the context of that very honest conversation, looking across the table and locking eyes with my son, I simply couldn't maintain the lie any longer. My defenses were down and I couldn't pull them back up again quickly enough, or I just ran out of the energy to maintain them.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
When I spoke the words I am gay<br />
I had let them fester like blood on a prison cell wall.<br />
I hadn’t known that they would free themselves.<br />
- Alex-Quan Pham, from <i><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/detail/58230" target="_blank">When I Spoke</a></i></blockquote>
Did I mention that my son is also gay? [I still can't believe I now have the freedom to use a phrase as clear and honest as, "is also gay."] He has been out for several years, is happily married to a wonderful man, and has always had our full support. When he first told his mother and I that he was gay I was (secretly) delighted for him and we were both quick to let him know that he had our very sincere love and support. We <i>understood.</i><br />
<br />
I certainly understood. Yet, even in that most-critical and vulnerable moment for him I couldn't bring myself to put my arms around him and tell him just how <i>well and personally</i> I understood. I didn't tell him that I knew exactly what this was costing him to tell us. I didn't let him (or his mother) see me later cry tears of joy for him that he lived in a place and time when it really was an option to come out as a gay man, because those tears were also a lament for my own well-hidden secret truth. I couldn't respond fully and authentically to my son when I, more than anyone else in the world, could have been there for him.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Knowing that being<br />
fierce and proud and out and<br />
loud was just a bright new way<br />
to be needy. Please listen to me, oh<br />
what a buzz! you're the only one<br />
I can tell.<br />
- from <i><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/91498" target="_blank">Gay Pride Weekend, S.F., 1992</a></i> by Brenda Shaughnessy</blockquote>
For a closeted gay man (or anyone with any flavor of hidden self-truth, for that matter) there are hundreds of such moments of clarity and despair, and little bit of you dies each time you face those moments. There is nobody you can share that pain with, so you internalize it and die a little bit and soldier on again, resolute in your fate. There are also the thousands of times your well-practiced defenses cause you to constantly monitor your every word and gesture. Did that sound gay? OMG - that gesture I just made - did anyone see, did it give me away? That look someone just made - they know! No, maybe not. Whew!<br />
<br />
A colleague and friend, when I came out to him, observed that gay men who come out later in life tend to have a well developed sense of emotional intelligence and are very in-tune to the emotions and actions of others because of years of constantly monitoring everyone around them at all times, monitoring to make sure they aren't showing signs of <i>knowing</i>. He likened it to having eyes in the back of your head.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The process of through is ongoing.<br />
The earth doesn’t seem to move, but sometimes we fall<br />
down against it and seem to briefly alight on its turning.<br />
We were just going. I was just leaving,<br />
which is to say, coming<br />
elsewhere. Transient.<br />
- Miller Oberman, from <i><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/detail/57983" target="_blank">On Trans</a></i></blockquote>
After I quietly admit (the guilt packed into the choice of that word!) my homosexuality to my son he is kind but doesn't seem particularly surprised. He takes the news in stride almost like I've just said I am going to mow the lawn later that day. He notes, though, that once you walk through that door (coming out) you can't really walk back. That observation will prove to be very prescient, though I don't yet know it.<br />
<br />
He asks if I've told his mom - does she know? No! I'm not looking to make any lifestyle changes, she is my soulmate, so why should I tell her? Nothing can come from it, but maybe confusion and pain and anxiety. It seems like a very selfish gesture on my part. Hmmm. I can tell he's not happy I haven't told her, and I realize I've now placed him in a position of having to be complicit in my untruth.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Little by little, I have become<br />
so careful, no talk<br />
of politics, or orientation:<br />
I let them say, he's “a homosexual,”<br />
without an arch correction. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
- Randall Mann, from <i><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/57947" target="_blank">Black Box</a></i></blockquote>
A few weeks go by and I'm haunted by the question left hanging from that lunch discussion. Should I tell my wife? Is it selfish to tell her or is it something I owe her? I'm not afraid of her reaction (well, maybe a little, to be honest), knowing how supportive she is and how strong our love for each other is.<br />
<br />
My wife and I are listening to an audiobook. Rick Riordan's <i>The Heroes of Olympus</i> series (which follows the original <i>Percy Jackson</i> series) and suddenly (a little bit of a not-quite-spoiler alert!) one of the characters is brutally outed in front of his friends as being gay and having had a long-time crush on one of the other major male characters. I feel myself tense up in my chair, feeling his horror and shame. But this part of the story is handled so beautifully by the author, and it becomes a minor thread in the story moving forward, tenderly handled and comfortingly resolved by the end of the series. I'm so powerfully moved and sit there wishing there had been <i>any</i> such characters in <i>any</i> story I had access to in my youth - someone like me I could have followed to a foreseeable, possible, happy conclusion.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
His voice cracked, and Jason could tell the guy was about to get teary-eyed. Whether Nico had really given up on Percy or not, Jason couldn't imagine what it had been like for Nico all those years, keeping a secret that would've been unthinkable to share in the 1940s, denying who he was, feeling completely alone- even more isolated than other demigods.<br />
- Rick Riordan, from <i><a href="http://a.co/hvUYTLw" target="_blank">The House of Hades</a></i></blockquote>
But when and where I grew up there was no such option. I certainly knew there were gay people in the world. I also knew there were kids who ran away from home to join the circus. But knowing that was the case didn't make running away to join a circus a real option for me (not that I wanted to!). Knowing there were gay people didn't make being gay an option either. So I date girls and have crushes on boys and am confused. I go to college, have even stronger crushes on guys and continue to date girls. I meet and fall in love with my wife, we get married, and I know things will now be better. But I don't change just because I've married a woman I am very much in love with. My secret truth remains, so I bury as deeply as I can and build the life I/we have today.<br />
<br />
This is the part I don't expect many people to quite understand. I am happily and contentedly in love with my wife. We have over 35 years of marriage and are as in-love today as when we were first married. Maybe more so. She is my soul-mate. I am gay (not, in my case, bi-sexual or anything else on the non-binary expanding sense of human sexuality and gender identity we are finally beginning to acknowledge as a society). There is no confusion on my part about this fact, and there has never been: I am a gay man. But I am also in love with my wife, very much a woman. We have, I have recently learned, what is referred to as a mixed-orientation marriage. <br />
<br />
A couple more weeks go by before I realize I really do need to tell my wife. Two weekends in a row I try to find the courage to initiate that conversation, failing every time to get farther than heart palpitations and sweating palms. God, this is hard! Why is it so hard just to be myself?!? I can't do it. I will do it. I can't do it. I'm going to do it this time. No, I just can't.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“Nico clenched his sword. Sharing his secret crush hadn’t been the worst of it. Eventually he might have done that, in his own time, in his own way. But being forced to talk about Percy, being bullied and harassed and strong-armed simply for Cupid’s amusement … Tendrils of darkness were now spreading out from his feet, killing all the weeds between the cobblestones. Nico tried to rein in his anger.”<br />
- Rick Riordon, from <i><a href="http://a.co/2RmxwVu" target="_blank">The Blood of Olympus</a></i></blockquote>
Finally, on a Sunday morning we are both sitting in our usual living room chairs. It's a lazy morning, neither of us really wants to get up from our morning coffee/yerba mate to start tackling the chores of the day. She makes motions of getting ready to do just that, though, so I know the moment has come. In that instant I also know that if I don't speak now I probably won't ever try again. I push myself to start the conversation knowing that once rolling I will have to finish.<br />
<br />
No, don't get up just yet. I have something I need to share with you. I watch her eyes get wide with fear - she can sense in my voice that this is something significant and has no idea what it could be. I pause, because I literally can't get my voice to work and the words are stuck in my throat like a lump of dry clay. My heart is pounding in my ears. She watches me struggling and I can feel her anxiety rising. I know I need to get this out. I need to say what I need to say and get quickly to the part about still loving her intensely and not wanting any change of relationship.<br />
<br />
I feel like the State Patrol Officer who has to call up a parent and tell them their son or daughter has been involved in an automobile accident but that they are all right: how quickly can you get through the first necessary part of that sentence and get to the reassurance that parent will desperately need to hear? How quickly can I say the relationship-rocking part and get to the bit about not wanting a different relationship or partner? Not quickly enough.<br />
<br />
I say it baldly - I need to tell you that I am a gay man. She repeats it back in shock - Are you telling me you're a gay man? You? Yes, me. This is who I am, who I have always been. She is totally surprised. She had no idea, I had hidden it very well. She takes the news in and then, slowly, we start to talk it through. She is an amazing woman, and I can sense we're going to be all right. The relief I feel is almost overwhelming.<br />
<br />
Even then I figured I'd share this long-held last secret with my wife and then redraw the line there. Since I wasn't looking for any changes of any sort, nobody else had any need to know. Nobody would know or be able to tell and life would move forward more or less the same.<br />
<br />
What I wasn't prepared for, though, was just how cathartic coming out would be. In the discussion with my son it was more like answering a yes/no question. Telling my wife was the first time I allowed myself to say out loud the phrase, <i>I am a gay man</i>. In telling my wife and saying it out loud a huge crushing weight was instantly lifted from me, one I had no idea I had been carrying until that very moment. It takes a tremendous amount of effort, at all times, to deny a significant part of yourself in every transaction, everywhere you go. I had walked out a door and, as my son had warned several weeks earlier, there really was no going back. And suddenly I was ok with that, excited about it, even. And scared, of course.<br />
<br />
Since that Sunday I've been letting folks know, one at a time. People I work closely with, close friends, family, select others. I've been misrepresenting myself for so long that I feel I owe some people an honest conversation. If I want to participate in conversations with authenticity moving forward I need to give people the opportunity to understand this newly disclosed aspect of myself first. Part of me resents feeling like I even need to have these conversations, but I also know I have been the one lying and I owe them the truth. I also know I have to give each of them the space to do with that truth what makes sense to and for them.<br />
<br />
And now there is this very long and very personal blog post, too. It is no longer a secret. The toothpaste isn't going back into the tube. I am a gay man, that is a part of what makes me, me.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"I'm living by example by continuing on with my career and having a full, rich life, and I am incidentally gay."<br />
- <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portia_de_Rossi" target="_blank">Portia DeRossi</a></blockquote>
I hope you are still ok with me, now that you know who I really am.<br />
<br />Kevinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17544169845246026558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-814881299786341800.post-37102983648152631082017-04-11T08:09:00.000-07:002017-04-11T08:13:50.297-07:00Open SeasonBlue sky sunshine, sunglasses, swollen full moon hanging low in the sky, Sigur Rós cranked up, snow-flake warning icon showing on my car's instrument panel (warning me the temperature could mean ice on the road) but the roof panel is slid all the way back - full open - so my bald patch can fly in the cold morning air.<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I never live with balance<br />
I always wake up nervous<br />
Light comes at me sideways<br />
I hold my breath forever </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I never live with balance<br />
Though I've always liked the notion<br />
I feel that endless hunger<br />
For energy and motion </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Open... </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
- Bruce Cockburn, from <i><a href="http://cockburnproject.net/songs&music/open.html" target="_blank">Open</a></i></blockquote>
<br />
Spring is finally showing up here in the Pacific Northwest, even if we are still having to glimpse it between rain showers and wind storms. Quick - see the pretty pink petals on the cherry trees before the wind rips them all off and the rain drives them down to the wet sidewalks and lawns below. If you're slow - see the the pretty pink ground beneath the cherry trees!<br />
<br />
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<br />
I suspect there is nearly as much poetry about spring as there is about loss, both subjects being powerful muses for creative souls. This morning I found a beautiful poem (with great alliteration throughout!) about spring in New Mexico. I was drawn to the poem because of the many summers I spent in southern New Mexico as a boy, though spring was the one season I don't think I ever got to experience there:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Spring danced over the cactus plains,<br />
Vaguely tender in timid green,<br />
Veiled in the sudden, fleeting rain's<br />
Silver sheen.<br />
No mad riot of buds, and yet<br />
Wild poppies and mignonette,<br />
Flung from her floating garland gown,<br />
Fluttered down. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
- from <i><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?contentId=14011" target="_blank">Spring-New Mexico</a></i>, by Rose Henderson</blockquote>
Spring is a season of openings and, after all, I think we're really ready for it this year.<br />
<br />
Today's full playlist (all Sigur Rós):<br />
<ul>
<li>Stormur</li>
<li>Kveikur</li>
<li>Rafstraumur</li>
<li>Bláþráður</li>
</ul>
Kevinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17544169845246026558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-814881299786341800.post-1765527784353934382017-03-28T12:33:00.001-07:002017-03-28T12:33:58.668-07:00When I could have paused just a bit longerIts been a while since I've paused long enough in the morning to write. Lifestyle changes (for the better, working out to get back in shape) have cut into my early morning routine just enough to make this reflecting space difficult to find. Now that those new habits are pretty firmly established, though, hopefully I can bring blogging back into a new balance as well.<br />
<br />
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<br />
It's wet and cloudy again today. That is the complete expression of our current pattern, separated by only the occasional day of sun breaks. The weather app on my phone keeps popping up a notice to say, "The rain will continue." I suppose that notification function is there to announce upcoming <i>changes</i> in the weather and, if so, it must be getting just as bored as I am with that constant phrase. Yes, the rain will continue. We know.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
What do you think?<br />I’m trying out this thing where questions about love & forgiveness<br />are a form of work I’d rather not do alone. I’m trying to say,<br />Let’s put our briefcases on our heads, in the sudden rain,<br />& continue meeting as if we’ve just been given our names.<br /> - from <i><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/detail/58154" target="_blank">Poplar Street</a></i>, by Chen Chen</blockquote>
Do follow the link and read that poem in its entirety - you won't regret it! It's not really about rain at all, which makes it a respite. Of course, I also hope you will always want to follow the links to the poems I reference and read them fully, and that you will share my love for poetry, and songs, and rain.<br />
<br />
The Jacques Loussier Trio sets the perfect tone for a grey day. I can literally hear the rain drops plunking down on the piano keys, picking up pace from a sporadic sprinkle of large wet drops to a wind-driven rain lashing against the window, then back to calm dripping.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Gray hills, gray clouds, gray faces at the pane,<br />Gray hearts that long for sunshine and blue skies,<br />The ceaseless rattle of the wind-born rain<br />Against bleak pavements!<br /> - from <i><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?contentId=14231" target="_blank">Rainy Days</a></i>, by Shirley Harvey</blockquote>
There is much that could be said here (anywhere) about things going on in the world right now. I try to keep this space free from political ranting (see my Twitter feed for more of that), though have strayed at times, I know. But I need this space to breath, center, and be still. Self care in difficult times, as mundane as it may seem when the external world is all chaos.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I am like the queen of a rainy country,<br />Powerless and grown old. Another morning<br />with its quaint obligations: newspaper,<br />bacon grease, rattle of dishes and bones.<br /> - from, <i><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?contentId=42085" target="_blank">A Rainy Country</a></i>, by Linda Pastan</blockquote>
I remind myself that rain can also be comforting. Maybe that notion comes from having spent my life in this rain-fed verdant corner of the world. Rain gives permission to settle in and be still. Stay under cover, listen to the rain on the roof, leaves, sidewalk, lake, and wait for a spell. The rain <i>might</i> let up in a few minutes, and think how foolish I'd feel out getting soaked when I could have paused just a bit longer.<br />
<br />
Today's Playlist:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><i>Gnossienne No. 1</i> - Jacques Loussier Trio</li>
<li><i>Before The Mountains</i> - Largo</li>
<li><i>Sophisticated Lady</i> - Duke Ellington</li>
<li><i>Country Mile</i> - Camera Obscura</li>
<li><i>In Your Atmosphere (Live)</i> - John Mayer</li>
<li><i>Free To Be</i> - Bruce Cockburn</li>
</ul>
Kevinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17544169845246026558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-814881299786341800.post-68871867635024220162017-02-07T08:44:00.000-08:002017-02-07T08:44:19.770-08:00Ice for the drive, bone marrow for the mindThe temperature dances just below freezing this morning as I ease my way in at an ice-induced leisurely pace. Fewer cars on the road this early morning, more time to get where I'm going, more time for more tunes over my phone-based music stream. <br />
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<br />
The tires crunch over crusted snow and slush on the side streets, giving good feedback about road conditions as I go. But the arterials are bare and wet looking. The road could be just as it appears - wet. It could also be ice, or both. So we drive for conditions, as the State Patrol likes to remind us, via their Twitter feed, to do.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Some say the world will end in fire,<br />Some say in ice.<br />From what I’ve tasted of desire<br />I hold with those who favor fire.<br />But if it had to perish twice,<br />I think I know enough of hate<br />To say that for destruction ice<br />Is also great<br />And would suffice.<br /> - Robert Frost, <i><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/44263" target="_blank">Fire and Ice</a></i></blockquote>
Kris Orlowski and Andrew Joslyn's tune <i>I Will Go</i> popped up. Not sure when or where I picked that tune up in my musical wanderings, but it is a beautiful song with well written (if sad) lyrics. To quote just a bit of the lyric:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
soul, the fullness in her stare<br />first of many reasons we are<br />glow, her color fills the air<br />it’s hard to exist when we're afar<br />she proclaims<br />i will go<br />won’t you stay<br />i will go for you, go<br />i will. no<br />time will show<br />i will go<br />for you stay<br />grow, positively pained<br />bending not to break from being strong<br />go, letting go -- or pausing to refrain<br />withered like the trees among the storm<br />what remains?</blockquote>
Somewhat like Goethe: "You must sleep but I must dance... "<br />
<br />
Good music is balm for the soul and good bone marrow for the mind to pick over contentedly. And importantly, these days, it is <i>not</i> the news.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I can’t get my head around it. How did we devise<br /><br />a concept like just war: <i>the slain of the Lord<br />are dung upon the ground</i>. I know there are distinctions<br />it is important to make and I don’t expect perfection<br />but the chicanery of subtle thought . . . if I pick it all apart<br />will anything be left to sew back into sense?<br /><br />Cleverer minds are reconciled. Cultured, poised,<br />the government official (Should I give him spectacles?<br />Should they reflect the light?) pauses and replies:<br /><i>The President regrets . . . but consider the alternative …<br /><br />would you offer succour</i>… and I can almost understand.<br /> - Brook Emery, from <i><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/55137" target="_blank">Monster [I can't get my head around it]</a></i></blockquote>
<br />
Today's playlist:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><i>Charlie Darwin</i>, The Low Anthem</li>
<li><i>If I Don't Get Involved</i>, Bobby "Blue" Bland</li>
<li><i>New Religion</i>, Alice Smith</li>
<li><i>I Will Go</i>, Kris Orlowski & Andrew Joslyn</li>
<li><i>I Wish / Everything I Love</i>, John Stowell</li>
<li><i>You're Just Never Satisfied</i>, Fountains Of Wayne</li>
</ul>
Kevinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17544169845246026558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-814881299786341800.post-52480940741843700892017-01-30T08:40:00.002-08:002017-01-30T12:01:03.869-08:00That's the trouble with normal<div class="tr_bq">
Kris Kristofferson wrote, "There's nothing short of dying, that's half as lonesome as the sound, of a sleeping city sidewalk, and Sunday morning coming down." I suppose, but I also think Monday mornings in the winter carry a similar sense of isolation. Driving in, I pass clusters of downcast-eyed and slump-shouldered students waiting for buses, almost none talking to each other, just standing in the cold and dark. There is something excruciatingly empty about being alone in a small crowd. Its like so much dark matter, holding them all together and holding them all apart.</div>
<br />
Having spent last week out ill with some sort of viral crud, it is nice to be moving again. This past week was a bad week to have extra time on my hands, time for keeping up with current events. Any doubts about the staggering lack of qualifications (or the intentions) of our new President and his minions have now been thoroughly erased. No President in history has ever <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2017/01/30/it-took-trump-a-record-8-days-to-reach-majority-disapproval-infographic/#d42c71b1d764" target="_blank">hit majority disapproval ratings in 8 short days</a>, until now. It usually takes several hundred days to get to that point of electorate disillusionment.<br />
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<br />
"I'm just saying, look out the bloody window, George." - John Le Carre, <i>Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy</i><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
There's a parasite feeding on<br />
Everybody's bag of rage<br />
What goes out returns again<br />
To smite the mouth and burn the page<br />
Under the rain of all our dark tomorrows </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I can see in the dark it's where I used to live<br />
I see excess and the gaping need<br />
Follow the money - see where it leads<br />
It's to shrunken men stuffed up with greed<br />
They meet and make plans in strange half-lit tableaux<br />
Under the rain of all our dark tomorrows </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
You've got no home in this world of sorrows </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
- Bruce Cockburn, from <i><a href="http://cockburnproject.net/songs&music/aodt.html" target="_blank">All Our Dark Tomorrows</a></i></blockquote>
On the plus side, this administration's cavalier handling of the Press (and facts, in general) has re-awoken at least some journalism in this country. That, and stirred the pot of democratic protest, raising a collective voice of resistance. We're going to need to sustain both, I think.<br />
<blockquote>
Art<br />
what do they care about art<br />
they go from being<br />
contemporary baby kissers to<br />
old time corrupt politicians<br />
to self-appointed censorship clerks<br />
who won't support art<br />
but will support war<br />
poverty<br />
lung cancer<br />
racism<br />
colonialism<br />
and toxic sludge<br />
that's their morality<br />
that's their religious conviction<br />
that's their protection of the public<br />
& contribution to family entertainment<br />
what do they care about art </blockquote>
<blockquote>
- Jayne Cortez, from, <i><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/90819" target="_blank">The Oppressionists</a></i></blockquote>
By casting the world in dystopian words and visions, whipping up unrealistic fears and, importantly, "enemies" with branded names and faces, they sell a return to "normalcy" that profits a few and takes from the many. Give up your freedoms and rights and we will protect you from [insert contrived horror]!<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Strikes across the frontier and strikes for higher wage<br />
Planet lurches to the right as ideologies engage<br />
Suddenly it's repression, moratorium on rights<br />
What did they think the politics of panic would invite?<br />
Person in the street shrugs -- "Security comes first"<br />
But the trouble with normal is it always gets worse </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Callous men in business costume speak computerese<br />
Play pinball with the Third World trying to keep it on its knees<br />
Their single crop starvation plans put sugar in your tea<br />
And the local Third World's kept on reservations you don't see<br />
"It'll all go back to normal if we put our nation first"<br />
But the trouble with normal is it always gets worse </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
- Bruce Cockburn, from <i><a href="http://cockburnproject.net/songs&music/ttwn.html" target="_blank">The Trouble With Normal</a></i></blockquote>
That's the trouble with normal.<br />
<br />
Today's Playlist:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>NPR, Morning Edition</li>
</ul>
Kevinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17544169845246026558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-814881299786341800.post-28070737527186196202017-01-10T08:22:00.001-08:002017-01-10T08:22:21.333-08:00Hope for the drive, for the day, for the futureThe side streets were still icy this early, dark, cold morning, but the arterials were, in the main, just wet. I listen to NPR on the way in, and wonder why. I'm not sure if I'm too lazy to tap the screen and switch back to music or that I'm just that compelled to listen to news out of that other Washington (the one ending in DC), like people do when they slow down to get a good look at a horrific accident scene. I'm not enjoying the news I hear, but I can't quite look away from it either.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
When everything finally has been wrecked and further shipwrecked,<br />When their most ardent dream has been made hollow and unrecognizable,<br />They will feel inside their limbs the missing shade of blue that lingers<br />Against hills in the cooler hours before dark, and the moss at the foot of the forest<br />When green starts to leave it.<br /> - From <i><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/56440" target="_blank">Half Omen Half Hope</a></i>, by Joanna Klink</blockquote>
I'm listening for hope, I think. I'm driving here in my little car on a dark and icy morning, listening to news I don't enjoy, hoping for something I consider positive before I turn away. Like eating fresh strawberries that are disappointingly tart, but continuing anyway hoping to find one sweet berry that you will finish with. Looking to leave a good taste in your mouth.<br />
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<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“Hope” is the thing with feathers -<br />That perches in the soul -<br />And sings the tune without the words -<br />And never stops - at all -<br /> - Emily Dickinson, from <i><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/42889" target="_blank">"Hope" is the thing with feathers</a></i></blockquote>
So be it, then. I will hope in the long gift, as articulated by Miller Williams:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Who were many people coming together<br />cannot become one people falling apart.<br />Who dreamed for every child an even chance<br />cannot let luck alone turn doorknobs or not.<br />Whose law was never so much of the hand as the head<br />cannot let chaos make its way to the heart.<br />Who have seen learning struggle from teacher to child<br />cannot let ignorance spread itself like rot.<br />We know what we have done and what we have said,<br />and how we have grown, degree by slow degree,<br />believing ourselves toward all we have tried to become—<br />just and compassionate, equal, able, and free. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
All this in the hands of children, eyes already set<br />on a land we never can visit—it isn’t there yet—<br />but looking through their eyes, we can see<br />what our long gift to them may come to be.<br />If we can truly remember, they will not forget. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
- from <i><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/47107" target="_blank">Of History and Hope</a></i>, by Miller Williams</blockquote>
I hope for a safe commute on this icy morning, I hope for a productive day that makes a positive difference in the lives of others, and I hope for a future that isn't overly overshadowed by the bad decisions being made today by those to whom power has been entrusted. And, bird in hand, I will work for all three.<br />
<br />
Today's Playlist:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>NPR - <i>Morning Edition</i></li>
</ul>
<br />
<br />Kevinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17544169845246026558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-814881299786341800.post-48961254072688566762017-01-05T08:33:00.000-08:002017-01-05T09:30:47.210-08:00An appropriate dose of stolidity to play against chaosImpatience. If every commute is really <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory" target="_blank">an experiment in chaos</a> in which a different key word is hidden each day, a keyword that can be deduced from the millions of random interactions between drivers up and down the (in our case) I-5 corridor and surrounding communities, like a chaos pattern, then my guess for this morning is "Impatience." Or maybe, "Inattentive." Though I think the latter is a static condition of the experiment.<br />
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<br />
I witnessed several encounters between drivers this morning that left me shaking my head like a bewildered theologian. Near misses caused by folks apparently too impatient to take their place in the plodding queue. Giving the finger, sometimes literally, sometimes via their actions, to each other. Like the planet Pluto (back when it was still accorded the designation of being a planet) when its orbit placed it in 8th rather than 9th place (distance from the sun) for a roughly 20 year period, as colorfully articulated by Fatimah Asghar in the poem, <i><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/detail/58056" target="_blank">Pluto Shits on the Universe</a></i>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Today, I broke your solar system. Oops.<br />
My bad. Your graph said I was supposed<br />
to make a nice little loop around the sun. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Naw. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I chaos like a motherfucker. Ain’t no one can<br />
chart me. All the other planets, they think<br />
I’m annoying. They think I’m an escaped<br />
moon, running free.</blockquote>
There is attitude in that poem (do follow the link and read the whole poem) that mirrors what I see in this morning's commute:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Fuck your order. Fuck your time. I realigned the cosmos.<br />
I chaosed all the hell you have yet to feel.</blockquote>
Speaking of head-shaking theologians, I got my turn when a church bus pulled out of a side street directly into my path. If you want to practice living prayerfully, folks, that's fine with me. Just pray with your eyes open while you're driving, please.<br />
<br />
The perils, I suppose, of having a blog revolve (more or less) around the morning commute is having to acknowledge some of our less-best behavior as a collective community. Like holding penalties in football, which they say could be called on every play but are usually overlooked unless the infraction really stands out.<br />
<br />
Is poetry a rescue this morning?<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
As for the million others, they are blessed:<br />
This is their age. Their slapdash in demand<br />
From all who would take fright were thought expressed<br />
In ways that showed a hint of being planned,<br />
They may say anything, in any way.<br />
Why not? Why shouldn’t they? Why wouldn’t they?<br />
Nothing to study, nothing to understand. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
And yet it could be that their flight from rhyme<br />
And reason is a technically precise<br />
Response to the confusion of a time<br />
When nothing, said once, merits hearing twice.<br />
It isn’t that their deafness fails to match<br />
The chaos. It’s the only thing they catch.<br />
No form, no pattern. Just the rolling dice </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Of idle talk. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
- Clive James, from <i><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/detail/53295" target="_blank">A Perfect Market</a></i></blockquote>
Fitting and applicable, but it doesn't do much to shift my attitude. What about music, then?<br />
<br />
My commute music today was all from a Sigur Rós streaming playlist, with all the songs that popped up having single-word titles taken directly from the physical world: Obsidian, Iceberg, Surface, and Storm. Yes! A pattern emerging from a random process! An appropriate dose of stolidity to play against chaos.<br />
<br />
Today's Playlist (all by <a href="https://sigur-ros.co.uk/" target="_blank">Sigur Rós</a>):<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Hrafntinna</li>
<li>Ísjaki</li>
<li>Yfirborð</li>
<li>Stormur</li>
</ul>
Kevinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17544169845246026558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-814881299786341800.post-21296466552637184472016-12-15T07:52:00.002-08:002016-12-15T07:52:57.678-08:00In front of all this beautyThat moon! All the way in this morning the moon lead the way, large, cold-blue, and ever-so-slightly fuzzy from somthing in the dark atmosphere between it and me. It floated, limned and bright, always slighty to the right of my forward progress, visible through the front windshield or the glass portion of my car's roof.<br />
<br />
When I arrived at my office on campus (with, I kid you not, Creedence Clearwater's <i>Bad Mood Rising</i> playing on my car's sound system) I stood in the parking lot, shivering, and drank it in as it glowed as bright as a street light between the denuded trees next to me. The sureal colors created by the sulfur street lamps were mocked by the moon's pristine blue-white reflection.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
This is the light of the mind, cold and planetary.<br /> - Tory Dent, <i><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/58441" target="_blank">The Moon and the Yew Tree</a></i></blockquote>
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<br />
From Bruce Cockburn's, <i><a href="http://cockburnproject.net/songs&music/un.html" target="_blank">Understanding Nothing</a></i>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
High above valley,<br />Above deep shade coloured with the calls of cuckoos,<br />The ring of coppersmith's hammer high in the hiss of the wind<br />Wind filled with spirits and bright with the jangle of horse bells<br />After a crisp night crammed with stars<br />It's morning<br />.....<br />Weavers' fingers flying on the loom<br />Patterns shift too fast to be discerned<br />All these years of thinking<br />Ended up like this<br />In front of all this beauty<br />Understanding nothing</blockquote>
<br />
Today's playlist:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Pure Prairie League: <i>Amy</i></li>
<li>America: <i>Sister Golden Hair</i></li>
<li>Bob Marley & The Wailers: <i>Is This Love</i></li>
<li>The Young Rascals: <i>Good Lovin'</i></li>
<li>King Harvest: <i>Dancing in the Moonlight</i></li>
<li>Creedence Clearwater Revival: <i>Bad Mood Rising</i></li>
</ul>
Kevinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17544169845246026558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-814881299786341800.post-75507465092567934542016-12-07T08:19:00.003-08:002016-12-07T08:19:33.569-08:00Energy wins outBrrrr. A clear dark sky brings temperatures in the high 20's (F, ~-2C) this morning. The roads are mostly dry, thankfully, but little splashes of ice pop up here and there, so most folks are taking it slow this morning.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Headlamps reflecting off the tail lights and any bright-work<br />bedecking the back-ends of the cars in front of us;<br />a slow-moving procession as we wind cautiously down the<br />icy road on this clear-sky-cold morning. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The cold asphalt holds the moisture tightly to itself<br />in a frozen embrace, reflecting streetlamps, headlamps,<br />the occasional faint star's light from millions of years before.<br />Or does the frozen water hold the street? </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
No, I think it is the clear-eyed sky, darkly backlight<br />in this early hour, wide open to the warmlessness<br />of eons of deep space and far-traveled starlight that holds both<br />road and ice in a bracing grip: winter. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
- <i>Cold Road</i>, December 2016</blockquote>
<div>
The usual cold morning tension: part of me would like to stay home warm and curled up with a good book, the other part of me is coiled energy ready to be up, out, and productive. Energy wins out.<br />
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Today's Playlist:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>NPR News for a bit, then:</li>
<li></li>
<li>Sigur Rós, <i>Rafmagnið búið</i></li>
<li>Sigur Rós, <i>Hrafntinna</i></li>
<li>Sigur Rós, <i>Heysátan</i></li>
</ul>
</div>
Kevinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17544169845246026558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-814881299786341800.post-23331815995537021222016-11-30T08:50:00.001-08:002016-11-30T10:25:33.072-08:00We know this narrative's path<div class="tr_bq">
It is <a href="http://finitemusing.blogspot.com/search?q=Mr.+Maleable" target="_blank">Mr. Malleable's</a> day of the week. The skies are dark and cloudy, the roads glisten with wet, yet it isn't raining. There are freshly-fallen leaves strewn about the sidewalks and, where there are no sidewalks, the sides of the road where asphalt meets gravel or grass. They have certainly fallen since the last rains came through because they still move like free spirits, not yet wet and heavy. They move like they still live high up in the breeze zone, they don't yet know they have died.</div>
<br />
The transit bus in front of me must be trying to catch up with its schedule. A big boxy White Rabbit, it is moving along at an anxious full legal speed (plus a little). The freshly-fallen leaves get caught up in the bus' swirling wake and dance up in front of me on the road before sweeping under my front bumper. If it weren't so dark out I'm sure I would be able to see them behind me, now dancing in the wake of my car.<br />
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This is the season of dark mornings and dark evenings. Of watching for shadows that move along the sides of the road (don't they know that all-black clothing, while fashionable, is totally invisible in the dark?) against the glare of on-coming headlights, on both the morning and evening commutes. Caution mixed with impatience adds to the volatility of the road.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Even the swarms of kids have given in<br />
To winter's big excuse, boxed-in allure:<br />
TVs ricochet light behind pulled curtains. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The days throw up a closed sign around four.<br />
The hapless customer who'd wanted something<br />
Arrives to find lights out, a bolted door. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
- Maggie Dietz, from <i><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/89599" target="_blank">November</a></i></blockquote>
Gas prices are down again these days. Big and excessively-big vehicles fill the roads as those with short memories happily wrap themselves in 2 tons of aggressive sheet metal so they can once again tower over the rest of the traffic. I shake my head, bemused. They will probably be making excessively-big car payments for much longer than the gas prices will stay artificially depressed, but as we've seen this same movie a few times already I can't feel too much sympathy. Big, small, slow, fast, weak, powerful: everyone gets the opportunity to move at the same speed, which is precisely no faster than the car in front of you. The only variable is how much gas you consume while you move in queue.<br />
<blockquote>
Traffic was heavy coming off the bridge,<br />
and I took the road to the right, the wrong one,<br />
and got stuck in the car for hours. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
Most nights I rushed out into the evening<br />
without paying attention to the trees,<br />
whose names I didn't know,<br />
or the birds, which flew heedlessly on. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
- from <i><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/57713" target="_blank">A Partial History Of My Stupidity</a></i>, by Edward Hirsch</blockquote>
History has been on my mind a lot of late. I fear we're watching a rerun of things that happened just outside the immediate memory of almost everyone living today, but not outside recorded memory we are all very familiar with. Like the gas prices movie, like freshly-fallen leaves. We know the path this narrative flows through, so we are without excuses. <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
An infernal angel passed in flight<br />
just now along the avenure<br />
in a crush of thugs; an eerie emptiness<br />
lit and festooned with swastikas engulfed him;<br />
the poor, defensless windows, also armed<br />
with guns and war toys too, are shuttered up,<br />
the butcher who decked berries on the snouts<br />
of his slaughtered baby goats has closed; the feast<br />
of the meek executioners still innocent of blood<br />
has turned into a foul Virginia reel of shattered wings,<br />
ghosts on the sand bars, and the water rushes in<br />
to eat the shore and no one's blameless anymore. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
- Eugenio Montale, from <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?contentId=37621" target="_blank">The Hitler Spring</a></blockquote>
We're in an uneasy quiet right now, a wait-and-see pause. Well, I am. Cockburn, singing at me this morning as I drive along, casts just the right mood:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Bell in the fire station tower<br />Rings out the measure of the racing hours<br />I slip through the door to the roof outside<br />To gaze at the sign hanging in the sky<br />That sailor on the billboard looks so self-possessed<br />Doesn't have a thing to forgive or forget<br />All's quiet on the inner city front.<br /> - from, <i><a href="http://cockburnproject.net/songs&music/aqoticf.html" target="_blank">All's Queit On The Inner City Front</a></i></blockquote>
<br />
Today's Playlist (all Bruce Cockburn):<br />
<ul>
<li><i>All the Diamonds In the World</i></li>
<li><i>All The Ways I Want You</i></li>
<li><i>All's Quiet On The Inner City Front</i></li>
<li><i>Ancestors</i></li>
</ul>
Kevinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17544169845246026558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-814881299786341800.post-11723681558689447362016-11-22T08:14:00.000-08:002016-11-22T08:14:36.938-08:00Winter-tired in my acoustic bubbleThis morning's chill is sharp, in contrast to my dull tiredness, as the garage door rolls up and back. Its springs creak plaintifully above the mechanical chugging and the clanking of metal hinges and plastic wheels. I commiserate with them this morning. For reasons outside of my control and somewhere just beyond my ability to conciously understand I woke in the middle of last night and then tossed and turned for a couple of hours before finally finding sleep again, shortly before the morning alarm. Thankfully not a common problem for me, though today it leaves me feeling as winter-tired as a leafless tree.<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
See, Winter comes to rule the varied year,<br />Sullen and sad, with all his rising train—<br />Vapours, and clouds, and storms. Be these my theme,<br />These, that exalt the soul to solemn thought<br />And heavenly musing. Welcome, kindred glooms!<br /> - James Thompson, <i><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/45406" target="_blank">from The Seasons: Winter</a></i></blockquote>
I've been listening to a shuffle of Sigur Rós tunes the last few days, leaving it as-is for this morning's drive. The rich and complex tapestry of their music rolls around my little car's cabin, creating a warm acoustic barrier against the dark pre-dawn morning. The Fiat isn't much more than a little bubble anyway, but this morning it feels totally spherical. Snug as a field mouse's winter nest, and me a claustrophobe who likes small spaces.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Ethereal globe of thinnest glass,<br />Sphere of air, yet visible,<br />What hand of nymph or fairy<br />Could mold thy fragile form,<br />Airy, bouyant, weighing naught?<br />And of what clay, if such it be,<br />Did thy creator model thee?<br /> - Frank M. Schoonmaker (10 yrs old), from <i><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?contentId=13775" target="_blank">Crystals</a></i></blockquote>
Today's playlist (all Sigur Rós):<br />
<ul>
<li>Inní mér syngur vitleysingur (Live)</li>
<li>Sæglópur (Live)</li>
<li>Festival (Live)</li>
<li>E-Bow (Live</li>
</ul>
Kevinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17544169845246026558noreply@blogger.com0