I will be taking a break from blogging this week. Hope to see you back here soon, and have a happy week!
I will be taking a break from blogging this week. Hope to see you back here soon, and have a happy week!
I will be taking a break from blogging this week. Hope to see you back here soon, and have a happy week!
I have a travel essay entered in the WeSaidGo essay contest!
You can read “The Bits and Pieces Tour” here. Please stop by
and take a look.
Elsewhere on the internet:
Change your password, change your life! What a great idea.
Read about how the lowly password can remind you of what you want more (or
less) of in your life.
Don’t let these habits steal your happiness.
Want more reading time? Check out Gretchen Rubin’s “13 Tips for Getting More Reading Done.”
Interesting piece on how getting rid of expectations can
help you “master the art of living.”
These made me laugh (and almost made me miss working
in an office).
Visit A Blog Made Vibrant for a free downloadable “Emergency
Mood Booster” worksheet.
Have a happy Friday!
Introduction by Ted Kooser: Readers of this column
during the past year have by now learned how enthusiastic I am about poems
describing everyday life. I’ve tried to show how the ordinary can be made
extraordinary through close and transforming observation. Here Tess Gallagher
goes to the mailbox to post a letter. We’ve all done that, haven’t we? But
notice how closely she pays attention to this simple experience, and how she
fits this one moment into the meaning of her life.
Under Stars
The sleep of this night deepens
because I have walked coatless from the house
carrying the white envelope.
All night it will say one name
in its little tin house by the roadside.
I have raised the metal flag
so its shadow under the roadlamp
leaves an imprint on the rain-heavy bushes.
Now I will walk back
thinking of the few lights still on
in the town a mile away.
In the yellowed light of a kitchen
the millworker has finished his coffee,
his wife has laid out the white slices of bread
on the counter. Now while the bed they have left
is still warm, I will think of you, you
who are so far away
you have caused me to look up at the stars.
Tonight they have not moved
from childhood, those games played after dark.
Again I walk into the wet grass
toward the starry voices. Again, I
am the found one, intimate, returned
by all I touch on the way.
“Under Stars” copyright 1987 by Tess Gallagher. Reprinted
from “Amplitude: New & Selected Poems” with the permission of Graywolf
Press, Saint Paul, Minnesota. Gallagher’s most recent book of poetry is “Dear
Ghosts: Poems,” Graywolf Press, 2006. This weekly column is supported by The
Poetry Foundation, the Library of Congress, and the Department of English at
the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
“The best moments in reading are when you come across
something—a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things—which you had
thought special and particular to you. And now, here it is, set down by someone
else, a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead. And it is as
if a hand has come out, and taken yours”
—Alan Bennett, The History Boys
Last week my friend Kerri came to stay with me, a most
welcome visitor. Kerri and I have been friends since college, and now have the
misfortune to live at opposite ends of the country—me in Florida, and Kerri in
Washington. We haven’t seen each other in more than a year, and there was much
talking (an understatement), eating, puzzling and general merry-making. We
crisscrossed the state meeting other friends, both mutual and new to me (hi,
Deb!). Despite our late hours and our busy schedule, I feel refreshed and
energized by her visit. There’s nothing like the tonic of time spent with a
good friend.
Beautiful St. Augustine:
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| Castillo de San Marcos |
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| Aviles Street--purported to be the oldest in America |
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| St. Augustine Lighthouse |
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| View from the top of the lighthouse |
Our 1000-piece puzzle. It was tough!
The beautiful Rainbow River (we floated down it on inner tubes with our friend LuAnne):
On the morning
Kerri left, we had a most unwelcome visitor—a coral snake:
Prudy was stalking it (!!). We quickly got her
and it out of there.
My life
would be barren without friends—they are essential for my happiness. I’m
incredibly lucky to have the ones I have. I need to make sure that time with
friends stays at the top of the priority list.
What have you done with
your friends lately?
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| I miss her already |
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| Photo courtesy Bill Davenport |
Introduction by Ted Kooser: The Impressionists, on
both sides of the Atlantic, gave us a number of handsome paintings of rural scenes, and here’s a poem by the
distinguished American poet, Catharine Savage Brosman, that offers us just such
a picture, not in pigments but in words.
Cattle Fording Tarryall Creek
With measured pace, they move in single file,
dark hides, white faces, plodding through low grass,
then walk into the water, cattle-style,
indifferent to the matter where they pass.
The stream is high, the current swift—good rain,
late snow-melt, cold. Immerging to the flank,
the beasts proceed, a queue, a bovine chain,
impassive, stepping to the farther bank—
continuing their march, as if by word,
down valley to fresh pasture. The elect,
and stragglers, join, and recompose the herd,
both multiple and single, to perfect
impressions of an animated scene,
the creek’s meanders, milling cows, and sun.
Well cooled, the cattle graze knee-deep in green.
We leave them to their feed, this painting done.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry
Foundation www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also
supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2014 by
Catharine Savage Brosman, whose most recent book of poems is On the North
Slope, Mercer University Press, 2012. Poem reprinted by permission of Catharine
Savage Brosman. Introduction copyright 2014 by The Poetry Foundation. The
introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate
Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006.
Note: I'm taking a more relaxed approach to blogging this summer, so occasionally I'm going to rerun a previous post. I hope you enjoy this one, from 2010.
This is what happens when 95 degrees meets inattentive gardener:
Here’s the same plant after a drink of water and a good night’s rest:
This little ornamental pepper is amazingly resilient—I’m sorry to say this is not the first time she’s wilted in the heat. Still, she survives, even after freezing temperatures in the winter and practically dying of thirst in the summer.
If you look closely, you’ll see a few peppers still a bit wizened from their lack of water. Just like the peppers, we often wear the battle scars of what we’ve been through—in our faces, in our eyes, in our hearts. Yet still we come back for more, still we reach upwards toward the light—even though sometimes that light scorches us. For us, a drink of water and a good night’s sleep may be only the beginning of what we need to recover. We may need a box of assorted chocolates, an hour of solitude, a friend’s ear, or even professional help.
If you’re struggling right now, wilting in the sun, reflect on what you really need to get through today, and the day after, and the day after that. Be an attentive gardener—don’t wait until your leaves are drooping and your peppers are shriveled before you give yourself that cool drink of water that makes all the difference. I promise you’ll feel better in the morning.
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