Prevernal

Thanks to my backdoor neighbor Suzan Windnagel for this beautiful pre - Spring sunrise view, including the back of my garage and house! Look closely and you can see our little pink Christmas / Valentine / Easter tree!

A "cold and mercurial morning . . . "
I think this poem, that I discovered in Wayne Muller's Sabbath might explain why I like to stay up as late as possible instead of going to bed:

Another Loss to Stop For

Against such cold and mercurial mornings,
watch the wind whirl one leaf
across the landscape,
then, in a breath, let it go.
The color in the opaque sky
seems almost not to exist.

Put on a wool sweater.
Wander in the leaves,
underneath healthy elms.
Hold your child in your arms.

After the dishes are washed,
a kiss still warm at your neck,
put down your pen. Turn out the light.

I know how difficult it is,
always balancing and weighing,
it takes years and many transformations;
and always another loss to stop for,
to send you backwards.

Why do you worry so,
when none of us is spared?

~ by Jill Bialosky
American poet, book editor, and novelist

As for being spared:

"We don't receive wisdom;
we must discover it for ourselves
after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us."
Marcel Proust

"There's no basement in the Alamo.
It's not something they teach you in school.
It's one of those things you have to find out for yourself."
Pee Wee Herman

Possible ~ Plausible ~ Improbable

Favorite mug from my friend Diane ~ and magnet from my brother Dave
A few years ago, my brother Dave (scroll down to see birthday post) was complaining to me about "those touchy - feely things floating around called Bucket Lists. Actually, they are not Bucket Lists at all. Just the usual drivel. So, I am challenging you to a real Bucket List. Name five items in the following categories: "Possible," "Plausible," and "Improbable." You can and should take into account your age and physical condition but ignore silly things like money. Good Luck."

I was keen to take the challenge! I arranged my items thematically so that I could work on accomplishing my goals in increments of possibility. I'm not sure if Dave would approve, or if perhaps I veered off into touchy - feely; but I can say that I've been making pretty good progress on all of my "possibles," so time to move on to my "plausibles."

1. So many books . . . so little time . . .
Possible: Read 3 books per month: one fiction, one non-fiction, one misc.
Plausible: Read all the books beside my bed.*
Improbable: Read every book on my "To Read" list.

*The last time I sorted out the ever-increasing stacks in this famous spot where so many books have gone to die (i.e., "beside my bed") I created a whole new category: "To Read In My Next Lifetime." That took care of a few titles, Moby Dick, for instance, and The Education of Henry Adams (just don't tell my American Lit professors).

2. Around the house . . .
Possible: Eliminate clutter and feel more organized and quit acquiring earthly goods.
Plausible: See my entire house clean at the same time (in manner of above mug by Anne Taintor)
Improbable: Learn to really like gardening.

3. Creative endeavor . . .
Possible: Revisit my original goal when I graduated from high school: collage design.
Plausible: Organize all the writing I've saved over the years into some kind of readable, presentable, publishable collection of essays or epistolary novel.
Improbable: Become really good at piano, singing, swimming, diving, ice-skating, ballet & have better spatial, mathematical, left - brain skills; in short, be smarter & more talented.

4. Mental clarity . . .
Possible: Get better at saying, "Oh well," "That's okay," and "He don't' mean nothing by it, Honey," etc.
Plausible: Stop feeling guilty for all the things in my life that haven't exactly gone according to plan.
Improbable: Receive a personal epiphany* from The Goddess that will reveal to me a meaningful plan for the remainder of my life.

*In lieu of seeing a sign soon or hearing a calling, then I guess I'll just have to think something up for myself! Like that Kafka story about the Imperial Message that never comes, so finally "you sit at your window when evening falls and dream it to yourself"; or what Sleeping Beauty has to do if the Prince never comes to wake her up: "you kiss yourself and wake yourself up!"
[Go to column at right and scroll down for
"Magical Thoughts from Erica Jong" -> -> ]

5. Grow old along with me . . .
Possible: Visit all my old friends that I keep in touch with by writing & phone, but only see in person every 10 or 20 years.
Plausible: Live the rest of my life without medical intervention (of course, that could mean a short life).
Improbable: I'll answer this one with a sentence that I'm still puzzling over, from a book that Gerry gave me for Christmas a couple of years ago, Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi: "Every person's deepest lifelong desire is to be significant and to be recognized . . . [to feel appreciated] for what their mission is" (163).

Perhaps more likely to qualify as possible is the wish expressed on the tombstone of American poet Raymond Carver:

Late Fragment
And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.
~ Raymond Carver ~

**************
Speaking of improbability,
see the latest post on my book blog:
"And a New One Just Begun"

And for more questionnaires and quizzes, see

Quarantine Quiz Shows

Class of '75

Challenges: Special K & Ten Favs

[Possible~ Plausible ~ Improbable]

"Christmas Quiz"

"You're Out Walking"

"Take This Quiz!"

"Monday: Pop Quiz"

"Talk to Me"

Even Proust liked quizzes! Who knew?
Click to learn more and see Proust's questions & answers!

Third Sunday of Advent

Third Week of Advent: The Love of Angels
My Uncle Gene (one of my dad's younger brothers) has a lot of good Christmas stories that read just like the oft - anthologized Christmas chapters from Little House on the Prairie. For example, I like the one about the family friend by the name of George Rogers who dressed up as Santa and delivered a dishpan full of candy and toys using a wooden sled to imitate Santa’s sleigh. A couple of Christmases ago, Uncle Gene told my siblings and me a story we had never heard before about our dad Willard:

Dear Kids,

I’ll wax nostalgically with you for a bit. It would seem to be the season for such things. Old memories, taken out and polished up, become as jewels and this one is such. It concerns your dad, and took place many, many decades ago in the long ago days of the 1930’s.

As you know, we attended the small white frame church building located about half-way between Oilton and Drumright, Oklahoma. It was home to a fairly large number of “Saints” who came from oil lease communities and small towns within at least a 20 - mile radius. The leader of the little flock was a severe appearing gentleman named Benjamin Franklin Pollard, or as some called him, BF, shortened by the older smart alec kids like Robert [i.e., our eldest and much - admired uncle] to “Beef.”

At Christmas time there was always a program along with a tree, and Santa would come in at the end with a bag of small treats for the kids, there being a very large number of us. With the Bunch family (7,) the Carriker tribe (6), and the Rogers family (6,) it accounted for 19 young - uns. There were also some singles and smaller family groups, so all told there was a passel of kids.

On this particular Christmas the kids were putting on the program, as usual. Strangely, I have no recollection of what anyone else did for entertainment; but I well remember little old Willard’s contribution to the festivities:

"What shall I give Him.
As poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd
I would give him a lamb,
If I were a Wise Man
I would do my part—
Yet, what I can I give Him,
I’ll give him my heart."

~~ With love from Uncle Gene
How touched we all were to imagine our dad as a little tyke memorizing his part for the pageant!

My sister's response summed it up for all of us:

It certainly makes Daddy
seem a little closer this season.
Love to all, Peg

***********

Week Three, the Candle of Love
Quickening the Pace:

"Christmas is the season for kindling the fire of hospitality in the hall, the genial flame of charity in the heart.
~ Washington Irving ~

Love is time and space measured by the heart.
~ Marcel Proust ~

Second Sunday of Advent

Second Week of Advent: the Peace of Bethlehem
Each year, I hope for the peace and presence of mind to celebrate a true Advent, always searching for that calm at the center of the holiday storm. Yet, despite my best intentions, my guest room is currently a disaster area of half-begun Christmas projects! When will they ever be finished? Help! Well, at least Christmas music is playing in the background as I write these frantic words!

As my friend Cate, a charming gardener of the soul, wrote in this morning's e-mail: "Second Sunday already? Eeek! Must do, must do . . . Hope to finish the tree today (or close to it)."

We all know in our hearts that these should not be the watch words of the day; yet it seems so: Must do, must do . . .

Instead, how about: Let us find peace . . .

Week Two, the Candle of Peace
Leading the Way:

"We shall find peace. We shall hear the angels,
we shall see the sky sparkling with diamonds."
~Anton Chekhov~

"Let us be grateful to people who make us happy;
they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom."
~Marcel Proust~

First Sunday of Advent

First Week of Advent: The Hope of Prophecy
For the last fifteen years or so, I have had a little tradition of making a set of cards for my mother, one for each of the four Sundays in Advent. Each year the design is different, with a new theme of some kind.

As my transitional ritual from Thanksgiving into Christmas, I always devote a few hours of the long weekend to getting the Advent cards ready and (hopefully) getting the first one in the mail in time for Sunday. Some years I fall a bit behind on that optimistic deadline; but as long as the first one arrives somewhere within the first week of the season, it's not hard to keep mailing the others out in a timely, weekly fashion.

This year, I had the idea to design them as Valentines, using red lace doilies, ribbons, and a handful of fancy little gift tags that I found on amazon, featuring sentiments that lend themselves nicely to the symbolism behind each candle on the Advent Wreath.

Week One, the Candle of Hope
Dispelling the Darkness:

We must never be afraid to go too far, for truth lies beyond."

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes."

~ both passages by Marcel Proust ~
This is the first year I ever thought of scanning the finished results of my little Advent Card Project into the computer -- perfect for saving and sharing. I hope you like!

Armistice Day

Rough draft of Wilfred Owen's "Dulce et Decorum Est,"
one of the best known poems of the First World War,
composed between October 1917 - March 1918.
The earliest surviving manuscript is dated 8 October 1917
and addressed to his mother, Susan Owen, with the message
"Here is a gas poem done yesterday, (which is not private, but not final)."

Not only do I remember when Memorial Day was called Decoration Day, I can also recall when all of my elders referred to Veterans Day as Armistice Day. Did you know that the Federal government decided that we need no apostrophe in Veterans Day? I like that, don't you? Something to make life easier! I wish they would do the same for Mothers Day, Fathers Day, and Valentines Day!

Here is a bit of irony to mark the occasion: in the UK, beginning in 1939, the two-minute silence traditionally observed in honor of the Armistice, at 11 a.m. on 11 November, was moved to the Sunday nearest 11 November in order not to interfere with wartime production should 11 November fall on a weekday . . . so as not to let Commemoration of the War To End All Wars stand in the way of Preparation for Yet Another War.

And the irony continues with a couple of items that you may have come across . . .

. . . already if you're a fan of The Onion:

"The meeting stretched from 10 a.m. until 3 p.m. and included a short lunch break during which several writers were asked to brainstorm individually on a broad idea — the enduring war in Afghanistan — that was proving to be a challenge. In the end “U.S. Continues Quagmire-Building Effort in Afghanistan” won out over “Quick and Painless Overthrow of Taliban Enters Eighth Year” and “Afghanistan Rapidly Replacing Iraq as Replacement for Vietnam as Replacement for Quagmire.”

and

. . . earlier this month if you follow A.Word.A.Day:

"The truth is that every morning war is declared afresh. And the men who wish to continue it are as guilty as the men who began it, more guilty perhaps, for the latter perhaps did not foresee all its horrors." --Marcel Proust, French novelist (1871-1922)

What occurs to me with some sense of dispiriting coincidence is that the two observations -- the first delivered mockingly, the second in contemplation -- are, in fact, really one & the same message. Why persist in throwing good after bad -- money, time, lives? Instead, why not wake up one morning and decline to declare war?

I hate waste. Remember Rhett Butler's assessment of the Civil War, in Gone With The Wind : "I'm angry. Waste always makes me angry, and that's what all this is, sheer waste."

" . . . the old Lie: Dulce et Decorum Est*Pro patria mori."
Wilfred Edward Salter Owen MC (18 March 1893 – 4 November 1918) was an English / Welsh poet and soldier, regarded by many as one of the leading poets of the First World War. He was killed in action at the Battle of the Sambre just a week before the war ended. Sadly, news of his death was delivered to his parents, even as the town's church bells were ringing out in peace.

*Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori is a line from the Roman lyrical poet Horace (Ode III.2.13); the line translates into English: "It is sweet and fitting to die for one's country."