Staying Alive

“Peace. It does not mean to be in a place
where there is no noise, trouble or hard work.
It means to be in the midst of those things
and still be calm in your heart.”
~ Anonymous ~

No one seems to know who said those words,
but they remind me of something that
Walt Whitman says in Leaves of Grass:

"Allons! we must not stop here,
However sweet these laid-up stores, however convenient this dwelling we cannot remain here,
However shelter’d this port and however calm these waters we must not anchor here,
However welcome the hospitality that surrounds us we are permitted to receive it but a little while."

from "The Song of the Open Road," #9 (112)
In very simple terms:
"A ship in the harbor is safe,
but that is not what ships are made for."
~ John Augustus Shedd ~

Or as succintly, existentially expressed
by David Wagoner, profound American poet (b 1926)
in one of my all - time favorite poems, entitled Staying Alive:

"This is called staying alive. It's temporary."

To read the entire poem ~ long but worth it!~ check out my current post:

~ "Staying Alive, Temporarily" ~

@ The Fortnightly Kitti Carriker:
A Fortnightly [every 14th & 28th] Literary Blog of
Connection & Coincidence; Custom & Ceremony

Camerado

Amy & Matt

I was honored to give the following reading today
at my niece Amy's wedding:

Union

You have known each other from the first glance of acquaintance to this point of commitment. At some point, you decided to marry. From that moment of yes to this moment of yes, indeed, you have been making promises and agreements in an informal way. All those conversations that were held riding in a car or over a meal or during long walks — all those sentences that began with “When we’re married” and continued with “I will” and “you will” and “we will” — those late night talks that included “someday” and “somehow” and “maybe” — and all those promises that are unspoken matters of the heart. All these common things, and more, are the real process of a wedding.

The symbolic vows that you are about to make are a way of saying to one another, “You know all those things we’ve promised and hoped and dreamed — well, I meant it all, every word.”

Look at one another and remember this moment in time. Before this moment you have been many things to one another — acquaintance, friend, companion, lover, dancing partner, and even teacher, for you have learned much from one another in these last few years. Now you shall say a few words that take you across a threshold of life, and things will never quite be the same between you. For after these vows, you shall say to the world, this is my husband, this is my wife.

by Robert Fulghum

****************

Allons! the road is before us . . .
Camerado, I give you my hand!
I give you my love more precious than money,
I give you myself before preaching or law;
Will you give me yourself? will you come travel with me?
Shall we stick by each other as long as we live?
from Part #15 of Walt Whitman's
Song of the Open Road

House With a Past

Thank you old house for imparting your secrets!
I'm sure you remember Robin William, in Dead Poets Society, telling the students to listen closely to what the old photographs are whispering:

"But if you listen real close,
you can hear them whisper their legacy to you.
Go on, lean in. Listen, you hear it? - - Carpe - - hear it? - -
Carpe, carpe diem, seize the day!"
That's exactly the same feeling I get when browsing through all the old papers that came with the house.

As Walt Whitman writes in "Song of the Open Road":

You rows of houses! you window-pierc’d façades! you roofs!
You porches and entrances! you copings and iron guards!
You windows whose transparent shells might expose so much!
You doors and ascending steps! you arches!
You gray stones of interminable pavements! you trodden crossings!
From all that has touch’d you I believe you have imparted to yourselves, and now would impart the same secretly to me,
From the living and the dead you have peopled your impassive surfaces, and the spirits thereof would be evident and amicable with me. . . .

Whoever you are, come forth! or man or woman come forth!
You must not stay sleeping and dallying there in the house, though you built it, or though it has been built for you.
~ Selected lines from Parts 3 and 13 ~
These and more can be found on my
NEW FORTNIGHTLY BLOG POST
~ House With a Past ~

The Fortnightly Kitti Carriker:
A Fortnightly [every 14th & 28th] Literary Blog of
Connection & Coincidence; Custom & Ceremony

P.S. Related post on my book blog

8 June 2007

Loos'd of Limits: The Open Road

One of Uncle Gene's
Amazing Travel Pics, October 2005
Here's the story behind it, in his words:

May 2006
Dear Friends and Relatives,

In the Sunday Wichita Eagle there is a "Travel Section." On the front page of this section there is a feature called, "Best Shot." Each Sunday a picture sent in by an amateur is printed with a short blurb concerning the shot and the person's name. The attached photo is the one used this Sunday and . . . ta da! . . . it's one I took & submitted!

At the roadside turnout above Lake Mono last October on our trip from Davis to Las Vegas, John, Marla, Elaine & I stopped for our first look at the lake down in the basin several miles and about 1,500 feet below us. It was a spectacular view with Highway 395 winding sinuously down the mountain and across the basin, miles away in the hazy distance.

After ohhing and ahhing for awhile we were ready to load up and go on. I took one last shot of the panoramic view spread out in front and below us. It was a magic moment for I truly caught lightening in a bottle and the picture I got is a really neat one, I think. I've never been the "shutter-bug" in the family so I consider this shot to fall in the "blind sow" category (taken with my Canon PowerShot A520 digital).

Strangely enough we didn't see the picture in the paper yesterday; I forgot to look. Someone told us at AARP today that it was in there. I'd submitted it months ago and had looked occasionally but gave up on its ever being used.

Technology is wonderful . . . Aim and shoot . . .

Love, Gene aka Bill

*************************************************

Wow! What a fabulous photograph, and what a great surprise to learn inadvertently that it had finally appeared in the paper!

And to go along with Uncle Gene's stunning panorama
what could be more fitting than . . .
. . . a few lines from Walt Whitman's visionary Song of the Open Road:

Part 5
From this hour I ordain myself loos’d of limits and imaginary lines,
Going where I list, my own master, total and absolute,
Listening to others, and considering well what they say,
Pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating,
Gently, but with undeniable will, divesting myself of the holds that would hold me.

I inhale great draughts of space;
The east and the west are mine, and the north and the south are mine.

I am larger, better than I thought;
I did not know I held so much goodness.

All seems beautiful to me;
I can repeat over to men and women, You have done such good to me,
I would do the same to you.

I will recruit for myself and you as I go;
I will scatter myself among men and women as I go;
I will toss the new gladness and roughness among them;
Whoever denies me, it shall not trouble me;
Whoever accepts me, he or she shall be blessed, and shall bless me.


from Part #13
Allons! to that which is endless as it was beginningless,
To undergo much, tramps of days, rests of nights,
To merge all in the travel they tend to, and the days and nights they tend to,
Again to merge them in the start of superior journeys;
To see nothing anywhere but what you may reach it and pass it,
To conceive no time, however distant, but what you may reach it and pass it,
To look up or down no road but it stretches and waits for you, however long but it stretches and waits for you . . .
To take your lovers on the road with you, for all that you leave them behind you,
To know the universe itself as a road - as many roads - as roads for traveling souls.

by Walt Whitman, 1819 - 1892
American poet, essayist, journalist, humanist


. . . or this parable from Franzlations [the imaginary Kafka parables]
by Gary Barwin, Craig Conley, Hugh Thomas:

"If you were walking across a barren plain and had an honest intention of walking on, then it would be a desperate matter, but you are flying, gliding and diving, SOARING and swooping, high above the plain, which, seen from above, is a tiny blot on a vast and various landscape."

P.S. Rest in Peace
Uncle Gene ~ 20 October 1926 - 21 July 2011
Aunt Elaine ~ 27 July 1929 - 23 July 2015