Hair Today

In keeping with my recent hair-stories, Gerry picked this birthday card for me (and carefully added the glasses by hand). Cute!

Also arriving on my birthday was this little hair-story:

Tight Perm:
If you get a tight enough perm, she told me,
it's almost as good as a face lift.
But she had worked around a lot
of toxic chemicals in the 60's,
so I gave her the benefit of the doubt.
by Brian Andreas . . .
"telling people about a better way of seeing."
"Tight Perm," showed up as my "Story of the Day." and immediately brought to mind a recent discussion with my curly - haired friend Eileen about a hair "relaxing" treatment called the Brazilian Blowout. Because of our natural curl, we have both been receiving numerous suggestions to try the scary - sounding "Brazilian Blowout," because it will make us shinier, save on styling time, and give us a "more professional" look. But she says, "No! It's fun being curly girls! Curls are purty! And our products have clever names like Be Curly, Mixed Chicks, Bed Head, and Control Freak."

Eileen is adamant when it comes to the implements of hair torture, e.g., giant rollers (that was the old days), flat irons, and so forth: "I will not do it!" And her opinion of the Brazilian: "I think it's the botox of hair!"

See the connection here?
Tight perm = face lift,
Brazilian blowout = botox!

This excerpt is from "Ad Hairenum"

read more on The Fortnightly [Every 14th & 28th]
Kitti Carriker: A Literary Blog
of Connection & Coincidence; Custom & Ceremony
P.S. Here's one more hair-themed StoryPeople:

Gathering Electrons:
This hair gathers electrons
from the atmosphere & uses it
to perpetuate new ideas about
hair's role in the history
of civilization.
~ Brian Andreas ~

And one more hair - themed blog post (by me): "Scary Hair"

Fairy Tale

"Mistletoe hung from the gas brackets in all the front parlors;
there was sherry and walnuts . . . and crackers by the dessertspoons . . .
the brandy, the . . . mince . . . and blazing pudding . . .
And then, at tea the recovered Uncles would be jolly;
and the ice cake loomed in the center of the table like a marble grave.
Auntie Hannah laced her tea with rum, because it was only once a year."
from A Child's Christmas in Wales
by Dylan Thomas

Thanks to my facebook friend Ann for her comment:
"Foods and dishes look like they
came right out of a fairytale!
Lovely!"
Speaking of fairyland . . .

At Christmas dinner, my son Sam, asked for a preview of our New Year's Resolutions. Aside from my usual -- read more, worry less -- I was stumped . . . until this morning when I checked out my StoryPeople of the Day, only to discover that Brian Andreas had once again pinned the horn on the unicorn:

unicorn life
Today, after some reflection, I decided I’m never going to pretend I know anything about Life ever again, other than there’s a word for it. Like there’s a word for unicorn, though no one has ever seen one, except from far away & maybe it was just a trick of the light....

Up 'til now, I have always gone along with Anna Quindlen's motto that

"The meaning of life is life."

And I still concur.

However, I think my number one New Year's Resolution for 2015 will be to fall in line with Andreas and try the "life - is - like - a unicorn" approach for awhile:

"I'm never going to pretend I know
anything about Life ever again."

Reminds me of that old favorite from Judy Collins:

"I really don't know life at all."

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

Before the Cake Was Cut

~ Christmas Cake, Major ~
Gerry's Handiwork!
Thanks to my sister Peggy for the
new set of village houses, perfect for cake toppers!

Christmas Cakes, Minor ~
Some miniatures for sharing!
Thanks to our friend Katy Bunder for the
Gingerbread Tea Lights, perfect for mini - cake toppers!

~ The Full Fleet ~
Thanks to our friend Katie Field
for helping out with the baking this year!

Summer Camp

Pere & Fils at Camp ELMO
Somewhere in Pennsylvania, 2002

Happy Camper
"What if we all got along & people loved each other
& sang songs about peace? he said.
Would that be a good world?
& I said I didn't know about that,
but it would be a good summer camp . . ."

by Brian Andreas, STORYPEOPLE
If you want to start every day with a bit of wit & insight,
go to storypeople.com and sign up to receive the Story of the Day from Brian Andreas, irresistible artist, poet, and prophet for the New Millennium.

Post - Thanksgiving

Our Family: Paper Placemat, ca.1972
Embellished by "us four little kids": Aaron, Bruce, Di, Kit
(after Dave & Peg had graduated and gotten married)
Family is just accident. . . .
They don't mean to get on your nerves.
They don't even mean to be your family, they just are.

Marsha Norman (b. 1947)
American playwright, screenwriter, novelist
Pulitzer Prize for Drama, 1983

"Our lives are filled with people who provoke us,
especially people we love.
They help us figure out our own shit
and why we are here.
And why are we here again? . . .
We don't know. . . .
We only sort of know. . . .
To live, love, help -- to decorate.
To sweep our huts and find some food."

from Grace (Eventually) Thoughts on Faith, 135
by Anne Lamott (b. 1954)
American writer and progressive political activist

And, of course, there's always Brian Andreas to capture the essence of the occasion. He is clearly in agreement with Lamott about the food:

REAL REASON
"There are things you do because they feel right
& they may make no sense
& they may make no money
& it may be the real reason we are here:
to love each other
& to eat each other's cooking
& say it was good."

And full of humorous advice for the long weekend:

PRETEND VISITOR
"We stood out on the porch before we went inside
& she told me her secret.
Pretend you're just visiting, she said.
That way you'll forget that they're family."

SUCCESSFUL HOLIDAY
Rules for a successful holiday:
1. Get together with the family
2. Relive old times
3. Get out before it blows

Brian Andreas (b. 1956)
American writer, painter, sculptor
Designer of StoryPeople
P.S. Just for the record, I actually wish I saw more of my family, not less! By the way, Aaron and I were wondering about his lips & Di's teeth in the family portrait above! How did we come up with those features? All I can think of is that maybe it was around Halloween & they were wearing those wax lips & fangs that we used to buy! Ha!

P.P.S. It's true that some of the above passages appeared on this blog last year (June 2009 and November 2009), but I think they are solid enough for a repeat -- and just so appropriate for Thanksgiving that I couldn't resist posting them again this weekend.

Everybody Wants to Rule the World

Reading? Ruling the World?
"Benign Neglect:
If I ran the world, he told me,
I'd pretty much leave it alone &
spend my time reading &
I'd advise other people to do the same."

by Brian Andreas
from StoryPeople

So all these years you thought I was just reading? Well, it turns out I was actually ruling the world! Not exactly the conclusion that Andreas draws; he goes on a bit, but I'm stopping here at the good part.

[last line = "Which is why I’ll probably never run the world, he said."]

Remember this great song from 1985? Now you won't be able to get it out of your head for the rest of the day:

Everybody Wants To Rule The World

Welcome to your life
There's no turning back
Even while we sleep
We will find you

Acting on your best behavior
Turn your back on Mother Nature
Everybody wants to rule the world

It's my own design
It's my own remorse
Help me to decide
Help me make the

Most of freedom and of pleasure
Nothing ever lasts forever
Everybody wants to rule the world . . .

sung by Tears for Fears
(Roland Orzabal & Curt Smith)

That Was A Joke

Sometimes when you're teaching, you just have to entertain yourself. For example, you can try telling some classification jokes: There are three types of people in the world--those who can count and those who can't. Here's another related one: There are two types of people in the world--those who classify everything into two types and those who don't. A few years ago, I told both of these jokes to my Freshman English class just as we were finishing up a unit on classification as a rhetorical style. The collective response was one great big blank look. Oh, I take that back, I think a few students did ask, "What's the third kind?" Anyway, I gave up and said, "Well, does anyone else have a classification joke before we move on?" One totally confused student raised his hand and said, "Duh . . . I didn't know we were supposed to bring one in." Boy oh boy. That's when I knew it was time to teach them the four saddest words in the English language: "That was a joke."

CLASSIFICATION POEMS

Two Kinds of People

there are two
kinds of human
beings in the word
so my observation
has told me
namely and to wit
as follows
firstly
those who
even though they
were to reveal
the secret of the universe
to you would fail
to impress you
with any sense
of the importance
of the news
and secondly
those who could
communicate to you
that they had
just purchased
ten cents worth
of paper napkins
and make you
thrill and vibrate
with the intelligence

by Don Marquis, American Humorist, 1878 - 1937


Story People ~ Brian Andreas
AN EASY DECISION

I had finished my dinner
Gone for a walk
It was fine
Out and I started whistling

It wasn't long before

I met a
Man and his wife riding on
A pony with seven
Kids running along beside them

I said hello and

Went on
Pretty soon I met another
Couple
This time with nineteen
Kids and all of them
Riding on
A big smiling hippopotamus

I invited them home

by Kenneth Patchen, American Poet, 1911 - 1972

Exactly Enough Time

Guardian Angels for the New Year

Advice for the New Year

from Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 - 1882)
American poet, essayist, lecturer, philosopher,
abolitionist and transcendentalist:

""Dearest scholar,
Stick to thy foolish task,
add a line every hour,
and between whiles add a line."

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

from Mário de Andrade (1893 – 1945)
Brazilian poet, novelist, musicologist,
art historian and critic, and photographer:

I counted my years and realized that I have less time to live ahead of me, than I have lived so far.

I feel like the children who won a pack of candies: at first, they ate them with pleasure, but when they realized that there was little left, they began to taste them even more intensely.

I have no time for endless meetings where the statutes, rules, procedures and internal regulations are discussed, knowing that nothing will be done.

I no longer have the patience to endure absurd people who, despite their chronological age, have not grown up.

My time is too short: I want the essence; my spirit is in a hurry. I do not have much candy in the package anymore.

I want to live next to humane, realistic people who know how to laugh at their mistakes, who are not inflated by their own triumphs, and who take responsibility for their actions. In this way, human dignity is defended and we live in truth and honesty, the essentials that make life worth living.

I want to surround myself with people who know how to touch hearts, people who have learned the gentle touch of the soul.

Yes, I'm in a hurry. I'm rushing to live with the intensity that only maturity can give.

I do not intend to waste any of the remaining sweets. I am sure they will be delicious, much more than those eaten so far.

My goal is to reach the end satisfied and at peace with my loved ones and my conscience.

We have two lives; the second begins when you realize you only have one.

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

from StoryPeople
by Brian Andreas (b 1956)
American writer, artist, publisher and speaker

Prognosticator's Dilemma

Cute Kids' Book, Available on Amazon
It's not easy being a Groundhog on February 2nd . . . or a School Superintendent the night before a Snow Day! With his usual veritas and hilaritas, Brian Andreas captures the dilemma of the prognosticator:

"I'm best at predicting the old year,
she said, & you'd be surprised how many
people are even skeptical about that"

www.storypeople.com*

HAPPY GROUNDHOG DAY!

*One StoryPeople reader shares this from Peanuts:

Linus:
"I guess it's wrong always to be worrying about tomorrow.
Maybe we should think only about today."

Charlie Brown:
"No, that's giving up. I'm still hoping that yesterday will get better."

So irrational, yet, so hard to stop hoping for that better past . . .

Wise Lily Tomlin says:
"Forgiveness means giving up all hope for a better past."

And Anne Lamott's version, just slightly different:
"Forgiveness means giving up all hope of having had a better past."

One more from Charlie Brown:
Charlie Brown:
"I keep having these tiny self doubts . . . do you think this is wrong?"

Lucy:
"Of course it's wrong, Charlie Brown . . . "

Reading & Singing

Panel for Music Room, 1894
John White Alexander (1856 - 1915)
Athenaeum Gallery ~ Previously

New Posts
@ The Fortnightly Kitti Carriker

August 28 ~ Sing A Song About Singing ~ Abba,
Barry Manilow, The Carpenters, The Statler Brothers

September 14 ~ Read A Book About Reading
Karen Joy Fowler, The Jane Austen Book Club
Stefan Bollmann, Women Who Read Are Dangerous

Dreams, 1896
Vittorio Matteo Corcos (1859 - 1933)
“So this is for us.
This is for us who sing, write, dance, act, study, run and love
and this is for doing it even if no one will ever know
because the beauty is in the act of doing it.
Not what it can lead to.
This is for the times I lose myself while writing, singing, playing
and no one is around and they will never know
but I will forever remember
and that shines brighter than any praise or fame or glory I will ever have,
and this is for you who write or play or read or sing
by yourself with the light off and door closed
when the world is asleep and the stars are aligned
and maybe no one will ever hear it
or read your words
or know your thoughts
but it doesn’t make it less glorious.
It makes it ethereal. Mysterious.
Infinite.
For it belongs to you and whatever God or spirit you believe in
and only you can decide how much it meant
and means
and will forever mean
and other people will experience it too
through you.
Through your spirit. Through the way you talk.
Through the way you walk and love and laugh and care
and I never meant to write this long
but what I want to say is:
Don’t try to present your art by making other people read or hear or see or touch it; make them feel it. Wear your art like your heart on your sleeve and keep it alive by making people feel a little better. Feel a little lighter. Create art in order for yourself to become yourself
and let your very existence be your song, your poem, your story.
Let your very identity be your book.
Let the way people say your name sound like the sweetest melody.

So go create. Take photographs in the wood, run alone in the rain and sing your heart out high up on a mountain
where no one will ever hear
and your very existence will be the most hypnotising scar.
Make your life be your art
and you will never be forgotten.”

~ Charlotte Eriksson, Singer, Writer, Reader

P.S.
"Start Here" by Brian Andreas
The StoryPeople Story of the Day for September 18, 2017

The Thrilling Quotidian

Sunrise

Thinking back to the beginning of this blog,
exactly five years ago today!
Andy Warhol: “You need to let the little things that would ordinarily bore you suddenly thrill you.”

Bertrand Russell: "The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time."

Brian Andreas: "It's hardest to love the ordinary things, she said, but you get lots of opportunities to practice."

Muriel Barbery: “When tea becomes ritual, it takes its place at the heart of our ability to see greatness in small things. Where is beauty to be found? In great things that, like everything else, are doomed to die, or in small things that aspire to nothing, yet know how to set a jewel of infinity in a single moment?”
~ from The Elegance of the Hedgehog, 91 [see also Bouquet, Go, Factotum & The Tree Wins]

Susan Cheever: Little Women, Louisa May "Alcott's greatest work was so powerful because it was about ordinary things -- I think that's why it felt ordinary even as she wrote it. She transformed the lives of women into something worthy of literature. Without even meaning to, Alcott exalted the everyday in women's lives and gave it greatness."
~ from American Bloomsbury, 192

Arundhati Roy: “Perhaps it's true that things can change in a day. That a few dozen hours can affect the outcome of whole lifetimes. And that when they do, those few dozen hours, like the salvaged remains of a burned house---the charred clock, the singed photograph, the scorched furniture---must be resurrected from the ruins and examined. Preserved. Accounted for. Little events, ordinary things, smashed and reconstitutred. Imbued with new meaning. Suddenly they become the bleached bones of a story.”
~ from The God of Small Things
[Thanks to my friend Sheri Reda for this one!]
Moonrise

“Do not ask your children
to strive for extraordinary lives.
Such striving may seem admirable,
but it is the way of foolishness.
Help them instead to find the wonder
and the marvel of an ordinary life.
Show them the joy of tasting
tomatoes, apples and pears.
Show them how to cry
when pets and people die.
Show them the infinite pleasure
in the touch of a hand.
And make the ordinary come alive for them.
The extraordinary will take care of itself.”

William Martin
The Parent's Tao Te Ching: Ancient Advice for Modern Parents
[Thanks to Jason Dufair & Malcolm Eastler for this one!]

Like the Parts You Don't Like

One of my favorite lines of fictional dialogue (see column at right) is from one of Margaret Atwood's cynical little "True Romances." The main character laments that her bad boyfriend has left her, and now she has "nothing to live for." Her level - headed friend asks, "Were you living for him when he was here?" And the distressed one says, "No . . . I was living in spite of him, I was living against him." The wise friend concludes, "Then you should say, I have nothing to live against."

I do recall applying this lesson during my early Philadelphia years, back when I was trying to improve my urban attitude. Thinking of Atwood's story, I told myself, "You need to give up living against the city! You have nothing to live against." But it's such a bad habit with me, it seems that I will try to live against almost anything! The weather, the grocery store, the holiday season, organized religion, centuries of misogynism -- you name it; unless I consciously stop myself, I will try to live against it. And how does one little person live against an entire city or an entire cosmos or an entire family? Not only is it impossible, it is just not necessary to do so, even if it does feel so at times.

Nothing to live against. Brian Andreas makes a similar suggestion in one of his stories: "It's much easier, he told me, if you like the parts you like & you like the parts you don't like. Is that some Eastern thing? I said & he said not really since he was from Idaho & it worked there just fine" (from StoryPeople).

Still I wonder, how do you really learn to "like the parts you don't like"? How do you learn to say, "Oh well," if that's what the occasion calls for, to be dismissive, remain impassive, impersonal, detached? For a Doubting Thomasina, a Daughter of Descartes, a Western Girl With Glasses, it's not always easy.

These ramblings are drawn from my recent post
"Nothing to Live Against"
@ KITTI CARRIKER: A FORTNIGHTLY LITERARY BLOG OF CONNECTION & COINCIDENCE

The Miniature & The Gigantic

"Why shouldn't we, so generally addicted to the gigantic,
at last have some small works of art,
some short poems, short pieces of music
[. . .] some intimate, low-voiced, and delicate things
in our mostly huge and roaring, glaring world?"
~ Elizabeth Bishop ~
`
Painting of Breakfast by Jessie Willcox Smith
"Breakfast Perspective
you can bet that if oatmeal was bigger than us, he said,
we'd be breakfast cereal in a minute"

Brian Andreas (b. 1956)
American writer, painter, sculptor, publisher,
and creator of StoryPeople

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

Some Days
Some days I put the people in their places at the table,
bend their legs at the knees,
if they come with that feature,
and fix them into the tiny wooden chairs.

All afternoon they face one another,
the man in the brown suit,
the woman in the blue dress,
perfectly motionless, perfectly behaved.

But other days, I am the one
who is lifted up by the ribs,
then lowered into the dining room of a dollhouse
to sit with the others at the long table.

Very funny,
but how would you like it
if you never knew from one day to the next
if you were going to spend it

striding around like a vivid god,
your shoulders in the clouds,
or sitting down there amidst the wallpaper,
staring straight ahead with your little plastic face

Billy Collins (b. 1941)
Poet Laureate of the United States, 2001 - 2003
New York State Poet, 2004-2006

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

I find this topic so intriguing -- the dollhouse, the little dolls, the shift in perspective from the miniature to the gigantic -- I could write a book about it.

Oh, that's right, I already did:

CREATED IN OUR IMAGE:
THE MINIATURE BODY OF THE DOLL AS SUBJECT AND OBJECT

You can read more about my book
on The Fortnightly Kitti Carriker

Ironic Ramifications

"I'm happy . . .
yet I'm aware of the ironic ramifications
of my happiness."
Anne Taintor

Of course, you can also say the same thing
about being unhappy . . .

Storypeople ~ Brian Andreas

Another Old Favorite
[click on the picture to enlarge for easy reading]

~ finepix 2011 0203 ~

Wise Ones Everywhere

For the Season of Epiphany:
"All Hail Cat Jesus!" ~ by Louis Wain (1860 – 1939)

After the conclusion of the Twelve Days of Christmas
(December 25 - January 5),
comes the Day of Epiphany (January 6)
and the arrival of the three wisemen with their gifts.

As soon as the day came, earlier this month,
I started seeing Wise Ones everywhere, in sets of three
-- such as the kittens above, and the travelers below!

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

Recent Post - Christmas Posts

Epiphany: All Have Made a Journey

Christmas for Cowgirls

@The Fortnightly Kitti Carriker
A literary blog of connection & coincidence;
custom & ceremony

&

Christmas Gifts From the Sea

@Kitti's List

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

Storypeople ~ "Heading South"
by Brian Andreas (b. 1956)

Almost Equinox Birthday

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JONI!

Photograph by Joni Menard, Fall 2016

"It was still hot outside, though the sun had begun to lean to the west, and the first intimations of fall were in the air -- that smell of dust and dry leaves that annual lonesomeness that comes of summer closing down."
Eventide, 19

"The evening wasn't cold yet . . . But the air was turning sharp, with a feeling of loneliness coming. Something unaccountable pending in the air."
Plainsong, 31

both novels by
Colorado writer Kent Haruf (1943 - 2014)

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

HAPPY OFFICE PARTY FOR JONI & TERRY!

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

"Start Here" by Brian Andreas
The StoryPeople Story of the Day for September 18, 2017

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

Additional Joni Posts

Quotidian
Plenty to Read
10/13/15

Gossamer!
10/23/14

Thunderbird
7/18/14

Happy Snowy Valentine's Day!
2/14/14

Favorite Hats
2/25/12

Lizone's: Jewelry With An Attitude
7/1/11

Grown Up
10/11/10

Time to Talk
8/29/10

Palm Sunday
3/28/10

Our Town
8/28/09

Fortnightly
To Forgive: Reprove, Restore, Reclaim
5/14/13

Talk to Me
8/28/10

The Mind of God
8/28/09

The Present is Now *

Zinnias & Hollyhocks, just as I remember
from my grandmothers' back gardens.

No Rush
this is the center of the universe at this moment
unless you're looking in another direction or are
thinking about something from a long time ago, in
which case it will wait quietly right here until you
return
Storypeople / Brian Andreas

"So, what is the point of waiting?
What exactly are you waiting for?
Is somebody going to give you what you always wanted?
Will a train come from Heaven bringing you goodies?
But nothing that could ever happen could be as good,
as precious, as who you are.
What stops you from being, from being present,
is nothing but your hope for the future.
Hoping for something different . . . is a mirage [that]
stops you from seeing the obvious, the preciousness of Being.
It is a great distortion,
a great misunderstanding of what will fulfill you
When you follow the mirage, you are rejecting yourself."

A. H. Almaas (aka A. Hameed Ali)

a mediation included in
The Tao of Now:
Daily Wisdom from Mystics, Sages, Poets, and Saints
by Josh Baran

* "But while we often like to comfort or flatter ourselves with the thought that the future is now, the brute truth is, the future is not now. The present is now. The future is later -- in some cases much later."
~ Ellis Weiner ~
(31, emphasis added)
see:
Santa Lives!
Five Conclusive Arguments for the Existence of Santa Claus
and also my previous post:
"The Time Being"

Dream For Your Life

Deer in Our Backyard
Photo taken by Ben McCartney, June 2007
"A gentle rain makes the grass many shades greener. So our prospects brighten on the influx of better thoughts. We should be blessed if we lived in the present always, and took advantage of every accident that befell us, like the grass which confesses the influence of the slightest dew that falls on it; and did not spend our time in atoning for the neglect of past opportunities, which we call doing our duty. We loiter in winter while it is already spring."

~Henry David Thoreau


"Be not the slave of your own past -- plunge into the sublime seas, dive deep, and swim far, so you shall come back with self-respect, with new power, with an advanced experience, that shall explain and overlook the old."

~Ralph Waldo Emerson


"We should not look back unless it is to derive useful lessons from past errors, and for the purpose of profiting by dearly bought experience."

~George Washington


"You did then what you knew how to do,
and when you knew better, you did better."

~Maya Angelou


"Is willing to accept that she creates her own reality except for some of the parts where she can't help but wonder what the hell she was thinking."

~Brian Andreas


And finally this, from one of my wisest friends, who pulled all the above passages together for me:

"Yes, looking back can be a trap, for me anyway. I like the Serenity Prayer--because "accept the things I cannot change" includes the entire past, through and including five minutes ago. That doesn't leave me off the hook for "changing the things I can." But it saves wear and tear on my nerves and heart to forgive myself for all my decisions, and to remember that given the emotional and other data I had at the time, I made what seemed like the best decision I could, at the consciousness level I had achieved to that point. That's what it is to be human--no crystal ball.

"Having said that, I think it is the ongoing challenge to listen to the "still small voice." That is my spirituality. I don't equate the voice with God. It's more like my own unique and local feeling of happiness and aliveness, in any scenario where I am one of the key players. What will I wish I had done, when the immediate pressures bearing on the situation are no longer there? Is it too much to ask, to be allowed to be true to myself? Something like that."

And to conclude ~
A couple of my favorite songs
sung by Judy Collins
on her CD Trust Your Heart

"Trust Your Heart"
The heart will teach us all we need to learn
We have dreams, we hold them to the light like diamonds . . .
Some we keep to light the dark nights on our journey . . .
The heart can see beyond our prayers
Beyond our fondest schemes . . . Trust your heart.
[emphasis added]


"The Life You Dream"
There's a time that comes once every morning
When you choose the kind of day you will have
It comes in with the sun and you know you've begun
To live the life you dream
You can light all your candles to the dawn
And surrender yourself to the sunrise
You can make it wrong you can make it right
You can live the life you dream.

Lyrics & music for both by Judy Collins
[also on Kitti's List: book blog on "Inner Quiet"]

The picture at top is better, but this one, with the corner of the garage included, gives a better idea of the proximity. Ben took a few at first through the window, so the deer wouldn't be startled. But those shots turned out so hazy, and the deer continued to remain so calm that Ben took the chance of going right outside. As you can see, the deer were only too happy to pose quietly for him!

By the Sea

"The sea pronounces something,
over and over, in a hoarse whisper;
I cannot quite make it out.
But God knows I have tried”
~ Annie Dillard ~
My Rooms at the Beau Rivage, 1918
by Henri Matisse, 1869 - 1954
[To learn more, see Artsy]
Place by the Sea"He kept a piece of algae behind his ear to remind him of his roots. A million years ago every place was a little place by the sea, he would say & my mind would go blank & I would swim through the day without a care in the world & it all seemed so familiar that I knew I would go back someday to my own little place by the sea."
~ Brian Andreas ~
For these passages & more, see
"Surface Dwellers"
on THE FORTNIGHTLY KITTI CARRIKER
my fortnightly literary blog [every 14th & 28th]
of connection and coincidence

Circular Reasoning

Remember a couple of weeks ago when I said that I would stop being so fretful if only I knew how to stop being so fretful?

Just a few days later my Story of the Day from StoryPeople said --

"Some days I think life would be a whole lot more fun if I just knew how to make it a whole lot more fun . . . ."

And a few days after that, it was --

"Apathy: I don't care if no one likes it, she said, unless no one likes it."

And that's why I just have to love Brian Andreas; he thinks like I do!

The Equinox in Our Bones

"Early this morning, there was fog & as the sun rose around us, everything began to glow & it made me wonder what this world will become for us when we remember in our bones that even the darkness is just another shape of light."

~ Brian Andreas ~ StoryPeople ~

Or, as Gerry was wondering this very morning, only moments before I opened up my mail to find that my friend Diane had sent me the above Story of the Day: "Why do you think it is that human beings, in all epochs and seasons, are universally drawn to the rising and setting of the sun? Do we learn that the sunrise and the sunset are beautiful to behold, or are we born feeling it in our bones?

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Additional Vernal Equinox Posts

2010: Garden & Fig

2011: Super Moon

2012: First Day of Spring

2013: Bursting Into Light

2014: The Wire Brush of Doubt, Spring Hopes Eternal

2015: Prevernal, Vernal

2016: Why the World Wags

2017: Light Spectrum, My Own Little Stonehenge

2018: Tuesday Afternoon

2019:Daylight Loses

2020: Last Sunset of Winter

2021:The Pause Between Seasons

2022: An Horizon Near You

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Sunrise Reflected in the Front Window

Sunrise Through the Wires