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| Don't you love it that this birdhouse
has it's own birdhouse? As Susan Stewart says of the miniature: "...what we look for is the dollhouse within the dollhouse and its promise of an infinitely profound interiority." (61) |
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| Depression Glass novelty pieces from my grandmother’s house. See how the little amber bowl is a cauldron?! My grandma always kept toothpicks in the yellow one. And I always begged to drink milk or water from the green one — there were 2 of them, with matching saucers. One-of-a-kind handmade Halloween card from my talented sister-in-law Tina McF. |
"I would hope that my readers feel a sense of awe at the quality of human endurance, at the endurance of love in the face of a variety of difficulties; that the quotidian life is not always easy, and is something worthy of respect. I would also hope that readers receive a larger understanding, or a different undertanding, of what it means to be human, than they might have had before. We suffer from being quick to judge, quick to make excuses for ourselves and others, and I would like the reader to feel that we are all, more or less, in a similar state as we love and disappoint one another, and that we try, most of us, as best we can, and that to fail and succeed is what we do." (281 - 82)
Elizabeth Strout (b 1956)
comments on her novel Olive Kitteridge
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For more about the quotidian in Olive Kitteridge
and several other novels,*
see my current post:
"Spinning the Web"
@The Fortnightly Kitti Carriker
A literary blog of connection & coincidence;
custom & ceremony
*********
*Things Invisible to See ~ Nancy Willard
The Guest Book ~ Sarah Blake
Eleanor Oliphant ~ Gail Honeyman
Olive Kitteridge ~ Elizabeth Strout
Black Girl / White Girl ~ Joyce Carol Oates
Ordinary Grace ~ William Kent Krueger
Sedem Stems from Gerry's Garden
Not ready to give up Halloween just yet!
And looking ahead to Spring . . .
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| Art by Angie King
@ Chirp and Whimsey |
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| Poster by Norwood Public Library
Norwood, NY |
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| Happy 125th Birthday to my maternal grandfather
Paul Jones Lindsey, born on this day in 1895 --
in a covered wagon in northeast Oklahoma.
I like this picture of him and his shadow, taken
about 100 years ago by an anonymous creative friend
who noticed the light at just the right moment
and seized the opportunity
to capture it in time for future generations. |
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| My friend Beata shared this striking pre - Thanksgiving |
All Souls Night
Bonfires dot the rolling hills
Figures dance around and around
To drums that pulse out echoes of darkness
Moving to the pagan sound
Somewhere in a hidden memory
Images float before my eyes
Of fragrant nights of straw and of bonfires
And dancing till the next sunrise
I can see lights in the distance
Trembling in the dark cloak of night
Candles and lanterns are dancing, dancing
A waltz on All Souls Night
Figures of cornstalks bend in the shadows
Held up tall as the flames leap high
The green knight holds the holly bush
To mark where the old year passes by
I can see the lights in the distance
Trembling in the dark cloak of night
Candles and lanterns are dancing, dancing
A waltz on All Souls Night
Bonfires dot the rolling hillsides
Figures dance around and around
To drums that pulse out echoes of darkness
And moving to the pagan sound
Standing on the bridge that crosses
The river that goes out to the sea
The wind is full of a thousand voices
They pass by the bridge and me
I can see the lights in the distance
Trembling in the dark cloak of night
Candles and lanterns are dancing, dancing
A waltz on All Souls Night
Music & lyrics by Loreena Mckennitt (b 1957)
Canadian singer - songwriter
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| It was completely dark when I took these pictures, but somehow I unintentionally captured more light than expected. Happy Blue Halloween Moon! |
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| All Saints Moonrise |
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| Halloween ~ Just Before Midnight Downtown Chicago Photo by Sam McCartney |
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone.
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling in the sky the message He is Dead,
Put crêpe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever, I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun.
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
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| This Is Halloween |
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| The beautiful innocence of Halloween that we all remember from childhood! As my friend Vickie Amador wrote, "We are so lucky to have had the Halloweens we enjoyed as children and that your lads" experienced growing up in Philly. "Celebrate the beauty of this transformative season with your new wee bairn!" |
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| Ellie’s First Halloween ~ Baby Boiler! |
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| Happy Halloween from Ben & Cathleen! Boooooo! |
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| Sam & Friends: some scary facial masks! |
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| Henry Wise Miller (May 27, 1834 ~ October 29, 1915) & Elizabeth Birkinbine Miller (February 28, 1938 ~ March 28, 1925) |
"Why do we wish to be remembered, even when none remain who looked upon our face? Surely, though it must retain an element of self- consideration, it is a last acknowledgment that we need to be loved; and, having gone from all touch, we trust that memory may, as it were, keep our unseen presence within the borders of day."Is it their love or approval that we seek? Or perhaps the opportunitity to say, "Look at us; we are you great - great - grands! It was all worth it! We're going to the future and taking you with us!" Whatever our motiviation, we sense their unseen presence, whenever we look at the old photos, visit the cemetery, or honor the ancestors, on Memorial Day or Dia de los Muertos.
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| COUSINS ON A HAYSTACK Kansas ~ 100 years ago Looking into the sun ~ or into the future?! |
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| READY FOR A HAYRIDE My Great - Uncle Harry (1887 - 1940) pretending that the wagon needs gas. Haha! And his wife, Great - Aunt Ethel, top left. In the photo above, their daughter Mildred (b 1913) sits at the very top of the haystack. |
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| According to the family apocrypha, Harry's last words were “Don’t blame the boy” [the 16 year old driver who didn’t see him]. |
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| Harry's middle name “Louis” was for his father’s younger brother Louis Heideman (1869 - 1884) who died young in a drowning accident. Here is Great - great Uncle Louis’s fancy calling card — all the rage in those days! |
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| Doll Dishes from the 1930s Cracker Barrel Harvest Plate from Cheryl Lenox Vase from Vicky Flowers from Beata's Garden |
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| "The sun through green leaf's flesh . . . branching veins . . . planned avenues . . . " |
Incidental Finding
The sun through green leaf’s flesh recalls
the X-ray: inner structures seen
but imprecisely, branching veins
and something like planned avenues
all leading to the source of what
we never cease to seek. Too few,
too momentarily alight,
these chance encounters with the truth.
The X-ray that permitted me
to see both into you and through
(the glowing silhouette of your
soft tissues like the swaddling soul)
still diagnoses it: “a mass,”
the radiologist in me
could not help noting first—and then,
your failing heart, terribly large.
The Mental Status Exam
What is the color of the mind? Beneath
The cranium it’s pinkish grey, with flecks
Of white mixed in. What is the mind’s motif?
Depends on what you mean: it’s either sex
Or it’s a box, release or pessimism.
Remember these three things, ball, sorrow, red.
Count backwards, from one-hundred down by sevens.
What is the color of the mind? It’s said
That love can conquer all — interpret, please.
And who’s the President? What year is it?
The mind is timeless, dizzy, unscrupulous;
The mind is sometimes only dimly lit.
Just two more silly questions: Can you sing
For us? Do you remember those three things?
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| "What is the color of the mind? . . . pinkish grey, with flecks Of white mixed in." |
The Universe is a House Party
The universe is expanding. Look: postcards
And panties, bottles with lipstick on the rim,
Orphan socks and napkins dried into knots.
Quickly, wordlessly, all of it whisked into file
With radio waves from a generation ago,
Drifting to the edge of what doesn’t end,
Like the air inside a balloon. Is it bright?
Will our eyes crimp shut? Is it molten, atomic,
A conflagration of suns? It sounds like the kind of party
Your neighbors forget to invite you to: bass throbbing
Through walls, and everyone thudding around drunk
On the roof. We grind lenses to an impossible strength,
Point them toward the future, and dream of beings
We’ll welcome with indefatigable hospitality:
How marvelous you’ve come! We won’t flinch
At the pinprick mouths, the nubbin limbs. We’ll rise,
Gracile, robust. Mi casa es su casa. Never more sincere.
Seeing us, they’ll know exactly what we mean.
Of course, it's ours. If it's anyone's, it's ours.
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| on amazon.com |
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| “We are here because we are born with the capacity to find hidden light in all events and all people, to lift it up and make it visible once again and thereby to restore the innate wholeness of the world." from Becoming Wise: An Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of Living (p 25) by Krista Tippett |
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| " . . . suddenly death seems easier, more inevitable than life. . . . [but] I try to appreciate the joy of the moment without the sorrow." from Shabanu: Daughter of the Wind (pp 16, 231) by Suzanne Fisher Staples |
