Yesterday, of course, was a beautiful sunny day with nary a cloud in the sky. We had no plans other than cleaning up from the day before. C’est la vie.
Yesterday was also the birthday of Walt Whitman, so I read some poetry.
And here’s Bob Dylan’s hat tip to W.W.:
Have a good (short) week!
Welcome to flyover land: cicadas on gone-by Iris. Yuck-o. When you walk outside the cicada din is like something out of a SciFi movie. And we haven’t even reached our peek. I was going to take a picture of our front porch, but it is too gross. Use your imagination. (Here’s a photo from Fox2.)
The Iris were insane this year, but I have to say, I like the plainer ones. Some of them verge on the vulgar:
They are the dancehall girls of flowers.
I am not ungrateful–for weeks we have all been enjoying a really beautiful spring where the grass is green and lush and the flowering trees lovely and fragrant. But there are downsides to May. Cicadas, flash flooding and tornadoes to name a few. But we count it all joy when we meet trials of various kinds.
Indeed, we soldier on and enjoy the the upsides of May. It is a great month for birthdays! No one in my family has a May birthday, but lots of my favorite people do, including the Big Four: Bob Dylan (May 24), Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25), John Wayne (May 26), and Walt Whitman (May 31).
There are also these guys: Gary Cooper (May 7), Henry Fonda (May 16), James Stewart (May 20), Laurence Olivier (May 22), and Clint Eastwood (May 22).
So many reasons to throw a party! So plan accordingly.
After you’ve deadheaded all those iris blooms, take a break and watch an old movie, listen to an old song or read an old poem…
I love apocalyptic Bob.
It is the last day of May and the Christmas Cactus is blooming again!
It is also Walt Whitman’s birthday! We will toast him and all the birthdays we have celebrated in May.
We do not all contain multitudes. Some people, I am told, do not even have/are incapable of having an inner monologue. (This is science.) I toast those who do.
In other news, in reading through the Bible, I have found several references to bears, which I found interesting. I was unaware that there even were bears in the Ancient Middle East. But I guess there were. Here is an interesting article about a difficult passage. Why did God send bears to attack a group of boys?
And here is John Piper on fighting the fears of old age, which, believe me, I am fighting. He never pulls any punches:
Your outward sufficiency is getting smaller, right? You are weakening. Your body is weakening, your eyes are weakening, your ears are weakening, your memory is weakening, and everything is wasting away. That’s what it means in this age to die. We all will die if Jesus doesn’t come, to which we say, “Come, Lord Jesus.”
But I believe the promise of 2 Corinthians 9:8 is that every good work that you are expected to do by God, you will have the resources to do it — the mental resources, the physical resources, the affectional resources, the financial resources. If you don’t have the resources to do it, he doesn’t expect you to do it.”
Well, take time to smell the flowers today, consider the cosmos, talk to the “Listener up there!” and have a snack.
Greetings from the land of Still Recovering from that same virus/whatever that got me down last November. Ugh. Nevertheless, I started the slow process of cleaning my empty nest.
Clearly this was a bad idea, since in the process of doing this, I broke the glass tabletop in my Florida Room.
Oh me! Oh life! of the questions of these recurring,
Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill’d with the foolish,
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean, of the struggle ever renew’d,
Of the poor results of all, of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me,
Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest me intertwined,
The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?
Answer.
That you are here—that life exists and identity,
That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.
(Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass 1892)
Yesterday I worked in the yard for a little bit because it was too beautiful a day to stay inside. I paid for it though with the sneezing fit it set off. Curses, pollen strikes again!
Meanwhile the iris continue to be insane.
Well, I feel like some Walt Whitman poetry, don’t you? His birthday is a week from today…
Not from successful love alone,
Nor wealth, nor honor’d middle age, nor victories of politics or war;
But as life wanes, and all the turbulent passions calm,
As gorgeous, vapory, silent hues cover the evening sky,
As softness, fulness, rest, suffuse the frame, like freshier, balmier air,
As the days take on a mellower light, and the apple at last hangs
really finish’d and indolent-ripe on the tree,
Then for the teeming quietest, happiest days of all!
The brooding and blissful halcyon days!
“Halcyon Days”
And a toast to brother Bob Dylan, whose birthday is today.
And I will offer in His tent sacrifices with shouts of joy;
Psalm 27:6
I will sing, yes, I will sing praises to the Lord.
As you know, I am a great re-reader of books and poems and a re-watcher of movies.
The past and present wilt—I have fill’d them, emptied them.
And proceed to fill my next fold of the future.Listener up there! what have you to confide to me?
Look in my face while I snuff the sidle of evening,
(Talk honestly, no one else hears you, and I stay only a minute longer.)Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)I concentrate toward them that are nigh, I wait on the door-slab.
Who has done his day’s work? who will soonest be through with his supper?
Who wishes to walk with me?Will you speak before I am gone? will you prove already too late?
–Walt Whitman, Song of Myself, 51
When daughter #1 visits, we like to re-listen to music, even old LPs from my parents’ house. But listening to a new Bob album is quite a treat.
I sing the songs of experience like William Blake
I have no apologies to make
Treat yourself.
I’ll keep the path open, the path in my mind
I’ll see to it that there’s no love left behind
I’ll play Beethoven’s sonatas, and Chopin’s preludes
I contain multitudes
*Jorge Luis Borges
Now be witness again, paint the mightiest armies of earth,Of those armies so rapid so wondrous what saw you to tell us?What stays with you latest and deepest? of curious panics,Of hard-fought engagements or sieges tremendous what deepest remains?*
Well, another week of Zoom meetings…
and cramped working space has come and (almost) gone. I can’t complain. Like my DP, there is a part of me that really enjoys being home, far away from the madding crowd. Another part says, Let’s try to make the most of our predicament! And, of course, I am counting my blessings.
Since it is Friday, I am, of course, thinking of movies to watch over the weekend. Did you watch siege movies last weekend? I watched Rio Bravo (1959) and The Desert Rats (1953)–both were great! This week’s theme, in consultation with daughter #2, will focus on our other preoccupation–babies!
The 1980s supplies the lion’s share of our titles. (What is with that?) We remember these movies fondly as being lightweight, but fun:
Willow (1988)–Warwick Davis plays a dwarf and aspiring sorcerer, who protects the infant Elora Danan from an evil queen in this fantasy directed by Ron Howard.
Three Men and a Baby (1987)–Tom Selleck, Steve Gutenberg and Ted Danson play three bachelors attempting to adapt their lives to pseudo-fatherhood. Mishaps and adventures ensue. I had forgotten that it is directed by Leonard Nimoy and is based on the 1985 French film Trois hommes et un couffin, which as I recall, is also worth watching.
Look Who’s Talking (1989)–A RomCom starring John Travolta and Kirstie Alley. Bruce Willis plays the “voice” of the baby, Mikey. This was the movie that re-launched Travolta’s career.
Baby Boom (1987)–Diane Keaton as a yuppie who “inherits” a 14-month-old girl. Sam Shepard co-stars.
Of course, our favorite “baby” movie of all time is John Ford’s 3 Godfathers (1948)–there is no resisting John Wayne, Harry Carey, Jr. and Pedro Armendáriz as the fabled outlaw godfathers of a newborn.
Meanwhile our own wee babes are sheltering at home and learning like little Einsteins.
Brilliant.
One of my students shared this with me. It is très amusant.
Have a good Zoom-free weekend! Sunday is Palm Sunday! Can you believe it? Be sure to go to virtual church!
On November 15, 1872 the Missouri Republican reported that the Mill Creek sewer of St. Louis, already more than two miles long, was nearing completion. The sewer had been begun in 1860, after Chouteau’s Pond had been drained because of “pollution.” Engineers’ reports outlined the difficulties of the enormous Mill Creek project and stated that it was clear “to the most casual observer that St. Louis without her sewer system would be almost uninhabitable at certain periods of the year.” In fact, it was a serious cholera epidemic in 1866 that gave impetus to completion of the work.
When the sewer was finally finished all the way to Vandeventer Avenue in 1890, it was considered the marvel of its time. It measured twenty feet wide, fifteen feet high, and more than three miles long. Wider than a single railroad track tunnel, the sewer pipe was described as large enough “to allow the passage of a train of cars or a four-horse omnibus.”
The things we take for granted, right?
Information from Frances Hurd Stadler, St. Louis Day By Day
*Walt Whitman
We like to say that tempus fugit, but can it really be 199 years since Walt Whitman was born?!
A toast to Walt (May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892), American poet!
Allons! the road is before us!It is safe—I have tried it—my own feet have tried it well—be not detain’d!Let the paper remain on the desk unwritten, and the book on the shelf unopen’d!Let the tools remain in the workshop! let the money remain unearn’d!Let the school stand! mind not the cry of the teacher!Let the preacher preach in his pulpit! let the lawyer plead in the court, and the judge expound the law.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?
Chad’s Ford Landscape by N.C. Wyeth
Wind from the Sea by Andrew Wyeth
The Winding Road by Ernest Lawson
The Road Heading Home by Lee Macleod
Hey, it might be time for a road trip. Sounds like a good idea to me!
This is dual personality #2 with a late weekend post. I started an epic road trip last Wednesday that has taken me through a wild windstorm, snow, and rain to a conference in Louisville, Kentucky, and thence to son #3’s apartment in Crawfordsville, Indiana. In a few days I’ll drive on to visit my brother in Michigan and then head on home again. That’s a lot of driving for an old lady like me to do all on her own, but so far so good.
I’d never been to Louisville before. I liked it a lot. The highlight of the visit was a tour of historic Locust Grove, a Georgian house built in about 1792.
Here’s the back view.
The inside of this gem is filled with lovingly restored rooms and beautiful period furniture like this gorgeous grandfather clock.
This is the dining room,
and here are a couple of the bedrooms.
It was the nicest house I’ve seen in a long time and I highly recommend a visit.
I would also add that Louisville has several large antique malls that actually sell nice furniture — much of it is vintage rather than antique, but I found a surprising amount of fine reproduction furniture. I bought a sweet mahogany bachelor’s chest here that I’ll post about once I get home.
It was great to be back in the Midwest, where people are friendly and there are wide open spaces. Much as I like mountains, I miss my plains. However, I do wish that the highway drivers were less crazy. I am not slow on the highway, but when the speed limit is 55, I try to go about 63. Everyone else went about 75, and when the speed limit was 70, they all went at least 80. That’s too fast for me. Maybe I am getting old!
Stay tuned for more tales of my adventures. Next time, I’ll tell you about Hoosier life!
dual personalities 