It's the Now Again

The high note is not the only thing.
- Placido Domingo

If you're reading this on Facebook, I've included the Daily Peace Quote above, there being no sidebar on FB, because the wise words of P. Domingo are the text for today's "homilita" (that's Spanglish).

When I began my journey of discovery a year ago this month, I decided I would blog for all those folks who kept saying, "Now you keep in touch, y' hear." (That's how they talk in North Carolina, after which they say, "C'mere and let me hug yer neck.") I finally summoned the nerve to write my first post in September. It contained, among other random yet oh, so interesting ruminations, the question of what I would do to make the world a better place while enjoying the selfish pleasures of retirement.

Here's the simple truth about that: making the world a better place is not only about the world, it's about me and what I need to feel good about myself. Because making the world a better place comes with recognition for my accomplishment and for me, Recognition=Contentment.

What I have learned, with the help of Eckhart Tolle, is that learning to be in the Present is the greatest accomplishment of my life, and that that alone will help the world more than all the committees, marches, drives, campaigns, donations of time and talent, petitions, solicitations, letters and phone calls combined. And what's more, I don't need to be recognized by anyone but myself in order to be contented. If you don't believe me, read A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose, and try it for yourself. Or ask Oprah.

By the way, Eckhart has a new TV series you can subscribe to online (for a fee) at http://www.eckharttolletv.com/. If you have never seen or heard him, you may be surprised by this little beige, unprepossessing man with the British/German accent and the subtle sense of humor. He lives near here, in fact, in Vancouver, BC. Here's a little YouTube sample for you to try: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwr4zCuEmw0, which is taken from a PBS show and is introduced by two women who set it up for you.

Singer/songwriter Bill Staines reiterates what Mr. Domingo says:

All God's critters got a place in the choir
Some sing low, some sing higher
Some sing out loud on the telephone wire
And some just clap their hands, or paws
Or anything they got.

What is the sound of one bee clapping?

A Wish for Today

Nobody sees a flower - really - it is so small it takes time - we haven't time - and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time.
- Georgia O'Keeffe




Where did yesterday go (or the last 62 years, for that matter)? Never mind. It's today and it's good.

My friend Greg and I are planning a little out-of-town trip up north to Whidbey Island, about which I know very little except that it was once inhabited by members of the Lower Skagit, Swinomish, Suquamish, Snohomish (gesundheit) and other Native American tribes but now hosts some 58,211 "Whidbey Islanders," most of whom I imagine are descendants of a somewhat paler race. It's supposed to be beautiful country but I can't imagine that it's more beautiful than where I am right this minute. If I'd remembered to bring my camera inside I'd take a picture for you of the view of Lake Washington from Greg's living room window.

Speaking of sight-seeing, it turns out I have come to Seattle at the right time, as even the national news is reporting that we have just broken the record for the number of days in a row without measureable rainfall: 29. I will enjoy every minute, rain or no rain.

Here's a poem for you...

Ride, Sally, Ride

On this day
In 1983 Sally Ride took the ride
Of her life
Aboard the Challenger
(The most fun she will ever have
In her life she says)
Why her and not
Christa McAuliffe
Whose time came
Three years later
For 73 seconds
But no more?
What’s it all about?
Planning ahead?
Already there are hundreds
Of millions
Of pieces
Of space trash floating
In our region of the galaxy.
If we’re looking for an upgrade
We’d better increase the fine
For littering.
Sally was my hero
The youngest
The first woman in space
I wish she’d been
The last.

June 18, 2009
Seattle

BTW, I've removed the "On This Day in History" thing from this site because it appears that whoever is "the decider" thinks most of the things that were worth remembering from history had to do with war. How sad.

Bloomsday Revisited

Ulysses
by James Joyce
"O and the sea the sea crimson sometimes like fire and the glorious sunsets and the fig trees in the Alameda gardens yes and all the queer little streets and pink and blue and yellow houses and the rose gardens and the jessamine and geraniums and cactuses and Gibraltar as a girl where I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes."

I have read Joyce, but not this Joyce. God knows I've tried (sort of) but it was too much for me. The reputation of Ulysses had preceded it, of course, most recently in a series of NPR interviews a year or so ago. People were asked what fluff they were reading over the summer, and at the end of the interview they were asked what serious book they would read if they had all the time in the world. More than one interviewee claimed it would be Ulysses. So when a free paperback copy presented itself to me I took up the tome and gave it a go. Either those people in the interviews were big fat liars or they didn't really know any more about the book than I did. And I thought Gertrude Stein was a challenge!

Anyway, today is Bloomsday after the hero of the book, Leopold Bloom, and it celebrates the single day in which the entire story takes place, in Dublin, in 1904. "Joyceans" all over the world are celebrating with staged readings and all manner of merry-making. I'm sorry, but I don't get it. Call me a Philistine.

But if you like Joyce, here's a poem for you.

Jimmy I Hardly Knew Ye

O and I am like a cloud kissed dew drop in Seattle all damp and smooth a stone lapped in the shallows of the lake where sun dappled bees dip their tiny feet in pools of cool liquid gold and fire upon a green and pleasant hill where I dreamed of a long ago popsicle banana or possibly grape and how the two halves broke across the middle instead of along the seam and I cried because my brother ran away with the sticks and left me only the melting top half sticky and sweet running down my fingers like watery blood as it was actually cherry not banana or grape and I said no and no again and ran after but he only laughed and I dropped the wet sticky mess on the sidewalk where it melted like like a popsicle on a hot sidewalk.

June 16, 2009

Seattle

This is my friend Greg's condo on Lake Washington, where I am temporarily parked. Not too shabby.

Everything is lush and colorful here. I can't possibly take pictures of all the beautiful flowers. I'd never have time for anything else.

Dig this purple daylily.

I believe this is St. John's Wort, the stuff I used to take in capsule form when I was going through menopause. If you're depressed and irritable you might try some. You'll need it after you read Joyce.