SUDDENER THAN WE FANCY IT

The first rain in quite a long time here. And it really is hard to call it rain, more sprinkling and overcast, but I imagine the dried-out garden appreciates it nonetheless. The cats are less appreciative as they cannot go about their regular bird and butterfly watching activities without incurring some dampness. Emmylou came in with quite an expression of disgruntlement and Oona keeps appearing at my closed window as if she can't accept the situation.

This was also an opportunity to give myself as pass at swimming, although it is really warm enough being 71 or 72 degrees. I will try to make it over to the senior gym for a bit of bicycling in a bit.. 

Oh, later that same year.

Remind me to never do this again. This? This is a tooth that needs to be pulled along with a significant cold. At least, I am not throwing up. I am a little feverish. I never thought I would be counting down the hours until a dental appointment, but that's the tune in 2018. Toothaches are no fun. I mean, I like a good sneeze as much as the next person, but it can get a bit tiresome. I just hope my cold doesn't get in the way of getting this tooth out.

On the other hand, I get to watch many episodes of Nashville. And do some reading in and out of tv. 

And so I try again.

Tooth out. Cold over. And now trying to be productive. 



Here we are again, with me struggling to tune into that interior voice that manages to be interesting from time to time. 

I am at least back to working at my desk, which means I have accomplished some cleaning up. Of course, there are piles of books that I have dragged back from thrift stores in the last few weeks that  needs find shelf space. Oona prefers that I spend my evenings on my bed watching tv or reading so that she can be comfortably nearby. As it is, she is prowling the room, nearly knocked over all of my earrings, and bedded down in my slightly ajar jeans drawer. Maximum shedding opportunity as there is sure to be black in there.

SNOW

The room was suddenly rich and the great bay-window was
Spawning snow and pink roses against it
Soundlessly collateral and incompatible:
World is suddener than we fancy it.

World is crazier and more of it than we think,
Incorrigibly plural. I peel and portion
A tangerine and spit the pips and feel
The drunkenness of things being various.

And the fire flames with a bubbling sound for world
Is more spiteful and gay than one supposes —
On the tongue on the eyes on the ears in the palms of one's
   hands —
There is more than glass between the snow and the huge roses.

— Louis MacNeice, found in Modern Irish Poetry: An Anthology, Belfast, Blackstaff Press Ltd., 1995

"The world is suddener than we fancy it ..." Hell to the yes, as the young people say! The suddener things in my life? My mother's growing frailty, which isn't really suddener but my realization comes in suddener waves. My older half-sister's December stroke and her current debilitated state in hospice. My sister-in-law's 95-year-old mother having fallen and now in hospital. It can happen at any time.

There are some other great phrases in this poem which I may well return to. The anthology was desultorily picked up in a thrift store, and agonized over as books are overflowing capacity in my rooms. I am not getting reading done fast enough. However, we are in the final stretches (less than 100 pages) of Moby Dick. After that I can more comfortably snorkel around other books without feeling so guilty.

And so it goes. The lyrics work, too. Check out the second verse. (I love Nick Lowe.)

I remember one night the kid cut off his right arm
In a bid to save a bit of power
He got fifty thousand watts
In a big acoustic tower
Security's so tight tonight
Oh they're ready for a tussle
Gotta keep your backstage passes
'Cause your promoter hired the muscle

And so it goes and so it goes
And so it goes and so it goes
But where it's goin' no one knows
And so it goes and so it goes
And so it goes and so it goes
But where it's goin' no one knows

In the tall building
Sit the head of all nations
Worthy men from Spain and Siam
All day discussions with the Russians
But they still went ahead
And vetoed the plan
Now up jumped the U.S. representative
He's the one with the tired eyes
747 put him in that condition
Flyin' back from a peace keepin' mission

And so it goes and so it goes
And so it goes and so it goes
But where it's goin' no one knows
And so it goes and so it goes
And so it goes and so it goes
But where it's goin' no one knows

In the air there's after-shave lotion
In the wake of a snake-hipped Persian
On his arm there's a skin tight vision
Wonder why she ain't mine she is his

And so it goes and so it goes
And so it goes and so it goes
But where it's goin' no one knows
And so it goes and so it goes
And so it goes and so it goes
But where it's goin' no one knows

But where it's goin' no one knows
But where it's goin' no one knows
But where it's goin' no one knows