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| Vera Paris' tufted ears. |
It certainly seems like some kind of miracle, but I would rather it be a change in habit.
After another bickering match about Janet’s chronic lateness and recalcitrance, I set her alarm so that she had adequate time to space out, drink coffee, make toast, shower, and then STILL be on time to get to her day without me having to chastise and exhort her to get organized. Today, it all worked.
I am still tucked up in bed, thinking. We are in for another bout of colder and wetter weather this week. This weekend was gloriously, mellowly sunny.
1/28/19
I somehow lost the beginning of this post, but I think it had something to do with waking up early. That didn't happen today after going to bed at 2.
Mom is walking around singing/humming the Habanera from Carmen. Although I exhorted her to skip the shower, she has probably forgotten. I don't think I set her alarm so she didn't get up and get moving.
ex·hort
Dictionary result for exhort
Origin
late Middle English: from Old French exhorter or Latin exhortari, from ex- ‘thoroughly’ + hortari‘encourage’.
Exhort is an unused gem of a word. Very much underutilized. I wonder if exhort's lack of sonority disinclines its popularity.
Oh dang. it is now pouring outside and I have a feather bed out in the backyard, first getting aired out, now getting soaked. (Pulled in in, and it is only damp.)
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| Oona Minnie Pearl Moonlight, the cat who could not, would not, stay clean. |
With the rain and the Southern California rarity of thunder and lightning, it is tempting to stay in my feathered bed, in the soft lamplight, and indulge in more reading and snoozing, oblivious to the reality of pressures. I have to remind myself that there is pleasure and satisfaction in making progress toward my greater good. In a pinch, I could iron and watch tv which is some kind of compromise.
Okay, tomorrow now. (That sounds like a Disneyland slogan.)
Do you ever wake from sleep rather beached and exhausted. Not to mention that morning crusting inhibiting your eyes from opening in the first place. Not to mention that you have to float back to reality from that cocoon of comfortable delusion. Morning or waking up dozing is so different from the not-really-able-to-fall-asleep dozing as to not be the same thing at all. Varieties of dozing. (Wrote doxing first and not 100% sure what that even is. Ah-ha!)
There's a Beatles song in my head this morning but I cannot share as I can't really hear the lyrics and the ones can recall, aren't specific enough to yield to searching. ... Found it, It's Only Love. There have been lots of good cds at the thrift stores lately, one of which is the Help soundtrack. (If you click the link, stay tuned to the next song which is Ticket to Ride.) I almost have enough distance from the Beatles to start really hearing and enjoying them in a deeper way. "It's only love and that is all ..."
Big sigh.
A break from Kay Ryan.
ANIMALS
Have you forgotten what we were like then
when we were still first rate
and the day came fat with an apple in its mouth
it's no use worrying about Time
but we did have a few tricks up our sleeves
and turned some sharp corners
the whole pasture looked like our meal
we didn't need speedometers
we could manage cocktails out of ice and water
I wouldn't want to be faster
or greener than now if you were with me O you
were the best of all my days.
[1950]
— Frank O'Hara, The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara, New York, Knopf, 1971.
This one is a lovely spring or summer poem, but the last line is so great I could not wait.
A BLESSING
Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,
Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass
And the eyes of those two Indian ponies
Darken with kindness.
They have come gladly out of the willows
To welcome my friend and me.
We step over the barbed wire into the pasture
Where they have been grazing all day, alone.
They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness
That we have come.
They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.
There is no loneliness like theirs.
At home once more,
They begun munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness.
I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,
For she has walked over to me
And nuzzled my left hand.
She is black and white,
Her mane falls wild on her forehead,
And a light breeze moves me to caress her long ear
That is as delicate as the skin over a girl's wrist.
Suddenly I realize
That if I stepped out of my body I would break
Into blossom.
— James Wright, Above the River: The Complete Poems and Selected Prose, Wesleyan University Press, 1990
Okay, tomorrow now. (That sounds like a Disneyland slogan.)
Do you ever wake from sleep rather beached and exhausted. Not to mention that morning crusting inhibiting your eyes from opening in the first place. Not to mention that you have to float back to reality from that cocoon of comfortable delusion. Morning or waking up dozing is so different from the not-really-able-to-fall-asleep dozing as to not be the same thing at all. Varieties of dozing. (Wrote doxing first and not 100% sure what that even is. Ah-ha!)
There's a Beatles song in my head this morning but I cannot share as I can't really hear the lyrics and the ones can recall, aren't specific enough to yield to searching. ... Found it, It's Only Love. There have been lots of good cds at the thrift stores lately, one of which is the Help soundtrack. (If you click the link, stay tuned to the next song which is Ticket to Ride.) I almost have enough distance from the Beatles to start really hearing and enjoying them in a deeper way. "It's only love and that is all ..."
Big sigh.
A break from Kay Ryan.
ANIMALS
Have you forgotten what we were like then
when we were still first rate
and the day came fat with an apple in its mouth
it's no use worrying about Time
but we did have a few tricks up our sleeves
and turned some sharp corners
the whole pasture looked like our meal
we didn't need speedometers
we could manage cocktails out of ice and water
I wouldn't want to be faster
or greener than now if you were with me O you
were the best of all my days.
[1950]
— Frank O'Hara, The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara, New York, Knopf, 1971.
This one is a lovely spring or summer poem, but the last line is so great I could not wait.
A BLESSING
Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,
Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass
And the eyes of those two Indian ponies
Darken with kindness.
They have come gladly out of the willows
To welcome my friend and me.
We step over the barbed wire into the pasture
Where they have been grazing all day, alone.
They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness
That we have come.
They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.
There is no loneliness like theirs.
At home once more,
They begun munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness.
I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,
For she has walked over to me
And nuzzled my left hand.
She is black and white,
Her mane falls wild on her forehead,
And a light breeze moves me to caress her long ear
That is as delicate as the skin over a girl's wrist.
Suddenly I realize
That if I stepped out of my body I would break
Into blossom.
— James Wright, Above the River: The Complete Poems and Selected Prose, Wesleyan University Press, 1990
into blossom..."
Now, those are words, that is an image, that you can slow dance to.
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| Idris Aretha Zora Baldwin. |
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