. . .but much more eloquently than I ever could:
Whining, in stereo
April 22, 2011 By
This little drama is repeated, oh, five evenings every week when the dog thinks it’s time for his walk and the boy wants some iPhone time. Multiply the length of this video by 30 to get a sense of how long such a scene might last, and you have some idea of why I don’t get as much blogging done as I used to.
(For those keeping score at home: Jake is 1 year old, Lucas is 5 years old. In this video they appear to be a similar size, but Jake weighs more than twice what Lucas does. They can, alas, match one another in volume.)
Speechless
April 15, 2011 By
Alas, what he’s (not) saying applies to the Idaho legislature even more than to the U.S. Congress.
Mi familia–plus a guessing game
April 8, 2011 By
I’m conferencing, and my attention is scattered right now, plus it’s icky humid here in Pensacola and I can’t think when the weather is like this, so all I’ve got are random items o’ famille. (. . .and a couple of posts about the conference; you can read them over here.)
Detail of an Image by ezioman, and used under a Creative Commons license.
ITEM 1: I soon will be an aunt. (Bonus: Guess the baby’s name!)
My sister is having a baby. Yay! Alas, the baby has not yet turned, and attempts to turn her did not work. On April 21, she’s having a C-section, which, she explained to me last night, kind of makes those ELEVEN WEEKS (33 hours!) of childbirth class seem like wasted time. Kindly keep your fingers crossed for her, send good vibes her way, or whatever else you typically do to wish someone well.
My sister isn’t revealing the baby’s intended name, though she did say they think it’s a stubborn girl and her name will start with H. She said it’s a name that evokes the nineteenth century, and that she and her husband saw the name on the back of a boat.
initial H + 19th century + likely boat name = ??? (Hazel, Hannah, Harriet, Henrietta? Hermia, Helena, Hepzibah? Hypatia?!?)
Leave your guesses in the comments, and I’ll let you know what she names the baby. (My sister’s last name begins with an H, and she’s looking for an “R” middle name, so that the baby’s initials will be HRH, which would be an awesome monogram. I suggested that there’s a better middle name–the one we were going to give our child had he been born a girl: our grandmother’s name.)
ITEM 2: I need to write a difficult letter.
To my ill grandmother. A kind, loving thank-you note. I’m not sure what to put in it. I need to finish it soon. Ideas?
ITEM 3: DNA from Danes and Scots
My dad has pale olive skin, and before his hair went gray, it was black. Did I inherit his awesome melanin and coloring? No. And thanks to an Idaho winter, I’m paler than I’ve ever been. Yet did I remember to bring sunblock or a hat on my trip to Pensacola this week? No. Did I get a sunburn on the back of my neck today, despite my collared shirt, the fact that my hair was down, and it was foggy most of the day? Oh yes. Have I found anywhere within walking distance to buy sunblock? sigh.
The Triangle Shirtwaist fire centennial
March 25, 2011 By
Today is the centennial of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire.
I encourage you to reflect today on all the rights union organizing, and especially women’s organizing, has since earned workers–and what we’re in the process of losing.
The Lemon Trees
March 24, 2011 By
We received more news today about Grandma’s cancer. She may have as little time as three months.
We’re all very sad.
This poem has comforted me this evening, as I have indeed seen Grandma’s lemon tree through the half-shut gate, among the leafage of a court.
I hope it comforts my family as well. You, too, may find it heartening at the end of a long winter.
I’ve included a recording of me reading it, made on my laptop in my home office, so it’s a bit echo-ey–but if you prefer audio, there it is, below the text of the poem.
The Lemon Trees
Listen; the poets laureate
walk only among plants
of unfamiliar name: boxwood, acanthus;
I, for my part, prefer the streets that fade
to grassy ditches where a boy
hunting the half-dried puddles
sometimes scoops up a meagre eel;
the little paths that wind along the slopes,
plunge down among the cane-tufts,
and break into the orchards, among trunks of the lemon-trees.
Better if the jubilee of birds
is quenched, swallowed entirely in the blue:
more clear to the listener murmur of friendly boughs
in air that scarcely moves,
that fills the senses with this odor
inseparable from earth,
and rains an unquiet sweetness in the breast.
Here by a miracle is hushed
the war of the diverted passions,
here even to us poor falls our share of riches,
and it is the scent of the lemon-trees.See, in these silences
in which things yield and seem
about to betray their ultimate secret,
sometimes one half expects
to discover a mistake of Nature,
the dead point of the world, the link which will not hold,
the thread to disentangle which might set us at last
in the midst of a truth.
The eyes cast round,
the mind seeks harmonizes disunites
in the perfume that expands
when day most languishes.
Silences in which one sees
in each departing human shadow
some dislodged Divinity.
But the illusion wanes and time returns us
to our clamorous cities where the blue appears
only in patches, high up, among the gables.
Then rain falls wearying the earth,
the winter tedium weighs on the roofs,
the light grows miserly, bitter the soul.
When one day through the half-shut gate,
among the leafage of a court
the yellows of the lemon blaze
and the heart’s ice melts
and songs
pour into the breast
from golden trumpets of solarity.— Eugenio Montale, trans. Irma Brandeis
