Life goes on

In answer to the question, "What's been going on?"

 

Easter celebrating with our niece and her family.  

Three children ages three and under...it was a trip down memory lane.

Except that now my children are the big kids.

Even the dog Bauer (as in Jack) found a friend.

 

Rex's Eagle Scout binder was accepted, aka: his parents can take a deep breath and eagerly anticipate his 18th birthday rather than being panic-stricken about the looming deadline.

WAY TO GO, REX!

Board of Review, ergo Official Eagle Scout status, still to come.  Stay tuned.

A trip to Bodega Bay,

with a special stop at Screamin' Mimi's Ice Cream Parlor in Sebastopol.

Ginger ice cream.  Yumola.

 

The sunset was glorious (and freezing).

The wild iris were blooming on the path above the cliffs.

Makes me think of you, HMB Alison.

And back home the wisteria is blooming, too. 

The Friday Clive

Literature adds to reality, it does not simply describe it. It enriches the necessary competencies that daily life requires and provides; and in this respect, it irrigates the deserts that our lives have already become.

The Friday Clive

"Isn't it funny the way some combinations of words can give you - almost apart from their meaning - a thrill like music?"

Cloche

These yellow cloches called to me from the thrift store shelf. 

For a song I brought home puddles of yellow light, 

glass that throws shadows shimmering with ripples of gold.

 

Meant to cover fragile plants, I cannot bring myself to put them outside.

I want them to stay inside, spreading the morning light across the tablecloth.

The Friday Clive

"Look in thy heart and write" is good counsel for poets; but when a poet looks in his heart he finds many things there besides the actual. That is why, and how, he is a poet."

Recommended viewing

 

 

Coping

My healthy methods of coping in times of trial (and yes, there are unhealthy ones, too):

At least thirty minutes on the treadmill with the beautiful view.  Adding a little each day.  This is essential.

I am always amazed at how much better I feel (physically and emotionally) when I exercise.

Why is it so hard to do something that is so good for me?

Notice beautiful things.  This is my great-grandmother's pitcher.  I love it.

The shadows and sunshine are a bonus.

This is a technique we have used since we were first married.  When life gets to be too much, one of us will say:  "We need to be very busy."  And that means Nothing Happens.  

Last weekend's plans didn't work out, but this weekend is going to be Very Busy.  

Cannot wait.

There and back again

Mt. Shasta

It was another Eugene trip this weekend.  The landscape was as glorious as ever, the company sweet, the road long. 

It's good to be home.

Sunset on Hwy. 5

Sabbath poetry

For we are fallen like the trees, our peace
Broken, and so we must
Love where we cannot trust,
Trust where we cannot know,
And must await the wayward-coming grace
That joins living and dead,
Taking us where we would not go--
Into the boundless dark.
When what was made has been unmade
The Maker comes to His work.

Beauty

Final Four

As many of you noted in the comments, my bracket took some serious hits last week.  All seemed lost.

But the great news, in a self-centered, uber-competitive way, is that EVERYONE lost.  And I still have one team in.  Not a championship team, but a final four team.  And NO ONE ELSE DOES.

So, there is a chance that I will win.  Or to put it more honestly, I might lose less than anyone else.

I'll take that.

The Friday Clive

It seems to me appropriate, almost inevitable, that when that great Imagination which in the beginning, for Its own delight and for the delight of men and angels and (in their proper mode) of beasts, had invented and formed the whole world of Nature, submitted to express Itself in human speech, that speech should sometimes be poetry. For poetry too is a little incarnation, giving body to what had been before invisible and inaudiable.

~ Reflections on the Psalms

National Poetry Month

Thanks to Mental Multivitamin for reminding me that National Poetry Month has arrived.

 

From Garrison Keillor's magnificent collection of poems, Good Poems for Hard Time:

"Poetry is a necessity as simple as the need to be touched and similarly a need that is hard to enunciate.  The intense vision and high spirits and moral grandeur are simply needed lest we drift through our days consumed by clothing options and hair styling and whether to have the soup or the salad.

The meaning of poetry is to give courage..."

"Forget everything you ever read about poetry...poetry is the last preserve of honest speech and the outspoken heart."

"Poetry is about driving the nail into the pine, killing the chicken, mowing grass, putting luggage into the car, gratitude for food, the laughter of a little girl, about our common life."

Some of my favorite books of poetry:

And since I see that these are all written by men, I add this to my amazon cart:

Sources for National Poetry Month:

This post from Mental Multivitamin has great ideas and links.
The New York Times offers plenty of ideas of how to celebrate this month.
Semicolon is always a great source for all things literary.
The Writer's Almanac ("poems, prose and literary history from Garrison Keillor") will gladly send you a daily email.  Sign up here.