Ma and McDonald's on Easter Sunday

Dear Bonnie,

What a funny story about Ma wanting a McDonald's hamburger!

And, after the gorgeous brunch you just had at the elegant Manor.

Who would've thunk it?

Only our MA!  And, that's what's so great about being with family

or friends who "get" you.  You can ebb and flow, wave and wax in the

wind to your heart's content, do whatever moves you "at the moment"

and a good friend will understand and let you be yourself.

I was laughing and shaking my head as I listened to your account

of pulling in at the drive-up window, chatting with the "hostess"

and watching Ma delightedly devour her hamburger.  I can picture

it very well and am glad you called, at the moment, and recounted

it all to me.  That MA!

I'm sure the brunch was plentiful and perfect.  It always is,

especially on holidays, at the Manor.  That's the time to go there.

Let me know how dinner goes and how brunch was this morning.

I liked the photo a lot, too! 

Until later. . .

Luv,

 

Phyll

Three Interesting Entries

Spring

by Jim Harrison

Something new in the air today, perhaps the struggle of the bud
to become a leaf. Nearly two weeks late it invaded the air but
then what is two weeks to life herself? On a cool night there is
a break from the struggle of becoming. I suppose that's why we
sleep. In a childhood story they spoke of the land of enchant-
ment." We crawl to it, we short-lived mammals, not realizing that
we are already there. To the gods the moon is the entire moon
but to us it changes second by second because we are always fish
in the belly of the whale of earth. We are encased and can't stray
from the house of our bodies. I could say that we are released,
but I don't know, in our private night when our souls explode
into a billion fragments then calmly regather in a black pool in
the forest, far from the cage of flesh, the unremitting "I." This was
a dream and in dreams we are forever alone walking the ghost
road beyond our lives. Of late I see waking as another chance at
spring.

"Spring" by Jim Harrison, from Songs of Unreason. © Copper Canyon Press, 2011. Reprinted with permission. (buy now)

 

 

Today is the birthday of the French poet Paul Verlaine (books by this author), born in Metz, in the northeast of France, in 1844. He began writing as young as 14, when he sent his poem "La Mort" to Victor Hugo. He published his first volume of poetry when he was 22.

Verlaine wrote:

You must let your poems ride their luck
On the back of the sharp morning air
Touched with the fragrance of mint and thyme ...
And everything else is Literature.

 

It's the birthday of Vincent van Gogh, born in Zundert, Holland (1853), a painter and also great letter-writer. He wrote about art, of course, but also friendship, religion, prostitutes, interior decorating, and his love affairs. His letters are often lively, engaging, and passionate; they also frequently reflect his struggles with bipolar disorder. He wrote: "I have a terrible need of — shall I say the word — religion. Then I go out and paint the stars." And he wrote: "What am I in the eyes of most people — a nonentity, an eccentric, or an unpleasant person — somebody who has no position in society and will never have; in short, the lowest of the low. All right, then — even if that were absolutely true, then I should one day like to show by my work what such an eccentric, such a nobody, has in his heart."

He wrote thousands of letters to his brother Theo over the course of his life. Theo's widow, Joanna, published the first complete edition of van Gogh's letters to her husband in 1913.

Kindness Poem

Kindness

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you every where
like a shadow or a friend.

Laz Tribute to Wife, Helen

The great 13th century mystic poet Rumi (translated by Coleman Barks) says:

The minute I heard my first love story,
I started looking for you,
not knowing how blind that was.
Lovers don't finally meet somewhere.
They're in each other all along.

I believe Rumi would agree that lovers stay in each other. Through the love that she showed me, Helen is still encouraging me, still teaching, guiding and supporting me. I trust her love will stay with me as long as I live.