Where are all the entries I've been posting in my head?

Poem Analysis - "The Peace of Wild Things"
Acc. English II
March 10, 1987

"The Peace of Wild Things," by Wendell Berry, is a free verse poem describing the way in which the narrator escapes "for a time" the troubles of life. He tells of his worries and unrest, and of the way he dispels them by indulging in nature -- he goes to a quiet, tranquil spot, where there are birds and blue skies, and he stays there, not doing anything, simply being.

The poem does not have a definite rhyme scheme or rhythm, nor is there very much use of figurative language. The description is not very complex, but it was written in such a way that I could see, hear, and feel all that was going on. It's a very peaceful poem.

I think there are two messages that Berry is trying to get across to the readers. The obvious one is that nature has a calming effect on the troubled heart. The second message, which comes across in the comparison of our lives to those of "wild things," is that one main human problem is apprehension. He says that the wild things "do not tax their lives with forethought of grief." It isn't grief itself which is troubling the narrator -- his concern is for what the future may bring. So he comes into "the presence of still water," into a place where time is still, where the past and future don't matter and now is all there is. And as a result of this, he is set free.

I have been really pleased with the effect of the Holly Near workshop on my songwriting. Since March I have begun at least four songs (clowning, Russian orphans, fried matzah, finding the north star) that still need work, have completed the Earth Song, which I started almost 10 years ago and which completes a cycle, have written a brand new gay marriage song to console me for the loss of Marriage Protection Week, and have nearly finished the electric car song I began last summer but only had a chorus and a framework for until about a week ago. And I add to this the shoe song that I started in 2003 and finished in February, plus Many Thanks, from the fall, and that's a lot of new stuff!

What's cool about this is the way it dovetails with my issues about "writing" -- I have trouble getting myself to sit and write, even though I have stories to work on and time to do it...I just have a weird priorities thing about...well, levels of procrastination, I guess. Writing is in an in-between level where I don't believe it's okay if there's anything else time-limited. Then I get discouraged, and then I don't write. Which... Yeah, it's a spiral.

But in the past few weeks, I've been able to set aside time and work on songwriting, after which I can truly feel I've spent good time writing. And I even get things finished! Having a concert deadline helps.

The other effect of the Holly Near workshop was on my performing. Which I hadn't been doing, and suddenly I realised that I worked in a perfectly fine performance venue, and that this summer would be a great time to take advantage of that. (Also SpiralSong wasn't rehearsing this spring.) So now I have this concert coming up on Saturday, and songs to sing, and people coming to it, and some friends singing with me in it, and...well, one song to finish. Nearly there...

Yesterday I went to find my sandals, as we were in a heat wave. I did not find the sandals I expected, so then I went to look in the back hall, where a number of things have just been kind of tossed out of the way. I found the sandals I wanted. Then I saw a turquoise sneaker that matched my outfit. And there was no mate in sight.

So I started lifting the pile of random suit jackets and various sundry other things, including a tied plastic bag, and I did not see the other sneaker. As I went past the plastic bag I thought idly, what is this? but was in enough of a rush not to want to open the knot. As I was putting it down I noticed a small hole, so I lifted it again to peer in and beheld a brilliant flash of blue!

...which I recognized as the blue border yarn we used on the Spiral Scarves two years ago. And so, hope against hope (because I'd really looked *everywhere* else I could think of) I palpated the bag, and lo, I discerned among the soft skeins of yarn the comfortingly solid edges of my little missing crochet book!

So then of course I opened the bag. Yay!! Now I think I can go back to the hat/yarmulke I stopped in the middle of when I got cranky at not having the book to write in.

I'll wait 'til the heat wave properly ends, though.

Oh, and I still haven't found the turquoise shoe, but I didn't really look very hard.

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

— Wendell Berry

We're singing this poem on Friday, along with some Copland and three commissions. They include Peter Hilliard's "Consider Krakatau," the piece that prompted me to read the Simon Winchester book I described back in the fall. Three choruses, three conductors, three commissioned pieces, and three separate chorus sets.

What does that remind me of? Okay, what's going through my head now is "two little dolls" from Sesame Street. With the cats who break into the little doll house.

Though really that doesn't fit rhythmically. Now it's more reminding me of the Count. Or the 12 days of Christmas.

In the kitchen this morning, my love drew my attention to the balcony door. "Hey, there's a chickadee on the balcony!"

I crept to where I could see out the door. Indeed, there was a black-capped chickadee on the rail. As I watched, it hopped across the corner to the other rail, then back.

"But...isn't the kitten out there?" I asked. We had locked the (3-y-o) kitten outside during the delivery of our NEW REFRIGERATOR (to replace the 30-y-o fridge that was falling apart). We'd invited him back in afterward, but I'd thought he'd declined. nifwitch remembered differently, and I didn't want to scare off the chickadee by getting close enough to check. It certainly seemed undisturbed.

Then the bird hopped down off the rail. I took a step closer to the door and saw that it was pulling a big clump of white fur, silky soft and as long as itself, up from the carpet. It took a few tries to get it clear, or to get all of it, or to get it settled to its satisfaction, and then it took off. Whee...

And then I poked my head outside and found that the kitten was indeed on the balcony, a few yards away, looking bemusedly at the place where the chickadee had picked up his fur for reuse. Nice kitty. What a lovely Earth Day present for a nesting bird!

Kids' Literary Festival this weekend! First up today, cooking for toddlers!

Feels a bit overshadowed by the library festival, alas. Well, considering which one has a two-page spread in the wknd section and which has a tiny paragraph...

Note: "wknd" appears to be a weakened version of weekend.

We had our first orchestra rehearsal last night for our 135th anniversary Verdi and Higdon concert, which is Sunday. It was fascinating to hear what the orchestra's really doing during the Higdon, much of which is not clear from the piano reduction. I scrambled to mark my music accordingly. (Here are chimes. Wherever there are triplets in the music, that's the piccolo trumpets. Here there's a gong that's not written in. These trills are flutes, and these are more trumpets.) It was disorienting enough that by the time we got to the Verdi, I was actually startled to find that the orchestra parts seemed to be exactly as written.

I've come to like the commissioned piece a lot, despite my initial reaction to Jennifer Higdon's choice of John Donne's "On the Death of the Righteous": While it goes perfectly with the requiem, I really much prefer singing about death and religion in languages other than English. Also, the text promotes a vision of perfect equanimity by removing all extremes: "...where there shall be no cloud nor sun, no darkness, no dazzling, but one equal light; no noise nor silence, but one equal music; no fears nor hopes, but one equal possession; no foes nor friends, but one equal communion..." This sounds kind of like numbness to me. No sadness, no joy?

But the music is very exciting (and the composer seemed pleased), and it's a world premiere, and various sections of the hall are selling out. Soloists Friday.

Must get enough sleep.

Massachusetts is very snowy! Fortunately, yesterday's drive entirely preceded the snowfall, except for a few flakes in Hartford and radio reports of flurries in Manhattan as we drove by. Lovely visit with sm and S and T in their new house with three newish cats and a big yard full of trees and snow. Nice wood stove. Breakfast eggs from the neighbor hens.

Then today once the snow slowed we drove partway across MA to visit the in-laws.

And tomorrow we go back across so I can take a songwriting workshop with Holly Near! In a conference center where temperatures this week are supposed to be between 21 and 7. Oh; no, wait, 22 and -1, now that I check again. (Then 34 on the day we leave.) I'm very glad I decided to stay in the dorm and not in the unheated cabins or the winterized cabins where the bathrooms are in a separate building.

And then we drive back on Thursday so that we can be home before Holly Near performs with Pat and Sandy the next day. :)

Here is a nice link:
http://www.neatorama.com/2009/02/08/carmina-burana-with-lyrics/

Inscrutable lyrics indeed.

What I love is how, even though I know what they're singing, the power of suggestion is such that half the time I hear what they say they're singing...

Crocheting again! Hurray! Learning hats this time. Or maybe oversized yarmulkes, at this point...

Trying desperately to find my little book with all the notes I ever made on all the projects I've done since I learned to crochet in 2003. It Must Exist. I tell myself this sort of thing when I'm really baffled about losing something.

It must exist.
If it exists, it must be somewhere.
Therefore I can find it.
Aargh. (Sorry; that's not usually in the proof.)

But why isn't the book in my crochet bag where it always lives? Or in the bag of Spiral Scarves which are the last project I worked on (wow - really 2 years ago?)? Or with the remnants of the yarn for the baby pillow I worked on before that?

???

Also started reading The Three Musketeers, having seen Slumdog Millionaire on Saturday for emmieyiza's birthday. Does anyone know why dueling swordsmen should be called "musketeers"? I haven't happened upon any muskets thus far.

I have a special thank-you for nifwitch and lawbabeak. This week marks a year since I joined their first exercise challenge. I have been trying to continue the challenge for myself since the official challenges ended, and I can say this: while my bedtimes have slid erratically since I stopped making the results public, I am still keeping track and making surprising comebacks sometimes. However, it's the wrist-and-balance exercise that I'm really pleased with, as I've done it every night for the last year except for three times: once in MD after a day of driving to four different events an hour away in VA, once on an overnight flight, and once when nifwitch was sick. It's a little tiny exercise that takes barely three minutes, but it helps my balance, helps my arms and wrists, helps my breathing, helps my focus, and reduces my insomnia!

Thanks for the inspiration! And thanks to everyone else who shared their own challenges too.

Hurray, hurray, hurray!

Hurray science! Hurray responsibility and accountability! Hurray figuring out what works and what doesn't! Hurray rebuilding infrastructure! Hurray renewable energy! Hurray acknowledging non-believers!

And hurray huge huge undulating crowds on the Mall!

Rats; I've made the word "hurray" turn into a random assortment of meaningless letters.

Elizabeth Alexander's poem was intense. And really present. "In today's sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be made, any sentence begun."

Oh, and the quartet was cool. Excellent diversity of players, and wow there was a beautiful clarinet line for a bit there. I need to listen to the music again to see what I thought of the whole piece, as the online feed stopped to load in the middle and we had to run downstairs to the television. But I've always loved "Simple Gifts".

While we were watching the ceremony I thought, oh, I was going to post about the tree tenders certificate (from Saturday) and the morning spent cleaning up trash in the neighborhood (from yesterday), but this is so much bigger and more dramatic...but wait a minute. Tending street trees and gathering with community to clean up the city are *exactly* what this is about.

And giddiness aside, I felt really inspired by the speech. Tears running down my face and resolve coalescing in my mind kind of inspired.

Let's go fix things!

In a book I'm reading, I found (approximately) the following sentence:

"He smiled at me as I entered the classroom, so I tried to give him one in return."

Please let me know your reaction.

Everybody should go see Milk. Everybody.

Probably everyone should also read Lesléa Newman's story "A Letter to Harvey Milk" first, but if you have to read it afterward, that's okay. I actually need to go reread it, as it's been years. But very memorable.

At one point in the film, in 1978 and under a field of umbrellas, Harvey Milk says to the crowd, "They said the gays brought the drought to California. Well, it looks like it's raining now!" As it happens, I visited California when I was little, and I remember that drought! I just didn't know it was my fault...

Keith Olbermann on Proposition 8:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27650743/

Eventually there will be something from me. I have a lot in my head. But this is worth watching. (Or reading, but it's particularly well delivered in the video.)

My aunt in Israel sent the following to my dad:

Barack atah Illinois, Elohenu melech ha'olam,
hoo-ray p'ri ha-electoral landslide.
Amen

(As a side note I'll add that I'd been wondering, about those people who thought that Obama was Arabic because his middle name was like Saddam Hussein, why they didn't realise that he must actually be Israeli, since his first name was like Ehud Barak...)

YES WE DID!!!

(With a caveat to reassure certain persons that I understand the hardest work is yet to come.)

And I cried last night when I heard President-Elect Obama say, "I will always be honest with you about the challenges we face. I will listen to you, especially when we disagree."

Just imagine a President who says he'll listen to the people! All the people! (Well, maybe not all at once.)

Plus, he said a scary, politically dangerous word out loud in his speech. He said the word "peace". He even said "To those who seek peace and security, we support you."

Oh, and he said the word "gay" too. We liked that. Along with the MLK references, which were very well done, both words and oratory. And seeing all the people with tears on their faces, and congratulating my love on helping to elect the first biracial black president, in whose face she can see herself (or at least her brother)!

Hurray, hurray!! I want to start singing "We'll get a New Deal for Christmas" even though I actually think that's a bit premature.

Some costumes from the "Come Dressed as a Song" Hallowe'en party (including a few alternates):

Mammal (They Might be Giants)
Down to Earth (Peter Gabriel, from WALL·E)
A variety of sun songs:
- Here Comes the Sun (Beatles)
- Why Does the Sun Shine? (The Sun is a Mass of Incandescent Gas) (TMBG)
- Let the Sun Shine In (the Flintstones, apparently; also written by Stuart Hamblen)
If I Had a Hammer (Pete Seeger/Lee Hays)
Helmet (the Bobs)
This Little Light of Mine (Harry Dixon Loes)
Word Disassociation (Lemon Demon)
Suzanne (Leonard Cohen)
Dead Girl... what was the name of the Dead Girl song? [whoops]
Naming the Band (the Bobs)
Blue Hair (Joe Iconis)
Wendy (from Peter Pan)
Puttin' on the Ritz (Irving Berlin) [no, there was no pudding; just a tux and cane. very snazzy]
Paperback Writer (Beatles)

It was quite a collection. Next time perhaps we can work on adding some female songwriters...

Several people let us know what they would have been if they had been able to come. My favorite set of options was "either Yellow Submarine or Ave Maria".

And great fun was had by all!

Rehearsal ended early tonight so we could get out of South Philly before the end of Game V. This was wise beyond all wisdom, I just have to say. So I listened to the 8th inning and the first out of the 9th inning in the car and, lo and surprise, my love had the TV on with the game running (she was upstairs, though, getting close with commentators), so we watched the top of the 9th together. With the fans going wild.

And the last strike.

And the major hug between the catcher and pitcher. Which turned rapidly into a major ... kitten pile isn't really the right term; maybe labrador retriever pile?

But they interviewed the pitcher after, and he seemed to have survived the assault.

Anyway, they were thanking the world and exclaiming "The drought's over!" and the camera caught a sign that said "FINALLY!".

I decided it should have said "PHI(NA)LLY!"