Secrets

That we are always glad
When the Ugly Princess, parting the bushes
To find out why the woodcutter's children are happy,
Disturbs a hornet's nest, that we feel no pity
When the informer is trapped by the gang in a steam-room,
That we howl with joy
When the short-sighted Professor of Icelandic
Pronounces the Greek inscription
A Runic riddle which he then translates:

Denouncing by proxy our commonest fault as our worst;
That, waiting in his room for a friend,
We start so soon to turn over his letters,
That with such assurance we repeat as our own
Another's story, that, dear me, how often
We kiss in order to tell,
Defines precisely what we mean by love--
To share a secret.

The joke, which we seldom see, is on us;
For only true hearts know how little it matters
What the secret is they keep:
And old, a new, a blue, a borrowed something,
Anything will do for children
Made in God's image and therefore
Not like the others, not like our dear dumb friends
Who, poor things, have nothing to hide,
Not, thank God, like our Father either
From whom no secrets are hid.

(W. H. Auden, 1949)

It's all the same:

wake up . . .
shower . . .
get dressed . . .
pet the kitty . . .
hunt down my keys . . .
drive to work . . .
study . . .
teach class . . .
sit in meetings . . .
have lunch . . .
talk on the phone . . .
more study . . .
drive home . . .
eat dinner at the round table . . .
put boys to bed . . .
watch a movie . . .
go to bed . . .
sleep . . .

shrunken

I think something's wrong with me.   Yes, yes--I'm sure we can all think about several ways in which that's true.  But this one is a new one, or maybe a new manifestation of an old one:  in addition to the weight loss, which hasn't gotten any worse or any better (I'm getting more comments about it--my favorite being, "eat a sandwich!"), I'm experiencing tremors that sometimes turn into full-fledged shakes.  Occasionally a part of my body will just spasm.  But that is not all!  I also really think my brain is moving more slowly than normal.  Sometimes I just can't seem to pay attention to what's going on around me.  Other times, I simply can't think.  At times, I'll sit at my desk and do . . . nothing.  And I can't seem to shake it off.  And honestly I feel as weak as a preschooler.  I'm pretty sure I look it too.

I know I'm not able to have coffee, but it's been 5 months...withdrawal ain't an issue.  I'm sleeping as much as I can.  I don't know what the heck the deal is.  One thing is the case:  I'm not in any emotional distress right now.  Work seems to be going well enough, I've gotten several bits of good news--some even thrilling, really--and my job is secure.   My body just seems to have changed the rules on me.  Or something.  It may be time to jettison the "Li."  

Oh, and I have to get this mop cut.  Driving me nuts.

Gardening & Aftermath

Don't let the "peat moss mask" fool you; he's still a mere four-year-old.

Over the weekend we (and by "we" I mean "primarily my spouse," since I was stuck inside doing my job) installed a new planting bed for the few vegetables we're going to try to grow this year. After last year was a complete failure, we decided to make a garden in a more suitable location. We used a method called "lasagna gardening," where we built a bed by alternating layers of peat moss and mulch/compost material. It's small--only 4 x 8--but we need to start small given our past degree of success. Hopefully, we'll double or triple the operation next year.

Oh, and we're getting a new roof. And the shed door is completely broken, so we're leaving it up hoping that we don't have a storm right out of some Kate Chopin story. How does one even begin to go about fixing a broken shed door??

Little Red and the Little Boy sure do enjoy finally being able to be outside. Little Red has sampled just about every kind of substance he could find--including some that would make you shudder. We predict that in a few years, he'll be the one who suddenly appears on the roof of the shed, trying to retrieve a bird's nest.

There's plenty more, but that's for a different post.

To Penshurst

jots

When the daily post gets kinda more like every-other-day, that's when you know that things are just a little hairy in our corner of West Tennessee. Over the weekend it was of course all about The Little Boy and his adventures at our Local Hospital. He was never in any real danger, but it took a long time before they were comfortable sending him home. There were some real kindnesses done us, thank goodness, because over the break I had come to hate this place.

I'm mostly recovered from that, and I think that every sunny day where the landscape gets greener helps make one more charitably disposed.

**
Went to hear the senior voice recital of a former student last night; lovely evening. She was expressive and warm in her singing and in her physical presence. She's also a distance runner and whip-smart, so there's three levels of impressive.

**
I've noticed something that bothers me; I've probably mentioned it before. I have a terrible time concentrating. The way it affects me right now: I've got a list of books I want to read, but in every case I just can't seem to generate the mental energy necessary to start a challenging book. And even when I am reading, it's like my mind walks off on me, leaving me reading-but-not-reading. And the thing is, since reading is so central to my life (as it always has been), this is somewhat of a big deal to me. If I had to take a guess, I'd point to my drug regimen. But who knows.

**
Too short, not enough interesting content. Well, maybe we'll fare better tomorrow. But it's late, and I've got an 8:00 in the morning. So.

First Song

(re-discovered last night)

Doubt you to whom my Muse these notes entendeth,
Which now my breast, surcharg'd, to musick lendeth!
To you, to you, all song of praise is due,
Only in you my song begins and endeth.

Who hath the eyes which marrie state with pleasure!
Who keeps the key of Natures cheifest treasure!
To you, to you, all song of praise is due,
Only for you the heau'n forgate all measure.

Who hath the lips, where wit in fairnesse raigneth!
Who womankind at once both deckes and stayneth!
To you, to you, all song of praise is due,
Onely by you Cupid his crowne maintaineth.

Who hath the feet, whose step all sweetnesse planteth!
Who else, for whom Fame worthy trumpets wanteth!
To you, to you, all song of praise is due,
Onely to you her scepter Venus granteth.

Who hath the breast, whose milk doth patience nourish!
Whose grace is such, that when it chides doth cherish!
To you, to you, all song of praise is due,
Onelie through you the tree of life doth flourish.

Who hath the hand which, without stroke, subdueth!
Who long-dead beautie with increase reneueth!
To you, to you, all song of praise is due,
Onely at you all enuie hopelesse rueth.

Who hath the haire, which, loosest, fastest tieth!
Who makes a man liue, then glad when he dieth!
To you, to you, all song of praise is due,
Only of you the flatterer neuer lieth.

Who hath the voyce, which soule from sences thunders!
Whose force, but yours, the bolts of beautie thunders!
To you, to you, all song of praise is due,
Only with you not miracles are wonders.

Doubt you, to whome my Muse these notes intendeth,
Which now my breast, oercharg'd, to musicke lendeth!
To you, to you, all song of praise is due:
Only in you my song begins and endeth.

(Sidney, from "Astrophil and Stella")

(picture from Mike Maihack, DrawerGeeks)

Gots nuthin'

The past 10 days have been awful. Unremittingly, mercilessly awful. It's been too much to process, too much to keep on top of. Hence the silence--I don't know what to say. And even if I did, I'm not sure I'd have time to get it down.

At least tonight, in a few minutes, The Little Boy will come home from the hospital and we can put that adventure to bed. (Incidentally, the sight of a young child in a hospital bed--hooked up to an IV--is pretty heartbreaking) There's more, of course (there's always more, isn't there?)--but that will have to wait for another time when I'm not quite so wrung out, like a sponge or a dishrag. Tomorrow will have adventures of its own, I'm sure.

Thanks to all who expressed concern.

Snowdrop

Notes from our Spring Break:

Today: high of approx: 50. Tomorrow: a high probability of snow.

Little Red has strep for the 3rd time this year; I'm not sure the medicine isn't making him more miserable than the infection was. 

Monday was absolutely beautiful. There was running and biking and playing outside--even a little yardwork. It was especially gratifying to see the daffodils blooming this year. Last year we didn't see one bloom. 

There were several big projects to be done this week: painting of the window frame in the kitchen, pruning of the various shrubberies, getting started on this year's vegetable garden, cleaning and lubing the bike, cleaning up the pig pit from October. So far, our total is: 0. Events haven't seemed to cooperate!

I passed 150 pounds . . . in the wrong direction. I've lost about 3 pounds in the last ten days. More trips to Dairy McQueen seem to be in my future. This isn't helping my pants fit any better!

Apparently, Ben Jonson is the next poet I'm turning my attention to.  

It's time.

13.5 miles today . . . weather was perfect.

I could tell that it's been awhile.

One!

3/7/08











3/7/09

Big wheel

I had one at his age. One of the best toys I ever owned. Such speed! Such coolness!

Recovering Greenness

          
           How Fresh, O Lord, how sweet and clean
Are thy returns! ev’n as the flowers in spring;
             To which, besides their own demean,
The late-past frosts tributes of pleasure bring.
                                      Grief melts away
                                      Like snow in May,
             As if there were no such cold thing.

             Who would have thought my shrivel’d heart
Could have recover’d greennesse? It was gone
             Quite under ground; as flowers depart
To see their mother-root, when they have blown;
                                      Where they together
                                      All the hard weather,
             Dead to the world, keep house unknown.

(from "The Flower," George Herbert, 1633)

**
Walking outside just a minute ago, I felt the quality of the air change. The sun felt actually warm. Every year right around this time it seems that the film is stripped from my eyes, the chambers of my heart and mind opened up and swept out.

The crocuses are coming out, too. Under the ginkgo in the front yard and the red oak in the back, little yellow and white flower-cups are peeking at the sun. The daffodils are starting to open up too.

Driving to Union City and back yesterday, it was most pleasurable to look at some of the fields with their carpet of lush, fresh green.

These are all small things, I know; but especially this year, I'm determined to enjoy every bud, every shoot, every petal--to live in that green thought in a green shade.

The Mower mown

Teaching Marvell this week, which is exhilarating; I think he's far more tricky than Donne, because his complications are so much sneakier. I have to be really sharp to read him, and even more so to offer any guidance to his poems.

**
We had the third job candidate for the African-American lit position visit us yesterday, so a lot of time was taken up with that while I wasn't frantically grading british lit papers. There was one moment in particular that gave me pause. I and a colleague were having a semi-formal interview with him, and one of us asked about his approach to teaching a standard American literature survey. He went on to rattle off a bunch of names including Phillis Wheatley, Frederick Douglass, DuBois, Zora Neale Hurston, Charles Chesnutt, and so on. My colleague followed up with a question about how he would use some of the traditional figures like Hawthorne, Melville, Dickinson, Whitman, et. al. His immediate response: I don't really know anything about those writers.

**
Tonight represents the end of a series of about 10 days during which the work just simply hasn't let up. I'm tired. A friend called a while ago, and her first comment: "you sound awfully tired. Are you okay?" I was; I am. And that's what makes me so excited. It pleases me that I can be this physically and mentally tired, and still feel good, honestly good.

**
Another article about David Foster Wallace came out this week; I read it with great interest. It tells about the way his creative process was changed by the disease and by the treatments he was under for it. The question I kept asking myself: what would I be like if I went off my pills? What would I recover? But anyway: seeing as the date of his suicide roughly coincides with my own most recent Difficulty, I've found accounts of him and his writing most interesting. He was far far far far more intelligent that I could ever hope to be, so I'm not looking to him as a model--more like a reminder that even the best geniuses among us are flawed geniuses.

Infinite Jest was one of about five things that helped me make it.

**
What shall I change next, hmmm? There are some awfully good candidates. And now that I truly appreciate the power of focused, deliberate thinking, I've got tools.

**
To not mind being seen as a fool.

**
Come out of the question, and be.

The Definition of Love

I.
MY Love is of a birth as rare
As 'tis, for object, strange and high ;
It was begotten by Despair,
Upon Impossibility.

II.
Magnanimous Despair alone
Could show me so divine a thing,
Where feeble hope could ne'er have flown,
But vainly flapped its tinsel wing.

III.
And yet I quickly might arrive
Where my extended soul is fixed ;
But Fate does iron wedges drive,
And always crowds itself betwixt.

IV.
For Fate with jealous eye does see
Two perfect loves, nor lets them close ;
Their union would her ruin be,
And her tyrannic power depose.

V.
And therefore her decrees of steel
Us as the distant poles have placed,
(Though Love's whole world on us doth wheel),
Not by themselves to be embraced,

VI.
Unless the giddy heaven fall,
And earth some new convulsion tear.
And, us to join, the world should all
Be cramp'd into a planisphere.

VII.
As lines, so love's oblique, may well
Themselves in every angle greet :
But ours, so truly parallel,
Though infinite, can never meet.

VIII.
Therefore the love which us doth bind,
But Fate so enviously debars,
Is the conjunction of the mind,
And opposition of the stars.

(Andrew Marvell)

Maybe that's why I've lost all that weight.

You want scary?

I'll give you scary. Even the hint, the barest accusation, whether deserved, or accurate, or false, will end it all. I can fully understand why these men took the measures they did. I'd probably do the same.

(picture from www.jeanjullien.com)

Blithe

"Beauty no other thing is than a beam
Flashed out between the middle and extreme."
--Herrick

Things I'm Enjoying, Presently:
1. cinnamon rolls
2. poetry
3. the feeling of hoisting up into the saddle of my bike (which needs a name)
4. the very first taste of a cold pint
5. the golden light of the first few minutes of sunrise
6. Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog
7. Hearing Little Red and the Little Boy make each other laugh
8. Zippy
9. Recordings from the much-maligned 80's iteration of Rush
10. Wii Tennis

**
5. Here I reposed; but scarce well set,
A grove descried
Of stately height, whose branches met
And mixed on every side;
I entered, and once in
(Amazed to see't),
Found all was changed, and a new spring
Did all my senses greet.

6. The unthrift sun shot vital gold
A thousand pieces,
And heaven its azure did unfold
Checkered with snowy fleeces;
The air was all in spice
And every bush
A garland wore; thus fed my eyes,
But all the earth lay hush.

--Vaughan, from "Regeneration"