Angels in the Architecture

This is a line from a Paul Simon song, 'You Can Call Me Al' that I heard this morning on the way to work.  It was playing as I was driving on Tolt Hill Road, where the field grasses come right up to the white line on the shoulder of the pavement and stand about 3 feet or so tall.  The road is lined on both sides and if you have your window down you can hear a soft swwwishhhh as your car passes by.  It felt to me like what southern France must feel like. 

"I never saw a moor, I never saw the sea;
Yet I know how the heather looks, and what a wave must be." 
 --Emily Dickinson

I play a little game with myself sometimes that I call 'new eyes,' where I try to look at the scene before me as if I were a tourist, not a resident.  Try it sometime, it's fun.  So this morning with the grasses and the mountains shining beyond the edges of the valley and the curve of the Tolt bridge and the faintest swirl of white mist hovering over the river and the light from the newly risen sun spilling over all of it, I saw angels in the architecture with my new eyes. 

I think if I focus really hard, maybe I can see my life with new eyes, too.  As in, how would I see it if I were regarding it from the outside instead of from my own personal vantage point?  Something to think about, for sure.  If you could view your life like a tourist, what would you see?

Choke me in the shallow water, before I get too deep. (EB, wife of PS, incidentally!)

A Spring Rain

"I hear leaves drinking rain;
   I hear rich leaves on top
Giving the poor beneath
   Drop after drop;
'Tis a sweet noise to hear
These green leaves drinking near." 

After the sunshine holydays of last weekend, the rain is here again.  Living in the PNW, this is really no big shocka, even for June.  Personally, I sort of like it--a little of this, a little of that--our weather is predictable in its unpredictability.  And my plants are loving it! Everything is getting HUGE in the garden.  I walked around yesterday and marveled at the size of things.  Irises from my dad and Tina's place are blooming, purple and yellow, and their smell reminds me of childhood memories when everything was as fresh as the bright blue sky.  (can you name that tune? haha) The valley is green and full of lushness with scrambling vines and grassy pastures and leafed out trees.  Oh, how I love this time of year.  It makes me want to bake pies and drink lemonade out of jars and have picnics and read poems. And I have the rain to thank for it. 

"And when the Sun comes out,
   After this rain shall stop,
A wondrous light will fill
   Each dark, round drop;
I hope the Sun shines bright;
'Twill be a lovely sight."
   --W.H. Davies

Stand Up!

"...Stand up for something different,
and have a little fun
fighting for something worth fighting for
before you've done." 

I scored another great free book from our librarian today, The Oxford Book of 20th Century Verse.  This D.H. Lawrence poem was in it and as I was paging through the book, it spoke to me.  I think these lines ring true.  Something worth standing up for gives life purpose.  It's so easy to fall into a rhythmic lull of the daily grind, but for me, I need more. I need something different, to keep it interesting.  That's not to say I'm not satisfied with my life, which many would find bor-ing. I am intensely satisfied.  But it's because I fight for it, fight to make my life the way I want it.  It doesn't always go as planned, of course, but I adjust and push on. 

"Stand up for a new arrangement
for a chance of life all round,
for freedom, and the fun of living
bust in, and hold the ground!"
   
We never know what life will bring us.  Be open to possibilities, to 'new arrangements.' And when you find something good, something you can't explain that shakes your world up, stand up for it!  This poem is a great reminder for me on how I want to live my life.  Every. Single. Day.

What will you stand up for?

Voila, viola!

I had some wonderful/nerve-wracking experiences today at work!  Our lovely orchestra teacher peer-pressured me to bring my viola to school and play FOR her classes today.  Oh my!  Sort of stressful, but I survived...and it was really fun.  I played the violin from grades 4-6 and viola from 7-12.  Then I went to college and sort of just forgot about it.  I always liked orchestra but honestly, I wasn't that good and almost never practiced (gee Marge, maybe there's a conn-ec-tion there, ya think?).  Most of my best buds were in orchestra and it was nice to have something different to do, mixed in with the extreme academic rigor of PHS (go Bucks!).

So, today I got to go back to junior high for awhile.  The teacher and I played a bit of a duet, the Telemann Concerto for 2 violas, which incidentally is the same piece Becca and I played our senior year.  I was super shaky, but maybe I tricked the kids into thinking I was doing some sweet vibrato.  Doubtful, as I was rocking the vibrato with my bow arm, too.  haha.  We also played bits of a few other pieces and I relaxed a little.  Then my principal came in to watch, but it was ok and afterward he told me it was "cute."  Which, don't worry, wasn't creepy at all coming from him, my work dad. 

After the spotlight, I was able to settle back in with the group and sight read some music. It was so much fun to play in an orchestra again.  Of course I missed sitting next to Becca and making faces at Mindy and Colette, as well as slyly imitating Mac our grumpy, good-hearted teacher who had the same pair of flats in 15 colors.  The kids here were welcoming and sweet and next year I'm going to make an effort to play with them once a month; it will be good for me. 


"...My heart will be blessed with the sound of music
And I'll play once more."

Vernal Sentiment

"Though the crocuses poke up their heads in the usual places,

The frog scum appear on the pond with the same froth of green,

And boys moon at girls with last year’s fatuous faces,

I never am bored, however familiar the scene..." 

Such a beautiful morning today!  As I drove to work, I watched the mist hugging the valley floor start to rise and dissipate.  The sun peaked over the mountain tops and laid its yellow light on the fields.  The air felt warm and carried the promise of a grand day.  And I agree with Roethke in his first stanza of the poem above, I'm never bored, however familiar the scene.

When I get home from work today, the kids and I are going to set up the hammock.  It's TIME!  We'll assemble the stand on the shade garden lawn, hook up the hammock, plop the feather bed, quilt and pillow atop it and get in!  I predict that the 3 of us will try it together and will most likely end up getting dumped.  If the balance is off even a little, down ya go.  but, no matter--hammock time is bliss, even if you end up in a laughing pile on the grass. 

Over the weekend, more of the same.  We may hook up with OM and kids on the lake by her house if it's warm enough.  Jack will get in if we do, even if it's freezing.  Little dude has always loved all water.  Not I--you won't catch me in cold water ever, if I can help it.  And lucky for me, I usually can.  I also predict that the kids will request that we fill our baby pool, since they've been asking almost every sunny day since February, regardless of temp.  I need to stock up on popsicles and rose' for the weekend.  Not a bad grocery list, eh? 

18 more days of Spring; enjoy it!

"...When from under the barn the cat brings a similar litter,--

Two yellow and black, and one that looks in between,--

Though it all happened before, I cannot grow bitter:

I rejoice in the spring, as though no spring ever had been."

--Theodore Roethke

I Looove Technology...Always and Forever!

Wellll, you know that's not quite true, but I'm having a very Kip (from Napoleon Dynamite) sort of moment.  I am about to buy a new computer.  That's right.  New Computamer.  Me!  Buy!  I haven't bought a new computer since 2002--for freakin' reals.  She was a spankin' new Dell desktop and she still runs, albeit slowly.  So slowly in fact, that when I'm home the last thing I'd want to do is be on the computer.  Too annoying.  I also like to secretly shun technology and feel sort of a pioneer pride about saying, 'I ain't even logged onto Facebook for 2 months now!'  I'm sort of a technology redneck.  A redtech?  A techneck?  I have a cell phone (since 2005 now!) but it's a dumbphone.  It just makes telemaphone calls and sends and receives text messages.  That's all.  No camera.  No intermaweb.  I'm low tech and I likes it. 

But...I'm getting something slick.  A laptop. A Mac.  A Mactop?  My techie buddy EE is helping me order it and he's pointing me in the direction of this model that's light and thin but has a keyboard and a disc drive. I cain't remember the name, of course, but it's sounds perfect.  I will have to get a wireless router for home but he says it's easy and that I just plug it in to my other one. Ok, I can do that.  It stresses me out because it's something new, but I shall overcome.  With this new purchase, the chances of me blogging a bit over the summer just went up, like 100%. 

So, it's my computer purchase for the next decade, right?  I'd rather spend the money on clotheslines and chicken feed and hammock supplies, but even this pioneer chick needs to update.  Kind of like when Pa would go to Mancato and come back with something new, like a rotary egg beater or something, for Ma and the girls.  My wagon of technology is getting majorly traded up.  So, pimp my ride, Pa!

June!

To quote from one of my favorite poets, James Whitcomb Riley, regarding June,
"O Queenly month of indolent repose!"
How ready I am for some seriously indolent repose. I think I have it worse than the school-children with my senioritis here.  Two and a half more weeks of school and then it's summah summah summahtime.  Cain't wait.  I have never not been on a school-year schedule. I went from high school to college to grad school to school job.  It works splendidly for me, too, I must admit.  And I'm sorry and not trying to rub it in at all for those of you who work year-round; my condolences.  Ahhh, June.

Today already feels much better than yesterday.  The kids and I had a nice night at home.  We hit the Farmers Market between rainstorms, I shopped and they played.  We got The Bread and some Japanese turnips.  Dinner was roasted turnips, fingerlings and carrots, The Bread, and scrambled eggs, courtesy of The Girls.  The kids drank leftover Hawaiian Punch (from my work) in wine glasses for a super treat-y bev and I drank rose', which could easily become my new water.  I looove it.  It tastes of summer, too.
"I drink thy breath in sips of rare perfume." (June AND rose', that is.)

After a good night's sleep, I'm feeling much better.  More windshield-ish for sure. And my little list of ways to re-focus helped, as well. We all have those days.  So, I'll leave you with this, from JWR:

"Before thy listless feet: the lily blows
A bugle-call of fragrance o'er the glade;
And wheeling into ranks with plume and spear,
Thy harvest-armies gather on parade.
While, faint and far away, yet pure and clear,
A voice calls out of alien lands of shade--
All hail the Peerless Goddess of the Year!"