yesyesyes

(here)

green green green

To walk through wall-to-wall veggies - heaven!

(here)

wa-hoah

"I love you, Johnny, but I can't marry you until you've seen the place."

So said my grandmother to my grandfather oh so many years ago.

I spent the weekend traipsing the meadows, woods, and brooks of Colebrook, CT where in 1787 my great (times 3 or 4?) grandfather built the Phelps Inn, a colonial tavern and family home for generations.

It's a magical, enchanting place. Frequented, I'm sure, by my ancestors' passing spirits in the fashion of the inn's guests who came and went centuries ago.

Tacked to the wall inside the bar, alongside the wall of mini liquor bottles (many labels long out of make), still hangs a note my grandmother wrote, decades before my birth.

"I never want any further part of GIN; I'm tired of it. *

(signed) Nancy Phelps Blum

Witnessed: (1) Peri (Mama)

(2) Carrington Phelps (Papa)

(3) J.A. Blum 10/2/45

* This means I don't want any more."

I can't help but romanticize my grandmother (she who attended round table discussions at the Algonquin with Dorothy Parker and Harold Ross, wrote two books on her family history, and built a barn to house her astounding collection of books, yet never attended college) regardless of whatever wonderful imperfections plagued her.

Oh, how the vices of the past gleam and sparkle with class, rich with elegance and mystery, when today we kill ourselves over the tiniest fault.

(Anna emailed me this image, but I found it here.)

years

What Are Years?

By Marianne Moore

What is our innocence,

what is our guilt? All are

naked, none is safe. And whence

is courage: the unanswered question,

the resolute doubt,--

dumbly calling, deafly listening--that

in misfortune, even death,

encourages others

and in its defeat, stirs

the soul to be strong? He

sees deep and is glad, who

accedes to mortality

and in his imprisonment rises

upon himself as

the sea in a chasm, struggling to be

free and unable to be,

in its surrendering

finds its continuing.

So he who strongly feels,

behaves. The very bird,

grown taller as he sings, steels

his form straight up. Though he is captive,

his mighty singing

says, satisfaction is a lowly

thing, how pure a thing is joy.

This is mortality,

this is eternity.

Are Years What? (For Marianne Moore)

Mark di Suvero

funny

http://www.patrickmoberg.com/animalpharm

A Month in The Country

"We can ask and ask but we can't have again what once seemed ours for ever--the way things looked, that church alone in the fields, a bed on a belfry floor, a remembered voice, the touch of a hand, a loved face. They've gone and you can only wait for the pain to pass.

All this happened so long ago. And I never returned, never wrote, never met anyone who might have given me news of Oxgodby. So, in memory, it stays as I left it, a sealed room furnished by the past, airless, still, ink long dry on a put-down pen.

But this was something I knew nothing of as I closed the gate and set off across the meadow."

The last few poignant paragraphs of A Month in The Country by J. L. Carr.

Memory is a funny thing. I think I too often get caught up wondering or worrying about the way I'll look back on things. It's not the future exactly which sways my decisions, but more fear or hope of the way I'll remember myself and my choices and motives...though I suppose that self we leave behind is always an elusive stranger, romantic, mysterious and enchanting.

it would be cool if it were this easy

maybe it is.

(here)

she's the one for me

Last night was Elizabeth Bishop's 100th birthday.

The Poetry Society of America had a fitting celebration in which 20 contemporary poets read their favorite Bishop poems, interspersed with excerpts of her correspondence with her New Yorker editors. It was most beautiful. The packed Cooper Union Great Hall was warmed by her mostly grayed, yet still starry-eyed admirers, each beaming with love, eagerly soaking in Bishop's familiar verses.

I cannot think of more pleasant company, a more deserving tribute, or more captivating words that could have eased my racing, confused mind with such sweet grace. While New York City may not be for me, Elizabeth Bishop will always be. I'm grateful that we, whoever we all are/were/will be, could settle in one great room for one great evening and share in reverence for a woman who affected each of us in some great way.

(here)

peanut butter

thanks, Jamie

"I don't think you necessarily answer these questions by consciously
wrestling with them. I think they weigh on you, and solutions are to
some degree worked out unconsciously." - Louise Gluck

mmmm

from Jamie of course

11

Listen! I will be honest with you,

I do not offer the old smooth prizes, but offer rough new prizes,

these are the days that must happen to you:

You shall not heap up what is call'd riches,

You shall scatter with lavish hand all that you earn or achieve,

You but arrive at the city to which you were destin'd, you hardly

settle yourself to satisfaction before you are call'd by an

irresistible call to depart,

You shall be treated to the ironical smiles and mockings of those

who remain behind you,

What beckonings of love you receive you shall only answer with

passionate kisses of parting,

You shall not allow the hold of those who spread their reach'd hands

toward you.

Walt Witman, Leaves of Grass

signs for courage

Matins

You want to know how I spend my time?

I walk the front lawn pretending

to be weeding. You ought to know

I'm never weeding, on my knees, pulling

clumps of clover from the flower beds: in fact

I'm looking for courage, for some evidence

my life will change, though

it takes forever, checking

each clump for the symbolic

leaf, and soon the summer is ending, already

the leaves turning, always the sick trees

going first, the dying turning

brilliant yellow, while a few dark birds perform

their curfew of music. You want to see my hands?

As empty now as at the first note.

Or was the point always

to continue without a sign?

Louise Gluck

Beer!

now that I am gone

so they say

Maybe they're right, maybe the grass is always greener on the other side. Or maybe hindsight really is 20-20. Most likely, though, change is just plain confusing, and clinging to fleeting stability and idealized pasts is the brain's way to rationalize self-doubt.

The last few (6 or so) months in LA I was antsy. I'd landed in Los Angeles after college pretty comfortably. I'd come home. Found a job. Built a routine. A life. I was happy. Enough. But there was a persistent sneaking unease that I was letting myself down. A year earlier I had grandiose dreams of traveling the world but there I was, living in my parents house, in the city I grew up, with a daily desk job. Still, I'd made the city my own anew, was doing the exact work I'd wanted, and was surrounded by those I loved.

Alas, I needed to give something else a shot. As much I do so love LA, I was restless, with one foot out the door.

Contrary (hypocritically even?) to what I've always thought I felt about the whole LA vs NY debate...here I am now. New York City. Sure, it's no Tangier or Istanbul or Belem. But it's a whole new place for me. And I'm giving it a shot.

Of course these last 3 weeks have been riddled with confusion, uncertainty, and (surprise) near paralyzing self-doubt...maybe I was right from the start and this city's not for me.

But maybe not. Maybe most important after all....nothing ventured nothing gained?

Some wise encouragement from my mother: