Mary Oliver Monday - Schubert and Why He Isn't on My Personal Play List

SCHUBERT by Mary Oliver from Evidence (Beacon Press)
He takes such small steps
to express our longings.
Thank you, Schubert.

How many hours
do I sit here aching to do

what I do not do
when, suddenly,
he throws a single note

higher than the others
so that I feel
the green field of hope,

and then, descending,
all this world's sorrow,
so deadly, so beautiful.

Gershwin from Fantasia 2000

I must admit I'm not all that familiar with the works of Franz Schubert.  Although most days I have the local classical music station on in the background as I write, my knowledge of the genre is limited.  I can pick out Vivaldi from a crowd of sonatas and maybe Bach if I try really hard and concentrate.  My classical music knowledge repertoire also includes a few famous pieces by equally famous composers that are known to less educated ears such as my own through frequent hearing in sound tracks.  Fantasia, for example, is a primary source of my knowledge of classical composers.

Thanks to Serge, Tom and the boys
for increasing my productivity.

But I can relate to Mary Oliver's sentiment about the power of a particular musician or piece of music to move me.  If I'm ever teetering on the edge of a cliff, getting ready to jump, all someone would have to do is start humming Vivaldi or Opus 125 of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and I turned around and race to solid ground.  When I have a lot of planning or organizational work I need to do, I put on one of my favorite contemporary Brit rock bands, Kasabian, and bounce up and down in my desk chair as I scribble away. 

A few years ago during a season of transition in my life,  I was having a hard time maintaining my own sense of balance and integrity in the midst of a landscape shifting around me.  Every day I'd drive into work with an impending sense of dread-- not necessarily because the situation was untenable or stressful, but because I was feeling the zebra plant in my living room.  I'd outgrown my pot and was being rustled by every passing disturbance in the nearby atmosphere.

It wasn't time to be repotted yet . . . that would come in the future, but I definitely needed some stakes to support me.  The usual ones-- meditation, community, spiritual direction-- weren't doing the trick.  At the same time I was working with a coach to envision what that next pot would be as I approached the end of my doctorate and the likely end of my full-time tenure at the Cathedral. 

In the midst of discussing how to feel supported without being root bound, my wise coach asked me if I had an iPod.  He then suggested I make a play list for myself-- music that encapsulated who I was, where I was, and most importantly, how I wanted to be in the current situation.  He then suggested I play the songs each morning during my commute. 

I still turn to that play list, adapting it for the current situation by adding or deleting songs.  But some of the tunes have stayed on the list.  So instead of writing a poem about Schubert, here are the artists and songs I'd praise in a poem if I were so inclined.  Which this afternoon I'm not, so you'll just have to read them in the form of a list, in no particular order.

•  The Alarm- The Spirit Of '76 
•  Del Amitri - Life By Mistake
•  Blur - Song II and Tender
•  The Pogues - Thousands Are Sailing
•  Echo and the Bunnymen - What Are You Going To Do With Your Life?
•  The Shamen - Move Any Mountain
•  Primal Scream - Movin' On Up
•  Oasis - Supersonic
•  Ministry - Every Day Is Halloween
•  U2 - Celebration
• Nick Drake - I Was Made To Love Magic
• Mint Royale - Blue Song
• Keane - Is It Any Wonder
• Kasabian - Vlad the Impaler and Underdog
• Johnny Cash - September When It Comes
• James - Born of Frustration

Billy Collins Sunday - Consolation

Consolation from Sailing Alone Around the Room (Random House)

How agreeable it is not to be touring Italy this summer,
wandering her cities and ascending her torrid hilltowns.
How much better to cruise these local, familiar streets,
fully grasping the meaning of every roadsign and billboard
and all the sudden hand gestures of my compatriots.

There are no abbeys here, no crumbling frescoes or famous
domes and there is no need to memorize a succession
of kings or tour the dripping corners of a dungeon.
No need to stand around a sarcophagus, see Napoleon's
little bed on Elba, or view the bones of a saint under glass.

How much better to command the simple precinct of home
than be dwarfed by pillar, arch, and basilica.
Why hide my head in phrase books and wrinkled maps?
Why feed scenery into a hungry, one-eyes camera
eager to eat the world one monument at a time?

Instead of slouching in a café ignorant of the word for ice,
I will head down to the coffee shop and the waitress
known as Dot. I will slide into the flow of the morning
paper, all language barriers down,
rivers of idiom running freely, eggs over easy on the way.

And after breakfast, I will not have to find someone
willing to photograph me with my arm around the owner.
I will not puzzle over the bill or record in a journal
what I had to eat and how the sun came in the window.
It is enough to climb back into the car

as if it were the great car of English itself
and sounding my loud vernacular horn, speed off

down a road that will never lead to Rome, not even Bologna.

From vacation in 2009 - Welsh countryside

I've been experiencing a bit of wanderlust lately.  Maybe it's because I've been reading books set in far away landscapes or because it's been three years since my last transatlantic trip.  Or perhaps it is because it's almost August in DC which means that almost everyone in town is headed out of town. Probably though, it's because I need a vacation.

The first definition of vacation in the Merriam-Webster dictionary is "a respite or time of respite from something."  I like the ambiguity of that particular definition because that's how I'm feeling.  I need a respite from . . .something. 

Do I need vacation from
Inspectors Lewis and Hathaway?

What that something is though, I can't quite put my finger on, which makes for difficult planning.  Do I need to get away from it all (or just a little bit of it) for a day or two?  Or would a "staycation" suffice?  Is it new stimuli I'm craving-- people watching at cafes, wandering through old churches, strolling through art galleries?  Or maybe it's just little things from which I need a vacation-- British detective shows, Facebook, the same old breakfast every morning.  I'm really not sure.

So in the next few weeks while my friends are off on cruises down the Danube or strolling the streets of Istanbul, I'll be here, taking consolation in the lighter than usual traffic and maybe, eventually, taking a respite from something.

On Migraines and Mystics (and Cookies of Joy)

From the writings of Hildegard of Bingen
Oh fire of the Holy Spirit,
life of the life of every creature,
holy are you in giving life to forms…
Oh boldest path,
penetrating into all places,
in the heights, on earth,
and in every abyss,
you bring and bind all together
From you clouds flow, air flies,
Rocks have their humours,
Rivers spring forth from the waters
And earth wears her green vigour.

I intended to blog yesterday.  I even fell asleep mulling over what my topic for yesterday's post would be-- revisiting a series of books that was a childhood favorite?  The glories of BBC Radio pod casts?  Helpful apps for writers and meditators?  All were possibilities until I woke in the wee hours, feeling like someone was simultaneously trying to poke my eyeballs out of my head from inside while snapping a rubber band repeatedly against the back left-hand side of my skull.  

All Being's Celebrate Creation

I should have known a migraine was coming before the pain arrived.  Wednesday evening as I was tending the marinated veggies that were grilling for dinner, I looked around the backyard and noticed that creation was looking particularly lovely that evening.  Not only was there a sharpness to the individual blades of grass and petals of the fading echinacea, the colors around me seemed more saturated and the trees and bushes seemed to shimmer and hum with light as their leaves waved in the breeze.  When I'm inside and notice the curtains and carpet take on this aura, I realize that a migraine is on the horizon and I take preventative action (Excedrin migraine and magnesium washed down with a can of classic Coca Cola).  Outside with the birds singing and the sun shining and the breeze blowing, I just put it down to the viriditas of creation as Hildegard describes in the poem above.

Vision of the Cosmos

According to neurologist Oliver Sacks, Hildegard's descriptions of viriditas, as well as some of her visions and drawings, point to her being a migraine sufferer.  Her description of black stars falling into the ocean out of a bright sky, or a bright light within a cloud of light are evidently common images experienced by those who suffer from visual migraines.  And although I've never had a visual migraine myself (I just get the bog standard head ache, nausea, sensitivity to light and sound kind) perhaps this explains why Hildegard's writings and drawings resonate so strongly with me.  There's something in the images she portrays on paper in both words and shapes that I recognize in my bones.  Whether this comes from a shared experience of pain or creation, who knows and who can say if those aren't connected as well. 

But this I can say for sure, among her many talents-- artist, author, musician, spiritual leader, herbalist and healer-- Hildegard came up with a recipe for some damn fine cookies.  Here it is,  reconstructed and adapted from her book, Physica.  This particular mix of spices was supposed to banish depression . . . The addition of the butter and brown sugar is what adds the joy, at least that's my theory.  Given them a try the next time you're feeling a little blue or whip up a batch to munch on while learning more about Hildegard as you watch the movie, Vision, which is available on Netflix on Demand. 

Hildegard's Cookies of Joy
 3/4 cup butter (1 1/2 sticks), softened

1 cup brown sugar

1 egg

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1 1/2 cups flour

1 tsp ground cinnamon*

1 tsp ground nutmeg*

1/2 tsp ground cloves *

Preheat oven to 350.  

Cream butter and brown sugar.  

Beat in the egg.

Sift the dry ingredients.

Add half the dry ingredients and mix.

Add the other half and mix thoroughly.

Chill dough for 30 minutes if too soft to work.

Form walnut sized balls of dough, place on greased and floured cookie sheet and press flat.

Bake 12-15 minutes (till edges of are golden brown.) Cool for 5 minutes, remove from cookie sheet and finish cooling on racks.

* - I never measure my spices with a measuring spoon and suspect I often add more than the recipe calls for-- more like 1 1/2 - 2 tsps. of cinammon and nutmeg and 1 tsp. of cloves.

Mary Oliver Monday - Why I Wake Early or Why I don't meditate (or do much of anything) early

WHY I WAKE EARLY by Mary Oliver from Why I Wake Early (Beacon Press)
Hello, sun in my face.
Hello, you who made the morning
and spread it over the fields
and into the faces of the tulips
and the nodding morning glories,
and into the windows of, even, the
miserable and the crotchety –
best preacher that ever was,
dear star, that just happens
to be where you are in the universe
to keep us from ever-darkness,
to ease us with warm touching,
to hold us in the great hands of light –
good morning, good morning, good morning.
Watch, now, how I start the day
in happiness, in kindness.

Okay so I don't exactly wake early.  Nor do I get up and wander in the woods, ramble in the fields, or stroll along the shore as Mary Oliver writes about doing in so many of her poems.  I've tried to be that kind of morning person but I've come to accept that I need to take time to rub the sleep out of my eyes and ease into the day rather than leaping out of bed and embracing it with arms and eyes wide open. 

Yumaroo!

I was reminded of that again this morning.  I woke up and decided that before I did anything, I'd do my meditation.  I used to meditate most mornings on waking, especially when I was working in the city and had an hour commute for a ten mile drive.  I found that once I got up and moving, it was harder to make the time to sit and be still.  Lately though, I've settled into a new morning routine-- waking, quickly checking e-mail, news headlines, and the weather forecast for the day before getting out of bed and getting dressed.  Then it's to the kitchen to make coffee and assemble breakfast (Liberte coconut yogurt is my new guilty pleasure-- chock full of fat but I've been using almond milk in my coffee as penance).  Balancing my mug and bowl, I head to my desk where I eat, drink and write my morning pages.  Then, usually about 10ish, I'm finally ready for my morning meditation.  That is my routine, the rhythm to which I've become accustomed. 

I've been thinking a lot about routine lately.  Last night I read a great article in "O" magazine by author Aimee Bender on "The Writer's Contract."  The idea of the contract is to settle into a writing routine for which the individual is accountable, writing a set number of days and hours (or minutes) per day. More than the contract idea itself, her words on routine, the essential part of the process, are what really resonated with me.  Likening a set writing time to the analytical frame in therapy, Bender suggests that giving the creative impulse structure as well as room in which to be expressed, is often the safest way to access our unconscious without feeling overwhelmed.  As she put it, "If left to my own devices, a blank page and a free day and that meadow, little will get done and I'll feel awful about it.  But put me in a box for two set hours and say go?  It is one of the most steadying elements of my life."

As much as I know myself and embrace the fact that on the Myers-Briggs I'm definitely a P at heart, I also appreciate that my energy is such that if I don't have some structure to my time, I too will happily race around that meadow and get nothing done, flitting from idea to idea, project to project, thought to thought, like an overstimulated toddler.  Routine is good for me.  There.  I've said it.  In writing and in a public forum.  Although I prefer to call it a rhythm or pattern rather than a routine.  That seems more flexible, gracious, gentle. 

Monkey mind isn't nearly as fun as I remember this toy being.

So on my to do list for today is to write my own writer's contract.  In addition, I am going to write a blogger's contract.  I haven't been very good about posting regularly here since the end of my Lenten daily posts but that will change as of this week.  I pledge to do a Mary Oliver Monday and Billy Collins Sunday post every week in addition to a mid-week post on another topic.  A routine I think I can manage, albeit I'm not promising any early morning posts.  And as for meditating early?  This morning I had not just monkey mind, but three ring circus mind.  Tomorrow I go back to meditating after breakfast.  And I admit that returning to my routine is a comforting thought.

Carpe Libris - The Summer Reading Edition #1

Welcome to the first summer installment of Carpe Libris.  I mentioned a while back that I had developed a summer reading list/shelf.  Alas, I seem to be adding more to the stacks so they're growing rather than dwindling but I'm hoping that a new routine that includes no Netflix-on-Demand on weekdays will allow me to see some progress in the next few weeks.  (Sorry new episodes of Murdoch Mysteries, you're just going to have to wait.)

So without further ado, here's what I have been reading lately-- books that were on my original list and a few that were added more recently.

Bowl of Light by Anne Yarbrough
Before I talk about this book, I have to confess two things:
#1.  I have a deep seated prejudice against self-published books.  I know, I know, I'm a book snob.  It's nothing I haven't been accused of in the past.  I realize the whole publishing culture is changing, yadda yadda yadda.  And while I do love my Kindle for Android app and am all about being able to carry a gazillion books on my person at once (while often complaining I have nothing to read), I'm still not sold on self-publishing.  To me, it's reminiscent of grocery store sushi.  There's so much put out there for public consumption that's not just mediocre but really bad.  Call me crazy, but I'm not only loathe to waste my money, I don't want to risk making myself nauseated.

Which brings me to . . .

#2.  I know Anne Yarbrough and her husband, Greg.  I have heard Anne preach, have read her blog, and from previous experience know she's a lovely writer so I was willing to make an exception for this book.

And bad California roll it wasn't.  More like the most delicious toro I've ever had. I savored the essays in the book, doling them out in small bites so I could prolong the experience of reading it. 

While Bowl of Light chronicles island life in Nova Scotia, it isn't just the story of one couple's efforts to fix up an old house and adjust to life in a rural community where there seem to be more sheep around than actual human neighbors. (Although the human neighbors include lobster men who seem to frequently drop by a few crustaceans for dinner-- worth the inconvenience of no electricity or running water for a year?  Perhaps.)  This humble collection is really an extended reflection on creation, in the sense of both noun and verb.  An ode to a rhythm of life that some may deem "simpler," Anne writes idyllically about the island but it's not romanticized.   There's plenty of grittiness and hard work described . . . but still not enough to discourage me from harboring my own fantasies about island living.

My harboring fantasies about a different landscape aren't limited to Nova Scotia.  I am almost through reading this little gem that I stumbled upon, literally, in a used book store in Kensington. Modest Harmony:  Seven Summers in a Scottish Glen by Sheila Gordon describes her family's adventure as an off-handed remark about desiring a summer cottage in the Scottish countryside turns into a reality. Published thirty years ago, it's really more a memoir of a place and lifestyle than a family, for the heart of the book is the glen-- its landscape, its history and its inhabitants.  From the hard working, hard drinking, hard brawling neighboring farmhands to the lady of the manor who still dresses for dinner in a pink evening gown and jewels despite the fact that the only other inhabitant of her home is an oft praised but overworked housekeeper, Gordon observes a way of life that was fading at the time with sensitivity and appreciation.  I hadn't realized the connection before now, but this book is reminiscent of Bowl of Light in that both authors seem compelled to learn and share the history and stories of the earlier inhabitants of their homes. At one point Gordon remarks that she doesn't like new houses because they lack "ghosts" and it's important for a home to have history.

A home that would have ghosts if it existed outside the author's imagination is the Bellewether house.  The Bellewether Revivals by Benjamin Wood.  This was a book that wasn't on my list but appeared on my Kindle the day it was released and I couldn't for the life of me remember why I pre-ordered it.  I then read the description that likened it to Donna Tartt's The Secret History and Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited and I remembered clicking on the pre-order button in the midst of a late night Amazon plunder-- one of the mixed blessings of electronic books.  I was immediately captured by the story which is one of those that begins with a a couple dead bodies and then goes back in time to see how the story evolved?  devolved? to the point where someone (who we're not sure) is a murder and others the victims.  Set in Oxford and focusing on a group of close knit friends, the main character being the relative newcomer to the group, this was definitely a page turner.  I don't want to give away any more of the story but I will say that as I was up late reading it, I found myself wondering why, other than wanting to know had killed and who had been killed, I couldn't put the book down.  If wanting the mystery solved was my only concern, I could have just flipped to the last chapter but I found I had to keep reading despite the fact that I didn't find any of the characters particularly sympathetic.  The writing was commendable but not lyrical so I wasn't reading for the language.  What I came to realize was that it was simply the case of Benjamin Wood having an interesting story to tell and doing that well.  Although I'll also confess I didn't find the last part of the book quite on par with say the first three-quarters.  It felt to me like the author realized where the story was heading and raced through the writing of the last part to get there, rather than teasing out the story in the same engaging way he had in earlier pages.  But all in all, a good summer read. 


Speaking of Brideshead Revisited . . . I'm slowly working my way through Waugh's classic but somehow I feel I can only read it when I have a glass of something bubbly by my side so I'm limiting my consumption of both to the occasional Friday night so it's slow going.  While I've seen most of the Masterpiece Theatre version and the more recent film adaptation, I've never actually read the book before so I'm enjoying this little bit of escapism.  Reading it in conjunction with the final book I'll mention in this post has been particularly interesting.

The Perfect Summer:  England, 1911 Just Before the Storm by Juliet Nicolson weaves together the lives of the likes of Queen Mary, Winston Churchill, and Lady Diana Manners to offer glimpses into a gilded age and summer in English history where the sun shone more days than not and life was rosy, at least for the aristocracy.  Exploring the history of that one particular summer, Nicolson sets up the building blocks of her story in a way that the cracks beginning to appear in the foundation of British society are apparent to the reader.  As the mercury rises as the summer progresses, we feel the tensions rising as well.  Besides being an interesting way to tell a story, it's also a great fix for those of us who are still going through Downton Abbey withdrawal.

So that's what I've been reading lately . . . what's on your summer reading list?

Follow up to Poetry for Mid-Summer - My Pantoum

In the whirlwind of post-Derecho chaos it's taken me a while to get to this post so I apologize for the delay.  In a previous post, I promised to share the creative output from my Poetry for Midsummer program.  While several people share their poems the night of the event , there weren't too many brave souls ready to have their work shared in a public forum. An exception to that was Ginger Ingalls, a lovely local poet who shared her pantoum on her Facebook page. You can find her poem, as well as other examples of here writing here.

And so Ginger's not alone in sharing, I'll be brave. Here's the pantoum I wrote that night . . .

Ripe blueberries,
a taste of childhood.
Blueblack dusky globes
X marks the spot where the angels kissed them.

A taste of childhood.
I tickle them away from green leaves.
X marks the spot where the angels kissed them,
their laughter explodes in my mouth.

I tickle them away from green leaves,
blueberry pie, blueberry buckle, blueberry jam, Blueberries for Sal,
their laughter explodes in my mouth.
Catbirds glean the leftovers.

Blueberry pie, blueberry buckle, blueberry jam, Blueberries for Sal,
I'm happy to share the bounty.
Catbirds glean the leftovers,
a gift for all creation.

A Trio of Storm Poems by Emily Dickinson in honor of El Derecho

The Wind Begun to Rock the Grass

The wind begun to rock the grass

With threatening tunes and low, -

He flung a menace at the earth,

A menace at the sky.

The leaves unhooked themselves from trees

And started all abroad;

The dust did scoop itself like hands

And throw away the road.

The wagons quickened on the streets,

The thunder hurried slow;

The lightning showed a yellow beak,

And then a livid claw.

The birds put up the bars to nests,

The cattle fled to barns;

There came one drop of giant rain,

And then, as if the hands

That held the dams had parted hold,

The waters wrecked the sky,

But overlooked my father's house,

Just quartering a tree.

  

The Lightning is a Yellow Fork

The Lightning is a yellow Fork

From Tables in the sky

By inadvertent fingers dropt

The awful Cutlery

Of mansions never quite disclosed

And never quite concealed

The Apparatus of the Dark

To ignorance revealed.

There Came a Wind Like a Bugle

There came a wind like a bugle;

It quivered through the grass,

And a green chill upon the heat

So ominous did pass

We barred the windows and the doors

As from an emerald ghost;

The doom's electric moccasin

That very instant passed.

On a strange mob of panting trees,

And fences fled away,

And rivers where the houses ran

The living looked that day.

The bell within the steeple wild

The flying tidings whirled.

How much can come

And much can go,

And yet abide the world!

Friday night the DC area was hit by a Derecho, a fierce, fast, straight storm that brought hurricane force winds and mass destruction to the area.  At the time, it didn't seem that bad to me.  I opened the curtain to watch the light show illuminate the trees swaying to the raucous tune of the wind.

I heard the staccato of the power going off and on but didn't think too much of it.  Brown outs and blown transformers during thunder storms are as much a part of summer in DC as concerts on the mall and the August mass migration of politicos.  

But then Saturday rolled around and no power . . . and Sunday . . . and Monday . . . and Tuesday . . . and now it's Wednesday morning and the last I checked, still no power in our neighborhood. 

This picture illustrates one of the reasons why.  Granted, it's not a very good picture but hey, I was snapping it as I was driving south in a north bound lane on Connecticut Avenue through Kensington as we were fleeing the apocalyptic chaos of Montgomery County for the promise land of a northern Virginia hotel.  (You know things are bad when those north of the Potomac willingly cross the river in search of comfort.)  But at least this gives you some sense of the chaos in that mile long stretch of a major thoroughfare in my neighborhood.  Although in this photo the trees have been somewhat cut up, they were still strewn across one whole side of the road and there were many more trees that hadn't been touched.  Nor did I get a picture of the downed utility poles, some broken in two, and wires that also littered the road.

So now my electronics are fully charged, I've slept through the night (and actually been a bit chilly while doing so) and am debating about whether or not to spend the holiday catching up on work or reading.  Although seriously, we all know reading is going to win out but I am thinking about work which should count for something. 

Good old Emily Dickinson.  When summer storms hit Amherst she didn't just think about work, she did it, retiring to her room to write more poetry.  No wondering what to do without Internet access or fretting about how much charge was left on her mobile and whether she should use it to update her Facebook status. 

I always tell myself that if I didn't have easy access to the distractions of modern life, I could write about lightning falling like dropped silverware from the heavens. But I didn't even manage to write my morning pages in the first few days, post-storm.  Technology, or lack thereof, isn't my problem, focus and self-discipline is.