tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19351191201344887782024-03-13T20:53:06.635-07:00Christina Sanantonio-Thinking Out Loud Poetry BlogPoems, memories, old photos, art, favorites,poetryChristinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14956955237540160329noreply@blogger.comBlogger222125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1935119120134488778.post-58258593465737353272021-01-24T07:33:00.001-08:002021-01-24T07:33:30.284-08:00Loss, Salman Rushdie<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5yeSoQelO18/YA2TO-LmoEI/AAAAAAAABGA/zlwDOpvygtg_YaW2mQzbp3KWCJ24dbdjgCLcBGAsYHQ/s965/20210124_092725.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="965" data-original-width="619" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5yeSoQelO18/YA2TO-LmoEI/AAAAAAAABGA/zlwDOpvygtg_YaW2mQzbp3KWCJ24dbdjgCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/20210124_092725.jpg" /></a></div><br />“Whenever someone who knows you disappears, you lose one version of yourself.
Yourself as you were seen, as you were judged to be. Lover or enemy, mother or
friend, those who know us construct us, and their several knowings slant the
different facets of our characters like diamond-cutter’s tools. Each such loss
is a step leading to the grave, where all versions blend and end.” — ~ Salman
Rushdie
Christinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14956955237540160329noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1935119120134488778.post-2067359093058763652018-08-24T17:54:00.000-07:002018-08-24T17:54:59.109-07:00<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-oF4Dfedt8Xk/W4CohxXtEaI/AAAAAAAAA8I/kS6j-CQeCys7qAsPBogkxNgBFPtpeoFbwCLcBGAs/s1600/sad.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-oF4Dfedt8Xk/W4CohxXtEaI/AAAAAAAAA8I/kS6j-CQeCys7qAsPBogkxNgBFPtpeoFbwCLcBGAs/s320/sad.jpg" width="239" height="320" data-original-width="747" data-original-height="1000" /></a></div><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Song<br />
Adrienne Rich<br />
<br />
You’re wondering if I’m lonely:<br />
OK then, yes, I’m lonely<br />
as a plane rides lonely and level<br />
on its radio beam, aiming<br />
across the Rockies<br />
for the blue-strung aisles<br />
of an airfield on the ocean.<br />
<br />
You want to ask, am I lonely?<br />
Well, of course, lonely<br />
as a woman driving across country<br />
day after day, leaving behind<br />
mile after mile<br />
little towns she might have stopped<br />
and lived and died in, lonely<br />
<br />
If I’m lonely<br />
it must be the loneliness<br />
of waking first, of breathing<br />
dawns’ first cold breath on the city<br />
of being the one awake<br />
in a house wrapped in sleep<br />
<br />
If I’m lonely<br />
it’s with the rowboat ice-fast on the shore<br />
in the last red light of the year<br />
that knows what it is, that knows it’s neither<br />
ice nor mud nor winter light<br />
but wood, with a gift for burningChristinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14956955237540160329noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1935119120134488778.post-78375977727122714512018-08-15T08:18:00.000-07:002018-08-15T08:18:01.114-07:00<br />
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hHQx-dkl7rk/W3REHxAv7RI/AAAAAAAAA7w/Dpz8Bl-_HhE66vyr4x7HjSzJUC9v9zuJgCLcBGAs/s1600/post-wolcott-8a39528a.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hHQx-dkl7rk/W3REHxAv7RI/AAAAAAAAA7w/Dpz8Bl-_HhE66vyr4x7HjSzJUC9v9zuJgCLcBGAs/s320/post-wolcott-8a39528a.jpg" width="320" height="273" data-original-width="1600" data-original-height="1365" /></a><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Pantoum of the Great Depression<br />
BY DONALD JUSTICE<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Our lives avoided tragedy<br />
Simply by going on and on,<br />
Without end and with little apparent meaning.<br />
Oh, there were storms and small catastrophes.<br />
<br />
Simply by going on and on<br />
We managed. No need for the heroic.<br />
Oh, there were storms and small catastrophes.<br />
I don't remember all the particulars.<br />
<br />
We managed. No need for the heroic.<br />
There were the usual celebrations, the usual sorrows.<br />
I don't remember all the particulars.<br />
Across the fence, the neighbors were our chorus.<br />
<br />
There were the usual celebrations, the usual sorrows.<br />
Thank god no one said anything in verse.<br />
The neighbors were our only chorus,<br />
And if we suffered we kept quiet about it.<br />
<br />
At no time did anyone say anything in verse.<br />
It was the ordinary pities and fears consumed us,<br />
And if we suffered we kept quiet about it.<br />
No audience would ever know our story.<br />
<br />
It was the ordinary pities and fears consumed us.<br />
We gathered on porches; the moon rose; we were poor.<br />
What audience would ever know our story?<br />
Beyond our windows shone the actual world.<br />
<br />
We gathered on porches; the moon rose; we were poor.<br />
And time went by, drawn by slow horses.<br />
Somewhere beyond our windows shone the world.<br />
The Great Depression had entered our souls like fog.<br />
<br />
And time went by, drawn by slow horses.<br />
We did not ourselves know what the end was.<br />
The Great Depression had entered our souls like fog.<br />
We had our flaws, perhaps a few private virtues.<br />
<br />
But we did not ourselves know what the end was.<br />
People like us simply go on.<br />
We have our flaws, perhaps a few private virtues,<br />
But it is by blind chance only that we escape tragedy.<br />
<br />
And there is no plot in that; it is devoid of poetry.Christinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14956955237540160329noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1935119120134488778.post-45223109374546984762018-08-15T08:01:00.002-07:002018-08-15T08:01:35.054-07:00<br />
<br />
<br />
Her Kind <br />
<br />
By Anne Sexton<br />
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/---971n8WiQ8/W3RAOGNAzPI/AAAAAAAAA7U/c3xoVIphsUg0AxZ7uoaDPn9dHaHpoKK-wCLcBGAs/s1600/Real-Witch-Photo-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/---971n8WiQ8/W3RAOGNAzPI/AAAAAAAAA7U/c3xoVIphsUg0AxZ7uoaDPn9dHaHpoKK-wCLcBGAs/s320/Real-Witch-Photo-1.jpg" width="320" height="271" data-original-width="500" data-original-height="424" /></a><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
I have gone out, a possessed witch,<br />
haunting the black air, braver at night;<br />
dreaming evil, I have done my hitch<br />
over the plain houses, light by light:<br />
lonely thing, twelve-fingered, out of mind.<br />
A woman like that is not a woman, quite.<br />
I have been her kind.<br />
<br />
I have found the warm caves in the woods,<br />
filled them with skillets, carvings, shelves,<br />
closets, silks, innumerable goods;<br />
fixed the suppers for the worms and the elves:<br />
whining, rearranging the disaligned.<br />
A woman like that is misunderstood.<br />
I have been her kind.<br />
<br />
I have ridden in your cart, driver,<br />
waved my nude arms at villages going by,<br />
learning the last bright routes, survivor<br />
where your flames still bite my thigh<br />
and my ribs crack where your wheels wind.<br />
A woman like that is not ashamed to die.<br />
I have been her kind.Christinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14956955237540160329noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1935119120134488778.post-80064335600758264702018-03-08T10:15:00.001-08:002018-03-08T10:15:20.641-08:00Grief by Raymond Carver<br />
Raymond Carver<br />
<br />
Grief<br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-r2XPQWicHzw/WqF9dF1HwzI/AAAAAAAAA6A/VtKCHMbp3NAGrQR-fQIN1BQfGMRVrgvJACLcBGAs/s1600/grief_1350.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-r2XPQWicHzw/WqF9dF1HwzI/AAAAAAAAA6A/VtKCHMbp3NAGrQR-fQIN1BQfGMRVrgvJACLcBGAs/s320/grief_1350.jpg" width="320" height="213" data-original-width="1024" data-original-height="683" /></a><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Woke up early this morning and from my bed<br />
looked far across the Strait to see<br />
a small boat moving through the choppy water,<br />
a single running light on. Remembered<br />
my friend who used to shout<br />
his dead wife’s name from hilltops<br />
around Perugia. Who set a plate<br />
for her at his simple table long after<br />
she was gone. And opened the windows<br />
so she could have fresh air. Such display<br />
I found embarrassing. So did his other<br />
friends. I couldn’t see it.<br />
Not until this morning.Christinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14956955237540160329noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1935119120134488778.post-61323473479914388782018-02-24T15:07:00.000-08:002018-02-24T15:07:47.491-08:00<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-lTHfG3fzklg/WpHvuz918oI/AAAAAAAAA5k/918daKsc6pAOdMV105K6CCUgcOJ5aSkaACLcBGAs/s1600/birdcAGE.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-lTHfG3fzklg/WpHvuz918oI/AAAAAAAAA5k/918daKsc6pAOdMV105K6CCUgcOJ5aSkaACLcBGAs/s320/birdcAGE.jpg" width="307" height="320" data-original-width="1080" data-original-height="1125" /></a>Hope' is the thing with feathers—<br />
That perches in the soul—<br />
And sings the tune without the words—<br />
And never stops—at all—<br />
<br />
And sweetest—in the Gale—is heard—<br />
And sore must be the storm—<br />
That could abash the little Bird<br />
That kept so many warm—<br />
<br />
I've heard it in the chillest land—<br />
And on the strangest Sea—<br />
Yet, never, in Extremity,<br />
It asked a crumb—of Me. <br />
<br />
Emily Dickinson<br />
Christinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14956955237540160329noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1935119120134488778.post-79165509646763673362018-02-14T15:00:00.001-08:002018-02-14T15:00:23.849-08:00Thinking Out Loud: The Vinegar Man by Ruth Comfort Mitchell<a href="http://christina-thinkingoutloud.blogspot.com/2011/02/vinegar-man-by-ruth-comfort-mitchell.html?spref=bl">Thinking Out Loud: The Vinegar Man by Ruth Comfort Mitchell</a>: The Vinegar Man The crazy old Vinegar Man is dead! He never had missed a day before! Somebody went to his tumble-down shed by the Haunte...Christinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14956955237540160329noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1935119120134488778.post-28501999362041767482018-02-14T14:58:00.000-08:002018-02-14T14:58:46.784-08:00The World As It Is <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
The World as It is <br />
<br />
By Carolyn Miller <br />
<br />
<br />
No ladders, no descending angels, no voice <br />
out of the whirlwind, no rending <br />
of the veil, or chariot in the sky—only <br />
water rising and falling in breathing springs <br />
and seeping up through limestone, aquifers filling <br />
and flowing over, russet stands of prairie grass <br />
and dark pupils of black-eyed Susans. Only <br />
the fixed and wandering stars: Orion rising sideways, <br />
Jupiter traversing the southwest like a great firefly, <br />
Venus trembling and faceted in the west—and the moon, <br />
appearing suddenly over your shoulder, brimming <br />
and ovoid, ripe with light, lifting slowly, deliberately, <br />
wobbling slightly, while far below, the faithful sea <br />
rises up and follows.Christinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14956955237540160329noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1935119120134488778.post-55839701029519384182018-02-14T14:57:00.001-08:002018-02-14T14:57:39.342-08:00Into Arrival<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-AIFsS2WlIlE/Tpbypc4BFgI/AAAAAAAAAm8/QnU46WSZgko/s1600/IMG_9314.JPG.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-AIFsS2WlIlE/Tpbypc4BFgI/AAAAAAAAAm8/QnU46WSZgko/s400/IMG_9314.JPG.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5662980375404680706"></a><br />
Into Arrival<br />
by Anne Michaels<br />
<br />
It will be in a station<br />
with a glass roof<br />
grimy with the soot<br />
of every train and<br />
they will embrace for every mile<br />
of arrival. They will not<br />
let go, not all the long way,<br />
his arm in the curve of her longing. Walking in a city<br />
neither knows too well,<br />
watching women with satchels<br />
given coins to a priest for the war veterans;<br />
finding the keyhole view of the church<br />
from an old wall across the city, the dome<br />
filling the keyhole precisely,<br />
like an eye. In the home<br />
of winter, under an earth<br />
of blankets, he warms her skin<br />
as she climbs in from the air.<br />
<br />
There is a way our bodies<br />
are not our own, and when he finds her<br />
there is room at last<br />
for everyone they love,<br />
the place he finds,<br />
she finds, each word of skin<br />
a decision.<br />
<br />
There is earth<br />
that never leaves your hands,<br />
rain that never leaves<br />
your bones. Words so old they are broken<br />
from us, because they can only be<br />
broken. They will not<br />
let go, because some love<br />
is broken from love,<br />
like stones<br />
from stone,<br />
rain from rain,<br />
like the sea<br />
from the sea.Christinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14956955237540160329noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1935119120134488778.post-38841113363467484242018-02-08T09:50:00.001-08:002018-02-08T09:50:45.081-08:00<br />
AFFIRMATION<br />
<br />
By Donald Hall<br />
<br />
To grow old is to lose everything. <br />
Aging, everybody knows it. <br />
Even when we are young, <br />
we glimpse it sometimes, and nod our heads <br />
when a grandfather dies.<br />
Then we row for years on the midsummer <br />
pond, ignorant and content. But a marriage,<br />
that began without harm, scatters <br />
into debris on the shore, <br />
and a friend from school drops <br />
cold on a rocky strand.<br />
If a new love carries us <br />
past middle age, our wife will die <br />
at her strongest and most beautiful. <br />
New women come and go. All go. <br />
The pretty lover who announces <br />
that she is temporary<br />
is temporary. The bold woman,<br />
middle-aged against our old age,<br />
sinks under an anxiety she cannot withstand. <br />
Another friend of decades estranges himself <br />
in words that pollute thirty years. <br />
Let us stifle under mud at the pond's edge <br />
and affirm that it is fitting<br />
and delicious to lose everything.Christinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14956955237540160329noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1935119120134488778.post-31952826710928913172016-01-17T11:33:00.003-08:002016-01-17T11:41:59.481-08:00The true beloveds of this world are in their lover’s eyes, lilacs opening, ship lights, school bells, a landscape, remembered conversations, friends, a child’s Sunday, lost voices, one’s favorite suit, autumn and all seasons, memory, yes, it being the earth and water of existence, memory.<br />
~Truman Capote, Other Voices, Other RoomsChristinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14956955237540160329noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1935119120134488778.post-18779024421316168102016-01-11T16:18:00.000-08:002016-01-11T16:18:10.452-08:00<br />
Burning the Old Year by Naomi Shihab Nye<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Letters swallow themselves in seconds. <br />
Notes friends tied to the doorknob, <br />
transparent scarlet paper,<br />
sizzle like moth wings,<br />
marry the air.<br />
<br />
So much of any year is flammable, <br />
lists of vegetables, partial poems. <br />
Orange swirling flame of days, <br />
so little is a stone.<br />
<br />
Where there was something and suddenly isn't, <br />
an absence shouts, celebrates, leaves a space. <br />
I begin again with the smallest numbers.<br />
<br />
Quick dance, shuffle of losses and leaves, <br />
only the things I didn't do <br />
crackle after the blazing dies.<br />
<br />
Naomi Shihab Nye, "Burning the Old Year" from Words Under the Words: Selected Poems (Portland, Oregon: Far Corner Books, 1995). <a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0OpxkkpIjI8/VpRGNBRJ_CI/AAAAAAAAA3M/UpfuX4H-uI0/s1600/201.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0OpxkkpIjI8/VpRGNBRJ_CI/AAAAAAAAA3M/UpfuX4H-uI0/s320/201.jpg" /></a>Christinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14956955237540160329noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1935119120134488778.post-20100619084073766682015-01-12T11:55:00.001-08:002015-01-12T11:55:49.156-08:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-IL8hQjQP9Yg/VLQmuZL6QhI/AAAAAAAAA1Y/6g3OIf1FrAM/s1600/6b6006f7554b98d7ad0f659c743e67c8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-IL8hQjQP9Yg/VLQmuZL6QhI/AAAAAAAAA1Y/6g3OIf1FrAM/s640/6b6006f7554b98d7ad0f659c743e67c8.jpg" /></a></div>Christinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14956955237540160329noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1935119120134488778.post-34814661770468688832015-01-12T11:53:00.002-08:002015-01-12T11:53:45.018-08:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KsaBHRNLWOM/VLQmKTsQsoI/AAAAAAAAA1Q/Ve5w7eaehto/s1600/bd2df2e2ee37fa1fb708b2aed421223d.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KsaBHRNLWOM/VLQmKTsQsoI/AAAAAAAAA1Q/Ve5w7eaehto/s640/bd2df2e2ee37fa1fb708b2aed421223d.jpg" /></a></div>Christinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14956955237540160329noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1935119120134488778.post-46056312051073061382013-12-07T09:39:00.001-08:002013-12-07T09:55:38.316-08:00<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1wauDpEGZZk/UqNcVDjQ-aI/AAAAAAAAA0I/EXBf9YLmu-o/s1600/jamesbensamlittle.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1wauDpEGZZk/UqNcVDjQ-aI/AAAAAAAAA0I/EXBf9YLmu-o/s320/jamesbensamlittle.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-g4aSneeG9tI/UqNcXmdbQHI/AAAAAAAAA0Q/3dLwobjKlfM/s1600/564579_10151474950420713_906790125_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-g4aSneeG9tI/UqNcXmdbQHI/AAAAAAAAA0Q/3dLwobjKlfM/s320/564579_10151474950420713_906790125_n.jpg" /></a></div><br />
<br />
Back in 2003, I offered a humorous glimpse into my life with my three sons then aged 10, 9, and 8. It was our own Schweddy Ball kind of Christmas tale. Here is the original, with a decade later update:<br />
<br />
I am the mother of three young sons, and I take my parental role very seriously. I have read many books about boys, how to help them become promising young men, how not to damage them unduly, how to prevent them from creating a homemade atomic weapon and blowing up the neighborhood, etc...<br />
I was pondering the idea of hardwiring today and considering that while some mothers' experience sons like Thoreau who, while tiny, lisped sweetly, "I am trying to look through the stars to see if I can see God behind them."<br />
I have sons who say things like yesterday's gem:<br />
"Hey, if we melted down this silver baby Jesus nativity scene, we could make a bunch of bullets."<br />
Surely there must be a reason for my sons to emerge from the womb screaming for blood and glory, and refusing all toys except projectiles. Bereft of toy guns by me, their naively idealistic mother, they deftly mastered the art of shaping their toast into the shape of a realistic looking guns and pointing them at me and saying "Bang!" by mere toddler hood.<br />
Television, I detest, yet they have had only a smattering and none before age four. Apparently, have no genes.<br />
Yesterday, I noticed my lovely and realistic 500,001 piece Bethlehem village looked... odd. Looking closely, I discovered someone had carefully placed 100 or so small, plastic soldiers complete with full battle gear at strategic locations throughout the village. Especially daunting was the prone soldier holding Mary at bay with what appeared to be an AK-47.<br />
Kind of authentic really.<br />
Only last night did realize how very little control do I hold over these testosterone laden young mammals. We were doing the traditional kids get to make candy activity with peanut butter balls and chocolate. The boys were busily crafting small spheres of sweetened peanut butter and Christmas music was playing softly in the background.<br />
All was a Christmas postcard.<br />
I heard some smothered giggles and emerged from the kitchen just in time to see my middle son, Benjamin, in the act of chocolate-covering the most perfectly rendered set of male genitalia I have ever seen (created from sweetened peanut butter, that is). Replete in its perfection... he had indeed created peanut butter balls.<br />
Wish me lots of luck with these guys, please.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Update, 10 years later:<br />
It has been a decade and the boys are now 20, 19, and 18. They are all making those tentative steps into the world with college, job seeking, and relationship building. Parenthood never prepares us for new phases, and we generally hear about the bad ones, but sometimes, they are surprisingly poignant. For example, when my sons are together now, and with me, they often enjoy talking about me as if I am not there. They tell family stories and make gentle fun, all while I potter in the background, doing daily things, but listening and enjoying too, kind of like a very present and active ghost. It was disconcerting at first. I would hear: “Remember when mom wore her dark sunglasses uptown and never knew that one lens was missing?” Or, “Remember when mom stopped in the middle of the highway to save that turtle? He was a snapping turtle and tried to kill us all. The stink stayed in the car for weeks.” I was welcome to join, but chose to listen and to just hear. I’ve grown to love the chatter about me, without me, as a way to learn how they remember the events in our shared lives. I have been given a glimpse into the way they may tell family stories to their own children, and those they most certainly will not. <br />
Recently, two of my boys were talking this way and I heard one say, “Yeah, Mom ruined porn for me.” The other, who very recently had gleefully used his online store magazine gift card (a birthday present from his grandmother) to subscribe to Playboy, inquired why. “Well, all those discussions about the male gaze and patriarchy. I end up just feeling sorry for the women. Mom’s feminist agenda rubbed off.” They were silent, thinking about that and I was tallying a small win for myself until the other said, “Well, little brother, I don’t share your issue. “ I silently sighed and erased the point. A parental rub. Clearly, more of “Mom’s agenda” work is needed. <br />
<br />
Mostly, however, while raising them, I had no agenda. When they were small it was all I could do to not constantly shriek and collapse. I recall when they were 1, 2 and 3; my main goal was to keep actual shit from appearing around the house, outside of the appropriate shit receptacles. As they grew, my agenda, if I had one was simply to not raise assholes. <br />
Looking back, that was my agenda throughout their childhoods. It factored into every decision: the tough call to remove them from public school despite all three were gifted athletically and other parents thought (and expressed to me) that I was crazy to do so (I wanted to try to raise good men, not great athletes); the decision to continue to work part time, despite financial struggles in order to give them a strong family (because I felt, kids need quantity time, not just quality time). We have spent thousands of hours talking together, arguing together, reading and laughing together. I have loved every minute of it. Now, they go out into the world as young men. We never know who our children will become and the only certainty is life’s unpredictability. As their mother, I hope they are well and warmly received and that they bring some light along to share. I hope they find their voices and stand up and say a few quiet words for good. My hope is every parent’s hope. I can promise the world this though, most of the time, they are not assholes. <br />
Christinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14956955237540160329noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1935119120134488778.post-63203069647183313822013-10-19T09:48:00.000-07:002013-10-19T09:51:45.659-07:00<div class="ab-player" data-boourl="https://audioboo.fm/boos/1672307-visions-five-minute-ghost-story/embed" ><a href="https://audioboo.fm/boos/1672307-visions-five-minute-ghost-story">listen to ‘Visions (Five Minute Ghost Story)’ on Audioboo</a></div><script type="text/javascript">(function() { var po = document.createElement("script"); po.type = "text/javascript"; po.async = true; po.src = "https://d15mj6e6qmt1na.cloudfront.net/assets/embed.js"; var s = document.getElementsByTagName("script")[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })();</script><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-j1O8pPEkCWc/UmK4lj-vp3I/AAAAAAAAAzo/A_CQAI0NlmA/s1600/th.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-j1O8pPEkCWc/UmK4lj-vp3I/AAAAAAAAAzo/A_CQAI0NlmA/s320/th.jpg" /></a></div>Christinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14956955237540160329noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1935119120134488778.post-34088259212855464132013-10-01T10:58:00.002-07:002013-10-01T10:58:51.850-07:00The Gladys Kravitz EventThe internet popped and dissolved like a soap bubble into the nothingness from whence it came at 8:05 Tuesday morning; burst by the weight of one billion pounds of sanctimony.
Millions of pulses and waves, circuits and systems forced to deliver and receive an ever growing mountain of shrill concerns exceeded their load- bearing quotient. Experts have called the collapse The Gladys Kravtiz Event. People reported feeling a slight breeze.
The newly digitally unshackled were free to let their farm dogs potter, children played in yards without threat of calls to powers that be, chickens laid eggs and pecked in their innocuous way without legislative action.
Horses resumed shitting on the road when the need took them without fear of repercussion from the poop police. Some weeds were given a death sentence reprieve. A good day for children, chickens, dogs and weeds. .
~After scanning the various town FB pages today.Christinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14956955237540160329noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1935119120134488778.post-46687467435764869822013-09-17T09:33:00.001-07:002013-09-17T09:33:09.586-07:00"I’ve read that past and future are a spiral, one coil containing the next and predicting its theme. Perhaps this is so; but my own life has seemed to me more a series of closed circles, rings that do not evolve with the freedom of a spiral; for me to get to the other has meant a leap, not a glide. What weakens me is the lull between, the wait before I know where to jump."
— Truman Capote, The Grass HarpChristinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14956955237540160329noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1935119120134488778.post-68206818323501354332013-09-17T09:31:00.000-07:002013-09-17T09:31:29.482-07:00<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-AfTLfEW96Zg/UjiDfSs8R6I/AAAAAAAAAzY/ZOvs6gRh1lI/s1600/tumblr_mt4qecSE191rv2dfko1_500.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-AfTLfEW96Zg/UjiDfSs8R6I/AAAAAAAAAzY/ZOvs6gRh1lI/s320/tumblr_mt4qecSE191rv2dfko1_500.jpg" /></a>
Giorgio Kienerk: Giovinezza (1902)
Christinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14956955237540160329noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1935119120134488778.post-78197451120897872462012-08-22T11:36:00.001-07:002012-08-22T11:37:44.988-07:00Cool GirlsAn interesting discussion is happening regarding what kind of woman would continue to vote for Mitwit after understanding the Republican platform on rape and control over our own bodies. I recently read an interesting quote by Gillian Flynn that I think, describes some of these women and perhaps the role they have pigeonholed themselves into.
"Men always say that as the defining compliment, don’t they? She’s a cool girl. Being the Cool Girl means I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex, and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she’s hosting the world’s biggest culinary gang bang while somehow maintaining a size 2, because Cool Girls are above all hot. Hot and understanding. Cool Girls never get angry; they only smile in a chagrined, loving manner and let their men do whatever they want. Go ahead, shit on me, I don’t mind, I’m the Cool Girl.
Men actually think this girl exists. Maybe they’re fooled because so many women are willing to pretend to be this girl. For a long time Cool Girl offended me. I used to see men — friends, coworkers, strangers — giddy over these awful pretender women, and I’d want to sit these men down and calmly say: You are not dating a woman, you are dating a woman who has watched too many movies written by socially awkward men who’d like to believe that this kind of woman exists and might kiss them.
— Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
I would add that these girls/women do exist and they have been created by our culture and shaped into Republican Stepford wives who, through through faulty thinking and utter terror of losing their hot factor have sold their souls.
I would also bet that a disproportionate number of Republican wives have participated in a beauty pageant in their younger days, refer to themselves without irony as "Southern Belles", and share a talent for twirling flaming batons.Christinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14956955237540160329noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1935119120134488778.post-59713719498852716732012-08-16T13:40:00.001-07:002012-08-16T13:41:46.326-07:00Dear James
Dear James,
You often remark to me that you don’t know any other grandmothers who speak the way I do. Well, maybe you are right, James Nicholas, but I will continue to talk frankly with you, for as long as I live, without contrition, because I am a thinker, and a reader, and a doer who has had those very fires extinguished in me for a time by the institutions, (apt names), that were supposed to be educating me. It’s my hope that my grandchildren will also be strong-minded individuals, intense in their passions and indomitable enough in character to weather the powerful storms that life can heave at them. So in your process of becoming an adult, I will probably offer up a number of my views, which might surprise you, and perhaps some that your parents might disagree with. The following is just one such opinion… I do not believe that a traditional, or “factory” education can serve you. So I’m suggesting something to you that most grandmothers would not even consider : “Quit school.” Run for your life while you can. Convince your family to home school you because traditional education is boring, because it is dangerous, because it will dumb-you-down and make you a mediocre person. (If you doubt this take a look at our current President’s SAT scores.)
Our predominant educational system has evolved from its original roots in the 1890’s, from the thinking of some pretty important industrialists. Yes, James, I said ‘industrialists,’ not great scientists or educators or philosophers, but industrialists, guys like Andrew Carnegie the steel baron, and Henry Ford, the car guy, and John D. Rockefeller, as in oil wells. Men like these had seen models of “social efficiency” work well in Italy under Fascists, and in Germany under Nazis. (If I remember right, you really don’t like Fascists and Nazis, do you James?) In actuality, our “modern” schools were based on Prussian models! Before these new schools came along, the idea of schooling had basically three purposes: 1. To make good people. 2. To make good citizens. 3. To develop the maximum talent possessed by each student. These goals seem pretty decent and honorable. In fact, things worked reasonably well until our country became over-populated by a crazed, commercially-driven culture. New schools that were of an “industrialized” nature had a fourth goal, however, which has affected the habits and attitudes of Americans in general, and that purpose stems from the fact that children drive purchases in this country. “Since bored people are the best consumers, school had to be a boring place, and since childish people are the easiest customers to convince, the manufacture of childishness, extended into adulthood, had to be the first priority of factory schools.” (An American Education History Tour, Gatto, 2006)
Children in schools, who are basically removed from the real world where people have differences, compete with each other for better grades, better clothes, better book bags, better shoes. (Would you believe I have a kindergarten student in my class who would not wear his new rubber shoes his grandmother bought him, because they were not “Crocs?”) Schools have become training grounds for consumerism and competition. The message to children is don’t be different, get good grades, get a good job, make more money and buy more stuff. Interest in the absolutely amazing world we live on has been circumvented for the sake of standardized test scores. Self-direction and autonomy have become reasons to get detention.
While children are being looked at as mere “resources” that will fill positions in our market economy’s workplace, they are being subjected to the most mind-numbing curriculum, which serves to kill any love of learning that they once held. This is done in the name of controlling large numbers of students, who somehow aren’t always as “standard” as they should be, so most of the “teaching” is aimed at the “middle” learner. In the meantime, some students feel quite superior, leaving other students feeling quite inferior. Combine these facts with a group of young people whose parents are too busy working to teach them values, so they obtain their belief systems from TV and other media, and our culture has problems. Schools have become dangerous, volatile places, where teachers spend most of their time on discipline, and children live in fear of other children. With physical danger presenting itself in schools across our country, the spiritual void, and I don’t mean religion, in traditional schools has received little attention. By spiritual here I am referring to a person’s interests, self-reflection, respect and nurture for themselves and for others. I am referring to wonder. It is an extremely dangerous thing to lose what the visionary Rachel Carson referred to as the sense of wonder.
Finally, James, I could go into a multitude of other reasons why you should “Just say ‘No’ to school,” but I listed three points in the beginning of this letter, so I shall try not to stray far from my premise, which you know I am wont to do. I said that traditional education, “factory” education, would dumb-you-down and make you mediocre. I believe this. Human beings are meant to be a diverse group, have different thoughts, skills, beliefs, abilities. In our current educational model, we expect each child to complete the same course of curriculum in the same way, at the same time, despite their general development or aptitude. This is ludicrous, not to mention, very unscientific! Human development does not match up with this educational method, and I find it morally abhorrent to manufacture this kind of homogenized student from the raw material of our children.
It is my belief that you would receive a better education by staying at home, reading some books, writing in a journal, and exploring nature. Or if your parents would worry about the lack of structure, purchase a curriculum. But don’t be swayed by your apparent popularity, or your grades, (we’re not meat…), or the artifice and opinions of the undereducated, “apple-wearing” crowd. We are producing armies of citizens who cannot read well, write well, express themselves well, and will probably never produce an original thought from their weary brains. I don’t want my grandson to be one of the automatons. Run, James, run. Get out while you still have a soul.Christinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14956955237540160329noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1935119120134488778.post-21754914226028277482012-05-01T08:28:00.000-07:002012-05-01T08:28:55.700-07:00In a dream I meet
my dead friend. He has,
I know, gone long and far,
and yet he is the same
for the dead are changeless.
They grow no older.
It is I who have changed,
grown strange to what I was.
Yet I, the changed one,
ask: “How you been?”
He grins and looks at me.
“I been eating peaches
off some mighty fine trees.”
~Wendell BerryChristinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14956955237540160329noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1935119120134488778.post-33758094026009336712012-03-20T17:52:00.003-07:002012-03-20T17:55:33.845-07:00Tending<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-DjclSnx_Abw/T2km3EunyyI/AAAAAAAAAvs/3OdK1GpASLE/s1600/securedownload%2B%25282%2529.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 337px; height: 337px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-DjclSnx_Abw/T2km3EunyyI/AAAAAAAAAvs/3OdK1GpASLE/s400/securedownload%2B%25282%2529.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5722147529154874146" /></a><br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Q156oKPdiVg/T2kmyFGcovI/AAAAAAAAAvg/CWd3FvkmbZQ/s1600/securedownload.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 337px; height: 337px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Q156oKPdiVg/T2kmyFGcovI/AAAAAAAAAvg/CWd3FvkmbZQ/s400/securedownload.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5722147443355460338" /></a><br /><br /><br />MINDFUL of you the sodden earth in spring, <br /> And all the flowers that in the springtime grow, <br /> And dusty roads, and thistles, and the slow <br />Rising of the round moon, all throats that sing <br />The summer through, and each departing wing, 5<br /> And all the nests that the bared branches show, <br /> And all winds that in any weather blow, <br />And all the storms that the four seasons bring.<br />~Edna St. Vincent MillayChristinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14956955237540160329noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1935119120134488778.post-43451798887601999952012-02-15T17:33:00.000-08:002012-02-15T17:36:40.161-08:00Mystery<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-JQhu1WQ8S94/Tzxdo4Hae6I/AAAAAAAAAvE/D0C8Wo9aPUQ/s1600/leonardcohen_1234962013_crop_320x27516744.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 275px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-JQhu1WQ8S94/Tzxdo4Hae6I/AAAAAAAAAvE/D0C8Wo9aPUQ/s400/leonardcohen_1234962013_crop_320x27516744.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5709541384438578082" /></a><br />"Clarity is one of the things I like to go for. I don’t think we’re ever free from this mysterious mechanism, though. Mystery can go all the way from not knowing what to do with yourself to standing in awe at the vast activity of the cosmos which no man can penetrate. I don’t think we’re ever free from any of that. On the other hand, you can’t go around continually expressing your awe before these celestial mechanics. These are things that maybe we should keep to ourselves. I think that we’re surrounded by, infused with and operate on a mysterious landscape, every one of us.”<br />Leonard CohenChristinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14956955237540160329noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1935119120134488778.post-40953141091999100522012-01-24T19:13:00.001-08:002012-01-24T19:14:26.687-08:00The Letter Project<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-86FnO2m1Ba4/Tx9zbGT-9RI/AAAAAAAAAuw/8pxWCybdJD0/s1600/snail-mail.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-86FnO2m1Ba4/Tx9zbGT-9RI/AAAAAAAAAuw/8pxWCybdJD0/s400/snail-mail.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5701402562662429970" /></a><br />Do you like real letters? I have started a project in which I promise to send any friend a piece of real, handwritten, handmade mail. It could be a postcard, a little piece of art, a poem, a few personal lines, a feather, a tiny gift. If you love real mail and would like to receive something this year in the spirit of friendship, please send me your name and address by private message and then check your mailbox!<br /><br />Please share with your friends!Christinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14956955237540160329noreply@blogger.com0