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 |   Thoughts destined to be washed away by the tides of life. |
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I've been studying my cover photo for a while now, and it seems to me that it is more than just a photo of what is there that can be seen, more than just three white rocks stacked on a beach. It contains an important question about the future, about what happens long after the photographer has gone. What will happen to our pile of stones when the tide comes in? Will it topple or has the architect built this structure at a safe distance? I don't know what will happen to these words that I stack here on the sand. They may prove safely distant, or they may be swallowed up by a rush of self-doubt. They may be here for a season. They may lose their balance and be scattered by the shoreline, or be hidden away under shifting sands. Perhaps someday, the tides of life will reclaim them. Or maybe that's just a bunch of poetic, romantic nonsense. After all, this is just a blog. |
| Do you ever look at your Facebook memories? That page where Facebook shows you what you were doing or thinking on this date through the years? Are you ever surprised? I am often taken aback by my own status updates. Some seem to be from a wittier me, some from a more caustic me and others are just the obligatory reporting of what I cooked or ate that day. Now and again, my memory is missing. It’s not enough, apparently, that I forget my own memories, Facebook is actually forgetting some for me. I haven’t removed posts or links or content, which means Facebook did. I assume this is back before Zuckerberg got scared and revealed that the government told him what to censor. Before they admitted that they didn’t just censor what they deemed to be “disinformation” or “misinformation” but also “malinformation” - that is, information that is factual and true but they don’t want you to mention it. Apparently, he’s changed his ways. Right. Not too long ago, someone on WDC asked if anyone was afraid to post on social media? No, I am not worried about what I write. I am more worried about the posts they won’t let you read. I want my memories back. |
This song is bound to become THE wedding song of the year. It touts traditional fidelity and optimism about the married state. The line about not being afraid to say “I do” is going to be very popular with about-to-be brides as they plan the music for the big day. Of course, the culture has told us for years that men fear marriage, but I am not sure that is true. After all, for every woman who marries a man, there’s a man willingly marrying a woman. The title “Carry You Home” and the sentiment behind it says everything about a relationship. “I will carry you home”. Home becomes where you are together. Home is now a place you find in your partner. Home is in your love's eyes. Home is the way your hand reaches for your spouse’s hand in the middle of the night for that brief moment when you both wake slightly, then finding comfort in each other’s presence, fall back into a secure rest. There’s one line in this song though that says more than all the others. “I choose us every time”. There are lots of people and influences that can divide loyalties in a marriage - parents, kids, culture, careers - but the successful couples put the marriage first. It’s going to sound really unreasonable in this age of self-love, self-sufficiency and selfies, but it means preferring your spouse above everything, including yourself. I hear you say “Wait a minute! What about my needs? “. Here’s the crazy thing - if both partners are putting the best interests of the other person above their own in love and honor and respect, then both partners have a strong ally and all their needs met. Choose each other, every time. |
| I find it very disappointing each day when I gulp down a cup of black coffee so I may bring my consciousness into focus, only to realize that the world has gone mad and a clearer understanding of this is not going to improve my morning. Time for a second cup, I discovered this morning that Agatha Christie was my sixth cousin. I really had no idea. We share a fifth great grandmother. I remember when I bought my very first Agatha Christie book. I got a couple of them at a church rummage sale. One of them was "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd". I am not sure how old I was, probably eleven or twelve, that kind of age (I now imagine David Mitchell quipping “a numerical age,that kind, rather than iron or bronze”). I had read all the books on our shelves at home and was thrilled to discover some new characters that I could obsess over. At that time I was more of a Miss Marple fan and I didn't really like the fussy little Belgian detective. But in later years, David Suchet changed my mind about him with his brilliant portrayal in the television series "Poirot". I am a bit picky about my choice of Jane Marple portrayals, and though I love both Julia McKenzie and Geraldine McEwan, I am most definitely a Joan Hickson’s Marple fan. She’s so right for the part in every way. Besides, I really dislike the updating that is done on the stories to make all the situations and characters seem more modern. I want the stories just as Christie wrote them. When you’re dead, they’re likely to do anything to your writing and you can't stop them. Thank goodness, I am in no danger of being published. Well, that’s enough blog for today. |
| On This Day in History On March 3, 1931, President Herbert Hoover signed the congressional act that made The Star Spangled Banner the official national anthem of the United States of America. Since then it’s been the cause of many a case of vocal strain, laryngitis, earache and broken glass. All kidding aside, I love The Star Spangled Banner. I tear up whenever it is played and sing along. Considering I have absolutely no revolutionary patriots in my ancestry - only loyalists - and my parents were Canadian and Canadian-adjacent, I am a staunchly patriotic American citizen. Worse than that, I am proud of it and resist efforts to shame me for it. Oh yes, I do love The Star Spangled Banner. It makes me wish I had more of a vocal range, but perhaps it wouldn't be so special and meaningful if I didn't have to put in an effort to sing it. It's a sacrifice that I and those within earshot of me make for our country. |
| Way back in the early eighties (the 1980s for those who didn't come about until the 21st century) I worked in a small room that adjoined a larger room. The large room was filled with industrial-sized laundry machines. There was spinning and swishing and running water, occasionally punctuated by the shout of "bag coming!" followed by the thud of a large sack of soiled laundry landing in the bottom of a huge plastic bin. The walls of the small room were lined with metal shelving that held stacks of linen. The small room also had a table and a chair, and a boom box. A boom box was a portable radio/cassette player with decently-sized speakers. And in those days, one turned on the radio, tuned into a station and listened to whatever music they played because it was really too much trouble to change the station to find a better song if one didn't care for the current selection. Do they do that anymore? It was a matter of finding the radio station you found least objectionable and letting it play. In this way, I became familar with many songs from many artists even without buying one album (buying individual songs was pretty much phased out by the advent of cassette tapes and the fading away of 45 vinyl records). In this way I became familiar with U2 and many of their songs, this one included. Even though we had MTV at that time - and they still played music videos back then- I had never seen this video for New Year's Day. I was always vaguely aware that much of U2's music was political but I didn't always subscribe to their political opinions. This was different, because it referenced the worker's struggle in Poland led by Lech Walesa. Who couldn't get behind that? But still, the song played on the radio all the time and I barely noticed, The words went in my ears and were memorized by my brain without any attempt to assign great meaning to them. I was working, I was young. Music was background noise meant to preserve my sanity. Listening to this song again reminds me that music doesn't have to be about drugs and sex or be written to appeal to the most base aspects of human nature. Over the years, many artists have tried to raise political awareness through their lyrics. Before U2 we had Bob Dylan. Now there are songwriters like Oliver Anthony. I won't try to name all the artists who used music to express the populist political opinion, every generation has them. And that's how it should be. There have to be dissident voices and expression in art. Not all may agree with the views expressed, but that's the beauty of free thought and free speech. We learn from each other, we learn from history, we learn from those who disagree with us. We might even learn from the music. |
| Honestly, I love Christmas commercialism. I have always loved stores that put up too many decorations and lights, have too many sales and specials that push us to buy things for people we don't even like just because that's the perfect gift for that person. Holiday sales are a huge chunk of the annual profit for most retailers, so they need the hyped holiday rush to stay in business. I mostly shop online these days, which makes me nostalgic for the magical delights of the mall at Christmas. It's tradition -even if it's gaudy and tacky and covered in tinsel. I want to hear non-stop Christmas music. I want to watch cheesy Christmas movies. I want Christmas to be big and loud and in my face. I also want the peace of watching a softly falling snow and the twinkling of my tree lights reflected on the window while I reflect on Christmases past and try not to project into Christmases yet to come. It's a time of year when people want to be, and strive to be a better version of themselves. Peace on Earth, Goodwill towards men. We ought to try that approach sometime. |
| I bought the worst coffee in the world. I didn’t realize it was the worst at first because it was mixed up in the coffee can with some of the old coffee and that helped take the edge off it, I guess. Or maybe my sinuses were congested and I couldn’t smell it. It smells like road tar under a hot, summer sun. It doesn’t taste much better. I think it’s made from wet leaves, mud and something they scraped off the floor at an oil refinery, I tried adding salt to the grounds. Okay, it’s slightly less bitter road tar. I can’t throw away coffee. That would hurt me on a spiritual level. Maybe I will freeze it for use when I really need it and will be glad of any kind of coffee. Some more dire time, like after the apocalypse. For this morning anyway, I am drinking it because it’s coffee. And bad coffee is better than no coffee. And I won’t say which coffee it is. Coffee, after all, is a personal taste. Besides, they sue people for Yelp reviews these days. Opinions will one day be totally outlawed because they offend people. Then you’ll all have to drink this nasty coffee and you won’t be allowed to complain. |
| I really like WDC as a site for writers and their writing. I really don’t like it as a political forum. That is not to say that I never wrote anything with political undertones or even overtones - probably way overtoned but completely missed by those who are of a different political opinion because even my overtones are really subtle and they can’t imagine anyone thinks THAT way and not THEIR way. And that’s all I have to say. I might occasionally write something that references generally accepted themes of freedom and human dignity, but I'm not going to fight with you. For one thing, I don’t know you well enough to worry about convincing you of anything and you don’t hold enough sway with me to convince me of anything. Discussion of issues is important but there’s not much of that going on, or at least, not much of any real substance. There are really excellent forums for that kind of thing. But I like WDC as a forum for writers. So, write something. Just my opinion. |
| The media prompt this month has reminded me of our family's brief stint as caretakers of a garden snail. I know very little about disco snails (other than what they told me in the song) but some deep diving into the care and feeding of snails makes me very glad that we didn't keep one for long. Did you know that snails are hermaphrodites and can reproduce without a mate, laying dozens to hundreds of eggs at one time? *shiver* Anyway, here's my snail poem: Snails are everywhere they say though I never saw one, till I moved away Away is a somewhere, though it closer be to the ocean, what some might call the sea It was there The Boy found a snail on the siding Was it slithering up? perhaps downward sliding? I said “I think it is just enjoying the view” “Whatever”, The Boy said, and launched a rescue It didn't matter that it was slimy and wet The Boy vowed it would make a fine pet Until, while in The Boy’s hand it did linger And left a trail of poop on his finger. |
| Poetry is not just a matter of finding words that rhyme, Even though it is oft believed that free verse is a crime. Yet these classical-minded poets say nothing beyond mere speech. Ordinary words in cliched rhymes While against free verse they preach. Must I endure a thousand lines of love and dove and moon? Tired emotional playthings they shove at you and swoon. All great poets are dead, I think Those who held power in their quills. All poetry lies between their lines Never in these modern shills. Still they persist in rhyming schemes from dawn to setting sun. Instead of rare, poets everywhere And yet in truth, there are none. |
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