On the morning after next, Bern and I will drive Bela to the kennel and then go to New Haven where we'll meet John Anderson and Sherry Ellis and start driving toward Oak Island, North Carolina. We take two days down and two days back. On Saturday afternoon, Mimi and Tim will arrive in the car they rented in Raleigh after flying from NYC. Then will come, arguably, my favorite 7 days of the year. With those folks in a beach front house on an island off the coast of Southport, NC. Some of my favorite people in the whole world, together for a whole week, on a beach, with nothing we 'need' to do or 'have' to do. Just being together with salt and sea and sand and pelicans and lots of good food.
I think I've told you Bern and I went to Oak Island for the first time in either 1975 or 76. And we went every year for about 20 years after that until our children rebelled that it was 'too boring'. But we've gone back, thanks to Mimi and Tim, who re-discovered it 5 years ago. Mimi, Tim, John, Bern and I are constant. This is Sherry's third year. We're staying in a house named The Andromeda Strain--for some reason.
It will be wondrous and good. It will be hot during the day--and if the air is 87, the ocean will be 85--the Gulf Stream runs around Oak Island. And it will be cooler at night and the sky will be amazing, even with the ambient light from Southport off to the left. you can see the Milky Way, which you can't see in Cheshire.
And these wondrous people will read and be quiet most of the time, and cook incredible meals and we will drink wine and sleep deeply and wake each morning to be present to 'family', though John and Sherry and Tim aren't really blood.
The only thing missing will be the other 6 people who are my family: Josh and Cathy and the three granddaughters--Emma, Morgan and Tegan--and Jack Ellis, Sherry's husband, who has to work and can't come to Oak Island.
That makes, finally 12 people, exactly the only 12 people Bela, our Puli, loves. But Bela can't come to the beach since he travels badly and barks most of the time he's in a car. For a two day trip both ways, that would get real old, real fast.
But that's where we'll be. I'll try to use someone's laptop to add to Under the Castor Oil Tree if I can. But if I'm not here for 10 days or so, know this, I am with people I love profoundly in a place I've loved for much of my life and we are eating well. And being happy just to be in the same space, whether we talk or not.
Perfect vacation is what I call that....
Wednesday, August 21, 2013
Tuesday, August 20, 2013
I saw you standing alone....
I just went out to look at it--the 'blue moon'. A tad disappointing, not blue at all. But it is a deal of some significance.
A 'blue moon', in case you wondered, is the third full moon during a season. Most seasons (winter, spring, etc.) have only three new moons. Why it is the third of four and not the fourth, I can't tell you. I never said I was an expert in moons.
When it happens in August it has lots of other names--some from Native Americans and some from ancient cultures elsewhere. A blue moon during the harvest is a big time deal apparently.
But the thing is this: it isn't 'blue' at all.
A 'blue moon', in case you wondered, is the third full moon during a season. Most seasons (winter, spring, etc.) have only three new moons. Why it is the third of four and not the fourth, I can't tell you. I never said I was an expert in moons.
When it happens in August it has lots of other names--some from Native Americans and some from ancient cultures elsewhere. A blue moon during the harvest is a big time deal apparently.
But the thing is this: it isn't 'blue' at all.
Monday, August 19, 2013
Dr. Dolittle and me
It just occurred to me today that since I retired I talk to animals more than anyone than Bern--and perhaps even more than I talk to her. We've been married 43 years come September 5th and have know each other since 1964--that's 49 years, so we can communicate without words much of the time.
Someone once asked me--7 or 8 years ago, when I was still Rector of St. John's in Waterbury, 'what I did." And when I thought about it I realized 'what I did' was "walk around and talk a lot".
I talked to dozens, sometimes hundreds of people a day. That was 'what I did'--I talked to parishioners and folks in the soup kitchen and folks there for 12 step groups and folks passing through and folks using the building and folks inside the building and folks on the street. What I DID was walk around and talk a lot.
Since I retired, I don't talk to people that much. I seldom get calls. I call Bea at the Cluster office a couple of times a week, I talk (not enough) to Josh and Mimi, our children, I talk to clerks in the stores and my clergy group on Tuesday morning and to people at church on Sundays. And to Bern.
But mostly I talk to Bela and Luke and Maggie, our dog, cat and parakeet. I talk to them from the time I get up until I go to bed. They are all good listeners, being creatures. And I mostly praise them for being 'good dog' or 'good cat' or 'good bird'. Maggie used to fly away when I talked to her and cling to the far side of her cage. But now I talk to her and even when she's eating, she doesn't fly away. Granted, most of what I say to her has to do with her singing--which she does constantly and sometimes at such a pitch it is painful to human ears--and about the music she listens to on the public radio station from Sacred Heart University that mostly plays classical music and on weekends modern music. The radio in the kitchen is beside Maggie's cage and always on from when Bern or I get up until the last one of us goes to bed. Maggie loves classical music and I must say. since we tuned into WSHU instead of WNPR (though I still listen to that in my car) the music rather than a day full of talk and news, has made us all calmer and more content. I thank Maggie for that.
My monologues with Bela and Luke go on all day. I tell them things about themselves (Good cat, big boy, buddy, best friend) and about what to do (eat your breakfast/lunch, let's go out, go to the 'big bed', go upstairs, find the woman....stuff like that). And often I simply ponder things with them about politics, philosophy and religion.
They're good listeners. It's a joy to talk with them and I do it all day.
I'm about to go ask Bela if he wants to go pee--which he does, I already know--but it seems polite and right to ask him. And when he does I'll tell him what a big boy he is and when we come back in I'll ask him if he'd like a treat (why ask? But I do and give him one) and not much later, since it's 10:40 p.m., I'll suggest we 'go upstairs' to the 'big bed', and we will. Then I'll talk to him a bit more and kiss Bern good-night if she's still awake or just touch her softly if she's already asleep and Bela and I will settle down for a good night's sleep. I'll even tell him 'good night', though it's probably not necessary.
Talking to creatures is much of my life. And I love that....
Someone once asked me--7 or 8 years ago, when I was still Rector of St. John's in Waterbury, 'what I did." And when I thought about it I realized 'what I did' was "walk around and talk a lot".
I talked to dozens, sometimes hundreds of people a day. That was 'what I did'--I talked to parishioners and folks in the soup kitchen and folks there for 12 step groups and folks passing through and folks using the building and folks inside the building and folks on the street. What I DID was walk around and talk a lot.
Since I retired, I don't talk to people that much. I seldom get calls. I call Bea at the Cluster office a couple of times a week, I talk (not enough) to Josh and Mimi, our children, I talk to clerks in the stores and my clergy group on Tuesday morning and to people at church on Sundays. And to Bern.
But mostly I talk to Bela and Luke and Maggie, our dog, cat and parakeet. I talk to them from the time I get up until I go to bed. They are all good listeners, being creatures. And I mostly praise them for being 'good dog' or 'good cat' or 'good bird'. Maggie used to fly away when I talked to her and cling to the far side of her cage. But now I talk to her and even when she's eating, she doesn't fly away. Granted, most of what I say to her has to do with her singing--which she does constantly and sometimes at such a pitch it is painful to human ears--and about the music she listens to on the public radio station from Sacred Heart University that mostly plays classical music and on weekends modern music. The radio in the kitchen is beside Maggie's cage and always on from when Bern or I get up until the last one of us goes to bed. Maggie loves classical music and I must say. since we tuned into WSHU instead of WNPR (though I still listen to that in my car) the music rather than a day full of talk and news, has made us all calmer and more content. I thank Maggie for that.
My monologues with Bela and Luke go on all day. I tell them things about themselves (Good cat, big boy, buddy, best friend) and about what to do (eat your breakfast/lunch, let's go out, go to the 'big bed', go upstairs, find the woman....stuff like that). And often I simply ponder things with them about politics, philosophy and religion.
They're good listeners. It's a joy to talk with them and I do it all day.
I'm about to go ask Bela if he wants to go pee--which he does, I already know--but it seems polite and right to ask him. And when he does I'll tell him what a big boy he is and when we come back in I'll ask him if he'd like a treat (why ask? But I do and give him one) and not much later, since it's 10:40 p.m., I'll suggest we 'go upstairs' to the 'big bed', and we will. Then I'll talk to him a bit more and kiss Bern good-night if she's still awake or just touch her softly if she's already asleep and Bela and I will settle down for a good night's sleep. I'll even tell him 'good night', though it's probably not necessary.
Talking to creatures is much of my life. And I love that....
Dumb phones
I had a dumb phone until Saturday. All you could do on it was receive calls and make them. (Though I did get a text message from time to time which I had no idea how to return....) Then I tripped over my own feet and it fell out of my pocket and broke in two. The keys still worked but the screen was dead.
My phone company is Consumer Cellular--which I found in an AARP ad. I'm not sure if anyone under 50 can have Consumer Cellular. But maybe.
I went on line and discovered that Sears carried Consumer Cellular phones so I wouldn't have to have one shipped to me. Since we're leaving Friday for North Carolina, that's an important thing. On Sunday, after church, I went to Sears in Waterbury's mall. I asked two employees about Consumer Cellular and got blank stares. But the third person told me to go to 'electronics' and I did and there were all these Consumer Cellular phones. Apparently you have to have one of their phones to use their service.
So I bought the cheapest of them all--$39.95--plus $5.25 for a two year plan if I break it...which I do a lot...that would give me a new phone for free.
I got it home and charged it Sunday night--at least 6 hours, the book said. And this morning got it activated and got my phone number transferred to this new phone. The woman, India was her name, did all that by typing on a computer. I asked her if she understood how that happened and she, honestly, admitted she had no idea whatsoever...she just hit the keys and my new phone came to life and now contained my voice message from the old phone and I could use it right away.
Here's the problem: how can a phone that costs only $40 have a camera and internet access? Ridiculous. But apparently my phone does. So I now am obligated to learn how to use those two things which I never wanted, not ever.
I didn't think there was a camera or an internet device that cost only $40. Now I have both and a new not-so-dumb phone. It's not a 'smart phone' by any degree since I can't get 'aps' whatever the hell they are. It's sort of an 'average' phone I guess. But it isn't dumb. Which is what I wanted.
Oh my God, a camera and internet on my phone!!!
I've obviously lived too long....
My phone company is Consumer Cellular--which I found in an AARP ad. I'm not sure if anyone under 50 can have Consumer Cellular. But maybe.
I went on line and discovered that Sears carried Consumer Cellular phones so I wouldn't have to have one shipped to me. Since we're leaving Friday for North Carolina, that's an important thing. On Sunday, after church, I went to Sears in Waterbury's mall. I asked two employees about Consumer Cellular and got blank stares. But the third person told me to go to 'electronics' and I did and there were all these Consumer Cellular phones. Apparently you have to have one of their phones to use their service.
So I bought the cheapest of them all--$39.95--plus $5.25 for a two year plan if I break it...which I do a lot...that would give me a new phone for free.
I got it home and charged it Sunday night--at least 6 hours, the book said. And this morning got it activated and got my phone number transferred to this new phone. The woman, India was her name, did all that by typing on a computer. I asked her if she understood how that happened and she, honestly, admitted she had no idea whatsoever...she just hit the keys and my new phone came to life and now contained my voice message from the old phone and I could use it right away.
Here's the problem: how can a phone that costs only $40 have a camera and internet access? Ridiculous. But apparently my phone does. So I now am obligated to learn how to use those two things which I never wanted, not ever.
I didn't think there was a camera or an internet device that cost only $40. Now I have both and a new not-so-dumb phone. It's not a 'smart phone' by any degree since I can't get 'aps' whatever the hell they are. It's sort of an 'average' phone I guess. But it isn't dumb. Which is what I wanted.
Oh my God, a camera and internet on my phone!!!
I've obviously lived too long....
Sunday, August 18, 2013
Something Silent, something sweet...
GW and Eleanor were part of my life for only two years. Members of St. James in Higganum and part of the Transfiguration community that is part of the Cluster of three churches, I came to know them well. And now they are moving to Costa Rica for the interim, forever.
So, I wrote them a poem that I think captures our relationship...and several relationships I have had. The touching of 'souls', not people so much.
So, I wrote them a poem that I think captures our relationship...and several relationships I have had. The touching of 'souls', not people so much.
Something
silent, something sweet
When
souls meet, something silent passes by.
Not
like when 'people' meet.
People
ask questions,
seek
to find connections,
disagree,
fall
in love,
battle
with each other,
reunite
or part in anger and regret.
When
souls meet, none of that matters.
When
souls meet, something silent passes by
and
they travel together—side by side--
or
one behind the other, or the other way around--
until
they part.
And
when souls part, something sweet passes by.
Gratitude,
people might call it,
or
even Joy.
But
it is sweet to travel on
apart.
Silence
and sweetness:
what
could be better?
What
could be more right?
JGB/8-16-2013
Friday, August 16, 2013
This gentle weather
I once wrote two very bad lines of an equally bad poem that went like this:
"When comes a misplac'ed Spring afternoon
on such a Winter's day, so out of tune...."
Mercifully, I've forgotten the rest of the poem though it may be lurking to haunt me in the boxes full of long ago written things I've not gone through for decades.
It's the (') to insure your pronounce it mis-place-ED rather that 'misplaced' that makes the line so regrettable.
I had a bishop once who always began the service in ordinary time with, "Blessed be God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit."
I've always said that "Bless-ED" be God and so forth.
I've always thought that God should be 'Bless-ED' rather than merely 'blessed'. I've always thought that 'blessed' was an adjective about God rather than a verb about God.
Which brings me to the gentle weather we've had for a couple of weeks now in Connecticut. After a record-breaking heat wave in July, August has been gentle and warm and even cool at night. We haven't turned on an air-conditioner or even a fan for over a week.
We have been 'blessed' by such weather. But the weather itself, I would suggest, has been 'bless-ED'. "So out of tune with the expected heat..." I still think in iambic pentameter.
But the recent August weather has been both unexpected and bless-ED.
I stand by that pronunciation though 'misplace-ED' is a mistake....
Sleep well this wondrous cool night....
"When comes a misplac'ed Spring afternoon
on such a Winter's day, so out of tune...."
Mercifully, I've forgotten the rest of the poem though it may be lurking to haunt me in the boxes full of long ago written things I've not gone through for decades.
It's the (') to insure your pronounce it mis-place-ED rather that 'misplaced' that makes the line so regrettable.
I had a bishop once who always began the service in ordinary time with, "Blessed be God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit."
I've always said that "Bless-ED" be God and so forth.
I've always thought that God should be 'Bless-ED' rather than merely 'blessed'. I've always thought that 'blessed' was an adjective about God rather than a verb about God.
Which brings me to the gentle weather we've had for a couple of weeks now in Connecticut. After a record-breaking heat wave in July, August has been gentle and warm and even cool at night. We haven't turned on an air-conditioner or even a fan for over a week.
We have been 'blessed' by such weather. But the weather itself, I would suggest, has been 'bless-ED'. "So out of tune with the expected heat..." I still think in iambic pentameter.
But the recent August weather has been both unexpected and bless-ED.
I stand by that pronunciation though 'misplace-ED' is a mistake....
Sleep well this wondrous cool night....
Wednesday, August 14, 2013
Threes...
"Good things come in threes," Lina Manona Sadler Jones, my grandmother, used to say.
...Well, actually what she used to say was "deaths come in threes..." Not quite so optimistic.
But there is the Trinity, after all, to hint that threes are a good thing.
So, in the past month, I've seen 3 of the funniest movies I've ever seen and read three of the best novels I've ever read.
I don't do reviews here, but I do want to share my bounty with you.
Movies: The Heat (course, I've always loved Sandra Bullock); Red 2 (which has a cast you could only dream of and is the only 'comic book' movie that was really like a comic book) and RIPD (panned by most critics and already pretty much out of theatres but I've always loved Jeff Bridges and I thought it was hilarious, with some hysterical special effects). An unusual 'buddy' movie, a strange 'action' movie and an unconventional 'sci-fi' movie. I'd see any of them a couple of more times.
Books: three times in a month I've had to rearrange my Top 10 novels of all time.
The Hunger Angel by German writer, Herta Muller (the u needs one of those two dot diacritical marks over it that my keyboard cannot make). It is a troubling read, about a ethnic German living in Romania who is sent to a forced labor camp after WW II. While I was reading it, I heard an interview with a historian who has written a book about all the removals and displacements that took place in Europe after the second World War, which made the story even more moving and troubling. A hard read but well worth it (I think I read at least two murder mysteries, my genre of choice, while slogging through The Hunger Angel, but the slog was well worth it.
The Uninvited by Liz Jenson, a British novelist. It is also disturbing but compelling. It is a distopian novel that you never saw coming. The most troubling total eclipse of 'life as we know it' I've ever read. Beautifully written. The narrator has Asbergerer's Syndrome and besides being a fascinating 'teller of the tale' helped me finally have some rational understanding of that disorder. Don't read this to you young children.
Life after Life by Kate Atkinson, who is one of my favorite mystery writers (Case Histories--now a made-for-TV movie and Left Early, Took my Dog, which I just read again after Life after Life reminded me how good she is. LaL, if I might abbreviate (and why not?) is, if I can spell it, one of the tour de forces of modern literature. I wouldn't dare spoil it for you by telling you anything about what it is about. But it is about something I've never (and I bet you've never) imagined. But once the author makes you imagine it, you can't stop imagining it. The main character, Ursala, "little bear", her father calls her, is the recipient of 'life' after 'life'. 'Nough said.
Atkinson writes the best dialog (and inner dialog) I've ever read. Anywhere. And this story is haunting and lovely and in ways I can't (and couldn't!) explain, so life affirming and hopeful and breathtakingly wondrous that this novel is now up there edging even Moby Dick and The Tale of Two Cities at the top, the very top, of novels I've read.
I'll read it again in a month or so--if I can get on the 'hold list' at the Cheshire Library.
All three are wondrous and making havoc in my Top Ten Of All Time--but Life after Life is something beyond explaining....
...Well, actually what she used to say was "deaths come in threes..." Not quite so optimistic.
But there is the Trinity, after all, to hint that threes are a good thing.
So, in the past month, I've seen 3 of the funniest movies I've ever seen and read three of the best novels I've ever read.
I don't do reviews here, but I do want to share my bounty with you.
Movies: The Heat (course, I've always loved Sandra Bullock); Red 2 (which has a cast you could only dream of and is the only 'comic book' movie that was really like a comic book) and RIPD (panned by most critics and already pretty much out of theatres but I've always loved Jeff Bridges and I thought it was hilarious, with some hysterical special effects). An unusual 'buddy' movie, a strange 'action' movie and an unconventional 'sci-fi' movie. I'd see any of them a couple of more times.
Books: three times in a month I've had to rearrange my Top 10 novels of all time.
The Hunger Angel by German writer, Herta Muller (the u needs one of those two dot diacritical marks over it that my keyboard cannot make). It is a troubling read, about a ethnic German living in Romania who is sent to a forced labor camp after WW II. While I was reading it, I heard an interview with a historian who has written a book about all the removals and displacements that took place in Europe after the second World War, which made the story even more moving and troubling. A hard read but well worth it (I think I read at least two murder mysteries, my genre of choice, while slogging through The Hunger Angel, but the slog was well worth it.
The Uninvited by Liz Jenson, a British novelist. It is also disturbing but compelling. It is a distopian novel that you never saw coming. The most troubling total eclipse of 'life as we know it' I've ever read. Beautifully written. The narrator has Asbergerer's Syndrome and besides being a fascinating 'teller of the tale' helped me finally have some rational understanding of that disorder. Don't read this to you young children.
Life after Life by Kate Atkinson, who is one of my favorite mystery writers (Case Histories--now a made-for-TV movie and Left Early, Took my Dog, which I just read again after Life after Life reminded me how good she is. LaL, if I might abbreviate (and why not?) is, if I can spell it, one of the tour de forces of modern literature. I wouldn't dare spoil it for you by telling you anything about what it is about. But it is about something I've never (and I bet you've never) imagined. But once the author makes you imagine it, you can't stop imagining it. The main character, Ursala, "little bear", her father calls her, is the recipient of 'life' after 'life'. 'Nough said.
Atkinson writes the best dialog (and inner dialog) I've ever read. Anywhere. And this story is haunting and lovely and in ways I can't (and couldn't!) explain, so life affirming and hopeful and breathtakingly wondrous that this novel is now up there edging even Moby Dick and The Tale of Two Cities at the top, the very top, of novels I've read.
I'll read it again in a month or so--if I can get on the 'hold list' at the Cheshire Library.
All three are wondrous and making havoc in my Top Ten Of All Time--but Life after Life is something beyond explaining....
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