Bringing into Focus

Photos...worth more words than I can muster with just a few sips of coffee.  I found this collection by Bryan Schutmaat incredibly moving.  I hope you'll check it out:

Grays the Mountains Send

List it Off

Just a reminder that you have a few very short days for the following:

• Finish The Double Bind by Chris Bohjalian for GBC Book Club
• Determine if you have space and/or the emotional capacity to attempt to brine a turkey
• Squeeze five days of work into three
• Make progress on your "Swim the English Channel" competition
• Co-organize a relay
• Clean the house
• Catch up on all your overdue personal correspondence
• Determine what you want to accomplish the last 45(ish) days of the year
• Breathe
• Remind your multi-championship winning co-workers that your alma mater is undefeated (okay, that might just be me)

Hope you've had a delightful weekend and that you're continually reminded (like I am) of the many things for which to be thankful and in which you find joy.

Words Will Wait

I hope you will forgive the poetry twice in one week.  Today's a funeral day for a member of my team and this section from Kevin Young's Eulogy (Poets.org) helped me find a few words.

*

Do not weep
but once, and a long

time then
Thereafter eat till

your stomach spills over
No more! you'll cry

too full for your eyes
to leak

*

The words will wait

Up to the Sky...

I need to pack at some point in the near future.  With this self-acknowledgement, I've noticed that I have become one of "those" who still have unopened boxes from the last move.  Some are this way because I have been in a smaller space and I have too many kitchen items.  One box is still taped because I haven't had the heart to face the memories.  Maybe I'll visit it the move after this one.

Maybe.

In the winding down period before the winding up, I feel the chaos and this Al Kennedy piece felt at times as though he stepped inside my own head to find his words.  In "The Chaos of Writing:  Still hitting the keyboard after all these years," he notes, "Almost half my life has passed before my eyes. It was dusty. And creased."  He's moving as well and has had to deal with the emotional side of packing that creeps in beside the practical.  You're in the midst of a box, and stop short to look at a photo, listen to a CD, pause to remember, sometimes to cry.  What to keep?  What to rid?  How in the world did I end up with so many [insert slightly embarrassing admission here]?  Endings and beginnings swirled up in cardboard and whatever adhesive you happen to find.  Holding it together is always the hardest part.

Kennedy says, "Onwards".  Come what may, always, ever, and back again.

Not Chasing Cars

I can change a tire on a bike.
Nearly though ran over a tike.
Exhausted body but mind still races.
Grateful today for the quiet places.  

Up in Arms

Rosie
July 2012

This Friday photo inspired by my intense need for caffeine this morning after a very full work week.

Now if I could just finish a Rube Goldberg device to re-fill it...

For A & N

Despite sunny weather, it was a gray weekend.  I seem to pair loss with poetry so today's start is taken from the Poetry Foundation.

Leaves Fell
    - Juhan Liiv 

A gust roused the waves,
leaves blew into the water,
the waves were ash-gray,
the sky tin-gray,
ash-gray the autumn.

It was good for my heart:
there my feelings were ash-gray,
the sky tin-gray,
ash-gray the autumn.

The breath of wind brought cooler air,
the waves of mourning brought separation:
autumn and autumn
befriend each other.

Taken from Leaves Fell by Juhan Liiv : Poetry Magazine

Catching Shut-Eye

My mistake last night was in thinking I would arrive at a "good" place to stop reading.  An hour and a half later, I had to force myself to power off the Kindle so I could have some rest before early morning spin class.  The culprit?  Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins (book 2 of the Hunger Games trilogy).  Rest assured I will have my fair share of espresso today once the endorphins wear down.

In this reading quest, I am also trying out Amazon Prime and the Lending Library.  The upside to the service: streaming Dr. Who.  The downside:  one book borrow limit per month.  If anyone has an opinion on Prime, let me know.  I am on day two of the free trial.

It's All Relative

I have the literary equivalent to chaos theory beside my bed with the morning thought that there could be a little topological mixing. [Apologies. With strong coffee and without an editor, I am afraid that sometimes you are left with geeky blog openers.]

I have been surfing through The Lexicographer's Dilemma jumping to The Power of Babel with a side of various Kindle books. Last night I added Deepak Chopra to the mix. The common thread seems to be a one to many relationship. [A database reference before seven? I may need less coffee.] One course of language evolved to a number of others. A plenitude of words and manners of communication evolved into a few formal rules for grammar. The love of self translates to love in or for a group.

The moral [other than stay away from the morning math]? Things can be more related that they first appear, and sometimes you can find a solution in an unlikely source.

Dream Weaver

"You are never given a dream without also being given the power to make it true. You may have to work for it, however."

- Richard Bach

taken from Active Dreaming by Robert Moss

The above quote for anyone else who had vivid dreams last night and went early to the gym to try to spin them out. Have a great Monday.

Play Stop Rewind

For some time, I have been anxiously awaiting the electronic release of History of Love by Nicole Krauss. A few days ago patience was rewarded and I downloaded the book for reading. As I moved through the first few pages, I paused. This story sounded familiar. How many characters named Leo Gursky could I have possibly known? Not many. Nevertheless, I pressed on. As Leo unlocked the door in the rain, my mind's door unlocked and I became more convinced that I have read this novel however I could not (and cannot) remember the ending.

So, being the organized nerd, I consulted my spreadsheet of book titles and searched this blog. Not only had I read it last spring, but I wrote about it, yet still have no memory of the story. My conclusions are that I'm either turning the corner toward old-age forgetfulness or that I am meant to reread this work. There is of course the third possibility that the book really was not memorable but I'm giving Ms. Krauss and GBC P@1ge (avid book supporter) the benefit of the doubt that this is not the case.

Re-reading any books this year?

I Wish It Were a Sunday

There are days when you wake up and it feels like a Monday and you think, "wow, it's Monday" (because you are brilliant). There are days when you try to be optimistic and small inconsequential things happen in sequence which push you over the ledge to having perhaps one too many glasses of reading water in the evening. On this given Monday, you may also have been described as "grumpy" by anyone really willing to get near you and be honest with you. As the day winds down, you find a moment of quiet reflection, you read your email, and discover that one of your favorite GBC members has sent you a link to a mobile which she thinks you will love, and you in fact, do. So, you shed a briny tear because you are an emotional creature, and you remember that Mondays pass.

June Moons

Through the kindness of strangers/near strangers:

• I have internet access until mine is activated (shh)
• I received a bouquet of flowers
• I have received tips on which side of the road has fewer potholes
• I have been given short-cut maps
• All manner of questions have been patiently answered

My list of things from the kindness of friends would be miles long. Thank you.

The (dis)Orient Express

A meandering morning path fueled with caffeine from the DrinkHaus can sometimes inspire a post, but of course, Kate already knows this. GBC Paige and I were discussing “disoriented versus disorientated” and it became a mission this morning to learn which usage was correct. This was partly inspired from listening to the interview with Gillian Tett discussing Fool’s Gold last night on “Fresh Air” and the English tendency to disorientate.

Immediately upon arriving home, I sought my Oxford English Dictionary only to remind myself that I received the French version from the separation of assets. (Cue Tammy Wynette.) Quand même, the English portion of this dictionary gives us “disorient = disorientate” with the entry just below that stating that the verb tense in French would be “désorienter.” So then, on to the magical world of the Google search engine. The results seem to indicate that the use of “disoriented” is a North American phenomenon while Dictionary.com gives us three meanings suggesting a standard usage. The Urban Dictionary still poses yet another view.

So now, I am leaning toward "disorientated" and wonder if I can manage using it with a straight face in Nashville.