Month: June 2007

The parent I want to be floats in and out of my life, and some days it speaks through me, and other days I lunge after it like it’s a shaft of sunlight I want to capture. (Catherine Newman)

Whit at the zoo today. It was a zoo at the zoo – we had Elizabeth Wood with James and Benjamin, Brooke Laughlin with Will, Whitney Sowles with Eiley, Laryn Gardner with Anna, Steph Harvey with Read and Jemma, and Kate Gilbane with Chandler. Grace and Whit had a blast, and everybody fell asleep upon return home.

On the subject of sleep and exhaustion. This morning at Starbucks the guy in front of me ordered a grande dark roast with two shots of expresso in it. I’ve decided that I’m doing fine as long as I am just drinking lattes and diet cokes!

Don’t you worry about me, any of you … am going to shake this day off with a little dress (black), a good-time best friend (Emay, see above), and several stiff cocktails (TBD). More later!

Man I am having a lousy day. It’s one of those days where the ghosts of the past and questions about the future crowd around me, and I feel confused and claustrophobic. I wish I hadn’t run this morning, because that’s probably what I need right now. That or a good nap, but the chances of sleep when my mind is racing like this are slim. We have some big decisions to make as a family, so that’s weighing on me, but more broadly my heart feels heavy today. Unsurprisingly, I am seeking solace in poetry. A few passages and brief extracts that sing to me today:

There Comes the Strangest Moment (Kate Light)

There comes the strangest moment in your life,
when everything you thought before breaks free –
what you relied upon, as ground-rule and as rite
looks upside down from how it used to be.
…
I want – my want. I love – my love. I’ll stay
with you. I thought transitions were the best,
but I want what’s here to never go away.
I’ll make my peace, my bed, and kiss this breast …

Your heart’s in retrograde. You simply have no choice.
Things people told you turn out to be true.
You have to hold that body, hear that voice.
You’ve have sworn no one knew you more than you.

How many people thought you’d never change?
But here you have. It’s beautiful. It’s strange.

The Sunlight on the Garden (Louise MacNeice)

The sunlight on the garden
Hardens and grows cold,
We cannot cage the minute
Within its nets of gold,
When all is told
We cannot beg for pardon.

The Master Speed (Robert Frost) – for you, Hadley &John, Quincy & Dave

No speed of wind or water rushing by
But you have speed far greater. You can climb
Back up a stream of radiance to the sky,
And back through history up the stream of time.
And you were given this swiftness, not for haste
Nor chiefly that you may go where you will,
But in the rush of everything to waste,
That you may have the power of standing still –
Off any still or moving thing you say.
Two such as you with such a master speed
Cannot be parted nor be swept away
From one another once you are agreed
That life is only life forevermore
Together wing to wing and oar to oar.

The Peace of Wild Things (Wendell Berry)

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Wild Geese (Mary Oliver)

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile, the world goes on.

I must have been channeling Princeton when I made my most recent running playlist. I was subsumed with memories this morning. Another beautiful day.
The Tide is High – watching Bouff at arch sings, a group of us giggly and drunken en route to the Street, and then performances of the same song at weddings in the past years
I Would Do Anything For Love – Approaching Lacy’s sophomore year dorm in Butler on a hazy spring day, hearing this song belting out of the open windows
How Bizarre – Dancing wildly with Charlotte late at night at Benito’s house in July 1997 … not sure why she was here or how we wound up there, but the memories are vivid: heels clacking on polished hard wood floors, Benito’s friend with the medallion necklace (immediately, and forevermore, known as Medallion Man).
Escape (Pina Colada Song), River of Dreams – Any number of nights drinking and dancing in Feinberg or the Kitchen Suite with these songs as part of a familiar sound track.
Sister Golden Hair – A tall senior approaching me in the blazing sunshine at lawn parties, freshman year, asking if I needed a band aid after I stubbed my toe dancing to Dean Dollar. Later, at sunset on the roof of Holder Hall, he told me that this song reminded him of me. I’ll also never forget his voicemail the next day: “Hi, Lindsey. Guess who? Wrong.” (This song, and that day, began the first – of a very short list – of true love affairs of my life)
Round of Blues – Kendall, Courtney, Charlotte and I singing and dancing around in our teeny rooms on the fourth floor of the furthest dorm from campus. I remember braids and baseball caps and a whole lot of plaid flannel.