Month: August 2011

Compass

An early birthday present from my sister.  A compass necklace, inscribed on the back with a quote from Whitman (her middle name, as well as my son’s): “Now voyager, sail thou forth to seek and find.”

I love this necklace for so many reasons.  Because she and I went to the four corners of the earth together before we turned 10.  Because I’ve often mused about the meaning of compasses in parenting.  Because I have asserted that from now on I am going to navigate by the stars (in which effort I believe a compass is essential).

Thank you, thank you, thank you, dear HWM.  I love you.  xox

Blue sky

July 31st sky at midday.  I think the whole world, all of life, is contained in this sky.

Living and dying at once

Years ago I came to the realization that the most poignant of all lyric tensions stems from the awareness that we are living and dying at once.  To embrace such knowledge and yet to remain compassionate and whole – that is the consummation of the endeavor of art.

– Stanley Kunitz
Reflections, introduction to The Collected Poems

I know I said I wasn’t blogging this month.  But I am reading, and writing in other places, and this paragraph simply took my breath away with the exactness with which it conveys the most important impulse and emotion in my heart.  I had to share it.

August break

I’m hopping on Susanna Conway‘s delightful August Break bandwagon … for the month of August I’m going to post a picture a day, and take it easy on the words.  If moved, I’ll write words, and may well share quotes, but I need this break and am sure you can relate!  Please join us – click over here, learn more and add your name.

Have a wonderful August.  I’m definitely nervous that nobody will come back here in the fall, but I hope you will return on September 1st.  I will have had my birthday and hopefully I’ll be through this period of intense rain.  I’ll have been to Legoland and to Lake Champlain and be in the midst of preparing my new 1st and 3rd graders for school.

See you soon, I hope!