doctoral candidate in rhetoric and scientific and technical communication
Archive for July, 2005
musical interludes
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“Take a music bath once or twice a week for a few seasons, and you will find that it is to the soul what the water bath is to the body.”
~ Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
Lately Carole King has been all over the place. I saw an interview with her on the CBS Sunday Morning program and heard her on NPR’s morning edition.
I didn’t realize how prolific she really has been. I own Tapestry and have always enjoyed singing along to her songs but I didn’t know that some of the other classics of the American song book were written by her and various writing partners.
I was impressed. I was moved.
Her songs have a power to them. They can make you feel something. They can make you smile or cry. They touch the fabric of our lives because they are real.
I wouldn’t have previously listed Carole King as one of my favorite artists. After seeing all of the songs she’s written, though, I’d be hard-pressed to not include her in that list.
You’ve got a friend
When you’re down and troubled
And you need some loving care
And nothing, nothing is going right
Close your eyes and think of me
And soon I will be there
To brighten up even your darkest night
You just call out my name
And you know wherever I am
I’ll come running to see you again
Winter, spring, summer or fall
All you have to do is call
And I’ll be there
You’ve got a friend
If the sky above you
Grows dark and full of clouds
And that old north wind begins to blow
Keep your head together
And call my name out loud
Soon you’ll hear me knocking at your door
You just call out my name
And you know wherever I am
I’ll come running to see you
Winter, spring, summer or fall
All you have to do is call
And I’ll be there
Ain’t it good to know that you’ve got a friend
When people can be so cold
They’ll hurt you, and desert you
And take your soul if you let them
Oh, but don’t you let them
You just call out my name
And you know wherever I am
I’ll come running to see you again
Winter, spring, summer or fall
All you have to do is call
And I’ll be there
You’ve got a friend
back to basics
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Old wood makes me think of the basics: wood stoves, candlelight or kerosene lanterns, horse-drawn wagons, working the land, and going to school a one-room schoolhouse.
My dad grew up like that. He lived in rural Colorado and grew up on a dairy farm. He worked the farm with his parents for most of his childhood.
My grandfather has regaled us with stories of the farm. I think he loved it. He seems to have fond memories of it.
Even the bad things don’t seem so bad.
My grandfather lost a finger while working the farm. He would tell us all kinds of fanciful tales about losing his finger until we were old enough to hear the truth.
They had horses and the horses were kept in pens that had those big metal locking gates. One of the horses was acting up when my grandpa was trying to put it back in the pen. When he went to slam the gate closed, his finger got in the way and was totally severed. His pinky finger.
I can see his hand even today, when I haven’t seen him in a few years. His freckled hand that is so reminiscent of my own. His gold wedding band standing out more distinctly because there is no finger next to it. I can smell his scent…a mix of cologne and that “grandpa” smell that I associate with him.
Old wood. Horses. Scents. Grandpa.
Back to basics.
freedom
06 years ago
by dawn
in just a thought
I’m having one of these days…when I just want to let loose and fly away, fly into the barren stratosphere and soar over the lands.
I want to be unencumbered today. I don’t want to have any responsibilities beyond my beagle and me.
I want to be free.
I don’t want to hear anymore phones ringing. I don’t want to hear anymore complaints. I don’t want to hear how difficult some student’s life is who is totally supported by his or her parents.
They don’t understand responsibilities. They don’t have to work to be able to go to school. They don’t have mortgage payments to worry about.
I long for that freedom.
For just one day.
wine daze
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Wine Daze
Juice of grapes
thick and red.
Vineyards of summer
steaming under a hot sun.
Sonoma
Napa
The words roll off of the tongue
as the rich wine they produce
flows over the palate.
Days full of promise,
cool air flowing from mountains to valleys,
following rows of grape vines
wound around tall stakes.
Culmination:
Dinner
cooling evening air
water flows nearby.
Wine is served.
Aturdida de el Vino
Jugo de uvas,
gruesa y roja.
viñedos del verano
se desfogaba debajo de el sol caliente.
Sonoma
Napa
Las palabras se caen de la lengua
mientras el vino producen
fluà del palate.
DÃas llena de promesa,
aire fresco fluiaba de los montañas a los valles,
siguiente filas de vinos de uvas
liar algo alrededor de estacas altas.
Culminación:
Cena
(poem written and translated by me)
launching a thousand ships
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Christopher Marlowe, in Doctor Faustus, when referring to Helen of Troy, wrote “Was this the face that launch’d a thousand ships And burnt the topless towers of Ilium? Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss.”
Even today I can’t imagine launching one thousand ships into battle.
Can you imagine a sea of ships for as far as the eye can see?
Can you imagine that many ships being ready to go into battle at a moments notice?
I can’t. I’m not sure if I want to.
With the world in the state it is, having that many ships go out would scare me.
It might mean the end of everything as we know it.
Wow. I didn’t want to go there but I did.
I think I’m more than a little sad about all of the bombings in London lately.
And there you have it.
virginia woolf lives here
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A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.
~ virginia woolf ~
This room has a classic feel to me. Someone who cares about detail lives in this room. Someone who pays attention to the aesthetic roams these floors.
virginia woolf lives here.
I know she does.
I can imagine her puttering around. She moves from space to space, anxious to find the *right* spot to settle, to pull herself in and get down to her writing.
She tucks her feet under her as she snuggles into the plush chair. She twirls a stray hair around her finger while the other hand holds a fountain pen, her fingers dark from ink.
She contemplates what she will put down on the page.
But when the self speaks to the self, who is speaking? – the entombed soul, the spirit driven in, in, in to the central catacomb; the self that took the veil and left the world – a coward perhaps, yet somehow beautiful, as it flits with its lantern restlessly up and down the dark corridors.
~ virginia woolf ~
writing in a different way
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In order to continue blogging on a more regular schedule, I’m going to be taking images from other peoples’ streams on flickr and using them for fodder…much like my “found journals” of yesteryear (for those of you who remember those).
I want to push myself creatively as a writer. I’ve been given some new duties in a really wonderful group (utata.org) and part of those duties is to write. I want to make my writing more creative.
I want to take some of the things that I see through my lens and transcribe them through words.
Today’s entry is the precursor to that and not what I will be posting daily. It’s merely an introduction to what will come.
I hope you will enjoy (oh, and if so inclined, click on the image to learn about new photographers!).
giving up the chase
0I haven’t written in a while. I think I’ve been going through some transitions in my life. I’ve been thinking about a lot of things.
When I was having an issue in a relationship, my brother told me that I shouldn’t be chasing men. He said he understood why I did it in the past. He said that he knew I didn’t feel good enough or that I felt I would be alone if I didn’t chase. He told me, though, that now that I’m financially secure, own a home, have a degree, am still relatively young, and am fairly attractive (my words), that I shouldn’t feel the need to chase.
While I’ve never thought about this consciously, I suppose he’s right. I did chase because I didn’t feel good enough for someone to chase after me.
To be honest, though, I don’t even like the whole concept of “chasing.” Why can’t we just admit we like one another and move forward? Why does it have to be a game?
Frankly, I’m tired of games. I’m tired of the chase.
I just want to be in a warm, loving, consensual, tw0-way relationship.
Is that too much to ask?