I, today, hereby declare myself in union with the ancients: The ancients who desperately waited for, and then celebrated, the arrival of Winter Solstice.
Normally, in my current location, the sun disappears behind a great giant semi-soggy glove of inversion, and then becomes unknown to the inhabitants. This happens some time in October, and usually lasts until about March. Sometimes we'll get a glimmer of some bright thing in the sky in mid-February, along with extra warmth, reminding us that there is another way to live. Then the foggy soggy hand descends again.
To be fair, clouds become unknown to us around mid-June or early July, and don't show up again until October. There is sometimes one storm in late August or early September -- but that one cannot be taken seriously as it involves a temperature drop and a lot of wind, and that's usually about it. Sun, sun, sun, beating down on us without mercy for days on end. It's bright in the deepest of forests... but i digress.
Back to Winter Solstice: This year we have had sun, almost non-stop, since Thanksgiving. You would think that would be an improvement. After all, the morning light comes earlier than it would under a soggy foggy glove. The evening light lasts longer than it normally would as well. And yet... the sun hovers so low in the sky! (And i'm not even halfway to the north pole!!! I have lived further north and it didn't bother me so! listen to me whine!) It seems to be, from sunup to sundown, 5 o'clock on an August afternoon. There is a slight fog which could be either moisture or dust, the longish shadows, seeing everything south of you as a silhouette instead of three-dimensional corporal being, all reminiscent of the dog days of summer at 5 o'clock PM... but without the heat.
Those blasted inversions and fogs have acclimated me to a constant level of depressing dim light. Yes, constant -- the moisture is lit from the bottom up by city lights, all night long, especially when people have their Christmas color out. The variation on those days would be how far you could see!
Inversions, like fogs, make you feel cozy with anyone you can see. It's always a treat to be isolated, visually and aurally, from everyone else as you travel along -- and then to see or hear another person emerge out of the mist is like magic! Fellow travelers! Fellow travelers into the bowels of winter and then back out again. Have i begun to relish in my current, very weird, local climate?
It's all about expectations, i suppose. Having the sun, every day, leads me to believe that we are already headed out of a (not very serious, so far) winter. And yet we are still diving in, and we are nearly to the bottom of what is supposed to be dark.
This, then, is why I celebrate the coming Solstice: I expect more light when the sun is shining and we are not getting it! Oh, and Mom is coming to visit too. :-)
Saturday, December 17, 2011
Sunday, November 6, 2011
The Future
Many years ago we talked about The Future. We were The Future, as we were told, because we had been prepared for it. We had been fully nurtured -- physically, intellectually, spiritually.
We say so now. But we lie. Let us either change the language or change the reality.
We say so now. But we lie. Let us either change the language or change the reality.
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Borge
In honor and remembrance of a really great guy:
Borge
The misty early morning echoes with silence
And pauses to listen to the creaking of rotten wood
Then follows a muffled footstep, an anchor being stowed away
There is a soft splash of a paddle, and ripples burble along the shore.
Into the lake the fisherman guides his boat
Into the softening waters and damp dewy air.
The trees on the shore hear only a scrape
As he baits his hook, and casts, and waits.
A thousand years might come and go
As fishermen leave the sleeping land
And guide their vessels onto the waters
And bait their hooks, and cast, and wait.
The loons, alone, will accompany them
Silently gliding through the mists of time.
- Diane Mathews, 1989
Borge
The misty early morning echoes with silence
And pauses to listen to the creaking of rotten wood
Then follows a muffled footstep, an anchor being stowed away
There is a soft splash of a paddle, and ripples burble along the shore.
Into the lake the fisherman guides his boat
Into the softening waters and damp dewy air.
The trees on the shore hear only a scrape
As he baits his hook, and casts, and waits.
A thousand years might come and go
As fishermen leave the sleeping land
And guide their vessels onto the waters
And bait their hooks, and cast, and wait.
The loons, alone, will accompany them
Silently gliding through the mists of time.
- Diane Mathews, 1989
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Re-Connection, Digital or Otherwise
Books I've read recently -- the first two are recommends, and the other three are attached to the title of this entry.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot. Recommend! I won't go into the details now, though.
Song of Solomon, by Toni Morrison. No wonder she won a Nobel in literature!
Read these three books, back-to-back: The Geography of Bliss, by Eric Weiner, Hamlet's Blackberry, by William Powers, and The Last Child in the Woods, by Louv.
I found the Powers book somewhat boring, until he talked about dead white philosophers. The Guttenberg bit was really interesting too. It was dull because only the dead white philosopher stuff had new information for me.
This book is about our digital hyper-connectivity and how it harms us (mentally, socially, spiritually). I thought back to the first time i was able to readily turn off an attention-getting device. Nah, it wasn't recently! Nor, was it when i was handed a cell phone, a pager, and a laptop (at the end of the "technology bubble", when I was working for a corporation). Nor was it, really, when i chose to be able to converse w/ people during television commercials (if not during the show) back in the days before there was such a thing as a "mute" button.
My father was on call 24/7. He would get a day off per week. And it was that, literally: He probably had about 24 hours when he wasn't on call. During my growing-up years there were times when the phone rang...
Aside: This was when phones rang, we dialed phones, phones were physically attached to the wall, and there were no answering machines (though there were answering services).
... and we *did not answer it.* What a valuable lesson to have when you are not yet in your teens! You do *not* have to be at someone else's beck and call. You do not have to answer the phone. You do not have to reply instantaneously. It's ok to set limits on your availability.
Powers talks about our hyper-connectivity as though it is a new thing. I don't quite agree. There is a local Branding And Marketing fellow, Justin Foster, who argues that we are going back to a time when we were more connected than we had been for the last ...? I'll guess 100 years. Is the connectivity, the amount you share and with whom, really all that different from living in a small town? Sure, it's happening differently now. At the same time all of the same social rules apply to digital connectivity as applied living in a small town where everyone knows your name (and your parents, and their parents knew each other parents, etc.).
Speaking of small towns: Weiner's book is a chronicle of personal anecdotes of his search to *study* happiness; not to be mistaken as a search for happiness. And having connections to other human beings is a huge part of that. He also comments that most of the happiness involves the outdoors. It is humorous, insightful, and fun when talking about other cultures (i.e. being able to look at U.S. culture through another lens... or look at all!)
Louv's book's chapters are summaries of why we should get outside. There is too much research to list it all in one book -- each chapter could be a volume if one were to do that. Being very pro-environment and pro-planet I was set up to agree with his thesis before I read the summaries.
None of what he says should even be news to most people. (Actually, none of what Weiner or Powers say should be news either.) In Pollan's books he basically says, "eat your fruits and vegetables," -- which should not be news to anyone. Louv says, "get fresh air and exercise [together]." The rest of the book is about the research; and again I choose to stress that THIS IS NOT NEWS. We've known about how important it is to play outside for centuries, if not millenia. And somehow getting outside gets all of us to be both 1) reflective enough to know our selves, 2) connected enough to others and to the planet to be ... happy.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot. Recommend! I won't go into the details now, though.
Song of Solomon, by Toni Morrison. No wonder she won a Nobel in literature!
Read these three books, back-to-back: The Geography of Bliss, by Eric Weiner, Hamlet's Blackberry, by William Powers, and The Last Child in the Woods, by
I found the Powers book somewhat boring, until he talked about dead white philosophers. The Guttenberg bit was really interesting too. It was dull because only the dead white philosopher stuff had new information for me.
This book is about our digital hyper-connectivity and how it harms us (mentally, socially, spiritually). I thought back to the first time i was able to readily turn off an attention-getting device. Nah, it wasn't recently! Nor, was it when i was handed a cell phone, a pager, and a laptop (at the end of the "technology bubble", when I was working for a corporation). Nor was it, really, when i chose to be able to converse w/ people during television commercials (if not during the show) back in the days before there was such a thing as a "mute" button.
My father was on call 24/7. He would get a day off per week. And it was that, literally: He probably had about 24 hours when he wasn't on call. During my growing-up years there were times when the phone rang...
Aside: This was when phones rang, we dialed phones, phones were physically attached to the wall, and there were no answering machines (though there were answering services).
... and we *did not answer it.* What a valuable lesson to have when you are not yet in your teens! You do *not* have to be at someone else's beck and call. You do not have to answer the phone. You do not have to reply instantaneously. It's ok to set limits on your availability.
Powers talks about our hyper-connectivity as though it is a new thing. I don't quite agree. There is a local Branding And Marketing fellow, Justin Foster, who argues that we are going back to a time when we were more connected than we had been for the last ...? I'll guess 100 years. Is the connectivity, the amount you share and with whom, really all that different from living in a small town? Sure, it's happening differently now. At the same time all of the same social rules apply to digital connectivity as applied living in a small town where everyone knows your name (and your parents, and their parents knew each other parents, etc.).
Speaking of small towns: Weiner's book is a chronicle of personal anecdotes of his search to *study* happiness; not to be mistaken as a search for happiness. And having connections to other human beings is a huge part of that. He also comments that most of the happiness involves the outdoors. It is humorous, insightful, and fun when talking about other cultures (i.e. being able to look at U.S. culture through another lens... or look at all!)
Louv's book's chapters are summaries of why we should get outside. There is too much research to list it all in one book -- each chapter could be a volume if one were to do that. Being very pro-environment and pro-planet I was set up to agree with his thesis before I read the summaries.
None of what he says should even be news to most people. (Actually, none of what Weiner or Powers say should be news either.) In Pollan's books he basically says, "eat your fruits and vegetables," -- which should not be news to anyone. Louv says, "get fresh air and exercise [together]." The rest of the book is about the research; and again I choose to stress that THIS IS NOT NEWS. We've known about how important it is to play outside for centuries, if not millenia. And somehow getting outside gets all of us to be both 1) reflective enough to know our selves, 2) connected enough to others and to the planet to be ... happy.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Letters
I started writing this on 4/25/11. Well, I'll just say that the note is a keeper. Just two days ago my daughter came to me with the note and said, "Mom, let's keep this in the memory box, ok?"
--
Garrison Keillor once said something lovely about writing notes. I won't repeat it; I'll say that I like to touch that which others have made by hand.
There lies, on the bookshelf with my daughter's books, a note of Thanks from my parents to my daughter. She sent them a drawing for their refrigerator. The note is not dated, thought I can peg within months when it was written.
It was the last note my father wrote to those of us at this house. After that he just wrote his name... and now he is unable to do that anymore. His handwriting is shaky, and he wasn't sure if he remembered the word for "trees" (he did) so he drew a picture next to the word.
This note is a keeper. Dad wrote it with his own hand, while he still could. And I can touch it.
I have no point. Unless maybe it's to go out and touch, make contact, with someone today.
--
Postnote: Mom sent a birthday card that she had bought several weeks ago. The card-part said something about being "from both of [the parents]." And it was something that both of them would be equally likely to pick out. She wrote something like, "oops, it's just me now -- he would have agreed with me."
Mom and Dad: I love you always.
--
Garrison Keillor once said something lovely about writing notes. I won't repeat it; I'll say that I like to touch that which others have made by hand.
There lies, on the bookshelf with my daughter's books, a note of Thanks from my parents to my daughter. She sent them a drawing for their refrigerator. The note is not dated, thought I can peg within months when it was written.
It was the last note my father wrote to those of us at this house. After that he just wrote his name... and now he is unable to do that anymore. His handwriting is shaky, and he wasn't sure if he remembered the word for "trees" (he did) so he drew a picture next to the word.
This note is a keeper. Dad wrote it with his own hand, while he still could. And I can touch it.
I have no point. Unless maybe it's to go out and touch, make contact, with someone today.
--
Postnote: Mom sent a birthday card that she had bought several weeks ago. The card-part said something about being "from both of [the parents]." And it was something that both of them would be equally likely to pick out. She wrote something like, "oops, it's just me now -- he would have agreed with me."
Mom and Dad: I love you always.
Friday, May 27, 2011
The Other Obituary
M. Jack Mathews
June 24, 1933 - May 8, 2011
Born -- squalling and naked, most likely -- on June 24, 1933 (Notice: That's in the Depression), to Melville C. and Kathryn F. (Prugh) Mathews -- they were just teenagers: Can you believe it? Teenagers, starting a family, with a high school education, when the Great Depression was hitting people the hardest; the Dust Bowl years were upon them (granted, they were in Missouri, but it still had an effect), and they were setting in to start their lives on a farm with a newborn underfoot.
He rode to his first school on a horse -- ok, a pony-sized equine -- something for which his daughters would be forever jealous. It was a one-room schoolhouse... Can you imagine the changes that occurred in his lifetime?
Jack graduated from high school, having played football and been on the track team. By graduating, that means he did a good job studying too. He gave a valedictory speech; THAT is something!
In Evanston, IL, while attending medical school he met his future wife. Spouses don't always get the attention they should. I'll say this: While wandering the halls of the Care Center he carried a picture of the two of them, husband and wife, everywhere. I heard he sometimes slept with the picture. He carried the photo until he could no longer walk. Sometimes he would even ask her if she had seen his wife, and show her their picture. "Beloved wife" doesn't seem to capture it.
He became a doctor. Everywhere he went he embodied the spirit of what medicine is supposed to be: Caring. He lived the difference between someone who can prescribe medications, dispense treatments, offer health advice vs. someone who patients trusted to have their whole being in his care. The country doctor's approach -- "Most people get better on their own," as well as not always getting paid -- was something that his farmer-patients appreciated as well.
He is "survived by..." With all due respect, I'm going to change that to "his family members - wife, children, grandchildren, brothers, sisters-in-law - thrive by virtue of his having been in their lives."
Preceded in death...and living the legacy of love until it was his time to leave.
The Celebration of Life is exactly that In Deed: In the deeds we do each day of living, showing that this world is a better place because he walked upon it.
No, no visitation: he's not here anymore. He might visit you, though, in the sweet smell of fresh-cut hay, the whicker of a horse that recognizes you, the wag of a dog's tail, the sight of flowers in a meadow, a mountain peak as it emerges from the horizon, the rainbow after a storm, a sailboat as it catches the breeze, or a field of wheat waving at you as you drive by... yeah, he might visit you.
Love you always, Dad.
June 24, 1933 - May 8, 2011
Born -- squalling and naked, most likely -- on June 24, 1933 (Notice: That's in the Depression), to Melville C. and Kathryn F. (Prugh) Mathews -- they were just teenagers: Can you believe it? Teenagers, starting a family, with a high school education, when the Great Depression was hitting people the hardest; the Dust Bowl years were upon them (granted, they were in Missouri, but it still had an effect), and they were setting in to start their lives on a farm with a newborn underfoot.
He rode to his first school on a horse -- ok, a pony-sized equine -- something for which his daughters would be forever jealous. It was a one-room schoolhouse... Can you imagine the changes that occurred in his lifetime?
Jack graduated from high school, having played football and been on the track team. By graduating, that means he did a good job studying too. He gave a valedictory speech; THAT is something!
In Evanston, IL, while attending medical school he met his future wife. Spouses don't always get the attention they should. I'll say this: While wandering the halls of the Care Center he carried a picture of the two of them, husband and wife, everywhere. I heard he sometimes slept with the picture. He carried the photo until he could no longer walk. Sometimes he would even ask her if she had seen his wife, and show her their picture. "Beloved wife" doesn't seem to capture it.
He became a doctor. Everywhere he went he embodied the spirit of what medicine is supposed to be: Caring. He lived the difference between someone who can prescribe medications, dispense treatments, offer health advice vs. someone who patients trusted to have their whole being in his care. The country doctor's approach -- "Most people get better on their own," as well as not always getting paid -- was something that his farmer-patients appreciated as well.
He is "survived by..." With all due respect, I'm going to change that to "his family members - wife, children, grandchildren, brothers, sisters-in-law - thrive by virtue of his having been in their lives."
Preceded in death...and living the legacy of love until it was his time to leave.
The Celebration of Life is exactly that In Deed: In the deeds we do each day of living, showing that this world is a better place because he walked upon it.
No, no visitation: he's not here anymore. He might visit you, though, in the sweet smell of fresh-cut hay, the whicker of a horse that recognizes you, the wag of a dog's tail, the sight of flowers in a meadow, a mountain peak as it emerges from the horizon, the rainbow after a storm, a sailboat as it catches the breeze, or a field of wheat waving at you as you drive by... yeah, he might visit you.
Love you always, Dad.
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Hand-me-down Treasure
Mom gave me a book that had once belonged to her father. Grandpa's loving labor was as a Methodist minister. The book is full of a lot of grist for that mill! And, so being, is full of treasure.
The copyright is 1937, the title 1,000 Quotable Poems, (it's an anthology of modern verse :-). Clark and Gillespie -- a man and a woman. It is a re-compilation of two volumes of poems. The best thing, the greatest treasure, is that i can hear Grandpa's voice saying them. I can also hear my Dad's. Seeing as how Grandpa walks in our hearts and not on the earth, and Dad doesn't remember any of them anymore, it's a huge gift to hear them in these words.
They memorized poems. I think it was part of their education. Much can be said of the state of education, what it was, what it is, what it can be, what it should be, yada yada (and that there has been a war against public education in the U.S. since the first public school opened). I'm not going down that road any further at the moment. I only memorized one poem (Shakespeare's 18th Sonnet, which i can still do, if i think about it, but to type it would not do justice to the punctuation...). Poems, like song, are stored in a different part of the brain than are "simple" facts. They seem to stick longer as well. Or maybe we don't use that part of our brain enough. Well, anyway, here are just a few of the voices:
A new acquaintance of mine was talking about how often we are our own worst critics, or own biggest barriers, or own problem. We all know that. And knowing that we all face the same "enemy," just as we all learn how to walk, is good.
My Enemy, by Edwin L. Sabin
An enemy I had, whose mien
I stoutly strove in vain to know;
For hard he dogged my steps, unseen,
Wherever I might go.
My plans he balked; my aims he foiled;
He blocked my every onward way.
When for some lofty goal I toiled,
He grimly said me nay.
"Come forth!" I cried, "Lay bare thy guise!
They wretched features I would see."
Ye talways to my straining eyes
He dwelt in mystery.
Until one night I held him fast,
The veil from off his form did draw;
I gazed upon his face at last --
And, lo! myself I saw.
Pretty good, huh? Then, if you are a sibling, you will remember a parent saying, "If you can't say anything nice then don't say anything at all." This one goes a bit further:
Three Gates, From the Arabian
If you are tempted to reveal
A tale to you someone has told
About another, make it pass,
Before you speak, three gates of gold.
These narrow gates: First, "Is it true?"
Then, "Is it needful?" In your mind
Give truthful answer. And the next
Is last and narrowest, "Is it kind?"
And if to reach your lips at last
It passes through these gateways three,
Then you may tell the tale, nor fear
What the result of speech may be.
This last treasure, for now, was very much like opening up a special box in the attic and finding something beautiful there. I had never known the title to this one, but the word's are spoken in my Dad's voice every time i look at it.
Something to remember when you talk to your friends today:
The Arrow and the Song, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
I shot an arrow into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where:
For so swiftly it flew, the sight,
Could not follow it in its flight.
I breathed a song into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For who has sight, so keen and strong,
That it can follow the flight of song?
Long, long afterward, in an oak,
I found the arrow still unbroke;
And the song, from beginning to end,
I found again in the heart of a friend.
The copyright is 1937, the title 1,000 Quotable Poems, (it's an anthology of modern verse :-). Clark and Gillespie -- a man and a woman. It is a re-compilation of two volumes of poems. The best thing, the greatest treasure, is that i can hear Grandpa's voice saying them. I can also hear my Dad's. Seeing as how Grandpa walks in our hearts and not on the earth, and Dad doesn't remember any of them anymore, it's a huge gift to hear them in these words.
They memorized poems. I think it was part of their education. Much can be said of the state of education, what it was, what it is, what it can be, what it should be, yada yada (and that there has been a war against public education in the U.S. since the first public school opened). I'm not going down that road any further at the moment. I only memorized one poem (Shakespeare's 18th Sonnet, which i can still do, if i think about it, but to type it would not do justice to the punctuation...). Poems, like song, are stored in a different part of the brain than are "simple" facts. They seem to stick longer as well. Or maybe we don't use that part of our brain enough. Well, anyway, here are just a few of the voices:
A new acquaintance of mine was talking about how often we are our own worst critics, or own biggest barriers, or own problem. We all know that. And knowing that we all face the same "enemy," just as we all learn how to walk, is good.
My Enemy, by Edwin L. Sabin
An enemy I had, whose mien
I stoutly strove in vain to know;
For hard he dogged my steps, unseen,
Wherever I might go.
My plans he balked; my aims he foiled;
He blocked my every onward way.
When for some lofty goal I toiled,
He grimly said me nay.
"Come forth!" I cried, "Lay bare thy guise!
They wretched features I would see."
Ye talways to my straining eyes
He dwelt in mystery.
Until one night I held him fast,
The veil from off his form did draw;
I gazed upon his face at last --
And, lo! myself I saw.
Pretty good, huh? Then, if you are a sibling, you will remember a parent saying, "If you can't say anything nice then don't say anything at all." This one goes a bit further:
Three Gates, From the Arabian
If you are tempted to reveal
A tale to you someone has told
About another, make it pass,
Before you speak, three gates of gold.
These narrow gates: First, "Is it true?"
Then, "Is it needful?" In your mind
Give truthful answer. And the next
Is last and narrowest, "Is it kind?"
And if to reach your lips at last
It passes through these gateways three,
Then you may tell the tale, nor fear
What the result of speech may be.
This last treasure, for now, was very much like opening up a special box in the attic and finding something beautiful there. I had never known the title to this one, but the word's are spoken in my Dad's voice every time i look at it.
Something to remember when you talk to your friends today:
The Arrow and the Song, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
I shot an arrow into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where:
For so swiftly it flew, the sight,
Could not follow it in its flight.
I breathed a song into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For who has sight, so keen and strong,
That it can follow the flight of song?
Long, long afterward, in an oak,
I found the arrow still unbroke;
And the song, from beginning to end,
I found again in the heart of a friend.
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