Looking Back

I'm a sucker for ideas like this. Questions get me thinking, but like any query trying to rein me in, I have to tweak it also. Not surprisingly, taken from my turn to country music, these aren't really my soundtrack and there's five not three, but my favorite songs.

Number one: You Look Like You Love Me. It's a song that reminds me of being young. Certainly it's not of my youth - shy and with no confidence, I never would have been able to do what she does in the song - but my hope is that there are young women today who would. A song of empowerment, with a twist of so much fun, I love it. And on another note, months after, it won best song of the year! Yeah, I can pick them, and better yet, I know the guy, Aaron Raitiere. We've seen and talked to him at festivals. I have his artwork, his cd and his number (a Cornell alum, offered him a room if he ever visited). Can't get much closer to the stars than that, not for me, at least.

From fun to sorrow, from youth to death, number two, Pink Skies (featuring Watchhouse). This came on one night while I was in the basement doing my puzzle. I fell for it, about a woman mourned and loved, what's not to like? It also reminded me of my late mother-in-law, who knows why, but it did. If the last one was my youth, this might be my future, at least I can hope. We all die, but the lucky ones have people who miss them. If we do right (enough) in our lives, that'll happen. Another footnote: Watchhouse is a band we've seen a number of times at festivals also.

Number three, People Are Crazy: I love a good story. The setting a bar, the drink a beer. Two men, one young, one old shooting the breeze, whiling away the hours. Of course, a twist too. And while I'm not a fan of religion anymore, I sure love bars, beer and talking. A story with a theme - we should look out past our own selves and connect - makes this a great song.

Two Honorable Mentions, Get Along and It Won't Be Long: An overview of life, one on how to live it and the other on how quick it is, keeps me grounded. So often we lose sight of what really matters, these songs remind me.

There they are, top five, my year of country music. The conversation only between me and myself, but fun none the less. 

Musing to the Music

Walking the Line

How I feel at times with others' preparations. But then, truth be told, how others sometimes feel about mine. 

Live and Let Live

Stop and Smell the Roses

Sitting at the kitchen table yesterday morning, having breakfast and going through my emails and reading the NYT, I marveled at what $7.99 can do. Bought the other day at Aldi's, I'd switched the last sink rug, of the same motif of coffee pots but with a brownish-gray background and polyester fabric, to this new one: light and bright and easy to clean. The rug brings out the wood of the cabinet and floor and has shades of green and gold in it, the colors of the kitchen. I love it. Silly to say, but true.

The moral of the story (if there is one)? 

Stop and See the Beauty 

Me, Sometimes, Often

 

Photo by RKB

 

 ... at the end of the day.

Leave Me Be

Give Love

All year round, let's think of others. 

Love Comes Back

7:29 am

Red sun at morning, sailors take warning. 

Interesting, though. That streak of pink I saw (just a for a moment before it was gone) wasn't where the sun comes up. That was almost colorless. 

Telling? Tomorrow's the answer.

6" Predicted

Yesterday's Quote

                                                        Habit with him was all the test of truth,                                                            It must be right: I've done it from my youth. 

                                                  ~ George Crabbe (24 Dec 1754-1832)

The notion behind the quote struck me as something I hear over and over: What was, will be and should be and rightfully so be. What really makes me laugh (or shudder and swear) is that it comes from the generation that made such a hubbub of disowning their parents' thinking. And yes, it's mostly men I hear it from.

 

Last week at Glenwood, I was telling someone about a young friend and saying he's one of the nicest people I know. A gentleman of my generation asked if he was on that list. I paused, and said no. Not many are. While our men are wonderful and so much more evolved than our parents' generation, so too I say with the next generation. 

Many young men I know today are, especially if I'm using the criteria from this movie review.  The phrase resonates with me. The "generation of self-unsure men whose acceptance of weakness is their strength." What a wonderful way to say it, and this old feminist loves those men who are!

Yesterday's Read

Ps: Today's Word

Here's to juvenescence, a gift for all who are open to the wonder and joy of life in its changes and growth!

Twleve Minutes Standiing

Performance Art

 

In the Bag; On the Rug

Home from errands, I left an empty bag at the top of the stairs. Within minutes Biggie was jumping in and staring out. Gus, the timid guy, could only sit near it. Getting in would have been too risky. 

With a Christmas gift from a wonderful friend, a beautiful hand-braided rug and a 'snake' to go with it, Gus later found a new, warm resting place, not on the fence but on the rug. Biggie found the toy, the only snake I want in my house!

Felines, Friends and Fun.

To Give

.

..the ending is to ruin the book.

So I won't give it all.

Katabasis

Sad To Say

True.

But, for how long?

Stores close for want of business. 

Which, then, creates a downward spiral.

Sadder Still

Substitute Teaching

Only once in a while. 

I work for a variety of reasons but yes, one is to continue my goal of serenity, otherwise known as patience. When I lose it, I regroup, contemplate and continue on. 

Goals. We should all have them. I'm still working on mine.

Me

December Second

 

No School

First Storm

Blast From the Past

One trouble with living beyond your deserved number of years

 is that there's always some reason to live another year. 

And I'd like to live another year so that Nixon won't be President. 

If he's re-elected I'll have to live another four years. 

                                         ~ Rex Stout, novelist (1 Dec 1886-1975) 

                                                                                         [Nixon resigned in 1974.]

On yesterday's walk.Winter yet there was a bit of summer.

Since the first four years of hell, I've been saying this: I want to live til history brings the idiot (and his minions) down. Today's quote from Word.A.Day, while not exactly the same, is close enough, and it does remind me that what we have has been before. When living through the time of Nixon, I remembered* the Teapot Dome Scandal and even Tammany Hall. There truly is not much new in the world, only people who think so.

For Today

*and wished more had done so. Instead of wasting the last 50 years being scarred from that time, they could have moved on. But hey, have the boomers ever moved on from being the center of the universe? Of course, some have, but many haven't trusted the government since.

Afterword: a day later. 

Always nice to see others are thinking much the same.

Thanksgiving to Christmas

Visiting Cleveland for a second year and going for a beer at the same tavern we'd gone to last year, I looked behind and saw the holiday it was to the holiday it was going to be. 

It may be cold and dark, but beautiful and wonderful it surely is also. 

Magical Moments

Found Art

Driving to the movie I saw a squirrel looking out from a knothole in the tree. See it? 

Yes? Great! 

No? 

Well, you're with everyone else. No one saw what I saw. 

I was positive someone had painted the guy into the tree. They all headed to the Mexican restaurant for lunch. 

Me? To the tree. Art is art.

Imaginary Art

A Wish

   

 Found in Cleveland.           

                                                                                               (See it?)

I Wish

A Weed

Exists, and blooms, in late November

Hope and Beauty

Creativity

Working in a reading room today. Someone took a fancy to taking a scruffy surface and turning into whimsy. I love it!!

Caught My Eye

Cleaning Needed

If you want a symbolic gesture, don't burn the flag, wash it. 

                                 ~Norman Thomas, minister and social reformer (1884-1968)

Read this today on my word a day site. Laughed, thinking I'd have to wash it many, many times before I'd be proud of it again. Right or wrong, I can't look to a flag that the likes of Trump, his minions, and followers have debased with their actions. 

And, that's sad, because I had a mother and father who served in WWII, and I have a dear one today who gave twelve plus years to the army, and once retired used his time during election season to convince others to vote.

Yes, we'll need to wash and wash and wash that flag to be seen as a country who cares for others, who knows right from wrong, who has morals and values and who understands who our allies are and who aren't. 

So instead of the stars and stripes, let me continue to give hope with the Junteenth flag, a flag commemorating the idea of freedom for all. On my garage, it'll be there until freedom rings.

I'd like to think that someday I can look to Betsy's flag, fly it and believe in it again.

Here's Hoping

Snippets

In a flip from last week, the novel I just finished, The Satisfaction Café, went quickly. A novel of a woman's life, it was a quick read of a sort I appreciate. Looking at another's life often times gives me understanding into my own and a realizatioon that I am not unique. While a lighter read than the last of this type, The Correspondent, The Satisfaction Café had many moments of insight.

In yet another switch, last week's New Yorker, with its many articles that I spent time not only reading but thinking and writing on, was unlike this week's. In fact, the longest article, on Laura Loomer, was painful to read. Loomer is a person I have no desire to spend time with, let alone my precious morning minutes. But, like many articles in NYer, I often feel I'm in the 'first to know' seat. Elon Musk's use of drugs was another, as was Rowan Farrow's on Hollywood and the depth of sexual abuse of women. I learn what others will in the weeks to come. In Loomer's case, the monetization, perhaps, of her beliefs.

Leaving Loomer, two articles did give me a bit of myself, one on a director of movies, and the other on David Byrne, the lead singer in a band from my past.

In the first, what I like. I love to be reading along and have a surprise. Bill Bryson comes to mind. Descriptive, seemingly serious writing, with a wallop of hilarity to end the passage. 

Suspense, on the other hand, is hard on me. Being chased in dreams has always been a fear of mine. What's to come?!? is a feeling that builds to dread. I guess it's the same with reading. One of Erik Bachman's hockey novels is an example. The suspense became so fraught for me that I had to text a friend to see if I would be able to keep reading. 

The passage, succinctly, gave clarity to the writing style I prefer. 

The second passage was on the lead singer of the Talking Heads,* the band honored at our last festival in October. I'd loved a song - a new song I'd never heard - that two bands played, albeit, with totally different vibes. I thought of that time when reading this passage. 

Reading Bryne's explanation today, I thought, yeah, exactly. Songs can be two dimensional. We internalize the words but move with the beat. 

Aha Moments

*In my twenties we followed a local band, who loved the Talking Heads, often playing a number of their songs. I once was heard yelling, "House on Fire," which was really me asking for the song, "Burning Down the House." It was a mistake in wording that my boyfriend told me was probably not the best thing to yell in a public place. He was known for deciphering what I said and what I meant. A case of clarity from confusion, I guess. 

Even the Least

I just finished a book, Arcana Academy, given to me by a woman I sat next to at a festival this past summer. The cover reminded me of the Harry Potter series. And while the woman said it was a bit like that, it was also for adults in that there was anticipated sex (and then there was). Finishing the book, the woman handed it to me. With such a nice gesture, of course I was duty bound to read it. 

Finally, coming through to my kindle, I began the book. I liked the graphics and the part of magic done by cards. but the rest moved too slow for me, and having read a Harlequin romance a day back in one of my high school summers, I was not a fan of the story arc: dislike bordering on hate, a slow attraction to an awakening of desire, which then became anticipation, backtracking, and more anticipation, until, yes, the burning desire fulfilled.* 

What was fun was that another person, one I had given the actual copy of the book to, read it at the same time. Her thoughts (while harsher) aligned with mine. Reading and discussing, I made it to the end with, literally, ten hours to spare before it would (magically) disappear from my app. 

Once I made it to the last seventy pages, I enjoyed the book. Prior, I think a heavy edit, very heavy, would have made the novel better. What I did love, though, was the phrase used often, "Don't cry over an empty coffin." Looking it up, I saw it means to not give up hope. To me, though, it was better an idea against needless worrying. Wow. So true.

I doubt I'll read the sequel - and this one is set up so much more than any other book I've ever read to have a sequel - since, truly, it just took me too long to get to the end, or what there was to the ending. 

With that said, while not my favorite book, having the quote and a person to read it and discuss in real time was worth the read.

Gives Gifts

*It was this reading, though, amusingly enough, that I used when I finally decided to teach story writing. Introduce character and setting, add in a conflict, work to solve it, have it fail, and then ultimately find success. I'd stopped after the first few years because the stories written could be pages and pages long. When starting again (after telling of my own failed story in high school, ten pages long of love and the west, neither of which I knew anything about, and all written with terrible dialogue), I had the structure down to 7 seven to 10 sentences. Tight writing to work from until they were ready to go with more. 

Words of Wisdom, III

Kindness, understanding and change seemed to be what I was connecting to today when rereading my list of quotes. I was reminded of the passage from Corinthians that is so often read at weddings, with the ending being, "And the greatest of these is love." Kindness before love? Maybe. Maybe kindness begets love.

The real index of civilization is when people are kinder than they need to be.                                                                                                                          Louis de Bernieres, novelist (b. 8 Dec 1954)

Kindness is more important than wisdom, and the recognition of this is the beginning of wisdom.                                                                                                                                                                                             Theodore Rubin, psychiatrist and writer (b. 11 Apr 1923)

Neither genius, fame, nor love show the greatness of the soul. Only kindness can do that.                                                                                                                                                                                        Jean Baptiste Henri Lacordaire, preacher, journalist, and activist (12 May 1802-1861) 

The highest result of education is tolerance.                                                                                                                                   Helen Keller, author and lecturer (27 Jun 1880-1968) 

The simplest questions are the most profound. Where were you born? Where is your home? Where are you going? What are you doing? Think about these once in a while and watch your answers change.                                                                                                                                         Richard Bach, writer (b. 23 Jun 1936)

Revisited Revelations

Our Minds, Our Machines

One and the same? Has artificial intelligence caught up to human thought? That was the question posed in today's article. There was much to it, but for me it wasn't the history of AI (while interesting) or the question of good or evil to AI or even whether AI can truly think (like a human). It was the use of science to explain our thinking and how it fit with AI's thinking. 

Understanding. We understand through seeing, and hence we have intelligence.

Memory. With intelligence, comes memory, which then helps to build our intelligence, by connecting the right memories to new situations ( a concept I used in teaching content reading.)

Experimentation. Children gain knowledge through testing their environment.

And finally, curiosity. After everything, the article ends with curiosity and where we as humans go with it. Comparing today to the 30s and the development of the bomb, like the article did, we can anticipate the dangers, but we can't ignore our desire to know. The bomb was detonated and fear came with it, the fear of where it would take us. The same is true here: where will AI take us? I wonder: Could this be a moment for the proverb, "Curiosity killed the cat," or will we, as we have from the 40s (so far), have "Satisfaction brought it back"? 

Humans can't seem to retreat, so I'm betting it's onward, and hopefully, upward.

Our Decisions

Covid Conspiracy

Back in late 2020, when the vaccines were coming out, one train of (ridiculous) thought on the right was that the shot was going to actually be implanting a chip instead of a vaccine. It was thought to be a chip with our medical history on it. 

I said then, only half joking, that if that were true, I'd be happy. Remembering all the answers to all the questions I get at appointments would be over. It'd be right there. It was an offhand comment to the silliness of the right. 

I knew that, while the implementation of the vaccine was fast - which is what they were worried about - it was because enormous work had been done years before when SARS hit. Researchers then were working on a new type of vaccine, and while it ultimately wasn't needed, it was perfect for this. Still, that speed created a hotbed of conspiracy thoughts. 

This morning's headline on my Time feed made me pause, and smile. My wish might be reality. Might is only a possibility, and I have learned to resist headlines like that, but a smile is a smile.

Could Be Coming True 

Experiences, Expectations, and Empathy

There are good days, easy days and challenging days in subbing. I do my best every day and try to walk away knowing I've done some bit of good for someone. With that, I'm still left wondering, some days, if I'm doing what needs to be done. 

We all come to the school with past experiences; me included. I have 33 years of teaching and eleven subbing, not forgetting 69 years of living. But education is also an evolving profession, and I want to change with the times too. The past, once in a while, collides with the present, and I can wonder. Am I still effective? Am I still helping students?

I was thinking along those lines on Friday. Walking the halls to that days' room, I was questioning another days' work, and then I saw this. 

A reminder that what I believe and strive for is still relevant. Good.

Can I improve? You bet. Along with expectations and experience there's empathy, the ability to read and understand who is in front of me on any day. These are the three cornerstones for my days in education. They give me balance and guidelines for growth.

High Hopes

Ps. Two days later. As I've said, there will come a time when it's time to walk away, not because they're (the powers that be) wrong and I'm right, but because I just can't adapt or change or sever - use what word works best - my beliefs enough to be a positive force. I think that time has come for one building I work in.

Boats in the Barn

 

Snow on the roof.

Summer's Over

Kant Could

And another article on a subject I have so little knowledge of: Kant. Writing from the 18th century, this article was a work at convincing us that Kant was still relevant today. It was an interesting, and short, read, giving me so much more than I knew of him, but then this passage came, and I felt a connection. The author of the article was successful.

Today, in this age of having facts, verifiable facts, at our fingertips, too many people rely on so much else. Opinions assault us, and it is our job to take in, weed out, and ultimately come to our own conclusion. Does that mean I don't believe in listening to experts? Not at all. I believe in science, medicine and the law, common sense, courtesy and compassion. Are there people, corporations, and groups I find offensive? You bet. And that takes us back to Kant. We must be open minded and intelligent, willing to learn for ourselves. 

What's amazing to me is that Kant wrote this passage 200 hundred years ago, and we still need to be reminded of what Kant knew. Can we listen?

How Can We Not? 

Monsters Evolving

I know I'm not an intellectual, but if I didn't, the New Yorker would show me every week. An example? This week's Critic At Large article was on monsters over time. From vampires to Frankenstein I was taken on a literary tour of our evolving beliefs, until, ultimately, I ended up in politics. 

When wanting to write this piece, I realized I hadn't documented the transition. Finding it, I saw it was from the eyes of a young girl. She had been taught, like most of us in the world today, that monsters are made through circumstances. It was a fairly easy leap to go from imaginary monsters to political beings, the monsters we have made of our opposition. 

Thank goodness for the people who can take the time to look behind our thinking, who can disprove our beliefs, who can, surprisingly, show through numbers that neither side - yes, we're a country of sides now - that what we think we know and what others think they know is wrong. 

The dichotomy of what we believe and what truly is gave me hope. We believe our others, like they do to us, as inherently evil, and yet they're, and we're, not.*  

To end,  I'm left with the question: monsters changed, but now, can we?

How About Us

*To be fair to myself, and most Americans, evil is too strong of a word; I've only gone so far as to wonder at their lack of reasoning and knowledge.