Saturday Morning

~ Live & Learn

hammock-gif

To rise early, reconsider, rise again later
to papers and the news…
Another day of what we bring to it-
matters unfinished from days before,
regret over matters we’ve finished poorly.
Just once you’d like to start out early,
free from memory and lighter for it…
nothing
to shrink from, nothing to shirk,
no lot to carry that wasn’t by choice.
And at night, no voice to keep him awake,
no hurry to rise, no hurry not to.

~ Tracy K. Smith, from “The Ordinary Life”

He sees that this emptiness of self—that this alone—makes a life worth living, a life worth writing. He has been rinsed of ambition, of pride in himself, rinsed of shame over his failures, emptied of his grudges. He has even let go of time, of history—the sources of our regret, our sense that we have done it all wrong. Once reality has stabbed you in the heart like this, you are indeed free—or, when that sweet pain does leave you …the realization remains, a sure memory. This realization, not your ego, is your true self. Alone, outside time, but paradoxically within the moment. There he is, a poet suspended on planet earth in that most ephemeral piece of furniture, the hammock, swinging in the eternity of the moment, and he is empty of himself—at last. The whole world rushes in.

~ Patricia Hampl, The Art of the Wasted Day (Penguin Publishing Group. April 17, 2018)

 

30 thoughts on “Saturday Morning”

    1. So me too! or “rinsed of” this…

      He sees that this emptiness of self—that this alone—makes a life worth living, a life worth writing. He has been rinsed of ambition, of pride in himself, rinsed of shame over his failures, emptied of his grudges. He has even let go of time, of history—the sources of our regret, our sense that we have done it all wrong. Once reality has stabbed you in the heart like this, you are indeed free—or, when that sweet pain does leave you …the realization remains, a sure memory. This realization, not your ego, is your true self. Alone, outside time, but paradoxically within the moment. There he is, a poet suspended on planet earth in that most ephemeral piece of furniture, the hammock, swinging in the eternity of the moment, and he is empty of himself—at last. The whole world rushes in.

      ~ Patricia Hampl, The Art of the Wasted Day (Penguin Publishing Group. April 17, 2018)

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  3. I’m always fascinated to see how long it takes before the litany commences each morning. I awake, stretch, roll out of bed, and suddenly the calvacade of thoughts begins. I think that’s one of the reasons I’m so addicted to my morning workouts. It’s an hour or so where I blow everything out of my head and concentrate on nothing more vexing than raising my heart rate. It’s liberating, and it ‘flushes the system’ so that when I am done, I am ready to focus.

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    1. funny. you have me so conditioned over the years of your comments, that when I wake, I think, that damn woman, every day is off to her work out, and here I sit trying to get motivated… 🙂

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          2. Dave, Yeah, you put on the running shoes…are you starting up with the outside running again? Do you occasionally borrow the neighbors, sweet dog?

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  6. I have a stiff neck this morning. I like to think it’s because I ‘slept wrong’, but after reading this I realize… it’s probably because I am carrying a lot by choice that would be better left in the day behind me.

    Thanks for the lovely morning wake up David.

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  9. Thanks for including Tracy K. Smith.”..Another day of what we bring to it—” saw her this past Monday talk at our Labyrinth Books [she teaches across the street where very lucky kids get educated]. I repeat myself…meditation to start the day brings space into our minds and lives…

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  10. Thanks for introducing me to Tracy K Smith

    Don’t You Wonder, Sometimes?
    BY TRACY K. SMITH
    1.

    After dark, stars glisten like ice, and the distance they span
    Hides something elemental. Not God, exactly. More like
    Some thin-hipped glittering Bowie-being—a Starman
    Or cosmic ace hovering, swaying, aching to make us see.
    And what would we do, you and I, if we could know for sure

    That someone was there squinting through the dust,
    Saying nothing is lost, that everything lives on waiting only
    To be wanted back badly enough? Would you go then,
    Even for a few nights, into that other life where you
    And that first she loved, blind to the future once, and happy?

    Would I put on my coat and return to the kitchen where my
    Mother and father sit waiting, dinner keeping warm on the stove?
    Bowie will never die. Nothing will come for him in his sleep
    Or charging through his veins. And he’ll never grow old,
    Just like the woman you lost, who will always be dark-haired

    And flush-faced, running toward an electronic screen
    That clocks the minutes, the miles left to go. Just like the life
    In which I’m forever a child looking out my window at the night sky
    Thinking one day I’ll touch the world with bare hands
    Even if it burns.

    2.

    He leaves no tracks. Slips past, quick as a cat. That’s Bowie
    For you: the Pope of Pop, coy as Christ. Like a play
    Within a play, he’s trademarked twice. The hours

    Plink past like water from a window A/C. We sweat it out,
    Teach ourselves to wait. Silently, lazily, collapse happens.
    But not for Bowie. He cocks his head, grins that wicked grin.

    Time never stops, but does it end? And how many lives
    Before take-off, before we find ourselves
    Beyond ourselves, all glam-glow, all twinkle and gold?

    The future isn’t what it used to be. Even Bowie thirsts
    For something good and cold. Jets blink across the sky
    Like migratory souls.

    3.

    Bowie is among us. Right here
    In New York City. In a baseball cap
    And expensive jeans. Ducking into
    A deli. Flashing all those teeth
    At the doorman on his way back up.
    Or he’s hailing a taxi on Lafayette
    As the sky clouds over at dusk.
    He’s in no rush. Doesn’t feel
    The way you’d think he feels.
    Doesn’t strut or gloat. Tells jokes.

    I’ve lived here all these years
    And never seen him. Like not knowing
    A comet from a shooting star.
    But I’ll bet he burns bright,
    Dragging a tail of white-hot matter
    The way some of us track tissue
    Back from the toilet stall. He’s got
    The whole world under his foot,
    And we are small alongside,
    Though there are occasions

    When a man his size can meet
    Your eyes for just a blip of time
    And send a thought like SHINE
    SHINE SHINE SHINE SHINE
    Straight to your mind. Bowie,
    I want to believe you. Want to feel
    Your will like the wind before rain.
    The kind everything simply obeys,
    Swept up in that hypnotic dance
    As if something with the power to do so
    Had looked its way and said:
    Go ahead.

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  11. Always, grateful to wake up even when I am still tired…greet the pets, who settle back to sleep, look out the window and gaze at the sky, eyes traveling down from the top of the green mountain full of trees ,.. check the blood sugar…ignore the Computer and TV they stay off! Enjoy the silence…when I get around to it, the computer goes on I read some scripture and then post a verse…..the day, ebbs and flows…some breaths in, bring, momentary reality of difficulties while other breaths, taken in and exhaled out, bring Joy and Appreciation…/// (like everyone else I love the alone time, the peace and quiet as enough stress comes our way,daily)

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