Tag: moment

Walking Cross Town. With Ooga-Chaka Ooga-Ooga.

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She asks: Why do you post what you post on your blog? I had to stop, and pause for a moment.

Well, it’s Morris Berman’s “tipoff…whenever a project comes to me, one that is right, that is genuine, I feel a kind of ‘shiver’ in my body, and that tells me that it corresponds to something very deep in me, and that I need to pursue it.”

And for me, that never-fail-catalyst, is misty rain.

I’m walking cross town. Tuesday morning.

Riffs of Sally Rooney’s new book Normal People flash by…I’m transported to place I’ve never been, but I’m walking, in Dublin, on cobblestone streets. “Dublin is extraordinarily beautiful to her in wet weather, the way gray stone darkens to black, and rain moves over the grass and whispers on slick roof tiles. Raincoats glistening in the undersea color of street lamps. Rain silver as loose change in the glare of traffic.”

I cross Madison. And it begins. Continue reading “Walking Cross Town. With Ooga-Chaka Ooga-Ooga.” →

Lightly Child, Lightly.

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Each second the earth is struck hard

by four and a half pounds of sunlight.

Each second.

Try to imagine that.

No wonder deep shade is what the soul longs for.

And not, as we always thought, the light.

~ Charles Wright, from “In Praise of Thomas Hardy,” A Short History of the Shadow: Poems

Notes:

  • Photo Nirav Photography via Mennyfox55.  Poem: Thank you memoryslandscape
  • Post Title & Inspiration: Aldous Huxley: “It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.”

Lightly Child, Lightly.

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When you were small, your cupped palms

each held a candlesworth under the skin,

enough light to begin…

~ Carol Ann Duffy, from The Light Gatherer in “Collected Poems”

 

Notes:

  • Photo Credit.  Poem: Thank you Beth @ Alive on All Channels
  • Post Title & Inspiration: Aldous Huxley: “It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.”

Truth. Taste it. No, savor it.

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You cannot be grateful without possessing a past. That is why children are incapable of gratitude and why night prayers and dinner graces are lost on them. “Gobbles Mommy, Gobbles Grandpa …” George races through it. She has no reference points. As I get older the past widens and accumulates, all sloppy landlessness like a river, and as a result I have more clearly demarcated areas of gratitude. Things like ice cream or scenery or one good kiss become objects of a huge soulful thanks. Nothing is gobbled. This is a sign of getting old.

~ Lorrie Moore, from “Anagrams”

Notes: Quote – Thank you Beth @ Alive on All Channels. Photo: Korean froyo. by Jennifer Nguyen

Lightly Child, Lightly.

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Light staggers through the trees.
Every moment is filled with other moments…
In the silence that follows
don’t we all have to begin again? At the end of a line, the door
left open for a moment where you can fall in love, remember
what you wanted to forget, forget what you wanted to remember…
We have to light
our dark spaces with the sputtering matches of our words.
We have to follow wherever they lead us. There’s this little
hole in existence we all pass through…

—Richard Jackson, from “About This Poem” in Out of Place

Notes:

  • Photo by Andy58/András Schafer titled Morning in the forest. Poem via endless-unfolding
  • Post Title & Inspiration: Aldous Huxley: “It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.”