Flat Kira and the wrestler

Dear Kira Rose,

When I get home to Oakdale, I'll tell you the true story of how I escaped going to middle school yesterday.  It was kind of nice having Grandmommy's house--messy enough to make exploring loads of fun--all to myself.  I played Christmas music all day on her new CD changer.  (Glad she figured out that wiring-speakers-to-a-receiver puzzle Thursday  night!)

I really had meant to sneak back into my envelope when Grandmommy came home to eat, get school stuff out of the car, and presents (to go under Michael and Cassie's tree) in the car.  She was in such a rush that she never noticed I'd fallen asleep on the couch in the study, exhausted from all the mischief I'd been into while she was at work.

I finally got to meet some of your Southern family today--Campbell (not pictured),


Aunt Michelle and Uncle Rick, and



Mason, the wrestler!!!


Anyway, I spent hours and hours today in a high school gym (I wonder if she plans to take me to a college next!)!  Mason was doing this stuff called wrestling.  It looked like fighting to me--the playing around kind of fighting--but kids were getting medals for it!  Mason just missed getting a medal this time but, from all the clapping and cheering everyone was doing, he must have fought pretty well.  He was smiling--not so much in our picture but later in the day.

Did you know that Mason and Campbell call Grandmommy Nonny?  You didn't tell me she has two different names! I heard Grandmommy, aka Nonny, telling Mason and Campbell that she'd be taking them to the movies Tuesday--something about seeing someone named Harry Potter?--and then maybe Christmas shopping.  Wonder if I'll get to go to the movies and shopping with them . . .

She's got that Christmas music going again.  I'm thinking a nap sounds like a good idea!

I'll write more later . . .

Love you bunches!

Flat Kira

epiphany

World English Dictionary, definition 2: epiphany-any moment of great or sudden revelation.

My baby boy--who could not carry a tune until second grade--sang the second solo of his life today . . . and what an epiphany that was for me.  Jamie, a singer--and an accomplished one at that!  Yes!

His first solo was as a second grade.  I was not there . . . but at another school that evening, greeting other parents of children not my own.  Creating a void in my lifetime memory collection.  A void filled to its brim and beyond today!

Collins English Dictionary definition: Epiphany-a Christian festival held on Jan 6, commemorating, in the Western Church, the manifestation of Christ to the Magi and, in the Eastern Church, the baptism of Christ.

How fitting that Jamie's solo today was in the words and the voice of those three wise men . . .

In my lifetime memory collection are images--in color but blurred with time--of the Christmas pageants I religiously recruited (or compelled, if need be) my three younger siblings to present each year for our parents.  We were costumed, of course.  I remember especially the colorful (silk or rayon?) robes my grandmother across the wide Atlantic sent one year, colorful like Joseph's coat, worthy of kings from the Orient.  I remember the songs we sang.  Always opening with "O Little Town of Bethlehem." Did we dare sing Martin Luther's "Away in a Manger"?  "Silent Night," I'm sure . . . and maybe "The First Noel," in honor of our mother because we thought it was French (the minister this morning had a very British explanation of the origin of "Noel"). 

For my mother, I always ended our pageant by singing her favorite" "Hark the Herald Angels Sing."  My solo in the days when I could sing. How fitting that this morning's cantata ended with choir and congregation singing the third verse of that hymn, words still engraved on my heart.

And for me, most especially for me, we always sang "We Three Kings"--every verse!

For me, most years since, those wise men had to come to Bethlehem, had to once again experience their epiphany, before the dismantling of Christmas could begin . . . 

NOTE TO SELF: the tree stays up, the Nativity scenes in their places of honor, until January 7, 2011!

once upon a time . . . or not?

Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly

All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise
Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these sunken eyes and learn to see

All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to be free
Blackbird fly, blackbird fly
Into the light of the dark black night

Blackbird fly, blackbird fly
Into the light of the dark black night
Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly

All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise
You were only waiting for this moment to arise
You were only waiting for this moment to arise

Elysium . . .

From first memory, I have been enchanted by the bittersweet love story of Orpheus and Eurydice. The twists and turns of Orpheus' journey to the Underworld in search of his lost-to-this-life love--finding her at last only to lose her once again--have blurred over the years . . . I have often wondered where, in this story of love lost, found, and lost again, Gluck's haunting "Minuet and Dance of the Blessed Spirits" belonged.

Today I went in search of that answer: Elysium. When Orpheus is at last granted passage into the Underworld, he is taken to Elysium, where the blessed spirits of the good and the heroic spend their eternity. It is there, as he searches for Eurydice, who must eventually be found and brought to him, that a solo flute speaks of love and pain, hope and loss, joy and grief . . .

I was reminded of the importance of faith--unconditional faith, trust, hope, love--in rereading their story. If they had only believed--each in the other's love, in their collective ability to survive the test of separation, of parallel journeys--they would have once again been together this side of Elysium . . .

If only . . .

a flute story . . .

Minuet and Dance of the Blessed Spirits

Even as a child I was intrigued by the love story of Orpheus and Eurydice . . . My first encounter with this musical selection from Gluck's opera of the same name (as the love story) was Kimberly's gift to us. Her first public performance of this piece? Her brother's First Communion--on his 9th birthday.

Not so many years ago she surprised me--made me cry, too!--by playing this piece in church during one of my visits to Pittsburgh. Of all the music with which she has enriched my life, this is our closest tie, our song. I guess that also makes James Galway, whom she had the honor of meeting in person when he visited South Carolina many years ago, our musician.


Thank you, Kimberly, for this gift, this memory, beyond price!

of Yo-Yo Ma and Robert Frost . . .

I wasn't prepared for the emotion. The parallels between our new President and my childhood hero, JFK, were evident, even without media input. While I might only vicariously understand what it means to have an African-American inaugurated President of our great land, I could, those long years ago, appreciate firsthand, as I watched Kennedy's inauguration with my Catholic boarding school classmates, what it meant to have a Catholic inaugurated President of our great land. I am still that true child of the '60's who welcomes change, bites her tongue (but not as often as she should), eschews to-do lists, boundaries, routines . . . And who is moved by the music of language, the language of music.

Robert Frost and I share a birthday, but he was part of me long before I knew that. Today, as I watched Obama's inauguration, my woods were filling up with snow. I live the litany of miles to go before I sleep, of promises to keep. My roads, too, diverged in a yellow wood. Like Frost, I have almost always taken the one less travelled by, choices that have, indeed, made all the difference . . .

My clearest firsthand memory (the others have been multiply revised by time and media replays) of Kennedy's inauguration is of Frost reading his poem. I forget, until reminded by a Google search or other prompt, that the poem he read--that he recited from memory, actually--was not the one he wrote for that occasion. That the sun on the snow that January 20th morning forty-eight years ago was too much for his frail vision .

[Robert Frost Reads Poem at JFK's Inauguration: January 20, 1961
http://www.americaslibrary.gov/cgi-bin/page.cgi/jb/modern/frost_1 ]

It wasn't the poetry who touched me today. It was the music. Just a few short months ago, I discovered (and blogged here about) Yo-Yo Ma's version of Simple Gifts. Yo-Yo Ma was/is my new favorite musician, courtesy of his rendition of Gabriel's Oboe which seriously challenges Galway's version as one of my all-time musical selections . . . As with Frost all those long winters ago, I was, today, witness to a performance that is sure to ring crystal clear in memory long after the sights and rhetoric of the day are overwritten by time and media replays.

'Tis a gift to be simple,
'Tis a gift to be free,
'Tis a gift to come down where we ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
It will be in the valley of love and delight.

toy train memories . . .

When Jamie was a baby, Christmas was exquisitely simple. Santa's elves actually carved and sanded building blocks and crocheted colorful bags, by hand, to hold them. Even the ornaments on the tree (yes, including popcorn and cranberry strings) were handmade. Does anyone remember the recipe for the ornament dough???

The train table and trains, projects eternally in progress/process, came later. But, Jamie's first Christmas, I discovered a song in my books of Christmas carols for the piano that was to be forever linked to those precious Christmas memories of his babyhood. I could even play the song on the piano then--and for most of his childhood years . . . Not now . . .


I found our song today. Twenty years after my baby boy and I discovered "Old Toy Trains," Roger Miller gave that song to the world.

Where was I that Christmas of 1995 that I missed this . . . ? I remember attending a middle school Christmas concert (my last year as a teacher) and, in spite of my first and only abcessed (knock on wood!) tooth, discovering both solace and delight in the music. I remember that at midnight that New Year's Eve I was home alone, assembling one of those eternal jigsaw puzzles (on the table I de-puzzled and lemon-oiled yesterday ), and consoling (via landline) my broken-hearted middle child, also home alone on New Year's Eve . . . But Christmas I don't remember at all . . . 1993 had gifted me with Patty Larkin's "Good Thing" from Angels Running and James Galway's rendition of "Gabriel's Oboe" (on tape--no CD or mp3 for this one but the YoYo Ma version is even more awesome!). 1994 had eased an achingly lonely Christmas with David Lanz's Christmas Eve. 1995?

I purchased two copies of the mp3 today (the Roger Miller version--many have followed since)--one for my Zen V Plus and one for Jamie's iPod. Making new memories with an old song. Michael is into toy trains too :-) . . . or at least he was last spring . . .



I also purchased the acoustic guitar mp3 version (from Christmas Innocence by Peter Groenhof). There's my Seagull in the entryway to dream with and two grandbabies, Mason and Campbell, taking guitar lessons . . .

little star . . .

twinkle

twinkle

listen!

quirky things to be happy about . . .

33. going shopping in the closet
34. slowing into the therapeutic zone
35. renewing a Lincoln rocker
36. conversing in old glass: slag, goofus, opalescent, carnival, whimsey, custard, rose bowl, nappy, jack-in-the-pulpit, coin dot, hobnail, vaseline, epergne
37. enjoying neighborhood walks with an mp3 bff
38. blogging on Friday evenings when Monday seems forever away
39. collecting everything adagio

40. knowing a Seagull guitar is tucked away for someday . . .
41. finding blue paisley capris at 75% off (and in a size you thought you'd never see again!)
42. holding fast to dreams . . .

simple gifts . . . a song

SIMPLE GIFTS

'Tis a gift to be simple,
'Tis a gift to be free,
'Tis a gift to come down where we ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
It will be in the valley of love and delight.

When true simplicity is gained,
to bow and to bend, we will not be ashamed
To turn, turn, will be our delight,
'Til by turning, turning, we come round right.

I've always associated the melody with Copland's Appalachian Spring and, in doing so, with concert band, my children, what seems a lifetime ago . . . Never truly heard the words of this traditional ballad until today . . . courtesy of Yo-Yo Ma. The lyrics are, of course, copyright free. The message they convey is . . . simply beyond price.

August . . .

A third gone already and I haven't posted . . .

OK, maybe life isn't all a case of simple pleasures.

But, under all the stuff of getting through the days, there are a few . . .

If I weren't on a baby food diet at the moment (long story, hopefully with a not too distant happy ending), I would never, ever, in a million years made myself the best-ever eggsaladwithrealmayonnaise and ateitall! today. I didn't even know I liked egg salad!

If I weren't temporarily sidelined with an overstressed knee, I would never, ever, in a million years have given myself permission to read all the books I've read so far this month alone! I would never have ordered the serious walking shoes to go with my serious mp3 player and my serious conviction that yesIdoneedtoputmyselffirst . . . at least sometimes.

Bet there's more simple pleasures under the stuff of getting through the days of August . . . I'll keep digging :-) And maybe even posting . . .

music . . .

OK, I'll admit . . . this label was already long overdue when I added it last December.

Maybe it's because music is the one simple pleasure in life that renders me powerless, eludes me, takes me to places and times I can't always come home from, at least not unchanged . . .

Soon after my last cell phone upgrade--maybe the day I downloaded Yo-Yo Ma's rendition of Gabriel's Oboe and made it my ringtone--I added own an mp3 player to my too-long to-do list. I did the research, to the point of deciding that the one I wanted would be a someday purchase--as in when the Christmas debts were paid, after the price came down, etc., etc.

A year and a half later, I've just been (late-birthday) gifted with the very one I wanted--both upgraded and downpriced. I've spent most of today revisiting a modest collection of CD's I rarely make time to enjoy . . .

A gig of downloads and four playlists later, I'm so enjoying this now-simple pleasure.

And going in my mind to other times, other places, other . . . selves . . .

. . . where there is time, there is a circle . . .

New Year's Eve, part 2

blogging on Christmas Eve???

I guess some would say I should get a life???

But it's been one of those simple pleasure kinds of days . . .

Can't remember the last time I baked macaroni and cheese. . . Maybe when the kids were little? Or made a German chocolate cake . . . Yes I do snap my own greenbeans, sometimes. . . fix both ham and turkey on occasion too. Today, it was all about the sheer simplicity of the menu, the simple pleasure of sharing it with family, and the pleasure of finding just the right combination to satisfy all those varied palates.

Too soon to share the gift stories--only Christmas Eve after all. But Campbell says I have his "number" (let's see what he builds with his tools this year. . .) and Michelle is in Tiffany heaven and my refrigerator gallery is about to graduate from clutter to elegance, thanks to Christie. . .

So, when everyone left my house for the next stops in their soveryfull lives, I opted for the children's Christmas Eve service--too tired for Midnight Mass and wanting to get out early tomorrow to see what Santa leaves tonight on his two other local stops. . . 5pm service. I snagged one of the last parking places in the back lot at 4:20. Not a seat to be found inside, until Father Bob makes this Southern gentlemen plea and one Southern gentleman finds me and offers me his seat. And, like a Southern lady (sorry, Mama, I wasn't very French independent tonight), I say thank you. Front row, one of the best seats in the house for the children's Christmas pageant. Two favorites: "hark, the herald angels. . ." (Mama always asked me to sing that for her at Christmas, in those long ago days when I actually could sing!) and "away in a manger. . ." (old favorite with a new memory today, Michael singing to the Baby Jesus in his green wicker cradle on my hearth this afternoon) . . .

I must have been a very good girl this year, I think, to be so richly blessed on this Christmas Eve. . .

Joy to our world

and peace to all people of good will . . .

blue room dreamer. . .

Had to brush away a few tears this morning . . . I hadn't expected that.

It was early in the ballet--a schoolday morning, 350+ seventh-graders and their chaperones. Dark, thankfully, since I'm not sure what the students on either side of me would have thought or that I could have explained. . . Tears.

I've always had a soft spot for Ebenezer Scrooge--in black and white, recast as the Grinch, Ebenezer the boy, and Ebenezer the old man shivering in his miser-y. But I did not cry today for Ebenezer, the boy on stage. A piece of me envied his experience--his to live on this stage at this moment in time. Mine only to dream all those long years ago in that blue, blue room . . .

I chart the best memories of my adolescent and teen years--and all the years since--by their music. "Greenfields" was my first love, "Chestnuts roasting . . .," my second (though I would not, until years later, see or taste my first chestnut). But the discovery that was to last a lifetime, the discovery of this thing called "classical music" (I now know I'm a lover of all things adagio), shaped a space in which dreams, however improbable, were infinitely possible.

The first record--long-playing, vinyl?--was a sampler of classics, a TV promotion. I've always thought my mother was the one who ordered it but, of late, I'm discovering Daddy bought things too then, like the aluminum Christmas tree . . . ? The record--just enough to make me so very hungry for more.

More came in the guise of the Nutcracker Suite. Overnight, the clutzy swan of uncertain equilibrium (my mother reminded me of that chronic flaw this Thanksgiving) became a ballerina. I savored those rare moments when the house was all mine--when in the privacy, first of the Candlewood kitchen and, at long last, senior year, the Hardee Road blue room, I danced my heart out. Twirling, twirling, one leg raised to clear a chair back. In my most sacred of dreams I danced the "Pas de Deux" with a faceless partner, someone much like this morning's young Ebenezer.

Tears, but with a smile, for the blue room dreamer . . . for the stuff of which rainbows are made. I still dream improbable--yet infinitely possible, somehow, some way, some day--dreams.