The Zap

Princess Haiku found a faded slip of paper in an old edition of "The Selected Poems of Federico Garcia Lorca."  On it was written:

"...ourselves before and ourselves after.  This assures anonymity.  While we can talk with each other and feel each other, we cannot identify each other.  Thus you will never be able to be entirely sure that each person you meet, for the rest of your life, has not participated in the Zap

with you."

She asks, "What is your interpretation of this, and why do you think that I found it?"

My interpretation forthwith, as we all await hers.

The Zap permits two lovers to forget they were ever in love. In a single instant, all that has transpired between them, both good and painful, vanishes from Time's record and their hearts' memories.   They may continue to know each other, but they cannot ever again "identify each other" as one with whom such passion is possible.  La passion est morte.

Leaving the choice, perhaps:  to forget and feel nothing, or to remember and suffer?

The Word

Then, words flowed

from the bewitchment of things, or spouted

in a dark bubbling, blood-like,

or their avid bonfires bit

the hands trying to trap them

or they crossed like birds or deer

in the sun's radiance, through the woods.

Now, when a word comes

- alone, immense, unique, lost,

a messenger successful in traversing

the most vast and naked of spaces -

we must welcome it regally,

open doors, light lamps,

and remain silent until,

incapable of lying to us, it falls asleep

and once again converges with the rocks.

Cintio Vitier

July 15, 1961

Translated by Electa Arenal

"A Couple of Swells" from "Easter Parade" and a Nod of Gratitude to the Internet

For years in particular geographically-challenged moments, I have found myself humming, "We would walk up the avenue but we haven't got a... WHAT?" at which time I would halt in utter frustration. Not because, once again, I had no idea how to get where I was going, but because I couldn't for the life of me recall the rest of the lyrics, or what it is "we" lacked. At that point in the lyrics it could only have been feet, or more plausibly a brain. Which, of course, is an entirely other song.

On a lark, the other day I looked up just that phrase, and sure enough, a Google search led me to the actual song, which is, "A Couple of Swells." I printed out the lyrics, and promptly, at long last, memorized them.

Anyhow, an entry or two below was a You Tube listing (see above) offering the entire original movie performance, which I proceeded to watch about fifteen times in a row, feeling Innocence and Hope restored completely.

May you as well.

Ready to Hatch: The Radiant Egg of Spring

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body love
what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
~ Mary Oliver

Surely anyone who passes my (blog) way already has the above poem inscribed in their very souls (if not their DNA), but just on the chance there is someone who needs to be reminded of the Ultimate Grace, herewith the above beloved poem, and my photograph of a recent perfect sunset at Kopachuck Park with Karma the Beloved Dog.

Maiden Making an Offering at the Waterfall in Moonlight

Greetings on the 'Hides' of March from Professor Higgins

'Aving 'ad a distinctly "Doolittle" day yesterday, we are curious as to what Our Fair Lady would report on the Professor's aspirations for this particular day.  We think it would be consistent with the above.

A bit of trivia, here. The "Ides" is the fifteenth of either this month OR the fifteenth of May, July, or October. For all the remaining months it is the thirteenth.   Did everyone else on the planet already know this but me?  

By the way, the very charming top photo is from kimizaki.

If I understand copyright rules correctly (and I apologize if I don't) the others are less identifiable.

'appy 'ides'!

Empathy Sluts

Having reserved the domain empathysluts.com, but being of a regrettable incapacity to actually create the website, I am hereby introducing the concept in the hopes of inspiring a ground-swell interest.

If you are an empathy slut, you probably don't need a definition, and if you aren't, you probably aren't interested, but just for the record it is to none other than my erstwhile "naked lady" friend Betsy that I owe the concept. In a moment of ruing our mutual capacity to take so much better care of our loved ones than we often did of ourselves, Betsy called us Empathy Sluts. This was a margarita (or two) into a fine Mexican dinner, but the term immediately established itself as a Profound Observation. Its by-line might be, "I'll feel your feelings so that you don't have to." Or, "Your feelings matter so much more than mine."

The bottom line is, "I know how you feel, and I'll take it from here."

Now, those of you of a psychological bent may discern certain similarities between being classically codependent and being an empathy slut, but we feel the latter takes codependency to another level altogether. Codependents might suffer from empathy, but empathy sluts raise it to the level of high art.

At least until they self-identify.

The ethically astute among you might argue that empathy is a good thing, and we quite agree. This is something different. You know the difference if you're reading this far. (Or you just might be in denial.) You may have questions nonetheless, and it is my goal to address these.

As Sgt. Joe Friday said, "Just the FAQ's, ma'am."

Question: I'm confused. Is it a good thing or a bad thing to be an empathy slut?
Answer: We think it's a good thing because it makes us laugh. It could be argued, however, that empathy is the good part but being a slut is, well, problematical (we're too nice to say more).

Question: Can guys be empathy sluts?
Answer: Absolutely. We recommend it for the very same reasons we think guys should wear skirts. Civilization, if you ask us, depends on it.

Question: Isn't it better to care about other people's feelings?
Answer: Certainly, as long as YOU are one of them.

Question: So what about the Golden Rule?
Answer: Most nice people of our acquaintance are in profounder need of its inversion: Do unto YOU as you know darn well you would do unto others.

Question: Is there a self-help group for recovering empathy sluts?
Answer: Mais oui. Slutbusters. (We can't set up that website either, though we've reserved the domain.)

Question: Hmm. Slutbusters. Does it have a theme song?
Answer: As a matter of fact it does. We have appropriated it from "Ghostbusters," and adapted the lyrics as follows:

Slutbusters

If you're too darn nice
For your own darn good -
Who ya gonna call?
Slutbusters!

If you sacrifice
'Cause you think you should -
Who ya gonna call?
Slutbusters!

If you give too much
Or you wish you could -
Who ya gonna call?
Slutbusters!

When you can't say no
Thinkin' you're no good -
Who ya gonna call?
Slutbusters!

Of Pi, Einstein's Birthday, a (Virtual) Visit to South Vietnam, and the Reclining Buddha

It is Albert Einstein's birthday, falling most fortuitously on National Pi Day, which, I am to understand, has been calculated to more than a trillion digits. In honor of the latter occasion I have given myself the task of memorizing Pi to the fifteenth place, having heard that the best insurance against memory loss is the exercise of it.

Apart from this exertion I appear to have little in the way of ambition - an Eliza Doolittle day for me. I feel quite like I imagine the reclining Buddha above, who seems to perfectly capture my favorite hortatory to sloth, the proverb: It is beautiful to do nothing, and to rest afterward.

On an impulse I Googled "reclining Buddha," hoping thereby to discover the original incarnation of the Buddha above, and instead got sidetracked by the figure below. It is located in the Takou Mountain Nature Reserve in Binh Thuan province on the eastern coast of South Vietnam and is around 160 feet long. Imagine walking through the forest and then encountering it!



Virtual reality is such endless delight.

Well, Pi to the fifteenth place is 3.141592653589793, but you'll have to take my word that I memorized it. In the meantime, I will close with a quote from Einstein that quite captures my mood-du-jour:

There are two ways to live: as if nothing is a miracle, or everything is.

A Sonnet from Edna St. Vincent Millay

Mindful of you the sodden earth in spring,
And all the flowers that in the springtime grow,
And dusty roads, and thistles, and the slow
Rising of the round moon, all throats that sing
The summer through, and each departing wing,
And all the nests that the bared branches show,
And all winds that in any weather blow,
And all the storms that the four seasons bring.

You go no more on your exultant feet
Up paths that only mist and morning knew,
Or watch the wind, or listen to the beat
Of a bird’s wings too high in air to view, -
But you were something more than young and sweet
And fair, - and the long year remembers you.

Balneology, and a Contemplation on a Tableau

Bath water having preoccupied me in a previous post, I thought I would take this moment to enlighten those of you who, like me, did not know that if you love to take baths, you are (or ought to be), a balneophile. It's quite like a bibliophile, only accruing bubbles instead of books. Balneology, as it turns out, is the science of the therapeutic effects of baths and bathing.

To my consternation, a Googling of balneophile left me with the definition that it was "a collector of pictures of bathing girls or a fondness for collecting pictures of girls in swimsuits." Well, not only is that etymologically suspect, it hardly applies to me (what with my not being an adolescent male) with the exception of my deep appreciation for the picture above, which, apart from the evident decade and the attire (we ourselves were au naturel) reminds me very much of a delightful occasion at Ocean Shores years ago with my dear friend Betsy.

My skinny-dipping beach bathing days are long since past (actually, there was only that one), but in the meantime baths have taken on a decidedly therapeutic role in my life. The scene below is what I gaze upon during each bath. It has occurred to me it might be telling me something about myself, although I haven't a clue what.



You might recognize the Dreaming Goddess of Malta in the center, and it's probably accurate to say that warm, fragrant baths can indeed be dream-like. But what she is dreaming of? Beside her is a miniature bottle of "Joy," my favorite perfume from my teens, and behind her is a ceramic scene of a swan, an odd little curio of puzzling origin with the initials "G.G." and the date 1889 printed on the back. Is it, perhaps, Zeus as a swan, the very Zeus who had his nefarious way with the unfortunate Leda? As Tails of Birding describes most charmingly:

The ever randy Zeus spied the beautiful Leda, wife of the King of Sparta. His Olympian lust aroused, Zeus nevertheless exercised a degree of circumspection. Changing himself into a swan, he allowed himself to be pursued by an eagle. He sought protection from his pursuer by falling into Leda’s arms. She apparently was a willing refuge, for she allowed him to stay in her arms through the night, even though her arms also included her husband. Her husband enjoyed her charms. Unknown to him, so did Zeus, still in his swan disguise. Helen, eventually of Troy fame, was the result of Zeus’ uncontrolled libido.

Well, I am hard-pressed to find personal significance in that particular tale, but the swan is also associated with mating for life, which I appear so far to have happily done.

Flanking the Dreaming Goddess on one side is a very fragrant frog, a French-milled soap figure I can't bear to use because his box says he is "The Magic Frog" and I am reluctant to exhaust his talents. Among frogs' symbolic interpretations are that they represent both the unconscious and an "inner embrace, an intermingling and mutual penetration of the masculine and feminine sides of the psyche." I rather like the implication of that.

On the other side of the Dreaming Goddess is a figure holding a representation of the sun. To my surprise I have just discovered that in most non-Western iconography the sun is regarded as female.

I have further learned that in ancient Britain she was known as "Sul, Sol, or Sulis."

And was worshipped near her springs at (I am not making this up) Bath.

That certainly places my little tableau squarely in my little corner of the collective unconscious. In the meantime, I only know that with my tableau, Herbaflor's Rosemary bath bubbles, and candlelight, I have my daily bliss.

Idle question: Do you suppose that when Zeus was criticized (as he surely was) for his untoward advances, he remonstrated, "But she would always just Leda me on"?

What not to throw out with the bath water

Two nights ago we attended a performance of the supernal Seattle Medieval Women's Choir, praise for whom mere words would not suffice. It seemed that the bevy of women from their twenties to their sixties - clearly talented, intelligent, sensitive as well as beautifully dressed - were my ideal soul confreres (I may mean consoeurs, which most likely is a neologism). I was in a kind of heaven, listening to each choir "angel" warbling melodiously.

Toward the end of the program, however, there was a piece composed by Salamone Rossi, a sixteenth-century Jewish polyphonist. (I couldn't find an image of him, but below is a German fifteenth-contemporary, Oswald von Wolkenstein, who will do for the moment.) As the choir sang the beatific "Psalm 137: Al naharot Bavel" I noticed that its last lyric was translated in the program as follows:

Blessed be he who grasps and smashes your babes against the rocks.

I was in shock, and then for a moment just this short of outrage. Do you know what you're singing? I nearly blurted. True, I can't countenance a dead baby joke any more than a racist or homophobic one, but there was still something quite irreconcilable about that moment in the performance. It had a classic "crazy-making" feel to it: the words and the music and surely the intentions were completely at odds.

Probably more pertinently what I should be wondering about is myself. My hypersensitivity. My (undoubtedly tedious) sincerity. My evident discomfort with irony (it seems so much crueler than paradox).

Well, how do I reconcile such a paradox as that moment in the performance? Not to rant yet again about the travesties of organized religion, but that night the Medieval Women's Choir epitomized my objections to religion itself. Such beauty masking such violence. No wonder the Bible needed version 2.0 in the form of the New Testament to redeem itself! As it stands, the Old Testament is too often a paean to violence, rage, and revenge. Should we be singing those praises?

So, what's a (mostly) good (mostly) Jewish girl to do? Here I sit with my much-loved sculpture of Hildegard von Bingen in the living room, vastly consoled listening to a selection of her twenty thousand or so twelfth-century hymns, griping about a lovely performance of Jewish medieval music.



In sum, I simply am not at all clear how I should regard that moment in the performance we attended. But at least in the meantime I won't throw out, um... the warbler with the baby bashed.

Spring Promised, Appendicitis Cured, and King Edward VII Extolled

Spring, having been "urged" in a previous post, has at last been presaged in the Northwest woods where Karma and I wend our wandering ways. Just a few days ago we happened upon the above-photographed Ribes sanguineum, or King Edward VII Flowering Currant, pink variety.

You may well wonder just how, of all personages, has King Edward VII contrived to appear in the middle of the Northwest woods? Well, thanks to the fascinating botanical expertise of Paghat I have learned that Captain George Vancouver first described this species of flowering currant and sent it back to England in 1817. There it was cultivated and christened on behalf of the very monarch after whom the Edwardian period is named, Albert Edward, eldest son of Queen Victoria (and pictured most charmingly above as a young boy).

It turns out this Edward VII was quite the dashing figure, having romanced many of the most prominent lovelies of the time, and more importantly, having been (haplessly, as it turns out) so committed to preventing World War I that he was called the "Peacemaker." Sounds like "Make love, not war" was not original with my generation.

In addition, for all of you who have had your appendix removed, it turns out you have none other than Edward VII to thank. The good King was stricken with appendicitis two days before his marriage to the lovely (but evidently insufficient) Princess Alexandra of Denmark (see picture below)


and was among the first beneficiaries of surgery for the condition. Appendicitis was not treated surgically and was frequently fatal at that time, but his surgeon, Sir. Frederick Treves, made a small incision and successfully drained Edward's appendix, forging the way for future treatment.

Now that I think about it, for that bit of trivia we probably have more reason to thank his surgeon than Edward himself. (Thereby making it a bit of Treve-ia?)

As a final tribute to a figure I have otherwise lived a lifetime ignorant of, but now admire considerably, those of us who are musicians of a Marxist bent will appreciate that he was a founder of the Royal College of Music, affirming,

"Class can no longer stand apart from class ... I claim for music that it produces that union of feeling which I much desire to promote."

I can think of few finer sentiments; surely it was close to a revolutionary statement in its time.

All in all, King Edward VII was quite the encounter in the Northwest woods, and a fine promise of Spring.

Sunset Orange, redux

I have yet to find the occasion on which I could wear this impossibly orange coat, designed by Marguerite Rubel of San Francisco (in the forties, I believe), but I like to imagine I might do so at a ball. "Every landscape is a condition of the soul," Henri Frederic Amiel remarked, and perhaps that would be the ball's inspiration.

Do you think this might be the invitation?



In the meantime, my velvet sunset orange coat hangs on the wall, a scarecrow princess waiting for her ball.

Sunset Orange

When my children were little we used to "chase the sunset." We would pile in the car at the first glimpse of orange, and go barreling down the road headed for the closest view, hoping to arrive in time to witness Emily Dickinson's "ribbon at a time."

These days it is with Karma the Beloved Dog that I chase the sunset, although occasionally I will call one or the other of the kids and urge them to hightail it to the nearest good view of the horizon.

Anyhow, as to the above photograph, there are certain sunsets at which I have to remind myself, as Dave Barry always insisted, "I am not making this up." The above was one. Such florid excess, such (nearly) histrionic beauty makes me laugh, makes me weep. Makes me think I should spend the rest of my days chasing the sunset, waiting for sunrise.

Of the Moon

In the absence of a visible moon, I thought I'd mention that my name, Cynthia, means "of the moon." I perfectly recall the moment at age thirteen when I discovered that. In the course of looking up some long-forgotten word I had noticed that actual names were also in the dictionary, along with their derivations. Naturally I made haste to look up my own, which name was, actually, a bit of an embarrassment to me. It seemed stuffy and pretentious, while my nickname, Cindy, made me feel too much like an airhead (which was, in fact, how I was often regarded). Surely there was something in between. I often thought I would much rather have been named Diana, which seemed to me to strike the perfect balance. It sounded lovely, and was considerably more common than my own name. Plus it had the added advantage (or so I thought, not anticipating Princess "Di") of being irreducible in the interests of some lame nickname.

Well, I shortly discovered that by sweetest coincidence Cynthia was the Roman surname for the goddess Diana, who had been born on Mt. Cynthus on the isle of Delos. To have been named after a goddess, and one whose name I had long coveted, was a coup an impassioned adolescent such as myself could only have dreamed of. Instead of being a gangly, freckled, chipped tooth misfit, I was suddenly "of the moon," just this side of celestial.

It was, however, a very brief moment of glory. I (misguidedly) shared my discovery with my 12-year old brother, who had little reason to have any affection for me, what with our respective ages and consequent intolerance of each other. Rather than prostrating himself in awe, he immediately christened me "Moon Maid," thereby silencing for decades any further reference to the derivation of my name.

Lest you think by any stretch of the imagination it was flattering to have been nicknamed Moon Maid, let me quickly disabuse you. Moon Maid, for those of you who weren't born yet (let alone reading the Sunday comics), was an inexplicably weird creature in the Dick Tracy comics. She was a ghastly, pale extraterrestrial with short, spiky hair, antennae, and freckles, and looked about as dorky as I felt.



As it happens, I've since learned that being named after the moon appears not to be any great distinction anyhow, given that the moon itself, as Alan Van Dine points out in his hilarious article "Name the Moon," utterly lacks a name. He writes:

Saturn is majestically circumnavigated by Titan, Hyperion, Iapetus, and other attending deities. Jupiter hosts Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. Even the flyspeck satellites of Mars—the smaller of which has no more acreage than a Texas cattle ranch—carry the names of Phobos and Deimos, sons of the Greek god of war. But what name do we give to Earth’s moon? “The moon.”

He explains as follows:

Shine On, Watchamacallit

As for settling on a particular name, the chief problem is jurisdictional; that is, whether the decision should be international, national, or local. The Romans tried a national-local compromise. They personified the moon as Cynthia, using this as a surname for Diana, since Diana was supposed to have been born on Mt Cynthus. By that principle of nomenclature, we might be tempted to name the moon Stan Musial, since it rises over Donora just as surely as it does over Mt. Cynthus.

And concludes:

More likely, the decision [about naming the moon] will default to the caucuses of Washington. Theirs is the habit of authority, coupled with an unquenchable passion for naming everything in sight, in honor of themselves. Each day, congressmen pass the Senator Robert A. Taft Memorial Bell Tower on their way to the Sam Rayburn Building, lunch on Speaker Joseph G. Cannon Memorial Bean Soup in the House restaurant, then stroll through the Plaza past the Everett M. Dirksen Memorial Pin Oak to the Representative Gilbert Gude Memorial Paw Paw Tree, all the while straining their febrile imaginations to think of something that has not yet been named.

Read the whole article in all its hilarity at Name the Moon.

In the meantime, my wonderful brother (and how did that happen?) has long since "maid" his amends.

Spring, Urged

Winters in the Pacific Northwest mostly leave me thinking I don't quite deserve spring, and it holds true now. It must be the inner Puritan in me, for whom All Beauty is Undeserved, but there is also a bit of the longing for the rigors of a hard-earned spring. As Robert Frost noted, "It was by having been contrasted/that good and bad so long had lasted," and there is a tepidness in both winter and spring here in the Northwest (where I have otherwise delighted) that takes the edge off my pleasure at the close of winter.

To the inner Puritan, by the way, my rejoinder is from my favorite book from my twenties, Henderson the Rain King, whose eponymous protagonist had avowed, "The forgiveness of sins is perpetual and righteousness first is not required."

Well, that certainly gives me permission to delight in the bowl of bulbs above that is just now at its peak. It's a fluffier sort of tulip than I typically take to, but its tinge of pink and frowsy abandon simply tickles me, well, pink. And as for my Puritan conscience, there's no "forcing" a bulb in our house, but urging is quite allowed.

Mon fils, in a funk

We had remarked on it before, but this particular photograph of our son raised to prominence the question of physiognomic imprinting. Forget genes as a determinant of looks; if our son is any example then living room art makes the call.

Short story: Several years before Nate's birth we had gone to the MOMA Picasso exhibition and brought back (among other things) a poster featuring Picasso's self-portrait, as seen above. For all his years growing up the poster was exhibited behind the television in front of which Nate sat (as least as often as he was allowed).

It was this chance photograph above that clinched the association. Nate was in one of his funks, and not particularly amenable to the picture-taking moment, but it truly underscores the similarity. I suppose we're lucky it wasn't a Salvadore Dali poster (see below) displayed all those years (not that I object to a bit of facial piercing).


In the meantime, he has put his own artistic talents to modern use with his business at www.uniqueblogdesigns.com. You can also read him "in his own write" at natewhitehill.com.

Ma fille, explaining her pleasure in being unattached

"I’m the female version of George Clooney. Guys are just like a school of fish passing by wondering if I have any bait, and to tell the truth I really don’t. I’m just fine swimming along with them."

This is the same darling girl who once wryly observed about her date, "He's really good at conversing, but he's so good that I don't have to be there."

I am convinced that one day she will have her own book of aphorisms. She is brilliant at the extemporaneous quip, defining bathing suits as "pieces of elastic sewn together to accentuate your flaws" and interjecting "religion is a crutch for the weak-minded" in the course of a conversation about the religious right. There was an occasion when I asked her and her visiting friend if they would mind if I dashed out to do an errand, and she replied, "Not at all. In fact, we'd mind if you stayed."

Lest you think she is just too sharp-tongued for her own good, however, let me include what she wrote when she was thirteen. It's true she is tart, but she is heart-breakingly sweet as well.

Here I am walking on this shining day.
Noticing the things around me, I look:
I see children shining as gold as a sun’s ray,
The light radiating from them is like the ending of any old children’s book.

They smile, I laugh, the happiness is contagious;
I slowly follow waiting to see where they will go.
The look on their faces is luminous
As they continue through the same trees I duck down low.

They continue running through the trees -
Into the beckoning sunshine they go -
And the light from the children connects with the day they have seized.

Shimmering Bliss, Beneficent Trepidation

I realized that the world does not represent a struggle at all, or a predaceous sequence of chance events, but shimmering bliss, beneficent trepidation, a gift bestowed upon us and unappreciated.
~ Vladimir Nabokov

Inexhaustible Metaphor

I discovered the above on Daily Poetics and have been in a kind of bliss since. It is a photograph of an installation by a fascinating British artist, Su Blackwell, titled "While You Were Sleeping." Perhaps for me, as an empty-nester, it particularly addresses my sense of how ineffably childhood passes. On the Daily Poetics site the installation is described as follows:

"A child's cotton dress disintegrates as it becomes something else...a cloud of butterflies. 'While you were sleeping' was inspired by the legend of the win-laik-pya or 'soul butterfly'. It is believed that the soul-butterfly flies abroad when its owner is asleep, wandering through time and space, meeting the soul-butterflies of other persons and animals and returning when the owner awakes. Burmese children are still taught never to awaken anyone too suddenly, for fear the win-laik-pya cannot get back in time, in which case the person dies, or worse, lives on, without a soul."

I have long (deludedly) thought of myself as a non-materialist (The more you know, the less you need, goes the Aboriginal saying) but Daily Poetics is the devil on my shoulder, urging the most artful and least conspicuous consumption. And it is not just the blog's bevy of marvelous merchandise that inspires; the genius of the quotes accompanying the goods makes of advertising a work of literary art.

Much as I love "While You Were Sleeping," I do have difficulty with Blackwell's use of books. Her "book-cut sculptures" unnverve me, and speak to my bias that even a very bad book is somehow sacred. I was gratified to note that actually there are times when that is true for even her. "If it's really old, or unique, I do have a problem," she is quoted as saying. "I may have bought it intending to use it, and then I find I can't, so I put it aside."

Those concerns notwithstanding, her installation photographed above is, for me, a poem unto itself. Inexhaustible metaphor.

Orientalia, continued

For many years I have anguished (well, that may be too strong a word) over my attachment to a book that I was otherwise charmed by. It is titled, "The Jingle of a Jap," and was written by Clara Bell Thurston in 1908, an era when sensitivity to racist references was not at its keenest (or so I believed).

It was only this week, however, that I discovered it does, in fact, redeem itself. The story tells of a Japanese boy doll in America who falls impossibly in love with a doll described as follows:

Her eyes were of the
brightest blue;
Her hair the fairest flax,
Her gowns were of the latest cut;
Her cheeks the pinkest wax.

Well, as Woody Allen says, the only true love is unrequited (no consolation to our little Japanese doll) and at the end of the tale, he returns home to Japan, where "he was quite - yes, just as good/As any other doll," and where:

His parents were delighted
To think that he had left a land
Where folks were so benighted.

Well, to my chagrin for all these years I truly hadn't fully understood that "benighted" meant "intellectually or morally ignorant," which comment on the author's part shows remarkable awareness. I can now adore the book with impunity (the PC police had been at my door).

Evidently the book originally came with a small attached Japanese doll, which I hoped to find online and did not. However, in the course of my sleuthing I came upon a reference to a book that makes me think of Princess Haiku. It is by Pierre Loti, written in 1905, and titled, Madame Chrysantheme. I don't know about the illustrations in his book, but I happened upon a postcard of a certain Mademoiselle Chrysantheme, as follows:


It looks to me as if she has carnations in her hair, but I will leave that determination to the experts in the field. Princess Haiku?

He Could Not Come, But I Have Brought His Head

Among the many curios of uncertain provenance I have accumulated is the figure above. It was T. S. Eliot who pointed out, "We had the experience but missed the meaning," which appears to apply to many of the collectibles (for wont of a better category) I hold most dear. I have acquired them, but do not really know them. If everything is metaphor (as I seem to assert), what exactly have I been telling myself with the treasures I've collected?

Like my Malta postcard from below, I am finally pursuing the clues of what I seem to love. With regard to the figure above, I am guessing there must be symbolic or mythological significance to it, but I haven't a clue about how to discover what that is. My fantasy is that one day it will be possible to post a picture on Google and it will self-identify.

Until then, it is posted here, with my private titular reference to it, which probably suggests more about my unconscious than I can explore at the moment but amuses me no end. In the meantime, it is my fond hope that a reader (there must be one) will be able to enlighten me.

The Art of Disappearing, as photographed by my brother

The Art of Disappearing, as described by Li Po

You ask
why I perch
on a jade green mountain?
I laugh
but say nothing
my heart
free
like a peach blossom
in the flowing stream
going by
in the depths
in another world
not among men

~ LI PO

The Art of Disappearing

THE ART OF DISAPPEARING

When they say Don’t I know you? say no.
When they invite you to the party
remember what parties are like
before answering.
Someone telling you in a loud voice
they once wrote a poem.
Greasy sausage balls on a paper plate.
Then reply.
If they say we should get together.
say why? It’s not that you don’t love them any more.
You’re trying to remember something
too important to forget.
Trees.
The monastery bell at twilight.
Tell them you have a new project.
It will never be finished. When someone recognizes you in a grocery store
nod briefly and become a cabbage.
When someone you haven’t seen in ten years
appears at the door,
don’t start singing him all your new songs.
You will never catch up.
Walk around feeling like a leaf. Know you could tumble any second.
Then decide what to do with your time.

~ Naomi Shihab Nye

The Insect World, Being Largely Limited to the Tale of an Errant Bumblebee,

(Title above, continued): Prevailed upon for the Occasion of Commemorating and Dramatizing a (Possible) Forebear Found Bouncing on a Blackberry Blossom, But Not Exclusive of Some Serious Considerations Regarding the Fate of Anthills

About the insect world in the Northwest Woods there is very little, ahem, to write, we regret to say, perhaps owing to that very size consideration in all but the most Intimidating of insect species (all of whom, we dare hope, live on Faraway Continents in remote destinations we cannot imagine Karma the Beloved Dog might feel compelled to visit).

However, that does not explain the fact that one of us once spent her entire lunch break trying to extricate and restore to flying condition an all-but-infinitesimal gnat that had misguidedly landed in her blueberry yoghurt. What the lesson was in that we can only guess. We think it has something to do with not eating blueberry yoghurt outdoors on patios adjacent to one’s workplace, although for obvious reasons we find it difficult to believe there is any universal applicability to that particular insight.

Which may ultimately be true, we hasten to acknowledge, of the following report (although we are nonetheless compelled to tell the story).

It began one day nearly exactly a year ago when, in our passage through the virtual thickets of blackberry bushes (the non-native kind) which grace our Northwest Woods (we may mean infest), our eye was suddenly caught by the unexpected oscillations of a blackberry blossom, which we quickly realized was owing to the presence of a Bumblebee on one of the petals. To the untutored eye it looked quite like the dear bee was using the petal as a bit of a trampoline, which we found both memorable and amusing. As we did not have our camera on hand, we did not photograph the event, but instead commemorated it with the following (sort of) haiku:

Blackberry blossom
lightly bounces
As Bumblebee alights.

Now (to this more recent occasion nearly exactly a year later) we were particularly conscientious about proceeding on our path at Mallard’s Landing, our reserve largely owing to the ant metropolises that seem to have sprung up determinedly yet again this year. Because of this avid attention to where we placed our feet (although one of us was certainly a tad more oblivious, and we think you know whom we mean) it will come as no surprise that we shortly espied a Bumblebee on the path.

This would ordinarily lead us to proceed with caution, but we quickly concluded that this particular bumblebee was going Nowhere Fast. He appeared to move in the general direction of the right side of the path, and his little wings were flapping wildly, but he could not seem to navigate the twigs or leaves in his path, and he certainly wasn’t producing an airborne effect.

Once the immediate path before him was cleared of twigs and leaves, etc., he simply spun about in largish circles as if he were very much disoriented by the abrupt removal of what apparently were Significant Landmarks. It was at this point we realized we had on our hands (as it were, though not advisable in the literal sense) a Bumblebee in Distress, unable to escort himself off the path, and very likely to be flattened by the next passer-by.

Well, we are nothing if not helpful, and using a tiny stick we edged him onto a leaf, to which he clung gratefully (or so it appeared), and set him down on the side of the path in whose direction he seemed to be heading, where we fondly hoped he would find sustenance and safe haven, if not some first aid assistance. We then continued on our way, aiming to take photographs of the rush of blackberry blossoms as evidence of the Northwest Woods’ (rather slim, we do feel) selection of flora of a flowery sort.

Four photographs later we recalled the moment in the year previous of the bumblebee bouncing on the blackberry blossom, and we wished (again) we had had our camera at that time, although we remembered (again) how unlikely it would have been anyhow to successfully capture the occasion, what with the general disinclination of insects to do what they’re asked, and their evident impulsiveness. It was at that moment that a light bulb went off in one of our heads. Aha! we thought. Why, we could create a repeat performance of that charming moment in a dramatic (though admittedly staged) performance employing the services of the Bumblebee we just met and rescued, who, regrettably (but fortuitously), wasn’t in a position to take flight without notice. Moreover, was probably right where we left it.

If only we could remember where that was.

Well, we retraced our steps, peering closely along the side of the path, and sure enough, there he was, stumbling about the leaves and twigs (still rather aimlessly, we thought) and seeming to be willing enough to play the role we sought. There was a bit of a setback trying to pick him up since we were (wisely, we think) aware that he, though Unable to Fly, might nonetheless still have the Capacity to Sting. As it happens he still evinced a respectable capacity to move with dispatch, which left us uneasy at the prospect of carrying him for any distance on a leaf, the edge of which would necessarily abut our very own tender flesh. However, just in time we had yet another Ingenious Idea, and found a rolled up sort of last year’s leaf, into which we wedged him, and walked to the very nearest satisfactory blackberry blossom, setting him on the petal, as seen above.

Well, in truth the photograph does not quite capture the magic of the previous occasion, the gentle bouncing of the blackberry blossom not being a capacity of still photography to display, and our role-playing Bumblebee not sitting quite where we recall the other one to have done, but both we and the bee were, we believe, gratified. He, for his part, certainly made haste to avail himself of the blossom’s nectar, nigh unto burying himself in the blossom’s tiny bush of little pistils and stamens (though not quite perhaps in that immediate combination, if we recall our biology correctly), and we, of course, had a photograph to accompany the (sort of) haiku.

We were hoping this performance would so restore him he would then be capable of flight (we preferred it be a direction other than our own) but he still did not appear to have the necessary wherewithal to take off. We pondered a bit about the pointlessness of wishing there were such a thing as a bee veterinarian (a beeterinarian?), and watched him tumble gently from blossom to blossom, righting himself each time with a little shake of his furry abdomen, but clearly it would take more than a little nectar and a Starring Role to restore him to his former mobility.

Then, Karma the Beloved Dog, nipped our heel in some frustration, so we thanked the Bumblebee for his stage services (we were remiss in checking whether he was registered in the Actors’ Guild), and wished him well.

Be well, dear Bee.