tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37401832011-04-21T18:49:25.501-07:00KindlingSticks, twigs, bits of paper, bits of meSandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17667683773002275041noreply@blogger.comBlogger631100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3740183.post-26863487927442616582008-10-03T10:07:00.000-07:002008-10-03T10:16:13.948-07:00The fences are weird. No making sense of where they've been placed. But they're not as bad as we imagined. Right now, there are still small gaps to be found or burst through. There's an intoxicating exuberance everywhere, a blend of autumn color and cool, of Fall Break, and, yes, of Debate '08. Yesterday, if we wanted, we could tour where things will be: the inside of the immense press Sandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17667683773002275041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3740183.post-22352449840993107812007-12-05T20:41:00.000-08:002007-12-05T21:23:32.680-08:00Breaking ThroughChristmas lights. Here they are, winning me, as many things more serious seemingly can't do. They lift my heart. If I were my doctor, I'd write a prescription telling me to go out driving every night, to find more and more places coming alight as the days continue toward the holiday. I want to go up to the doors of every house, to thank the people at home there for making Sandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17667683773002275041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3740183.post-1165293798147398592006-12-04T20:33:00.000-08:002006-12-04T20:43:18.156-08:00Lovers' moon through bare trees, Christmas lights that always surprise me as if I'd never seen them before. I'm trying to soak it all in, just as I did Sunday's service and the party with friends because Christmas in Australia is nothing the same. It's not just the weather because it may well be 50 degrees and raining on Christmas Day. Even summer can't be counted on to stay summer that far Sandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17667683773002275041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3740183.post-1165104286566539922006-12-02T15:55:00.000-08:002006-12-02T16:06:04.880-08:00Christmas at Belmont. Walking on to the campus more dressed-up than I ever am. Richard S. making the carillon sing. Settled in my seat in the Massey balcony. Music so beautiful I have to close my eyes. Well, also music designed for the national TV broadcast. But even that is impressive.From the balcony I search the small faces of the orchestra, the Chorale, the Chorus, the jazz groups, Sandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17667683773002275041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3740183.post-1165041038477707172006-12-01T21:18:00.000-08:002006-12-02T15:54:25.816-08:00I've lived more than long enough to know that grief can end in gratitude, the pain, the memories of what once was. I know it, I say it, I hear myself say it. There's a book lying on my nightstand that promises the same. Time is a healer. Time. I say to my hurting students: "Just promise me you'll find a way to get through until 30." I say it will hurt less then. I say I have no idea why. I Sandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17667683773002275041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3740183.post-1059274748811262602003-07-26T19:59:00.000-07:002003-07-26T19:59:08.590-07:00 "You shall go with me, newly-married bride,
And gaze upon a merrier multitude.
White-armed Nuala, Aengus of the Birds,
Feachra of the hurtling form, and him
Who is the ruler of the Western Host,
Finvara, and their Land of Heart's Desire.
Where beauty has no ebb, decay no flood,
But joy is wisdom, time an endless song."
-William Butler Yeats, "Land of Heart's Desire"Sandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17667683773002275041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3740183.post-1059177007012772332003-07-25T16:50:00.000-07:002003-07-25T16:50:06.856-07:00I had an early doctor's appointment today and sort of never had breakfast, or lunch--one of them, anyway. So about 5:00, having worked up an unusual appetite, I decided to visit Cracker Barrel for some of that food my Mama can't make quite the same anymore and I don't allow myself to cook. Cracker Barrel is always a good place for a Southern writer to remind herself of her roots. Tonight ISandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17667683773002275041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3740183.post-1058132266873889022003-07-13T14:37:00.000-07:002003-07-13T14:37:46.760-07:00Summer turns surreal, a phone call from my sister announcing that my dad is headed by ambulance for Jackson. Another summer, another emergency hospital stay. Multiple blockages in the small intestine this time. He's neither as critically ill nor as abusive this year, but I have to admit that I can't shake the emotional imprints of other times. I can hardly bear to stay in the room, Sandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17667683773002275041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3740183.post-1057089552158149492003-07-01T12:59:00.000-07:002003-07-01T12:59:11.983-07:00Back-tracking
I've left a couple of loose ends, I've been reminded. What about the aunt, the one I left confined to Whitfield for life? She did live in the Jackson mental hospital for the rest of her life, in fact, though her visitation was held in the same Ripley funeral home as my uncle's and she was buried nearby on a day as glaringly hot. Her story, too, would be well worth writing. Sandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17667683773002275041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3740183.post-1056990776988637012003-06-30T09:32:00.000-07:002003-06-30T09:32:56.980-07:00I've been thinking more about the 'pretend-like' of living, thinking in quite different ways, perhaps because I'm very far from being in a desert place right now. My desert blooms with the brightest flowers. And, to be honest, there are times when my faith in myself and the world boils dry, but as a friend told me long ago, I seem to have been given a gift of belief. My faith in God runs Sandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17667683773002275041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3740183.post-1056909600224915892003-06-29T11:00:00.000-07:002003-06-29T11:00:00.190-07:00Becca spoke today of how even religion is a stage and all of us poor players strutting and fretting , often on the surface of the boards. She linked her analogy to the purpose of ritual, of liturgy, of our weekly acting out of the Last Supper. As always, a story she told gave me a moment of illumination that was new. The story was of a man who had lost his beloved wife to death and afterwardSandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17667683773002275041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3740183.post-1056835117453463642003-06-28T14:18:00.000-07:002003-06-28T14:18:37.436-07:00My uncle Arvy could be a tyrant at home, as was true for all of the six adult children of Lawson and Eunice. In some ways, all of them were reared to be hard, to expect too much of themselves and those for whom they felt responsible. Maybe that was why all of them seem to have chosen favorite nieces and nephews with whom they could let down the standard and let out some tenderness. Uncle Sandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17667683773002275041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3740183.post-1056653189407627802003-06-26T11:46:00.000-07:002003-06-26T11:46:29.283-07:00On a Funereal Journey
It seemed if I could get out of Nashville, I might make it fine. The traffic was heavy through Belle Meade. And right in the middle of Bellevue, not far from the interstate, the car in front of me ran over something plastic. My car is too low to skim it. So I dragged it to a service station--no service of course. So I stopped over close to the vacuums, hoping to Sandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17667683773002275041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3740183.post-959336902003-06-22T21:01:00.000-07:002003-06-22T21:01:35.386-07:00The qualifications for entry to the Fur, Feather and Fin Art Show are [1] that each entry must contain in some form (you guessed it) fur, feather or fin and [2] the unwritten but understood rule that all work must be rated G. i.e, pass Church of Christ censorship. I also learned that there must also be a community understanding that art means something two-dimensional that can be framed.
Sandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17667683773002275041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3740183.post-958968642003-06-21T10:52:00.000-07:002003-06-21T10:52:06.173-07:00In Middleton, sidewalks have been pre-programmed to roll themselves up at 6 p.m, so I was determined to catch the Fur, Feather and Fin Festival at its height. So, at two o'clock on Saturday afternoon (it's a weekend festival), we set out, excitement only slightly lower than when I watched for dark clouds all the way to the Mid-South fair each September of my youth.
The festival takes place Sandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17667683773002275041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3740183.post-958805582003-06-20T18:44:00.000-07:002003-06-20T18:44:12.330-07:00My husband seems to have become a festival-goer, at least in theory. When we were visiting in West TN a while back, he was quite distraught to learn that we'd missed the World's Biggest Fish Fry in Paris. He said we'd go there next year and to Humboldt to the Strawberry Festival as well, not to mention Mule Day in Columbia. That's right, isn't it? I don't think I've ever actually been to Sandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17667683773002275041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3740183.post-938173462003-05-05T12:34:00.000-07:002003-05-05T12:34:11.120-07:00In her homily yesterday, Becca talked about hands, about how Jesus , on the road to Emmaus, showed his hands to the disciples who didn’t recognize him. She spoke of the difference it makes to have a savior who knows woundedness. She told us that after years of giving communion into cupped hands, she can see so much in those hands—where nails stop and tips begin, who gardens, who works with his Sandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17667683773002275041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3740183.post-930570172003-04-22T10:19:00.000-07:002003-04-22T10:19:19.430-07:00Last weekend, we had to go out to Opry Mills to have a ring repaired. While there, we watched James Cameron’s latest Titanic documentary through 3D goggles that overwhelmed my head. And we ate dinner at the 50’s diner where the servers move in happy harmony sixteen behind a counter and come out and do a wonderful parody of disco whenever someone plays “Let’s Dance” on the jukebox. We sat at Sandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17667683773002275041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3740183.post-929450492003-04-20T13:48:00.000-07:002003-04-20T13:48:02.780-07:00When I was small, Easter was a wonderful and meager time, or so it seemed then. My church would have allowed no mention of the holiday, except for the perceived necessity to preach to those who filled the pews that Sunday, those who came to church only once a year, about why it is wrong to celebrate Easter as a religious holiday. The plain building was bright, all the same, with Easter finery Sandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17667683773002275041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3740183.post-929032832003-04-19T14:08:00.000-07:002003-04-19T14:08:44.623-07:00Now, in the lovely wake of Annie's log, I'll write a little about my part in the Good Friday vigil at our chapel. Unlike Anne, I couldn't take a middle of the night shift (almost forbidden to take the one I did), but I thank and bless her and the others who did. My prayer time was the privileged one, the last shift of the 24 hours. The two hours that I prayed seemed like ten minutes at the Sandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17667683773002275041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3740183.post-928686172003-04-18T19:34:00.000-07:002003-04-18T19:34:44.436-07:00Two poems that speak to my own Good Friday vigil:
It's Possible
It's possible that while sleeping the hand
that sows the seeds of stars
started the ancient music going again
--like a note from a great harp--
and the frail wave came to our lips
as one or two honest words.
Antonio Machado
Things to Think
Think in ways you've never thought before:
If the phone rings, think of it as Sandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17667683773002275041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3740183.post-928020682003-04-17T14:54:00.000-07:002003-04-17T14:54:53.686-07:00A Postscript:
For The Sake of Strangers
Dorianne Laux
No matter what the grief, its weight,
we are obliged to carry it.
We rise and gather momentum, the dull strength
that pushes us through crowds.
And then the young boy gives me directions
so avidly. A woman holds the glass door open,
waiting patiently for my empty body to pass through.
All day it continues, each kindness
reaching toward Sandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17667683773002275041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3740183.post-927262522003-04-16T10:27:00.000-07:002003-04-16T10:27:51.420-07:00Short Leg to Jacksonville, Pt. II
“The book you’re reading. Pascal,” I said.
“Oh. Yes. I’ve always been fascinated with Pascal. I’m a mathematician myself…well, computers. I like it that Pascal was brilliant--but a Christian too.”
That’s it, I thought. I am this man’s evangelical mark of the day; no doubt he thinks divine guidance has led him to win me over.
This time I spoke fast:Sandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17667683773002275041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3740183.post-926764362003-04-15T15:10:00.000-07:002003-04-15T15:10:09.466-07:00Short Leg to Jacksonville (Pt. 1)
I like aisle seats and I never fasten my seat belt at first because Southwest always warns that its flights are “anticipated to be completely full.” Most people won’t take a middle front seat until the back is completely full, even if they’re stalled in the aisle beside one for ages. But this time a hefty African-American woman said, “I think I’ll just take Sandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17667683773002275041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3740183.post-924665012003-04-11T20:37:00.000-07:002003-04-11T20:37:33.233-07:00Baghdad is in chaos, and pollen chasing my brain cells around.
I was on campus today. Worse than the sound of jackhammers, the piles of rubble: the evidence that we now have been over-constructed. An absolute monstrosity of donor's vanity rising to gloat over everything.
But, oh, I love those writing boys. Trevor took me to lunch in the cafeteria, and one of them appeared at our table.Sandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17667683773002275041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3740183.post-919340852003-04-03T12:20:00.000-08:002003-04-03T12:20:25.373-08:00When my daughter visits Nashville at Christmas, she always wants to go out to the Opryland Hotel to see the lights and decorations. Actually, we've been doing this since she was in high school and I was at V'bilt, and, almost always, we've shared the pathways not just with ferns and poinsettia (or an occasional wedding) but also with cheerleaders. I think some high school cheerleading Sandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17667683773002275041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3740183.post-916346402003-03-29T20:42:00.000-08:002003-03-29T20:42:10.390-08:00Redbuds
made their entrance late this year;
lifted slender, graceful arms dressed
for midnight dances; they far outshine
the hybrid and pale city blossoms,
the enormous crinolined skirts that
earlier took up most of the stairs
and drew out, forgotten, sighs.
In the waking forests now, their lyric
cerise causes wintry trunks to recede,
gentlemen in gray in the back
of the opera box, letting allSandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17667683773002275041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3740183.post-915074492003-03-27T14:49:00.000-08:002003-03-27T14:49:06.700-08:00About my last posting, I should say: I'm prone to have trouble adjusting to anything new.
Suddenly, my life is packed as tight as the blossoms on the pear trees. (I love it when spring runs amok. I have raptures over every pink tree, every saffron bush, wanting to gather them up in my hands, loving them even more because they won't stay.) After a lovely but too-short early lunch with Sandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17667683773002275041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3740183.post-914615432003-03-26T21:36:00.000-08:002003-03-26T21:36:00.280-08:00Somehow my weblog has now been decorated with photographs and a "support democracy in Iraq" sign. Not sure what's going on. Not even sure what supporting democracy means. But, in case it offends anyone, I didn't do it.Sandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17667683773002275041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3740183.post-914611592003-03-26T21:27:00.000-08:002003-03-26T21:27:50.623-08:00
Musing about my response to staying at a convent for the first time (thinking on paper, may be tedious):
Tonight my dear Robbie (Happy birthday on Friday) was telling our women's group about the convent (Community of the Holy Spirit) where we stayed on Saturday night. "It was so wonderful," she turned to me, "wasn't it?" And, without expecting to, I let out a "yes-s-s" that was far too Sandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17667683773002275041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3740183.post-913535452003-03-25T08:44:00.000-08:002003-03-25T08:44:21.140-08:00Memorable Moments from New York:
CCCC is the national conference for teachers of writing in universities. Nine of us were there from Belmont. None feels that he/she must attend every conference session. Most were intent to see the city in various preferred ways. I was ill and didn't sleep, not able to walk far or do things most of my friends did. Others urged me to go home, but I didn't Sandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17667683773002275041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3740183.post-881882122003-01-28T17:35:00.000-08:002003-01-28T17:35:50.750-08:00I always pretend to love January, sidling up to him and saying he is beautiful in ways that simpering June could never be. I want to have learned to love him. I tell myself he is an adult taste. After all, I truly adore December, and February has attractions, brevity for one. January pretends to believe me but he sees through my smiles. Janus is the god of beginnings, of doors that open, and Sandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17667683773002275041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3740183.post-877106572003-01-19T20:31:00.000-08:002003-01-22T14:00:41.000-08:00Post-postmodern now, what will happen to the novel? One area of interest will be the ending; what kind of closure might we find in the 21st Century novel? Not that it constitutes a pattern, but some writers (whom I commend for actually giving their novels closure) don't seem to be able even to IMAGINE happy or tragic endings without twisting their narratives out of shape, almost as if driven toSandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17667683773002275041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3740183.post-876077562003-01-17T13:02:00.000-08:002003-01-17T14:16:22.000-08:00The previous entry should have been prefaced with a paragraph I'll never manage to recreate now. But it said that Becca has told us we should look for signs and wonders in our lives during Epiphany. And it acknowledged that she is one of them. asking the questions that are too painful for me to ask, offering forgiveness and blessing when I can't offer it to myself.Sandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17667683773002275041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3740183.post-873344272003-01-12T19:46:00.000-08:002003-01-17T12:59:18.000-08:00Other signs and wonders:
snow, pink-lit from street lights or blue in the sun of children's voices
fever, which befuddles me but blessedly takes the edge off pain, floats me through vertigo and nausea, makes hours pass less cold and jagged
bananas, apparently. MSN says they haven't had sex for years and could be extinct in a decade. When I was a little girl, we had a visit from my great Sandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17667683773002275041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3740183.post-872827982003-01-11T16:24:00.000-08:002003-01-11T16:24:17.303-08:00I met with my women's group this week for a night of restorative laughter. At one point, someone said, "On Martha Stewart's show today, she showed how to take a piece of okra and make a decorative rubber-stamp with it."
Oh, that's funny, and it's anything but funny. What have we done with our lives? Am I wrong, or is this really sad?
Speaking of sad, I saw "About Schmidt" on Friday night.Sandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17667683773002275041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3740183.post-865159892002-12-25T07:52:00.000-08:002002-12-25T07:52:49.773-08:00I have spent what may have been the only peaceful Christmas morning I ever experienced, after a magical Christmas Eve, and it has been good. I've always thought I should envy those with houses full to the lintels with children and relatives. Those holidays have their blessings too, and usually we travel to share one as close to that as we can get. But I have loved this slow and quiet time: a Sandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17667683773002275041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3740183.post-858170922002-12-10T19:09:00.000-08:002002-12-10T19:09:35.113-08:00
One of my friends told me she may start coming to St. A's because of the article about three Magdalene women in Sunday's newspaper. I've read several well-written essays about the ministry and the women, and Becca of course, but this one really drives home what kind of love it takes to do this heartbreaking, ever-struggling, absolutely crucial and Christ-like work. God's blessings on all womenSandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17667683773002275041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3740183.post-857882882002-12-10T08:30:00.000-08:002002-12-10T08:30:58.053-08:00
People are beyond marvelous; who wouldn't want to try to write about them? Christmas brings out the color of Southerners: for one thing, it's louder. It may be like cell phones--something about that little rectangle to the ear makes some people think they're in a bubble, I guess. You know what I mean. You're waiting in line at Walgreen's and out of nowhere there's a voice behind you saying:Sandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17667683773002275041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3740183.post-857021512002-12-08T17:28:00.000-08:002002-12-08T17:28:15.066-08:00Two parables about aging:
I went to Claire's the other day and bought some little Christmas-y hair clips, glittering red and green with candy canes and reindeer dangling. I wore them to church this morning. Afterward, I gave a check to a woman for tickets to Aida in February. She said, I like those things in your hair. I told her they were my version of wearing purple. She said, Hey, if youSandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17667683773002275041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3740183.post-856145062002-12-06T15:25:00.000-08:002002-12-06T15:25:48.910-08:00A poem of fear. I don't always like the way my imagination takes me.
Encounter
(Warner Park, late September)
It is mostly illusion, she said,
(The doe frozen at the crest of the hill)
a figment of your human longing:
twilight before, sweet sunset behind,
my eyes sad looking into your own.
Perhaps I really look over your shoulder.
I’ve taken four and half steps to the east,
the crest actually Sandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17667683773002275041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3740183.post-849032442002-11-21T19:10:00.000-08:002002-11-21T19:10:06.143-08:00While we're talking about Mary Oliver, she lists examples from her notebook in Blue Pastures. A few I liked:
Though you have not seen them, there are swans, even
now
tapping from the egg and emerging
into the sunlight.
They know who they are.
-------------
When will you have a little pity for
every soft thing
that walks through the world,
yourself included?
--------------------
After a Sandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17667683773002275041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3740183.post-844499922002-11-12T18:43:00.000-08:002002-11-12T18:43:06.870-08:00From stately speeches to virgins, just leave it to me. Well, now, about those ten virgins and those full and empty lamps...hmmm. Oh, yeah, away from Freud and back to where I was headed. The parable of the ten virgins: I just take it for granted that anything located around Matthew 25 is going to be hard to understand. Becca says the parable is hard because the bridegroom clearly was Sandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17667683773002275041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3740183.post-843836712002-11-11T14:28:00.000-08:002002-11-11T14:28:35.470-08:00The Journey, by Mary Oliver
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice-
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles,
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
Though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their Sandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17667683773002275041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3740183.post-843431672002-11-10T19:35:00.000-08:002002-11-10T19:35:01.900-08:00Okay, this wasn't brilliant the first time I wrote it and won't be this time. And I think it will take two days' entries. But I've been thinking about Tecumseh's twice-mentioned advice that each person should prepare a death song. At times in the past, I've allowed my students to try writing their own epitaphs, but somehow that seldom works, not because it ends up as self-praise but because Sandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17667683773002275041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3740183.post-843002312002-11-09T19:47:00.000-08:002002-11-10T19:33:48.000-08:00What happened to the promised next Shawnee-write? Well, I wrote it (brilliant thing, of course) and somehow erased it. Been out of town and hadn't recreated it. But since Anne has been so kind as to add my link, I will do so, tomorrow.
Here's what it's based on, a speech by Tecumseh:
So live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart. Trouble no one about their religion: Sandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17667683773002275041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3740183.post-838263022002-10-31T07:08:00.000-08:002002-10-31T07:08:36.583-08:00I'm doing some research as I revise my first novel. One of the characters, Faryn Glidewell, calls himself a "Mississippi Shawnee." Faryn, an ex-wrestler, chooses to flaunt his version of this identity when he returns to the small town in north Mississippi where he was born: black hair to his shoulders, black clothing, turquoise and silver from head to toe. Before my imagination gave it to me,Sandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17667683773002275041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3740183.post-831185882002-10-17T07:39:00.000-07:002002-10-17T07:39:58.830-07:00I am so strange lately: I keep drifting into reveries about words. This inward, meditative state is not new, but it is stronger lately. And the words or phrases I've been choosing are hard ones: choice, beginning, dreams of houses, aloneness, compassion--even some reading I did about friendship set me off. Some of these ideas are beautiful, but some are fraught for me, as they would be for Sandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17667683773002275041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3740183.post-830644552002-10-16T08:12:00.000-07:002002-10-16T08:12:25.100-07:00On Sunday after church (more about that in my next entry), I sped down Demonbreun, zipped up 7th, found a parking lot, ran a couple of blocks, and made it to my friend's session at the Southern Festival of Books. After he went off to sign the six copies of his book the Festival ordered, I decided, with some trepidation, to go to Rick Bragg's reading. I hadn't read "Ava's Man" but had heard someSandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17667683773002275041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3740183.post-828157452002-10-10T17:01:00.000-07:002002-10-10T17:01:33.590-07:00Day before yesterday, I walked far into the forest at Warner Park. It was still summer there. I began my walk off the road and climbed until I found a doe in a clearing, and she spoke a poem to me. Then I went to the road and as long as I climbed, no matter how many curves I went around, I was alone. It was twilight, and part of me said it was foolish to walk alone. But part was certain it Sandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17667683773002275041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3740183.post-825584462002-10-05T08:16:00.000-07:002002-10-05T08:16:10.220-07:00
So fascinating, and affirming, the way the unlikeliest women inspire one another, often forming a chain of empowerment and inspiration. I've been thinking about how George Sand became a heroine to Elizabeth Barrett Browning, the former considered the most immoral of women and one whom Robert Browning would visit only as testimony of his love for his wife. What's more, Sand didn't even like EBBSandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17667683773002275041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3740183.post-824274302002-10-02T11:35:00.000-07:002002-10-02T11:35:31.920-07:00I watdhed a short film the other night about the Statue of Liberty. As a frame for the documentary, various famous people (mostly artists and intellectuals) were asked to define the word "liberty." I was interested that they had difficulty in doing so. They all knew there was something in the word beyond a mere equation with freedom. So I've dwelt with the word since then, trying to find my Sandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17667683773002275041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3740183.post-817316652002-09-17T10:54:00.000-07:002002-09-17T10:54:21.533-07:00
This is not the kind of day in which I would normally post anything to a weblog, a place where at least the offchance that someone might read it seems to make it obligatory to call forth a modicum of optimism. This is the kind of day when I chose as my screen saver a view of Waikiki Beach. Standard tourism shot. I chose it because: been there, done that; safe as houses, and what you see is Sandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17667683773002275041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3740183.post-816831972002-09-16T11:40:00.000-07:002002-09-16T11:40:00.523-07:00
I don't know why I continue to be surprised about sources of wisdom, about the ways God speaks to me from bushes just when I need it. I met this morning with one of my students, a first-semester sophomore, to talk about minor proposals and other mundane matters. But this young woman has awed me more than once, and she did it again today. She said things about writing that I usually hear Sandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17667683773002275041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3740183.post-816081862002-09-14T15:15:00.000-07:002002-09-14T15:15:14.280-07:00
While cycling up a mountain, a bee flies into the author's mouth, leaving a painful, but not dangerous, sting at the back of her throat. Back in the hotel, she looks forward to an afternoon of leisure, of solitude, but finds herself unable to forget the pain and, then, in tears about a time her heart was broken many years before:
"But what did the effects of bee venom have to do with a Sandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17667683773002275041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3740183.post-815127642002-09-12T09:58:00.000-07:002002-09-12T09:58:24.796-07:00Tonight on some wrestling show, two men will pretend to be married, hoopla and hooting, while making it clear that they are really heterosexual.
In New York, firefighters have to hide at the backs of stations to avoid gapers; they compare themselves with tigers in a cage. They refuse to wear shirts with their insignia any more, these having become the equivalent of Gucci or Tommy Hilfiger.
Sandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17667683773002275041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3740183.post-814075092002-09-10T08:24:00.000-07:002002-09-10T08:24:46.720-07:00I have made a discovery: Football, I have found, is self-regenerating, like one of those worms that filled the girls with disgust and awe in biology class. All the trust that I once endowed in my mother who, with her hoe, could chop any snake into ultimate stillness may have been misplaced. Football has, by stealth, increased its domain: every afternoon, every night of the week--nothing, Sandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17667683773002275041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3740183.post-813260212002-09-08T14:05:00.000-07:002002-09-08T14:05:11.096-07:00I say if you’re going to blow a diet, do it right. So I did, today, at a place over on Nolensville Rd. that we used to call ‘the blue place’ when I lived over that way. It’s a meat’n’three, looks like any café in my home-town, but the food is infinitely better. Not as greasy as many, either, though it will undoubtedly make me ill. Mashed potatoes, fresh green beans, fresh corn—it’s worth it.Sandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17667683773002275041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3740183.post-812786772002-09-07T08:03:00.000-07:002002-09-07T08:27:47.000-07:00
My sister and I chased rainbows when we were small. Perhaps everyone did, but it seems to me there were more rainbows to run alongside in those days. That could be wrong; I'm sure a scientist could tell me. I suspect I was then more open and more often at leisure to see them. Unafraid too of the rain, or what it might take to catch one. We must have chased them often because I close my Sandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17667683773002275041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3740183.post-812084222002-09-05T15:45:00.000-07:002002-09-05T15:45:44.706-07:00
Here, I come to the boundaries
where nothing needs to be said,
everything is learned with
weather and ocean. . . . .
Pablo NerudaSandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17667683773002275041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3740183.post-811883392002-09-05T07:12:00.000-07:002002-09-05T07:12:29.156-07:00snapshots from the weekend:
what is it with people in the south? 4000 of us listening to jazz, rock, blues, worth standing for hours for most of us and nobody moving, nobody singing along. from where i stood, i could see five hundred people, seated and standing. singers exhorting: sing along, show us you like it. who's doing it? me and some blond man to my left singing, swaying, as best weSandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17667683773002275041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3740183.post-811235962002-09-03T20:45:00.000-07:002002-09-03T20:45:17.956-07:00Tuesday, Sept. 3
Been thinking lately about the word "perverse." Of course, our first thoughts go to the sexual definition, as with so many words, but that isn't what has caught my mind. My mother used to say we girls were perverse, determined to thwart her at every turn. That's closer. Determined to go in our own direction even to our detriment-- as my mother was sure we'd find ourselves Sandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17667683773002275041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3740183.post-809203732002-08-30T08:39:00.000-07:002002-08-30T08:39:36.846-07:00Friday, August 30, 2002
Yesterday, two swallows into my first cup of coffee, a friend called to ask if I could drive across town to take her to the doctor's office. She'd sprained her ankle on Monday-still a good bit of pain and swelling. I was glad to be able to do it, especially since she's moving away. I knew it could be a bit difficult since I had a poetry group meeting at my house at 3:Sandyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17667683773002275041noreply@blogger.com