Light as a Feather

A HOUSE WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful,
or believe to be beautiful. ~William Morris

Beautiful and useful: my favorite china pattern
~ Chinese Legend (pastel Blue Willow with red accents) ~
which looks perfect against red silk elephants from Thailand!
Thanks Sandy S-K!

Or this exotic white / gold / silver summer bedding ensemble
from the United Arab Emirates. Thanks Vickie Amador!

*******************

For one thing,
there is too much luggage,
and you’re truly lugging it —
you and, it seems, everyone.

What is it, that you need so badly?
Think about this.

from the poem "Logan International"
by Mary Oliver
in her book Thirst
Now, what to do about all those items that are neither beautiful nor useful? Somehow it seems that life has become a perpetual project of sorting the wheat from the chaff, trying to ~ simplify, simplify, simplify ~ by donating or throwing away. Mary Oliver's question ~ "What is it, that you need so badly?" ~ reminds me of the old Egyptian rule that you could only enter the afterworld if Osiris weighed your heart and found it to be lighter than a feather.

This ancient legend received a new twist in the 1983 Sesame Street special, Don't Eat the Pictures (which I mentioned last month on my Quotidian Blog). Cookie Monster and friends spend the night -- In a Museum! -- the Metropolitan Museum of Art -- and meet a little Egyptian prince who haunts the Temple of Dendur because he is under a spell that prevents him from joining his parents in the afterlife.

Big Bird, Mr. Snuffleupagus, and Prince Sahu
Snuffy offers Sahu a ride, and Big Bird sings a hopeful song::

"You're Gonna Be a Star"
Shining in the sky
Bright and proud, way up high.
You're gonna be a star
Somewhere in the blue
There's a spot just for you!

The moon will be there beside you
When everyone's counting sheep
A fluffy white cloud will hide you
Whenever you go to sleep

A shiny little star
Is what you're gonna be--
Just you wait and see!

You're gonna be a star
Shining in the sky
Bright and proud, way up high.
You're gonna be a star
Somewhere in the blue
There's a spot just for you!

At night when the sky is clearing
You'll talk with the other stars
I bet you'll be overhearing
What Jupiter said to Mars!

A shiny little star
Is what you're gonna be--
Just you wait and see!

Standing Before Osiris With a Heavy Heart

*******************
My heart was not lighter than feather twelve years ago, when we made the big move from Philadelphia back to Indiana (in Spring 2004). When we first moved out to Philly (from Indiana, in Spring 1993), we didn't have so much to take with us, but we managed to accumulate a lot in our eleven years there, and it couldn't all come back to the Midwest with us. When packing, I tried to put all of our belongings to the "light as a feather" test. If they failed, then they did not get to accompany us to our next life!

In preparation for that move, I bid farewell to stacks of old bedspreads and beach towels (including two big black garbage bags full to our vet, who was collecting nesting material to make snug winter beds for the pets), tons of books (some via amazon used), a couple of poorly made small bookshelves and scratched up end tables, video cassettes, Sam's outgrown clothes (previously worn by Ben), Christmas decorations (yes, I was able to part with one large shopping bag of the cheaper, plastic variety -- none of my treasures, of course), a few puzzles and games and toys that I didn't think Ben and Sam would ever play with again. One way or another, it all made its way out the door -- over to St. Peter's School (some, that I knew the little kids would like, went straight to the Pre - K; some to the basement for the next year's annual rummage sale), or to our local Goodwill equivalent -- a store called the Second Mile Center, or to the curbside -- an extremely efficient market for the transference of goods in Philadelphia.

It's true, I cried real tears over some of the special toys, like the wooden zoo that had simply never appealed to the boys, even though to me it had represented the ideal hands - on childhood experience that I dreamed of creating for them. I guess that's the hard part -- not just boxing up the stuff, but passing on the dreams in hopes that someone else will find a use for them. It wasn't easy at first, but once I got going, I felt good about the idea of not bringing so much excess baggage back to Indiana! It's always tough for a sentimental fool like me to part with my belongings but always nice to lighten the load. When we arrived in Indiana, more things had to go; despite our heavy - duty downsizing, we realized we had still brought too much.

We've now been back in Indiana for as long as were in Philadelphia (a year longer, actually), so it is definitely time for another purge. A few of my friends swear by the latest trends: Marni Jameson's Downsizing The Family Home: What to Save, What to Let Go or Marie Kondo's The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing; but I think between William Morris ("beautiful or useful") and the Tao of Big Bird ("lighter than a feather") I have all the inspiration I need. (I have also been intrigued by Kate Bingaman-Burt's Obsessive Consumption: What Did You Buy Today? -- a kind of "pain of payment" awareness - raising project, like the practice of meticulously verifying every credit card purchase or, better yet, using cash instead of credit.)

I like what my friend Len wrote a couple of summers ago about growing lighter and lighter as he gave away his earthly goods:

I enjoyed clearing out my closets of all the clothes I haven't worn since I moved to this house three years ago: sports jackets, pants, ties, regular jackets, shoes obtained online that never fit well, the ugly, the old-fashioned, the back-up administrating garb, the inexplicable purchases. I dropped these off at the donation center and then went back to give them the bicycle. In this mood, I began clearing expired foods (making an emergency batch of tofu-tidbits just six hours away from expiring--my name is Danger!). I plan not to go beyond my house and backyard tomorrow: there is so much more to cull, clean, and clear out, now that I am in this groove.

Tabula rasa: I had to replace my old, dying cellphone; the young technician supposedly copying the contacts and calendar and other information from my old phone suddenly panicked when he saw I did not have a "cloud app." He had to make a call to someone and kept trying. After five attempts, he handed it to me in triumph and said it was perfect; he said I should have told him I had deleted my contacts! In keeping with my general cleaning and emptying, I took the blank phone as an opportunity: gone were all of the people and places I had for short-term purposes, from different places I had lived, from my administrative work. Gone were the retired, the moved, the unpleasant, and the dead. It was as if a great cleansing religious ceremony had been undertaken and my contacts now were made pure. I start from this beginning and add as needed. . . .

Plus Some Witty Facebook Responses:
Denice Laws Davies: "I felt that way after giving away my teenage record collection."

Diane Prokop: You are a brave man.

Leonard Orr: "Bravery does not enter into it. There was not much that could be done. I think the best analogy is Leopold Bloom's rising above the adversities of his life through "equanimity," before he goes to sleep at the end of Ulysses."

Diane Prokop: "I am a stranger to equanimity these days."

Andrea Livingston: "I like the idea of deleting all "unpleasant" contacts from my cellphone's memory and sending them to a "cloud" somewhere, similar to what happened in the film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind."

Kitti: "My favorite: 'inexplicable purchases'! I also like this list; there's just something about it that I keep returning to: 'Gone were the retired, the moved, the unpleasant, and the dead.' "

Leonard: "Separated out, it does sound idyllic (or an echo of the end of Dubliners)."

Kitti Carriker: Or the preface of Edwin Mullhouse
(see Comment below)

P.S.
Here's an even better way to decrease our accumulations
and the task of ridding ourselves of them --
don't buy them in the first place!

"Look at your own mind.
The one who carries things thinks he's got things,
but the one who looks on sees only the heaviness.
Throw away things, lose them, and find lightness."
~ Ajahn Chah ~
SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS FOR MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Tuesday, June 14th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT ~ Willow Willow Willow
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST ~ The Swedish Death Cleanse
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogspot.com

Face of Nature

ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

The Force of Nature ~ Photo by Ben McCartney
1301 Avenue of the Americas ~ New York City
by Italian sculptor, Lorenzo Quinn (b 1966)
Now, having read Quinn's description of his work, I have mixed feelings about this sculpture. Yes, Mother Nature looks forceful but not furious, powerful but not necessarily hurtful. The way Nature's dress is blown so fiercely, even to the point of covering her face, suggests to me that there is yet another strong force, outside of both Earth and Nature, that both are struggling against.

Nor did I get the sense that Nature was harming Earth -- but maybe even trying to help in some way, trying to reign Earth in with that shiny sash, which does not look like a weapon. Nature appears to be using the strength of her arms to pull Earth closer, not to fling her away as with a slingshot. I understand now that the sculpture is intended to convey a twirling motion, as Nature hurls Earth round and round in a vicious circle. Yet, to me, Nature looks braced, as if she is exerting all her energy in an effort to hold herself steady and draw Earth in.

Slightly different versions of Quinn's Force of Nature have been displayed in various countries: England,Ireland, Monaco, and Singapore, and the United States. Oddly, even in the unclothed version of the sculpture, Quinn still covers Nature's face with the scarf, executioner - style. Without the full - length wind - blown garments, it is less clear to me why Nature's face would be covered, other than to make her more mysterious and less human, though her body is clearly that of a female human.

My first impression, before reading any background information or even the title of the piece, was not of Nature but of a mere mortal, headless, who had somehow lost her head and was struggling to regain it, only to find that what she thought was her head was instead / indeed the Earth.

In contrast to the hidden head of Quinn's "Force of Nature" is Rodin's bust of Nature, with serene face and braided wheat for hair, that I saw earlier this week at the Legion of Honor Museum in San Francisco. Despite her apparent serenity, Nature / Miss Fairfax is a force to be reckoned with:

Signed on the Back
Now, compare Nature (above) to Spirit (below), as portrayed in this face of Prayer, rendered by Rodin's sculpting companion, Camille Claudel (click here to view / read more about the fateful and tortuted connections between Rodin and Claudel):

La Prière / The Prayer aka Le Psaume / The Psalm
Bronze Sculpture, 1889 (or 1896?)
by Camille Claudel 1864-1943
One more favorite from the Legion of Honor,
featuring sunflowers . . .

And a closing poem from Mary Oliver . . .

Messenger

My work is loving the world.
Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird—
equal seekers of sweetness.
Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.
Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.

Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect? Let me
keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,

which is mostly standing still and learning to be
astonished.
The phoebe, the delphinium.
The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.
Which is mostly rejoicing, since all the ingredients are here,

which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart
and these body-clothes,
a mouth with which to give shouts of joy
to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,
telling them all, over and over, how it is
that we live forever.

by Mary Oliver
Contemporary American Poet (b. 1935)
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, 1984

. . . loving the world . . .

SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS FOR MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Saturday, May 14th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT ~ Another Museum Post ~ Guggenheim
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST ~ "Until We Seek Until We Find Ammonia Avenue"
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogspot.com

Like an Ant

ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

The Visit of the Queen of Sheba to King Solomon
by Sir Edward John Poynter (1836 - 1919)

"Learn how to live
a joyful and constructive life in this world,
like ants. . . . The secret of a meaningful life
is not in the long-gone throne of Solomon and the like."
Sa'eb Tabrizi (1601 - 77)
Sa'eb's reference to Solomon's "long-gone throne" reminds me of the statue of Ozymandias:
" . . . Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies . . .
And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my words ye Mighty and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 - 1822)
The kingdoms of Solomon and Ozymandias did not endure, their vast achievements dwarfed by an ant and a grain of sand. Padgett Powell, author of The Interrogative Mood presents a series of existential questions concerning this same dilemma of time, size and perspective. His inquiries suggest that we may have placed ourselves too high above the ant, especially when it comes to grasping the secrets of the universe:

"Is the human individual more important
than the individual ant, and if so by a factor,
what would you say, of what?" (10)

"Will you sing with me now: Oh let us be heroes,
let us have emotions pure or not pure be men
or not men, let us buzz and rumble the hill and
dale of daily insignificance just as confidently,
just as threateningly, just as humbly in its
cute red velour as does the velvet ant?" (34)

"Is it really tenable that a person has a a soul,
whether he has a cell phone or not,
and a grasshopper does not?" (160)

[See my book blog for more insightful questions from
The Interrogative Mood by Padgett Powell (b 1952)]

I like the way the lines of this painting by Leonard Orr
can be seen to resemble the elaborate architecture
of an underground ant colony!
Plaster cast reconstruction of an ant nest,
as illustrated in Wikipedia

I turned to Orr's paintings, confident that I would find something to illustrate ant - ness (as in, ant colony, ant hill, ant nest, ant industriousness, and so forth). Len generously responded: "If my painting manages to convey antness (the quidditas of ant, as Stephen Dedalus perhaps said), I am pleased."

"Although not immediately obvious,
there are quite a few people hiding here it seems."
~ facebook comment to Leonard Orr from Andrea Livingston ~

I decided on this painting, in part because of the accompanying commentary. Livingston's remark fits right in with the question of how different, really, are humans from ants. When I mentioned that I also wanted to include the passage about termites from Samuel Beckett's novel Watt, Len was one step ahead of me:

"For the only way one can speak of nothing
is to speak of it as though it were something,
just as the only way one can speak of God is to
speak of him as though he were a man,
which to be sure he was, in a sense, for a time,
and as the only way one can speak of man,
even our anthropologists have realized that,
is to speak of him as though he were a termite." (77)

Samuel Beckett (1906 - 89)
In the following poems, it is the family dog whose superior comprehension of the meaning of life edges out any knowledge that we mere humans might possess:

from Her Grave
Does the hummingbird think he himself invented his crimson throat?
He is wiser than that, I think. . . .

Do the cranes crying out in the high clouds
think it is all their own music?

A dog comes to you and lives with you in your own house, but you
do not therefore own her as yo do not own the rain, or the
trees, or the laws which pertain to them.

Does the bear wandering in the autumn up the side of the hill
think all by herself she has imagined the refuge and the refreshment
of her long slumber?

A dog can never tell you what she knows from the
smells of the world, but you know, watching her, that you know
almost nothing.

Mary Oliver (b 1935)
from New and Selected Poems (14 - 16)


Trickle Up?
Does human evolution have a future?
Even our dog is troubled by the limited
significance of our presence. He whines
at the door wanting to get out.

Ernest Sandeen (1908 - 1997)
from the Collected Poems (278)

Does the bear wandering in the autumn up the side of the hill
think all by herself she has imagined the refuge and the refreshment
of her long slumber?
~ Mary Oliver ~

Beautiful watercolor evocation
of autumn and bear - ness
SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS FOR MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Friday, December 14th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT ~ Thanks David Kimbrel ~
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogspot.com

Summer Afternoon, Summer Afternoon

WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUSNEIGHBORHOOD POOL
"Summer afternoon - summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language." ~ Henry James

And those most be nineteen of the most beautiful words that Henry James ever wrote.

If you ask me, what is one of the most beautiful things to do on a sunny summer afternoon? Why, go to the pool, of course! A hidden gem of our neighborhood, the pool is nestled in a small valley at the foot of a big hill. Lucky for me, it's only a few blocks from my house, close enough to bike. On a hot July day, nothing feels better than floating lazily or doing a leisurely backstroke while gazing above at a big blue bowl of sky and all around at a big green basket of grass.

Peace and the "Sounds of Silence." That's what the pool provides for The Graduate-- Benjamin Braddock / Dustin Hoffman. The desultory pace of his summer is measured in the movie by a succession of swimming scenarios. While he sits on the bottom of the pool in his scuba gear, his head is filled with the echo of his own breathing. Avoiding the reality of "plastics," he rests listlessly in the sun on his air mattress, "drifting, just drifting," to the strains of Simon & Garfunkle. I can't sit underwater like Benjamin, but when I swim laps I can go inside my head, think about what I'd like to read and write, and hear nothing but the sound of rhythmic breathing until the whistle blows.

No summer day feels complete without those laps. Some days I have the pool to myself; other times it's a perfect microcosm of the entire community: little kids, big kids, young adults, old adults, experts, amateurs, and many beginners -- of all ages; some who swim fast, others who take it slow; some treading, some diving; some taking lessons, some working out with serious purpose and some just having a good time! It can occasionally feel like a big old human soup pot, on the very hottest, busiest days, but I try to work around that slightly stewed sensation and keep my focus. Despite the heat, with just a month of summer afternoons left, we have to enjoy every one!

"Lap swim -- lap swim."

To me those are two of the most beautiful words on any summer afternoon between Memorial Day and Labor Day!

" . . . there is no end, believe me! to the inventions of summer, to the happiness your body is willing to bear." --Mary Oliver

Neighborhood Kiddies: Molly, Ben, Emily, 1991

Neighborhood Cheers: My Swimming Buddies, 1992

If you have to choose between straight hair & swimming, don't fight the curl: CHOOSE SWIMMING!