Saying The Old Town's Name

A HOUSE WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

RAIN
from One Morning by Yohji Izawa and Canna Funakoshi
January: rainy one day, snowy the next; sometimes both on the same day. For a delightful depiction of the changeable wintry weather, take a look at this trio of simply beautiful picture books, filled with succinct, sensory, haiku - like text by Canna Funakoshi, and vivid, magical collage - like illustrations by Yohji Izawa:

One Morning (1985)
Winner: First Prize for Graphics
at the Bologna International Children's Book Fair
Selected by New York Times:
Ten Best Children's Books of 1987

One Evening (1988)

One Christmas (1989).

[All three titles from Picture Book Studios]

"Homeward" from One Evening
The books feature a nameless, faceless man and his saucy, loyal little cat. One Day moves gently through an early morning routine, concluding with a charming sequence of the man leaving for work, then returning a few seconds later to pick up his umbrella. In One Evening (later that same day? maybe another day) it has just begun to snow as the man is catching the 5 p.m. trolley home from the office, knowing that his little friend is waiting there to welcome him and help at the typewriter: "Play? Letter."

One Christmas includes among its illustrations two collages in black, white, and gray, representing old memories of Christmas stockings and plum puddings. Later in the book, similar scenes are portrayed, but now in color, in the present day: the same bed post where the stocking was hung, the same table by the dining room window, the same candle stick. My favorite line occurs, when the man is at the railway station purchasing his train ticket and "Saying the old town's name."

Saying the old town's name. The old town. Is there really a hometown for everybody? Somewhere like "that place Just over the Brooklyn Bridge" that Art Garfunkel sings about:

A world of its own,
The streets where we played,
The friends on every corner were the best we ever made.
The backyards, and the school yards
And the trees that watched us grow,
The days of love when dinner time was all you had to know.
Whenever I think of yesterday,
I close my eyes and see,
That place Just Over The Brooklyn Bridge
That will always be home to me.
It'll always be home to me.

--music by Marvin Hamlisch
--lyrics by Marilyn & Alan Bergman

I guess when I close my eyes and think of yesterday, I see the small Missouri town where I lived between the ages of 5 and 10. As a matter of fact, my parents helped us kids plant a tiny little evergreen in the yard there, back in 1965; and when I drove past the house 25 years later, I missed it, crying out in dismay, "Where is the little tree?" Towering high above the house, that's where it was! But I hadn't even thought to glance up; I was searching at eye-level. I suppose if we had continued on in that house, that would have been the tree "that watched us grow."

A few summers ago, my dear obliging family indulged me with a visit to this old town, Neosho, Missouri. I wanted them to see my house and school, the town square and the park, all the places I had been allowed to walk and roam and wander. I loved showing them the house, which, gratefully, was not run down but still in good shape. It looked newly painted and very quaint; and I lingered longingly at the edge of the yard for several minutes, trying to envision every room.

Sadly, the town was more rundown than I had remembered it, the center square, alas, sacrificed to the Walmart Strip on the edge of town. Inevitably, as soon as Walmart appears on the horizon, the entire landscape of the town begins to change. The bulk of my happy memories of growing up in Neosho have to do with being able to walk around all day, wherever I wanted to go.

In her memoir, An American Childhood, Annie Dillard describes the joyful independence of such an upbringing, the sense of pride in navigating successfully and making one's own way:

I walked. My mother had given me the freedom of the streets as soon as I could say our telephone number. I walked and memorized the neighborhood. I made a mental map and located myself upon it. At night in bed I rehearsed the small world's scheme and set challenges: Find the store using backyards only. Imagine a route to my friend's house. I mastered chunks of town . . . Walking was my project before reading. The text I read was the town; the book I made up was a map. . . . What is a house but a bigger skin, and a neighborhood map but the world's skin ever expanding" (42, 44).

A walking childhood hardly seems possible now, not in Neosho. We kids used to walk to the Ben Franklin 5 & 10 Cent Store , but you can never walk to a Walmart! If you've read much Bill Bryson, you'll recall that he writes a lot about this kind of unsatisfying, pedestrian - unfriendly commercial development. It didn't take me long after moving to downtown Philadelphia to realize that, ironically, the best place to find the small town life in America just so happens to be in the middle of a big city. When living there, I could walk and walk to my heart's content. But that's another story, another town.

Coincidentally, not long before our trip to Southwest Missouri, I had encountered a new poem that kept swirling around in my head every time I heard myself "saying the old town's name." Although it is a poem about interiors, it captures precisely how I felt touring around Neosho, looking at the stony exterior of all those old remembered buildings and boarded up, empty storefronts:

Home is so sad. It stays as it was left,
Shaped to the comfort of the last to go
As if to win them back. Instead, bereft
Of anyone to please, it withers so,
Having no heart to put aside the theft
And turn again to what it started as,
A joyous shot at how things ought to be,
Long fallen wide. You can see how it was:
Look at the pictures and the cutlery.
The music in the piano stool. That vase.

by Philip Larkin (1922 - 1985)

Five years after the bittersweet visit to Neosho, I tried taking the family to another small town, this time in Southeast Kansas, where I had spent many days as a girl, visiting my grandparents.

Running through my mind during this visit were the opening stanzas of a lovely Judy Collins song, introduced to me only shortly before by my friend Eve. Amazing how just the right poem or song can suddenly appear in one's life in so timely a fashion:

Secret Gardens
Words and Music by Judy Collins

My grandmother's house is still there
But it isn't the same
A plain wooden cottage
A patch of brown lawn
And a fence that hangs standing
And sighing in the Seattle rain

I drive by with strangers
And wish they could see what I see
A tangle of summer birds
Flying in sunlight
A forest of lilies
An orchard of apricot trees . . .

Great grandfather's farm is still there
But it isn't the same
The barn is torn down
And the fences are gone
The Idaho wind blows
The topsoil away every Spring

I still see the ghosts
Of the people I knew long ago
Inside the old kitchen
They bend and sigh . . .

Secret Gardens of the heart
Where the old stay young forever
I see you shining through the night
In the ice and snow of winter . . .

"Just As I Remember" from One Christmas
These nostalgic lyrics from Judy Collins describe exactly how I felt that Thanksgiving, driving down the old brick streets to see the former houses of my mom's parents & my dad's parents. If only my children could have seen what I saw: the old porch swing, the rocking chairs, the flower beds, the lilac bush, the rhubarb cobbler cooling on the window sill, my grandma on the front step waving hello / goodbye . . . but they could see only a couple of incredibly humble, patched - up, tumble - down, little old houses. Even when I tried to describe what was in my mind's eye, all they could say was, "Oh." Nor could I blame them. I would not have seen it either, had it not been for that Secret Garden in my heart!

So sad, so sweet . . . saying the old town's name.


Next Fortnightly Post
Sunday, February 14th

Between now and then, be sure to read
my shorter, almost daily blog posts on
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Emmanuel, God With Us

ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

"~ Look for a lovely thing and you will find it ~
~ it is not far ~ it never will be far ~"
~ Sara Teasdale ~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Be not forgetful to entertain strangers:
for thereby some have entertained angels unawares."
Hebrews 13:2
A couple of months ago, on this blog, I listed a few of the illuminating observations that appear in Emerson's essay, "Experience, including one of my favorites:

There is an optical illusion about every person we meet. . . . I had fancied that the value of life lay in its inscrutable possibilities; in the fact that I never know, in addressing myself to a new individual, what may befall me. I carry the keys of my castle in my hand, ready to throw them at the feet of my lord, whenever and in what disguise so ever he shall appear. I know he is in my neighborhood hidden among vagabonds. . . . Let us treat the men and women well: treat them as if they were real: perhaps they are (from "Experience" written by Ralph Waldo Emerson, in 1844).

Yes indeed! One of them might be King! Or the Peacemaker. Or an Angel, unawares! As poet Sara Teasdale says, "Look for a lovely thing and you will find it; it is not far -- it never will be far."

Brian Andreas (a messiah for the New Age, if ever there was one*) draws a similar conclusion in his story of the "Purple Madonna":

One time on Hollywood Boulevard I saw a young girl with a baby. It was a crisp winter morning & her hair shone dark purple in the sun. She was panhandling outside the Holiday Inn & the door clerk came out & told her to be on her way & I wondered if anyone would recognize the Christ child if they happened to meet. I remember thinking it's not like there are any published pictures & purple seemed like a good color for a Madonna so I gave her a dollar just in case. (from StoryPeople)

Madonna with us. Child with us. God with us. Angels with us.

Jeff Smith (1939 - 2004; aka The Frugal Gourmet and onetime chaplain) gives an excellent etymological breakdown of this very concept, and his enthusiasm is infectious. He provides a definition of The Messiah, The Holy One of Israel that encompasses the lord among the vagabonds and the Christ Child on the street corner:

The Holy One = "one who is so far above man and womankind, so distant and beyond our understanding, so heavenly and unapproachable, beyond the beyond, never near us."

Of Israel = "right here in town."

"That is to say, The Most Distant One is here in town with us, always. I love that!" (see The Frugal Gourmet Celebrates Christmas, 3)

In our neighborhood. Hidden among vagabonds. On the Boulevard. Here in town. With us.

Emerson, Andreas, and Smith all convey the importance of persistently acknowledging the humanity of others, at all times, just in case. "A golden impossibility" -- that's what Emerson says we are, but also an "inscrutable possibility."

Smith's book, The Frugal Gourmet Celebrates Christmas is the best holiday cookbook I know of. More than a collection of recipes, it is also a fascinating narrative of cultural history and seasonal tradition, ingeniously illustrated and creatively organized. Each chapter presents a dish for a different character from the traditional manger scene: angel hair pasta for the angels, green olive soup for the shepherds (I tried this recipe one year -- odd), lamb chops for the tax collector, Persian meatballs for the Magi, right down to milk and honey for the Baby Jesus.

In addition to the tempting recipes (both my latkes and my mincemeat are taken from here), this book beautifully achieves the author's stated mission of bringing "the Manger and the Donkey, the Angels, and the Blessed Mother with Child into your Christmas," thus helping the reader to "better understand this profound and joyous holiday" (xviii, xx).

An ordained minister as well as a chef, Smith recalls an epiphany of sorts that occurred one Christmas during his graduate school years when he and a group of fellow theology students were singing "O Come All Ye Faithful":

I realized it was the first time in my life that I understood the words: 'Word of the Father, Now in Flesh Appearing.' The fact that God had to go to such extremes to explain the meaning of our place together. God declares Himself / Herself to us by becoming a baby in our midst. The greatest sign of weakness, 'living flesh' in its most vulnerable state, a tiny baby, becomes the greatest sign of the strength of the Holy One, a strength born out of love beyond our furthest imaginings, a strength that, I suppose, still looks to many of us like weakness. (xvi - xvii)

After reading Smith's unforgettable explanation, the song took on a whole new meaning for me. Every time I hear it now, I listen a bit more closely than I ever did before:

Light from Light eternal . . .

we too will thither, bend our joyful footsteps . . .

who would not love thee, loving us so dearly . . .

I love that!

*Brian Andreas: "We're already in the new age, she said. What does that mean? I said. It means we can stop waiting & start living, she said but after she left, I still waited a little while more just to be safe."

FOR MORE INSPIRING HOLIDAY COOKBOOKS
READ THE LATEST POST ON MY BOOK BLOG:
"FEASTS AND SEASONS"
KITTI'S BOOK LIST
www.kittislist.blogspot.com

On this blog, look for my next Fortnightly
post on Thursday, January 28th

Between now and then, be sure to read
my shorter, almost daily blog posts on
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

JANUARY ROOFTOP

Fast Away The Old Year Passes

A HOUSE WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

A CHILD'S CHRISTMAS IN INDIANA
"And now let us welcome the new year,
full of things that have never been."
--Rainer Maria Rilke

Why is it that the world seems to spin a bit faster with every passing year? At midnight on Halloween, I crossed my fingers in hopes of some magic that would make the calendar still say "October" when I turned the page over. The golden days had flown by so quickly, I could have used another go at the entire month! But, no, November it was! And no sooner had the rush toward Thanksgiving begun than we had overtaken yet another feast day and finished off another month. Any chance that we could repeat November? None whatsoever. It was December! It was Christmas! It's almost New Year's Eve! Time not only to turn the calendar over, but to hang up a brand new one.

One great thing about our neighborhood (probably yours too) is the talent that our neighbors have for keeping up with the rapid succession of holidays, no matter how quickly each arrives and departs. What a seasonal thrill it was to drive down the block the day after Halloween and spy the houses already illuminated for Christmas -- houses which only hours before had been festooned with spider webs and scarecrows! By Thanksgiving, it was possible to take the family on an evening drive and admire the winter wonderland of wreaths and trees and reindeer that our celebratory neighbors had devised for our viewing pleasure.

You can't say we weren't ready! Does anyone really wish that the decorations went up later and came down sooner? I certainly don't! In fact, I like to make a game of predicting which lights will last the longest . . . and with so many possible conclusions to the season, it's anybody's guess: The Twelfth Day of Christmas, Martin Luther King Day, Ground Hog Day, Valentine's Day, The Ides of March. Can anyone hold out until Palm Sunday?

January is a time of new beginnings, promising many more holidays to come, but like the slowly fading decorations on our front doors, it contains a lingering echo of the month and year just past. It's good to remember that this month is named after the old two - headed, two - faced Roman god, Janus, who possessed knowledge of the future and wisdom of the past. Conveniently, he could see forward into the New Year and backward into the Old. It was customary to place his image, maybe a small statue or amulet, at the front entrance of every home where he could look outward at the passersby as well as inward toward the home dwellers.

So, indulge in a few contemplative hours this month, gazing forward and glancing back. When you take that wreath down and put those cards away, think of the words of Malcolm S. Forbes, think of your friends, think of your neighbors:

"I hate these days immediately following the holidays. Emptying the house of Christmas trees, decorations and children is like emptying a home of warmth. But at least there’s the pile of Christmas cards to be looked through again before you do whatever you do when done with them. They serve as a cheerful handshake during the uncheerful letdown after Christmas. Don't stop sending them. Christmas cards are worth all the bother. In fact, the bother’s a good part of the pleasure."
--Malcolm S. Forbes (1967)Christmas Cards In My Kitchen
P.S. HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Next post will be on Thursday, January 14th, 2010!
Between now and then, be sure to read
my shorter, almost daily blog posts on
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com
(British Holiday Recipes:
Christmas Cake,
Figgy Pudding,
Mince Pies;
& More!)

Three Passions

ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS
Winter Solstice Sunrise, 2004
British philosopher, Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) co-authored Principia Mathematica (published 1910 - 1913), wrote A History of Western Philosophy (1945), and won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1950. At age 84, Russell added a prologue entitled What I Have Lived For to his autobiography.

Some excerpts:

"Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a great ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.

I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy . . . because it relieves loneliness . . . because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of heaven that saints and poets have imagined. . . .

With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men . . . to know why the stars shine . . . to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.

Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth . . . the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate this evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.

This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me."


Okay, here are mine:

"For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a woman, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity."
--1 Corinthians 13: 9 - 13 (King James Version)

First is the hopeless one--trying to create order out of chaos. I will never give up this losing battle! It has governed my child rearing, my housekeeping, my quest for information, my struggle against urban decay in West Philadelphia and neighborhood blight in West Lafayette, my hope for the afterlife that one day we really shall "know as we are known," that the whole confusing scheme of life will fall into place. One day my partial (i.e.,"imperfect") knowledge of this chaotic puzzling universe shall be made whole (i.e., "perfected") and that will be the reward of a passionate existence.

Second--sometimes known as the I'm talking and I can't shut up syndrome!-- is participating in "The Great Conversation," contributing to the "Dialogue of Ideas." This passion governs my friendships, my correspondence, my teaching, my understanding of history, my love of literature and movies -- and talking about them after I read / see them. This blog. It informs my quest for truth and beauty, my pursuit of knowledge. "Faith, Hope, and Love" have long been the popular favorites, but it is the "Knowledge" part that has always appealed to me.

My third and favorite passion is Christmas, the most comprehensive celebration of all celebrations! Every year, we hear the complaints about the relentless commercialization, the laments that Christmas is no longer a religious holiday but has become a religion in and of itself. Well, if you ask me, that's The Good News; that's something I can believe in!

As is so often the case, the third passion really draws on the best of the other two. I love reading about all of the old traditions--even the ones that we don't specifically incorporate into our own 21st Century observances. Surely some of the best contributions to the Great Conversation were made on behalf of Christmas; and surely the light shining out of darkness symbolizes our best hope for order out of chaos. If there is ever a time when we are inclined to treat each other well, to acknowledge each other's humanity, surely it is Christmas. The embodiment of spirituality, the first principle on which all other passions are based -- that's Christmas!

********************
"For last year's words belong to last year's language
And next year's words await another voice . . .
What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from . . .
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time."
~T.S. Eliot
from "Little Gidding"(II, V)

Nothing To Live Against

A HOUSE WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

Philadelphia: Ginkgo Branch & View from 3rd Floor ~ Autumn 2000

Josef In The Windowsill: So Placid and Self - Contained!
(Same Window, Same Ginkgo Branch ~ Summer 1994)
In The Little Book of Letting Go, Hugh Prather questions why we wear the seams of our socks against the skin, so that they look smooth on the outside but feel bad on the inside. Wouldn't inside out make more sense? Interior vs Exterior.

Circumstances vs State of Mind. Which matters more? Prather says don't let circumstances become more important than your mental state: "If it were possible to summarize all mystical teachings in a single sentence, this one would come close: Make your state of mind more important that what you are doing" (7, 76).

I don't know why Hugh Prather calls his book "Little" since it is really just a normal - sized book. However, if you're familiar with author Susan Jeffers, she really does have a couple of tiny books containing advice similar to Prather's. Prather says we have two minds -- one that is whole and peaceful; another that is always conflicted, fragmented and busy. Susan Jeffers calls these two minds The Higher Self and the Lower Self. The Higher Self holds inner peace, strength, wisdom and spiritual dimension, whereas the Lower Self is a "place of struggle, lack, fear, and pain" (The Little Book of Peace of Mind, 4).

I have long been aware that when I get upset it is due to circumstances (missed appointment, messed up recipe, items lost or misplaced). This awareness, however, has not yet prevented me from feeling irritated, even though I tell myself over and over that these details are insignificant and have nothing to do with my Higher Self; they are merely circumstances that I needn't react to. As Jeffers says, "Your inner peace has nothing to do with the dramas of your life" (LBPM, 9). But, guess what? I react anyway, giving those annoying little details and missteps the power to determine my mood and the way I feel about and act toward others. It's all small stuff? Oh, really?

As you may have noticed not long ago on the Quotidian Kit, one of my favorite lines of fiction is actually about this same idea. In one of Margaret Atwood's "True Romances," a character is lamenting that her bad boyfriend has left her, and now she has "nothing to live for." Her level - headed friend asks, "Were you living for him when he was here?" And the distressed one says, "No . . . I was living in spite of him, I was living against him." The wise friend concludes, "Then you should say, I have nothing to live against."

I do recall applying this lesson during my early Philadelphia years, back when I was trying to improve my urban attitude. Thinking of Atwood's story, I said to myself, "You need to give up living against the city! You have nothing to live against." But it's such a bad habit with me, it seems that I will try to live against almost anything! The weather, the grocery store, the holiday season, organized religion, centuries of misogynism -- you name it; unless I consciously stop myself, I will try to live against it. And how does one little person live against an entire city or an entire cosmos or an entire family? Not only is it impossible, it is just not necessary to do so, even if it does feel so at times.

Nothing to live against. Brian Andreas makes a similar suggestion in his story, "Western Mysticism": "It's much easier, he told me, if you like the parts you like & you like the parts you don't like. Is that some Eastern thing? I said & he said not really since he was from Idaho & it worked there just fine" (from StoryPeople).

Still I wonder, how do you really learn to "like the parts you don't like"? How do you learn to say, "Oh well," if that's what the occasion calls for, to be dismissive, remain impassive, impersonal, detached? Easy to know these ideas so well yet remain painfully inept at living them out. Oh, Great Buddha (misogynist though you were), Oh, Mother Theresa, tell us: how ON EARTH does one "let go"; how draw the line between "circumstance" and "state of mind"? For a Doubting Thomasina, a Daughter of Descartes, a Western Girl With Glasses, it's not always easy.

Honestly now, what kind of person are you if your circumstances don't impact your state of mind? Isn't that kind of like Oliver singing, "If you don't mind taking it like it turns out / it's a fine life"? But that's not what we believe, is it? What if you do mind? Despite the song, it was not a fine life for Oliver, nor for Charles Dickens. Was Dickens any more Eastern than I?

Was Walt Whitman?

I think I could turn and live with animals,
they're so placid and self-contain'd,
I stand and look at them long and long.

They do not sweat and whine about their condition,
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins,
They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God,
Not one is dissatisfied,
not one is demented with the mania of owning things,
Not one kneels to another,
nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago,
Not one is respectable or unhappy over the earth.
(from Song of Myself, #32)

I loved this stanza as a student and for a very long time afterward, even now I guess. Yet I have to agree with the critic who said that Whitman probably didn't mean it -- maybe about the animals he did; but surely not about himself. After all, he lived a life of highly refined intellect, not possible (as far as we know) for cows or cats.

When reading Hugh Prather's book, I couldn't help but notice how often his examples were about puppies. Very appealing and touching, but hello we are not dogs or cats or cows. We are humans with baggage and memory and very complicated brains and the need for discourse. On the more useful side, however, Prather says that progress matters more than achievement, direction more than perfection. We can choose, we can decide. In the best interest of inner peace, we can wear our socks inside out.


P.S. Christmas is coming!
Next post will be on Monday, December 14th
Between now and then, be sure to read
my shorter, almost daily blog posts on
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com
(Ginkgo trees, leafless trees, Christmas trees)

Through A Glass Brightly

ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

Stained Glass Design in Fireman's Hall Museum, Philadelphia

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay, "Experience" (written in 1844)
is full of great observations:

"The years teach much which the days never know."

"From the mountain you see the mountain."

"People forget that it is the eye which makes the horizon."

"Five minutes of today are worth as much to me,
as five minutes in the next millennium."

"Let us treat the men and women well:
treat them as if they were real: perhaps they are."

"The great gifts are not got by analysis. Everything good is on the highway."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Stained Glass Windows in Wells Cathedral, England
"Experience" also contains many beautiful descriptions of color and light. For Emerson, uncertainty and brightness go hand in hand. We live our lives almost not knowing what is happening to us: "Sleep lingers all our lifetime about our eyes . . . All things swim and glitter. Our life is not so much threatened as our perception" (141). It is not lack of light, however, that impairs our inner vision; it is not through a glass darkly that we try to see. Instead, our distorted vision causes all to "glitter." Distortion, but not gloom, not dullness. We are in the light not in the dark.

Emerson unites illusion, perception, and limitation: "Dream delivers us to dream, and there is no end to illusion. Life is a train of moods like a string of beads, and as we pass through them they prove to be many-colored lenses which paint the world their own hue, and each shows only what lies in its focus" (144). We hold beads of experience to the light, watching them become prisms, deciding which of the many colors we feel most moved by, which bead, which color we will choose. To choose but one hue is to choose a dream, an illusion, but such is our inability to perceive experience in more than one way at a time.

Writing in France a few years later (1857), Gustave Flaubert -- in a section sadly omitted from the final version of his novel -- would picture Madame Bovary standing before the colored windows at Vaubyessard. She looks out at the countryside through variously colored window panes in a passage strangely reminiscent of Emerson's colored beads and lenses. Moving as from dream to dream, Emma Bovary looks at the illusion offered by each pane. Through the blue pane, all seems sad; through the yellow pane everything grows smaller, lighter, and warmer; through the green pane everything she sees appears leaden and frozen. She remains longest in front of the red glass, looking at a landscape that frightens her, until she averts her eyes to the ordinary daylight of a transparent pane. [Continued below, in "Comments."]

Like Emerson's image of the many - colored beads, this picture of Madame Bovary offers both variation and restriction. In an expansive description of light and brightness, Emerson illustrates our limited ability to fully understand experience and offers Surprise as a method of perceiving life. He talks of both the uncertainty and the blessedness of Surprise. Our perception may be obscured, and we may be isolated from comprehension of a grand design, but it is, as Emerson portrays it, a panoramic isolation:

"Life is a series of surprises, and would not be worth taking or keeping, if it were not. God delights to isolate us every day, and hide from us the past and the future. We would look about us, but with grand politeness God draws down an impenetrable screen of purest sky, and another behind us of purest sky. You will not remember, God seems to say, and you will not expect." (152)

The reader cannot help but see this "pure" sky as one of the clearest, brightest blue. Despite isolation and limitation, this is not a vision of darkness or despair. It is a climactic image of color and light that dispels the gloom of our imperfect understanding. Emerson offers hope and affirmation amidst uncertainty and fragmentation. A human being, says Emerson, "is a golden impossibility" (152). Through our sleep - filled eyes we can glimpse the truth of our experience, glittering through a colored lens, on the horizon where small but distinct we see something as beautiful as our own natures.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Selected Prose and Poetry, 2nd Edition, Ed. Reginald L. Cook, (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1969) 141 - 161.

Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary (Norton Critical Edition), Ed. and Trans. Paul de Man, (New York: Norton, 1965), 269 - 70.

P.S.
Next post will be on Saturday, November 28th
Between now and then, be sure to read
my shorter, almost daily blog posts on
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com
(more Bill Bryson, autumnal poetry, etc.)