I Changed My Mind

ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS
Love's Labour's Lost, Act IV, Scene 3
by Thomas Stothard, 1755 - 1834

"Let us once lose our oaths to find ourselves
Or else we lose ourselves to keep our oaths"

from Love's Labour's Lost
by William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616)

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Couriers

“They were offered the choice between becoming kings or the couriers of kings. The way children would, they all wanted to be couriers. Therefore there are only couriers who hurry about the world, shouting to each other - since there are no kings - messages that have become meaningless. They would like to put an end to this miserable life of theirs but they dare not because of their oaths of service.”

from On Parables
by Franz Kafka (1883-1924)
I changed my mind ~ apparently easier done than said. At the very beginning of their careers, Kafka's couriers have the free will to make a choice, and the choice they make out of this free will is to be couriers instead of kings. Now they are locked into that choice, no matter what. Kafka reveals the meaninglessness of the messages they relay and he blames their meaningless lives on the fact that they adhere to a truth in the spoken word which, in fact, does not reside there.

The couriers initially made this choice as children would, referring perhaps to the excitement that seems inherent in travelling to and for with messages, the action and movement, and the nature of the responsibility such a position entails -- the satisfaction of a mission accomplished rather than that of executive decision making. Unfortunately, everyone has chosen the role of delivering the truth rather than the office of determining what the truth is or just what truth it is that needs to be pronounced. Now they experience the discouragement of carrying messages with no content and to no purpose.

They are like Stephen Crane's "ship of the world" which slipped away at a fateful moment before God adjusted the rudder:

"So that, forever rudderless, it went upon the seas
Going ridiculous voyages,
Making quaint progress
Turning as with serious purpose
Before stupid winds."

But the couriers do not have even the saving delusion of naive or wrongful belief that their purpose is serious. Not only does the reader know that their progress is quaint and ridiculous and stupid -- they know it as well; yet they persist in shouting their messages to the "stupid winds."

The couriers, unfortunately, have no auditor. They suffer from a disjunction of form and content in their profession. Surely, in their cases, silence is preferable to their hopeless and meaningless shouting. Yet they feel compelled to continue their "work." The last sentence of the parable suggests that the compulsion derives from a seriouis misunderstanding of the power of language. The couriers mistakenly believe that words are real, more real even than actions. Their miserabale lives belie the truth of their oaths of service but they hold fast, somehow convinced of the authenticity of the oath. They honor a commitment to the spoken word, even though they have been more or less betrayed by the profession they feel committed to. Keeping an oath is undoubtedly honorable, but the fact that the couriers lead a miserable existence suggests that greater truth and greater honor, as well as greater happiness, might be found in breaking or modifying or redefining the oath if the couriers had the strength of mind to do so.

They need to learn the lesson of Love's Labour's Lost, Shakespeare's play about "the sweet smoke of rhetoric." The four main characters have taken an oath "Not to see ladies, study, fast, not sleep" (I, i, 48). They swear to lead this ascetic life of contemplation for three years' time in order that they might become "heirs of all eternity" (I, i, 7). It seems a small price for such a reward, and the final bond of the oath is "That his own hand may strike his honor down / That violates the smallest branch herein" (I, i, 20 - 21). But contrary to finding that a violation of the oath is a violation of honor, they learn just the opposite. By the end of the play, Longaville questions, " . . . what fool is not so wise / To lose an oath to win a paradise" (IV, iii, 270 - 71) and Berowne proclaims: "Let us once lose our oaths to find ourselves / Or else we lose ourselves to keep our oaths" (IV, iii, 359 - 60).

They are calling into question, as Kafka's couriers should have the sense to do, the power and value of the word, written and spoken. Is breaking an oath to gain what at least appears to be a paradise a wise choice? Of course, the decision must always be relative to the weight of the oath and possibility of paradise. The line between "losing our oaths to find ourselves" and "losing ourselves to keep our oaths" is not always as clear as it is for the lords in Love's Labour's Lost, whose oaths were perhaps not very weighty ones in the fist place.

However, since the couriers in the parable have been reduced to living meaningless, frustrating lives, it is time, Kafka suggests, that they examine the validity of their oaths of service. Initially weighty though it may have been, it should be reconsidered in light of prevailing situations and conditions. Instead of taking this initiative, though, the couriers continue acting against their better judgment because they said they would. Clearly they are losing their lives to keep their oaths. Language has failed them, leaving them unable to discern when it may be right action, right behavior, to throw over a commitment they have made, a commitment not to another person so much as to the words they heard themselves say.

John the Baptist Reproving Herod, 1848
by John Rogers Herbert, 1810–1890
I draw a similar conclusion whenever I hear the story of the beheading of John the Baptist. As you may recall, Herod offers his daughter "whatever you wish . . . Whatever you ask me, I will give you, even half of my kingdom," as a reward for her performance of a pleasing dance for the the guests at a banquet. The girl confers with her mother and requests John's head on a platter. Although Herod is "deeply grieved" (is he really?) at this morbid request, he proceeds to grant it. Why? "Out of regard for his oaths and for the guests" (Mark 6: 22 - 26). What? This story never sounds right to me. Herod has all the power in the situation, including the power to renege on his oath and the power to save a man's life, should he so choose. He has the power to change his mind.

We've heard it all our lives: you must be as good as your word. Perhaps the real challenge is to be better than our word.

Three Conspirators Swear an Oath, 1779
Henry Fuseli, 1741 - 1825

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MORE ON KAFKA

1. Parables on Parables:

"They were offered the choice between
CHOICE and NO - CHOICE."

2. Previous Blog Posts:
Little Door
Take Up Your Cross
Sancho Panza
Celtic Blessing
Imperial Messenger
Suffering
Go Over

3. Fascinating Artwork:
Illustrations for Kafka's Parables by Aimee Pong

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

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
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

Causality: King Then Queen

A HOUSE WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

"The king died and then the queen died" is a story.
"The king died and then the queen died of grief" is a plot.
~ E. M. Forster ~

Forster "also points out that the difference between the two is causality. Theorists have debated the validity of the distinction since Forster proposed it in the 1927, arguing, for example, that the very temporality of "and then" entails causality (or at least invites the reader to supply it) so that the only difference between the two versions is the explicit naming of the cause in the second. The debate also includes objections to defining plot solely in terms of causality, since many narrative artists build plots on other principles. Nevertheless the debate itself shows that Forster identified four elements of narrative—character (or agent), event, temporality, and causality . . . . Because narrative spells out the specific relations among agents, events, time, and causality, it is capable of explaining phenomena that escape more abstract analyses such as those based on science-oriented ideas of general laws."

from
"Narrative - E. M. Forster's King And Queen
And Narrative Across The Disciplines"
What always strikes me about the "grief" in Forster's second sentence is not only that it introduces causality but that it reveals the queen's emotional state. Narrative requires conflict, and the queen is a conflicted character. She is grieving; and we know what that means: denial, anger, bargaining, depression. She is in conflict with herself, and with forces larger than herself, such as Nature, God and Death. Now we have a plot.

Forster's brief analysis of royal death and grief always makes me think of that classic exercise in cause - effect analysis: the Drawbridge Problem:

As he left for a visit to his outlying district, the jealous Baron warned his pretty wife: "Do not leave the castle while I am gone, or I will punish you severely when I return!"

But as the hours passed, the young Baroness grew lonely, and despite her husband's warning, decided to visit her lover who lived in the countryside nearby. The castle was located on an island in a wide fast flowing river with a drawbridge linking the island and the land at the narrowest point in the river. "Surely my husband will not return before dawn," she thought, and ordered her servants to lower the drawbridge and leave it down until she returned.

After spending several pleasant hours with her lover, the Baroness returned to the drawbridge, only to be blocked by a gateman wildly waving a long, cruel knife. "Do not attempt to cross this bridge, Baroness, or I will kill you," he raved. Fearing for her life, the Baroness returned to her lover and asked him to help. "Our relationship is only a romantic one," he said, "I will not help."

The Baroness then sought out a boatman on the river, explained her plight to him, and asked him to take her across the river in his boat. "I will do it, but only if you pay me my fee of five Marks." "But I have no money with me!" the Baroness protested. "That is too bad. No money, no ride," the boatman said flatly.

Her fear growing, the Baroness ran crying to the home of a friend, and after again explaining the situation, begged for enough money to pay the boatman his fee. If you had not disobeyed your husband, this would not have happened," the friend said. "I will give you no money."

With dawn approaching and her last resource exhausted, the Baroness returned to the bridge in desperation, attempted to cross to the castle, and was slain by the gateman.

Drawbridge from the Liebig Collection
A variety of discussion guides are available for studying the motivation behind each character's behavior. Years ago, when teaching "The Drawbridge" as part of a unit on the short story, I asked the class to consider why the Baroness would have risked a visit to this unfeeling lover. One of my students, who was having a tough semester and dealing with a death in the family, shook his head in resignation and answered, "Maybe she thought he loved her." I continue to value his conclusion as one of the best commentaries of all on these conflicted characters. Looking for love in all the wrong places -- sigh -- as is so often the case.

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Speaking of causal analysis, a few weeks ago, my older son Ben, wrote to recommend a "decent John Green video on who started World War I, because it reminded me that I was going to talk to you guys about causality!"

My younger son Sam added: "Good video. I could go check more primary sources and learn more about WWI, but I'm chill with just blaming Russia," inspiring me to suggest that we could blame Queen Victoria.

See:
The Roots of World War I,
Tangled in the Web of Queen Victoria's Royal Offspring

and

George, Nicholas and Wilhelm:
Three Royal Cousins and the Road to World War I
by Miranda Carter

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But back to the Drawbridge. Ben was ready to present us with some philosophically challenging material -- no glib conclusions! So here goes! Interestingly enough, Ben's narrative begins with a somewhat modified version of the problematic Drawbridge Exercise:

Intro
Trying to disentangle correlation from causation is what econ has been all about for the last twenty or so years (formally, this is called identification). It's been dying a little bit recently. People became increasingly focused on super small but well identified problems. The pendulum is swinging back to tackling and thinking about much bigger, but trickier problems. Either way, though, it's good to have a nice framework for thinking about causality. Without understanding what causes what and the mechanisms through which it causes it, we can't hope to design decent policies.

The setting: king says if princess runs away to be with peasant, he'll have her executed. peasant asks her to run away, she does, guy at moat lets down moat. King sends knight to retrieve princess. King tells executioner to cut off her head. He does. Princess dies.

The identification question: what/who killed the princess? For example, did the princess running away from the castle cause her to have her head chopped off?

The policy question: how to save the princess?

Necessary and Sufficient
To say that A is necessary for B means that A must be in order for B to be. Or that B cannot be unless A also is. Or that if A is not, then B is not. Or that whenever B is, A must also be.

Examples:
(a) A necessary condition for getting a good grade is handing in a term paper.
(b) A necessary condition for being a bachelor is being unmarried.
(c) A necessary condition for thunder is lightning.

To say that A is sufficient for B means that if A is, then B definitely is.

Examples:
(a) A sufficient condition for getting an A is getting an A on every assignment.
(b) A sufficient condition for being male is being a bachelor.
(c) A sufficient condition for thunder is lightning.

More colloquially, necessity means it can't happen without it, and sufficiency means that with it, we're definitely doing to have it.

Causality
We think of an order of causality. We'll start with the strongest form of A causes B. That is, A causes B if:

(1) A is necessary and sufficient for B.
(2) A is non-redundant and sufficient for B.
(3) A is a non-redundant part of a sufficient chain of events for B.
(4) A is an insufficient but non-redundant part of a necessary chain of events for B.
(5) A is an insufficient but non-redundant part of an unnecessary but sufficient chain of events for B.

We call condition (5) the INUS condition, and it's where much of social science is concerned. There aren't a lot of necessary and sufficient causal factors for being employed, or having a successful IPO, or getting a line of credit extension, or graduating from college.

An Example
A good way to become familiar with this is to think through some examples. Did the princess running away from the castle cause her death?

Is the princess running away from the castle necessary for her head being chopped off? No. The King is obviously crazy; he might have had her executed when he found out that she wasn't his daughter because the queen had been sleeping with one of the minstrels because she thought the King was a prick and didn't want to marry him in the first place.

Is the princess running away from the castle sufficient for her death? No,the knight could have refused to go get her and bring her back to the castle. The executioner might have refused to kill her.

So, the princess running away from the castle didn't cause her execution? Well that's not quite right. It doesn't cause it according to the definition of causality.

Is her running away non-redundant? Yeah, see previous example of queenly infidelity.

We might actually say that her running away did cause her execution according to the third definition. Actually, yes. I'm going to say that that's where we get to. Turns out the princess running away did cause her death.

We leave the causal nature of the other story's actors as exercises for the reader.

Designing policy, though, is very tricky. First, it involves figuring out how much each actor caused her death. Something made very, very tricky without huge sample sizes. In this case, there's only one occurrence, so we can, empirically, say very little. Then there's all the logistics of the policy and its unintended consequences. And of those predictable consequences some valuation of their effects has to be made. Also often impossible to do satisfactorily.

New York Times
Kevin Mumford, and many professors since, have recommended going to nyt.com at any time and picking an article. True story.

Here's one about "Refugees in Afghanistan": "Such experiences have become increasingly common for Afghans living in Pakistan after the terrorist attack on a school in Peshawar in December. Though the attack was claimed by the Pakistani Taliban, the Afghan refugees say it fueled a new wave of resentment against them."

Did the attack on the school cause increased resentment towards the Afghan refugees? It's not immediately clear this is the case. Which kind of causality is it, if it is indeed causal? It's clearly not sufficient. The school being blown up by a terrorist group is not definitely correlated with resentment against refugees. What non-redundant link does it serve in the chain? It could be that the refugees have come, consumed resources previously going to Pakistanis, and this hit a threshold that fueled a new wave of resentment. The school attack is redundant in this case. Is the chain of events necessary? As before, nope.

We could precisely identify the causal effects of the attack on the school by comparing the levels of resentment faced by the refugees in the event there is an attack, and again in the event that there's not an attack (this is called the counterfactual). We often estimate the counterfactual by looking at a control group -- we can identify the effects of the drug by comparing what happens to the cholesterol of the treated group as compared to the control group. We can't do this with school attacks for quite a few reasons - expensive, unethical. And even if we could, it wouldn't be a perfect experiment, because it would happen on a different day and the circumstances wouldn't be identical. This is why economics is tricky snacks. Ultimately, we can't prove the attack at the school caused increased levels of resentment.

But we can use a smell test: would the levels of resentment been higher, the same, or lower if the school had not been attacked. That will shed some light on its causal nature.
Thanks to Guest Blogger Ben McCartney!

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SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS FOR MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Tuesday, April 28th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
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

P.S.
My friend Diane always sends the best Valentines!
The King & Queen of Hearts above is from Pier 1 Imports (2006)

Celebrating Charlotte

A HOUSE WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

The Little Brick JJQ Duplex ~ Fall 1982
University of Tulsa ~ 8th Street
I'm posting this Fortnightly a day late, in commemoration of my friend Charlotte Stewart, who died a year ago today. Earlier this month, I had the privilege of attending and speaking at a memorial service, organized by Charlotte's dearest Tulsa friends to honor the anniversary of her death and to include those far - flung acquaintances who may have missed her funeral services last year:

Celebrating Charlotte: The Life and Legacies
of Charlotte Cathey Stewart, 1938 - 2014
Sunday, March 8, 2015 ~ Tulsa, Oklahoma
What a joy it was to reminisce of Charlotte, touch base with new friends, reconnect with old, and meet family members for the first time:

Kitti, Marguerite, Ethelyn

At the risk of some small repetition, I'll begin with a re - post from last April, "That Other World I Touch" then move on to "Celebrating Charlotte." and conclude with another of Charlotte's poems, "Gallipoli," which, like "Lost Continent" is about the puzzle of our transition from this world to the next.

In Memoriam
Charlotte Cathey Stewart
~ friend & litterateur ~
25 November 1938 ~ 29 March 2014







A poem for Charlotte . . . by Charlotte . . .

Lost Continent
Loss laps the shore of this awful
sunlit day, bathes the bare roots
of a single shoreline tree. I feel

this continent's afloat, conceals another
deeper down. I think that we could
find it, if we knew the way.
What's buried?
Some dark jubilance we've never known.
Or only I. That other world I touch.
That expectation you arouse in me:

maps in our hands, if they were joined,
deep spells that blind, and spells
that make us see. So be it.
Now begins
the evening's bright lament. Voices blaze
like sunset's spreading tent: I want
to know you. Naked thought:
as if to know could set us free.

written by Charlotte Stewart in 1983
from her book of poems: A Home Against One's Self

Re - reading this beautiful poem for the first time in many years, I had to wonder, did Charlotte compose it in honor of someone else's death? Perhaps she told me at the time and I've forgotten, yet another loss.

She writes of a deeper, lost continent concealed beneath our visible world but, more importantly, of a deeper, richer self - awareness, lost -- or as yet unfound -- that lives below the surface that we currently apprehend as our existence. Is Charlotte there now? Has she found it -- the dark jubilance -- now that she has touched the other life?

When I met Charlotte, she was managing editor of the James Joyce Quarterly, and I was lucky enough to be one of her student assistants for a semester. I've never forgotten Charlotte telling me that when she was little, she thought that the last line of "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" was "life is butter beans" (rather than "life is but a dream"). Sometime after that, she drew me a little card with those words and a smiling butter bean. A happy memory.

On the back, it says "From Charlotte ~ October 11, 1982"

Other fun memories include the day that we sat in the office reading out all the the questions on the MMPI and making jokes of all our answers. Or the time when Charlotte bought me my first ever Cadbury Creme Egg at one of her favorite little shops near Utica Square. This confection was totally unknown to me until that day when Charlotte told me that I had to try one and we admired the candy yolk inside the white creme. Of course, best of all were the many friends and the way that Charlotte pulled us all together.

End of Fall Semester Party at Charlotte's house, 1982.
Look how much fun she was having!

Clockwise from noon: Kay, Charlotte, Susan, Jes, Jan, Donna
Charlotte's friend Marguerite shared this drawing and wrote to say that "Charlotte loved to doodle. When she learned that my totem was the rabbit (as I was born in the Chinese year of the hare), she started drawing rabbit images on her notes to me."

So fitting for this sad yet, to quote Charlotte,
"darkly jubilant" occasion.
And to you too, dear Charlotte:
"See you anon!"

For more doodles & photographs, see my facebook album:
Tulsa 1982 & Beyond

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Here I am, three weeks ago, sharing a few
words on behalf of Charlotte's grad students:

"In August of 1982, I came to Tulsa, drawn by the opportunity to work under Charlotte's direction on the James Joyce Quarterly, along with two other graduate students, Curtis and Peter. The three of us adored working for Charlotte in the little house devoted to the JJQ, which was across the street from the house devoted to the Tulsa in Studies Women's Literature. Sheri, from TSWL remembers the joy and positive energy that flew between the two locales, with Charlotte as the common thread.

"That fall, I also enrolled in Germaine Greer's Monday night Seminar on 17th C Women Writers, which Charlotte attended every week. This is where I met Alice, Donna, Jan, Jes, Lisa, Sharon, Sheri, and Susie. When thinking back, we all agree that it was a time of magic.

"Jan writes, "There are so many things I do not remember about that semester. But what I do remember is a sense of Charlotte's leadership and generosity, her wonderful parties, her playfulness, her compassion, her love of literature, and her love for the band of women we were so many years ago during that magical semester in Tulsa."

"And Jes recalls that "No one could have been kinder. . . . She made us laugh, gave us good advice, invited us to parties, helped us out out of scrapes, read us her poems . . . Charlotte and Germaine were a dynamic duo; it was a gift just to be around them, hoping that some of their magic dust would rub off."

"The lasting comraderie that began for our group during that semester revolved around Charlotte and the way she took us all in and taught us to enjoy literature, each other, and every little pleasure in the world around us, right down to the season's first Cadbury Cream Egg. It's true. I never had a Cadbury Egg until Charlotte took me to the store and bought me one and said, "Look inside!"

"Doesn't that just capture the way she was always adding so much joy to the lives of everyone around her, in the most surprising little unexpected and unforgettable ways?!

"If I had to pick one memory, it would be our Joycean discussion of misheard song lyrics -- we all have them! -- in which Charlotte described her childhood misunderstanding of the last line of "Row, Row, Row Your Boat": "Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is butter beans." That was Charlotte, always offering a wry smile and a new perspective. Life is but a dream, yes -- but it's also butter beans.

"Charlotte was our mentor and we all become friends -- lifelong, as it turns out. You can't ask for more than that."

Charlotte Stewart, Germaine Greer, Alice Price, Susan Hastings
~ eating cake and reading manuscripts ~
at the Tulsa Center for Women's Studies, 1982

The service was filled with smiles, tears, slides, musical interludes, and poems of all kinds, including "One Art" by Elizabeth Bishop; "Journey" and "Uses of Sorrow" by Mary Oliver; and several others authored by Charlotte.

Not on the program, but running relentlessly through my mind -- "This book is a box, this box is a boat . . . This book is a box" -- was Charlotte's poem "Gallipoli, written thirty - three years ago, in response to the movie of the same name, which I had seen with Charlotte and a few others, one night on the TU campus in the Fall of 1982. We were lucky that TU had a film series of fairly recent art-house movies because, of course, in those days if you missed something at the movie theater you couldn't just rent it on netflix! None of us had seen Gallipoli until that night, and we continued to speak of it in the weeks to come, during which time Charlotte was crafting her poem, linking history to current events and to the unknowable future, near and distant:

Gallipoli

This book is a box
this box is a boat
the man who runs fast
and furthest is imprinted
on its leaves.

The soldiers
come at night in boats
across blue water. They wear
deep mantles of fog. This book
is where they sleep.

Play on the beaches
it is all the world there is.
Make tin can bombs, explode them
to help you pass the hours.

This book is a box
this box floats in deep water.
This world will be extinguished
in a festival of fire.

~ Charlotte Stewart

~~ Rest in Peace Charlotte ~~

SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS FOR MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Tuesday, April 14th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
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

814 ~ Where It Was Almost Always Christmas

A HOUSE WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

You've seen this house before ~ where we lived in West Philadelphia for eight amazing years! This time last year, I featured it in honor of my dear house sister, Vicky Duffy McL. And of course it was given a spot of honor on our 2014 Calendar: Homes That We Love. In fact, it was the calendar project that inspired my boys to say, "Mom, we want to see the inside of our old house! We're forgetting our childhood! Remind us!" So I looked through all our pre - digitals, scanned the following, and created a calendar for "Christmas time and all the whole year through":

January

Entryway ~ Welcome to Our Victorian Home!

February

Living Room ~ Silver Lights and Ionic Columns!

March

Dining Room ~ Twelfth Night Party!

April

Kitchen Corner ~ Looking onto Beaumont Street!

May

Family Room ~ Lego Building!

June

Study ~ Ben at the Computer!

July

2nd Floor Bathroom ~ Classic Window Reflection

August

3rd Floor Bathroom ~ Advent Calendar and Josef!

September

Front Bedroom ~ A Booklover's Window Seat!

October

Sam's Room ~ Everything from Pikachu to Batman!

November

Ben's Caribbean Blue Sleeping Porch ~ Winter Sky!

December

4th Floor Art Stuido ~ Whole Famliy!
[click for further explanation]
And to conclude, a few lines from one of my favorites, the kind of Christmas song that you can still sing in March if you want to:

May your life be filled with sunshine
May your every wish come true
May you find the sweet fulfillment in everything you do
May your days be blessed with the very very best
Both now and the whole year through
It says so in my Christmas card to
You and all your family, your neighbors and your friends
May all your days be happy with a joy that never ends
May peace and love surround you
At Christmas time and all the whole year through

from "My Christmas Card to You"
sung by The Partridge Family
words and music by Tony Romeo
P.S.Just one quick question about the two songs you see copied below: are they in fact two songs? Or are they really both the same song? I love them both, but I'm confused. Whenever I hear one, the other comes to mind.

For example:

The Partridge Family:
I'm looking out my window
at the softly falling snow
that dances in the early morning light . . .

The Seekers:
Looking from my window
On the freshly fallen snow,
It sparkles as it tumbles
Upon the street below . . .

************
Here are the songs in full;
you can click on the titles to listen:

My Christmas Card to You
To you and all your family, your neighbors and your friends
May all your days be happy with a joy that never ends
May peace and love surround you
at Christmas time and all the whole year through

I'm looking out my window at the softly falling snow
that dances in the early morning light
I got my guitar right before me, strummin' a beautiful sound
watching it a-comin' down, all around
on the fields and the farms and the road to town

And I'm thinkin' up a letter that I'm writin' in my head
a Christmas card to all the folks I love
Instead of lettin' the postman bring it, I decided I'd rather sing it
especially for you, for you

To you and all your family, your neighbors and your friends
May all your days be happy with a joy that never ends
May peace and love surround you
at Christmas time and all the whole year through

May your life be filled with sunshine
May your every wish come true
May you find the sweet fulfillment in everything you do
May your days be blessed with the very very best
both now and the whole year through
it says so in my Christmas card to

You and all your family, your neighbors and your friends
May all your days be happy with a joy that never ends
May peace and love surround you
at Christmas time and all the whole year through
at Christmas time and all the whole year through

Sung by The Partridge Family
Lyrics and music by Tony Romeo, 1971

************
I Wish You Could Be Here
Looking from my window
On the freshly fallen snow,
It sparkles as it tumbles
Upon the street below,
The crackle of the fire
Is laughing in my ear,
The room is warm and sleepy
And I wish you could be here.
Somedays in this town
There's not a lot for me to do,
I've been listening to some records
And my thoughts return to you,
I tried to read the paper
But the words aren't very clear,
Oh I know there's something missing
And I wish you could be here.

I keep listening for your footsteps
Or your key turned in the door,
I sure could use your company
But we've been through that before,
I think the winter's going to last
A long time this year,
I've got empty time to fill
And I wish you could be here.

Sung by The Seekers
Lyrics and music by Bruce Woodley & Paul Simon, 1966

To You and All Your Family . . . . I Wish You Could Be Here!
Sam ~ Our Neighbor Graham ~ Ben
January 2000

SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS FOR MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Saturday, March 28th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
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Staying Alive, Temporarily

A HOUSE WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

“Peace. It does not mean to be in a place
where there is no noise, trouble or hard work.
It means to be in the midst of those things
and still be calm in your heart.”
~ Anonymous ~

No one seems to know who said those words,
but they remind me of something that
Walt Whitman says in Leaves of Grass:

"Allons! we must not stop here,
However sweet these laid-up stores, however convenient this dwelling we cannot remain here,
However shelter’d this port and however calm these waters we must not anchor here,
However welcome the hospitality that surrounds us we are permitted to receive it but a little while."

from "The Song of the Open Road," #9 (112)
In very simple terms:
"A ship in the harbor is safe,
but that is not what ships are made for."
~ John Augustus Shedd ~

Or as succintly, existentially expressed
by poet David Wagoner in one of
my all - time favorite poems:
"This is called staying alive. It's temporary."
Staying Alive
Staying alive in the woods is a matter of calming down
At first and deciding whether to wait for rescue,
Trusting to others,
Or simply to start walking and walking in one direction
Till you come out--or something happens to stop you.
By far the safer choice
Is to settle down where you are, and try to make a living
Off the land, camping near water, away from shadows.
Eat no white berries;
Spit out all bitterness. Shooting at anything
Means hiking further and further every day
To hunt survivors;
It may be best to learn what you have to learn without a gun,
Not killing but watching birds and animals go
In and out of shelter
At will. Following their example, build for a whole season:
Facing across the wind in your lean-to,
You may feel wilder,
But nothing, not even you, will have to stay in hiding.
If you have no matches, a stick and a fire-bow
Will keep you warmer,
Or the crystal of your watch, filled with water, held up to the sun
Will do the same in time. In case of snow
Drifting toward winter,

Don't try to stay awake through the night, afraid of freezing--
The bottom of your mind knows all about zero;
It will turn you over
And shake you till you waken. If you have trouble sleeping
Even in the best of weather, jumping to follow
With eyes strained to their corners
The unidentifiable noises of the night and feeling
Bears and packs of wolves nuzzling your elbow,
Remember the trappers
Who treated them indifferently and were left alone.
If you hurt yourself, no one will comfort you
Or take your temperature,
So stumbling, wading, and climbing are as dangerous as flying.
But if you decide, at last, you must break through
In spite of all danger,
Think of yourself by time and not by distance, counting
Wherever you're going by how long it takes you;
No other measure
Will bring you safe to nightfall. Follow no streams: they run
Under the ground or fall into wilder country.
Remember the stars
And moss when your mind runs to circles. If it should rain
Or the fog should roll the horizon in around you,
Hold still for hours
Or days if you must, or weeks, for seeing is believing
In the wilderness. And if you find a pathway,
Wheel-rut, or fence-wire,
Retrace it left or right: someone knew where he was going
Once upon a time, and you can follow
Hopefully, somewhere,
Just in case. There may even come, on some uncanny evening,
A time when you're warm and dry, well fed, not thirsty,
Uninjured, without fear,
When nothing, either good or bad, is happening.
This is called staying alive. It's temporary.

What occurs after
Is doubtful. You must always be ready for something to come bursting
Through the far edge of a clearing, running toward you,
Grinning from ear to ear
And hoarse with welcome. Or something crossing and hovering
Overhead, as light as air, like a break in the sky,
Wondering what you are.
Here you are face to face with the problem of recognition.
Having no time to make smoke, too much to say,
You should have a mirror
With a tiny hole in the back for better aiming, for reflecting
Whatever disaster you can think of, to show
The way you suffer.
These body signals have universal meaning: If you are lying
Flat on your back with arms outstretched behind you,
You say you require
Emergency treatment; if you are standing erect and holding
Arms horizontal, you mean you are not ready;
If you hold them over
Your head, you want to be picked up. Three of anything
Is a sign of distress. Afterward, if you see
No ropes, no ladders,
No maps or messages falling, no searchlights or trails blazing,
Then, chances are, you should be prepared to burrow
Deep for a deep winter.

David Wagoner, profound American poet (b 1926)

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

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT ~ Staying Alive & Get Out of Town
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

Heart of Hearts

A HOUSE WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

Someone's Front Door ~ San Francisco
photo taken by wandering tourist on March 6, 2014

"The human heart is vast enough
to contain all the world."
~ Joseph Conrad ~

“Each friend represents a world in us,
a world possibly not born until they arrive,
and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.”
~ Anaïs Nin ~
The Diary of Anaïs Nin
Vol. 1: 1931-1934

Happy Valentine's Day Everyone!

&

Thanks for all the Worlds!

My multi-talented friend Tammy Sandel mentioned something recently that I knew would make the perfect blog post for Valentine's Day. She told the story of her son Austin asking her, "Mom, why are we always talking about our heart? How can your heart feel anyway?"

His questions brought to mind a couple of Tammy's own poems, filled with visceral images of pumping, bleeding hearts at work. In the first poem, the vivid -- i.e., filled with life! -- motif of red thread, red note and red word connects the reader to the poet's creative energy. The opening lines run like this [emphasis added]:

Red Note*
A blood red thread runs through the chapters of my life, stitching them together, feeding the future from the past like an artery.
Some of my chapter titles are the names of men. Of boys. Of my boys. Of animal friends. Some are titled with women's names, those women who invited me into the intimacy of birthing their child.
And some chapters are simply Moments. . . .

and

Zoom Hover Reverse.**
(tlks 12/12/14)
Alternate realities put me in the center of a Venn diagram. The intersecting circles pen me in with iridescent wings.
Living labile demands strength. Trying to notice and feel and say every thing to every one you love? Zoom.
Wishing, dreaming, imagining is exhilarating. And time consuming. Hover.
Second guessing, guilt, and regrets exhaust. Reverse.
Do you see that I feed you with the meat of my racing heart?
It's the only way I know how to be. . . .

Tammy, thanks for sharing your poems!

[*See "Comments" below for the complete text of both poems]
The conversation between Tammy and her son continued with an exploration of mystery, and how older cultures attributed emotion to other organs. Then they spent a day substituting the word liver for heart. For example, "I feel it in my liver." "He's got great liver." " I love you with all my liver."

Ever ready with a sly joke or an unexpected pun, Tammy provided an excellent literary connection, observing that "Maya Angelou said:

'Life loves the liver of it.' "
And Gerry, my clever husband, contributed: "Well I was born in Liverpool, need I say more?"

I was reminded of those good old gutsy expressions of disgust that capture some of the emotions we feel in our gut. For example:

1. When something is so annoying that
it really "sticks in my craw."

and

2. When something is so distateful that
I feel my gorge rise."

Another charming connection that came to mind was the time back in Philadelphia when Ben and Sam (around ages 10 & 7 at the time) were playing out on our side street with some neighborkids, and one little girl named Daisy took an accidental blow to the tummy. She got the wind knocked out of her but didn't really have the medical knowledge to explain her pain. Instead, she came running up to me and Gerry and said, "I think my heart just got broken." To this day, we still repeat little Daisy's phrase whenever we can't quite figure out where the hurt is coming from!

As a closing artistic connection, how about this lovely Valentine that I received from my wise and wonderful friend Nancy T. I like the way that the pink landscape, if you glance just right, resembles an organic human heart, rather than two trees and a clump of floral earth! Do you see it?

Words, painting, and calligraphy
by Renee Locks, 1997

***************
SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS FOR MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Saturday, February 28th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
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