Peg Duthie's Blog, page 52

let the strength come out

I've never met a woman who is not strong, but sometimes they don't let it out. Then there's a tragedy, and then all of a sudden that strength comes. My message is let the strength come out before the tragedy.

-- Diane von Furstenberg, in the New York Times Magazine

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introvert's holiday

What with the holiday and the rain, and the current main attraction a night-time thing, I pretty much had the local botanical gardens all to myself all afternoon. (There was a group of three people outside who weren't staff.)

The original plan had been just to hit the trails for an hour, for exercise. But the rain somehow made everything seem brighter and deeper and more of itself.

( cell phone snapshots behind the cut )

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bikram; duck; Lonely Eagles

Bikram update: to my surprise, I felt like attempting a toe stand today. To my even greater surprise, I managed the first handful of steps without feeling I'd gone too far, at least on my left side. (My attempt on the right side veered out of form before I raised my heel. This practice, it will keep a gal humble...)

I'm still sorting out where my head should be (so to speak) in Rabbit and Triangle. I suspect part of the problem is that I'm long-waisted, but without much in the way of core strength, so right now my arms feel both too short (in Rabbit) and too long (in Triangle) as they try to compensate for my middle not quite managing what I'm asking of it. Yet. By my count, today was class #23, so by any measure, I'm still just getting started (and I'm certain I'll still feel that way when I get to class #230. My pastimes have a way of doing that -- she says, glaring at today's efforts at writing.)

Duck: Buttercup! (aka 3-D printing in the news for something other than guns)

Lonely Eagles: Jennifer Michael Hecht featured Marilyn Nelson's poem about the 332d Fighter Group. Some poems, when I read them, I wind up bolt upright by the end and exclaiming, "Holy shit." This is one of those poems.

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from HARRY AND ME: THE FAMILY YEARS

Flower arrangement on Eastland Street, last Saturday (on my way to an ice cream parlor)

As it happened, John soon fell in love with a beautiful girl called Joan Furlong (and incidentally, a furlong is a measure of track in horse racing). Joan was an extremely nice girl and John wanted very much to marry her. He knew our parents would be against this, as he hadn't finished school yet. He had no money. She had no money. Hoping to secure their approval, John invented the story that Joan was pregnant and told our parents this. These were the days when abortions were illegal and thus very risky procedures. They often led to health complications, the least of which resulted in an inability to bear children. Much to everyone's surprise, our mother (an ardent Catholic) suggested that Joan should have an abortion to quickly resolve the issue! I have often noticed (and find it ironic) that fervent Christians are very prone to changing their minds on the issue of abortion when members of their family are involved in this type of crisis.

--Niki de Saint Phalle

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commentary/documentation on wars against women

Elizabeth Bear (and commenters): Harassment is not flirting. It's not actually all that complicated.

Mike Ward, a reporter in Texas, has been has been tweeting about the special legislative session. Dewhurst "says 2/3 Rule will not be enforced, meaning simple majority votes will pass bills." Also tweeting from Austin is @texyellowdogdem, whose posts have included this snapshot of messages on wire hangers. Several tweeters have accused the state government of shutting down public wi-fi and electricity access in the area in order to thwart media and pro-choice protesters.

Smiling sisters shot dead for dancing in the rain: Pakistani girls, 15 and 16, killed along with their mother for making video which 'stained the family honour'

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"to be at rest even while at work..."

[An aside to Mary: I enjoy the checklists.]

We want to do, to make, to shape, to give form, to give life, to pass it on, for the life of others and for the whole world. We want to love and be loved, to praise and give thanks for the gift of life, of light, of love. The human quest is a constant struggle for balance, for integration. For the monk, this is done in the milking of cows. In that simple activity, God is near. In gathering eggs, in weighing fruitcakes, in putting just the right measure of sugar in jelly, in baking bread, in wrapping cheese, God is to be found. Working and praying spring from one and the same source: the human heart. There are never enough hours in a day to get all the work done that is ours to do. And there are not enough lifetimes to thank God for the one and only life we have to live.

-- Michael Downey, Trappist: Living in the Land of Desire [emphasis mine]

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the color of astonishment is green

You know you've neglected your garden when even the mints are looking sad.

So imagine how surprised I was to see three pods on the stalks I'd given up on:



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"anything that attracts joy"

Sometimes I try to make poetry but mostly
I try to earn a living...

I think my heart is a magnet too. It attracts anything
that attracts joy like the summer grasses the swans track through.
OMG, how in love I am with joy and with yours --

-- Sandra Simonds, "Red Wand"

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Overplay/Underdone

I just received two of my contributor's copies for Overplay/Underdone, and it is as cool as it looked in the preview photos. Spending more time with it will have to wait for some Friday night in the future, but there is so much to look at -- and take out of pockets, and unfold, and thread through holes...

...including Elliott batTzedek's "The Rebbe's Synecdoche," which was written "for Rebecca, my most favorite ever utterly resistant to being a rebbe rebbe" and features a mass of colorful threads. They are knotted to a list of concepts in a column (beginning with "sleep," "Shabbat," and "dark chocolate"; the reader is instructed to use the threads to "draw lines between the concepts and their corresponding ideals." Nifty!



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thinking about travel

[Prompted by Knight's post-Paris reflections]

Because I've displayed a penchant for extended and somewhat ambitious/outré itineraries in the past, I'm often asked where I plan to hare off to next. For various boring reasons (refilling the flying pig bank chief among them), I don't expect to head overseas again until 2015 or beyond, although the BYM and I may well celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary (!) by heading over the border to Vancouver. On va voir. There will be some weekend jaunts to various spots in the Southeast, and possibly a longer solo trip to Asheville and/or Charleston next spring.

Staying home contains elements of both discontent and relief for me. I love my man, my bed, my dog, my house, and my 'hood, all beyond reason, and lord knows there's plenty to do here. I sleep better, eat more vegetables, and eventually get to some of the things on the "things to take care of once I'm back home" lists I compile while I'm away. I fully relax when I know the man or the dog are between me and the rest of the world (because, as much I enjoy being alone to a fault, there's also the part of me that hasn't forgotten getting attacked by a stranger in a library [yes, a library] when I was twenty-one and thus won't let me completely let up my guard in unfamiliar surroundings, even when they happen to be nice hotel rooms with deadbolts in nice neighborhoods).

But getting away has proven to be good for my brain: the uncertainty and frustration that frequently accompanies with living out of a suitcase and navigating different routes and having to reach x by y-day is more than balanced by the thrill of everything being at least slightly strange and wondrous. On the road, I tend to make more of a point of exercising and finding more time to write. I read books I don't get around to here at home (although I invariably also bring home books I then take years to get to).

On the road, it's easier to give myself permission to splurge on clothing and trinkets and meals. I sometimes get the haircut I've been putting off, or a massage. I like trying things I'm not sure I'm going to like among people I don't know, because it takes the pressure off (the first Unitarian Universalist service I attended was during a business trip to Denver; the first time I went contradancing was at the Grey Eagle; the only time I've tried aqua aerobics so far was during a conference in Florida).

Earlier this year, I was making a point of staying offline from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday. There are boring reasons why I've remained on the grid this past month, but I'm hoping to resume the practice in July. It does something akin to travel for my brain and my sense of time: I write more. I read more. I relearn words or pick up new ones. I make lists of what I'll do once I'm back online, but I also see things through the lens of "this day is different."

(The thing is, I'm a freelancer and a publishing industry professional: I read and write all the time already. Theologically and logistically, I could see every day as holy, and when I remember this, I try to. But, being also a fruitbat, I have to keep getting the apple moved around so that I can stumble into its sweetness anew.

...And I'm pretty sure that stretch toward a metaphor didn't work. That's my brain coming up for air and saying, enough with the [semblance of] deep thoughts, it's time to float again toward sleep.)


(Sign seen in Dublin, 2011. Where on earth to begin...?)

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