Poetry Party Wednesday

A quote from the book Edgar Sawtelle, the quotation below represents thoughts of Edgar's dog Almondine toward the end of her life.  Such a poignant and accurate way to describe the tapestry that is our life, more colorful and beautiful with each passing year.

“She had learned, in her life, 

that time lived inside you. 

You are time, you breathe time. 

When she'd been young, she'd had an insatiable hunger for more of it,

 though she hadn't understood why. 

Now she held inside her a cacophony of times 

and lately it drowned out the world. 

The apple tree was still nice to lie near. 

The peony, for its scent, also fine. 

When she walked through the woods (infrequently now) 

she picked her way along the path, 

making way for the boy inside to run along before her. 

It could be hard to choose the time outside over the time within.” 

― David Wroblewski, The Story of Edgar Sawtelle

Five on Friday

I’m loving those new little Tide laundry pods. (My husband calls them pills.)   Give me a gimmick and I’m sold, I guess, but the clothes smell great and it's oh so much easier than lugging big bottles to the laundry room.

Why didn’t someone invent this moiré hair color trend when I was younger?  I could have saved a kabillion dollars on highlights over the years.

My dog refuses to eat dog food.  Fancy Feast cat food is all he’ll eat. I've tried everything.   I feel terribly guilty about this.  I’m failing as a parent -- my child won’t eat his vegetables.

I started reading the lists at this website today and couldn’t stop:  http://www.listsofnote.com/

And if that doesn’t hook you, try here:  www.loldamn.com  Gotcha.

And here are my newest lace book pages, these for the darling Suzy Q, whose theme is vintage gypsy...

Hand painted Gypsy woman with crystal ball

Burnt edges on vellum

Isn't this lace yummy?

Poetry Party Wednesday

If you know me well, you know how much the beauty of this poem tugs at my heart. 

e e cummings

i carry your heart with me

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in

my heart) i am never without it (anywhere

i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done

by only me is your doing, my darling)

i fear

no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want

no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)

and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows

higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

Five on Friday

Yesterday while browsing books on Amazon (I do that a lot) I noticed there are books available free to Prime members who have Kindles. Not the usual free books you can get online, but only only to Prime members who own a Kindle.  I’m Prime, but I’m an iPad.  Waaaah.  I feel so…left out.  How many free books would I need to download to justify buying a Kindle.  hmmmm.  (Please don’t tell my husband I said that.)

I just realized that, for those who aren’t as addicted to technology as I am, the previous paragraph may have sounded like I was speaking in tongues.

Watched the first episode of Don’t Trust the B---- in Apartment 23 last night.  I didn’t expect to like it.  I tried not to.  But I did.  Yes, I’m that shallow.

This week I read a book called You Deserve Nothing. It was meant to be fiction, about a seemingly  high-principled high school teacher who has an affair with one of his students, but after reading it I found out that it was actually a true story cloaked as fiction.  Now that I know I paid that author to tell his story of having taken advantage of a young girl, I feel like I need a shower. 

Spring is here. The cat fur tumbleweed is rolling around my living room floor, my dog has started enjoying his walks more and is stopping to eavesdrop on conversations again, and my neighbor in the apartment next door has started playing his piano once more.    

Poetry Party Wednesday

This is an excerpt from a longer poem by Mary Oliver.  Paying attention to every moment is a worthy goal, I think, for me.

The Summer Day

I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass,
how to be idle and blessed,
how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.

Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

Mary Oliver

Poetry Party Wednesday

I love the imagery in this poem. I can almost hear a quiet clock ticking in the background, morning sun slanting in through the kitchen window.  Domestic animals are very clever, aren't they, to live this life and allow us to love them.

Morning

Salt shining behind its glass cylinder.

Milk in a blue bowl. The yellow linoleum.

The cat stretching her black body from the pillow.

The way she makes her curvaceous response to the small, kind gesture.

Then laps the bowl clean.

Then wants to go out into the world

where she leaps lightly and for no apparent reason across the lawn,

then sits, perfectly still, in the grass.

I watch her a little while, thinking:

what more could I do with wild words?

I stand in the cold kitchen, bowing down to her.

I stand in the cold kitchen, everything wonderful around me.

Mary Oliver

Fabric book pages for Sox

These lace book pages are for my friend Sox.   I'm in a round robin with five other women, each with a different theme.  Hers is French milliners -- her grandmother was a hat maker in France during the late 1800's.

I found these tiny white buttons at an antique shop in Pt. Pleasant, NJ. Aren't they the sweetest?

And I'm not sure where I got this lovely locket, but I had to include it on Sox's pages so she can nestle a picture of her grandma inside.

And I painted a lovely lady in a hat.  I based her face on a painting by -- I think? -- Degas

I found this darling, vintage sewing scissor at an antique store and tucked it in for safekeeping.

More views...

And I found the perfect home for this darling needle and thread lapel pin, nestled in layers of fabric and the image of a Chapellerie.

Makes me dream of a different life in a different time...if only for a day.

Sunday in New York

Let's try this again --

Last night, the midtown streets were damp and grey, full of suburbanites rushing home after their Saturday afternoon brunches and matinees.  This is the view out my window, edits courtesy of Holli and snapseed.

But earlier in the week, the days were sunny and warm.  My friend and I went to a lovely French restaurant in the West Village.  There were hard-boiled, paper-wrapped eggs at the bar.

And a vintage hand-pressed juicer with a basket full of plump oranges.

My friend ordered a delicious plate of asparagus topped with a perfectly-runny soft-boiled egg. 

Heavenly.  What did you do this week?