the sacred beauty of creation

"Sometimes I need a little reminder... one that I can feel rather than one that I repeat to myself... how many things I will mourn should I be lucky enough to know when my time is coming. Sometimes I need a deeper nudge to listen to the sounds of my children's voices and not just their words. Every now and then a good and serious truth that causes remembrance of how fragile, how fleeting and how un-repeatable the moments of a life truly are is a very good thing." - cagefreefamily blog 

i was just reading the only blog i follow (cagefreefamily). ...she wrote a post about why she prefers reading books about dying and why rather than depress her, they put the fragility of life into focus and give her reason to appreciate it, in all its delicate and fading glory. of course, she said it more eloquently (see above quote).

i've been unable to articulate this myself for so long... it's the reason i prefer documentaries about the iraq war or the water crisis over superman III. or why i was transfixed by the recent frontline episode on dying. and why i adored the novel i read last month (gilead by marilynne robinson): a letter from a dying man to his son. or why my favorite book is as i lay dying, which begins with the sounds of a son hammering nails into his mother's coffin. reminders of mortality give a person a drive to live deliberately and lovingly. reminders of war and social injustice give a person a reason to cast aside the blinders and kill the apathy.

recently, an acquaintance said she could not participate in a book club i am a part of because she can't handle "disturbing" or "sad" literature. but man, you've gotta be disturbed or saddened in order to soak in the beauty!

i'll leave with another quote, from gilead:

"There are two occasions when the sacred beauty of Creation becomes dazzingly apparent, and they occur together. One is when we feel our mortal insufficiency to the world, and the other is when we feel the world's mortal insufficiency to us." - Marilynne Robinson, Gilead

bike ride across town, crackers & diapers flying

it was drizzly and a little chilly, but we put baby o in the bike trailer and headed downtown. it's a slow pace when papa p is riding a 20 lb mountain bike and dragging along a 20 pound, curly-headed creature who tosses crackers and diapers into the road. this strange creature managed to stay happy for the entire 2 1/2 hour ride, spending much of the time on his yellow plastic "phone," conversing with someone on the other end about motorcycles. thanks to either pregnancy or labor with baby o, i have a higher lactic threshold or my blood can carry more oxygen-- or something-- because climbing mt. bonnell seemed easy, so i did it twice in a row. (it used to be a struggle to get up once.) papa p took on some pretty big hills considering his cargo. like all top athletes, we stopped mid-way for a large amy's icecream at mozart's cafe. we left with fingers sticky from strawberry icecream and a toddler screaming for more.

the best place to contemplate big themes-- life, the world, the future-- is from the top of two wheels. so we discussed when papa p might leave his miserable law job. very soon we think! and we dreamed out loud about adventures to come-- maybe colorado this summer or maybe europe. that's the big upside of living below one's means: the ability to ponder such luxuries. luxuries like giving the two-week notice to your slave-master, or the possibility of exploring a distant part of the world. note: we do travel on the cheap. last time in europe, we stole lots of cheese from our bed-and-breakfast and subsisted on it all day. swiss cheese, to be exact (because we were in switzerland). to this day, swiss cheese = not appealing.

p.s. question papa p asks: why do bloggers want to make their personal thoughts public to the world? if emily dickinson were alive today, would she be blogging? doubtful. she would probably be alienated and continue hiding her poems in her underwear drawer. with that in mind, i leave with a poem, entitled "the loneliness one dare not sound":


The Loneliness One dare not sound --
And would as soon surmise
As in its Grave go plumbing
To ascertain the size --

The Loneliness whose worst alarm
Is lest itself should see --
And perish from before itself
For just a scrutiny --

The Horror not to be surveyed --
But skirted in the Dark --
With Consciousness suspended --
And Being under Lock --

I fear me this -- is Loneliness --
The Maker of the soul
Its Caverns and its Corridors
Illuminate -- or seal --


1863

standing on tip-toes

35 degrees, the texas sun is shining, and one 19-month old (blonde hair at ends, tongue out) is learning to walk on his toes. it's thrilling apparently, this toe-walk of the truly awkward, truly tiny dancer. it's a cliche, that the child's eyes are full of wonder, that for the under-3-feet set, every tip-toe across the earth is a tap-dance worth celebrating. but it is true. and so it is in honor of that wonder -- of that very basic, childlike delight in living and breathing and throwing raisins at the window -- that i write this first blog post.

hopefully it will be more than a grocery list of the day's banalities. hopefully it won't dwell on every advancement, stumble, temper-tantrum, and finger painting masterpiece in the life of blonde "baby o". hopefully it will be more about what has to date been an awfully timid, much discussed quest for a life-less-conventional, a life-less-burdened, a life that has more to seek out than the golden career, the gold-trimmed car, and the gold-lined coffin. my baby-daddy, "papa p," laments the new American dream: the cradle-to-the-cubicle-to-the nursing home. can't we do something different? can we give "baby o" the chance to toe-dance on mountains and continents? can we demonstrate to him that we too wonder at this spinning world? will we give him empty lessons on morality and wisdom, or will we actually act out our ideals of social justice and freedom? "freedom".... will that be just some people talking? (I promise, faithful reader, that this is the first and last time i make reference to The Eagles.)

but i ramble. and my blog-- and my life-- certainly has a lofty vision, given that an hour ago i was at marshall's buying lace underwear. Meanwhile, the Egyptian people, in an unimaginably brave and unified scream for freedom, were toppling 30-years of tyranny. According to Democracy Now, they were celebrating with cartwheels in the streets of Cairo.