The fall into love begins as
A hypnotizing drift, born in a smile....
Quickens into breathless exhilaration...
Touch forces a heart-stopping pulse-racing tailspin...
Rapidly accelerating earthward
at supersonic heart-speed.
Catch me?
DLD/28JUL07
Saturday, July 28, 2007
Friday, July 27, 2007
saving space
saving space
in coloured jars...
neatly lined up on a shelf...
their beautiful emptiness
shining ruby, jade, gold, indigo, emerald...
glittering in the sunlight...
enough for all
DLD/27JUL07
in coloured jars...
neatly lined up on a shelf...
their beautiful emptiness
shining ruby, jade, gold, indigo, emerald...
glittering in the sunlight...
enough for all
DLD/27JUL07
Yeeehaaawww!!!!
The votes are in, ladies and gentlemen, and it seems that the LSE would like to lock me up within their hallowed halls for one more year! (....and I'm gonna love every minute of it....) *grin*
After six weeks of waiting, exam grades were finally released on the 11th....and they were good, but still inconclusive, sitting SMACK on the borderline between A's and B's, between a First Class standing and an Upper Second.... I had to wait another week for the letter grades to be converted into percentages, which helped to clarify somewhat, but still very much borderline.
Finally, this past Monday, I met with my "handlers" who are very very pleased with my progress this past year. They are confident that this coming year (the third and final of my BSc degree), I will be able to improve my B+ average to an A. Admittedly, I'm not as certain as they are, and even though they are predicting "good potential to graduate with a First"....I still see it as a very steep slope to navigate. In any case, I am very satisfied with a strong Upper Second standing and an official offer to finish my degree at the LSE. :)
It has been a very long, stressful, exciting, magnificent, overwhelming year of very hard work and high anxiety. Now that I see that I can "anthropologize" with some of the best (*grin*), I am very very glad that I made the decision to do this and thankful for all of the good friends that have supported my efforts along the way.
Next up? Paperwork! Oodles of paperwork! There are Canadian forms that need to be filled out, to confirm that I will be remaining in the UK for at least one more year. There are British forms to be filled out, including the renewal of my student visa. And there are mountains of documents to gather and applications to complete, in the hopes of finding a school that would like to offer me a position as a grad student in September 2008. Wish me luck!!
Onward and upward!!!
Listening to: A lovely Carlos Santana instrumental piece.
Wondering if my new reading lenses might be ready today. Would you believe my eyesight has IMPROVED? Sigh. Donna's life is really weird sometimes.
After six weeks of waiting, exam grades were finally released on the 11th....and they were good, but still inconclusive, sitting SMACK on the borderline between A's and B's, between a First Class standing and an Upper Second.... I had to wait another week for the letter grades to be converted into percentages, which helped to clarify somewhat, but still very much borderline.
Finally, this past Monday, I met with my "handlers" who are very very pleased with my progress this past year. They are confident that this coming year (the third and final of my BSc degree), I will be able to improve my B+ average to an A. Admittedly, I'm not as certain as they are, and even though they are predicting "good potential to graduate with a First"....I still see it as a very steep slope to navigate. In any case, I am very satisfied with a strong Upper Second standing and an official offer to finish my degree at the LSE. :)
It has been a very long, stressful, exciting, magnificent, overwhelming year of very hard work and high anxiety. Now that I see that I can "anthropologize" with some of the best (*grin*), I am very very glad that I made the decision to do this and thankful for all of the good friends that have supported my efforts along the way.
Next up? Paperwork! Oodles of paperwork! There are Canadian forms that need to be filled out, to confirm that I will be remaining in the UK for at least one more year. There are British forms to be filled out, including the renewal of my student visa. And there are mountains of documents to gather and applications to complete, in the hopes of finding a school that would like to offer me a position as a grad student in September 2008. Wish me luck!!
Onward and upward!!!
Listening to: A lovely Carlos Santana instrumental piece.
Wondering if my new reading lenses might be ready today. Would you believe my eyesight has IMPROVED? Sigh. Donna's life is really weird sometimes.
Yawn!
#38 - Little Dorrit, by Charles Dickens
Finished 7/26/07
Rating: 2/5
Total Pages: 3558 (Palm Pilot)
Reason for Reading: 18th/19th Century Novel
REVIEW: Certainly my least favourite Dickens novel. I had great difficulty forcing myself to continue with this, but it's DICKENS. Aren't we supposed to love Dickens? I did finish it, just because I was determined to find out how it turned out in the end, but most of the book put me to sleep. I'm glad to be able to move on to something new.
Finished 7/26/07
Rating: 2/5
Total Pages: 3558 (Palm Pilot)
Reason for Reading: 18th/19th Century Novel
REVIEW: Certainly my least favourite Dickens novel. I had great difficulty forcing myself to continue with this, but it's DICKENS. Aren't we supposed to love Dickens? I did finish it, just because I was determined to find out how it turned out in the end, but most of the book put me to sleep. I'm glad to be able to move on to something new.
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Awakening
I've been working on this piece for some time now... you may have already seen bits and pieces of it here as I played with different sections. It is now complete, with a new title, and I post it here now in its entirety.
* * * * *
Awakening
I
She packed her heartache
into a battered leather valise with
scuffed-up edges and a broken lock,
and left.
Her past trailed out behind her
in long ribbons of barely acknowledged resentment
and unexpressed sorrow.
She surged into the unknown
with hardly a backward glance,
pushing her hair into place and adjusting her collar,
on the outside chance
that someone might notice
and give her a break.
II
She stood in line at the airport,
a pair of sunglasses with scratched lenses
dangling from her mouth,
while she absentmindedly checked her pockets,
wondering which one contained her passport.
The clerk glanced contemptuously at her small battered valise.
It wasn't sturdy enough to imprison the demons of her past,
and appeared far too humble to hold
the seeds of a new start.
She hefted the worn suitcase onto the conveyor belt,
then gathered up the incessant unending threads of guilt and unfulfilled obligations.
She impatiently stuffed the lot of them into her purse in a tangled mess.
"Snakes' honeymoon," she whispered,
not quite only to herself,
with a lopsided almost smile.
She narrowly dodged the barbed claws,
soaked overnight in sanctimonious retribution,
and said, "Anywhere. It doesn't matter."
The signature on the back of her credit card
was faded almost beyond recognition.
III
And she flew away on borrowed wings.
Every time she checked
(trying to be as unobtrusive as possible),
the ribbons of self-reproach had again become entangled,
tripping up her feet and twisting amongst her heartstrings.
Each time, she quickly snatched up the errant threads,
tore them from their new moorings,
and buried them under future details.
From her satchel, she retrieved a book
with an unadorned cover of soft brown leather
and a delicate ribbon of red silk to mark her page.
She reached into her pocket for the weighted fountain pen
that perfectly fit her grasp.
She opened to the first page
and began to write.
For a day and a night and yet another day
the words poured from her pen,
like drops of blood from her fingertips.
IV
She walked through the mysterious city,
carrying her preoccupations in a patchwork-quilted bag
tossed carelessly over her left shoulder.
She marvelled at the magnificence all around her,
but she no longer knew who she was.
Sometimes she crumbled
under the weight of the shattered voices
that continually cast out more lengths of entangling ribbons...
to ensnare her, to bind her, to drag her back
to a place that no longer existed.
And as she wandered the strange streets of her new life,
drifting aimlessly amongst the steel and glass towers of the daring,
she paused to pick up pieces of her lost self.
Some were familiar and recognizable,
others exotic and extraordinary.
At the end of the day,
tucked into her tiny room,
surrounded by the seeds of her newness,
she puzzled over how it all went together.
And even when the light grew dim
and none of the pieces seemed to fit,
she continued to collect and save them,
sorting them carefully into boxes labelled,
"Strength"...."Confidence"...."Courage"
And she used the trailing ribbons
to tie the boxes shut.
V
She wrote about the boy who loved hard work....
who travelled far, long before he was grown,
and how he found his future
in a distant place.
She wrote about the man who loved her so....
about how he slipped away into the darkness one day,
leaving a swirl of sparkling stardust
that surrounds and protects her
still and always.
She wrote about the boy who lost himself
in a dense fog of fear and confusion,
about how his world became small,
about how his walls collapsed inward
with a mighty reverberating crash.
She wrote about the lessons learned....
lessons of grief and fragility and recovery,
lessons of compassion and understanding and justice,
lessons of humility and determination and resilience.
She wrote about the two who walked by her side.
And she wrote about the little girl
who shone a brightness
upon them all.
Her pen danced an intricate path....
singing out the stories of how she came to be here....now....
and when the voice of her pen fell silent,
she quietly marked her place with the red ribbon,
gathered up all the tangled threads
(....thousands of miles of them....)
and wrapped them tightly around the book.
VI
Once upon a time
she loved again.
He came to her in the night
with music and dreams....tenderness and devotion....
He dripped starshine into the palm of her hand.
He placed sparkling moonbeams in her hair.
He smiled at the colour of her laughter.
And as the darkly brilliant sky unfolded into morning,
he brought her overflowing armfuls of violets and daisies
that filled her with the scent of enchantment.
He guided her gently through the maze
and helped her to untangle the twisted ribbons.
She gave him words of love
and that was enough.
"Come," she whispered.
And one sultry and sensuous night,
on a quietly deserted stretch of sand,
they listened to the surf and swayed in the moonlight.
The barriers dissolved and melted
into the salt sea between
and the words came easy.
In the end,
the alternating crests and troughs of their passion
became too much to bear.
The ocean flowed again
into the emptiness between
and the waves overtook them.
Glittering streams of starshine connect them yet....
a quietly shimmering affection, freely offered,
that stretches across the darkly wide seas
between.
VII
From her satchel, she retrieves a book.
She sets aside her sunglasses,
and brushes the palm of her hand
across the unadorned cover of soft brown leather,
pausing briefly at the bottom right-hand corner
to note the unassuming number "2"
etched there in gold foil.
She reaches into her pocket
for the weighted fountain pen that fits her grasp perfectly.
As she opens the book to the first page,
a flurry of butterflies escapes the confines of her gentle memories.
She smiles quietly and watches as they flutter away
in an iridescent joyfulness of multicoloured wings.
And, using the same delicate ribbon of red silk to mark her page,
she continues to write.
DLD/26JUL07
Listening to: When You Say You Love Me (Josh Groban).
* * * * *
Awakening
I
She packed her heartache
into a battered leather valise with
scuffed-up edges and a broken lock,
and left.
Her past trailed out behind her
in long ribbons of barely acknowledged resentment
and unexpressed sorrow.
She surged into the unknown
with hardly a backward glance,
pushing her hair into place and adjusting her collar,
on the outside chance
that someone might notice
and give her a break.
II
She stood in line at the airport,
a pair of sunglasses with scratched lenses
dangling from her mouth,
while she absentmindedly checked her pockets,
wondering which one contained her passport.
The clerk glanced contemptuously at her small battered valise.
It wasn't sturdy enough to imprison the demons of her past,
and appeared far too humble to hold
the seeds of a new start.
She hefted the worn suitcase onto the conveyor belt,
then gathered up the incessant unending threads of guilt and unfulfilled obligations.
She impatiently stuffed the lot of them into her purse in a tangled mess.
"Snakes' honeymoon," she whispered,
not quite only to herself,
with a lopsided almost smile.
She narrowly dodged the barbed claws,
soaked overnight in sanctimonious retribution,
and said, "Anywhere. It doesn't matter."
The signature on the back of her credit card
was faded almost beyond recognition.
III
And she flew away on borrowed wings.
Every time she checked
(trying to be as unobtrusive as possible),
the ribbons of self-reproach had again become entangled,
tripping up her feet and twisting amongst her heartstrings.
Each time, she quickly snatched up the errant threads,
tore them from their new moorings,
and buried them under future details.
From her satchel, she retrieved a book
with an unadorned cover of soft brown leather
and a delicate ribbon of red silk to mark her page.
She reached into her pocket for the weighted fountain pen
that perfectly fit her grasp.
She opened to the first page
and began to write.
For a day and a night and yet another day
the words poured from her pen,
like drops of blood from her fingertips.
IV
She walked through the mysterious city,
carrying her preoccupations in a patchwork-quilted bag
tossed carelessly over her left shoulder.
She marvelled at the magnificence all around her,
but she no longer knew who she was.
Sometimes she crumbled
under the weight of the shattered voices
that continually cast out more lengths of entangling ribbons...
to ensnare her, to bind her, to drag her back
to a place that no longer existed.
And as she wandered the strange streets of her new life,
drifting aimlessly amongst the steel and glass towers of the daring,
she paused to pick up pieces of her lost self.
Some were familiar and recognizable,
others exotic and extraordinary.
At the end of the day,
tucked into her tiny room,
surrounded by the seeds of her newness,
she puzzled over how it all went together.
And even when the light grew dim
and none of the pieces seemed to fit,
she continued to collect and save them,
sorting them carefully into boxes labelled,
"Strength"...."Confidence"...."Courage"
And she used the trailing ribbons
to tie the boxes shut.
V
She wrote about the boy who loved hard work....
who travelled far, long before he was grown,
and how he found his future
in a distant place.
She wrote about the man who loved her so....
about how he slipped away into the darkness one day,
leaving a swirl of sparkling stardust
that surrounds and protects her
still and always.
She wrote about the boy who lost himself
in a dense fog of fear and confusion,
about how his world became small,
about how his walls collapsed inward
with a mighty reverberating crash.
She wrote about the lessons learned....
lessons of grief and fragility and recovery,
lessons of compassion and understanding and justice,
lessons of humility and determination and resilience.
She wrote about the two who walked by her side.
And she wrote about the little girl
who shone a brightness
upon them all.
Her pen danced an intricate path....
singing out the stories of how she came to be here....now....
and when the voice of her pen fell silent,
she quietly marked her place with the red ribbon,
gathered up all the tangled threads
(....thousands of miles of them....)
and wrapped them tightly around the book.
VI
Once upon a time
she loved again.
He came to her in the night
with music and dreams....tenderness and devotion....
He dripped starshine into the palm of her hand.
He placed sparkling moonbeams in her hair.
He smiled at the colour of her laughter.
And as the darkly brilliant sky unfolded into morning,
he brought her overflowing armfuls of violets and daisies
that filled her with the scent of enchantment.
He guided her gently through the maze
and helped her to untangle the twisted ribbons.
She gave him words of love
and that was enough.
"Come," she whispered.
And one sultry and sensuous night,
on a quietly deserted stretch of sand,
they listened to the surf and swayed in the moonlight.
The barriers dissolved and melted
into the salt sea between
and the words came easy.
In the end,
the alternating crests and troughs of their passion
became too much to bear.
The ocean flowed again
into the emptiness between
and the waves overtook them.
Glittering streams of starshine connect them yet....
a quietly shimmering affection, freely offered,
that stretches across the darkly wide seas
between.
VII
From her satchel, she retrieves a book.
She sets aside her sunglasses,
and brushes the palm of her hand
across the unadorned cover of soft brown leather,
pausing briefly at the bottom right-hand corner
to note the unassuming number "2"
etched there in gold foil.
She reaches into her pocket
for the weighted fountain pen that fits her grasp perfectly.
As she opens the book to the first page,
a flurry of butterflies escapes the confines of her gentle memories.
She smiles quietly and watches as they flutter away
in an iridescent joyfulness of multicoloured wings.
And, using the same delicate ribbon of red silk to mark her page,
she continues to write.
DLD/26JUL07
Listening to: When You Say You Love Me (Josh Groban).
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Cathedral at Greenwich University
Cathedralby Gillian Clarke
Before the Saints, Dyfrig, Teilo, Eiddogwy;
before the bishops, the builders and stonemasons;
before artists and sculptors, Rossetti, Epstein;
before music, organists and choirs;
before the architects, Wood, Seddon, Prichard, Pace;
before the poetry of psalm and hymn and common prayer;
before there were words
for ‘cathedral’, ‘architecture’, ‘art’,
when our first house was the great original forest,
when our ancestors walked in the aisles of trees
and gazed up at such loftiness confused,
perhaps, by inexplicable longing;
before there was a word for wonder,
or names for stars, or footprints on the moon;
before St Teilo raised his little church just here;
before a man looked at a tree and made a cross,
and felt the hammering rain and thought of nails
there must have been a first creative act.
First mark, first word, first hymn to awe,
first poem with something to say of the human heart,
first vision of a building taller than a forest,
aisled, vaulted, clerestoried with sunlight,
because we were forest-dwellers once
and learned our metaphors from trees.
A favourite...
To a Butterflyby William Wordsworth
I've watched you now a full half-hour;
Self-poised upon that yellow flower
And, little Butterfly! indeed
I know not if you sleep or feed.
How motionless!--not frozen seas
More motionless! and then
What joy awaits you, when the breeze
Hath found you out among the trees,
And calls you forth again!
This plot of orchard-ground is ours;
My trees they are, my Sister's flowers;
Here rest your wings when they are weary;
Here lodge as in a sanctuary!
Come often to us, fear no wrong;
Sit near us on the bough!
We'll talk of sunshine and of song,
And summer days, when we were young;
Sweet childish days, that were as long
As twenty days are now.
* * * * *
Stay near me -- do not take thy flight!
A little longer stay in sight!
Much converse do I find in thee,
Historian of my infancy!
Float near me; do not yet depart!
Dead times revive in thee:
Thou bring'st, gay creature as thou art!
A solemn image to my heart,
My father's family!
Oh! pleasant, pleasant were the days,
The time, when, in our childish plays,
My sister Emmeline and I
Together chased the butterfly!
A very hunter did I rush
Upon the prey:--with leaps and springs
I followed on from brake to bush;
But she, God love her, feared to brush
The dust from off its wings.
---
My thanks to Bluestalking Reader for bringing this poem to my attention.... The photo is from a woods-wandering expedition I enjoyed last Wednesday in the Great Bois Wood here in Chesham.
Be
This between-space...
This breath between steps...
shall offer thee a window on what has gone before.
Look back.
Sweep thine eyes over the greenness of the valley,
the deep forest darkness that has sheltered thee,
the watery expanse that has carried thee here.
Cast your glance across the breadth of experience
that is you.
This between-space...
This warm and quiet embrace...
shall offer thee a vision of the future.
Look beyond and remember
what has not yet come to be.
Take me in your arms.
Spin me around the back of the moon.
Feel the tingling of stardust pass thee by
as we dance on a comet's trail,
skirting along the edge of quantum depths,
dipping and gliding through the shadows
of planets not yet born.
Take my hand...come with me beyond the universe...
back to where we have yet to begin.
But for now....
all that you need is here
in this between-space.
DLD/24JUL07
This breath between steps...
shall offer thee a window on what has gone before.
Look back.
Sweep thine eyes over the greenness of the valley,
the deep forest darkness that has sheltered thee,
the watery expanse that has carried thee here.
Cast your glance across the breadth of experience
that is you.
This between-space...
This warm and quiet embrace...
shall offer thee a vision of the future.
Look beyond and remember
what has not yet come to be.
Take me in your arms.
Spin me around the back of the moon.
Feel the tingling of stardust pass thee by
as we dance on a comet's trail,
skirting along the edge of quantum depths,
dipping and gliding through the shadows
of planets not yet born.
Take my hand...come with me beyond the universe...
back to where we have yet to begin.
But for now....
all that you need is here
in this between-space.
DLD/24JUL07
Sunday, July 22, 2007
What's Your Japanese Name?
My Japanese name is
猿渡 Saruwatari (monkey on a crossing bridge)
愛恵 Itoe (bless with love)
Click here to get yours!
(I kinda like mine... whaddya think???)
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Seasons
The seasons of my childhood
are remembered as distinct points in time.
Fall began early,
with new school clothes
(the only time of the year that we were allowed such a luxury),
and the bags of school supplies.
I was a school nerd.
I loved the smell of books and paper and pencils.
(Nothing has changed.)
Morning walks punctuated
with the crisp snap of thin ice
as we made our way gingerly over partially frozen puddles.
Water below, a skin of ice above.
What child could resist?
Winter was about snow....
that Northern Ontario snow
that packs perfectly for snowmen and snowcaves....
Caverns of ice between towering snowbanks,
a huddled refuge....
Blizzards that covered the naked world
in white lace petticoats...
playing indoor games --
Monopoly, Clue, Scrabble --
as icy gales whistled around the eaves.
Spring came with a scent.
Can you smell spring coming?
Crisp, clear, clean, new....
the snow retreats, melts, vanishes,
and the world comes to life.
Dust off the bikes and the roller skates,
put away the parkas till next year,
drag Dad to the park with a kite,
feel the wind on your face.
Summer brought camping and swimming,
picnics and berry-picking,
a hotness that dripped from your skin,
afternoons in the country.
Days of building tree forts,
chasing away intruders (boys!),
lying on our bellies in the field,
giggling when the grass tickled our arms,
reading Archie comics and slurping popsicles.
The rhythm of the seasons....
Somehow it was so much more clearly defined
as a child.
DLD/19JUL07
are remembered as distinct points in time.
Fall began early,
with new school clothes
(the only time of the year that we were allowed such a luxury),
and the bags of school supplies.
I was a school nerd.
I loved the smell of books and paper and pencils.
(Nothing has changed.)
Morning walks punctuated
with the crisp snap of thin ice
as we made our way gingerly over partially frozen puddles.
Water below, a skin of ice above.
What child could resist?
Winter was about snow....
that Northern Ontario snow
that packs perfectly for snowmen and snowcaves....
Caverns of ice between towering snowbanks,
a huddled refuge....
Blizzards that covered the naked world
in white lace petticoats...
playing indoor games --
Monopoly, Clue, Scrabble --
as icy gales whistled around the eaves.
Spring came with a scent.
Can you smell spring coming?
Crisp, clear, clean, new....
the snow retreats, melts, vanishes,
and the world comes to life.
Dust off the bikes and the roller skates,
put away the parkas till next year,
drag Dad to the park with a kite,
feel the wind on your face.
Summer brought camping and swimming,
picnics and berry-picking,
a hotness that dripped from your skin,
afternoons in the country.
Days of building tree forts,
chasing away intruders (boys!),
lying on our bellies in the field,
giggling when the grass tickled our arms,
reading Archie comics and slurping popsicles.
The rhythm of the seasons....
Somehow it was so much more clearly defined
as a child.
DLD/19JUL07
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