A Banker Painter

"You have a right to experiment with your life. You will make mistakes. And they are right too. No, I think there was too rigid a pattern. You came out of an education and are supposed to know your vocation. Your vocation is fixed, and maybe ten years later you find you are not a teacher anymore or you're not a painter anymore. It may happen. It has happened. I mean Gauguin decided at a certain point he wasn't a banker anymore; he was a painter. And so he walked away from banking. I think we have a right to change course. But society is the one that keeps demanding that we fit in and not disturb things. They would like you to fit in right away so that things work now."
— Anaïs Nin

"I am the most tired woman in the world. I am tired when I get up. Life requires an effort I cannot make. Please give me that heavy book. I need to put something heavy like that on top of my head. I have to place my feet under the pillows always, so as to be able to stay on earth. Otherwise I feel myself going away, going away at a tremendous speed, on account of my lightness." -Nin

Stockings

Sometimes I wish I could lick a song like a stamp and send it on a letter to Santa, and say please? I've been a very very good girl.

Stupid Wise

A Chinese Proverb
Put all your eggs in one basket, and take very good care of that basket.

A Proverb of Teen Angst
Plug up your heart for it is the wellspring of life. Drink bottled water instead.

Because the Little Mermaid dies in the Hans Christian Anderson version, The Last Unicorn is not quite as scary as when I was 6, and I want to become a pegasus

To Do:
1) Read Dealing with Dragons
2) Write my dream book about mermaids
3) Raise children with Catherine Woodiwiss

e e cummings

my father moved through dooms of love
through sames of am through haves of give,
singing each morning out of each night
my father moved through depths of height

this motionless forgetful where
turned at his glance to shining here;
that if(so timid air is firm)
under his eyes would stir and squirm

newly as from unburied which
floats the first who,his april touch
drove sleeping selves to swarm their fates
woke dreamers to their ghostly roots

and should some why completely weep
my father's fingers brought her sleep:
vainly no smallest voice might cry
for he could feel the mountains grow.

lifting the valleys of the sea
my father moved through griefs of joy;
praising a forehead called the moon
singing desire into begin

joy was his song and joy so pure
a heart of star by him could steer
and pure so now and now so yes
the wrists of twilight would rejoice

keen as midsummer's keen beyond
conceiving mind of sun will stand,
so strictly(over utmost him
so hugely) stood my father's dream

his flesh was flesh his blood was blood:
no hungry man but wished him food;
no cripple wouldn't creep one mile
uphill to only see him smile.

scorning the Pomp of must and shall
my father moved through dooms of feel;
his anger was as right as rain
his pity was as green as grain

septembering arms of year extend
yes humbly wealth to foe and friend
than he to foolish and to wise
offered immeasurable is

proudly and(by octobering flame
beckoned)as earth will downward climb,
so naked for immortal work
his shoulders marched against the dark

his sorrow was as true as bread:
no liar looked him in the head;
if every friend became his foe
he'd laugh and build a world with snow.

my father moved through theys of we,
singing each new leaf out of each tree
(and every child was sure that spring
danced when she heard my father sing)

then let men kill which cannot share,
let blood and flesh be mud and mire,
scheming imagine,passion willed,
freedom a drug that's bought and sold

giving to steal and cruel kind,
a heart to fear,to doubt a mind,
to differ a disease of same,
conform the pinnacle of am

though dull were all we taste as bright,
bitter all utterly things sweet,
maggoty minus and dumb death
all we inherit,all bequeath

and nothing quite so least as truth
–i say though hate were why men breathe–
because my Father lived his soul
love is the whole and more than all

Blossoming Cherries and Burning Flesh

I should be asleep... getting enough rest to be bright-eyed for tomorrow's sunrise over the cherry blossoms, Inshallah. BUT I just read a response to the question that's been fraying the edges of my soul today, and I needed to process.

Mallie and I call days like today Sadness of the World days (when the weight of minor and mass evils haunt and pierce, and the mundane life-as-usual day seems to have a menacing soundtrack. i.e. My mom didn't get abducted out of our kitchen when I was four. But my friend Spencer's did, and today I couldn't stop thinking about it. About how when we were kids his sister couldn't drive past a cemetery without hiding her face in her shirt. I haven't thought about them in years. But today I couldn't stop grieving for their family.) I decided this morning that a day like this should be called a skin-inside-out day. (I've been reading The Hunger Games trilogy which is tres violent. And I watched an episode of House over dinner which involved a burn victim. And it's true that the slightest brush of story against my skin, on a day like this, makes me wince at the pain another person or a people is faced with.) The demanding refrain of the day, Why are we alive? What is the point of all this? How can I live meaningfully into the awful-earth realities I might otherwise close my eyes and ears to for the sake of bliss? Enter Henri Nouwen.

"The more I think about the human suffering in the world and my desire to offer a healing response, the more I realize how crucial it is not to allow myself to become paralyzed by feelings of impotence and guilt. More important than ever is to be very faithful to my vocation to do well in the few things I am called to do and hold on to the joy and peace they bring me. I must resist the temptation to let the forces of darkness pull me into despair and make me one more of their many victims...

I know of few people who have seen as much suffering as the Dalai Lama... Still I know of few people who radiate as much peace and joy.... How is it possible that a man who has been subjected to such persecution is not filled with anger and a desire for revenge? When asked that question the Dalai Lama explains how, in his meditation, he allows all the suffering of his people and their oppressors to enter into the depth of his heart, and there to be transformed into compassion."

While this doesn't solve problems of minor or mass evil, this does offer a strategy for me to use when I feel like I can't bear the burn of a skin-inside-out day. I mean for prayer and meditation to be a more instinctive response, a replacement for the churning of my empathic imagination. And, really, I'm just grateful to have opened a book sitting on at the coffee table tonight that spoke to me as if it had heard my question and didn't want me to go to sleep without an echo from the void. That is grace.

And now I will go to sleep with a cherry blossom scented smile on my lips.

What to Do with Feathered Things?

"Hope" is the thing with feathers

254

"Hope" is the thing with feathers—
That perches in the soul—
And sings the tune without the words—
And never stops—at all—

And sweetest—in the Gale—is heard—
And sore must be the storm—
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm—

I've heard it in the chillest land—
And on the strangest Sea—
Yet, never, in Extremity,
It asked a crumb—of Me.

Emily Dickinson