Saturday Morning

Thinking about things:

Jupiter, the largest planet in the solar system, leads the Moon across the sky tonight.*

So says those who know about these things. [And even before they happen.] This is remarkable. To have this kind of knowledge and understanding about the order of things on such a grand scale.

And even more, this idea of Jupiter leading the Moon across the sky:

I imagine Jupiter looking back and checking on the Moon every once in a while. Checking to be sure she is close by and finding her way in the star-lit darkness. If necessary, I am sure, Jupiter will call upon nearby stars for some added brightness for her to be certain their journey tonight stays on course and they arrive on time in the dawn. This is a thoughtful fatherly Jupiter looking after a beloved daughterly moon.

I like to know how things will be before they happen. I like to understand what to expect on my journeys so I feel safe and comfortable. And not startled by things unknown to me when they come close by suddenly.

Here is an image I have been wanting to write about for a long time. It makes me happy to behold because everyone pictured seems so intent on doing what needs to be done to insure a fine day. And so many things are involved: excellent balance [man and bird and dogs], tenacious uprightness [man and bird and dogs], earnest concentration leaning in on trust [man and bird and dogs], and simplicity in the surroundings for beauty [trees and sky and wall]. And there are even dots for joy on the dogs.

Dogs in a Pram

Annora Spence

1999

* from StarDate on NPR

Sunday morning

Thinking about things: 1. imagining and re-imagining 2. borrowing 3. order and beauty

Samuel F. B. Morse Gallery of the Louvre, 1831–1833, oil on canvas.

[click for larger image of the painting]

Beginning on Sunday, June 3, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., will exhibit Samuel Morse's painting Gallery of the Louvre. The American better known for inventing the telegraph and the communication code that bears his name, painted the large work — it's 6 feet tall and 9 feet wide — starting in 1831, while living in Paris.

David McCullough writes about Morse and his painting in his new book, The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris. McCullough says Morse created the painting in order to show Europe's great works of art to Americans:

There were no museums here, as yet, in the 1830s, and no color representations of paintings. So he was going to bring the culture of Europe — mainly the Renaissance Italian masterpieces in the Louvre collection — back to the United States for the benefit of his countrymen.

He had to go through the entire collection of the Louvre, which was enormous, but well over a thousand paintings, and pick out those masterpieces which he thought merited the attention of his countrymen back home. So it's his pick of the Louvre masterpieces, and it includes most of the major Italian Renaissance painters. Titian and Leonardo da Vinci and Rembrandt to be sure, and others. He had to not only reduce them down to miniature size in the painting, but he had to capture the essence of their style and their genius.

It was an extremely ambitious undertaking because many of the paintings that he was copying were hung very high up. And so he had to build a movable platform, or scaffold, that he wheeled about the galleries of the Louvre to reach his subjects.

In Gallery of the Louvre, Morse shows a large red-colored room, its walls hung with more than three dozen works of art. McCullough says the works themselves were all on view at the Louvre, but not in the same room.

[Excerpt from NPR: The Best Of The Louvre, On A Single Canvas]

This story is about imagining. And re-imagining. And doing something about it: Mr. Morse with his devotion and hard work to make this painting. Mr. McCullough with his learned and thoughtful interpretation of history and the discrete deeds of people who made their marks on their times. And NPR with its honoring of all of this.

This story is about borrowing: from The Louvre, from historical records, from the National Gallery of Art, from McCullough's The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris, and from NPR, among others.

And this story is about order and beauty: paintings and rooms and historical documents and newly imagined words.

[Visit The Best Of The Louvre, On A Single Canvas at NPR.org for more.]

Tuesday morning

Thinking about things: boundaries and barriers and awarenesses and a bit of bravery

a chronology of ideas: 1. a sentence given to me by one of my graduate students last evening at the end of class: MEJOR SOLA QUE MAL ACOMPAÑADA. [BETTER ALONE THAN IN BAD COMPANY.] 2. a sentence from a card I have propped up on my mantelpiece that I took a look at when I got home from my class last evening because I had mentioned it to my student: QUIT WICKED COMPANY. 3. a sentence on a card that I also mentioned to my student that resides in a box of notes I keep on the mantlepiece next to the propped up card: BE NOT FORGETFUL TO ENTERTAIN STRANGERS: FOR THEREBY SOME HAVE ENTERTAINED ANGELS UNAWARES. [HEBREWS 13.1]. 4.Chronology and geography have come together here. I think Bakhtin would be happy to see this. 5. I will take my cards to class tomorrow to show my student.

Tuesday morning

Thinking about things:

It is quiet and warm this early morning.

Wouldn't it be grand to have an evening that looks just like this lovely image:

scende la sera [evening is falling]

by Leowincy

Nuvole rade

disegnano l'azzurro del cielo

[sparse clouds

draw the blue sky]

[excerpt from Franco Pastore]

Monday morning

Thinking about things: placing words upon the page for remembering

Dresden

Frauenkirche

Une semaine en Allemagne

by Gerald Michel

This lovely drawing brings to mind the schematica I sometimes create in the early morning at my desk to documenrt on paper how it is I see my thoughts for the day. Of course my word sketches are done with my blue fountain pen and one of my Mirado Black Warrior pencils and sometimes a bit of fine line lilac highlighting where I deem necessary. These maps, I as have come to call them, are filled with flourishes: underlines and stars and encircled numbers and boxes sketched around promising words and phrases. I might, for example, work on an idea I have for my teaching. Or as I did just last night, devise a chart for my Salon II & III classes that includes participants' names, class dates and bookkeeping information, and lists and lists of ideas and themes and texts for considering. With this notemaking practice, I can both think and keep track of that thinking. Once recorded, my thoughts and the weight I have given them on the page make for an image for re-collecting my words and ideas whenever I need them.

This morning I have been working on a horizontal charting for my graduate course that begins today. In this case, I need horizontal framing to represent time and to enact the notion of over time. All learning, as you know, takes time and is recursive: the individual always always moves forward as she makes sense of each of her encounters with others. She will, of course, have to endure a few missteps, moments of aloneness, and sometimes even an abrupt fall. Over time, though, she will hopefully notice and analyze and interpret and think even more and endure and understand what has transpired and how she sees herself and her world anew.

This morning's schemata making will help me conjure up what I have in mind for my students today and across the course this summer. I will add to it as need be. It is a mapping of opportunities and possibilities for teaching and learning. It will end up attached to my annotated syllabus [also marked up with blue pen notations everywhere] I will have ready when I teach.

What follows is an excerpt from one of my eighth grade students' comments about “the mapping” she did in my English class. This girl's ideas and imagery make me happy.

The map we write and record really relaxes my mind. It is a way of getting all of my thought and feelings out on paper. Sometimes I feel like my mind can’t hold much more and I have to relieve it. Doing maps is my way of relaxing. Have your read the 4^th Harry Potter book? Well, Dumbledore has a bowl called a pensieve where he relieves his memory, and maps are like my pensieve. I can always replay things (look on the map) and find trends and patterns very easily.

Megan 2001

Thursday early afternoon

Thinking about things:

a borrowed image from my dear friend Lauren's calendar

Most especially about time.

I begin teaching my graduate course in Literature and Writing on Monday. This will mean lots of time spent preparing, reading over theoretical texts and reading and making my blue stars on my students' daily writings about the ideas and texts we study.

I am thinking I need to orchestrate my days so that I will absolutely have time for my writing and walking sweet Desie [and me] in the early evenings [most especially on Mondays and Wednesdays after class].

Monday morning

Thinking about things:

According to my dictionary, the consequence of serendipity is sometimes a brilliant discovery.

Neupetershain

pencil drawing with water colour

by Florian Afflerbach

This drawing greeted me just this morning. Another fortuitous gift to remind me about simple beauty. And serenity [especially for me] evoked with colour and place. The little house on the right looks quite comfortable. It looks to me like the house I have been dreaming of for me and Desie to retire in. Quite the proper size and shape for us. Though I might have to add a window or two beneath the eaves for more light. I can imagine the sun's straight beams moving across the floor to mark the hours of our days. The door is perfect as it is. Its soft blue grey shade made of the sky's reflection and stone frame will welcome our family and friends.

Wednesday morning

Thinking about today and how it will be. With this adored image I have kept in waiting for quite a while. [I love how these kept images of mine seem to find their places on their own. Like unexpected gifts. Like sudden remembrances.]

Kindnesses abound amid difficulties and worries. Some of us [I] want to keep track of the kind persons who [bravely] show up and present themselves and their words.

Jean-Jacques Sempé

Here is one now who has brought some [beloved] blue flowers to this woman who stoops gracefully as she fusses with things in her well cared for nursery. He stands at the doorsill of this shelter of hers. Of this world of unruffled red. He appears to be intent on delivering this gift of himself to her. Others have already brought words and sweetness that drift and turn in her head and cause her to think of that which is beyond/outside of this safe house [of her own making] as she busies herself with important work to be done. Indeed, his blue flowers will contrast unexpectedly with the red ones.

Thinking about dear Mary Ann Kassier and sweet sweet Emily Kassier.

Cover from The New Yorker February 6, 2006 [A fine example of all lined up for safety.]

Thursday morning

An attempt at capturing the possibility of beauty:

Edward Gorey

This image makes me wonder about bears and poets and the kinds of relationships they might have had in the seventeenth century and might have even now. This black and white drawing makes me want to consider the meaning of this imagined and slightly out of balance encounter, where one creature, outsized by the other, stands ready to partake of a sweet offering of sorts. This portrait—with its banner proclaiming "A Future Unremembered Poet of the Seventeenth Century Accepts a Christmas Cookie from the Great Veiled Bear"—makes me want to see only the cordial beauty of this simple exchange.

And just so you know, I do not want to nor intend to survey the possibility of peril or deceit within these ranks. I want to keep this imagining of my own about this improbable duet on a level course of hope and kindness on the part of the creatures.

The two face one another. But their faces do not show me what might be on their minds. Instead, their manner, their posturing, tells of kindness and appreciation, concern and acceptance, and a quietly expressed belief in the principle that all creatures are equal and deserve equal rights and opportunities. The bear shares a cookie with a boyish looking poet who must stand on a tree trunk in order to be able to reach and, in turn, "accept" such a gift. To me, it seems both creatures have adapted to the quirky circumstances of this unlikely encounter. To make this exchange happen, both the bear and the poet must have taken risks and placed an amount of hope in the potentialities of their meeting. For the bear, it is generosity that encourages trust. For the poet, it is a knowingness that enables him to be brave and receptive.

Over and over, I want to remark, there is sweetness in this encounter of theirs—sweetness of taste and deed and accomplishment.

As for the author of the banner: his words do portend, I must note, a not so wonderful future for this particular poet. According to Gorey, at least as he insinuates with his term “unremembered”, the poet’s words did not live on beyond the century of his lifetime. But for me, I want to suggest, perhaps, that this seventeenth century poet, in his lifetime only, was regarded with respect and admiration for his accomplishments with words. As you can see, he holds himself, within the confines of this remarkable grouping of bear and poet, with a sense of pride—and even an air of confidence shown in his authentic looking poet’s attire. I do imagine/know that when this poet wrote about this cookie exchange, he uttered words of praise for all who were present.

A note to remember and to think on some more:

As for the bear, he wears ice skates for speed on the ice and a veil to denote a demureness to counter his prodigious proportions. Beneath the veil, there is a profiled look of concern and gentleness.

Wednesday evening

Just back from a walk on Webster Street. My second evening solo walk.

almost full moon

with dark grey clouds and bits of blue sky

and wires and poles and trees

Sunday evening

It's almost time for tomorrow.

Sending lots of heart wishes your way!

On the occasion of February 14th 2011. Thinking about sharing affection with [my] loved ones. Thinking about taking time to notice and make note of all the kind and generous and thoughtful ways people in my life share their joy with me. Thinking about how much I appreciate these heart wishes simply put each day.

December 31, 2010

It's almost time for next year.

Sending lots of good wishes your way!

Friday morning in Berkeley

View of Yosemite Falls Tail from the meadow

Remembering winter days in the snow.

Our annual December 24th trip to Yosemite with my boys. Mostly we stayed in a tiny cabin by the Merced River with its door that faced Half Dome to the east. Or else, we stayed at the Lodge with its back door that opened up to a tiny forest by the Merced River.

There were our hikes: From Happy Isles to Mirror Lake and then along the meadow. And one year to the top of Yosemite Falls in deep [deep] snow on a demanding switchback trial. I remember how, at one point, when Brandon and Shanan got ahead of me and I couldn't see where they were, I hollered to them and they threw snow balls up in the air to indicate their whereabouts! And one time [during a drought], to Glacier Point. [Usually the Four-Mile trail was closed in the winter.] The day was sunny and there was quite a bit of black ice on the upper part of the trail because of the long afternoon shade on the [upper] south side of the valley. These conditions brought about lots of slipping and sliding and laughing [on the part of my boys]. And falling down [on my part]. I remember the next day. It was another sunny day. We went snow shoeing [me with my broken arm in a splint] at Badger Pass. Our leader, a beloved ranger, led us to a location that provided a splendid view of the high country of Yosemite. It was a grand sight. The three of us and the Sierra Nevada Mountains and the blue blue sky.

[And,of course, there was skiing at Badger Pass for Brandon and Shanan and cross country for me on the Glacier Point Road.]

We regularly ended up at the Ahwahnee Hotel [sometime twice a day] for warming up by the giant fire place in the Grand Lounge. And, after dinner at the cafeteria, we watched movies about Yosemite at the Lodge and wandered around in the gift shop to pass time before bedtime.

Grand Lounge at the Ahvanhee Hotel

Thinking about things/memories and how they are remembered.

Remembering Isidore

On the trail Isidore

Isidore's birthday is coming up next week. He would have been 7 years old on November 17th. I miss him this morning. Even though Desie is right here next to me. Isidore was a good dog. Just so you know.

This is an excerpt from some of my writings about my sweet Isidore [from last March]:

There were our beloved walks on the Fire Trail in the late afternoons or evenings. These were our best walks. These were our best times together.

It was so beautiful up there on the trail and we both loved loved to behold this fragile beauty that was the trees and the sky and the ever changing views of the horizon. And you, most especially, liked to romp about and explore off trail scents [and sometimes roll in them], and, although I attempted to disparage you with warnings of the bath you would have to have upon our return home, you loved to play in the puddles and little creeks that were present [just for you?] after the rain. [Do you remember my commentaries on our way home about your muddy paws and my struggles, while driving, to keep you in one spot to lessen the dirt damage.]

You always ran ahead of me when we were on the trail but you always stopped to check where I was. [I must confess, I loved this part of our fire trail relationship. It showed that you knew we had to always keep track of each other and be sure we were taking good care of the other.] When I called you, you would race back to me. And then, run off again. Once you got lost and you could not find me and I could not find you. I stayed put and called and called you. Isidore! Isidore come! Izzy! And after quite some time—I think you had gone looking in the wrong direction and had to double back—you found me. And I found you. I could tell you had been lost and worried. We were so so happy [and relieved] to be back together.

I must add that you endured your post fire trail baths with patience and, what seemed to me, an expression on your wet face that showed understanding of the nature of these outdoor-indoor transitional necessities: we had had great fun outside up there on the fire trail, but now we must get clean enough to go inside.

Isidore Delp

November 17, 2003-February 18,2010

Borrowed words borrowed from my dear friend Elizabeth: Study situations and objects intricately.

*click on photos for larger view.

Crepuscule

Maurice Denis, Crepuscule, 1892

*Crepuscule: the period of partial darkness at the beginning or endof the day;twilight.

Listening to the songs

Thinking about how writing in/about the present [the songs of two mockingbirds] and then switching to a long time ago [a story about an old couple and "two strangers who were not men but gods"] and again switching [back] to the present " [wherever I was supposed to be this morning"] conjures up two generations of meanings.

MOCKINGBIRDS by Mary Oliver

This morning

two mockingbirds

in the green field

were spinning and tossing

the white ribbons

of their songs

into the air.

I had nothing

better to do

than listen.

I mean this

seriously.

In Greece,

a long time ago,

an old couple

opened their door

to two strangers

who were,

it soon appeared,

not men at all,

but gods.

It is my favorite story--

how the old couple

had almost nothing to give

but their willingness

to be attentive--

but for this alone

the gods loved them

and blessed them--

when they rose

out of their mortal bodies,

like a million particles of water

from a fountain,

the light

swept into all the corners

of the cottage,

and the old couple,

shaken with understanding,

bowed down--

but still they asked for nothing

but the difficult life

which they had already.

And the gods smiled, as they vanished,

clapping their great wings.

Wherever it was

I was supposed to be

this morning--

whatever it was I said

I would be doing--

I was standing

at the edge of the field--

I was hurrying

through my own soul,

opening its dark doors--

I was leaning out;

I was listening.

This poem makes me wonder about where[ever] it is I am supposed to be on this Sunday and how it is I want this day of mine to be.

List making for thinking

Here is a list of things I have been doing this past week:

1. Shopping on 4th Street by myself on Sunday and with dear Luporini on Tuesday
2. Buying shoes on Sunday and boots on Tuesday at Rabat [this means two pairs in one week]
3. Teaching on Monday and Wednesday about literature and writing
4. Having acupuncture with dear Amy Matecki on Tuesday morning [so many needles!]
5. Having physical therapy with Craig on Thursday afternoon [stem and ultra sound]
6. Having a yoga class with Jennie [standing positions for balance and strength]
7. Buying coveted flannel pajamas [on sale] at a store on Domingo on Friday [so soft after washing]
8. Talking with my realtor Faye about finding a small house for me
9. Searching for a puppy for me all week
10. Riding the lifecycle at RSF once again today [after a week off for resting my hip and knee]
11. Reading my students' logs about "writing with one's authority" and "revising with wonderment" at the Cafe
12. Watching Bourne Supremacy the past three nights [I watched Bourne Idenity and Bourne Ultimatum during the previous two weeks. It takes me a few night to watch a whole movie.]
13. Making the background of this blog light light blue [I have been wanting to do this for a while]
14. Talking with friends about finding a puppy for me

[oh my goodness. so so many taking care of myself things on this list]

Here is the list for tomorrow:

1. Meeting Shanan in the early morning in S.F. for a return visit to the de Young to see Birth of Impressionism: Masterpieces from the Musée d’Orsay
2. And then, hopefully, taking Goose Dog on a walk at Land's End.
3. Shopping at Berkeley Bowl for the upcoming week
4. Reading the remaining student logs [still have about 30] about "writing with one's authority" and "revising with wonderment" at the Cafe
5. Taking a late afternoon walk in the neighborhood

To Do

Oh my goodness. I have so much to do. I begin teaching on Monday and then on Thursday, I leave for my trip to Martha's. I need to make arrangements for my summer Salon class and notify everyone. And today I have Lauren's class and must bring material for my Salon students who will be there.

Here is a list of what I must do today and tomorrow:

1. Gather materials for Lauren, Elizabeth, Michaele from our last Salon class [which they missed]
2. Email everyone about new date for our next Salon class
3. Prepare syllabus for my course
4. Prepare schedule for my course
5. Prepare reader for my course
6. Take reader to be copied
7. Prepare handouts for 1st class meeting on Monday
8. Prepare my comments for 1st class meeting

A study or measure of time

It should be noted that this entry is a placeholder [of sorts] while I gather my thoughts about The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, which I finished reading [re-reading] on Saturday. At the end, Edgar and Almondine found each other. Edgar was remorseful. Almondine was kind and thoughtful.

****

I have just begun reading Tinkers by Paul Harding. I like it [so far]. So quietly lovely with its fragments and images of a life's deeds and accomplishments, recollected [and perhaps imagined] by a man on his death bed. The man, George Cosby, had been a watch repair and dealer.

In the first chapter, Harding embeds a description of how to re-assemble a dismantled clock from a 1783 text about horology, the study or measure of time. It is written with intricate and pain staking cogency. Its words portray deliberateness and patience and skill. Seemingly [again, so far] important to someone like me who likes to create and re-create order in her life, most especially by positioning and re-positioning objects and words in their proper places.

I have copied Harding's borrowed words here:

To reassemble the dismantled clock, the back plate of the works is laid upon a bed of soft cloth, preferably thick chamois folded many times. Each wheel and its arbor is inserted into its proper hole, beginning with the great wheel and its loose-fitting fusee, that grooved cone of wonder given to mankind by Mr. Da Vinci, and proceeding to the smallest, the teeth of one meshing with the gear collar of the next, and so on until the flywheel of the strike train and the escape wheel of the going train are fitted into their rightful places. Now, the horologist looks upon an open- faced, fairy-book contraption; gears lean to and fro like a lazy machine in a dream. The universe’s time cannot be marked thusly. Such a crooked and flimsy device could only keep the fantastic hours of unruly ghosts. The front plate of the works is taken in hand and fitted first onto the up facing arbors of the main and strike springs, these being the largest and most easily fitted of the sundry parts. This accomplished, the horologist then lifts the rickety sandwich of loose guts to eye level, holding the works approximately together by squeezing the two plates, taking care to apply neither too much pressure (thus damaging the finer of the unaligned arbor ends) nor too little (thus causing the half-re-formed machine to disassemble itself back into its various constituent parts, which often flee to dusty and obscure nooks throughout the horologist’s workshop, causing much profaning and blasphemy). If, when the patient horologist has finished his attempt and the clock, when thumbed at the great wheel, does squeak and gibber rather than hum and whir with brass logic, this process must be reversed and tried again with calm reason until the imps of disorder are banished. Of clocks with only a going train, reanimating the machine is simple. More sophisticated contraptions, such as those fashioned with extra abilities, like a pantomime of the moon or a model fool juggling fruit, require an almost infinite skill and doggedness. (The author has heard of a clock supposedly seen in eastern Bohemia that had the like- ness of a great oak tree wrought in iron and brass around its dial. As the seasons of its homeland changed, the branches of the tree turned a thousand tiny copper leaves, each threaded on a hair-thin spindle, from enameled green to metallic red. Then, by astounding mechanisms within the case (fashioned to look like one of the mythical pillars once believed to hold up the earth) the branches released the leaves to spiral down their threads and strew themselves about the lower part of the clock-face. If this machine in fact existed, Mr. Newton himself could not have sat beneath a more amazing tree.) --from The Reasonable Horologist, by the Rev. Kenner Davenport, 1783

Beneath this excerpt about the horologist's task of reassembling the dismantled clock, Harding writes:

George Crosby remembered many things as he died, but in an order he could not control.

[It is this kind of writing, I believe, that should be studied by those of us who want to learn how to place words upon the page with skill and beauty.]