My Brilliant Friend Talk. You Listen

My New Name For A Blog

What Digby Said.

I also think this campaign may have been a crucible for her in that she rediscovered her feminist roots. An awful lot of progressive women did. It wasn't so much because of a commitment or loyalty to Hillary Clinton herself but rather an unexpected and stunning realization that sexism still runs so close to the surface in our culture. Hillary didn't lose because of sexism but her campaign certainly exposed it. And it's had an effect on a lot of women. Certainly, last night, some of Michelle Obama's biggest applause lines had to do with women's equality (and it didn't just come from Hillary supporters.) Clinton's grandest achievement in this campaign may have been to raise that awareness --- and hopefully she will use her position as the most powerful woman in the US Senate to advance the cause.

I had a chance to chat a bit last night with E about how young feminists have perceived this election and the reaction some of us older feminists have had. She was taken aback by some blog commenters who essentially said, "We did our time. We're done. Now it's up to you."

And, of course, we all get fed up. I often cannot fucking believe that I'm having to debate a woman's right to choose or a woman's right to wear whatever clothing she wants to wear -- especially on purportedly liberal blogs. And yet, young feminists need us to, at the very least, be there for them, to let them know that we're behind them and not angry with them.

I was reminded, for reasons that aren't yet completely clear to me, of a poem by Adrienne Rich:

No one ever told us we had to study our lives,
make of our lives a study, as if learning natural history
music, that we should begin
with the simple exercises first
and slowly go on trying
the hard ones, practicing till strength
and accuracy became one with the daring
to leap into transcendence, take the chance
of breaking down the wild arpeggio
or faulting the full sentence of the fugue.
And in fact we can’t live like that: we take on
everything at once before we’ve even begun
to read or mark time, we’re forced to begin
in the midst of the hard movement,
the one already sounding as we are born.

At most we’re allowed a few months
of simply listening to the simple
line of a woman’s voice singing a child
against her heart. Everything else is too soon,
too sudden, the wrenching-apart, that woman’s heartbeat
heard ever after from a distance
the loss of that ground-note echoing
whenever we are happy, or in despair.

Everything else seems beyond us,
we aren’t ready for it, nothing that was said
is true for us, caught naked in the argument,
the counterpoint, trying to sightread
what our fingers can’t keep up with, learn by heart
what we can’t even read. And yet
it is this we were born to. We aren’t virtuosi
or child prdigies, there are no prodigies
in this realm, only a half-blind, stubborn
cleaving to the timbre, the tones of what we are,
even when all the texts describe it differently.

And we’re not performers, like Liszt, competing
against the world for speed and brilliance
(the 79-year-old pianist said, when I asked her
What makes a virtuoso?—Competitiveness.)
The longer I live the more I mistrust
theatricality, the false glamour cast
by performance, the more I know its poverty beside
the truths we are salvaging from
the splitting-open of our lives
The woman who sits watching, listening,
eyes moving in the darkness
is reheasing in her body, hearing-out in her blood
a score touched off in her perhaps
by some words, a few chords, from the stage,
a tale only she can tell.

But there come times—perhaps this is one of them
when we have to take ourselves more seriously or die;
we when have to pull back from the incantations,
rhythms we’ve moved to thoughtlessly,
and disenthrall ourselves, bestow
ourselves to silence, or a severer listening, cleansed
of oratory, formulas, choruses, laments, static
crowning the wires. We cut the wires,
find ourselves in free-fall, as if
our true home were the undimensional
solitudes, the rift
in the Great Nebula.
No one who survives to speak
new language, has avoided this:
the cutting-away of an old force that held her
rooted to an old ground
the pitch of utter loneliness
where she herself and all creation
seem equally dispersed, weightless, her being a cry
to which no echo comes or can ever come.

But in fact we were always like this,
rootless, dismembered: knowing it makes the difference.
Birth stripped our birthright from us,
tore us from a woman, from women, from ourselves
so early on
and the whole chorus throbbing at our ears
like midges, told us nothing, nothing
of origins, nothing we needed
to know, nothing that could re-member us.

Only: that it is unnatural,
the homesickness for a woman, for ourselves,
for that acute joy at the shadow her head and arms
cast on a wall, her heavy or slender
thighs on which we lay, flesh against flesh,
eyes steady on the face of love; smell of her milk, her sweat,
terror of her disappearance, all fused in this hunger
for the element they have called most dangerous, to be
lifted breathtaken on her breast, to rock within her—even if beaten back, stranded again, to apprehend
in a sudden brine-clear though
trembling like the tiny, orbed, endangered
egg-sac of a new world:
This is what she was to me, and this
is how I can love myself
as only a woman can love me.

Homesick for myself, for her—as, later the heatwave
breaks, the clear tones of the world
manifest: cloud, bough, wall, insect, the very soul of light,
homesick as the fluted vault of desire
articulates itself: I am the lover and the loved,
home and wanderer, she who splits
firewood and she who knocks, a strange
in the storm, two women, eye to eye
measuring each other’s spirits each others’
limitless desire,

a whole new poetry beginning here.

Vision begins to happen in such a life
as if a woman quietly walked away
from the argument and jargon in a room
and sitting down in the kitchen, began turning in her lap
bits of yarn, calico and velvet scraps,
laying them out absently on the scrubbed boards
in the lamplight, with small rainbow- colored shells
sent in cotton-wool from somewhere far away
and skeins of milkweed from the nearest meadow
original domestic silk, the finest findings
and the darkblue petal of the petunia,
and the dry darkbrown face of seaweed;
not forgotten either, the shed silver
whisker of the cat,
the spiral of paper-wasp-nest curling
beside the finch’s yellow feather.
Such a composition has nothing to do with eternity,
the striving for greatness, brilliance
only with the musing of a mind
one with her body, experienced fingers quietly pushing
dark against bright; silk against roughness,
putting the tenets of a life together
with no mere will to mastery,
only care for the many-lived, unending
forms in which she finds herself,
becoming now the sherd of broken glass
slicing light in a corner, dangerous
to flesh, now the plentiful, soft leaf
that wrapped round the throbbing finger, soothes the wound;
and now the stone foundation, rockshelf further
forming underneath everything that grows.

Picture found here.

(1977) by Adrienne Rich

And, That, Ladies And Gentlemen, Is How You Wear An Orange Pantsuit

What class.

She got off some great lines.

No way, no how, no McCain.

Bush and McCain are going to be twins next week in the Twin Cities.

A Supreme Court in a right-wing headlock.

Green-collar jobs.

We don't have a moment to lose or a vote to spare. I want you to think about your children and grandchildren come election day.

In America there is . . . no ceiling too high.

A shout out to the women of Senaca Falls.

And -- yeah, she finally reduced me to tears -- a shout out to Harriet Tubman.

The Nineteenth Amendment

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.

Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.


In my tradition, we say, "Thou art Goddess."

Thank you, Hillary.

No way. No how. No McCain.

What Eric Said

by Eric Boehlert

Within the fast-forward world of campaign journalism, it's not considered cool to examine the recent past in order to provide context for today's events. (We know it's not cool because nobody does it.) Nonetheless, here's a very brief history lesson that the political press prefers to ignore.

At the Democratic National Convention in 1992, Jerry Brown, who finished a very distant second to the party's nominee, had his name placed into nomination and addressed the assembled convention. After seconding his own nomination (true story), Brown delivered a fiery speech that thrilled his unruly supporters inside Madison Square Garden. Brown's ill will toward nominee Bill Clinton was so legendary that The Atlanta Journal-Constitution considered it newsworthy that Brown's convention address "avoided a direct attack" on the nominee, while the Los Angeles Times noted Brown "did not specifically endorse presidential nominee Bill Clinton."

Indeed, for weeks leading up to the convention, Brown refused to back his party's nominee, complaining to The New York Times in June that supporting Clinton was like buying a ticket for the Titanic.

Four years earlier, the Democratic convention in Atlanta witnessed even more tumult from the second-place finisher when Jesse Jackson, furious at being passed over for the vice-presidential slot by the party's nominee, Michael Dukakis (who failed to call Jackson and tell him the VP news), threatened to withhold his delegates' support from the party's nominee. In fact, just hours before the convention began, Jackson's supporters threatened to place the candidate's name into nomination for the vice presidency, which would have created a massive floor fight between Jackson and Dukakis' pick, Sen. Lloyd Bentsen of Texas.

Pre-convention tension grew so heated that the mild-mannered Dukakis was quoted as saying, "I don't care what Jesse Jackson does. I'm going to this convention and I'm going to win." During his convention keynote address, which lasted nearly an hour -- much longer than expected, Jackson did not specifically endorse Dukakis.

End of history lesson.

Now, take those historical nuggets from 1992 and 1988 and transport them to Denver this week, and try to imagine what the press reaction would be (not the political reaction, but the press reaction) if Hillary Clinton delivered her address Tuesday night and did not endorse the Democratic Party's nominee.

Honestly, I have trouble even picturing the response, mostly because there has already been such an unhinged media response (see Maureen Dowd, if you must) to Clinton's finishing second, speaking at the convention, and supporting the party's nominee. If she snubbed the nominee? We'd probably see a media-credentialed riot, with hordes of pundits and reporters roaming the late-night streets of Denver (Pitchforks? Probably) in search of Clinton and looking to inflict long-term pain.

Fact: Many in the press have portrayed Clinton's planned convention address, as well as the fact that her name is being placed into nomination, as an unprecedented, heavy-handed power grab.

Fact: It's not. In years past, Democratic candidates who won lots of primaries and accumulated hundreds of delegates (sorry, Howard Dean and Bill Bradley) have always been allowed to address the convention and very often place their name into nomination. It's the norm. It's expected. It's a formality.

This newly manufactured media attack on Clinton is just the latest in a long line of press grenades thrown her way this year. But this time, she's not the only victim, because the media's concocted story line is being used to unfairly skewer Barack Obama, too.

Consider New York magazine: "Obama Agrees to Roll-Call Vote for Clinton. Does That Make Him a Sissy?"

What's so startling in watching the coverage of the Clinton convention-speech story has been the complete ignorance displayed about how previous Democratic conventions have dealt with runners-up like Clinton. It's either complete ignorance or the media's strong desire to painstakingly avoid any historical context, which, in turn, allows the press to mislead news consumers into thinking Clinton's appearance (as well as the gracious invitation extended by Obama) represents something unique and unusual. Something newsworthy.

Based on previous conventions, if a candidate had accumulated as many delegates and votes as Clinton did during the primaries and then did not have her name placed into nomination, that would represent a radical departure from the convention norm.

But, boy, in 2008, an awful lot of media outlets have played dumb. When covering the August 14 announcement about Clinton's role in Denver, they miraculously forgot to make any historical reference to similar names-placed-in-nomination at previous conventions.

Instead, readers and viewers were left with the obvious impression that what was scheduled to happen in Denver was remarkable, an anomaly. And I suppose if you look at the events through a soda straw, it does look unusual. But if you include the slightest bit of context, the story changes into something normal and routine.

But that's not the story the press wants to tell (the Clintons are not normal!), so the press simply erased the context and stuck to its preferred story line that Clinton's appearance in Denver and the placing of her name in nomination are one for the record books.

Searching the recent news archives, it's hard to find many articles or television segments that reported on Clinton's symbolic nomination and also mentioned that runner-up Jerry Brown had been nominated in '92 or that Jesse Jackson had been nominated in '88 or that Gary Hart had been nominated in '84. (You get the idea.)

When The New York Times reported on Clinton's pending nomination, it made no reference to historical precedents. Neither did The Boston Globe, nor The Wall Street Journal, nor The Washington Post. And on and on and on.

On CNN, Jack Cafferty commented, "The Democratic National Convention is now shaping up to be quite a party for Hillary Clinton. Her name will be placed in nomination. She'll give a prime-time address." He made no mention that that's what previous runners-up had done at conventions.

Let's give credit to the Los Angeles Times, though. In the final two sentences in an article reporting the Clinton convention story, the Times miraculously found space to note that Brown, Jackson, and Hart all had their second-place names placed into nomination.

Actually, the real credit goes to CNN polling director Keating Holland (figures, he doesn't work in the newsroom), who posted a lengthy analysis at CNN.com. Holland's piece not only put Clinton's role in Denver into historical perspective ("Overall, between 1972 and 1992, 10 Democratic candidates who lost the nomination in the primaries went on to have their names formally placed in nomination at the convention."), it also pointed out that Clinton represents the only runner-up to speak at the convention who formally endorsed the party's nominee months before the convention; i.e., all the others grudgingly held out on endorsing their rivals.

But not Clinton. Yet she's the one slimed by media venom.

Even after all these months, I still don't completely understand why Clinton's essentially centrist campaign for the White House ginned up so much open contempt from the press corps, which has felt completely comfortable addressing her in an openly derogatory and condescending manner. The issue of her convention involvement simply allowed the press to whack her around like a piñata one more time, regardless of the facts.

Just take a look at a recent edition of ABC's CW-worshipping daily bulletin The Note as it mocked Clinton's convention role with barely containable contempt:

Maybe it was better for the Obama campaign to invite you inside, since you would have made an ugly scene outside. Surely Sen. Barack Obama can afford to be gracious, even to you, since he'll leave Denver with the only prize that counts.

"Even to you." That's a nice touch, coming from the same press corps that erupts with indignation whenever somebody suggests Clinton might have been tarred with sexist campaign coverage. (Y'think? National Review Online, August 15: "Sure, Hillary's fat and waddly and screechy and gives pantsuits a bad name.")

And this from Radar magazine:

Barack Obama has approved Hillary Clinton's dubious campaign to put herself up for nomination at the upcoming Democratic National Convention. We have to ask: Is it because she's a woman or just power-hungry?

Note that Clinton's convention campaign was "dubious," which was accurate if Radar, y'know, ignored facts and precedent and history and all that annoying stuff.

Meanwhile, what was The Note's proof that Clinton would have "made an ugly scene outside" the convention if not included? The Note had none. And that's what's been so amazing about watching the brazen, Clinton's-trying-to-steal-the-convention-with-a-speech coverage: The narrative is built on a swamp. The press has provided virtually no facts, not even anonymous quotes, to support its beloved narrative that Hillary Clinton's planned speech ignited some kind of civil war inside the Democratic Party.

What's curious is that journalists who have actually bothered to cite campaign sources about her speech and symbolic nomination came away with a very different picture of what was unfolding behind the scenes.

Writing at his Atlantic blog, Marc Ambinder, who seems to enjoy regular access to Obama sources, noted that "reports of strife between negotiators for Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama are exaggerated" and that "multiple sources in both campaigns have described the negotiations as relatively free of acrimony."

The next day, Ambinder returned to the topic perplexed, wondering why so many members of the press were pushing the clearly inaccurate story line that the Obama and Clinton camps were practically at war over the convention schedule.

Ambinder was either being naïve or playing nice with his Beltway colleagues. (My guess is the latter.) Because it was obvious the press didn't care whether the rift about Clinton's speech was real or imagined. The story helped journalists advance their beloved narrative that Clinton is a political-party wrecking ball and that Obama is too weak to control her. So even if the evidence ran counter to that, the press was sticking with its story line.

Like Ambinder, another journalist who actually reported the story was Joan Walsh at Salon.com, who wrote, "My sources say the Obama campaign was enthusiastic about the idea of putting Clinton's name in nomination, having independently reached the conclusion that it was the best way to honor her achievement and do more to win over her supporters."

She then included a quote from Obama spokesman Bill Burton:

"The conversations with her folks were very cordial and we've been able to work very closely with them as we unify this party. ... We couldn't be happier about how things are going with Senator Clinton and her team."

Burton made several public pronouncements like that regarding the Denver convention schedule, but New York Times columnist Gail Collins mocked the idea that the scheduling had been cordial and easy, instead comparing the convention task to negotiating a Middle East between "enemy forces."

And then there was Washington Post columnist Jeff Birnbaum who announced Obama never should have allowed Clinton to be nominated, suggesting it was a huge political mistake. How did Birnbaum know? He just knew. The fact that polling found Democrats by an almost 2-to-1 margin thought Clinton's nomination would be good for party unity was of no interest to Birnbaum or anyone else in the press spinning the event as a Democratic catastrophe.

FYI, Birnbaum told The Wall Street Journal he was "grateful" for "Hillary Clinton's attempt tacitly to take over the Obama victory" because it was a great story that the press could cover throughout the convention. (Oh, goody.) As one blogger wrote after reading Birnbaum's quote, "I thought journalists were supposed to uncover the facts and report the story, not decide on the story and then interpret the facts to accommodate their storyline."

Meanwhile, let's be clear: Clinton isn't the only injured party here. After the press constructed the phony premise abut Clinton's convention speech, critics then used it, unfairly, to tag Obama as a softie who can't even stand up to a woman. (Gasp.)

"Russia rolls over Georgia, Hillary Clinton does the same to Barack Obama. Now we know who's boss." (Michael Goodwin, New York Daily News)
"If Hillary Clinton can ride [roughshod] over this guy what do you think bin Laden will do?" (Dick Morris, on Fox News)
"Russia invades Georgia. Hillary invades Obama's convention. Obama does nothing constructive on either count." (Amanda Carpenter, at Townhall.com)
Why were critics able to get off those cheap shots? Because the press, strenuously ignoring facts and recent history, was determined to paint Clinton as the ultimate party crasher.

—E.B.

Pagans At The DNC.

Rita Moran from Blue Pagan has a great post about an interfaith ceremony at the DNC that was actually, surprisingly enough, interfaith. It's such a drink of cool water for Pagans when that happens.

Now, if they'd just start answering Rita's e-mails.



Picture found here.

My American Prayer

I live in a swing state. And, unless you live somewhere v safely blue, we're both going to vote for Mr. Called to Serve and Mr. Hate on Anita Hill. Because the Patriarchy doesn't give us nice, clean choices. It only gives us choices between crappy and less-than-crappy. And this old hedge witch will keep on choosing "less than crappy" over and over and over again.

Great Granddaughter, I wish for you: better choices.

I wanted to pray this American prayer too. I just didn't want to be excluded from it. Again. Again.

My American Prayer is to a deity with a womb. Who bleeds. With a vagina.

I think she understands.

Maybe The Nicest Thing Anyone's Ever Said About Me

Is this.


Although, really, I'm a blonde.

Cackle, Cackle, Cackle! We Are Everywhere! Bwhahahahah!

Here's an interesting blog being written by Pagans attending the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Denver. I'm delighted to see that there are out Pagans at the DNC and I'll be checking their blog frequently this week.

Rita (for more about her history, see the archives over at The Wild Hunt) discusses a situation that nearly all of us encounter from time to time -- doing magic in an unfamiliar location and environment:

This evening, after a great supper at the Mercury Cafe (witchy, hippy hangout, great food, well worth visiting when you're next in Denver), I had the privilege of attended a Circle for Peace in Downtown Denver.

As someone far more used to holding ritual surrounded by trees, I'll admit I had a few misgivings. How could we create the same feeling of closeness to Nature in a downtown parking lot? No problem. If the people involved truly believe in Peace, and in each other....if those in the circle connect with Nature as it exists in that parking lot, the circle just might work.

And so it did.

We were about twenty, young and old, men and women, and we joyfully joined minds and hearts in our hopes that peace and unity would come out of this convention.

We made and decorated prayer flags which will hang from a building for the duration of the convention . . . .

When a large part of your magical working comes from a relationship with the land, it can be difficult to do magic in an unfamiliar place. A witch friend recently remarked to me that she can feel the magical roots of my house, now that I've been doing magic here, alone and with my wonderful circle of women, for a number of years. And, it's true, any place where you repeatedly do magic develops a relationship with you and you come, almost unconsciously, to tap into and rely upon that relationship when you do magic.

But there are times when you're far from home and familiarity. In those situations, I find that paying additional attention to grounding (see Starhawk on Grounding for Activists) helps to make magic possible. Either as a separate step, or as part of the grounding, you can contact the new land, feel what it wants, seek its permission and assistance. For witches who ground with a tree visualization, this can happen when you spread the roots of your tree into the earth of the unfamiliar location.

How do you do magic away from home?

Art foung here.

Yet More Friday Fun

More Friday Fun

Friday Fun

Friday Cat Blogging

Miss Thing lives to be admired.

Thanks, Obama, For Giving The Christianists Another Win. And They Won't Vote For You, Anyway.

Now what is it about this that is so difficult to understand?

At the risk of heresy, let it be said that setting up the two presidential candidates for religious interrogation by an evangelical minister -- no matter how beloved -- is supremely wrong.

For the past several days, since mega-pastor Rick Warren interviewed Barack Obama and John McCain at his Saddleback Church, most political debate has focused on who won.

Was it the nuanced, thoughtful Obama, who may have convinced a few more skeptics that he isn't a Muslim? Or was it the direct, confident McCain, who breezes through town-hall-style meetings the way Obama sinks three-pointers from the back court?

The candidates' usual supporters felt validated in their choices. McCain convinced and comforted with characteristic certitude those who are most at ease with certitude; Obama convinced and comforted with his characteristic intellectual ambivalence those who are most at ease with ambivalence.

The winner, of course, was Warren, who has managed to position himself as political arbiter in a nation founded on the separation of church and state.

The loser was America.

In his enormously successful book "The Purpose-Driven Life," Warren begins: "It's not about you." Agreed. Nor is this criticism aimed at Christians, evangelicals, other believers or nonbelievers -- or at Warren, who is a good man with an exemplary record of selfless works. Few have walked the walk with as much determination or success.

This is about higher principles that are compromised every time we pretend we're not applying a religious test when we're really applying a religious test.

It is true that no one was forced to participate in the Saddleback Civil Forum on the Presidency and that both McCain and Obama are free agents. Warren has a right to invite whomever he wishes to his church and to ask them whatever they're willing to answer.

His format and questions were interesting and the answers more revealing than what the usual debate menu provides. But does it not seem just a little bit odd to have McCain and Obama chatting individually with a preacher in a public forum about their positions on evil and their relationship with Jesus Christ?

The past few decades of public confession and Oprah-style therapy have prepared us perfectly for a televangelist probing politicians about their moral failings. Warren's Q&A wasn't an inquisition exactly, but viewers would be justified in squirming.

Go read the whole thing here.

I'll just add that I blame Obama even more than I blame Warren or McCain. Obama's the Democrat. He's supposed to fucking know better.

Maryland Ren Faire

I'm going to take G/Son. I used to take another little boy.

How many tarot cards can you spot? I see the six of wands, the Fool, the Lovers, the Emperor, the Hermit, the three of cups, the six of cups, . . . .

Don't Tell Me Prachett Was Never In A Coven

How our planning meetings generally go.

Listen To The Wind

It's mid-August, just past the full moon between two dark moons in the same month. It's that point on this whirling ferris wheel of a planet when things seem to pause, just at the top of the wheel, although the wheel is really moving madly along.

Here in northern Virginia, it's been v, v dry, no rain for weeks. I'm back into the triage watering of last summer, when we were in a deep drought. The first v few green acorns have already started falling off the oak trees and hitting my roof. They scare Miss Thing now, but, by September, she'll ignore them.

There's something about the beginning of Autumn, even the Indian Summer of early Septembe,r that instills a sense of purpose, that gets me motivated. When I was in school, I loved the fat new notebooks, the sharpened pencils, the sense of possibility that came from cracking the spines of brand new textbooks. I make new year's resolutions at Samhein, and the time from Lughnasada, through Mabon, on to Samhein is time to get serious; time to dig down and try to accomplish whatever's left undone.

It's coming. If you listen, you can hear the cold wind blowing leaves in swirls around your feet.

Picture found here.

My New Name For A Blog

What Jason Said:

The post-Christian era is upon us, and the longer the two major political parties court 25% of America's religious adherents to the near-exclusion of nearly everyone else, the sooner they experience irrelevance as that demographic becomes just one voice in a cacophony of faiths and philosophies.

I hope Mr. Purpose-Driven (as if life were something to be "driven" ick!) Warren adopts a vow of silence tomorrow. Mr. Obama, every time that I'm about to open my checkbook, you find a way to make me close it. Just saying. You can balance my money v all those donations you think you're going to get from fundies and make your own determination.

Art found here.

Yes!

So this morning, in spite of not getting to sleep until 11:00 last night, G/Son rolled out of bed at 7:00 am and announced, with a satisfied smile, "Nonna! I waked up!" We should all approach the day like that!

We had some breakfast and played around in Nonna's yard and then, in Nonna's neverending effort to educate, we went to the lovely Whitman Walker garden and fed the koi fish and walked the labyrinth. "Nonna! I'm walking the path! Nonna! I got to the sitting rock!" Not meditative, but good.

Then, Nonna's plan was to find the nature center with the bee hive under glass, and the slice of a big tree showing all the rings, and some turtles. But Dinoysis, whom I believe guards this child, intervened. Nonna took the wrong entrance into the park and there, instead of a nature center, as G/Son immediately noted, was: A carousel!

Nonna: Do you think we can ride it?

G/Son: Yes, Nonna. We can!

When we went to buy a ticket for the carousel, there was a small locomotive that goes all around the park. G/Son adores trains above all else and he said: Look! Nonna! A train! A red one!

Nonna: Do you think we can ride it?

G/Son: Yes, Nonna! You and I can ride the train!

And, so, we did. We were the last pair to get on the train for this ride and we sat directly behind the conductor. Waiting in line, G/Son was literally jumping up and down and saying, "I'm happy! I'm happy!" He held my hand all the way through the park and periodically looked up at me to say, "Nonna, we're riding. We're riding the train." I don't know if it gets any better than this, and here's my admission against interest to Life, but, you know, for me, at least, it doesn't have to. If this is the apogee of how good it gets, well, it got better than I ever had any reason to expect that it would.

After we got off the train, we rode the carousel. Because, as Auntie Mame famously announced, life's a banquet and some poor suckers are starving to death. Not G/Son and me. Not us.

Sunny Summer Saturday.

I drove past the beautiful Potomac River Saturday morning and it was the exact shade of bottle-green jade that can only be described as Summer River Green. Of course, it made me remember this poem:

Nymph, nymph, what are your beads?

Green glass, goblin. Why do you stare at them?

Give them me.
No.

Give them me. Give them me.
No.

Then I will howl all night in the reeds,
Lie in the mud and howl for them.

Goblin, why do you love them so?

They are better than stars or water,
Better than voices of winds that sing,
Better than any man's fair daughter,
Your green glass beads on a silver ring.

Hush, I stole them out of the moon.

Give me your beads, I want them.
No.

I will howl in the deep lagoon
For your green glass beads, I love them so.
Give them me. Give them.
No.

-- Harold Monro


I went to a knitting class at Stitch DC; all of the knitters there were far, far better than I. Interesting group of women, all ages, various ethnicities, sitting on Capitol Hill, comfortably silent for long stretches, with only the clack of knitting needles. Of course, we sat in a circle. It's what women do, and it's powerful. I learned a new way to cast on stitches and a new way to increase a stitch. We'll see if that's enough for me to make my first pair of mittens w/ a thumb.

I drove back home past the beautiful Potomac River. By late afternoon, it was giving back to the sky the same lovely blue color that the sky was giving to the river. Boats dotted the river just as fluffy clouds dotted the sky. I could only think: As above, so below. It's all real; it's all metphor. There's always more.

I stopped on the way home for more of the free mulch that Arlington County gives away. All of the lovely, dark leaf mold was gone, but I got two big bags of wood mulch.

Spent the evening w my G/Son. We read Mother Goose. Life is good. May it be so for you.


Green glass bead found here.