images of the season so far

Thanksgiving seems to be further back in the rear view mirror than it really is. Once December arrives, the warp speed of things to do and work being busy make it tricky to remember consistently to be grateful for everyday moments. I am very excited about the holiday concert coming up on Friday, and every spare 30 minutes will be spent practicing. Today I am off to see my parents in their chorale concert about an hour and a half away. I do love the music of the season - especially the more orchestral and less "catchy" pieces. 

I am a bit of an Instagram addict as I try to observe, capture and appreciate small moments in time. Here are a few moments from yesterday (picking out the Christmas tree) and today (coffee by the tree and a brisk walk with a friend at the nearby nature center). For those who follow me on Instagram, you will see that this is a bit of a cheat post. Recycled content with a tiny bit of context. I have blogger's guilt for not being a regular writer here these days. I hope the writing mojo will return. Now, off to do the bills and get ready to travel for the day. Cheers.

a different kind of thanksgiving

Bad weather sidelined our plans to travel today. This is the first Thanksgiving in my adult life I have been in my own home - not traveling, toting contributions to meals and sometimes early Christmas gift's for my sister-in-law and brother-in-law. Sometimes I have cooked a Thanksgiving meal on Christmas Eve because I am a pretty decent cook if I do say so, and I enjoy cooking this meal. So, we quickly gathered what we needed to whip up a nice small Thanksgiving meal today at home. While the turkey breast is roasting, and nearly all the side dishes done and ready to heat, I thought I would do a quick post here to share one of my favorite Eddie Izzard bits on the topic of Thanksgiving, and a few more thoughts below.

I am truly grateful for many blessings. I am grateful even for enough worry and difficult times to recognize joy when I feel it. I am watching it all - aiming for equanimity.

Wherever you are, if you are reading this, good wishes for peace, love, and safety on this holiday of the very best intentions. I have many fond memories of this day growing up. In recent years, since blogging here at JPP, I have put to keyboard quite a few Thanksgiving thoughts and quotes. For fun sometimes, I search the blog on a word, and scan through my past thoughts. If you want to do the same, here is the search on "thanksgiving." Cheers.

unchained melody-chinese cafe

WJPP here with a tune for Valentine's Day. There are so many great love songs to choose from. I thought about Peter Gabriel's In Your Eyes; Etta James' At Last; Joni Mitchell's A Case of You; The Beatles' In My Life; Bob Dylan's Love Minus Zero/No Limit; Nat King Cole's Unforgettable; Joan Armatrading's Love and Affection; The Beatles' Here, There and Everywhere; Dire Straits' Romeo and Juliet.. . . but Unchained Melody by The Righteous Brothers came to the top of the list. So sweet. So full of yearning. As much as I love the song by itself in its original form, it is made all the more brilliant embedded into Joni Mitchell's Unchained Melody-Chinese Cafe. It sets Unchained Melody right into the middle of a reality, and a starker reality... where nothing lasts for long. That, my friends, is the truth. Impermanence. It is worth contemplating. I just love this song. And, it goes along with my ongoing honoring of the incredible artistry of Joni. Enjoy this live performance. I especially like the ending.

2.14.16

It's a tired little Valentine's Day, but I keep on ticking along. When I woke up this morning the temperature was -20 degrees F (that wasn't with wind chill... that was the actual temperature). We exchanged family valentines this morning before the teen went off to work at the mountain. I now have a nice new supply of special dark chocolates for my stash. Tom and I did some grocery shopping so that we can cook a nice meal together this evening, and I made a few dozen of these for the teen and his girlfriend for this evening. No poetry ingredients seem to be in the mind bin. I hope you find some sweetness in your day.

mlk jr. day

I started my day off trying to honor in my own way the reason we have this holiday. I read through many quotes - so many good ones we will all see online today. This is the one I picked . . . not for its high aspiration, as many quotes contain, but rather for its imperative that no matter how bad things are, we have to keep moving forward. At a time when I avoid the political debates of both parties because the vitriol is depressing, and at a time when our country has become more partisan, more polarized, and maintaining and propagating the idea that there can only be a binary of winners and losers, this was the quote that stood out to me the most today.

We have more than a binary. It is more than black and white, Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, us and them. We have to find a way to keep finding a radiating center that includes all of us. We have humanity. As long as there are closed hearts, it makes moving forward more of a crawl than a flight. But let's keep moving forward, in whatever way we can. Don't let the withering dream die. As the catch phrase goes (and I don't know who originally said it,) "no one has to do everything, but everyone has to do something."

particles of sand ...

... they are flowing, trickling, steadily, almost imperceptibly slowly, through the narrow opening between future and past. I am positioning my mind right in that tiny center passage of the hour glass on the last day of the year. I remember doing some of my best writing on this day in past years. Some years I just linked back to old posts. I rarely look back on the blog these days. I sometimes check to see if I have posted a particular song before, because I can't remember, and what I love often stays the same. But, that seems to be the extent of my archival reading these days.

Today, right center, I see proximity on either side. I can look back a few days and see some relaxation, a nice early music concert in the intimate setting of a beautiful church, simple pleasures of reading, sipping a glass of wine, reading a new short story, and cooking good foods. The tree is still up. I haven't had the heart to take it down yet. I guess that will be Saturday's chore. My favorite beef stew is cooking on low in the crock pot for the day. We have some friends coming by for dinner and maybe some games this evening. Tomorrow - same plan with some different people. Tomorrow's crock pot meal will likely be vegetarian chili. Slow and easy cooking makes the house smell great and helps me to be relaxed when people come over so that I don't have to work so hard to make everything "perfect." That perfectionism is a real curse, I'll tell you. Immediate past and immediate future are relatively easy to manage. I think I will stay right here. 

Happy New Year to you, on the eve of its arrival. Wishing you good health, peace, and joy -- today and in all the tomorrows of 2016.

balulalow

I can't get enough of Benjamin Britten this season. Here is a quick-take from A Ceremony of Carols... one of my favorites: Balulalow.

Haarlem Voices - Festival of Christmas 2007 - Balulalow - A Ceremony of Carols - Renske Tjoelker on Harp - www.haarlemvoices.nl.

picture this

I take Instagram photos often . . . usually just as a means of capturing small moments. Life becomes art  -- in snapshots -- from a cell phone. It's bizarre and pleasing.

So picture this (in your mind... the phone isn't handy). It is a gray, shiny-rainy, Christmas Eve morning. I haven't been outside, but the computer tells me it is 63 F degrees at 8 a.m. It is the warmest Christmas Eve probably ever. Usually we have 20s or 30s  for temps and usually we have snow.

The lights from the Christmas tree inside the dark living room are reflecting against inside of the window glass, and if I hunch down on the couch, the reflections cast little colored lights onto the bare, stark-gray branches of a maple tree outside . . . little lights on all the craggy branches. Very cool.

I am off work on vacation now until January 4th. We have a few small plans (I guess going skiing won't be one of them.) Ordinarily we have friends over for a meal and games on Christmas Eve night, but our friends are traveling this year to see a family member who is not doing well, so we will postpone that plan until later in the week. Instead, I plan to make a nice meal for the small family and the teen's girlfriend will join us. Tomorrow will be a day trip to see the larger family in my hometown. The time off may mean more regular blogging. I hope so, because it certainly is fun for me.

Happy Christmastime to you if this is a holiday you celebrate. Cheers!

waltzing flowers

Yesterday evening I drove to my home town, picking up a sister along the way, to watch two of my nieces dance in the annual Nutcracker. The dance school in my hometown does a wonderful job with this annual production, and watching my older niece each year progress through the new parts and dances is exciting. She has gone from a little bon bon, sprite, candy cane, etc. to now the roles for the older
dancers... flower, snowflake, Spanish or Chinese principal dancer, Clara's friend and Clara's cousin. This year she got her own "bow" and was presented with a bouquet at the end of the show. She did a beautiful job and I can't help but glow with happiness to see her joyfully dance so well. My other niece was adorable too... a candy cane and small Chinese dancer.

One of my earliest memories as a child was waking up in the middle of the night on Christmas and finding a very special gift under the tree. I had asked for this large ballerina doll that spun like a top when you rotated a dial under lace on the top of the doll's head. What I found instead was a smaller, finer ballerina doll, dressed in a light blue tutu (instead of the pink on the larger, chunkier doll), and with it, a 45-rpm record and small portable record player. The record had Tchaikovsky's The Waltz of the Flowers on side A and The Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy on side B from The Nutcracker Suite. My parents and sister were asleep (the others not born yet) and I actually quietly put the record on the player, listened to both songs, and played with the doll, before quietly putting it all back and going back to bed (dreamily happy). I woke up and pretended to be surprised and delighted. I can't believe a five-year-old child could pull that off, but that is how I remember it. My mother says now she can't believe she didn't wake up. I do know I put that volume on less than 1 on the dial. Quiet as a mouse I probably was. Last night's Waltz of the Flowers reminded me of this memory, because the principal was in the same baby blue costume and the music was really beautiful. There was my niece as one of those waltzing flowers. It was special.

Anyway, I have a real affinity for the music of The Nutcracker. I enjoy watching the dancing each year. I did some dancing when I was younger from the time I was maybe 7 until I was about 13 before I quit to pursue other interests. I enjoyed recitals, costumes, makeup and dancing with point shoes. I think that dancing was very helpful for my brain and body during those developing years. It was worth the late night's drive back home last night to have seen the show - not only to support family members, but also for the boost it gives my right brain.

After two very late nights in a row, I am feeling tired today. (I worked the midnight breakfast on campus until 2 a.m. on Friday night then did a full day of errands and shopping yesterday before heading to The Nutcracker.) Thankfully, I don't have a lot on the agenda. I will cook a crock pot full of party food for a work party tomorrow and maybe do some wrapping. Mostly I need to try to relax today for the week ahead. I will travel tomorrow night after work for a work training out of town Tuesday. Holiday baking is on the schedule for Wed. night to drop off for a fundraiser on Thursday, and hopefully some revelry next weekend. I have a huge report due by year's end that I hope to have finished so I can take planned vacation the week between Christmas and New Year's. Time will tell on that... hoping the work days I get in the office this week will be productive and allow me to get that done.

Sorry for the rambling post. This happens when I am punchy tired. Off to more coffee, and I think, more blogging later... as it is so nice to blog on the lap top in front of the pretty tree.

song of the birds and other thoughts

I suppose the next best thing to being there is to watch and listen to this beautiful performance by Eugene Friesen of Pablo Casals' "Song of the Birds." Stay with it. You can pause for about 4 minutes, yes? It gets better and better and the ending is really, really lovely.  It has been a dream of mine for about, I don't know, 30 years . . .  to see the Paul Winter Consort in concert for the Winter Solstice Celebration ... held at St. John the Divine Cathedral in New York City.

It has been a week since I've written here. We took an overnight Thanksgiving trip to Allentown and then Philly to visit with Tom's family. We arrived home Friday evening with the teen's big plans for the Cotillion the next night. I helped with last minute decorations Saturday and then did a bit of decorating at our house so that we could have a midnight breakfast for Matt and his date. The next day was cleanup morning and all in all it was a tiring (but special) weekend for all of us.

The work week has been busy after a two-day week last week, and the next few weeks will be a whirlwind of extra events and holiday preparations to complement two big reports I have to compile by the end of the month. I have baking to do for a fundraiser at our local YWCA. We will go to a holiday concert my parents will sing in (how great is that?) and an epic Nutcracker performance in my hometown where two of my nieces will be dancing. As tiring as all of these activities are, I appreciate the lights during these short days. Music and lights help brighten this dark time.

I am feeling a big yawny and it is not even 7:30 p.m. Uh oh. Catch you soon. Ciao.

thanksgiving

If you look to others for fulfillment, 

you will never truly be fulfilled. 

If your happiness depends on money, 

you will never be happy with yourself. 

 Be content with what you have; 

 rejoice in the way things are. 

When you realize there is nothing lacking, 

the whole world belongs to you. 

 -- Lao Tzu

Not every holiday is happy for every person every year, but regardless, having a grateful heart is actually a source of happiness. Science is shedding some light on that... case in point, this New York Times article has gone viral recently on social media. I wish you a thanksgiving filled with peace and joy. To quote the ever beautiful Desiderata, "With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world." Peace out. 

labor day thoughts

Lest we forget the meaning behind today's holiday, we owe a debt of gratitude to the courage and persistence of early labor union organizers. Because of them, workers from nearly every sector have protections that human beings deserve. These protections put a small lock on unbridled greed and power and abuse of workers in recognition of their humanity. Do some other countries do it better with parental leave? Yes. But we have a good record with recognition of more work to be done. I know I certainly appreciate the concept of weekends, vacation and holidays, and sick benefits if they are needed.

A friend from my hometown posted this on Facebook today:

The Erie Canal was started in Rome, NY on July 4, 1817 and transformed the country if not the world. It did not come without a cost, as well over 1,000 workers died while building it. Happy Labor Day!http://www.nycanals.com/Erie_Canal

happy 4th

Courtesy of The New Yorker

This struck me as very funny. I hope you have a nice holiday weekend, however you choose to spend it! Today is yoga, housecleaning and readying for a family visit tomorrow. With any luck I will have some down time. (We picked tomorrow instead of today for holiday revelry because the forecast for tomorrow is better than for today, when we may get some more rain.) I will be making a very involved treat for my niece who requested it as part of her birthday celebration. Later.

ramblings

The bright sunshine reminds us that even on this Memorial Day Weekend of remembering sacrifice, loss, pain ... it is still a beautiful world. In true Nan fashion I made a to-do list for the weekend that is beyond humanly possible. On this list is to have a little fun. I hadn't been to yoga in two weeks, so yesterday morning was a real treat.We have plans for some socializing this evening as a motivator to keep getting work done.

I will be happy when the flowers purchased yesterday are planted. I ran out of spray paint after we wire-brushed and sanded the wrought iron deck table and chairs yesterday, so I have one chair and touch-ups to go. I hope we can find a match for the paint because the paint store where we purchased the paint is closed today. I don't like to leave projects unfinished. Argh.

The other usual weekend tasks won't do themselves, so I am getting off the computer, pouring one more cup of coffee, and off to this beautiful day I go! I hope you are having a nice weekend. 

risen

You are a child of the universe, 

no less than the trees and the stars;

you have a right to be here.

And whether or not it is clear to you, 

no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,

 whatever you conceive Him [or Her] to be,

and whatever your labors and aspirations,

 in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams,

 it is still a beautiful world. Be careful. 

Strive to be happy.

For those who celebrate Easter, today is a joyful day and I wish you happiness! I recently participated on a panel at my campus (on the intersectionality of religion and spirituality). I did this for my friend who is the Interfaith minister - she needed a representative of the "spiritual but not religious." All the other panelists, students and faculty, represented their practiced faith. We had a Baptist, a Methodist, an Episcopalian, a few Catholics and Jews, and a couple of dual-faith folks.

I gave my remarks a lot of thought, and made sure to appreciate those who are spiritual within many religions, and to appreciate those who are genuinely good and loving and kind people within atheism, secular humanism and paganism. I mentioned my Catholic roots as well as my dabblings into Buddhism and Kashmir Shaivism. I like to think of myself as catholic with a small "c":  (especially of a person's tastes) including a wide variety of things; all-embracing. synonyms: universal, diverse, diversified, wide, broad, broad-based, eclectic, liberal, latitudinarian.  I talked about nature and music and poetry being life-giving, and ended my remarks by reading the last two stanzas of my favorite prose poem, Desiderata, (above).

As I type away at this Happy Easter post, I am mesmerized by the mystical sounds of the Irish pipes (heard recently over at Sabine's place I think). This is Ronan Browne and Port na bPúcaí. Outside the window I hear a couple of birds singing their way onto the blanket of white snow that covered everything overnight. It will not last, and spring will indeed be reborn. How can we not celebrate that which rises again after death?

souper bowl sunday

Today is the day so many wait for. The Super Bowl. I am not a football fan (for a couple of reasons) but I am a fun, friendship and good food fan, so even though we consciously do not glorify football in our house, we still want to have a little something going on for the sake of our teen feeling like he has a sort of normal family. After all, it is the "eatingist secular holiday in the U.S."

In keeping with tradition, we are having a "souper bowl" gathering this evening. Those who may follow this blog may recall past souper bowl posts and recipes. I am putting on a big pot of creamy split pea soup and a bowl of salad. We will be making flat bread pizzas and our friends are bringing some snacky things. We'll have the game on, but at 9 p.m. another TV will be broadcasting Downton Abbey (even though I kind of wish I wasn't still watching it.) In the post-holiday, full-on winter time, this is a good time to break things up with a little revelry. We have 10-14 inches of snow in the forecast beginning this afternoon, so that adds to the excitement. Time again to post an old favorite song that has a football metaphor for life: All Kinds of Time.

messages

Can the New Year really be a New Year?

Or will it be just a repetition of the old year?

It depends very much on us.

-- Thich Nhat Hanh

Every New Year's Day I look forward to listening to the message from Thich Nhat Hanh. This year, he is still gravely ill, so we have to find our own message. I will try to listen to/ read a few messages from past years for starters.

new day, new year

This is the first pin oak photo of 2015. It is crisp, sunny, and cold out there this morning. Happy New Year! I am feeling peaceful and tired - even though I did get eight hours of sleep and had a very mild NYE. I went to sleep at 11:55 p.m. out of some ironic principle that I didn't want to watch a ball drop on television. Our city does a very nice ball drop of its own with fireworks at midnight and plenty of revelry (I know this because I watched a video of it on Facebook this morning.) It really isn't my thing, but I am glad others enjoyed it.

Yesterday was a work day, but we got in a great movie with friends late afternoon. I highly recommend Wild. See it on the big screen. What a movie! The story is deep, emotional, and riveting. The cinematography and scenery -- stunning. The film takes you along and brings you through catharsis. We then had a nice cup of coffee out at an interesting little coffee and waffle shop, followed by a late dinner of Chinese delivery, and another movie on Netflix. Another highly recommend for its quirky hilarity - very different than Wild - The History of Future Folk. Loved it. Then we watched the second half of cult comedy The Cable Guy with Matt to bring us to nearly midnight (no need to link the trailer)... Enough said? It was fun, though.

How do I want to start 2015? Precisely this way: I am not hungover in the least because I had my one beer with Chinese food. It feels good to wake up fresh with sunlight coming in the windows!

I have been indulging in coffee with Purity eggnog as cream in the mornings (that has got to stop and it will as soon as Matt and I finish that second quart), and have been sampling sweets at will for more than a week now...coupled with a break in the exercise routine. All of this too has got to stop. I think today may be the day to take down the tree. We ordinarily make plans for New Years Day and we have not done so this year. Matt wants to snowboard, as he has each and every day of his winter break, and Tom and I plan on an afternoon winter hike somewhere close by.

Wishing you peace and a smile today!

auld lang syne

I've been away from the blog for a small stretch. Call it the "holiday and new job blur." All is fine. I have had some holiday time for cooking, getting together with family and friends, enjoying some reading, movies, and lights of the season. In between I have worked most work days, including working this week from home since the heat has been turned down in my office. The tree is still up, needles beginning to drop. The amaryllis bulb is up from basement dormancy and is beginning to push forth green again. I have been posting a bit over at Tumblr. It's quicker. It suits my rambling thoughts / observations better.

Wishing you a happy and healthy New Year. It seems fitting to close out the year on the blog with the lovely voice of sweet James Taylor and my dad's perennial favorite song at this time of year, Auld Lang Syne. Nobody does it better. (Thanks YouTube).

sweet for solstice

WNYC brings us a real winter solstice treat, going back to a sound check in 2010 with Paul Winter and friends. This is called "Sweet for Solstice."  Human beings were meant to make music - and they do.

I recall vividly a junior high social studies teacher asking the classroom, "why are you here?" He did this repeatedly throughout the year. He wrote it on the chalkboard. He led brief classroom discussions on the topic every so often. We were puzzled. It was interesting. On days I thought I knew the answer, I realized I didn't. That was really great of an old guy everyone thought was a square. Nice guy, but what did he know? More than we did, apparently.

Do your self a favor and take five minutes out of your busy life to listen, watch, close your eyes a bit, sway, rock, be still, breathe. This is why we are here. Thanks, YouTube.