Day: March 30, 2016

SPRING IS SPRUNG

Ode to Spring

“Spring has sprung,

The Grass has riz,

I wonder where the flowers is?

The little bird is on the wing,

But that’s absurd!

Because the wing is on the bird!”

— A ditty by Unknown

It will be near 70 degrees tomorrow. That’s 21 in Celsius, by the way. Weather just doesn’t get nicer than this.

72-crocus 2015_01

This is it. We wait for it all year. We dream of it while we shovel tons of snow and wash the residue of salt from our car’s under-body.

Solomon's Seal
Solomon’s Seal

We yearn for it through mud season while mopping the mess off the floors. Will winter never end? Will spring never come?

75-Forsythia-2

Winter ended.

Spring came.

I wonder where the flowers is?

THE LOST VOICE

VOICE

At the peak of my child-raising years, I lost my voice. I went hoarse and stayed hoarse for months.

75-Choir_HP-62

When finally I realized it wasn’t a sinus problem or a lingering virus of some kind, I went to a throat specialist.

“You have children?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“You yell at children?” He was Russian, so imagine his accent, please.

“Sometimes.”

“You maybe fight with husband?” We would soon be divorced.

“Um, kind of.”

“No more yelling. You must not yell. Not at children. Not at husband.”

“Yelling? That’s the problem?”

“Yelling is problem,” he agreed. “You must whisper only. No yelling. For one year, also not talking. S-h-h-h. Like this,” he said, demonstrating a loud whisper.

72-Pops-12-11-14_097

I had a full-time job, a son, two step-children and a crumbling marriage … and I was supposed to whisper for a whole year? If I wanted my voice back, that was the only way.

It didn’t happen. I’m not sure I could ever have disciplined myself to whisper for a year at any time in my life, but definitely not then. As a result, my singing voice never came back. I lost it for good and all. I can speak normally, but I can’t sing. I also can’t yell. One yell and I’m hoarse for a month.

Don’t yell. It’s very bad for your voice.

ALLEY, DRIVEWAY, PARKING LOT AND PATH – FUN FOTO CHALLENGE

CEE’S FUN FOTO CHALLENGE: ALLEYS, DRIVEWAYS, PARKING LOTS, DIRT ROADS

This week’s topic is alleys, driveways, parking lots, and dirt. I have new material for this and a lot of archival pictures that apply. So many, in fact, that I’m going to have to restrain my enthusiasm.

72-Road to Mountains-GAR-Sunday-011016_158
Arizona desert road – Garry Armstrong, photographer
Our driveway, looking down from the street
Our driveway, looking down from the street
Handicapped parking at the medical building
Handicapped parking at the medical building
Alley behind the Massachusetts Statehouse in Boston
Alley behind the Massachusetts Statehouse in Boston
Our path through the woods
Our path through the woods
Down by the sawmill
Down by the sawmill

cee's fun foto chall

CHANGING PERSPECTIVE

Perspective. 

1 Corinthians

11   When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

12   For now we see as in a mirror darkly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I too am known.

I’m not usually big on quoting the bible, but sometimes — and this is one of those times — no place says it better.

72-BW-Light of the desert-MAR-Superstition-011316_311

I was an “old” child. When I was very young, I talked like a much older person. I read “adult person” literature and thought of myself as very mature. I wasn’t. I was intellectually precocious, but still a child. Who used big words and almost understood many adult things.

72-Perspective-Sunset-010816_015

Almost. There are a whole lot of things that simply don’t make sense until you’ve lived a life. Reading about life isn’t living it. A child, no matter how smart, is never more mature than his or her years and experience. That’s perspective.

Perspective isn’t static. At 10, you see things through 10-year-old eyes. As years and decades roll on, you see the same things differently, sometimes extremely so. Perhaps you really do see through a glass darkly. Or you should. If decades of living don’t change your perspective, something is wrong — with you or the life you’ve lived. We are supposed to change. The only things that don’t change are dead.

I hear people my age or even younger saying “Well, that’s the way I am. I’m not going to change.”

Yeats' Grave

There’s a terrible finality in that statement. A sad finality, like a eulogy for “self.”

Someday, I’ll be too old or sick for change. The end comes to everyone. But until then, I hope my perspective keeps changing. I hope I revise my opinions often and contradict myself frequently.

Perspective.