Practicing Domesticity: Such Creativity

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Such Creativity

Artsy-ness is very important in our house. For example, Rachel, our resident photographer, also apparently likes to print life-size pictures of herself*:

She then likes to take those pictures and hang them places that to others may seem a bit odd - such as the in the window on the front door. Nothing says "welcome home!" like a bodiless face staring at you.

*or she had to print a picture for a job application and didn't realize it was set to print full-page...likely story...

Sometimes, though, we like to incorporate our academic lives with our artsy-ness. In fact, Michelle does this every a week in Scientific Glass-blowing:

Now, some of you may be like me and have no idea what this entails, or that we even offered this class at Westmont. But let me assure you first, that this is in fact a real class and second, that I still don't understand it. However, every Tuesday, Michelle comes home with a beautiful new piece of glass that she has "blown" into some new shape - animals, beads, etc - and they look spectacular. You should ask her about it next time you see her.

Or, you may just be thinking that Michelle should perhaps be using a bit more caution - safety goggles anyone? - when holding a flaming blowtorch, after all, she is the person who likes to hold the fruit she's cutting while cutting it; don't worry, she's only cut herself once...that she'll admit to...

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What I Learned From My Mother

by Julia Kasdorf

I learned from my mother how to love

the living, to have plenty of vases on hand

in case you have to rush to the hospital

with peonies cut from the lawn, black ants

still stuck to the buds. I learned to save jars

large enough to hold fruit salad for a whole

grieving household, to cube home-canned pears

and peaches, to slice through maroon grape skins

and flick out the sexual seeds with a knife point.

I learned to attend viewing even if I didn’t know

the deceased, to press the moist hands

of the living, to look in their eyes and offer

sympathy, as though I understood loss even then.

I learned that whatever we say means nothing,

what anyone will remember is that we came.

I learned to believe I had the power to ease

awful pains materially like an angel.

Like a doctor, I learned to create

from another’s suffering my own usefulness, and once

you know how to do this, you can never refuse.

To every house you enter, you must offer

healing: a chocolate cake you baked yourself,

the blessing of your voice, your chaste touch.

Source: Sleeping Preacher (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1992)

Alone

by Maya Angelou

Lying, thinking
Last night
How to find my soul a home
Where water is not thirsty
And bread loaf is not stone
I came up with one thing
And I don't believe I'm wrong
That nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

There are some millionaires
With money they can't use
Their wives run round like banshees
Their children sing the blues
They've got expensive doctors
To cure their hearts of stone.
But nobody
No, nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Now if you listen closely
I'll tell you what I know
Storm clouds are gathering
The wind is gonna blow
The race of man is suffering
And I can hear the moan,
'Cause nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

The Silence

by Wendell Berry

Though the air is full of singing
my head is loud
with the labor of words.

Though the season is rich
with fruit, my tongue
hungers for the sweet of speech.

Though the beech is golden
I cannot stand beside it
mute, but must say

"It is golden," while the leaves
stir and fall with a sound
that is not a name.

It is in the silence
that my hope is, and my aim.
A song whose lines

I cannot make or sing
sounds men's silence
like a root. Let me say

and not mourn: the world
lives in the death of speech
and sings there.

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Such Creativity

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