Practicing Domesticity: We Love Love...

Saturday, April 9, 2011

We Love Love...

As I was not here for this grand event, Michelle will again have to explain things:

"April 9. Falling in love. "So here's the thing about falling in love--it's not like getting into a car accident." -Rachel Penner. Thus, our house's wisdom about falling in love. No one here really falls in love, so we have to import our love. Namely, in the form of a bachelorette named J-Po. Soon to be named J-Go. Did she do that on purpose? I certainly hope so. That's how everyone picks their future spouse: the last name change. Anyway, Rachel likes to inform us that falling in love is something you can decide to do (car accidents are not something you can decide to do), so apparently J-Po decided correctly. Now, I love everything about love, except all the things I hate about it. I've realized I pretty much have love-hate relationships with most important things in my life. Like, say love. However, in J-Po's life I love it. So we celebrated, telling stories of all our past loves, present loves, future loves (eschatological loves)...Some of us had more stories than others. Some co-opted friends' stories. And some just apparently live crazy lives. We'll keep you posted on the first one in our house to drop. We have a little wagering pool going. Any bets? My money's on Sarah...again. First one to get asked out doesn't have to pay rent! HA! (Clear that one by Danielley first...)"

No comments:

Post a Comment

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.

Saturday, April 9, 2011

We Love Love...

No comments:

Post a Comment

Other Blogs