Special days, Birthdays One day love to remember My Wife’s day today
January 15, 1958 was a Wednesday and a bitterly cold day across the Grand Rapids, Michigan area.
My wife says she was born into the cold and didn’t like it and hasn’t liked it since.
As she is the 12th of 12 children, I could say the expected, “saving the best for last” or “cheaper by the dozen.”
But I won’t.
As it is her birthday, I could quote Mr. Twain when he said, “Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen.”
But I won’t.
I AM reminded of Mr. Dryden on love and time when he wrote;
“Love and Time with reverence use, Treat them like a parting friend: Nor the golden gifts refuse Which in youth sincere they send: For each year their price is more, And they less simple than before.”
My wife and I have been together a long time.
Lots of birthdays
Lots of years.
Our lives together are more complex each year.
The price of those years seems to increase as they increase with issues.
Love and time are at the bottom of it all.
Through love, over time, those years with her are a ‘golden gift’.
So today, my hope for her is for a happy birthday.
swinging on a star take moon beams home in a jar moonlit morning hopes
The Google says that the Moon today is in a Waxing Gibbous phase. This phase is when the moon is more than 50% illuminated but not yet a Full Moon. The phase lasts round 7 days with the moon becoming more illuminated each day until the Full Moon.
It was cold and clear last night when my wife and I went for walk.
Cold for Georgia anyway.
Clear and lit by the Waxing Gibbous Moon.
Moonlight was strong enough that we cast shadows and the old song about catching moonbeams in a jar stuck in my brain.
Innocent and sweet thoughts to end the day.
When I left for work this morning that Waxing Gibbous Moon was still shining.
(When the Moon shows up the next night, the King worries that his daughter will notice. The Court Jester suggests asking the Princess how that happened when she has the Moon on a chain around her neck. The Princess replies “That is easy, silly,” she said. “When I lose a tooth, a new one grows in its place, doesn’t it?”)
Mr. Debussy’s prélude, La fille aux cheveux de lin (otherwise known as The Girl With The Flaxen Hair) was playing on the radio.
Where does this music come from?
A bad mood and crummy attitude that has been percolating inside me this week didn’t have a chance.
Like the Court Jester, I winked at the moon, “for it seemed to the Court Jester that the moon had winked at him.”
fuddled? befuddled? sluggish? comatose? dopey? why am I driving?
If there was a breathalyzer for measuring the level of sleep in my bloodstream and if there was a legal limit to how much sleep could be measured in my bloodstream I would be in trouble.
I come out of weekend of sleeping until 7AM or 8AM somewhat refreshed and recharged.
By Thursday morning, after 4 days of getting up at 5:15AM, my brain is so clogged with sleep it hurts.
All the little tricks, cooler to colder water in the shower, bottomless cup of coffee and not sitting after I get downstairs, I still back the car out of the garage in a mild daze.
Or a mild haze.
Or a hazy daze.
Am I fuddled?
Or am I befuddled?
Both at the same time.
Unable to think clearly, confused or stupefied?
The google says that fuddle is used to describe someone in this state due to drink.
Beethoven, Simone unexpected partnership as are their talents
Of late, I have been listening to a collection of recordings of the Beethoven trios for piano, violin and cello.
I had not had an opportunity to hear these compositions before.
Truth be told, I didn’t know they existed.
That the magic of digital music, iPhones and the internet makes it possible for me to listen to these pieces of music as I drive will take another haiku.
For today I have to gush over the magic that is Beethoven.
In another entry, I quoted the movie Amadeus on Mozart’s music when Antonio Salieri shuffles through pages of sheet music penned by Mozart and says, ” … music, finished as no music is ever finished. Displace one note and there would be diminishment. Displace one phrase and the structure would fall.”
I wouldn’t say that about Beethoven.
He is all over the place.
His notes are loaded onto a flat bed truck and you get the feeling that some of the notes are just hanging on.
Just when you think you know where the music is going, the flat bed truck hits a bump and all the notes fly in the air and come down again and go off in a different direction.
He makes all it work.
Somehow.
Somehow as only Beethoven can, it all works.
In the Ken Burn’s film on Frank Lloyd Wright, whose name could have been in this haiku but it didn’t fit, architect Robert A.M. Stern says about the house, Falling Waters, “I don’t know how he (Wright) does that. If I did, I would do it too!”
Listening to these trios on my commute I can lose myself in the music and its 20 minutes closer to home.
My thoughts aren’t on driving which is both good and bad thing.
What are my thoughts on?
Since you ask, I find myself thinking about Simone Biles.
I am not making this up.
As I listen to the music bounce, jump, leap and rebound beyond human possibility, Simone Biles is bouncing around in my brain.
Maybe it’s just a natural reaction of my brain to use creative visualization to get my arms around the music.
The computer in my mind sorts through the uncounted gigabytes of memory to come up with images to match the music and the computer spits out Simone Biles.
I am not a big fan of Gymnastics.
Like most American’s, I watch every 4 years for about 1o minutes.
A little bit more attention than I give, say, curling.
Nevertheless (dear, sweet word), how can you not be aware of Simone Biles.
In the same way the music of these Beethoven Trios are unexpected explosively wonderful, so are these performances of Biles.
No Haiku For You 