This
is Amorella. Richard is doing some editing on his blog. Digression is the
point. He is eradicating the names of professionals, particularly the medical;
and also, deleting the specifics of the drugs that he uses along the way through
old age. The mention of specific drugs in today's ongoing online culture appears
to be far from prudent. He is beginning with the March blogs and moving back to
the first of the year. - Amorella
1041 hours. The above has been recently
brought to my attention. So, I plan to be more diligent. I tend to lean toward
details because of my existentialist outlook on all life including my own. This
is not related to this being April the first.
Carol, Linda are
having their hair done. Linda's friend from college days, Patty, drove down from
Tiffin last night to spend time with Linda and will be heading back home later
today. Good, lively and friendly discussions took up last evening and this
morning. They are going to lunch after hair time. -- You have gone through the
month of March making some edits and or deletions. I suggest you complete this
project before we move on. - Amorella
1247 hours. Honesty demands clarity and
openness. Openness to detail demands self-honesty. I will leave personal
medical matters out of the published blog but keep them within the original on
the MacBook. Ideas come from what runs through the heartansoulanmind when it
does. I do not take the time to decipher whether it should be published or not.
I will take the time before publishing however. Words are ever triggers from
which ideas and concepts are conceived. It is better not to leave details out
in this context.
Post.
- Amorella
Later, mid-afternoon.
While the girls were at lunch you watched the last episode in the series,
"Grimm" and are satisfied with the outcome. You also, cleaned up the
blog postings on medical events, etc. back through 1 January 17. I made seven
corrections and feel the better for it. Carol has read some of my posts and has
the ability to read them all but she chooses not to. - Amorella
1614 hours. How is it that friends cross
paths from time to time? I related it to destiny in the sense that friendly kindred
souls continually (unconsciously) search for another. Towards the conclusion of
yesterday's post, after my comment below you state (underlined for clarity):
**
**
[Yesterday] 1608
hours. Perhaps it is the design of our souls that we stay connected. Perhaps it
is in our love with fellow human beings; an instinct of what humanity is.
Friendship first but mysteriously deeper than heart and mind, that is my
present thought. This leave the soul alone to provide sanctification. People
who say such immaterial, mystical-like matters cannot be sanctified do not
understand the greater heart of destiny. (rho)
Your words, understandable or not. What you
mean to say is, "I gather shells from the River's edge. I cannot let the
words go for they are soul's footprint pressing under Fate's delicate
skin." Post. - Amorella
1626 hours. I cannot consciously know you are
right in this thinking Amorella, but I agree that between the lines our souls'
footprints walk.
**
**
First,
after comment that, "between the lines our souls' footprints walk",
you immediately wondered if the soul's footprint presses out from inside
destiny or presses in from outside destiny even though you are not clear on
what either of these references mean in relationship to destiny. - Amorella
1628 hours. I am trying to think through an
analogy here.
Later,
my man. Post. - Amorella
Post.
Amorella
Evening.
Carol and Linda just went up to bed to read, Patty left mid-afternoon and was
home before dinner. You cleaned out the litter box, your daily evening ritual
and are ready to work, to do something
useful to yourself, now that your health has mostly returned. You have one more
day of pills and no more. No more pain pills, doctors are not allowed to
prescribe them for back pain anymore. - Amorella
2137 hours. At least I had a few left over
from a couple of years ago. I need a line or two from J. Alfred Prufrock here.
**
**
The Love-Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
By T.S. Eliot
Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question. . .
10
Oh, do not ask, "What is it?"
Let us go and make our visit.
In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.
The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
20
And seeing that it was a soft October night
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.
And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
30
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions
And for a hundred visions and revisions
Before the taking of a toast and tea.
In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.
And indeed there will be time
To wonder, "Do I dare?" and, "Do I dare?"
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair—
40
[They will say: "How his hair is growing thin!"]
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin—
[They will say: "But how his arms and legs are thin!"]
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
For I have known them all already, known them all;
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
50
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?
And I have known the eyes already, known them all—
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
60
And how should I presume?
And I have known the arms already, known them all—
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!]
Is it perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
And should I then presume?
And how should I begin?
. . .
. .
Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
70
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? . . .
I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.
. . .
. .
And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep . . . tired . . . or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
80
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a
platter,
I am no prophet–and here's no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.
And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
90
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: "I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all"
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say, "That is not what I meant at all.
That is not it, at all."
And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
100
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along
the floor—
And this, and so much more?—
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
"That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all."
110
. . .
. .
No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.
I grow old . . . I grow old . . ..
120
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.
Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think they will sing to me.
I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
130
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.
[1915]
|
Selected from people.
virginia.edu
**
**
2147 hours. The lines I most immediately
identify with:
"At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.
I grow old . . . I grow old . . ..
120
I shall
wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled."
Shoot, I identified with these lines the first time
I read them in college. I don't remember going over this poem in high school
but perhaps we did. Anyway, it fits with the day; and though I don't wear the
bottoms of my trousers rolled I do have them cut to size. As a teen the length
of my inseam was 30 inches, since the 80's it was 29 inches, and today, last
week when measured, the inseam is 28 inches. I would have rolled them but cut
them off instead.
Eliot's
poem has a bit of Jon Swift swagger in tone and hits the somewhat mellow atmosphere I
sit within, especially after we just watched the last three episodes of
"Designated Survivor" tonight.
(2201)
No comments:
Post a Comment