Drew & Brownie

Brownie, Drew's new puppy, arrived safely at Boston's Logan Airport on December 22nd with Dorothy as his expert chaperone.

It was absolutely the highlight of Drew's 9-year-old life.

Liar

Every time Bush speaks other things are happening between the lines. So when I found this bit of animated commentary it felt almost as good as watching Comedy Central's Daily Show...where the real news is.

Click the picture to see the video...


I think this will be a format you'll see more and more often on the web and on blogs - running comments alongside streaming video.

Wonderland

Having a little wonderland with our coffee today.

Blackbirds

This poem has always captured me. Perhaps it's because I lived in Washington DC for a time and I know the way the city feels at night - the long boulevards and the lights on the monuments. And in the day when it's full of people, but still feels strangely empty. It's a city full of records where I remember often feeling aware of my heart beating - like the place wasn't real. It's inhabited by ideas - the good, and the bad.

And once when I lived there, Bob called to say he'd suddenly been fired from the first job he ever had in Boston. But he was really happy about it because it meant he could fly down to see me. And he did just that.






The Myth of Blackbirds
by Joy Harjo

The hours we counted precious were blackbirds in the density of Washington.
Taxis toured the labyrinth with passengers of mist as the myth of ancient
love took the shape of two figures carrying the dawn tenderly on their
shoulders to the shores of the Potomac.

We fled the drama of lit marble in the capitol for a refuge held up by sweet,
everlasting earth. The man from Ghana who wheeled our bags was lonesome
for his homeland, but commerce made it necessary to carry someone else’s
burdens. The stars told me how to find us in this disorder of systems.

Washington did not ever sleep that night in the sequence of eternal nights.
There were whirring calculators, computers stealing names, while spirits
of the disappeared drank coffee in an all-night café in this city of disturbed
relativity.

Justice is a story by heart in the beloved country where imagination weeps.
The sacred mountains only appear to be asleep. When we finally found the
room in the hall of mirrors and shut the door I could no longer bear the
beauty of scarlet licked with yellow on the wings of blackbirds.

This is the world in which we undressed together. Within it white deer
intersect with the wisdom of the hunter of grace. Horses wheel toward the
morning star. Memory was always more than paper and cannot be broken by
violent history or stolen by thieves of childhood. We cannot be separated in
the loop of mystery between blackbirds and the memory of blackbirds.

And in the predawn when we had slept for centuries in a drenching sweet
rain you touched me and the springs of clear water beneath my skin were
new knowledge. And I loved you in this city of death.

Through the darkness in the sheer rise of clipped green grass and asphalt our
ancestors appear together at the shoreline of the Potomac in their
moccasins and pressed suits of discreet armor. They go to the water from
the cars of smoky trains, or dismount from horses dusty with fatigue.

See the children who became our grandparents, the old women whose bones
fertilized the corn. They form us in our sleep of exhaustion as we make our
way through this world of skewed justice, of songs without singers.

I embrace these spirits of relatives who always return to the place of
power, whatever the outcome in the spiral of beauty. And I particularly
admire the tender construction of your spine which in the gentle dawning is
a ladder between the deep in which stars are perfectly stars, and the
heavens where we converse with eagles.

I guide your hip home to me with my hand which is more than a hand, rather
a river of effervescent water. And I am thankful to the brutal city for the
space which outlines your limber beauty. To the man from Ghana who loves
the poetry of stars. To the ancestors who do not forget us in the
concrete and paper illusion. To the blackbirds who are more than blackbirds.
And to you, sweetheart, as we make our incredible journey.

Cards?

It snowed lightly all day today, coating the bare arms of the trees. We put the lights up on the bushes and the wreaths on the doors. It's starting to feel a lot like Christmas.

What's the story with Christmas cards? I'm feeling decidedly anti-card now that I've got this blog. Between my blog and email and the occasional phone call, I'm up to date with just about everyone I'd send cards to. Perhaps I'll design a "card" on the blog instead of sending more paper into the world.

Pura Vide

Five women went to Costa Rica. Hammocks were slept in. Drinks were poured. Mucho laughs were had. Food was delicious. Monkeys frolicked. Spanish was attempted. There was a croning. Adventures were many. Certain peril was avoided. New friends were made.

Costa Rica's motto is Pura Vide - Pure Life. It is PARADISE. Unbelieveable. Monkeys waking us every morning at sunrise by throwing around coconuts. Rainforest teeming with life. Tropical fish on coastal reefs. Fresh caught fish to eat each night.


We stayed at Aguila de Osa. The people were fun, knowledgeable and incredibly kind. We were simultaneously in the wilderness and totally spoiled spa-style. The food was delicious and the rooms gorgeous. It was heaven.

Here are all the pictures.