Glimpse of Spring

DogwoodTwig

A few weeks ago a fierce thunderstorm blasted our area. The following morning the neighborhood was strewn with dozens of enormous broken branches—all in bud. A little sadly, we brought home a few sprays and put them in water, the vases of bare twigs giving our table a poignant wintery appearance.

The buds, unaware of their fallen state, are now confidently unfolding and bringing forth their hidden treasures, but in miniature. This one is from a pink dogwood tree. The four bracts that usually unfold to a 2″ or 3″ diameter are here only about 5/8” across. But still beautiful.

Today is the birthday of Shakespeare and Company founder Sylvia Beach. For a sketch and a mini-bio, please see Paris Memory.

CakeBerries2Kara


To Err is Divine

ComedyErrors

If you live in the Washington, DC area and you would like to spend two hours in culturally elevated laughter, run run run to the Folger Shakespeare Library and purchase a ticket to A Comedy of Errors.

You may already be acquainted with the plot—lost and separated twins, eccentric servants, misguided lovers, amusing mix-ups, and a happy ending all around (which familiar elements—except for the last—Shakespeare adopted from ancient Roman comedy). But it’s well worth another viewing in this current manifestation, framed somewhat unusually in a manner I will not divulge, and influenced by Italian Commedia dell’Arte with its masks, wild costumes, and physical gags, here not excessively annoying. The Folger Theatre itself is worth the visit, a warm, wood-paneled and intimate space that feels more residential than institutional.

My daughter and I saw a mid-week matinee for school groups, most of them high school students greatly appreciative of the bawdy jokes that went over the heads of our younger homeschoolers.

For another illustration in celebration of this day, please see Saved by the Bell.

American Scrapbook

AmerScrapbk

Unbelievably, it has been FIFTY YEARS since the inauguration of John F. Kennedy, and in honor of this anniversary the Kennedy Center here in Washington, DC has created a blockbuster lineup of events. Both President and Jacqueline Kennedy were enthusiastic supporters of the arts, so the celebration includes a bounteous variety of musical, theatrical, and dance performances, some ticketed and some free of charge. It is, after all, the Kennedys who helped bring to fruition a long-languishing plan for a National Cultural Center, which was renamed the Kennedy Center after Kennedy’s assassination in 1963.

Whatever you may think of its architectual style, you must acknowledge that it’s been a fantastic addition to the Washington cultural scene all these years, providing a setting for a huge range of artistic performances (including Millennium Stage, with 365 free performances a year!) and inspiring the launch of many additional venues. And it has a lovely view from the terrace. Anyway, we’re all used to it now, as a familiar icon for which we feel affection, like some eccentric great-aunt who is known for her peculiar hats.

As part of a homeschoolers’ outing, my daughter and I attended American Scrapbook, A Celebration of Verse, a theatrical interpretation of some of the Kennedys’ favorite poetry. The family had a lovely tradition which (WARNING) will assuredly make you long to go back and raise your semi-literate, poetry-impaired children all over again: for the parents’ birthdays, the children Caroline and John Jr. each chose poems and then created drawings to accompany them, which were then pasted into a scrapbook.

This scrapbook collection inspired the play, which was essentially a seamlessly interwoven, thematically arranged series of “recitations”—although I hesitate to use that dry schoolhouse term, because the interpretations were so engaging and heartfelt. (I tried to sketch, but it was pretty dark and the actors were awfully “active,” thus the rough, scribbled result.)

The set was simple, modest, effective: tall wooden shutters that opened and closed in a variety of configurations to reveal changing images that supported, rather than distracted from, the spoken word.

Lively, imaginative, yet true to the spirit of the poems, the program transfixed the audience of elementary and middle-school children for an hour, which, when you’re talking about poetry, is truly a laudable achievement.

CakeEiffelWalter


Sense Of Something Coming

DReadingWired

Here is a sketch, from a few years ago, of my son at leisure. He is now leading a busy life teaching, writing, and painting, and is gifted for all three, yet restlessly wondering what lies around the next corner. For his birthday today I post this poem. Happy Birthday, dear Devin, and take heart.

I am like a flag in the center of open space.
I sense ahead the wind which is coming, and must live
it through.
while the things of the world still do not move:
the doors still close softly, and the chimneys are full
of silence,
the windows do not rattle yet, and the dust still lies down.

I already know the storm, and I am troubled as the sea.
I leap out, and fall back,
and throw myself out, and am absolutely alone
in the great storm.

—Rainer Maria Rilke

CakeTRexDevin


Cats

Minou

This rather fierce-looking cat is Minou, the spoiled darling of the concierge, painted in our long-ago Paris days. Minou is undoubtedly long gone, but she pretty much ruled the roost while she was around. I post her portrait here, along with this poem, in honor of Eleanor Farjeon (1881-1965), whose birthday it is today. For a brief bio of the delightful Farjeon, another of her poems, and a painting, please see Morning Has Broken.

Cats sleep
Anywhere,
Any table,
Any chair,
Top of piano,
Window-ledge,
In the middle,
On the edge,
Open drawer,
Empty shoe,
Anybody’s
Lap will do,
Fitted in a
Cardboard box,
In the cupboard
With your frocks –
Anywhere!
They don’t care!
Cats sleep
Anywhere.

—Eleanor Farjeon

CakeDaisiesSara

Call the Ewes to the Hills

Eire24DingleBayBurns

Today is the birthday of poet Robert Burns (1759-1796), and if you are a lover of his poetry perhaps you may be inspired to host a Burns Supper tonight. You will have to make your own haggis from scratch, however (good luck with that), because apparently the importation of haggis to the United States remains forbidden, as are all food products made with lungs. (Mystifyingly, Spam, although of questionable provenance, can be purchased without a special license and is consumed in this country at the rate of 3.8 cans per second.) Along with sampling haggis, you may toast the poet and each other with whiskey, and when sufficiently inspired recite some of your favorite Burns poems.

In honor of Burns’ birthday I post a song (with a helpful glossary at the end) which I have sung many a time to my children as they drifted off to sleep. (You can listen to a far lovelier rendition by singer Anne Lewis here.) The sketch is from my Ireland sketchbook. For another Burns sketch, please see Move Yer Hurdies.

Ca’ the yowes to the knowes,
Ca’ them where the heather grows,
Ca’ them where the burnie rows,
My bonnie dearie.
Hark! the mavis’ evening sang
Sounding Clouden’s woods amang,
Then a-faulding let us gang,
My bonnie dearie.
We’ll gae down by Clouden side,
Through the hazels spreading wide,
O’er the waves that sweetly glide
To the moon sae clearly.
Yonder Clouden’s silent towers,
Where at moonshine midnight hours
O’er the dewy bending flowers
Fairies dance sae cheery.
Ghaist nor bogle shalt thou fear;
Thou’rt to Love and Heaven sae dear,
Nocht of ill may come thee near,
My bonnie dearie.
Fair and lovely as thou art,
Thou hast stown my very heart;
I can die–but canna part,
My bonnie dearie.
While waters wimple to the sea;
While day blinks in the lift sae hie;
Till clay-cauld death shall blin’ my e’e,
Ye shall be my dearie.

—Robert Burns

A-faulding: Sheep-gathering
Burnie: Small brook
Gang: Go
Knowes: Hills
Mavis: Thrush
Rows: Rolls
Yowes: Ewes
 

Girl On Fire!

Emily&CookieTree

Today is the birthday of now-grown-up Emily, and I could not resist putting up this less than stellar sketch of her, simply because of the backstory. It was a quickie made after a big holiday party my husband and I threw years ago when Emily was almost four.

For this event, I had made a Cookie Tree of stacked largest to smallest star-shaped cookies, the whole decorated with green frosting, M&Ms, and yogurt-covered raisins. (BTW, this is a really fun holiday project if you are not already doing seven thousand other things.) Emily found the Cookie Tree irresistible and, unbeknownst to anyone, was diligently removing and consuming the edible ornaments when her festive holiday deely-bobbers (remember deely-bobbers, anyone?) CAUGHT FIRE from a nearby candle.

Neither Emily nor anyone near her noticed, but my husband (ever the alert host even when in conversation on the opposite side of the room) saw what was happening and struggled through the noisy, chatty throng, grabbed Emily’s flaming headgear, and doused it in somebody’s apple cider. Whew! But poor Emily had to go home bereft of antennae. Happy Birthday, Emily! I hope the only flames today are on your candles.

CakeSprinklesEmily

Winter-Worship

BMAgarden

Mother of Darkness, Our Lady,
Suffer our supplications,
our hurts come unto you.
Hear us from absence your dwelling place,
Whose ear we plead for.
End us our outstay
Where darkness is light, what can the dark be,
whose eye is single,
Whose body is filled with splendor
In winter,
inside the snowflake, inside the crystal of ice
Hung like Jerusalem from the tree.
January, rain-wind and sleet-wind,
Snow pimpled and pock-marked,
half slush-hearted, half brocade
Under your noon-dimmed day watch,
Whose alcove we harbor in,
whose waters are beaded and cold.
A journey’s a fragment of Hell,
one inch or a thousand miles.
Darken our disbelief, dog our steps.
Inset our eyesight,
Radiance, loom and sting,
whose ashes rise from the flames.

—Charles Wright

Yahrzeit2Alanna


Paris Memory

Helga

Remember the sketch of Don (December 27th)? Here is the other half: Helga, lovely, artistic, playful, generous, kind, and madly in love with Don. When I bring a bouquet from the garden into the house, I think of Helga, who taught me its transformative power. Today is her birthday, but cancer sent her across the rainbow bridge eleven years ago when she was far too young to go. Happy Birthday, Helga. I hope you are surrounded by flowers, with a dog in your lap.

CakeRedRosesHelga