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A Poem for Michael and Christopher, Act Two, Door into the Dark, Postscript, Seamus Heaney, The Underground
P.S. Thank you, Seamus Heaney.
Whether it be a matter of personal relations within a marriage or political initiatives within a peace process, there is no sure-fire do-it-yourself kit. There is risk and truth to yourselves and the world before you. And so, my fellow graduates, make the world before you a better one by going into it with all boldness. You are up to it and you are fit for it; you deserve it and if you make your own best contribution, the world before you will become a bit more deserving of you. ~ From his remarks to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill graduates, May 12, 1996 Dear Seamus, Seven years since…
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and What I Wore, Art, Awesome Women, Carly Simon, Cat Stevens, Culture of breast cancer, Facebook, Memoir, Memoir, Mother Daughter Relationship, Nora Ephron, Soundtracks of our Lives, Theater, Writers
Out of control – missing Nora Ephron in the time of corona.
The coronavirus pandemic has meant months now of living at home with a beautiful view and a computer at my disposal. It is, as they say, what it is. I’m not complaining. I’m more confused than anything else by a lack of motivation to do anything that’s good for me. Unlike overwhelmed and exhausted front-line workers in places where the virus is rampant, facing each day a terror I cannot begin to imagine, I know I’m lucky. Really lucky. I have my health and a job and therefore the privilege to ponder more mundane and meaningless things like why I’m still in my pajamas at four in the afternoon unless…
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Death of parent, Dispatch from the Diaspora, Father's Day, Fatherless daughters, learning to drive, Milestones, riding a bicycle
just like riding a bike . . . taking the strain on father’s day
“The first grip I ever got on thingsWas when I learnt the art of pedalling(By hand) a bike turned upside down, and droveIts back wheel preternaturally fast.” ~ from Wheels within Wheels by SEAMUS HEANEY My first bike arrived on Christmas morning, 1967. It had training wheels, or “stabilizers” as we called them in Northern Ireland. Stabilizers – my first big word. Even now, I like saying it and conjuring all it connotes – stability, steadfastness, balance – a firm hold. Perhaps had Santa Claus read MIT engineering professor David Gordon Wilson’s Bicycling Science, he may not have been so adamant about finding a bike with stabilizers. The professor dismisses training wheels entirely, pointing…
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Alex Haley, Charlottesville, James Baldwin, Nazis, People Get Ready, Race in America, Racism, Trump, White Supremacy
People get ready …
We may be able, handful that we are, to end the racial nightmare, and achieve our country, and change the history of the world – James Baldwin This is for George Floyd. I came to Arizona in the late 1980s. Something of a cliché, part of the “brain drain,” I was a well-educated immigrant who had over-stayed her welcome in America and subsequently found a job in a bar. With my Northern Ireland accent and the right amount of naiveté about Arizona, I was the main source of amusement for the regulars who stopped by for a beer after their shift at a nearby manufacturing plant. Young and fearless, I…
