Month: April 2012
Purple
Credit: Wikipedia Part Seven of my series on Colour. Our lives are made in these small hours These little wonders, these twists and turns of fate Time falls away but these small hours These small hours still remain — Little Wonders, Rob Thomas, musician There is a keyboard riff of a tune by one… Read More ›

Red
Part six in the Colour series. Firecracker, fire engine Fire-flicker red— And when you’re angry Red runs through your head. — From Mary O’Neill’s What is Red? With me, it only takes a straw, usually the last one, that breaks the camel’s back (mine) and then I see red and go ballistic. It’s never the big… Read More ›

Green
Part Five of my series on Colour. What is Green? Green is grass And the leaves of the trees Green is the smell Of a country breeze. Green is lettuce And sometimes the sea. When green is a feeling You pronounce it N.V.

Blue
Part four in a series on colour. The sea is calm tonight. The tide is full, the moon lies fair Upon the straits; on the French coast the light Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand, Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay. Come to the window, sweet is the night air!… Read More ›

Gold
Nature’s first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf’s a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf, So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day Nothing gold can stay. Robert Frost, Nothing Gold Can Stay This beautiful poem, when heard with Stevie Wonder’s… Read More ›

White
The second in a 12-part series on colour. Each post will feature a colour poem. White is black’s perfect counterpart, is everything black pretends not to be. It is clean and serene, calming too, and optimistic. Unlike sand or beige, white is not a neutral, for this colour of all colours always makes a statement…. Read More ›

Black
Of all the colours on the earth, the one I love and turn to the most is black. 1. You can put on black and then forget about it 2. Black makes you look thinner and better dressed without really trying 3. Black is calming 5. When getting a present, choose black 6. It hides… Read More ›

Fatigue
In everyone’s life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit. — Albert Schweitzer, philosopher, physician, musician, Nobel laureate (1875-1965) The second day of the week can very often… Read More ›

A Clear Silence, Or, Turning Down The Volume on Facebook
I have decided to prune and downsize the presence of Facebook. These few days, I have been diminishing it by: 1. Unsubscribing to updates of “friends” whom I don’t have conversation with, with whom I have not said hello to in the last year or so. To clarify, I *do* see these people often, it’s… Read More ›

Some Notes Post-Lent
Forty days is a long time to subject oneself to abstinence of anything. One man’s giving up Facebook is another woman’s abstinence from shopping, and in my case, it was both and then some. Revelations about myself (I’m constantly in denial), about where I’m going and where I’m being led — these take more than… Read More ›

Pink Neon
If moods were colour, this is my mood today. This day, bookended by Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday, is one saturated by a Love which came down two milleniums ago, heated by a love eternal, cooled to the coldest cruelty of humanity. A love enlivening, life-ending, in the end, life-giving. In Him was life, and… Read More ›

Symmetry, or The Elegance of the See-Saw
There’s something about a see-saw that makes a child race towards an empty one. It’s inert, tilted at rest, promising a fun ride of ups and downs. But you can’t be alone to ride one. And if you’re small, it’s not much fun sharing a see-saw with a big person. Like you, I’ve always liked see-saws…. Read More ›

Post-Race Analysis
The morning of Race Day was dry, on hindsight miraculously bookended by mornings so stormy you’d have second thoughts driving out unless you had to. But I was oblivious. As I left the apartment, the sky black as night and a too-early breakfast of snack bar and cocoa sitting heavily inside, I suddenly remembered my… Read More ›