Five Thoughts, a List of Books Read and To Be Read and a Poem
hello again hello
On March 8th Sophie turned 31, the age I was when I gave birth to her. Yeah, wow, well. How lucky we are to have her. Who would I be without her?
I filled out the yearly survey by our Regional Center that asks questions about the quality of life of our family member with disabilities. I do this dutifully because I’ve always loved a survey, and this year, like every year, I stopped at the question Does your family member have friends other than caregivers and family? my please fill in the dots with a black pen pen poised over the circle for NO. I filled in that circle no going outside the lines.
I bought three bunches of tulips from Trader Joe’s the other day because I couldn’t decide on whether to get the white with pale purple stripes, the hot pink pointy-edged frilly ones or the palest pink ones. Many purchases these days are why nots?, sort of resignations, bets against something imminent, disaster and and perhaps that’s irresponsible or not perhaps but actually is irresponsible but absurdity wins every single time and let’s face the fact that tulips are quite wonderfully absurd.
Even though each day has its share of beauty, it’s also some new version of hellscape — the horror of dead children scattered all over the Middle East, killed by Israeli and American bombs, the cheers of the bloodthirsty, the triumphant warmongers, the religious justifications, the ever-elusive redacted Epstein files of pedophiles and abusers, the sickening number of powerful men their stupid, adolescent emails with all the typos and cliches and vile comments and trading of dumb jokes repulsive enough but, really, are we surprised that the men remain just out there, some “punished” but most not, the exhausting news of Chavez and his rapes and assaults and
this
is
not
a
thought
this
is
a
vine
of
anger
growing
out of
twisting up
from dirt
bent
on
blossom
instead
Other thoughts: all the books yet to be read! All the poetry yet to be read!
What I am reading now:
The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny — fantastic, a real Novel that I’ve just finished
The Light Years by Elizabeth Jane Howard, the first book of the Cazalet Chronicles,
Stoner by John Williams
and what I’m reading next:
Whale Fall: A Novel by Elizabeth O’Connor
The Witch: A Novel by Marie NDiaye
Hadji Murat by Leo Tolstoy
Here’s a poem, one of my favorites by the great Wallace Stevens, and I truly believe that re-reading a forgotten poem is a boundless pleasure and privilege.
The House Was Quiet and the World was Calm
The house was quiet and the world was calm.
The reader became the book; and summer night
Was like the conscious being of the book.
The house was quiet and the world was calm.
The words were spoken as if there was no book,
Except that the reader leaned above the page,
Wanted to lean, wanted much most to be
The scholar to whom his book is true, to whom
The summer night is like a perfection of thought.
The house was quiet because it had to be.
The quiet was part of the meaning, part of the mind:
The access of perfection to the page.
And the world was calm. The truth in a calm world,
In which there is no other meaning, itself
Is calm, itself is summer and night, itself
Is the reader leaning late and reading there.
Oh how I wish for a calm world, for all of us, for every mother and sister and brother and father and friend of such amazing special people like your Sophie.
I was introduced to Sophie by her mother when Sophie was a teenager. They are my friends. In the quiet circle of thought where we keep friends closest.