“The Red Wheelbarrow” August 3, 2009
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When I was in junior high school I had two favorite teachers. One of them was my English teacher. Looking back, it still difficult to see it as just just your normal schoolgirl crush, and as one of the fortunate side-effects this teacher also further fanned the flames of my love of literature. (Actually, both of them did, though the other one taught biology.)
I remember very well how parents veto’d his idea of our reading things like Kurt Vonnegut’s “Slaughterhouse 5“, Joseph Heller’s “Catch-22” or Tom Wolfe’s* “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test” in class, deeming their content much too advanced and controversial for our impressionable 9th grade intellects. Although we ended up reading John Knowles‘ “A Separate Peace” in class, he established an after-school reading club for those of us who (with parental permission) felt ready and willing to tackle something a bit headier.
Angel: if there were a place we know nothing of… July 17, 2009
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Rainer Marie Rilke (by: Paula Modersohn-Becker)
Learning a new language is a funny thing. In our native language we tend to swallow words whole; giving little or no thought to their etymological source. But when you learn a foreign language – syllable by syllable – you savour each vowel, each consonant, as though it were the seed of a fruit from some exotic tree.
Georgia Douglas Johnson (1886-1966) July 17, 2009
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I WANT TO DIE WHILE YOU LOVE ME
I want to die while you love me,
While yet you hold me fair,
While laughter lies upon my lips
And lights are in my hair.
I want to die while you love me,
And bear to that still bed,
Your kisses turbulent, unspent,
To warm me when I’m dead.
I want to die while you love me,
Oh, who would care to live
Till love has nothing more to ask
And nothing more to give!
I want to die while you love me
And never, never see
The glory of this perfect day
Grow dim and cease to be.
Poem – Derek Walcott May 21, 2009
Posted by caratime2 in Connecting with the Past, God Bless the Child, On the Homefront, Potpourri.4 comments
I haven’t thought about the fact that I don’t copy any of my own poetry here. Except one. A long time ago. I had planned to do just that and comment on how I remember my frame of mind when I wrote it and/or what the poem means to me today.
But just now I looked over at the window sill behind me and a poem I framed several years ago caught my eye. I framed it because it resonated with me then. It resonated with my soul’s best intentions. It used to hang on the wall in my apartment in Düsseldorf; now it sits in its frame on my window sill along with a statuette of a dancer, a small plant, a candle and some cards.
This poem is taken from Derek Walcott’s “Collected Poems 1948 – 1984″
The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other’s welcome.and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved youall your life, who you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the lover letters from the bookshelf,the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.
4 November 2008 November 5, 2008
Posted by caratime2 in Connecting with the Past, On the Homefront, Potpourri.1 comment so far
Rosa sat, so Martin could walk;
Martin walked, so Barack could run;
Barack ran, so we all can FLY!
Pix My Sister Sent June 9, 2008
Posted by caratime2 in Connecting with the Past, Potpourri, Shaking the Family Tree.2 comments
I had the good fortune of growing up in an intact black middle class neighborhood till I was nine years old. We played safely outside on our street. Though we lived in a city, there was plenty of green in our neighborhood, and many a lazy summer afternoon was spent riding our bikes, picking (and eating!) berries, or playing some sort of outdoor game. Neighborhood mothers (and fathers!) had an eye out for you – and Lord help you, if someone else had call to discipline you. You got it both coming (from them) and going (from your parents).
We also lived two doors down from my aunt and uncle (Dad’s 2nd youngest brother) and two cousins.
My sister has been photo-raiding with my dearest Aunt Henrietta. The following are pix Aunt Henriette (abovementioned aunt; formerly two doors down) sent my sister after a weekend they spent going through some of her Polaroid memories (click to enlarge).
Yes, those were really certainly The Good Old Days!
Pix 1: Our Grandpop. The patriarch of our family. Definitely ‘Old School’ when it came to discipline and other family values!
Pix 2: Me with my two cousins on our bikes
Pix 3: Four cousins
Pix 4: My sister and my younger cousin
Invasion of the Ocular Aliens April 24, 2008
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My sister told me about this picture. She was visiting one of my Aunt Henrietta recently, and they discovered this while burrowing through a box of old photos.
Now, as far as I am concerned, I have an excuse. I was a child – and genetics were more responsible for my forehead than I was.
But: Aunties! Where did you get those glasses?!?!?!??!
(Seriously: I wish I had a pair of those around today. I would certainly find a way to rock ‘em. Both pairs!!!!)
Love you, Aunt Joyce and Aunt Lois.
R.I.P. Aunt Gerry! Love you, too!
24 Carat Time April 17, 2008
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An entry explaining the name for this blog should have been one of the first I wrote. Now that I’ve actually found the document I wanted to copy to explain it more fully, I spent some time writing an entry that seemed to get to the marrow of the issue. One second of distraction and the wrong click, however, sent the entire entry off into internet nirvana.
Can you tell how p.o.’d I am?
A Black American by Smokey Robinson April 7, 2008
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I have been a HUGE fan of Smokey Robinson since I was old enough to understand the difference between The Miracles and the Temptations. Ok, the Temptations were cool and I especially loved Eddie Kendricks, but in my eyes no one could top Smokey Robinson. I loved his voice, and loved the fact that he not only sang the songs, but – more often than not – he also WROTE the songs. And not only his own songs, but also songs for groups like the Temptations (“My Girl” anyone?) or Mary Wells and The Marvelettes.
I was such a Smokey fan that – at the tender age of 12 – I stood on a street corner in Camden, NJ, and debated the relative merits of the Miracles versus The Temptations as my cousin Kim can probably attest.
Happy Easter! March 20, 2008
Posted by caratime2 in Connecting with the Past, On the Homefront.2 comments
Ok, the puppies are freaking out around my ankles, so this post might have to be a proverbial ‘hit and run’. But Easter is fast approaching, and I couldn’t help thinking about Easters Past, as they say.
