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Showing posts from November, 2021

Day 35: Blogging Middlemarch

Taste: salad, greens, green apple Touch: crispy, chewy Sight: a pale blue fountain, sparkling alight for the holidays Sound: tail wagging against the wooden footstool Smell: earthy, grassy, dog's head Quotable: "...Fred disliked bad weather within doors."; "Mr Garth was one of those rare men who are rigid to themselves and indulgent to others."  Extra: securities of hope A jolt of joy: Sam's home! Grateful for: Sam

Day 34: Blogging Middlemarch

Taste: apples Touch: licking Sight:  believing in glorious things in a blind sort of way; parted lips Sound: rainfall; "It makes me savage to think of it!"; laughing out her words in a birdlike modulation Smell: Black Forest-evergreen fir Quotable:   "I should like to make life beautiful--I mean everybody's life...It spoils my enjoyment of anything when I am made to think that most people are shut out from it."  "The best piety is to enjoy--when you can. You are doing the most then to save the earth's character as an agreeable planet. And enjoyment radiates." Extra: fanatacism of sympathy A jolt of joy: "You are a poem..." Grateful for: kindness

Day 33: Blogging Middlemarch

Taste: peanut butter toast Touch: crisp, rough toast; soft butter Sight: sunny brightness; works of art Laocoön, Madonna di Foligno Sound: a gay little chime after the great bell; sketch Smell: baking, toast Quotable: "who with repentance is not satisfied, is not of heaven nor earth" Extra: disapprobation, Saint Claire of Assisi, the Poor Clares A jolt of joy: pomegranates and ruby juice Grateful for: Sam and Mary Shelley's good tempers; purring, cat on lap

Thanksgiving Tradition: Gratitude Poem 2021

Every year, in November, I write a poem composed of all of the gratitude words I kept track of in my blog throughout the year. This year's poem: Today, I am grateful for Sundays with Sam, We are staying in, we are walking, we are going out to brunch with friends, Outside at Sage and Cinder, overlooking the lighthouse, We are glowing, golden, soaked in autumn light. Tomorrow, I am grateful for power, water, electricity, We are always staying in, shelter above, comfort below, Outside, a new roof, a playful lawn, and shiny gutters, We are painted tricorn black and extra white in autumn light. Many autumn mornings, I am alone reading, Book One: Miss Brooke and Susan Palwick’s stories, In a quiet room of my own, reading and writing poetry, I have listened to music with calm restraint. Many autumn afternoons, I am held by spaniels in my lap,  Weighted by a spring green book with gold and silver, too, In a quiet room of my own, tricorn black and extra white poppets,  I have cleared r...

Day 32: Blogging Middlemarch

Taste: savory pumpkin gravy; sweet cherry chocolate Touch: gentle Sight: the silver moon; the golden moon; hands Sound: plucking; purring Smell: clove Quotable: "...very little achievement is required in order to pity another man's shortcomings."; "It would be a unique delight to wait and watch for the melodious fragments in which her heart and soul came forth so directly and ingenuously." Extra: void; a mysterious light A jolt of joy:  something delicious  Grateful for: the moon

Day 31: Blogging Middlemarch

Taste:  spinach naan, brown bread Touch: soaked; blown Sight: tousled Sound: wind; rain fall  Smell: bile Quotable: "There is something in daubing a little oneself, and having an idea for the process." "—But I should not like to get into their way of looking at the world entirely from the studio point of view." Extra : feeling stupid A jolt of joy: dog snoozles Grateful for: antibiotics; art; education

Day 30: Blogging Middlemarch

Taste: salt Touch: a smooth hand; melting; melting butter; melting ice; numbness Sight: blind; an elegant-minded canary-bird; angry flush Sound: sob; mewling whine; heart-beats; beating violently; chatterers Smell: fir Quotable: "Dorothea was not only his wife: she was a personification of that shallow world which surrounds the ill-appreciated or desponding author." Extra: young ardent creature; a mind weighted with unpublished matter; troublesome; a spy; catastrophe A jolt of joy: a slice of pie Grateful for: words

Day 29: Blogging Middlemarch

Taste: vegan feta, falafel; dill Touch: downpour; wind blown Sight: bright eyes Sound: wind roar Smell: pine Quotable:  “If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel's heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence. As it is, the quickest of us walk about well wadded with stupidity.” — George Eliot, Middlemarch "...but whatever else remained the same, the light had changed, and you cannot find the pearly dawn at noonday."  "...for no man was more incapable of flashy make-believe that Mr Casaubon: he was as genuine a character as any ruminant animal."  Extra: Eternal City; joyously illuminated Grateful for: healing

Day 28: Blogging Middlemarch

Taste:   waiting room coffee black; tart Touch: a car key; crisp, dense Sight: light on silver (garden hose); "the red drapery which was being hung for Christmas" Sound: brown fallen leaves rattling down the street like bones Smell: sweet apple Quotable: "the true seeing is within"; "Ruins and basilicas, palaces and colossi, set in the midst of a sordid present..." Extra: bright nymphs; communal versus agentic Grateful for: movement; weeping

Day 27: Blogging Middlemarch

Taste: pickled vegetables Touch: snuggles; wince Sight: fall leaves Sound: wince, snuggles; a creaking chair; snores and snoozles Smell: sugar Quotable: "Lydgate liked him heartily and wished for his friendship." Extra: keenly alive; celestial intimacies; currying favor; jackanapes etymology Grateful for: autumn light and assistance