We just discovered Classical Up Close: musicians from the Oregon Symphony decided that there needed to be more free music. So they started playing concerts around the city. This season just finished, but put it in your back pocket for next year. https://www.classicalupclose.org/
I'm sure you know this book. It's my very favorite John Holt. Never Too Late about learning the cello. I might re-read it this summer! https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/573006
Happy Anniversary!
Ok four things! Your new book is well underway! Hip hip!
I have been hunting all over the house for my (very very old) copy of Never Too Late. Can't find it! Funny story though: in my head, he was 60 when he took up cello. Because when I first read the book I was all of 27 years old, and I remembered that he learned to play later in life. Um yeah. AT FORTY. He started at 40. That's where my 27yo brain filed "later in life." Lollllll
Aaah, Lissa! Your garden is warbling away, and mine is doing as well as it can from my collection of not-at-all matching containers under the kitchen window of our apartment in Alpine. French lavender has gone gangbusters, and a new Spanish lavender plant is definitely undergoing a growth spurt. I have tomato starters to plant in our wee back garden -- all gravel -- and also dotted with containers of last season's peppers which just may have overwintered. And a neighbor gave me a year-old hollyhock plant last fall, and I'm a-hoping that it will bloom. My kids called them "hockeypucks" when they were little, and I can't wait to introduce my grandson (nearly two years old with a new brother on the way in late summer) to them!
Cello music is also my favorite, but my parents couldn't afford the rental for me to play when I was in elementary school. And my fingers are bent and bulbous with osteoarthritis although typing on my keyboard (that resembles a typewriter) helps to keep them limber.
BTW, in addition to still teaching at BW, I am now a part-time library tech for the SD County Library system; I'm mostly working in the backcountry libraries in Descanso and Pine Valley where the library is the heart and soul of each village of 1500 people. It's truly a joy to work again amongst books (I worked at bookstores on and off for ten years during high school and college, and then before and after grad school. It's such a joy reading stories to the classes from Descanso Elementary that come by for their weekly visits. They take such joy in books and reading -- truly warms my heart in the best o' ways.
And I have a poet friend, too; she's nearing 90, and I'm helping her to gather her poems and environmental writings. She was widowed in early February, so having a project is helping a bit. By favorite poem of hers is deceptively simple, and your thoughts on your poet friend reminded me of her poetry and that you'd enjoy this one nearly as much as I do:
THE WAY THE SOUL ARCS
Judith Deem Dupree
A bee has come
to harvest my delphiniums --
circling them,
leaving a halo only I can see.
The blooms are potted
on the sun-streaked deck --
in clay flared slightly
by the hands that held it to the wheel.
Its shape reminds me
of the way my hands cup, rising,
opening in praise
when Grace is nearly palpable.
Blossoms spill in tangled glory
down the earthen jar,
too much glory to define as *blue*.
They break with logic,
with its need for category --
the prompting
to explain, to clarify, compare...
Like the way the soul arcs around
our shaped theology,
searching for that unseen radius
where Glory spills --
as indefinable, as prescient,
as honeyed as the aura of delphinium.
Wishing you and yours very well,
Susanne who is off to work on my Merchant of Venice class for BW :D
Happy Anniversary!!! I’m so glad you had a beautiful day. Totally understand about the shock from moving. We moved to FL after living in Alaska for basically our whole lives. Felt like a bomb went off in our lives. We are glad we did it but wow it’s been an adjustment and things are still settling into place. Required a lot of trust and resilience.
Two things, well three!
We just discovered Classical Up Close: musicians from the Oregon Symphony decided that there needed to be more free music. So they started playing concerts around the city. This season just finished, but put it in your back pocket for next year. https://www.classicalupclose.org/
I'm sure you know this book. It's my very favorite John Holt. Never Too Late about learning the cello. I might re-read it this summer! https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/573006
Happy Anniversary!
Ok four things! Your new book is well underway! Hip hip!
I have been hunting all over the house for my (very very old) copy of Never Too Late. Can't find it! Funny story though: in my head, he was 60 when he took up cello. Because when I first read the book I was all of 27 years old, and I remembered that he learned to play later in life. Um yeah. AT FORTY. He started at 40. That's where my 27yo brain filed "later in life." Lollllll
Thanks for the tip about Classical Up Close!
FORTY?! Not but a wee babe!
An absolute whippersnapper!
I want to attach a picture of our columbines to share in the columbine love!
I would love to see them!
Aaah, Lissa! Your garden is warbling away, and mine is doing as well as it can from my collection of not-at-all matching containers under the kitchen window of our apartment in Alpine. French lavender has gone gangbusters, and a new Spanish lavender plant is definitely undergoing a growth spurt. I have tomato starters to plant in our wee back garden -- all gravel -- and also dotted with containers of last season's peppers which just may have overwintered. And a neighbor gave me a year-old hollyhock plant last fall, and I'm a-hoping that it will bloom. My kids called them "hockeypucks" when they were little, and I can't wait to introduce my grandson (nearly two years old with a new brother on the way in late summer) to them!
Cello music is also my favorite, but my parents couldn't afford the rental for me to play when I was in elementary school. And my fingers are bent and bulbous with osteoarthritis although typing on my keyboard (that resembles a typewriter) helps to keep them limber.
BTW, in addition to still teaching at BW, I am now a part-time library tech for the SD County Library system; I'm mostly working in the backcountry libraries in Descanso and Pine Valley where the library is the heart and soul of each village of 1500 people. It's truly a joy to work again amongst books (I worked at bookstores on and off for ten years during high school and college, and then before and after grad school. It's such a joy reading stories to the classes from Descanso Elementary that come by for their weekly visits. They take such joy in books and reading -- truly warms my heart in the best o' ways.
And I have a poet friend, too; she's nearing 90, and I'm helping her to gather her poems and environmental writings. She was widowed in early February, so having a project is helping a bit. By favorite poem of hers is deceptively simple, and your thoughts on your poet friend reminded me of her poetry and that you'd enjoy this one nearly as much as I do:
THE WAY THE SOUL ARCS
Judith Deem Dupree
A bee has come
to harvest my delphiniums --
circling them,
leaving a halo only I can see.
The blooms are potted
on the sun-streaked deck --
in clay flared slightly
by the hands that held it to the wheel.
Its shape reminds me
of the way my hands cup, rising,
opening in praise
when Grace is nearly palpable.
Blossoms spill in tangled glory
down the earthen jar,
too much glory to define as *blue*.
They break with logic,
with its need for category --
the prompting
to explain, to clarify, compare...
Like the way the soul arcs around
our shaped theology,
searching for that unseen radius
where Glory spills --
as indefinable, as prescient,
as honeyed as the aura of delphinium.
Wishing you and yours very well,
Susanne who is off to work on my Merchant of Venice class for BW :D
Oh wow, Susanne, it’s so lovely to get a juicy update from you! And thank you for sharing your friend’s poem. Riches everywhere.
Happy anniversary!!! And many happy returns of the day.
Thank you so much!
Happy Anniversary!!! I’m so glad you had a beautiful day. Totally understand about the shock from moving. We moved to FL after living in Alaska for basically our whole lives. Felt like a bomb went off in our lives. We are glad we did it but wow it’s been an adjustment and things are still settling into place. Required a lot of trust and resilience.