Ballad in brown

This is a really good set of markers,
Like the ones at the hobby store.
And it has all the same colors
as the ones I saw before.

And it's only half a crown,
which makes it just right for me;
except, there's no brown!
No brown?  How could that be?

I miss brown!  I need brown!
It's the color of his eyes.
It's the color of his hair blown
As it waves against the skies.

It's the color of the tree trunk borne,
once carried through the streets;
It's the color of the crown of thorns
he wore the day he rescued me!

It's the color of the famous muddy band
wherein the mighty river Jordan
feet stepped to cross into the land
when YHWH went before them.

And what about the day before us,
when G-d made Adam, then Eve?
He formed them from the dust
of the earth, before there was any green.

I never thought about it
as my favorite color of the box;
but when you don't have it,
you realize just how much you've lost!
I can't live without brown.
So I put the markers down.
Forget about the cost!

The Beauty of Imperfection in Shakespeare

     I took a wild chance this semester and enrolled in a Shakespeare class, the only one I hadn't taken in our English Department so far; but I wanted to take Shakespeare more than the odds against it.  The odds were that the professor would be the same one I had for Chaucer.  I loved Chaucer!  I also greatly admired the professor and felt he had incredible knowledge and skill.  However, there was a weird aspect to the class.  Every time I turned in a research paper, it was like facing a lobotomy.  My papers were almost failed.  I thought it must be something I could learn from, but it was not always productive criticism.  In other classes I always get an A or occasionally a B at the least on my research papers.  There seemed to be more going on than I can explain.

     This semester, I decided to go ahead and take Shakespeare's Major Plays hoping things might go better.  The professor taught very well and I enjoyed the class very much.  Twenty Shakespeare plays in a semester is like getting to eat a whole box of chocolates in one sitting!  I made good grades all through the semester as previously in Chaucer.  The professor even read one of my papers to the class as an example of what he wanted in a paper.  I wrote on the female imagery in Henry IV.  There are only three women to speak of in the play, as well as some female imagery, so it caught my attention and he said it was different than anything he had read on the subject before.  The two research papers, however were another matter.

     I was reading Hamlet at the same time as I was having to consider possible treatments of cancer therapy, (different hormone therapy, possible radiation therapy, etc.) all of which are types of poisons.  So when I read Hamlet, the poison theme jumped out at me.  I always tend to get into the skin of the characters, so I decided to write the first research paper on the poisons in Hamlet.  My thesis was that there are some obvious references to poison in Hamlet, but that the theme of poison permeates the play in many subtle ways.  I covered each of the types of poison that were present in the play chronologically.  I enjoyed researching for and writing the paper, which was only about 23 pages.

     When I got it back, "SEE ME" was written across the top of the paper.  The paper was thrashed with ink lines, crossed out sections, and remarks, most of which were illegible.  We met and discussed the paper.  He said I would need to write a completely different research paper, which he also required most of the rest of the class to do (which also happened in Chaucer).  Some could revise their paper, but most had to totally do something new.  After a week or more, I was told I wouldn't have to re-write it, but to recognize the problems we discussed.  For example, he suggested that some information should have been considered footnotes (agreed), some information he didn't see as relevant to the subject (okay, but debatable), and there was a difference in opinion about the focus of the paper (opinion).  Some of the criticism was helpful, some seemed irrational, such as, "what does a Mountebank have to do with poison in Hamlet?"  (See Hamlet: IV.7)

     By this time, the second research paper was coming due, as well as the second research paper in my second class, The Bible as Literature, as well as preparing for two finals.  I was then reading The Tempest.  My professor recommended that I write about the Tempest.  I agreed, so I began researching different aspects of the play to write about.  It seemed like each idea I had was already covered thoroughly by someone else in critical essays.  I could have tried to disagree with one of them, but so far I hadn't found anything significant to argue.  In the essay by Harry Berger, Jr.'s Miraculous Harp: A Reading of Shakespeare's Tempest, Berger raised some questions that had also interested me, so I used that as an approach for my paper.  I didn't write my paper in response to the entire essay, which is what my professor might have expected.  I wrote about the questions he raised that I hadn't seen other people write about and which he didn't answer.  

     I don't know why, but the idea of Carthage and the "Dido Problem" fascinated me.  Prospero's external problem of his lost and regained domain and his way of handling it, issues about royal authority and political domain, was the theme I focused on.  I used the calculus formula, known as the isoperimetric problem, or "Dido Problem" as an example of the method for establishing domain used by Dido when she went into exile and established Carthage/Tunis.  At this point, I knew it would be taking the risk of sounding ridiculous.  But I decided to write it as it was unfolding in connection to the island.  I also made a connection with Adrian in The Tempest (who has no lines in the play besides Act 2, scene 1), and Don Adriano De Armado in Love's Labor's Lost.  The significant lines were, "Thus dost thou hear the Nemean lion roar..." (LLL, IV. 1.1063-1068), and how that echoed the overarching theme of Ariel, and that there is a ruler in heaven that all kings are subject to.  The Nemean lion, when slain by Herakles, became the constellation Leo, which is Ariel in Hebrew, and Ariel was the name of the spirit Prospero used to carry out his plans. 
    
     I also quoted, Miranda: "What foul play had we that we came from thence?
                                          or blessed was't we did?
                          Prospero: Both, both, my girl.
                                          By foul play, as thou sayst, were we heaved thence,
                                          But blessedly holped hither" (1.2.60-64).

     I argued that Shakespeare encourages us to study the text and subtext when he writes in a quote from Hamlet:  "There's matter in these sighs, these profound heaves. / You must translate: 'tis fit we understand them'."

     For my research paper in my second class, The Bible as Literature, I wrote about the Jewish Feast of the 15th of Av, and received an A+.  The research paper in Shakespeare on The Tempest, a C-.  It may have seemed ridiculous to a professor from Yale, but at least it wasn't boring.  So my A in his class was dropped to a B due to my two research papers.  But I made it through and it was worth it: I was both "foully heaved thence" and "blessedly holped hither."  A "B" for the beauty of imperfection.

Flower burgers

The Flowerburgers
      Part 4

Baudelaire opened
up a hamburger stand
in San Francisco,
but he put flowers
between the buns.
People would come in
and say, "Give me a
hamburger with plenty
of onions on it."
Baudelaire would give
them a flower burger
instead and the people
would say, "What kind
of a hamburger stand
is this?"

by Richard Brautigan

     I came across this poem by Richard Brautigan and it reminded me of a dream I had in the late fall of 2009.  I was up late the night before.  I had a dream that I was in a galleria food court.  It was indoors, and I was standing in a line and looking at the menu on the wall behind the counter.  It was my turn to order, and I was trying to make out the numbers, but they kept changing.  They were charging 5.00 for a hamburger, then it would change to 50.00.  I ordered a burger, then I went  outside to sit in a courtyard to wait for my order.

     As I sat at a small table under a veranda of trees and vines, an unusual waiter came to my table.  He was dressed in vintage clothes, but they looked like new.  He was very kind and soft spoken.  He placed my plate in front of me, and instead of hamburger meat, there was a big bunch of herbs inside the bread.  I didn't understand, I had never seen bundles of herbs instead of lettuce in a burger.  He then handed me a large bunch of herbs that were bundled together, very fresh and green and then smiled.  The sun was bright and I didn't see his face clearly but I could feel his smile.  He filled my glass with water fused with citrus fruit, and the sun shined through the leaves overhead and made the light and water very beautiful.

     When I looked up from my glass the man who was waiting on me was gone, but I realized when I tried to look around and my eyes were still closed that I was waking up to golden light in my room.  I had slept late, and the room was full of sunlight.  When I woke up, I realized that I forgot to bring my potted herbs inside overnight and the nights had started to get too cold already.  I tried to bring them in, but they had frozen overnight.  I was sad that I ignored my thought to bring them in the day before, thinking I could have saved them.

     I thought maybe that was what the dream was about, my way of reminding myself to bring in my plants.  But as I started completing an assignment on John Keats I was working on, I learned that he once studied to be an apothacary.  I looked up pictures of him after that, and although I didn't see the man's face clearly in my dream, I felt like it must have been about him.  I didn't know at the time that I was sick, and if I would have understood then to take the dream as an indication to seek help earlier, I could have avoided a more serious condition with my health.

     I also felt later on that it was an indication that my healing needed to include the most natural process available.  I am grateful that it has been possible to do that so far, and that I am still doing so well, and to have an apothecary and poet for a guide.

Ben Whishaw as John Keats in "Bright Star"
 Ode to a Nightingale
(...)
 Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
  No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
  In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
  Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
    She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
          The same that oft-times hath
  Charm’d magic casements, opening on the foam
    Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.
8.

Forlorn! the very word is like a bell
  To toll me back from thee to my sole self!
Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well
  As she is fam’d to do, deceiving elf.
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades
  Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
    Up the hill-side; and now ’tis buried deep
          In the next valley-glades:
  Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
    Fled is that music:—Do I wake or sleep?

The Lotus-Eaters

and My First Taste of Persimmons

    
     Last Monday evening I got my first Christmas gift - I met a lotus-eater!  One of the rental customers who had just flown in from California was setting his heavy backpack down at my counter and asked me if I knew what a persimmon was.  I said I wasn't sure, so I asked if it was a small round fruit like a peach thinking of something I saw once, but was maybe a kumquat.   He said, "Funny you should mention that, I just happen to have a backpack full of them so I can show you!  They grow in our backyard in California.  Would you like to have one?"  I said, "Really?  Sure!"  He was bringing them for family and friends and took one out of his backpack to give to me.  It was similar in size and texture to a tomato, only a little thicker or harder and more orange in color.  I asked if you are supposed to eat it just like an apple or a tomato, and he said yes, exactly.

     I waited to try the persimmon until today when it seemed ripe.  The texture was a little less hard to push on and seemed like it might get too soft if I waited longer.  I was amazed at how sweet, juicy and delicious it was!  The flavor and texture were a surprise.  I was also surprised I could eat the whole fruit with the skin and no seeds or core to remove.  Only the calyx that attaches to the stem had to be removed.

     The texture reminded me of a cantaloupe when it's not quite ripe, perfectly firm, not too crisp and yet slightly juicy.  The skin was easy to eat as well, like the skin of an apple or plum.  The taste was sweet and reminded me of a mango, or a honeydew melon, but with a distinct flavor of its own.  I also looked up some information about it:

     The Date-plum (Diospyros lotus) is a persimmon native to southwest Asia and southeast Europe. It was known to the ancient Greeks as "the fruit of the gods," or was often referred to as "nature's candy," i.e. Dios pyros "divine fruit," or literally "the wheat of Zeus," also "God's pear," and "Jove's fire."  Its English name is thought to derive from the Persian Khormaloo خرمالو literally "date-plum," referring to the taste of this fruit which is reminiscent of both plums and dates. This species is one candidate for the lotus mentioned in Homer's Odyssey:  it was so delicious that those who ate it forgot about returning home and wanted to stay and eat lotus with the lotus-eaters.

      The persimmon fruits, like the tomato, are not popularly considered to be berries, but in terms of their botanical morphology, the fruit is in fact a berry.  They are classified into two categories: astringent and non-astringent. The non-astringent is as crisp as an apple when ripe. However, astringent varieties must ripen to be very soft before it can be eaten. If not, it will be a very bitter experience for you. But once ripened, the astringent varieties are as sweet or sweeter than non-astringent varieties.

     My persimmon was not a bitter experience at all, but very sweet.  The experience reminded me that something that seems bitter to me at first, when I give it time, has a way of ripening into a sweet fruit of life.  To use the words of the Lotus Eaters, "A gracing, with a taste of murder in it." One Japanese post says that in Buddhism, the persimmon is used as a symbol of transformation. The green persimmon is acrid and bitter, but the fruit becomes very sweet as it ripens. Thus, man might be basically ignorant but that ignorance is transformed into wisdom as the persimmon's bitterness is transformed into sweet delicious fruit. Dried persimmons, or hoshi gaki, are served at New Year's time in Hawaii. They signify health and success in life for the new year.

Six Persimmons 

(A 13th-century Chinese painting by the monk, Mu Qi (Mu Ch'i), the painter better known in China as Fa-Chang. It was painted during the Song Dynasty.) 

     Another 'Fruit of the Gods' description, in China this fruit is used to regulate one’s ch’i (personal energy) and is symbolic of joy. To the Japanese, it is a symbol of triumph.  They also have a star inside of them when sliced:

     Eating a persimmon in a dream forecasts a surprise meeting with a past friend or former associate. But if the fruit was puckered, the meeting will not be pleasant.

The Lotus Eaters "It Hurts" 

Grab a Yule Log, and your cat:

This is Willow, my daughter Ariele's new kitty, posing with a vintage Christmas bow from 1970's.  It's Christmas Eve and he is enjoying laying down to watch the video of a fireplace and listening to Christmas music with me and Ariele:

This is Willow on November 1st, a few days after we brought him home.  We found him at the Humane Society a while after the difficult loss of her last kitten.  When she saw him, it was instant bonding.  He has the softest fur ever!  It feels more like a rabbit's fur, and he has really large rabbit-like feet.

Re-Post, Lazarus Saturday: Red Onions, Easter Eggs, and Icons

I woke up in the middle of the night last week (April 2013) from one of those Poe-esque dreams and understood his loathing of sleep,

"Sleep, those little slices of death; Oh how I loathe them."-- Edgar Allan Poe

so I turned on the TV to see if anything interesting, or more "uplifting," was on.  Someone was talking about Queen Esther and then mentioned Easter and that some of the Christian traditions of Easter are from pagan origins.  I knew that this was true, but when they mentioned red dyed Easter eggs, I hadn't heard of that before so I decided to look them up online.  I found that they had a different meaning from their pagan origins, which included child sacrifice and shedding of blood.  Dyed red Easter eggs are mostly significant within the Greek and Eastern Orthodox Christian tradition.  I saw many interesting pictures of dyed red Easter eggs online, as well as pictures of icons of various saints.  I also found stories I hadn't heard before within the Christian tradition about the history of red eggs.  One story was about Mary Magdalene giving a red egg to the emperor of Rome to tell him about the Resurrection of Christ.

I finally fell asleep again, and this time I had a vivid (rather than morbid) dream:  I'm in a grocery store (similar to the Walmart grocery store across from Lowe's near my home).  I find a roll of bread and I realize I need to go outside to get my money to pay for the bread.  As I am walking outside I am looking down at my cell phone, which in this dream is an I-phone with a touch screen.  Many colorful photos of icons of saints are on the screen of the I-phone as I am scrolling through them, trying to get to my text messages.  They are really colorful and beautiful images.  Once outside, I look up and see a Greek restaurant in the same building, just next to Wal-mart's grocery store.  As I look up, the owner comes out of the restaurant dressed in grey priest's robes and I seem to recognize him from being his customer.  He was going to the parking lot, which as I look up, I see several saints from the icons and priests on motorcycles and they are all going to his church with him for services.  He says, "Hello Theresa!" and they all start saying, "Hi Theresa!"  I said "Hi!" and then I watch them as they drive away.  Then I woke up.  (My sister just bought a new Harley Sportster this week, so that could explain the motorcycles?)

While looking up information about red Easter eggs, I was also looking online to see if there were any Coptic Orthodox Christian churches in Oklahoma.  I have always wanted to attend their liturgy service to hear the Coptic language.  The closest one to me used to be in Dallas, TX.  However, I found that there was now one in the Bixby/Tulsa area about 90 miles east of Oklahoma City.  I looked up their website and saw that this week was their Holy Week and Easter celebration.  This made me realize why I may have felt that Easter was not over yet!  However, when I went back to look again at their website to call for information the next morning after my dream, I scrolled further down the page this time and saw that the Coptic Orthodox church has an Oklahoma City community that meets every month at St. George's Greek Orthodox Church!  I thought I dreamed about the Greek priest and icons because I was looking at them online, but I didn't have any idea that the Coptic church was meeting at the Greek Orthodox church that very same morning after my dream for Lazarus Saturday (Feast of St. Lazarus)!  I didn't see the announcement in time to attend the service, but I did call that day and speak to Father Andrew Kahlil about attending their next service, and I have been attending each service since April 2013.

The Greek Orthodox church had an Easter egg dying event after their service on Thursday this week, but I had to work so I tried a recipe for using red onion skins to dye them at home and decorated the eggs using leaves from my garden. (They are more red than they appear in the photos.) The eggs are a reminder of the saints from the Icons that visited me in my dream, first on the screen of an I-phone, and then in the parking lot on motorcycles on their way to their Lazarus Rising service, which led me to the Coptic Church in OKC that meets at St. George's Greek Orthodox Church in OKC every month.

The first thing I noticed when I attended my first Coptic Christian Orthodox service was the picture of St. George on a horse in armor, with a sword in each hand.  He was a Christian martyr and in our day could have very well been riding a Harley.

http://oca.org/questions/liturgicalyear/red-easter-eggs

Johnny "Angel"

     Today, as I stood near the piano with a tape measure in hand, thinking how to get home with this second-hand treasure, I wondered if I had taken on too much of a challenge:  "57 3/4 L X 24" D X 36 1/2" H" and approximately 400 lbs. 

     On the brink of my dilemma (of how to get the piano home), my enthusiasm began to fade rehearsing phone calls to piano movers to gather estimates, looking at YouTube videos about what it takes to move a piano, and googeling similar items and prices.  I started to think maybe my unexpected find was beyond my reach for several reasons: 

     What if it was too far out of tune to be a decent piano?  How often would it need to be tuned?  Or moved?  I  first thought a friend with a pickup would be enough to help us get it home.  But suddenly, I was having a crash course in pianos: something I had always dreamed of owning, but I had never looked into realistically.  

     For myself, I might have passed.  But for my daughter, who has always wanted to learn how to play the piano, I didn't have the heart to pass it up.  

     The scenes of the past six months ran through my mind like cards being shuffled by a card shark.  Her father barely survived a suicide attempt in June.  She barely survived her 21st birthday in August and spent days in a crisis center recovering.  Her beautiful calico kitten, adopted after she got home from the crisis center, was killed by a horrible attack from two dogs due to a negligent roommate, which ended their year long relationship.  She almost lost her job due to the effects of new medicine, ongoing panic attacks and depression, and an escalating abusive relationship. Then in November, we lost her dad due to a heroin overdose.  He had been struggling to overcome his addiction for a while.  Being in physical pain with no health care alternatives, as well as the loss of his girlfriend in the last year to an overdose; as Shakespeare says, "misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows."  She lost almost everything dear to her, on top of dealing with my diagnosis of stage IV breast cancer.  

     What would it mean to her to wake up on Christmas morning, facing all she has been through recently, to something that could ease her pain and give her something pleasant to focus on that can actually help her to develop healthy coping skills?  Music, like art, is a good start.  (I also got her a new turntable; but, playing the piano is a more creative form of therapy which involves eyes, ears, hands, feet, and heart.)  That's why I decided to buy the piano.

     Mesmerized in thoughts, I circled like a hawk unsure where to land for a few minutes and then came back to the piano wondering what was I thinking trying to buy a piano and how to bring it home.  One of the employees nearby began to tell me how great a condition the piano was in.  While I listened, my eye caught sight of someone approaching behind her with a pink electric guitar over his shoulder.  (As a breast cancer survivor, this put a smile on my face.)  He caught my eye too, because he looked like someone I would have known, tattoos all down his arms, long hair pulled back, gauged ear plugs, and he walked with an air about him, as an intelligent and artistic musician.  

     He came up and (looking admiringly at the piano) asked if I had bought it.  I said, "yes, and by the way, nice guitar!"  He seemed to know about keyboard instruments and mentioned he has several.  He asked if I had a way to move it and I said I wasn't sure yet.  So far nothing had been decided.  He then offered to help me get it home!  He said he has moved many of his own organs and pianos of similar size.  He also had a Suburban and said he'd be glad to move it for me with the help of one of his friends, or if his friend wasn't available, he felt sure he could find someone from around the UCO campus to help.  (He was an art major at UCO and graduated in 2010.)  

      I was so amazed that someone would consider helping, even after telling him it probably weighed 400 lbs.  We exchanged numbers and he said his name was Johnny.  I said I would be able to pay him something for helping me although it wasn't much compared to the price of a piano mover.  He didn't mind at all, he said he just wanted to help.  

      We met at the store after his friend got off work and they managed to get the piano loaded into the Suburban.  It wasn't as difficult getting it loaded since the store had some flats with rollers and some additional help lifting.  But the bigger challenge came when we got to my apartment, with only the two of them to get the piano out of the Suburban and into the apartment.

     They made it safely over the first hurdle, getting the piano out of the Suburban, (and only one smashed finger).  I was thinking, "What do I have that they could roll the piano on?"  Just as I asked whether I could find something to set the piano on, Johnny said, "I have a skateboard."  I said, "Oh Yes!  So do I!"  The excitement was mutual, not only that there was suddenly a way to move the piano through the parking lot to the apartment on rollers, but also because we were excited to know that we both have skateboards!!

      It worked incredibly well!  We skate-boarded the piano all the way to the (two) steps, then had to maneuver it again once it was on the porch.  I was so thrilled not only to have my piano moved, but to have it delivered with such artistic style!  'Cause, as Johnny said, "That's the way we roll!"

      When we got the piano inside the apartment, they were careful to put everything in place and to instruct me how to replace a screw that was missing on one side.  As Johnny looked around the room for a moment, he said, "you must be an art major."  I said, "Yes, I was an art major, but then I changed to English."  He said he got his degree in art hoping to be an art teacher, but now it will require more than his art degree to teach.  In the meantime, he's working random jobs after graduating until he can pass more tests and get an additional degree.  Then he said, "when I saw you standing there by the piano, something just told me, God told me, to come and help you."  Then he said, "I could also tell you were pretty cool" (i.e. not a square).  Nice.  God definitely knows how to make the scene - being in the right place at the right time!  And I also realized,  musicians with guitars are sometimes like angels with wings.  With that in mind, our dreams are never too big!

Johnny "Angel"

     (The photos on this post are generic this time but nearly identical to the originals, my camera is broken on my phone due to water damage - it ended up in a cup of water, submerged for - not sure how long - or I would have taken many pictures today!)