My World With Words

March 7, 2016March 25, 2017

Our Simple Home a Place Divine

Great-Gram's Poetry Book I have few family heirlooms, and none have value outside of my home. Still, what I have, I treasure, and what I treasure most, perhaps, is the book of poetry my great-grandfather gave my great-grandmother on their wedding day in February, 1905.

Inscribed inside from him to her is this verse from one of the poems of Riley’s Love Lyrics, long out-of-print:

And have the shine/of one glad woman’s eyes to make, for my poor sake,/Our simple home a place divine/Just the wee cot–the cricket’s chirr–/Love, and the smiling face of her.

Okay, maybe long out-of-print for a reason.

I would like to say their marriage was a love story for the ages, but it wasn’t. It was as good or bad a union as any of its time, with one exceptional result: all of their children, including all four women, received a college education. (My grandmother, I believe, was the only one who didn’t graduate, but in her day, women going to college was the exception, not the rule, and she was as smart, and ultimately, as educated, as any of them.)

And their children were good people. I speak of them and not my great-grandparents only because they were the people I knew, and I respected them.

I’ve had several friends lose their parents this past week in a somewhat shocking series of losses, and in each case I’ve been struck by this: the legacy they left behind in their children, some despite themselves, others because of a lifetime of sacrifice for their children.

panzram wedding — My great- grandparents on their wedding day.

My great-grandparents clearly started out their marriage with all the hope and anticipation of any newlywed couple, and over the years that youthful belief in each other grew into a deeper knowledge of their spouse’s faults and failings, strengths and unique qualities.

Life is a journey, and not an easy one. We have our benchmark moments, but mostly we have day to day experiences that little by little define us, both to ourselves and others. We look for inspiration in the things around us, but we do the best we can with the power we have at any given moment.

And that’s okay. Our choices evolve, we grow, we’re inspired by others and suddenly we see ourselves in a whole new light. It starts a new path without requiring much thought at that point, because it’s who we want to be.

We want to be better, and we find ourselves seeking that good we know is there inside our souls, to show it to the world. As if the world hadn’t seen it already.

Sentimental

March 3, 2016April 2, 2016

Something Incredible, Someone Incredible

“Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.”
― Carl Sagan

That sense of awe, of anticipation. What lies around the corner? What will change my life tomorrow?

Carl Sagan, of course, was talking about science, and presumably, discovery. Yet there are things each of us have yet to uncover in our own lives that can turn the tide for us, bring us great joy and satisfaction, and give us hope in the thought of a new day. Discovery in the ordinary.

Imagine being eight months old again, and the whole world is new. In some ways, that still can be true. There is still more out there we don’t know than we do, more to learn than we can ever know. And while most of it doesn’t have the power to change our lives, just learning it does. The power of the process of education.

And having that sense of awe certainly changes you.

It’s easy, and safe, to become cynical as we grow older. It almost seems wise. We look at the little ones around us and call those wide eyes “the child-like look of wonder” equating “child-like” with “naive, vulnerable.” Yet imagine being able to just sit somewhere and watch the magic of something incredible reveal itself.

Perhaps in sitting still you’ll learn something you’ve never dreamed of before.

There are times in our lives we don’t know why we’re “on hold.” Are we meant to discover during those times? Discovery inherently means you don’t seek particular information, because you don’t know what’s out there. You simply start seeking.

Follow the course of knowledge where it leads you.

Of course at a point your discovery may lead you to understand there is a path of information you want to pursue. It may open up worlds of further discovery for you.

Or something as mundane as job opportunities.

February 26, 2016March 25, 2017

A Quiet Celebration

Every once in awhile, life throws us a curve ball — a really cool, out-of-the-blue, unexpected, happy curve ball. Now, I’m not really sure that as a sports term, curve ball is the accurate phrase here, but you get what I’m saying. Something we didn’t expect.

Most of the time, it seems, those unexpected events knock you off your feet with their negative consequences. You don’t know what to do at first, you’re floundering until someone or something helps you get it together. In this case, initially I was cautious. If I celebrated, did I break the spell?

Then I thought, if this is good news, it’s going to stick. If it only seems to be good news, if it turns out to be something else, then why not enjoy the momentary sense of relief anyway? I’m certainly well aware things can change. It’s not as if they did, I’d be disillusioned or destroyed.

So I’m going to celebrate. Quietly, and just with the kitties. But I’ll have a good evening. Because when good things happen, we need to mark the moment.

Victory Girl sm

February 23, 2016April 6, 2017

How to Look Smart

Well, if not smart, curiously informed. Trivia is fun, if for no other reason than you feel superior to the rest of us mere mortals. It also can create pet peeves, so beware. Here are a few fun facts to get you through the week:

♦Smokey Bear fights forest fires. Not Smokey the Bear. Or Smokey da Bear.

♦A “jiffy” is 1/100 of a second. See you in a jiffy!

♦When the competition is between two people, the proper expression is “may the better man (woman) win.” When it’s between more than two people, you should say, “may the best man (woman) win.”

♦This is not a grammar rule, so teachers don’t like to hear it, but my favorite way to know when to use “it’s” versus “its” is this: “it’s” is the same as “it is.” Think of the apostrophe as replacing the “i.”

♦Back in the 70s we had “Jive Talking.” That’s not the same as when something doesn’t jibe with you. Yep, it’s “jibe,” not “jive,” for the latter expression.

♦And this is as political as I’ll get…”egghead,” a term with much the same meaning as “geek” or “nerd,” was used by Republican VP candidate Richard Nixon in the 1952 presidential campaign to pejoratively describe Democratic presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson. I’ll leave it to you to compare and contrast political campaigns then and now, and I’m not doing it on this blog. But this could start some conversations for you.