"Barter"

28 July 2018: Two poem posts in a row, but that's okay. This one works just fine on a quiet and reflective Saturday night.

"Barter"
Sara Teasdale

"Life has loveliness to sell,
   All beautiful and splendid things,
Blue waves whitened on a cliff,
   Soaring fire that sways and sings,
And children’s faces looking up
Holding wonder in a cup.

Life has loveliness to sell,
   Music like a curve of gold,
Scent of pine trees in the rain,
   Eyes that love you, arms that hold,
And for your spirit’s still delight,
Holy thoughts that star the night.

Spend all you have for loveliness,
   Buy it and never count the cost;
For one white singing hour of peace
   Count many a year of strife well lost,
And for a breath of ecstacy
Give all you have been, or could be."

"Domestic"

27 July 2018: Stumbled across this poem, "Domestic," by Carl Phillips, the other day and have been thinking about its depiction of domestic happiness quite a lot. Its humor (toilet humor!) comes from the familiar--this couple knows each other--which feels real. I also love the little flashes of insecurity that run through the speaker's mind. That seems real to me, too. Anyway, here are the closing lines:

"I thought this is another of   
those things I’m always forgetting   
to tell you, or don’t choose to   
tell you, or I tell you but only

in the same way, each morning, I
keep myself from saying too loud I
love you until the moment you flush
the toilet, then I say it, when the
rumble of water running down through
the house could mean anything: flood,

your feet descending the stairs any
moment; any moment the whole world,
all I want of the world, coming down."

"I Belong to You"

26 July 2018:

"I know I could be spending a little too much time with you
But time and too much don't belong together like we do
If I had all my yesterdays I'd give 'em to you too..."

Four years...

25 July 2018: It's been four years since Ryan died. Not much to say that is all that profound. I miss him. It is still very sad. I wish he were here.

It's been very rainy here, almost unbelievably so. The lawn, which was brown and dying just a few days ago, is springing back to soggy life. So yeah...metaphors abound. We've got a little break in the rain this morning so I am going to take this chance to mow the grass. I've got some of my favorite podcasts queued up and the perfect hat for the job.

Even more Middlemarch

24 July 2018: "What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult to each other?" --Dorothea, in Middlemarch

Thanks to some essays I have been reading, I've been thinking a lot about what Eliot is saying about what matters in life. The quotation above, simple as it seems, works quite well and isn't bad advice for how to live your life.

"the experience which we call emotional"

23 July 2018: "What seems eminently wanted is a closer comparison between the knowledge which we call rational & the experience which we call emotional." --George Eliot, in a notebook entry.

A moody, broody day here, no doubt in part because of the rain, a rapidly disappearing summer, and (as usual on these moody, broody days) big thoughts. I spent some more time reading about George Eliot and found myself struck by these words, which shed some light on Middlemarch, but also hit close to home on moody, broody days.

"Our Mental Health Stories"

22 July 2018: Caught up on some podcasts during my 12 hours in the car over these past two days, including this really moving and important episode of Sawbones. Justin and Sydnee are always great, but to hear them being so open and honest and real with their audience and with each other just elevated them to another level for me. What wonderful people.

Meeting the new guy...

21 July 2018:

[Catch-up post]

Drove up to NY yesterday to meet the newest nephew and celebrate his 4th birthday. Can't post pictures yet as he is still a foster child, but rest assured, he's fun and sweet and a welcome addition. 

Beautiful night at the ballpark...

20 July 2018: It was "Jimmy Buffett Night" at the Suns' Park tonight, which was silly and fun. The Suns also won BIG. And then there were fireworks after. That's my kind of summer night. 

Hamilton!

19 July 2018:

[Catch-up post]

Hamilton with three of my favorite people with a bonus gorgeous sunset at intermission? Sometimes the universe seems very kind.

Austen and Eliot

18 July 2018: "When Jane Austen died, her last words were 'Pray for me, oh pray for me'; when George Eliot died, she is reported to have said 'Tell them the pain is on the left side'. The shift which took place between the two novelists is movingly registered in those two utterances: to have gained all the scientific ability to measure and locate human pain without the redeeming belief in any ultimate remedy for that pain — that is the predicament George Eliot 'gave out in intensified form' in Middlemarch, and it is one of which we too, living in a later century, have an intimate knowledge" (Wilhelm 56-7).

Preparing for my seminar on the nineteenth-century novel, I read the lines above earlier today and found them quite persuasive and moving.

Work Cited

Wilhelm, Cherry. "Conservative Reform in Middlemarch." Theoria, vol. 53, October 1979, pp. 47-47.

More laughs from researching...

17 July 2018: Another line that made me laugh out loud as I work on this project...

“No one has initiated ‘just say yes’ workshops for men, and so the likelihood that men will spontaneously begin to pick up the work that women will begin to say no is doubtful." --KerryAnn O'Meara, et al., on ideas for solving the gender discrepancies in faculty service loads. Here they are specifically calling out the "solution" of "just no no" workshops for women. Amazing.

First phone call...

16 July 2018:

Excerpt from my first phone conversation with Evan, my new about-to-be-four-years-old nephew, who my sister and her husband are in the process of adopting. Notice his gift for keeping it real and asking the tough questions:

Evan: Are you coming to my birthday party?
Me: Yeah! I sure am!
Evan: What about Isla? And Krista?
Me: Oh, those are Tante Erin’s kids. This is Tante Heidi. I don’t have any kids.
Evan: What? Why you don’t have no kids??? BYE! [Gives phone back to Tara.]

Sunday night researching...

15 July 2018: I am working on a project that is about lots of things--academia (specifically balancing the demands of scholarship, teaching, and service), gender, and nineteenth-century poet Lucy Larcom. (That last one sticks out, right?) Anyway, I've got a stack of articles I wanted to get through tonight, including this one, which considers a kind of glass ceiling that keeps women from getting promoted to full professor before their male peers. The authors argue that service work gets in the way--service work that their male colleagues don't do as much of.

Like any good study, it asks why women do more. And this passage made me laugh out loud. First, they speculate: "Perhaps women associate professors enjoy service more, while men prefer research?" Then, immediately: "None of our data fits this interpretation." Well, then... Ha!

Won't You Be My Neighbor?

14 July 2018: Believe everything good you have heard about this movie. It's such an important and moving story. Even hours later, I find myself moved to tears just thinking about certain scenes.