More Than One Middle Name

Most of us have only one middle name though once in a while I see instances of two middle names. How about five? René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke, Austrian poet and author, was best know as Rainer Maria Rilke.

Tomorow I'll share one of his poems. Today, this quote:

"Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite distances continue to exist, a wonderful living side by side can grow up if they succeed in loving the distance between them which makes it possible for each to see the other whole and against a wide sky."

A New Poet for Me & A New Poem

 

Grandmother of the Bride

 

My niece Lorrie, pictured here with me in the backyard of her home in Arizona in 2010, was married to her husband Kevin on New Year's Eve, 1994.

Of course we were invited to the wedding which was in Kansas but we decided not to go - why I don't remember now. It might have been worries about the weather. I think the forecast was for snow. Or maybe the distance had something to do with it. 

But Mom went with her son Ron and wife, Ruth - Lorrie's parents. I recall seeing some of the wedding photos one of them a very good picture of Mom in her grandmother of the bride outfit.

I also remember buying a Mikasa vase at Younkers in Valley West Mall as a wedding gift.

It may not have been this exact design, but it was one of modern design and heavy lead crystal.

Mostly I remember helping Mom choose a new outfit to wear to the wedding. I brought her to Des Moines to shop for it. As a young woman who had lived through the great depression, she had always been careful about her spending - a trait which passed on to me. There was a consignment shop I liked to go to on Ingersoll Avenue which is where we went.

The style at the time was longer skirt lengths which I loved. Mom wasn't a big fan of shin length dresses, preferring them just below the knees, but I convinced her that longer was the current fashion. And when I found a two-piece soft pink in 'like new' condition, I got her to try it on - and then buy it - $16.00 if my memory is right.

In my opinion, my mother looked beautiful in this ensemble. This is a photo I took in her living room of her wearing it.  

When she died in December, 2003, there was a different dress picked for her to be buried in but it didn't work out.

So this is what I chose instead. It has bothered me some over the years to know she would have chosen something else.

But she looked so pretty in pink. 💗

Alone But Never Lonely

 

Another calls you lonely

I disagree

Lone you may be

But not lonely

I see you as content

In your own little 

Pond and life

Alone, as I can be

But never lonely

Silence. Leaves rustling

Water trickling into a pool

Natural noise making one 

Feel alone to revel in nature

Alone but never lonely

In tune 

Inquisitive

The Randomness of Facebook

I often wish Facebook was like it used to be - only seeing posts from your friends and not all the ads and posts from strangers. But every once in awhile I can be surprised and happy about a stray post, even delighted when it is someone I know.

This week was the 53rd year of RAGBRAI's week long trek across Iowa. On Tuesday, the 21st, thousands of those bike riders went through Perry on their way to the overnight stop in Boone. This was one of the photos shared by Century Farm Books and Brews.com  The post began Wow. My response seeing this photo was Wait. Isn't that?? So, yes, it is Peter Hedges, author of What's Eating Gilbert Grape, but it wasn't him I recognized. It was my great-grandson Jack and his mother, my former granddaugher-in-law, Paullina. 

The book Jack is holding in the above photo inscribed by Mr. Hedges.

"To Jack who is on his way to living his best and most glorious (?) life. I hope we meet again one day."

I think how happy he was is expressed in his smile. 

I remember watching the 1993 movie and being enthralled by it.

One of the pages advertising some of her hot tea brews.

Her creativeness going on here. I would try the Anne of Green Gables for sure and some of the others, too.

Paullina says: "Books and Brews is my literal dream come true."

Shouldn't every bookstore have a resident cat or two?

Here are her's adopted from Raccoon River Pet Rescue.

"Ophelia, a big beautiful calico, is quite vocal when she wants attention, but prefers to sit on her sofa judging everyone."

"Mortimer, the sweet ginger boy, makes himself comfortable on anyones lap or in a sunny spot in front of the windows."

They look quite at home in their Perry, Iowa bookstore.

From her Events Calendar I can see she is hosting a weekly writers' workshop, a trivia night, at least three different book club meetings, a crafts night and more.

I'm so glad I happened upon this RAGBRAI post on Facebook and super happy that Paullina is making her dreams come true.  💖

Queen Anne's Lace

 Queen-Anne’s Lace

By William Carlos Williams

Her body is not so white as

anemony petals nor so smooth—nor

so remote a thing. It is a field

of the wild carrot taking

the field by force; the grass

does not raise above it.

Here is no question of whiteness,

white as can be, with a purple mole

at the center of each flower.

Each flower is a hand’s span

of her whiteness. Wherever

his hand has lain there is

a tiny purple blemish. Each part

is a blossom under his touch

to which the fibres of her being

stem one by one, each to its end,

until the whole field is a

white desire, empty, a single stem,

a cluster, flower by flower,

a pious wish to whiteness gone over—

or nothing.

 

The Wheeling Year

 

"Black cows in deep shade under a mulberry tree, that part of its shadow that's swishing its tails. They have already eaten the cool, edible parts of the shade, the blue grass, the few violet leaves they could reach, and now they are waiting, their rumps bumped up together, tails slapping each other, gazing out through the flies at the blazing white pasture that goes on forever, that seems to be turning so slowly about them."

"Dead for a dozen years, Mr. Bob Ross, you live on in the TV reruns, permed hair like a bee swarm, big hands, big smile, a kindergarten-teacher voice. Show us again that little tree you say likes it right there by the moonlit path and the moon you tell us is just real happy right next to the mountain. Hundreds of thousands of us have waited to watch you at your easel, holding your magic brushes--the fan brush for clouds, the fitch for rocky peaks. Come back, keep coming back, Bob Ross. We need to know that everything is happy where it is, and that we too might put it there."

"Maybe we carry too much through the door from the past, propped open with a broom that has swept up so much sentiment it has bent to the shape of it sweeping--like a stiff old floor-length skirt still waltzing--then across the wide porch where those we love, living and dead, sit rocking and talking, all drinking longnecks and laughing together, none of them offering help.

Then over the grass, box after box, to the rented U-Haul that is our life, already stuffed with all we haven't been able to part with, stale with dead dreams and packed so hastily we will never be able to get to the wisdom we lugged out early and loaded on first.

Twenty-nine dollars a day is the going rate, about what a person could live on if he had to, and the past is right there in the rearview mirror, following close, painted with slogans, its springs bent down from all we ever were."

These are three selections from Ted Kooser's book of prose The Wheeling Year sent to me by our friend Becky. The last of the three is my favorite. I have appreciated and shared some of Mr. Kooser's poems for several years and now, thanks to Becky, I am enjoying his prose.