Tuesday morning – Ask us who we are

Hi Friends…

Diane and I would like to recommend a beautiful documentary called “Ask Us Who We Are” about foster care in Vermont. It was made by our good friend Bess O’Brien who also  made “The Voices Project” that Max was a part of.

Diane saw ‘Ask us who we are’  and found it  both eye opening and heart opening.   The movie is touring the state now .. Here’s the schedule. Try to catch one of the showings. You’ll be glad that you did !

-jc

Monday night – waste land

It doesn’t stop… I got to work this morning to find out that my friend J’s son passed away over the weekend. He was in his 20’s and living in Montana. J’s manager reached out to me this morning to ask me to reach out to her.. I hope I have something to offer… it’s not something I like being an expert in.

I really cannot figure out what’s goign on this month.. some sort of powerful changes are moving through the world. Diane and I were talking about it today.. there’s nothing to ‘do’.. just pay attention and be present for people..

T.S Eliot’s Wasteland seems appropriate.. .. I used to read Eliot when I was in high school.. The first stanza of this poem keeps comign into my mind each time I hear of some new sadness this month: This April is the cruelest month

The Waste Land T.S. Eliot (1888–1965).

I. THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD

APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.
Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee
With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,
And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten,
And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.
Bin gar keine Russin, stamm’ aus Litauen, echt deutsch.
And when we were children, staying at the archduke’s,
My cousin’s, he took me out on a sled,
And I was frightened. He said, Marie,
Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
In the mountains, there you feel free.
I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.

What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
There is shadow under this red rock,
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
Frisch weht der Wind
Der Heimat zu.
Mein Irisch Kind,
Wo weilest du?
‘You gave me hyacinths first a year ago;
‘They called me the hyacinth girl.’
—Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden,
Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not
Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither
Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,
Looking into the heart of light, the silence.
Od’ und leer das Meer.

Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante,
Had a bad cold, nevertheless
Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe,
With a wicked pack of cards. Here, said she,
Is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor,
(Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!)
Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks,
The lady of situations.
Here is the man with three staves, and here the Wheel,
And here is the one-eyed merchant, and this card,
Which is blank, is something he carries on his back,
Which I am forbidden to see. I do not find
The Hanged Man. Fear death by water.
I see crowds of people, walking round in a ring.
Thank you. If you see dear Mrs. Equitone,
Tell her I bring the horoscope myself:
One must be so careful these days.

Unreal City,
Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,
A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,
I had not thought death had undone so many.
Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,
And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.
Flowed up the hill and down King William Street,
To where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours
With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine.
There I saw one I knew, and stopped him, crying ‘Stetson!
‘You who were with me in the ships at Mylae!
‘That corpse you planted last year in your garden,
‘Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?
‘Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed?
‘Oh keep the Dog far hence, that’s friend to men,
‘Or with his nails he’ll dig it up again!
‘You! hypocrite lecteur!—mon semblable,—mon frère!’

Nite all, nite Sam
-me

Sunday night – shattered

Today was a great metaphor for the proceeding week.. .. we’ve had some tremendous windstorms that manage to break out 5 windows.. 4 in the tower and one in our downstairs storm windows. The  ones in the tower were pretty cataclysmic.. the wind actually tore the windows from their mountings and smashed them  The downstairs one was actually a result of falling ice..

All in all I need to replace about 5 windows a year.. so this is par for the course. We have more than 430 panes of glass in this house.. so 1 percent doesn’t sound that bad.

todays repair requiredd cutting curves in glass.. not my strength.. but I managed ot get two out hof 4 trys.


Onther pane just blew out in the wind.. I found pieces of it strewn all over the front yard..

I love glass.. but it dwosn’t like me.. it can cut me from across the room.

first task is to strip out the broken glass and remove the old glazing.. yuck.. what a job


I was batting about 500 on the curve cuts it took me 4 panes of glass to get 2 perfect curves.. oh well, I got them

After the windows were done, I went to Chris’s to pick up his fiberglass freind.. I’m rigging her up with some proximity ligting and sound.

She was good company.. it was fun driving around with half a naked lady in my car.. I got some funny looks..

OK.. it’s sunday night and I’m falling asleep.. more tomorrow…

nite all, nite sam

-me

Saturday night – slow day

Very slow day.. and we all needed that..     An hour drive down to middlebury for a lacrosse game..

with a brief stop at Homer’s to say hi and recruit his help on an art project I’m working on…

The game in Middlebury  was really good.. the teams were well matched. We won !..Gabe had a very good game..

It was absolutely freezing out there….  gabe was out playing in shorts while diane and I were wrapped in down coats…

It was snowing by the time we  got home… Spring, Vermont style

Diane’s moving kinda slow today after pulling a muscle in her leg.. She’s got to take it easy.. I like taking care of her..

Not much else happening. I’m grateful for such a quiet day..

Nite all, nite sam

-me