Our first spring project (a la Feb. 1 post: Imbolc: First Day of Spring) is revamping our study into a workout room, moving the computer and books upstairs. Our house has limited space, so we have to be creative.Since we began running last week, we decided to move the treadmill from the barn into the house. (Sorry, bats.) Don's weights and bench, up from the basement, will share the new fitness room with Ms. Alliance Treadmill.
Even though it's work to reorganize and lug books upstairs, it's nice to reconnect with favorite books, find ones that were "missing" and recapture space for our goal of regular exercise.
Thank you, Jane Kenyon, for your sad but brilliant poem rediscovered: "Having it Out With Melancholy."
8 comments:
Wow! You don't realize how much stuff you have until you need to put it somewhere else! Ruth, your artistic and poetic touch are perfect.
I'll be eager to see all your reorganization when we visit you again. Sounds invigorating :)
Don: Tell me about it! There are still piles of books around the house waiting for a home.
Ginnie: I hope you and Donica will visit us soon. Can you come for farm day next August?
That poem is so tragic. Or maybe it's the fact that its author died of leukemia. I was trying to figure out exactly what was waiting behind the white linen when she was in her crib. Is it the hidden agenda?
Rachel: I've actually been feeling bad that I posted that sad poem, wondering if it's too heavy to share that way. But the last stanza is so transformative, I keep coming back to the thought that there IS tragedy all around us, and facing it as she does, is the only way to get through it, then finding such great comfort at the end in nature.
I don't know Kenyon's biography enough to know about her childhood, but I took the presence in that first stanza quite literally as her father, unfortunately. I will do some scrounging and see what I can learn about her.
Oh, don't feel badly!!! It was a truthful poem, and one that relates to everyone- I liked the transformative ending, too. Aloneness in nature does work the best to create balance in my life. I love my hikes up Squaw Peak for that reason- and I'll get pictures to you soon:) I stopped eating meat a few weeks ago, started eating all organic, and cut out all synthetic chemicals on my body in lotions, shampoos, conditioners, soap- and I cannot begin to tell you the amazing transformation I have gone through. I did not do it because I wanted that glorious feeling Kenyon describes in the last stanza, but that's what I ended up with. People keep telling me that I am cutting then years off my life, and that I'll never get everything I need without eating meat- but I feel so healthy and exactly as Kenyon describes in that last stanza- and it's so unexpected.
wow, Rachel, I'm proud of you! I need to talk with you about this. I haven't gotten to the place yet where I want to stop eating meat, but I can definitely understand it. And getting chemicals out and off!
as a junior in high school, i was briefly obsessed with jane kenyon's poems. i think i wrote a report on her.
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