From 'The Gardener'
By Rabindranath Tagore
Speak to me, my love! Tell me in words what you sang.
The night is dark. The stars are lost in clouds. The
wind is sighing through the leaves.
I will let loose my hair. My blue cloak will cling round me like night. I
will clasp your head to my bosom; and there in the sweet loneliness murmur
on your heart. I will shut my eyes and listen. I will not look in your face.
When your words are ended, we will sit still and silent. Only the trees will whisper
in the dark.
The night will pale. The day will dawn. We shall look at each other's eyes and go
on our different paths.
Speak to me, my love! Tell me in words what you sang
Then finish the last song and let us leave.
Forget this night when the night is no more.
Whom do I try to clasp in my arms? Dreams can never be made captive.
My eager hands press emptiness to my heart and it bruises my heart.
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You people are the GREATEST. I feel much better this morning, even though I had a strange dream about living in a dorm with huge glass windows right above where my school's basketball team played, which was fun but noisy and distracting. In the dream I think the school was Indiana, even though I went to Penn. I do have a very good friend in Bloomington but I have never seen their team play live, and the only connection I can come up with is that Penn's provost from the 1980s left to become president of IU and promptly got into trouble for criticizing Bobby Knight's behavior...see what March Madness does to me even after I've stopped really paying attention because once it's down to non-local powerhouses, how can I really care?
Last year at this time I was getting ready to go to London. I am sure this is one reason I am depressed. We are, in theory, going to England next year, but that still feels very remote and far away (even though time seems to be moving faster and faster every year, which scares me) and my kids have spring break next week and other than Passover and them spending a night with my in-laws, we have no firm plans. It's likely we'll spend Friday-Sunday in Hanover but even that's not for sure and I have no idea what we'll do up there if we go. Ah well, at least I'll get to see the groundhog.
Some links. From The Onion (note: this means it's fake!), "New Strip Mall Of America Stretches Over 1/6th Of North Dakota". This made me howl and howl, though I can't even explain why it's so funny, really -- maybe from having driven across the country last summer and realizing that, yep, the strip malls are the same in every corner, even the ones with photocopied "Jesus Pray For Us Sinners" in plastic sheet-holders hung in gas station bathrooms. Then I made the horrifying and traumatic discovery that next week is National Clean Out Your Refrigerator Week! I guess it's nice that they sort-of timed it with Passover, when I am technically supposed to be getting rid of all the leavening in my home. I do this ceremonially by getting rid of the stale breakfast cereal in the pantry.
Do I sound in need of spiritual uplift? Well, last night I discovered that all the cards in The Sacred Circle Tarot are online, including the Five of Swords, whose image is clearly based on the stone circle at Avebury where this picture was taken around this time last year...sigh. I'm getting nostalgic again. I need someone to tell me something unexpectedly wonderful, even if it has nothing to do with me personally -- come and tell me your good news, no matter how silly and trivial it might be.
ETA: Am going to California Tortilla for lunch with