Friday, May 07, 2010

Poem for Friday and Gardens of Oz

The Apparent
By Linda Gregg


When I say transparency, I don't mean seeing through.
I mean the way a symbol is made when an X is drawn over O.
As the world moves when it is named. In the sense
of truth by consciousness, which we translate as opposites.
The space we breathe is also called distance.
Presence gives. Absence allows and calls,
until Presence holds the invisible, weeping.
Transparent in the way the heart sees old leaves.
As we become more like the hills by feeling.
I mean permanence. As when the deer and I
regard each other. Ah, there was no fear then.
When she went with her young from the meadow
back into the nearly night of the woods,
it was because the rain came down suddenly harder.

--------

My day mostly consisted of chores -- stuff in the house in the morning, then running out for various things we need to bring. In the afternoon I took Adam to tennis, then we all went out afterward to get haircuts. The Hair Cuttery was empty except for another family (mom and three kids) so since there were available stylists, I had the one I've gone to the past few times color my gray hair. I feel totally ambivalent about this -- I HATE the way women are expected to conform to other people's beliefs about what their apparent age, weight, hair color, etc. should be, but my hair is so thin and almost transparent in the front now and I've twice gotten very sunburned on my scalp on days that weren't even very sunny (i.e., I didn't think I needed a hat, which often gives me a headache anyway). I'm trying to decide what to do about my hair in general -- I think at this point it's pretty clear that genetics is a bigger factor in how thin it's become than possible low iron or anything like that (it's still crazy curly and I can't get a comb through it without pulling out hanks in knots). Either I need to figure out how to use barrettes, combs, and things I haven't worn since middle school, or I need to figure out how to cover my head, because I'm not paying for minoxidil for the rest of my life.

While I was still getting my hair cut, after Daniel nearly staged a riot about getting his shaggy mane trimmed and absolutely refused to shave what pass for his sideburns, the mom and her kids walked outside, and apparently the five-year-old knocked into a CVS shopping cart and sent it careening into a guy's illegally-parked-in-the-fire-lane Lexus. I didn't see anything but I heard everything from that point as the guy went berserk, screaming at the kid, screaming at the mother (I'd been talking to her in the Hair Cuttery, she has three kids under 8 and her kids and husband are all living with her mother who has dementia, she has a lot on her plate). The guy and his overdressed, over-dyed wife got in this woman's face making accusations and demanding her personal information until she insisted that the police come sort it out (particularly since the guy wouldn't have been hit by a shopping cart had he not been illegally parked in the first place). I find it much easier to excuse the five-year-old's behavior than the adult's, and I hope the cops do too.

Anyway, we got home later than we intended and ate dinner (veggie korma and Jaipur vegetables, yay) while watching FlashForward. I don't think it is risking spoilers to declare without a cut tag that I agree with Gabriel that Lloyd and Olivia should be together -- Lloyd is way less self-absorbed than Mark, and personally I would also take Jack Davenport over Joseph Fiennes any day. Also, Bryce and Nicole need to forget about their flash forwards and go be happy together, now. And I am hoping -- okay, this is a spoiler -- that we see more Callum Keith Rennie in could-have-been futures or flashbacks or something, since the FBI agent who killed himself to save the woman Fiona Banks hit keeps showing up in flashbacks (yay Alex Kingston -- and James Frain is on the show too, soon every British actor I like will make a guest appearance).

Thing Two has managed to lose the belt my mother bought him not a week ago somewhere in his room (which he recently cleaned, but stuck things he didn't want in various garbage and give-away bags). So I need to go take the house apart to find it. Since Superpoke Pets had Wizard of Oz plushies in the SPP shop this morning, it reminded me that the Howard Peters Rawlings Conservatory in Baltimore had Wizard of Oz paintings among the flowers when we visited it in April. Oh good, and son has found the belt. *flops*















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