Starfish
By Eleanor Lerman
This is what life does. It lets you walk up to
the store to buy breakfast and the paper, on a
stiff knee. It lets you choose the way you have
your eggs, your coffee. Then it sits a fisherman
down beside you at the counter who say, Last night,
the channel was full of starfish. And you wonder,
is this a message, finally, or just another day?
Life lets you take the dog for a walk down to the
pond, where whole generations of biological
processes are boiling beneath the mud. Reeds
speak to you of the natural world: they whisper,
they sing. And herons pass by. Are you old
enough to appreciate the moment? Too old?
There is movement beneath the water, but it
may be nothing. There may be nothing going on.
And then life suggests that you remember the
years you ran around, the years you developed
a shocking lifestyle, advocated careless abandon,
owned a chilly heart. Upon reflection, you are
genuinely surprised to find how quiet you have
become. And then life lets you go home to think
about all this. Which you do, for quite a long time.
Later, you wake up beside your old love, the one
who never had any conditions, the one who waited
you out. This is life’s way of letting you know that
you are lucky. (It won’t give you smart or brave,
so you’ll have to settle for lucky.) Because you
were born at a good time. Because you were able
to listen when people spoke to you. Because you
stopped when you should have and started again.
So life lets you have a sandwich, and pie for your
late night dessert. (Pie for the dog, as well.) And
then life sends you back to bed, to dreamland,
while outside, the starfish drift through the channel,
with smiles on their starry faces as they head
out to deep water, to the far and boundless sea.
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I've been up since before 6 a.m. Monday because we had to take the minivan to Toyota to find out why the engine service light was on -- turns out it was an O2 sensor that set it off, but the real problem is a leak in the coolant system that requires a part shipped from Oregon and a lot of money to fix. So after a couple of hours waiting in a nice service area with free coffee, cookies, and travel mugs, we took a Lyft back to the apartment at lunchtime and will take another one to retrieve the van hopefully tomorrow.
It was otherwise a lovely day, not a cloud in the sky and not too warm. I took a walk after lunch to get the mail (I got presents from Kristen and Lyndita, plus an Our Flag Means Death shoulder bag I had ordered to find my people at festivals, yay) and saw frogs and turtles, then we took a walk to the beach in the afternoon to see the geese, ducks, and herons. Now we're watching Les Miserables -- the sexy Liam Neeson/Geoffrey Rush one with no singing -- in honor of the date. Sea stars from Mukilteo on Saturday:
We did chores Monday morning before eating blueberry waffles and heading out to Riley's Lock to walk along the canal, where we saw herons and turtles -- and heard many frogs, though we only saw them splashing as they jumped away from us. From there we headed to Homestead Farm, intending to get blackberries and peaches, though we only ended up picking the former because the latter were picked over enough that we decided to get them in the farm store instead. Of course we also visited the farm animals.
We stopped at Giant and CVS on the way home for cat food plus macaroni and potato salad, then we had Impossible Burgers with the salads for dinner which was as much Independence Day celebrating as I could handle -- I couldn't deal with A Capitol Fourth, so instead we watched Hamilton , which was exactly what I was in the mood for (and it's been so many months since I've seen it that there were details I'd forgotten, like everything Ariana DeBose does in the show). Now I'm in the mood for Les Mis!
Totally Watching Television
By Ron Padgett
I don't know
I may not be much
Be a mess
Personality no good
All surface no inner strength
Poetry not any good
This poem not any good
I might die an old man
Scribbler of trash
Forgotten paper-scratcher
But I'll tell you this
I really love to lay around on my ass
Totally watching television
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Quickie, was chatting with fannish friends until late and then we caught up on Superman and Lois, which has extra minutes on the CW Roku channel and this episode was actually worth of an extended edition. The earlier part of my day was not exciting: I discovered on Tuesday while looking for my review of "Tuvix" that when I took my Voyager reviews offline several years ago to add the retro reviews, I never actually finished the index, and it took a couple of hours to get it updated and uploaded.
We took a walk in the afternoon to see the local flowers and whatever birds were not on our deck fighting over the new suet, I got laundry folded, we had sausages and shells for dinner. Then we watched the end of Les Miserables (the Jackman-Crowe movie musical) which I'd started watching the night before in honor of Bastille Day (yes, I know, wrong revolution) before I got on Zoom to chat. Here are some more exhibits from the National Museum of the Marine Corps:
The Miracle of Morning
By Amanda Gorman
I thought I’d awaken to a world in mourning.
Heavy clouds crowding, a society storming.
But there’s something different on this golden morning.
Something magical in the sunlight, wide and warming.
I see a dad with a stroller taking a jog.
Across the street, a bright-eyed girl chases her dog.
A grandma on a porch fingers her rosaries.
She grins as her young neighbor brings her groceries.
While we might feel small, separate, and all alone,
Our people have never been more closely tethered.
The question isn’t if we will weather this unknown,
But how we will weather this unknown together.
So on this meaningful morn, we mourn and we mend.
Like light, we can’t be broken, even when we bend.
As one, we will defeat both despair and disease.
We stand with healthcare heroes and all employees;
With families, libraries, schools, waiters, artists;
Businesses, restaurants, and hospitals hit hardest.
We ignite not in the light, but in lack thereof,
For it is in loss that we truly learn to love.
In this chaos, we will discover clarity.
In suffering, we must find solidarity.
For it’s our grief that gives us our gratitude,
Shows us how to find hope, if we ever lose it.
So ensure that this ache wasn’t endured in vain:
Do not ignore the pain. Give it purpose. Use it.
Read children’s books, dance alone to DJ music.
Know that this distance will make our hearts grow fonder.
From a wave of woes our world will emerge stronger.
We’ll observe how the burdens braved by humankind
Are also the moments that make us humans kind;
Let every dawn find us courageous, brought closer;
Heeding the light before the fight is over.
When this ends, we’ll smile sweetly, finally seeing
In testing times, we became the best of beings.
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Tuesday was one of those days I just wanted to get over with so we could get to Wednesday. I feel a bit badly because it wasn't a bad day -- nice weather, we took a nice walk, saw several finches and woodpeckers and lots of squirrels and a bunny -- and laundry and various chores got done, including some major kitchen cleaning because we were recycling reusable plastic cups to rearrange a top shelf and wiping inside and all around the refrigerator because we had a major ketchup leak inside and outside, urgh.
I watched Voyager's "Initiations" with my fan friends of many years, including Shalini, with whom I saw the winter lights the other night, and a brief appearance by my very longtime friend Laura. Then Paul and I watched the second episode of Trickster, which is pretty good. Now I'm switching watching James Corden's inauguration version of "One Day More" on repeat (Patti LuPone!) to Master and Commander because I'm in the mood after the TikTok sea shanty explosion. MLK Day at the canal:
