In my room, where is that?
In my room, the room in my head, there is home
and wilderness, unexplored and unending, never tame.
All the wild places I have been, or seen, or heard of
or imagine. It’s a wonder that I can speak at all
words in the daily day, after wandering the wilds.
Why does anyone ever come back?
Why does anyone ever come back?
Except to explore other rooms and add them to ours. I listen to the Brahams Requiem, a painting in orchestra and voice, of his room, his wilderness, his despair and joy. I am glad to come back for this and others like him.
With Cee’s Flower of the Day on hiatus, I am casting around. Here, a weekly prompt: divorce.
My ex and I did a year of couples counseling and then another year of hammering out the details. I felt like a terrible failure and did simultaneous solo counseling to figure out why I was failing. It took me two years to make the decision and I was anxious the entire time. And then once I decided, the anxiety evaporated like morning mist.
One thing that I realized is that we each had a blind spot. I love working and am a hard worker and even to the point of working until I get sick. My ex did not want to work, partly because his father seemed to hate it so much. My ex was dedicated to doing something fun every day and that was a revelation to me: were we allowed to have fun? So it was all lots of fun for a decade. He was in charge of play: bicycling, swing dance, going to music, golf (golf did not take with me), tennis. I was in charge of work and practical things. This started to fall apart with kids, because I wanted to have fun with the kids and he said, “Kids aren’t fun.” As I moved into defining fun, he refused to move into work.
At some point during the prolonged divorce process, I realized that some of it was not about me at all. He knew at some level that he had to go work, because his son was reaching his teens. My ex looked at me one day and said, “I’m going to have to thank you for this, aren’t I?” “Damn straight,” I replied. I wished he could deal with the work thing in the marriage, but he couldn’t. He went off and went to nursing school and has an RN. I talked to him yesterday on the phone. He said, “I decided when I was young that I was going to do tons outdoors until I got old and then I would work. And look how it’s working out!” A little hard on me, I think. Meanwhile the kids got bored with the whole thing so they were reassured that it was not about them.
Anyhow, I think it was the right thing to do though difficult. During one argument my ex said, “I have avoided doing anything hard.” I was annoyed and said, “What’s the hardest thing you’ve ever done?” “Marry YOU.” That made me laugh: a perfect snappy comeback and probably true.
This is The Yes Yes Boys, doing Make it Easy. I bought the CD when they played live at the Upstage here. I love this song. It’s not on You tube, but you can download the music for free here: https://hobemianrecords.com/product/why-say-no/.
“If you still can’t make it easy, get you a job and go to work Don’t be hanging round here and there, miss your meals, wear a raggedy shirt Cause when you’re missing your meals and you’re missing your bed That’ll give you the pneumonia that will kill you dead If you can’t make it easy, get you a job and go to work“
“Make new friends but keep the old, one is silver but the other gold.” My parents taught me that round. We sang lots of rounds growing up.
What does the picture have to do with knitting? I knit the hat! I got to hike with old friends from the 1980s last week. They are old friends, not old! Well, we might be getting a little grey.
On the Solstice, friends took me to the Glenstone Museum. They combine art, architecture and nature. They have planted over 7000 native trees and have planted over 10,000 native grasses. We can photographs inside but not outside. There are winding paths and sculptures and buildings, both big and small. ‘
In one of the museums, there is a walled outdoor installation called Collapse. It is rusting beams in a 16 foot deep hole surrounded by a 16 foot wall. Moss is starting to grow a little as it weathers. Only three people can go out at a time, with a guide. I asked if anyone had sung into the space, since the metal would bounce the sound around. The guide said he did not think so. I sang part of Faure’s Pie Jesu in to it. The guide said that the installation makes him think of the twin towers and he thanked me.
This my current favorite new holiday song. I didn’t get it until halfway through, because I wasn’t listening quite hard enough. And then! So, is this a carol? Hmmmm. Doesn’t quite meet the definition but it’s still a fabulous and creative song. I got to hear Vance Gilbert at the Nowhereelse Festival in Ohio two years ago. I did get this CD and really really like it.
I have not heard this one in the grocery stores yet. Maybe I should encourage them?
November means concert this year. I have sung in Rainshadow Chorale for 23 years now. My father was one of the eight people who started it in 1997. Concert this coming weekend!
My favorite song is the lobster one, though “Something like a star” always makes me tear up.
Oomph! is a German band. The line up has changed over the years, but they have 14 albums out to date. Wikipedia describes their style as incorporating many styles including “metal, industrial, alternative rock, electronica and gothic”. I think my personal AI got worried — it played “Sweet Coffee Jazz Music and Bossa Nova Piano smooth for Energizing the day” after I put Wach Auf on. It knows I don’t listen to a lot of metal, industrial, alternative rock, electronic, gothic German bands.
The song Wach Auf was in the movie Aliens vs Predator: Requiem.
The photograph is me in 2022 at Halloween. Might be a good thing to wear to an Oomph! concert.
They are all new to me, thanks to the Ragtag Daily Prompt: Oomph!
I am hoping Wach Auf! isn’t a swear. I asked google to translate it and it failed. Uh-oh. I have sung Wachet Auf.
I tried again. It translates “Wach auf” as Wake up and “Wachet Auf” as Shut Up. Hmmm. That seems ironic.
Pandas are black and white, clarity
between the parts, yet both are present together
Pandemic has lessened humans charity
Stress rises, fights and a turn to war weather.
It’s hard to fight a virus way smaller than a bee
And as they change and attack birds and us anew
Frustration rises and we attack the humans that we see
We take sides, black or white, and don’t see that we’re a stew
Perspective changes, white to black and back
The pandas eat their daily bamboo pounds
Unworried which parts are white or black
I hope they are far from the crying bombing rounds
I hope every person has the charity
to give all others love and parity.
We are singing Frostiana, poems by Robert Frost, set to music by Randall Thompson, in chorus. The ending of this makes me cry: “So when at times the mob is swayed To carry praise or blame too far We may choose something like a star To stay our minds on and be staid.”
I took the photograph in Oregon this month, on a Pandasonic (ha, ha).
I grew up with lots of music. My father played guitar and lute and Segovia is engraved in my memory. He and my mother sang in large choruses: the Brahms Requiem, the Mozart Requiem and Bach. We had lots of classical records. I was born in the early 60s when my parents were in college, so they had tons of records. The Band, Bob Dylan, the Loving Spoonful, Joanie Mitchell, Oscar Brand and Jean Richie. I didn’t buy my first record until I was in my early teens and I bought ABBA. My father said, “This is POP!” I said, “I am a 14 year old girl. OF COURSE it’s pop and it’s really good.” He was mildly horrified.
We sang folk songs. My parents were editing them by the time I was three, because I was memorizing the words. They put the naughty folk song records away. They avoided sentimental songs. We learned “dead girl songs”, as my sister called them (Banks of the Ohio, Long Black Veil, Clementine, When I was a Bachelor, there are a lot of educational dead girl songs). We learned lots of comic songs. We also learned work and protest songs and absorbed our parents’ hatred of discrimination.
I set up a recording session for my father and sister and I after my mother died. I have a recording of us singing Long Black Veil and other songs. Here is The Band singing it.
Let’s have a band with women too, and for me that is Sweet Honey in the Rock. Acapella, with a sign language translator, and now they have been singing for ?forty years? They have amazing children’s songs and they are willing to sing about grief and protest. They have sustained me through the loss of my mother, sister and father.
And from one of the children’s albums.
The photograph is of my father at his 70th birthday in 2008. Malcolm K. Ottaway, with Andie Makie and Coke Francis. Andie is playing harmonica, my father on guitar. Malene Robinson took these photographs. The next is me and my sister at that party.
And one more of my sister, Christine Robbins Ottaway.
For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: bands. Wait, you said keep this light. Oh, well. Fail on that.
Discover and re-discover Mexico’s cuisine, culture and history through the recipes, backyard stories and other interesting findings of an expatriate in Canada
Engaging in some lyrical athletics whilst painting pictures with words and pounding the pavement. I run; blog; write poetry; chase after my kids & drink coffee.
Refugees welcome - Flüchtlinge willkommen I am teaching German to refugees. Ich unterrichte geflüchtete Menschen in der deutschen Sprache. I am writing this blog in English and German because my friends speak English and German. Ich schreibe auf Deutsch und Englisch, weil meine Freunde Deutsch und Englisch sprechen.
KO Rural Mad As Hell Blog 
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