My mind is done and unsurprised. My heart a stubborn rock. My heart does not give up: loves where it loves. It doesn’t care about reality or whether it is derided or mocked. My mind moves on and kicks my heart, wondering where this tenacity stems from. My heart is done with tears. It agrees to new friends and joys in dance. When my mind says forget, my heart jumps and steers my body into a warrior fighting stance. My mind is cynical and laughs and derides my heart. I let them fight back and forth every day. I cannot reach an end unless I start to honor my feelings, the heart must hold sway. My mind moves on, ignoring what you do. Yet my stubborn heart remains a friend, strong and true.
Sometimes water looks light and flighty in photographs, but here is Crocker Lake, with the water looking thick and deep. A mirror, inviolate. A surface that we can almost believe we can step on. Water IS heavy.
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The weight of water
You don’t realize the weight of water
I say I am a sea, deep, the emotions on the surface only you dismiss me, female, lesser, emotional, unimportant except for your uses. I should be receptive, listen, not speak. You have no interest in my life, except when you want my services.
You don’t believe me until the day you look down and fall. The waters close over your head. The weights you’ve tied around your ankles carry you down down. Welcome to the depths.
This is Donkey Oatie and Sancho Panda. Helen Burling Ottaway did a series for a book or a show or something in the early 1990s. I do not know if it was ever published. There is no date on this. This is colored pencil and the drawing is 9 by 12 inches. I think she did larger watercolors as the final project.
Is being ridiculous evil? I read that today is National Humorous Day. We need humor to let go of stress and blow off steam and to go from the fight or flight sympathetic nervous system to the parasympathetic relaxed one. Humor is a really good way to go. So watch those silly cat videos and laugh. Ok, not when you are at work. But even at work, my office manager and I needed to blow off steam and laugh. One day she was playing whale songs. I heard her say very seriously into the phone, “Oh, those are whale songs. Dr. Ottaway insists on whale songs.” I howled, because she had picked them. For revenge I made whale noises at her between patients all day. Anybody walking into clinic might have thought we were loons. I can do loon songs very well, better than whale songs.
I know a slightly different tune for The Dummy Line, a variation. There seem to be a bunch!
Taken on Marrowstone Island earlier this week. I was so busy watching this eagle that I tripped over a rock and face planted. If I’d hit a rock I would have lost teeth or knocked myself out. Luckily both I and the camera did fine.
I tend to spot the eagles in the trees by sound. I do watch for them as well. This one called to another, who circled towards the tree. Sound locates them.
In college, late 1950s and on, they would have a sing. My father played guitar, they would invite all their friends, and sing folk songs. They used the book in the photograph, Song Fest, edited by Dick and Beth Best. Last published in 1955, I think.
I have no memory of the book itself. However, a friend of my father’s bound his copy in 2003 in leather. When I saw it, I searched on line and bought my own. It has words AND MUSIC and a chord progression. When I opened it, I know a song from about every third or fourth page.
My sister and I memorized the songs. We both had hundreds of songs memorized, many from this book, or from records. We photocopied a Beatles record insert and memorized all the words on a long car trip once.
I don’t know much about the Intercollegiate Outing Club Association, but there are still copies of Song Fest on line. My parents had to edit a number of the songs for two small children, since we were picking them up. They chose silly songs, “Dead Girl Songs” (Banks of the Ohio, Long Black Veil, My Darling Clementine, Cockles and Mussels) and work/protest songs. They rarely sang sentimental songs, except for lullabies. I loved to sing. We used to have reel to reel tape with my little sister singing a fifth off when she was three or four, but it disintegrated.
My father, Malcolm Kenyon Ottaway, was a fabulous musician. He sang in prep school, in college, in choruses on the east coast, in Rainshadow Chorale from 1997 until his death in 2013. He loved Bach and the Band and loved to encourage other people to sing. He was in our Community Chorus for years, to help new singers. People must try out for Rainshadow Chorale, but Community Chorus is for anyone who wants to join and sing. After my father died, men would say, “I would try to stand near your father in Community Chorus, to help learn the part. He was so good.”
Here is one of the lullabies from Song Fest:
At the Sings, my parents would start with a song and then go around the room, asking other people to pick songs. Sometimes people were shy, but my folks were really good at getting people to sing. Sometimes we’d have multiple guitars and other instruments. My sister and I had favorite songs too!
The Ragtag Daily Prompt is valediction. Perpetua is starting the first (to my knowledge) Valedictionary, of letter sign offs. Cool beans.
Valedictionary is a new word. Mine, all mine, but you may use it! I will generously allow everyone to use it! It is valedictionariable! Another new word. I will accept suggestions as to the meaning. For now it will mean whatever I want it to mean when I use it. Words being malleable.
Now, Perpetua, you sign your post “Yours Robotically”. What does that valediction mean? You are an AI? You would like to be an AI? You are a robot? Your post was written with ChatGPT? I am curious.
How do I sign letters off?
Yours sincerely Yours truly, Love, SWAK,* Respectfully submitted, Your corporate policies grieve me, My father has been dead for 13 years, stop mailing him your catalogs, Holy cats, Holy catwoman, batman, Aaaaarghhhhh, Love.
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*SWAK stands for Sealed With A Kiss, and we used that when we were kids. Not recommended for professional mail or during outbreaks of covid, influenza, RSV and other plagues.
Isn’t a real piece of snail mail a treasure now? I have quite a lot of blank cards that I’ve collected over the years. Good thing, because cards are now $4-8.00 each! OUCH! I mailed letters to all my children yesterday with recipe cards, from Maline’s memorial. A friend put her photograph on one side and copies of her recipes in her handwriting on the other. Maline was a fabulous cook, fine artist, record collector, made earrings and jewelry from antique buttons, I could go on and on. It was lovely to send the recipes to my children.
I took the photograph in Marshall, Michigan in March. I would LOVE to work in a ridiculous department. Hooray for Dark Horse Brewing Company. Next time I go there, maybe I can have a tour.
Swinging by the Sound started yesterday afternoon. A dance weekend, with dancers traveling from all over, teachers and students. This is collegiate shag. I am not very familiar with it, I’ve done much more 6 count swing. I wish I were doing the weekend, but my shoulder is not up to it yet. Maybe next year!
The weekend started with Johnathan Doyle and friends playing at Vintage. They were fabulous. And some of the dancers were already there and warming up. I want permission to put some of the dance photographs up, but did not talk to anyone last night!
I love to spin and twirl and so does my daughter. She has been learning collegiate shag in another state.
Here is a shag routine sample. Shag can range from really bouncy to smooth, smooth, smooth. This one is choreographed, not the spontaneous partner dancing happening last night!
Discover and re-discover Mexicoβs 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 - FlΓΌchtlinge willkommen I am teaching German to refugees. Ich unterrichte geflΓΌchtete 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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