Age is something that doesn’t matter unless you are a cheese.
Billie Burke, American actress (1884 – 1970)
I’ve always thought that was a great quote. Now I like it even more knowing who the speaker was. Burke was chosen to play Glinda the Good Witch of the North in The Wizard of Oz when she was 53 years old. Wasn’t she lovely in that? Never would have guessed her age…
Summertime, and the living is easy
Fish are jumping, and the cotton is high
Your daddy’s rich, and your ma is good looking
So hush little baby, don’t you cry.
One of these mornings, you’re gonna rise up singing
You’re gonna spread your wings and take the sky
But till that morning, there is nothing can harm you
With your daddy and mommy standing by.
Summertime is a famous song composed by George Gershwin for the 1935 opera Porgy and Bess. You may have heard it sung as a snappy jazz standard – however Gershwin was inspired to write it after hearing a Ukrainian lullaby. The back and forth rhythm is both soothing and sad. The lyrics have the same duality – comforting until you think of the context of African American life in the 1920’s when the drama takes place.
“Think what a better world it would be if we all – the whole world – had cookies and milk about three o’clock every afternoon and then lay down with our blankies for a nap.”
All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten is a book of short essays written by Robert Fulghum (published 1986). I’d read it years ago but the point of the title is more meaningful here on the last day of our kids’ kindergarten year. As adults, we often make life more complicated than it needs to be. Fulghum’s basic rules make for a pretty happy life. He advises to play fair, clean up your own mess and say you’re sorry when you hurt someone. These simple kindergarten rules can be applied to politics, business, everything. Parents who have already been through the kindergarten graduation ceremony say it’s a real tear jerker – I have no doubt. His essay ends with:
“And it is still true, no matter how old you are – when you go out into the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together.”
“The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain…”
We can probably all see Audrey Hepburn speaking those words leading into the pivotal song from My Fair Lady by Frederick Loewe and Alan Jay Lerner. Eliza finally “gets” those tough vowel sounds with this rhyme and moves from a squashed cabbage leaf to a lady.
I wish the rain in Oregon was staying in Spain or anyplace else! This has been an odd start to June complete with tropical hail, wild wind, and power outages. Now our days should get back to normal summer wonderfulness!
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.
Marge Piercy’s poem To Be of Use concludes with these lines. I was reading her poem thanks to Matthew B. Crawford who has written a popular article in The New York Times titled The Case for Working With Your Hands. Crawford’s essay is from his soon-to-be out book Shopclass as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work. It’s hit a chord since many people – both in and newly out of work – are pondering work itself. Crawford’s premise is that working with your hands is more tangible – that fixing a car or toilet is more satisfying than sitting in a cubicle without really seeing the fruits of your efforts. As a mother, one distinction I make is how easily a job can be explained to children. As Piercy writes, “the work of the world is common as mud.”
“Practice random kindness and senseless acts of beauty.”
You’ve been seeing this saying on bumper stickers for a few decades. It’s credited to Anne Herbert who continues to write regularly on her blog. I think it’s the use of unexpected words which gives it staying power. The word “senseless” has a negative connotation – yet is paired with “beauty.” The wording suggests we shouldn’t waste time thinking about what we might get back from kind acts – simply toss them out, feel good about it and move on. It’s a concept I find both whimsical and solid at the same time.
Maybe we do the right thing
Maybe we do the wrong
Spending each day
Wending our way along
But when we want to sing, we sing
When we want to dance, we dance
You can do your betting, we’re getting
Some fun out of life
This song written by Edgar Leslie and Joe Burke was recorded by Billie Holiday in 1937. Then decades later Madeleine Peyroux recorded it. Both of their sultry voices do right by the sweet-tart lyrics. Nobody says wending anymore… it’s just an old-fashioned way of saying you’re traveling along. Get some fun out of life today by listening.
“Jane Austen’s books, too, are absent from this library. Just that one omission alone would make a fairly good library out of a library that hadn’t a book in it.”
Mark Twain and I do not agree on the merits of Jane Austen. One aspect I admire is how well she chronicled her era (she died two decades before Twain was born).
Twain left behind a scathing and unfinished essay of Austen. Yet he certainly was familiar with her novels — meaning he took the time to read them. Twain was a master of the “put down” and seemed to relish writing them. So I’m not sure if this literary feud was real or for the sport of it. You’ll find an interesting essay on Twain’s writings about Austen in The Virginia Quarterly Review. Twain went on to observe that an Austen novel was such that “once you put it down you simply can’t pick it up.”
“Be like a flower and turn your face to the sun.”
Lebanese American poet Kahlil Gibran (1883 – 1931)
This morning it’s snowing on our deck furniture and there is only gray sky to turn my face to. Somehow in this odd month where we wear shorts one day and practice T-Ball amid snow flakes the next, I’m hopeful we’ll soon emerge and feel it’s truly summer. Perhaps we’ll leave May baskets on doorsteps tomorrow and ring the bell to spur the season along.
“I’ve always felt that a person’s intelligence is directly reflected by the number of conflicting points of view he can entertain simultaneously on the same topic.”
As wife of our second president and mother of our sixth, you would expect Abigail Adams to be one smart First Lady. She wrote incredible letters and managed her family and farm, often on her own since her husband was absent for long periods of time on political trips. But I remain amazed at her forward thinking attitudes about educating women and women’s place in the new society. I’m just starting Abigail Adams: Witness to a Revolution by Natalie Bober so hopefully that will provide some answers to the independent thoughts of a woman born in 1744. Bober’s book is listed for young readers but is wonderfully written for adults too.
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