Sat down here to catch up on all your blogs and the little cat (who missed me, it seems) jumped up on my desk, where he kept walking over my wrists and rubbing up against my arms before he finally decided to nibble on my ear. Lovely.
Hmmm... I wonder if this post will provoke a fun google search--like "public ear nibbling" or "cats nibble somberos." I've gotten NONE that are notable yet....
There's still time.
A few highlights of the trip:
First: I got to see my uncle bud, whom I mentioned before, along with a lot of wonderful photos of his mother (and father) which my aunt had compiled for the memorial service. They met at a dance-- swing dance-- they could really "cut up a rug," I'm told. They went to New York City on their honeymoon. She was beautiful. He was dashingly handsome. Her real name was W-----, it turns out, a name which she hated and which no one ever pronounced right, anyway. She started being called Shorty while she was working at Kroger, and actually came to prefer that name, so much that she'd introduce herself as "Shorty" to anyone she met. Apparently all sorts of folks (including my parents) had a hard time finding out anything about her status during the time she was in the hospital beacuse no one knew (or could remember) her true first name. I was soooooooo close to getting in a morning hike in a place I love with my uncle... but thunderstorms were in the forecast. :(
Second: Went back to the college where I got my bachelor's degree to peek in on two of my former (and one of them fabulous!) English professors. The fabulous one has much to do with how I ended up studying what I studied and being what I am now. They remembered me, greeted me with great enthusiasm. The fabulous one even hugged me. Will I ever get to hug former students this many years later? It was strange talking shop with them, particularly with Dr. Fabulous, who is also an early modernist and was interested in how I teach Shakespeare and the rest of it. My head was spinning so from those conversations that I couldn't even sleep that night. I wish I'd had more time.
Finally: the sound of my own voice as a first-grader. We were living in Germany at the time (I'm a military brat) and, since international phone calls were soooo expensive then, our family and both sets of grandparets sent cassette tapes back and forth. My aunt got her hands on a few we'd sent and passed them back to mom. So strange, hearing that voice. My r's sound a lot like w's. I'm excited about getting to wear a "weal cowgiwl" outfit for a fasching parade. My brother was going to be a "weal cowboy" and my parents "a weal sherwiff" and "a weal sherwiff's wife." Yikes. I still remember riding in that covered wagon float and throwing candy. In the first grade, I was also apparently obsessed with my cousin, C----, who I speak to repeatedly on the tape, encouraging her to come visit and telling her about things I think she'd like.
On another tape, I'm reciting this very troubling poem about goblins who snatch away kids who won't say their prayers or mind their parents or respect authority. Yikes. I memorized lots of poems before I could even read... and I could recite them by heart on command. (Here's another, also in dialect, which I actually recited at a base Christmas party.) There are many things that I find troubling about the fact that THESE are the poems my mom had me memorize. What kind of a world was I being indoctrinated into? And all those lines about goblins "gitting" you "if you don't watch out"? No wonder I had so many nightmares as a kid.
Apparently mom liked Eugene Field, as I also learned this Little Boy Blue poem, which I loved then, and still find quite lovely, really. And another, about a boy falling asleep under a haystack!-- though I can't remember anything else about it now, but that image...
I'd lost those memories about early encounters with poetry. I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed poems as a kid. I loved hearing the rhythm in my 6 year-old voice; to think about the pleasure I took then in saying the words and hearing how they fit together. That pleasure came back in a wonderful way when I took a poetry-writing class in college, but I'd never connected that to these early poems before...
I should start making a list of poems for my kids. Garcia Lorca has some poems for children (P. introduced me to them) which are simple, and short, and absolutely beautiful. There's a lovely one about a Mr. and Mrs. Lizard, for example, but I'll leave you with this one.
Caracola
Me han traído una caracola.
Dentro le canta
un mar de mapa.
Mi corazón
se llena de agua
con pececilos
de sombra y plata.
Me han traído una caracola.
which translates:
Seashell
Someone brought me a seashell.
Singing inside
is a sea from a map.
My heart
fills up with water
and litttle tiny fish,
silvery, shadowy.
Someone brought me a seashell.
[It's nice to be back.]
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