It hasn’t been much of a traditional holiday at our house.
Bill’s been working away in the basement much of the day.
Two Zoom meetings for me, with helpful folks who were clearly skipping the parades where they live, too.
A soup delivery to a friend and an emergency run to Michael’s for canvases I desperately need for tomorrow. Thank you, Bill!
A batch of proof to read that is both important and urgent.
Plus the usual laundry and dogs.
And, frankly, a significant sense of ambivalence about this particular holiday in this particular moment.
Lest you think we’ve given up completely, the menu for dinner includes lettuce wrapped, grass-fed, sustainably raised burgers, cooked and cooled potato salad (which Mom wouldn’t recognize but might enjoy anyway if she could try it), and watermelon which turns out to be a pretty healthy choice.
As for fireworks, I’m just hoping the dogs won’t notice!
Instead, I’ve been pondering poetry.
Last week, my son, Dave, introduced me to a poet who is new to me. A guy named Billy Collins who is, among other things, a former Poet Laureate of the United States. A bit of hunting around the web today turned up this quote:
I think if a poet wanted to lead, he or she would want the message to be unequivocally clear and free of ambiguity. Whereas poetry is actually the home of ambiguity, ambivalence and uncertainty.”
So, it seems, is our existence which is, I suspect, the point.
Here’s a video of Billy Collins reading one of his poems. It just might be a lot bigger underneath than it seems on the surface…
May all beings be safe and free and well… Including you and yours!
ps – If you’ve been hanging around a while and/or you love dogs, you might want to skip Billy Collins on what dogs really think of us. I’m just sayin’!