Quill #121 - Spring Vocal Concert at UNL

I can't say I was disappointed. The performances excelled. But, this was a quiet pleasure, not the rousing joy of the holiday festivities. Chamber music is beautiful in small doses. An entire roster of spiritual bliss put my darling spouse to sleep, quite literally.

At one point, the stage was filled to brimming with singers, but the sound only reached half hall. There were two soloists who did nothing else but their solos. They were both very good and will probably have opera careers ahead of them. The male had excellent vocal control. He could fill the house with sound better than the entire chorus. I only heard, maybe, two notes which might have been more loud than controlled.

The female soloist looked like she didn't want to be there. She smiled when applauded, but sat stoic and bored the rest of the concert. The fellow at least had the grace to follow along with his music. She sat like a beautiful statue until it was her time to sing. And then, you knew why she'd been chosen. She could sing so softly that you weren't quite certain she was still singing, but perfectly.

Not a rousing performance. Not one where you walk out feeling buoyed by the spirit. But, an excellent piece of work, nonetheless. I would like to hear the volume that such a choir could produce. If the highs were higher and the lows lower, there might be more interest in a requiem.

We were proud of our daughter's participation in the entire concert and felt fortunate that she didn't faint from the heat, as she did a few concerts ago.

Quill #119 - Welcome, Eleanor!

I can already tell you're amazing. Welcome to the family!

Quill #117 - Experiments (Feb 13, 2011)

Three sets of round eyes,
Forty sets of almond-shaped,
We sit in an unfamiliar restaurant
Surrounded by regulars, locals.

Two of the napkins held chopsticks.
We have one fork,
One spoon,
And an adventurous daughter who will try eating with sticks.

If not for the hair in my salad,
I would have returned.
But, I was lucky.

-----

Korean chef rants
At haiku-writing patron -
"Am not Japanese!"

Quill #85 - Halloween Memories #7

If you've ever seen the movie, Meet Me in St. Louis, with Judy Garland, you probably remember Tootie, the youngest daughter in the family, the mischievous troublemaker. Tootie had an obsession with all things ghoulish, though not of the harmful kind. Real danger frightened her just as much as anyone, but she had spunk. Tootie and my daughter could have been best friends, albeit competitive ones.

When Kyrie was eighteen months old, she memorized a poem called The Teeny Tiny Ghost by Lilian Moore.

TEENY TINY GHOST

A teeny, tiny ghost
no bigger than a mouse
at most,
lived in a great big house

It's hard to haunt
a great big house
when you're a teeny, tiny ghost
no bigger than a mouse
at most.

He did what he could do.

So every dark and stormy night
the kind that shakes the house with fright -
if you stood still and listened right,
you'd hear a
teeny tiny

Boo!

She would recite the poem and act it out, ending with a big jump on the "Boo!" She also had a black silk shirt that she borrowed from her daddy and she'd run around the house, arms outspread and flapping, with the silk streaming behind her yelling, "Bust, the Big Black Bat!" The red plush carpeting in our living room was lava and you couldn't walk on hot lava, so she'd build bridges across the living room out of books and toys that would help her navigate across the danger.

At two, my adorable daughter insisted on being a zombie for Halloween. At three, she wanted to be a werewolf. Similar progressions continued until she actually witnessed blood spurting from a stitch-worthy gash on her father's hand. After that, she was not quite as interested in lab experiments and dissecting.

She's still unique and fun, an interesting person to know, and she's planning on doing the Zombie Walk whenever possible. But, thankfully, I no longer have to worry about her becoming a sword-wielding murderess. She has a very kind and generous heart, eeeeeeeeevil laugh and all.

(Meet Me In St. Louis image from Reel Classics)

Quill #69 - Comin' Through the Wry (2010)

My voice got a compliment
Last night,
Not for the first time.

Apparently I sound a lot like my
Well-to-do Southern grandmother,
Look like her,
Walk like her.

I don't have her natural
Eloquence in clothing.
She wore Pendleton jackets,
Silk scarves.

I wear jeans
And sneakers.
For dress-up,
Black sneakers.

She sewed,
My other grandma crocheted.
I do some of both.

But when I gaze in the mirror,
Anymore,
I see her looking back,
A patient smile,
Crush-crinkled eyes
That have watched a
Lot of water fall.

Her other granddaughters
Resemble different parentage.
Yet, they were her fulfillment,
Slender and tall,
The perfect children.

She'd had a rough life,
Wasn't proud of her roots,
Her harsh daddy and the
Thieves and traitors behind him.

Did she ignore me,
Because she couldn't bear
To look at herself?

Quill #50 - Pumpkin (2010)

She has a new love in her life,
And I'm happy for her.
I want her to experience
All the joys,
All the love,
All the freedom and laughter,
Everything wonderful in huge quantities,
More than I did,
More than any before her.
It is not jealousy that binds my heart
And causes my eyes to leak.
It is knowing how little time
I have left to spend with her.

-----

Song nears its ending,
Lilting flowers to my ears,
I hug my daughter.

Bird flies free with wind,
Speeding over bright meadows.
My feet wear stone shoes.

Pumpkin seed flowers
Into handsome orange fruit.
Stem will soon be cut.

-----

To be a healer is a sacred gift.
There are rules and vows,
Years of studious work,
Even then, many guesses.
To save a life, cure ills,
These are precious talents.
No real skill is required to
Become a mother but
You can't save a life
That was never given.

Quill #49 - Soap Dish, Part Deux

For 25 years, I suffered in silence. This one little thing annoyed me, but I managed to remain quiet about it, until one day I snapped. I yelled at my whole family about the way they put the soap on the soapdish in the shower. How could they not know which side was up? One way gave maximum air-drying and minimum melting and they always did it the wrong way - or so I thought.

Almost the same day that I snapped, I found out I was wrong. I went to each person at whom I had yelled and apologized. I told them I was wrong, I was sorry for yelling at them, sorry for being wrong, and even sorry that I was the kind of person who sometimes yelled at others, and who was annoyed by stupid things. I asked them for forgiveness and told them that they had been right about which way to set the soap after a shower. Then, I asked them to return to their previous method. Each one was gracious and accepted my apologies. Each one asked me if I was sure of what I wanted, to which I nodded emphatically, and each one agreed to return to their old ways.

God, in his infinite wisdom, or Loki, in his infinite tricksterhood, has seen fit to remind me of my failings every single day for the rest of my life. Every member of my wonderfully loving family, who would do anything to make me happy, remembers me yelling at them, and what I wanted then. Not one of them remembers the apology.