a bushel of gumption, an ounce of grace
Yeah another line from a country song here. A good one, yup. It Don’t Hurt Like It Used To, Billy Currington.
This song, its feelings and lyrics, has been hanging out in my periphery as I approached and then backed off writing the past week plus. It’s about a lost romance, of course. For me, it evokes some other stuff. But whatever I had to say, first I had to get through…duh duh duh… Mother’s Day. Or shall we say, the M day….
A week ago, driving over the Berkshire hills to my printer in Lenox, I heard the news that Prince had died. …
The words of the famous Nora Ephron– her mother’s, in fact, also a screenwriter. Their family saying: Everything is fair game for telling a story, better, a good story. The best, the worst, the most illuminating, the most humiliating– and the latter makes better copy– goes into the pot….
By chance this pi day 2016 I had made another Lee Bros. sour orange pie and so finally can share a photo.
…
A few weeks ago there was divinity in my inbox, in my Daily Om. The title was ‘The Heart of Unknowing.” I was in. The topic was a little different than what I expected, though: it was the question of who we are….
As I was saying there…”Love You Like That” led to Tom Petty led to humming “The Waiting is the Hardest Part” (the Waaaaaiting is the Harrrrr,desttttt Paaaarrrt) led to thinking, what do those lyrics mean? He’s in love. Don’t let it get you down. Take it on faith, take it to the heart. Say what, get you down? Take what on faith? It doesn’t make sense. Just a song, right?…
That would be Tom Petty talking. In a pretty good example of the semi sequitir paths of my mind, I think I leaped from Canaan Smith’s lyric “Love You Like That” (my country tracking lately, see above)
Slow as the Mississippi
Strong as a fifth of whisky
Steady as a Tom Petty track…
To– big leap– Tom Petty. Whose sort of growly, steady ballads have long been favorites. So damn sing worthy.
But wait: Sometimes, the waiting is the best part. Or narrowly edges it. Sweet– anticipation. Not to go off on another famous track.
When not sweetly anticipatory, though, it can be excruciating, the waiting. And you have just got to get down there and work, work, work with your mind to not let it git the best of you. Funny, as it turns out, Tom Petty practices meditation, the transcendental kind.
Here’s the thing, and this is a two parter. Because I did want to mention waiting, the sweetness or the hardness, depending; it’s been on my mind and in my heart. I’m there, in that space where there are large and very significant segments outside my control.
But the rest of that Petty track, what the hell does it mean? And who the hell besides me would care?
For the continuation of this track of thought, you’ll have to wait. Hope it’s the sweet kind. Til tomorrow xo
Moving right along (at least momentarily) from existential and real time worries, need to give an update: the battle of the slow roasts chez moi is complete. With the big caveat that the way I love pork (bacon, bacon) the outcome was probably a given…Yes the Bo Ssam has it. The Mississippi Roast was delectable, cooked til it almost shreds itself, and love those little unplanned okra. But the Bo Ssam is a crusty oven slow-cooked beast, even without the special sauces it is just, so good.
Because whatever happens, we’ll always have pork xo
My first recollection of country music was on the radio somewhere in New Brunswick, driving the two laners to Nova Scotia. …
Yesterday morning -15, tomorrow, 50. Tonight snow, tomorrow rain.
Quickly, a snow poem, while the snow is falling….