Inside, our lives are assuming a pattern. I had a 9 a.m. yoga class in our teeny zoom room. Then Paul took it over and spent much of the rest of the day in class and rehearsal. While he was busy, I was busy too--upstairs in my bedroom editing manuscripts, down on the couch in front of the fire to work on Frost Place stuff, back upstairs copying out Rilke. It's not like being alone in the house, but we are figuring out how to structure a productive life. There's no ignoring the crowd in this little domain, but at least we have rooms and doors. And we like each other.
Cafe Quarantine is soldiering on. For dinner last night I made bacala alla Vesuviana--salt cod simmered in a piquant tomato sauce: capers, onions, lots of red pepper flakes. On the side: Yorkshire pudding and a salad of steamed broccoli, fried garlic, and greens. Tonight we'll have pot au feu--French boiled beef--and maybe a potato salad with coarse mustard, and a tossed salad of cucumber, tomato, and romaine. The chunk of beef is huge; it should last well into the weekend for tacos and such.
Still, I'm tired . . . not just because of the stress you're enduring too, but also because my spring allergies are terrible this year and I've run out of allergy medicine until the drugstore finds time to ship me some more. In the interim, I'm Advil-managing a permanent headache and clogged sinuses. My skull feels like an over-inflated soccer ball; I'm coughing and sneezing; and since I don't have coronavirus, I feel like a public nuisance: not dangerous but alarming.
But it's Friday: Tom will be home all weekend: rain is transforming the earth. What else can I share with you? Maybe you would like to look at this Facebook poetry-month reading series, which includes an awkward video of me reading poems on my bed? I certainly don't want to look at it, though I am reluctantly coming to terms with my new video-based work life.
But I prefer the sixteenth-century song that is always true--
Westron wynde, when wilt thou blow,
The small raine down can raine.
Cryst, if my love were in my armes
And I in my bedde again!
4 comments:
First, the video looks perfectly fine. I LIKE being able to see and hear you, albeit electronically.
Second, most of us do not like looking at photos of ourselves, never mind, videos.
Third, I happily sing at open mics and even play my guitar at some...at least I did before the miasma, but, watching a video of me singing or playing!!! In an effort to counter that, I've been recording AND posting a video of me singing a cappella nearly everyday. It is getting easier.
To all of you
Stay well, stay safe, stay as kind as you always are
R
I have found that it is easier if I totally make a fool of myself by dressing up as a character. Recently (for my students' eye-rolling "enjoyment" and edification), I have been a Yukon gold miner (Call of the Wild) and a gossiping Maycomb, Alabama resident hanging around the hardware store (To Kill a Mockingbird). It seems to have gotten their attention, at least : )
I sympathize with your allergy issues. I have them, too. D.C. area is always a mass of pollen. At least this year my car is garaged instead of turning yellow.
I liked your reading, Dawn. It was natural and well-paced. Sometimes I listen to others' recordings and have to turn them off because the method of reading is artificial and distracting, and that is not what I want to occupy me. One poet I think is an excellent reader is Dana Gioia (I've had the pleasure of hearing him read in person, and meeting him and exchanging a few words).
Your menus looked especially good to me; I've got to order some groceries, as my refrigerator and fresher are beginning to be a bit bare.
May you have a lovely weekend with family, despite the presence of the virus.
Glad to hear that the video isn't as ridiculous as it feels. Maureen, I agree with your dislike of stagy "poet voice" readings. I was lucky enough, very early on, at a moment when I was struggling with stage fright, to have an actor friend help me recognize the power and ease in being true to my own cadences. "Trust your punctuation," she used to say to me. It's been a big help in controlling performance anxiety while also maintaining a natural voice.
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