Posts tagged “music”

So td and I have been busy with unwriterly things on our respective continents. The past weeks have been filled with managing life, as is sometimes necessary.

td and Robin have been packing up house (and office and business) and moving from the city to a smallish town about two hours outside of Melbourne. I’ll leave it to her to fill us in on the details, but it has been quite a lot of work what with the packing and cleaning house 1 and cleaning house 2 and unpacking.

I’ve been playing nursemaid and companion to my mom several days each week. Just a few weeks shy of her 75th birthday, she took a tumble up the back steps (because that’s how we do things), breaking her left wrist and left knee cap. Both required surgery and are in immobilizing splints. Needless to say, she isn’t going anywhere or doing much of anything for herself. Before her fall, Mom, my sister, and I had planned a couple of road trips for May and then Mom was supposed to come spend a few days with me.

Some people will go to extraordinary lengths to avoid family vacations.

Having experienced a few family vacations, I may file that tip away for future use.

The good news is that td and I are excited about our new piece of fiction, which we are working on in tandem. It may be different from our other stories, but then again many of our other stories are different from each other. The story begins with two best friends on a road trip through the desert. If there are no other interruptions from life, the universe, or the like we plan to have it done and out this summer.

And we should be here more regularly!

Music, by Mary Oliver

td Whittle

Posted on July 31, 2013

I tied together

a few slender reeds, cut

notches to breathe across and made

such music you stood

shock still and then

followed as I wandered growing

moment by moment

slant-eyed and shaggy, my feet

slamming over the rocks, growing

hard as horn, and there

you were behind me, drowning

in the music, letting

the silver clasps out of your hair,

hurrying, taking off

your clothes.

I can’t remember

where this happened but I think

it was late summer when everything

is full of fire and rounding to fruition

and whatever doesn’t,

or resists,

must lie like a field of dark water under

the pulling moon,

tossing and tossing.

In the brutal elegance of cities

I have walked down

the halls of hotels

and heard this music behind

shut doors.

Do you think the heart

is accountable? Do you think the body

any more than a branch

of the honey locust tree,

hunting water,

hunching toward the sun,

shivering, when it feels

that good, into

white blossoms?

Or do you think there is a kind

of music, a certain strand

that lights up the otherwise

blunt wilderness of the body —

a furious

and unaccountable selectivity?

Ah well, anyway, whether or not

it was in late summer, or even

in our part of the world, it is all

only a dream. I did not

turn into the lithe goat god. Nor did you come running

like that.

Did you?

“Music” from American Primitive

Poems by Mary Oliver

Little Brown & Company, New York 1983

Photo by Robin Whittle

Walking beside us was Nina Simone

Sandra Peterson Ramirez

Posted on December 3, 2011

This is a shelf in my medicine cabinet. I couldn’t tell you exactly when it became so, to put it politely, non-utiliariarian. It holds a postcard from a coffee shop that no longer exists, a postcard from a place I’ve never been, my everyday perfume, a couple of Escada perfume samples I rarely wear because they’re a bit heady for my daily life and, the newest edition, a box of worry dolls. The dolls, a gift from the last hotel I stayed in, are supposed to take away worry and allow peaceful dreams and came with instructions to transfer one worry into each doll before bedtime. Of course my first thought was I’m going to need a bigger box of dolls.

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Midweek Music

Sandra Peterson Ramirez

Posted on May 25, 2011

Cat Power – Lived in Bars

Bluesy, boozy, southern, good.

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A Little Music Appreciation

Sandra Peterson Ramirez

Posted on May 11, 2011

Adele – Rolling in the Deep

I love her big, bold voice; it sort of grabs you by the collar and demands that you pay attention. In a good way. She brings to mind some great female singers like Nina Simone and Peggy Lee, while being modern and cool.