As if with an awkward partner

Walt Whitman Bathing

After his stroke, he would walk into the woods
On sunny days and take off all his clothes
Slowly, one plain shoe
And one plain sock at a time, his good right hand
As gentle as a mother’s, and bathe himself

In a pond while murmuring

And singing quietly, splashing awhile

And dabbling at his ease, white hair and beard

Afloat and still streaming

Down his white chest when he came wading ashore

Naked and quivering.

Then he would pace

In circles, sometimes dancing

A few light steps, his right leg leading the way

Unsteadily but considerately for the left

As if with an awkward partner.

He seemed as oblivious to passersby

As he was to his bare body, which was no longer

A nursery for metaphors

Or a banquet hall for figures of self-praise

But a bedroom or a modest bed in that bedroom

Or the covers on that bed

In need of airing out in the sunlight.

He would sit down on the bank and stare at the water

For an hour as if expecting

Something to emerge, some new reflection

In place of the old.

Meanwhile, he would examine

The postures of wildflowers,

The workings of small leaves, holding them close

To his pale eyes while mumbling inaudibly.

He would dress then, helping

His left side with his right as patiently

As he might have dressed the wounded or the dead,

And would lead himself toward home like a dear companion.

David Wagoner

Lovely, isn't it? That last line, especially.

Update on my Trollope project

Well, this has been slow.

Several months ago I assigned myself the (pleasant) task of reading through all of Anthony Trollope’s novels, in order. It took me much longer than I expected to read through Trollope’s first novel, The McDermots of Ballycloran.

Some of the delay was caused by other events going on in my life, and some was just procrastination. In fact, I finished a quite a few other books while slowly reading this novel.

One reason for the slowness is simply the fact that much of the novel is written in dialect, which is interesting but somewhat taxing. Here's an example:

"But any how, Father John, if you'd come back, and yer riverence wouldn't mind for the onst jist sitting it out -- jist dhrinking a dhrop at an odd time, or colloguing a bit with owld Mr. Tierney, till we get the Captain out of that, shure they'd never be doing anything out of the way as long as yer riverence is in it."

You can see how that sort of thing slows you down.

Upon finishing the book, I did a little research on the nets, and discovered lots of interesting stuff.

For one thing, the folks who live in Drumsna, Ireland, have a website that includes “The Trollope Trail.” You can actually go see Headford House, the ruins that inspired Trollope to write his first novel. The village has just begun an annual Anthony Trollope Summer School, and that sounds like a good thing to put on my wish list.

My takeaway from this rereading of Trollope's first novel (I first read it about ten years ago) is that if it were all he had written he would be quite justly forgotten, although historians, both literary and non-literary, might be quite interested in the work. I can also see that all the themes that Trollope explores so well in his major works are here - class, money, sanity and insanity, the vagaries of romantic love, family, and particularly the one I find so compelling - the way great kindness manifests itself in unexpected and expected places, and makes life, which would otherwise be so very unbearable and tragic, worth living.

"if we each thought of ourselves as a small “i” with a sweet little dot"

This article from the New York Times examines the possible effects of the fact that the English language is the only one that capitalizes the word for self - I. Or, in technical terms, we use the majuscule "I."

I don't know if all the analysis is warranted; it is, after all, an accident caused by the fact that the word is an abbreviation of the original ich, and the fact that one letter all alone looks like an accident on a printed page.

But it's an interesting idea - especially for bloggers.

Little Surfer Girl

Mila's Daydreams is the "maternity leave blog" of a copywriter and designer who says, "While my baby is taking her nap, I create a scene around her and take quick snap photos."

What a terrific idea! Love the surfer girl photo, but check out the others as well.

On the bus

"Look at that guy on the corner! What a Campbell!"

"A Campbell?"

"Yeah.  Mmmm --mmmm good!"

Doing nothing is better than being busy doing nothing. Lao Tzu

Good words for the last day of a four-day holiday. (Although, actually, I've been quite busy. But today I want to take some time to do nothing.)

Caffeine

You know you really like coffee when you like even pictures of it. BTW, although I enjoy expensive coffee in coffee shops, Wawa coffee is really good - and half the price. I hope the good folks working there today are getting double time on this holiday.