Weblog 60
April 1, 2007~ 2:15pm
Today is Palm Sunday. It's an early easter this year, and I am off from work on Good Friday. And honestly, the fact that this is a short work week is the only pleasant thing for Easter has always been a holiday brings me down, and I don't know why. I've always felt here's something inherently incongruous about bright colored eggs, a big mythical bunny- and a bloody, tortured death of a mild and delusional savior, and the older I get the harder it is to believe. I gave up my belief in the Easter Bunny almost immediately- that's one thing I could never swallow, that one- even as a child. The religious significance becomes more and more complex as the years go on, and I need only think of the monstrousness of a father who would give his son over to be tortured and killed, and the idea of that same entity being the font of all good, to set my head reeling.
Yes the sad and perfect little egg, wrapped not in pastel or sparkles, but tied in funereal crepe and suspended- if I am to believe at all- is the perfect picture of Easter for me. It's a recollection and appreciation and a reckoning of the cost of the Christian story. Perhaps if we'd just allowed Easter to be sad- the resurrection not quite overshadowing the horror- it would chime truer for me.
Our culture over the centuries has tended to leap right on ahead to the 'alleluias', and skip too quickly over the "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani" (which is the most common cry of all his children-- my own--and yours, and all of ours) and one that both breaks and opens my heart. I think that is the real resurrection, the realization of our commonality of despair and the possibility- the tiny, shining possibility that it all is not 'all for naught'; that we- and and that all of this, means something- even in our times of abandonment, and that he felt it too. That is the 'communion of saints', and every one of us 'martyrs'.
April 1, 2007~ 8:15pm
Having been out shopping with my mother today, seeing all the Easter fluff and stuff-- yes, I do believe that Easter really gets me down. Feels like a 'whitewash' holiday- the kind of thing that looks pretty on the surface, but is mighty dark beneath. I actually resent that stupid big bunny and parading around in Sunday clothes. Oh, I participated enough in all this stuff over the years- when my own children were little- I remember one year, the dumb bunny actually put Matt's unfortunate basket by a heat register, and by morning all of his cellophane wrapped chocolates were liquid inside. (His sister's basket did not have the same hiding spot and thus, did not suffer the same end.) He howled in anguish, and my soothing, "Oh, honey, that dumb bunny," I said while I was stifling laughter- "we'll just put this in the fridge for a while, and you can share Holly's for the time being."
Of course, that brought howls from his sister, and even after hardening again, who really wants to partake of mutant, melted bunnies with their ears melted down on their asses?
I came by this conventional celebration of the holiday through family tradition. I have to say nothing compares to the egg hunt for all the cousins in my grandfather's yard. Here I am in 1956, 5 years old and hanging on proudly to two eggs, the pinned on pipe-cleaner bunny on my lapel, bent and down for the count. We did the Easter egg hunts and the round of all the relatives with everyone's new shoes hurting, and the gum-band that holds the bonnets on dug in under the chin digging in too hard, etc., etc.
So I guess, for parts of my life, I did 'enjoy' it (whatever that means) but for the last 20 or so years of this 55 year old life, it makes me heavy-hearted. I suppose I've become more darkly philosophical in these years and tend to dig more under the surface in looking at the culture-- at religion, at social mores-- oh, everything, and Easter continues to seem like one of the biggest crocks of all. In its commercialization, we ignore more and more what its true origin is....someone was tortured, mocked, and died terribly- and so we get dressed up and eat fattening foods and color everything in pastel. I guess I just don't get it any more. Yes there is the resurrection, but I hate the way we ignore the time before it: the cost. I object to ignoring the cost of those pastels, and oh, I don't get a lot of things in the way I used to, and as I've said before, I have a very low tolerance for 'cute'. Easter, for the most part deserves that word more than any other holiday. Yep....cute it is.
April 3, 2007~ 6:45pm
Alright, my interactive poetry board has been dead as a doornail so I've been using my 'personal notebook board'-- just to jot poems down as they come to me, and I wrote about one of the most thrilling things that's happened to me of late- (yes, my life IS that lame. lol) It was my encounter with a HUGE RED SQUIRREL yesterday as I pulled into the carport after work. I don't believe I've ever seen one in real life before- and I certainly have not seen one as damned BIG as the one yesterday!
Those who know me, know I LOVE squirrels. They're the little entertainers of nature, those danged old "Sciurus Vulgaris", and when Wayne read a poem I had posted about my strange encounter of the 'squirrel kind', he immediately emailed that squirrels are carnivores...hell!.......I never knew that! And I told him that THIS one was as big as a REALLY LARGE cat and was flaming red, the sneaky little bugger. He disappeared when I got out of the car and slithered back UP the tree noiselessly (or shape-shifted)...lol... one of the most riveting animals I've ever seen. Here's a perfect example of the fella I saw. (Oh-- and it's wallpaper sized- if you're so inclined. :) ) Gorgeous...
That sent me on today's project: finding out more. The following quotes are copyrighted exerpts -(there's a link at the end of today's entry, it you'd like to read more- or buy the book.) They show just how entertaining----and dangerous----and clever these little fellers can be.
How 'bout them nuts?-- ballsy and talented, that's the way I'd peg them. However I do think what I saw was not the tiny red squirrel so beloved of the British-- (and now threatened because of the introduction of the more aggressive gray North American variety)-- but this: "Fox squirrels, the largest tree squirrels in North America, are considered by some the most handsome. The coat of the fox squirrel is usually lush reddish tan with a light belly. Like the gray, fox squirrels can vary in color from white/gray to brown/black. They average in size over two pounds in weight and two feet in length. Like the gray squirrel, the fox has been introduced to the western states and had its eastern range extended through human activities. I have seen fox squirrels in northern hardwoods and southern cypress swamps."
...as I said, that baby was a big 'un. Wow. So I continued to browse, so enamored had I become of the Rita Hayworth-style bushtail, and when I came across this picture
I found that if I turned the picture 90 degrees clockwise, that portion looked like part of a lovely Japanese print, so.....(as I said, the poetry board is dead...lol)....I snipped out that part and designed this little picture in my 'Paint' program.
***
(Return To Weekly Archives)
Today is Palm Sunday. It's an early easter this year, and I am off from work on Good Friday. And honestly, the fact that this is a short work week is the only pleasant thing for Easter has always been a holiday brings me down, and I don't know why. I've always felt here's something inherently incongruous about bright colored eggs, a big mythical bunny- and a bloody, tortured death of a mild and delusional savior, and the older I get the harder it is to believe. I gave up my belief in the Easter Bunny almost immediately- that's one thing I could never swallow, that one- even as a child. The religious significance becomes more and more complex as the years go on, and I need only think of the monstrousness of a father who would give his son over to be tortured and killed, and the idea of that same entity being the font of all good, to set my head reeling.
Yes the sad and perfect little egg, wrapped not in pastel or sparkles, but tied in funereal crepe and suspended- if I am to believe at all- is the perfect picture of Easter for me. It's a recollection and appreciation and a reckoning of the cost of the Christian story. Perhaps if we'd just allowed Easter to be sad- the resurrection not quite overshadowing the horror- it would chime truer for me.
Our culture over the centuries has tended to leap right on ahead to the 'alleluias', and skip too quickly over the "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani" (which is the most common cry of all his children-- my own--and yours, and all of ours) and one that both breaks and opens my heart. I think that is the real resurrection, the realization of our commonality of despair and the possibility- the tiny, shining possibility that it all is not 'all for naught'; that we- and and that all of this, means something- even in our times of abandonment, and that he felt it too. That is the 'communion of saints', and every one of us 'martyrs'.
April 1, 2007~ 8:15pm
Having been out shopping with my mother today, seeing all the Easter fluff and stuff-- yes, I do believe that Easter really gets me down. Feels like a 'whitewash' holiday- the kind of thing that looks pretty on the surface, but is mighty dark beneath. I actually resent that stupid big bunny and parading around in Sunday clothes. Oh, I participated enough in all this stuff over the years- when my own children were little- I remember one year, the dumb bunny actually put Matt's unfortunate basket by a heat register, and by morning all of his cellophane wrapped chocolates were liquid inside. (His sister's basket did not have the same hiding spot and thus, did not suffer the same end.) He howled in anguish, and my soothing, "Oh, honey, that dumb bunny," I said while I was stifling laughter- "we'll just put this in the fridge for a while, and you can share Holly's for the time being."
Of course, that brought howls from his sister, and even after hardening again, who really wants to partake of mutant, melted bunnies with their ears melted down on their asses?
I came by this conventional celebration of the holiday through family tradition. I have to say nothing compares to the egg hunt for all the cousins in my grandfather's yard. Here I am in 1956, 5 years old and hanging on proudly to two eggs, the pinned on pipe-cleaner bunny on my lapel, bent and down for the count. We did the Easter egg hunts and the round of all the relatives with everyone's new shoes hurting, and the gum-band that holds the bonnets on dug in under the chin digging in too hard, etc., etc.
So I guess, for parts of my life, I did 'enjoy' it (whatever that means) but for the last 20 or so years of this 55 year old life, it makes me heavy-hearted. I suppose I've become more darkly philosophical in these years and tend to dig more under the surface in looking at the culture-- at religion, at social mores-- oh, everything, and Easter continues to seem like one of the biggest crocks of all. In its commercialization, we ignore more and more what its true origin is....someone was tortured, mocked, and died terribly- and so we get dressed up and eat fattening foods and color everything in pastel. I guess I just don't get it any more. Yes there is the resurrection, but I hate the way we ignore the time before it: the cost. I object to ignoring the cost of those pastels, and oh, I don't get a lot of things in the way I used to, and as I've said before, I have a very low tolerance for 'cute'. Easter, for the most part deserves that word more than any other holiday. Yep....cute it is.
April 3, 2007~ 6:45pm
Alright, my interactive poetry board has been dead as a doornail so I've been using my 'personal notebook board'-- just to jot poems down as they come to me, and I wrote about one of the most thrilling things that's happened to me of late- (yes, my life IS that lame. lol) It was my encounter with a HUGE RED SQUIRREL yesterday as I pulled into the carport after work. I don't believe I've ever seen one in real life before- and I certainly have not seen one as damned BIG as the one yesterday!
Those who know me, know I LOVE squirrels. They're the little entertainers of nature, those danged old "Sciurus Vulgaris", and when Wayne read a poem I had posted about my strange encounter of the 'squirrel kind', he immediately emailed that squirrels are carnivores...hell!.......I never knew that! And I told him that THIS one was as big as a REALLY LARGE cat and was flaming red, the sneaky little bugger. He disappeared when I got out of the car and slithered back UP the tree noiselessly (or shape-shifted)...lol... one of the most riveting animals I've ever seen. Here's a perfect example of the fella I saw. (Oh-- and it's wallpaper sized- if you're so inclined. :) ) Gorgeous...
That sent me on today's project: finding out more. The following quotes are copyrighted exerpts -(there's a link at the end of today's entry, it you'd like to read more- or buy the book.) They show just how entertaining----and dangerous----and clever these little fellers can be.
"There are cases where squirrels have gone on rampages and terrorized whole communities. In Westerville, Ohio, more than one gray squirrel attacked at least eight people. The furry suspects with beady eyes had taken over a tree-lined neighborhood, and no one felt safe. Police once had to set up traps, send out patrols, and even corner suspects in the county park, but no arrests were ever made; police were unable to nab any of the suspected squirrels. One officer, while on patrol, witnessed an attack. The squirrel appeared friendly but suddenly leaped at the victim and bit her leg. Unprovoked attacks like this lasted two weeks during the spring, then suddenly ended as quickly as they began. This case remains a mystery to this day, but like many unsolved cases, it may have a lot to do with spring and hormones.
Food and fun are never absent from a squirrel's thoughts. Squirrels love festivities. They have joined in on more than one Easter egg hunt. The tradition of hiding colorful eggs for kids to find has caught on in the squirrel realm. Squirrels don't seem to mind if the eggs are real or plastic, they just take pleasure in the hunt. Christmas is the same way. Many homeowners find their Christmas decorations missing and can't imagine who would do such a thing.
One year at the zoo in Tulsa, Oklahoma, officials decided on a "ZooLIGHTful" theme during the Christmas holidays. They put up 130,000 Christmas lights, which really turned the squirrels on. Within hours, the squirrels began to drag the six-and eight-foot sections of lights back to their nests. They were really getting into the Christmas spirit and were streaming by with decorations and fighting over the most colorful bulbs. It was almost as chaotic as Macy's the day after Christmas.
The following year, zoo officials treated the lights with vapoRub, pepper spray, and deodorant. It slowed the squirrel light-theft down, and there were fewer chest colds, but all the squirrels around the Tulsa Zoo that year were half lit."
How 'bout them nuts?-- ballsy and talented, that's the way I'd peg them. However I do think what I saw was not the tiny red squirrel so beloved of the British-- (and now threatened because of the introduction of the more aggressive gray North American variety)-- but this: "Fox squirrels, the largest tree squirrels in North America, are considered by some the most handsome. The coat of the fox squirrel is usually lush reddish tan with a light belly. Like the gray, fox squirrels can vary in color from white/gray to brown/black. They average in size over two pounds in weight and two feet in length. Like the gray squirrel, the fox has been introduced to the western states and had its eastern range extended through human activities. I have seen fox squirrels in northern hardwoods and southern cypress swamps."
...as I said, that baby was a big 'un. Wow. So I continued to browse, so enamored had I become of the Rita Hayworth-style bushtail, and when I came across this picture
I found that if I turned the picture 90 degrees clockwise, that portion looked like part of a lovely Japanese print, so.....(as I said, the poetry board is dead...lol)....I snipped out that part and designed this little picture in my 'Paint' program.
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