The Month of June

I love life in the city... such friends and love (Dan) I know. Precious memories made reveling in the beauty of art in life I see so clearly when most myself.

The past weeks held sweet, summer delights like Opera in the park, picnics, visiting friends, always the discovery of restaurants, and unusual cultural events. A few June highlights:

- Amazing nights with "my girls": Out of Africa" (w/ Moroccan Mojitos!) and "Six Feet Under" nights; Wednesday Nouwen talks; "Maniac Mondays": drinks, dancing or meals

- Nights home with my Dan are precious: cooking together with new recipes, watching movies, reading, working on The Perfect Spot newsletter

- Seeing an excellent film, "Paris Je'Taime", with Dan & Annelies (after a luscious French meal at brand new Cassis). Alexander Payne's vignette, the final of the many vignettes (some enchanting, some decent, most good), brought tears to my eyes, touched my heart. Simple. Eloquent. Deep.
- Long nights of drink, food and conversation about all the important (and not so important, but delightful) aspects of life with Scott & Louise at home or favorite spots: The Alembic, Rye, Chutney, Hidden Vine, Redwood Room, Le Colonial (birthday celebration for Scott!)
- Endless savory meals with friends or my Dan at Salt House, Joe DiMaggio's (third time!), Jovino, Umami, Chez Spencer, Red Box Sushi, 900 Grayson in Berkeley, and so on

- Eight of us enjoyed "Casablanca" Film Night in the Park (Union Square), complete with chocolate, red wine, delicious German food (thanks, Bjorn and Lea), the classic film, clanging trolleys going by, wrapped in blankets

- Dannee and I went to a brilliant blues show by Guy Davis at "Biscuits and Blues" on June 28. Not only was it a cozy, intimate show, his musicianship and voice evoked the Old South, life, sadness, sexuality and humor. The song about his father, "Hooking Bull at the Landing", is soulfully beautiful, giving me chills of understanding deep in my gut.

Currently watching : The Painted Veil

Thoughts on Age

I'm reading Malcom Muggeridge essays ("Vintage Muggeridge"), finding his style refreshingly straightforward and his predelictions of society, religion and the future of the world as we know it, chilling. All this and written 20-30 years ago.

In his essay, "Am I A Christian?":
"You have in a small area of the world [the US] an economic system which only works in so far as it constantly increases its gross national product. This is our golden calf, and year by year it must get bigger. In order that its getting bigger shouldn't create chaos, people must constantly consume more and want more, so that we must dedicate some of our most brilliant talents and a huge proportion of our wealth to making them want what they don't want... At the same time, while this is going on in one part of the world, in another part of the world, people are getting poorer and poorer and hungrier and hungrier."

In his eulogy, "Dr. Johnson Looks Heavenward":
"[Dr. Johnson says] I have neither mother to be delighted with the reputation of her son, nor wife to partake in the honours of her husband. I have outlived my friends and my rivals... Youth is delighted with applause, because it is considered as the earnest of some future good, and because the prospect of life is far extended: but to me, who am now declining to decrepitude, there is little to be feared from the malevolence of men, and yet less to be hoped from their affection or esteem... Riches would now be useless, and high employment would be pain. My retrospect of life recalls to my view many opportunities of good neglected, much time squandered upon trifles, and more lost in idleness and vacancy. I leave many great designs unattempted, and many great attempts unfinished. My mind is burdened with no heavy crime, and therefore I compose myself to tranquility; endeavor to abstract my thoughts from hopes and cares, which, though reason knows them to be vain, still try to keep their old possession of the heart; expect, with serene humility, that hour which nature cannot long delay; and hope to possess, in a better state, that happiness which here I could not find, and that virtue which here I have not attained."

In his essay, "On Humanae Vitae":
"When you are old there is something that happens that I find very delightful. You often wake up about half past two or three in the morning when the world is very quiet and, in a way, very beautiful. And you feel half in and half out of your body. As though it is really a toss-up whether you go back into that battered old carcase that you can actually see between the sheets, or make off to where you see in the sky, as it were, like the glow of a distant city...
You are aware of these two things: of the old battered carcase of your life in it and this wonderful making off. And at moment, in the sort of limbo between the two, you have an extraordinarily clear perception of life... what you realize with a certainty and a sharpness... is how extraordinarily beautiful the world is; how wonderful is the privilege of being allowed to live in it... of how beautiful the shapes and sounds and colours of the world are; of how beautiful is human love and human work, and all the joys of being a man or woman in the world... that as a creature, an infinitesimal part of God's creation, you participate in God's purposes for his creation. And that whatever may happen, whatever men may do or not do... those purposes of God are loving and not hating. Are creative and not destructive. Are universal and not particular. And in that awareness, great comfort and great joy."

Currently watching : The Queen (2006)

Well

the wind has stilled on this starry night
our star glowing bright over the twin peaks tower
confirming
sign of home
sign of hope

lost though we are, we feel your caress
your whisper
your vision emblazoned across our minds' eye

woven skin to skin
tender intimacy following wild devouring
we pray private prayers
in the aftermath of the storm we find quiet

acceptance
safety
then, surrender

we fall into you
recklessly
nowhere left to turn
nowhere we want to be
our last... and first... resort

like our bodies, exposed
we are raw
we are yours
simple children
unable to forge our path
emblazon our trail
leave our mark
but that you make way

tension of desire
seeps into trust
we accept
and dare to ask
for the moon
all of it

then step onto the roof
witness our star
find confirmation
that you heard the brutally honest words
uttered from our cozy cell
taking simple abandon
to build that long-awaited masterpiece
we may see it
or we may wander till death

yet we know in this instant
that all manner of things shall be well

Currently reading : The Baron in the Trees By Italo Calvino

what dan said

"The longer and deeper I know you, the more I see your motives, your heart... When you sound extreme or intense on one side or another, I realize that you really aren't imbalanced as much as have to test out the extremes, examine worst or best possible scenarios, process out loud, face your fears or express your loves. I realize you aren't judging or hating the opposite even as it may feel that way. I realize you have a very loving heart that accepts easily, right up front, without questions. I love your heart."

Healing, gentle words for a self-judging soul who always agonizes over why she can't come across as she wants and means to due to her intensive, passionate, at times extreme, personality... and coming from one who sees her most and knows her best.

Currently listening : The Essential Taj Mahal

resolution

oh, ache of endless aches
flesh burning for all-consuming purpose
radical explosion of unmistakable truth

dreams woven together since girlhood
into a woman's complex desire
craving outlet, seeking release

yet the world cannot encompass my passion
my body cannot create my visions
my mind sees larger than what reality shows
my heart holds more than compassion reasonably allows
my soul knows its immortality

as i burn for all
i look to the sky, my stars and radiant moon,
and see you.. the resolution of all that is only hinted at here

Currently watching : Babel