TToT: Where Rugged Coasts and Grassy Hills Collide – Don’t Look Back, #10Thankful

“the beautiful spring came; and when nature resumes her loveliness, the human soul is apt to revive also.”

–Harriet Ann Jacobs

What a week! (Read on to find out why…)

Girl On Fire – Alicia Keys

I remember not thinking this so much as it was in progress, but now that I am looking back on it, I have felt pure exhaustion, for some reason.

TEN THINGS OF THANKFUL

For my first official violin lesson.

I didn’t know if a whole hour would be too much for me. Playing violin is going to be a physical tax on my body, as I have a lot of pain, a lot of the time, but this is like going to the gym, for me, in a way. Sounds less taxing, but it isn’t much less, not really.

I have been just teaching myself, along with a few instructions from my uncle, so now it’s time to learn proper technique. It will be a slow process, a progress that takes time to build on.

I think of it like using an iPhone when you can’t see. At first, when I tried my brother’s phone, it all seemed tricky and difficult. But once I got a feel for it, where on the screen I could locate specific App’s or where on the keyboard to place my fingertip, if I wanted an A instead of a Q. Once you develop the sense memory required, like my new teacher says, it will come to you.

For my new violin teacher.

She has been playing the violin since she was four and teaching it since she was fourteen. I guess that means she is qualified to teach me.

🙂

She is outgoing and a willing participant in teaching violin to someone she can’t just show by doing. She must show me, most times, by hand or with verbal instruction, but she has been eager from the beginning. I am thankful and appreciative for the enthusiasm she has shown thus far.

For my brother’s faith in me, in asking me in the first place, to write the lyrics for his final assignment in his Music Industry Arts program.

The song is called “Don’t Look Back” and I hoped it would convey a feeling, but I don’t think many will pick it out from my words.

People’s first impulse is to think most songs are about love, but although this one could be, it’s about losing something else entirely, something valuable.

I was afraid I couldn’t write lyrics. I did it. The week started with only vague ideas and unclear groupings of words. It ended with a song, still in rough draft, but on its way to becoming a thing of beauty. This is because my brother had faith and put the lyric creation in my hands. I just hope he is pleased with the results. I know, after listening to what he’s come up with so far, that I am more than pleased.

For a slimmed-down Writer’s Circle.

Things come up and people get busy. I myself have missed a Wednesday or two, for my brother’s accident or for a bad night of my own. I understood.

It was just the three of us: Bernie, Theo, and myself this time. That’s okay. It was nice to have a smaller group once, but I missed a few other members who weren’t there.

There seemed to be a lot more silliness and a little less serious writing. Good times though. I brought a mystery object. It was a little bear with a heart shaped locket with my photo and my dad’s photo from my kidney transplant. Theo even took pics of it, to show someone, to go along with the wild talking bear story he came up with.

For Ireland.

I love the Ireland commercial narrated by Liam Neeson. His beautiful Irish accent is perfect for it.

I know about the beer and the celebrating, as I have had a bit of that St. Patrick’s Day fun here in Canada, but no green beer can compare to the real place.

For one incredible, once-in-a-lifetime adventure in my favourite place in the world.

Luck of the Irish

It was my dream to visit Ireland and I had a blast with friends, old and new.

I crossed this bridge with my travel companions, in front and behind me, and I made it to the other side.

She Travels Without Sight: Crossing Ireland’s Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge Blind

I speak more about the experience in the above interview with an awesome travel blog.

I am thankful for that experience and that it taught me that sometimes, in life, you’ve just got to go for it.

For Irish music and Irish musicians.

Only When I Sleep – The Corrs

Of course, as much as I love that one, my favourite Irish group is, without a doubt…

God Be With You – The Cranberries

God I love Ireland and The Cranberries too.

🙂

I wrote a post to mark the twenty year anniversary of the release of my all-time favourite of their albums.

Ode and Lament: Ode to “No Need To Argue”

I am forever thankful that this album came along. It taught me about Irish history, about Irish poets, and oh so much more.

As I rode the tour bus along the winding highway I heard a familiar sound coming out of the bus’s PA speaker. It was a song by The Cranberries and then our guide announced we would be stopping at the grave site of W.B. Yeats.

I was blown away by the peaceful feeling I got from that spot. I thought back on that song and the words about the “Lake Isle of Innisfree”.

The Lake Isle of Innisfree by William Butler Yeats

World Poetry Day is in March after all.

For another chance to showcase a man, through an interview I conducted, who sets a brilliant example for the males of the world and the website willing to give me that opportunity.

Shining a Light on Preventing Abuse Against Women-an Interview with Garry Atkinson – Good Men Project

Thank you Jeremy McKeen and Garry Atkinson.

For the first day of spring.

I like this photo, or what I’m told of it anyway, because although it is officially spring here in the northern hemisphere today, it is cold and snowing in some parts. I liked the image of spring flowers and snowflakes in the air.

For all the things that bring me happiness.

Music Makes Me Happy, #1000Speak #InternationalDayOfHappiness

So, as I said, what a week! What a week of music and of the growth promised by the colour green.

So Cold In Ireland – The Cranberries

For spring, music, Ireland, even when they are cold.

😉

For all these things and more.

Yeats’ Grave – The Cranberries

“The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.”

–William Butler Yeats

World Poetry Day

There seems to be a day to celebrate everything: from pie to poetry. I like this because it offers many blog writing ideas.
I love poetry, yet I find it difficult to write. I admire so many others who are able to be brief and direct and so beautiful and moving with their poems. I try, but this is less a post about my own poetry as it is about the poems and their poets who inspire and touch me deeply.
***
My previous post was about Ireland and one of the poets I highly admire just so happens to be Irish: and a Nobel Prize winner of literature: William Butler Yeats.
I first learned of him years ago. The Cranberries had a song on my favourite of their albums, No Need To Argue, entitled Yeats’ Grave. In this song Dolores sings out the lyrics of his poem The Lake Isle of Innisfree, with such loveliness and her well-known brand of haunting melody, speaking lines from his poem in between singing. “Had they the courage equal to desire.” I was instantly drawn in and captivated.
Years later and I found myself on a tour bus, traveling all across Ireland. On the second day our lively and always fun tour guide began talking about Yeats, while The Cranberries played on the speaker in the background, as we entered Drumcliffe in County Sligo. I smiled to myself, not really believing where I was lucky enough to be at that moment in time. He said we would be stopping at W. B. Yeats’ grave.
It was a peaceful place. I stood on the grass with my two friends and fellow travellers and marvelled at my surroundings. It was a poem in itself, if I had more of a chance and ability to write one. My friend showed me the plaque and his tombstone. I remembered that Cranberries song and I heard the lyrics playing loudly inside my head. Yeats wrote about Irish mythology and folklore and I could feel all of that swirling around me, there, on that spot.
***
My favourite poem is by the great American poet Robert Frost. I first read it in school and it spoke to me immediately: The Road Not Taken. This poem felt like it had been written specifically for me and my life.
I felt then and do now that my own life has always been one of unpredictability. I have never before taken the obvious path in life and have gone down some pretty unexpected roads. It began in high school. I did not go on to post secondary like my peers. I couldn’t handle what life was supposed to be, so instead I decided to follow my own unique path. I often wonder what my life would have been like, if I had been well enough at the time and able to manage the stress and the pressures. I still don’t know, but the path I chose is mine and only mine.
***
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
***
Frost speaks of a wood and a well trodden path, but mine was my own to tread. His symbolism and imagery spoke to me and I never forgot that.
***
Robert Frost wrote poetry about nature and the natural world, winning him four Pulitzer Prizes. His poem Stopping By Woods On a Snowy Evening was another I read in school, loving the peaceful feeling it gave me. “The woods are lovely, dark, and deep. But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep.” I could feel and smell the snow in those woods, could hear the jangling of the horse’s bell, back in a time, years before I was born.
***
On this World Poetry Day I wanted to salute just a few of the poets I love. I have read a few lately, destined to touch a lot of people. One was just accepted into Wordgathering, a literary magazine for people with disabilities. He writes eloquently about what it feels like to go from living in a visual world to being separated forever from the sighted world. I wish him great success with this poem and his future poetry.
***
Thank you to all the poets out there who make us all feel so strongly about the little moments and the big things, nature and the human condition. I am comforted every day by your words.
What are some of your favourite poems and poets?
poets.org is an excellent resource for poems and poets.