“I think that whenever we give our pen some free will, we may surprise ourselves. All that wanting to seem normal in regular life, all that fitting in falls away in the face of one’s own strange self on the page……

Reminding myself that no one else would ever see what I wrote—with my ballpoint pen in my wide-ruled spiral notebook—helped me be less censored and less afraid. Later, I could decide to show or not, because whether anyone ever read it was not the most important thing.

Writing or making anything—a poem, a bird feeder, a chocolate cake—has self-respect in it. You’re working. You’re trying. You’re not lying down on the ground, having given up.

And one thing I love about writing is that we can speak to the absent, the dead, the estranged and the longed-for—all the people we’re separated from. We can see them again, understand them more, even say goodbye.”

– Sharon Olds

I’ve had Amaryllis rebloom for many years. Wait till the flowers on the stalk have died. Cut back the stalk which is hollow but allow the other leaves to grow over the summer. You may get more than one stalk come up which carries the blooming flowers. In the late summer cut all the leaves down to the level of the bulb. Then either take the bulb out, rub off the compost, and store it in newspaper in a cardboard box in a dry cool place. Keep it sleeping for six to eight weeks or more if it suits you. Then put the bulb in fresh compost in the flower pot. Water. Leave it in a warm sunny spot and watch it grow again. If the bulb gets too big to take it out the pot, which will eventually happen, just remove as much soil as you can, and put the newspaper on top of the bulb and scrunch it down. I have about 20 Amaryllis of various colours and enjoy watching them grow over the winter and early spring. They then provide leaves over the summer which feed the bulb and I put them in my front porch in big cardboard boxes to sleep in the early autumn. This year they are getting a longer sleep so that I can enjoy them when I come back from holiday. It is always a joy to see them come back year after year. You don’t say goodbye to them, you say, lovely having you, see you next year.

MyLucy12/09/23

There is absolutely a reason why this classic game means so much to Americans who live in a post-draft era. Our nation post Vietnam has not asked Americans be they new or old or not even legal to serve. Our country asks nothing of us ever. My Dad, part of WW2 generation, his brothers 2 of them serving as Navy pilots when he was a sophomore in high school lit his fire and as a junior just registered for military service. The issues were clearer then, the cause unwavering. He was surrounded by Victory Garden people. He was raised to respect his Jewish friends. He was just ready and desperate to serve; to not do so would have brought shame to his family and his Catholic Parish. Plus, in his generation living through and coming out of Depression, military service was also a paycheck if you think about it; and hints even then that US military would pay for you to go to college when in his case his family could not have done that for him; the impetus to join was a non-starter. But today’s game also speaks to a new generation that just wants to be asked to serve and they can do it too and bring so many skills and passions with them. But in end this game was just classy and lovely. I mean at beginning both Glee Clubs sang National Anthem together not apart. At Game’s end when Army won, they sung the Naval Academy school song. I mean makes you cry the mutual respect they have for each other. In closing, I will just say this, our Congress is a joke, but now and again certain reps step up from across the political divide and get things done, and who are those people? They are people who served in our military. Only they alone care about compromise and working across the isle. And it is just not West Point and Naval Academy; we have US Air Force Academy, Coast Guard Academy, Mass Maritime, Maine Maritime, the Citadel, and Norwich and we have our wonderful Peace Corps and State Dept. People: truth is all of them are awesome and more should aspire to join them. And as far as military is concerned, our enlisted people, all branches are simply the bedrock of our nation.

The moments between your milestones are not filler.

Nelou Keramati

In the Harvard Square area walking the busy sidewalks.

Stopped into a small music hall, and there were lots of 20 something artistic types around.

I sat on an old-fashioned swivel stool like in the old drug stores and had a nice talk with the female server.

Then I was pushing an empty grocery carriage along the sidewalk and water had flooded the area, 

so, I couldn’t push the cart any further, and from across the street a young man that I knew dove across the water filled street to help me.

Then I was trying to enter this olde stone building on a college campus.

There was this big door, but in front of it were two 20 something women in a big sleeping bag together blocking the door.

I kept asking them to move over and they grudgingly did so.

Then a teacher came buy, and said it was the wrong entrance.

“Nobody sees anybody truly but all through the flaws of their own egos. That is the way we all see …each other in life. Vanity, fear, desire, competition– all such distortions within our own egos– condition our vision of those in relation to us. Add to those distortions to our own egos the corresponding distortions in the egos of others, and you see how cloudy the glass must become through which we look at each other. That’s how it is in all living relationships except when there is that rare case of two people who love intensely enough to burn through all those layers of opacity and see each other’s naked hearts.” 

― Tennessee Williams