I returned home from the holiday this year thinking about what awaits ahead, by reflecting on what lies behind. I thought of the the line from Shakespeare’s play, The Tempest. “The past is prologue.” Poetry by T.S. Eliot also comes to mind.
“We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.”
― T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets
Holidays, like the changing seasons or the pages of a calendar recur, and though we often follow rituals and traditions like templates, things change. Two of my favorite quotes address change, the first by the Greek philosopher, Heraclitus, “The only constant is change” and the second by Henry David Thoreau, American author, philosopher and naturalist who wrote in his book Walden, “Things do not change; we change.” Both, I believe are true. Continue reading
“Am I blue, am I blue, ain’t these tears telling you, am I blue, you’d be too” —Billie Holiday
Blue Is the Warmest Color is the Cannes Film Festival’s Palme d’Or winning story of a young woman’s first love and loss. In an unusual move, the film’s French director, Abdellatif Kechiche, accepted the award alongside it’s two female leads, Léa Seydoux and Adèle Exarchopoulos. This was more surprising given the controversy surrounding the film and the working conditions for the actors who described the experience as “horrible.” Seydoux went even further when she said that Kechiche made her feel “like a prostitute.” Continue reading
“The death of a mother is the first sorrow wept without her.” Author Unknown
First, I must state that my mother is alive and well (in a manner of speaking), 80 years old living with my father in the house I grew up in. I’m lucky. Today, I can go home again. I’m saddened and concerned however, that my mother struggles with health issues, some of which are her genetic legacy (and probably mine too), others the consequences of her choices. Those include being married to my father and giving birth to and raising six children while being a working mother. Did I say I was grateful to still have her in my life? I am. Continue reading
Next Sunday is the autumnal equinox, the official beginning of fall, when day and night are nearly equal. One can already see the sun’s position in the sky changing and its effect on daylight. Soon too, the leaves will change from their verdant hues to vibrant shades of carmine, crimson, burnt orange, golden yellows and finally tawny browns before they fall to the ground. Continue reading
Ever since I was a child, films, like good books, served as windows to worlds sometimes unfamiliar or far away due to distance in time or space. Movies depicted characters both fictional and historic, unraveled mysteries or documented adventures; they always engaged my emotions and attention. Some films are more familiar and familial, memoirs or morality tales that act like mirrors to my lived experience, or road maps of my internal journey. I prefer non-fiction to fiction. Most fiction, in my view, is simply reality in disguise, employed to protect the innocent and the guilty. As a memoirist I am most interested in the stories we tell and the stories untold about our lives.
Today is Labor Day, the first Monday in September, the day President Grover Cleveland declared a national holiday in 1894. The Knights of Labor and the Central Labor Union organized the first labor parade in New York City in 1887 prior to the national holiday. There had been efforts before to commemorate May 1st as a national holiday to celebrate American workers, but the tragic outcome of the Haymarket Massacre in 1886 made that date too volatile and controversial. On Tuesday, May 4, 1886 a peaceful rally by workers striking in support of an eight-hour workday was disrupted by a dynamite bomb thrown at police officers as they attempted to disperse the demonstrators. Seven police officers, four civilians and dozens of protesters and bystanders were injured. Again in 1894, following the Pullman Strike in Chicago with the death of workers by the U.S. Military and U.S. Marshals, Congress rushed legislation to make Labor Day in September a national holiday, a tribute to American workers.
This is the second in a series of imaginary conversations with my next girlfriend.
Sweet woman,
I know you’re having a hard time understanding why I asked my ex-girlfriend to accompany me and be my support person the day of my carpal tunnel release surgery. As you remember, I originally asked my sister who said she’d be with me that day. When her family was trying to find a time to take their annual vacation before school started, it turned out that the week of my outpatient surgery worked best with everyone’s schedule. She talked to me about it and I told her to have a great time and that I’d find someone else. Continue reading