song of life

last night we sang
        jazz
        blues
        be-bop improv
                cool grooving moves with
                swaying hips and
                snapping fingers

unfortunately
we jumped to the Apollo beat
confined in a Catholic church
        dead center under the
        gaze of a
                skeletal
                crucified Christ.

I opened my door to
glorious song
        averted my eyes from
        manifested tortured death
                gave over my
                whole self to
            music
            that suffused the air with
        infinite patterns
    of
life

you say it’s your birthday

No, actually, I say it’s my birthday. I am no longer the Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything; now I’m just the nondescript number 43.

The schools were on a delay today, so I got to sleep late; I was awakened at 8:45 by my husband and kids bringing me breakfast in bed. My 11-year-old son makes a killer cheese-and-bacon omelet, let me tell you. It was a very lovely way to start the day. 🙂

My mom got me a marvelous book: a collection of cartoons by one of my favorite artists from The New Yorker: Roz Chast. Much of my birthday evening will be spent in front of the fireplace enjoying her strange and hysterical takes on the world.

But probably the best laugh of the day came when I finally got out to my computer this morning and found a card my son had made and propped against the monitor. It has lively drawings of cake, candles, and balloons, and inside, features the following poem (with his emphasis and spelling):

Roses are Red,
Violets are Blue,
Sugar is Sweet,
And your past 42!

Who could ask for anything more?

fire

sitting on the floor
a few feet from
new bright flames

sparks
        burst
        outward
    tiny orange fireworks

gentle
crackle
    hiss

dancing light
glows
warm

we read;
dogs sprawl nearby;
cats drape the furniture.

this is what it is to be
        content.

if you want…

Last evening, the theme of my church’s Christmas Eve Vespers service was “The Birth of the Holy.” Now, if you’ve read this blog at all, then you know I’m an atheist. So why was I 1) at a Christmas Eve service, especially one that talked about 2) “the Holy”?

Because 1) I love Christmas, for reasons relating to joy and love and music and color and lights and giving and sharing and family and bringing the world to life in the midst of winter cold. I listen to the Christmas story with the same mindset as I do any other story, and I appreciate the careful consideration that led the early church to mesh their commemoration of Jesus’s birth with an existing Pagan holiday, thus helping popularize their central figure and bringing tremendous happiness to the world each December.