Six Things On a Saturday

1. I'm so glad I got to accompany my husband to the Boston Marathon last Monday. Boston is a beautiful, clean city with great museums and galleries, fascinating historical sights and wonderful architecture. And the people of Boston were so terrifically supportive of the runners. People lined nearly foot of the route, clapping and shouting words of support. My husband said he drew a lot of energy from the crowds that helped sustain him through the 26.2 trek through the city (including Heartbreak Hill). Three cheers for Boston!!! And congratulations to my husband for his time of 3:49! That's a pr for him. I wish I could post a picture but my camera crapped out on me that day.

2. Exercise, I discovered long ago, is the best way of dealing with stress and the nasty knocks life sometimes deals you.

3. Spring is a time of rebirth and renewal and, despite some recent blows and disappointments, I am trying to look forward with my head held up like the daffodils.

4. When life gets tough, I think of Ernest Hemingway's philosophy of "grace under pressure" or courage. It's so easy to crumple in the face of adversity, much harder to do the right thing and carry on. My father had a friend, a writer named Bill Weatherby. They worked together at The Manchester Guardian in England and both of them, like so many other immigrants, eventually came to America in search of a better life. While my dad abandoned his writing career (he had a growing family to support, after all), Bill stuck to his. He covered the Civil Rights movement in the south during the 1950s for the NY Times, fell in love with a black woman and made no attempt to hide his love for her. When a group of southern white KKK members spotted him holding hands with her in public, they jumped him and brutally beat him. He knew the risks but refused to be bullied. Now I call that "grace under pressure".

5. This month is National Poetry Month. I've been receiving a poem a day in my email from Random House. What a delight! Here's one of my favorites by author Joyce Carol Oates. And yeah, I liked Elvis!

Waiting On Elvis, 1956

This place up in Charlotte called Chuck's where I
used to waitress and who came in one night
but Elvis and some of his friends before his concert
at the Arena, I was twenty-six married but still
waiting tables and we got to joking around like you
do, and he was fingering the lace edge of my slip
where it showed below my hemline and I hadn't even
seen it and I slapped at him a little saying, You
sure are the one aren't you feeling my face burn but
he was the kind of boy even meanness turned sweet in
his mouth.

Smiled at me and said, Yeah honey I guess I sure am.

6. And, here's another I loved by Brad Leithauser from his collection, Curves and Angles.

A Good List
(Homage to Lorenz Hart)

Some nights, can't sleep, I draw up a list,
Of everything I've never done wrong.
To look at me now, you might insist
My list could hardly be long,
But I've stolen no gnomes from my neighbor’s yard,
Nor struck his dog, backing out my car.
Never ate my way up and down the Loire
On a stranger's credit card.

I've never given a cop the slip,
Stuffed stiffs in a gravel quarry,
Or silenced Cub Scouts on a first camping trip
With an unspeakable ghost story.
Never lifted a vase from a museum foyer,
Or rifled a Turkish tourist's backpack.
Never cheated at golf. Or slipped out a blackjack
And flattened a patent lawyer.

I never forged a lottery ticket,
Took three on a two-for-one pass,
Or, as a child, toasted a cricket
With a magnifying glass.
I never said "air" to mean "err," or obstructed
Justice, or defrauded a securities firm.
Never mulcted—so far as I understand the term.
Or unjustly usufructed.

I never swindled a widow of all her stuff
By means of a false deed and title
Or stood up and shouted, My God, that's enough!
At a nephew’s piano recital.
Never practiced arson, even as a prank,
Brightened church-suppers with off-color jokes,
Concocted an archeological hoax—
Or dumped bleach in a goldfish tank.

Never smoked opium. Or smuggled gold
Across the Panamanian Isthmus.
Never hauled back and knocked a rival out cold,
Or missed a family Christmas.
Never borrowed a book I intended to keep.
. . . My list, once started, continues to grow,
Which is all for the good, but just goes to show
It's the good who do not sleep.