Whirrling Words

A long time ago I met a man of letters, a man who truly is about l etters. He keeps letters from all over the world, and collected these for many years. Amazingly, something he must have written to these people, inspired them to write back. I saw that he has, among his collection of letters, even letters from a famous artist, with drawings in the margins. Surely invaluable.

We met in a strange way, following a Tony Goldwyn presentation at Brandeis and I asked I thought a rather innocuous question, about how a fledgling screen writer gets the attention of an agent, given the difficulty so many writers have in breaking through. This man raced up to me and said there was some kind of power in what I said and he had to know me. Then I learned he keeps these letters in a library, at Brown University, quite an astonishing and wonderful collection. The art of handwriting is being lost, and so many of these letters are written, and beautifully, that in itself being perhaps a lost art.

It turned out that this man’s life has also been dominated by strange coincidences and I do remember those he related to me, about the Lottery, about meeting his wife, and beyond. So it seemed there was something in common and when his friend, John Rassias was to be honored, he honored me by asking me to write a chapter in a book, self-published, called Breakthrough. And so I did.

Since then I have been experiencing these coincidences that never stop and sending them to this man, and once, feeling so overwhelmed, a coincidence that tied a movie with Mendelssohn, the composer and my husband’s going out that night with a man with this last name, well I called him, and he was sympathetic.

The movie, which totally entranced me, is called ONCE. It’s about music. A love story. Years ago my father used to tell me stories that began ONCE upon a time. And when he stopped it was never time for me. I wanted More. Please. More! I had to wait. And so it has been for this story, a story that unfolds, like a rose, every day in every way, a story that is so much, about love itself.

To continue…., about my Diary, I have sent letters on to this library and countless times have asked for response, but never got a response, at all, and it seemed something deep, was holding him back, but for me, it is inexplicable and selfish, for someone to say they are doing something, and never once tell me what has happened to these letters. I sent because it seemed part of a “story” I am following, and have been, for the longest time, and he was part of the story.

I even attended LIT erary events, that were sweet, and hosted by this man and when he said he had done something special for me upstairs, in the library, about my poetry, he never showed this to me, because his friends who had taken me whisked me away, inexplicably. And he never said what it was, despite my asking. When he asked me to read my poetry, surely a wonderful gesture, on a radio show, and I went to a lot of trouble collecting, and coming, there was another woman there who was reading from her book, and I was NEVER told about this in advance, and so hurt. For this too, No explanations given, and still I kept swallowing my hurt, but did write to him about this, into a vast and ongoing silence. It seemed important to send these letters. Because of a story that did connect us. For story.

I have all the letters, more than I have sent, and I have my pleas to him for response, and the silence I received, throughout this time. I have many X in my letters to him addressed this as sigh lence.

Finally, after years of sending I got a one liner, Please Stop Sending. And so I will, and gladly. I am saying there is something more in all this, and this Blog I think will be telling about this, and also all the letters I have sent over so much time around the world.

The subject of those who seem blind to others, came up yesterday in speaking with the wonderful woman, Tonia E.  who tends to my cat, and also to my blog needs. We were talking about how the world is filled with people, who just don’t seem to “get it” and that’s about responding to each other, in “kind“, and if there is any kind of learning curve to what I have been writing, it’s to put the “kind” back into man “kind” and to stop and listen, and when someone is asking for response, after so much time, then maybe it’s the other person who has something deep to learn about what it’s all about.

Life isn’t about gilt by association, and the story that is deeply about ego, must stop, for us all. Why? Because we’re all in this together, and the environment in which we live must change in small and big ways, and it all starts at home.

post script: In all this time I have tried very hard to swallow my own need for a response, being human and the letters will reveal this, if read. And I do believe as roses are red, as we say, so it is with these letters, a deep and ongoing story I couldn’t possibly have written, and so it’s all about paradox and more. The more in Amore itself.

I can say this about my life, and we all do fall down, but I always try as best I can to respond to those who come my way, who bring me their flowers, their poetry, their hearts, and I feel it is wrong, totally wrong, to ignore another, especially someone who asked so many, many times, for a response

I know only this from years of sending letters to the Hay Library, and that is, once, years ago, some people from India looked at these letters. Now that’s really strange, isn’t it? Given so many years of asking, wanting, to know.

in truth/ruth

I wrote about Fish today and have been on line, because curiously fish has ish within, being the Hebrew word for Man, and it seems they do run, in schools, and if life for us all is a One Room Schoolhouse then the prime lesson is: how we love, and what is important, in rounding the curves.

Also, about swallows. It was strange, wasn’t it, that this year the swallows did not come, as they always did, to Capistrano? I am writing a language-based story. And now that gold is at an all time high, maybe there is something of gold in all this, to be, divined.

I was listening to the lyrics of the Grateful Dead, choosing among songs, for my course on the lyric poetry, and lives of songwriters, a course I have named after Jakob Dylan’s beautiful song, From The Bottom of My Heart. I was thinking how we say, “I am dying to see her again“, a yearning for those who have gone. What if, we really do, and the meaning is actually within the grasp of the phrase.

What IF?

Here is something else, about words. Listen. We dye things to change their hues. Do we die, to change yous?

Ponder this. I am blogging about the alchemy of  WORDS. Merlin is surely in the wings!

Take heart, all is not lost.

” So shall my lungs coine words to their decay.”  William Shakespeare (Coriolanus)

Within the word, coincidence itself there is “coin“.  I find it interesting that I am not only experiencing this “thing” in spades but that I am also experiencing something very deep within and about, words. Plum this. A plumb role.

I found the following on line about to coin a phrase and there is more, so if you are interested do Google this. The WEB is so amazing, Zinging us to places with such “express” speed. A webbed feat.

To coin a phrase’ is now rarely used with its original ‘invent a new phrase’ meaning but is almost always used ironically to introduce a banal or clichéd sentiment. This usage began in the mid 20th century. For example, in Francis Brett Young’s novel Mr. Lucton’s Freedom, 1940:

Coining later began to be associated with inventiveness in language. In the 16th century the ‘coining’ of words and phrases was a common usage of coin.

How everything turns on a dime!

Here is a little coin story, perhaps repeated elsewhere in my blog. I met David, my husband, at a laundromat in Cambridge, MA, The Gold Star. A nasty room mate impelled my exit. The dime stuck in the dryer, and this young man came to help. This was the beginning of my story of Romance. I wrote a story about this called IF, how everything it seems does turn, on IF itself. IF not this, then not… this garden, these children, these flowers, this life…

One day, perhaps when you have time to step out of the River, look down the years and gather up the threads, to see how your very own story, has within, something of great magic. Is there a magician in the wings?  Merlin himself.  Romancing the Stone!

I got a rock for Valentine’s Day. Etched into the rock are the words, You Rock!

some might find me off my rocker by now! But I say, youth is in how you live it!

For some inchoate reason, today seems to be about turquoise. I remember a woman, Margo M. a participant in a beloved poetry group, since disbanded. She always wore turquoise. Everything turquoise. So I asked, Why turquoise? Her answer, “Because it’s the color of happy.”

I looked up turquoise on line to find the following:
The ones with the black lines in them are called Navajo turquoise. This helps you to stay in a place of love and connectedness with others. By doing this, you can feel at “home” no matter where you are. It is a combination of turquoise and sard (sard being the lines). turquoise by itself keeps one in the feeling of unconditional love and connection to all that is while sard by itself keeps one in the state of emotional attachments to family, home, their roots (the good memories of childhood) it also assist in digestion of proteins both animal and vegetable. from a forum post by whitehorse woman

Do you find that some days you feel like wearing certain colors? Today I am swimming in turquoise.

It’s Wednesday, 2/16/2011. Sweet sixteen. I wrote to several friends this morning and realized suddenly that l6 is part of their zip code. I had to notice the big black numbers en route to Tasca, the lovely Spanish restaurant, where I had a romantic V day with David. Those numbers? 1666. And yes, I am keyed to six, particularly this day. The sixth letter of the Hebrew alphabet is VAV. Av means father in Hebrew, as in AVinu Malkenu and it’s the beginning of words such as AVian, and we have A Via, as in road. Elide this and you get Avian. AV is everywhere within words. Audio Visual: AV. Even OF in English sounds like, AV.

So, before closing let’s see what we can learn in Mystic Judaism about the significance of the VAV. There is much, and that much is connected to light itself. You can look on line.

This is of interest to me, being Ruth and I can say, I just discovered this.

Most every verse in The Book of Ruth begins with the letter vav. The SIXTH letter of the Hebrew alphabet is Vav. When that letter is placed at the beginning of a verse or word it carries the meaning of the word “AND” .It is called Vav Hachibur or the connecting Vav. The ancient mystics on the other hand called this letter ” Ot Ha-Emet” the letter of truth.

I told a friend of mine named Anne that I have always loved the Anns of my life. In fact, I named my daughter Lisa Ann, after my grandmother, Anna. For me AN and its variants, being part of the word AND which is a connector, signifies that all Anns somehow act as connectors, in friendship and beyond. One of my favorite childhood books is Anne of Green Gables and in fact, an illustrator of the recent notebook for this, lives just down the road.

Make it a Sweet Sixteen!  Enjoy!!!

in truth/ruth

POST SCRIPT I wore turquoise again today (2/17) and wound up sitting next to a man who was wearing a checkered shirt with the color turquoise, the same color, of my top. No one else in the room wore this, but he sat next to me. I pointed this out. Then on driving back to the South Shore in the evening I found myself directly behind an Emergency Vehicle, Mass 252, that had a striped, almost Indian style motif on its back that lit up the road because it was luminescent turquoise. Zilda at The Salon at Huron Village this afternoon showed me her turquoise jewelry which she almost always wears because she adores turquoise.

Maybe this is getting boring, but the point is: take a look around. You might be surprised at the congruencies in YOUR world.

post script: there is a Post Script Lane in Marshfield, MA. I pass it frequently when walking the dogs from Rexhame back to Humarock.

today (2/18 for Chai, Life!) I went to the “post” office and there found a package from The World Wildlife Federation. The outside shows a dog as part of a card, within, and the caption is: Happiness is  not a destination. It’s a way of life. This totally connects with this blog, about Happy. Turquoise.

Beyond this, I asked X at the store about her most compelling book, in progress, and she said bills keep her from working on this. I know I told her, many times about my own writing, and that she hasn’t yet asked, about my work. Ouch. And yet I read, compulsively, since it’s a really good read, what she has so far written. She told me the need to work keeps her from working on her manuscript.

So when I addressed this little issue of “me”, I got, “Ruth, it’s the journey.” X told me this was the constant motto of another place, where she has worked. This is so true, and I agree with her. But I also feel, we’re not any of us going to move forward unless we acknowledge each other. I do deeply believe in this!

Of course it’s always been, about the journey, and this is what it says on the envelope. But I am saying, “Back up just a little. How hard would it ever be, to say to me, what I say to you?” In fact when I walked into the store, and it says in the window, the local honey is in the Marshfield General Store, the first thing I said, meaning it, with heart, was yes, the honey is in here. Because we all connect, in this little village, through the store.

As for Bills, it was a LIAM, a psychic with the bluest eyes, who told me, “You are followed by a long line of children.” What is Ruah? I think it’s doing to others in a different kind of way. I think being hurt, and being told one is hurt, just maybe, deserves for a moment, some thought. Even if this is all part of a SECRET intended to keep me from telling my story.
Post Script: I have been thinking how people seem really blocked on my telling of this story, never spontaneously referring to it. I thought about the movie, The Manchurian Candidate, surely a chilling story. But YES, it does seem people are blocked, totally, because I have written about this to those I do deeply love, and they act as if the words, were, like water, invisible. They never happened. There is eau in beautiful, meaning water. Just pointed out to me by another Grandmother. We share!

Speaking of that movie and orchids, that do somehow show up in the movie. I can’t remember. My orchids, recently purchased, needed to be watered. So I dutifully filled one gallon of water with one TBSP of orchid food and the water was so beautifully turquoise.  I chid you not! (Orchid Plus/Water Soluble)

Try sitting on a story, any story, that has you bursting at the seams, and see how you cope when you aren’t permitted to tell that story. Try sitting on a story for over eleven years, experiencing this, daily. When this happens, you have to resign yourself to the fact, there IS another story running, and that as charged as you are, perhaps leading the charge, wanting to share, you have to surrender to a Master Story teller, because you didn’t write that story. You are following a trail of connects that are about WOW. As I follow Route 123 to get home, I think: One two three and counting.

On Valentine’s Day I  kept seeing license plates with 2020, as in 2020 KO. For me it’s about 2020, moving towards what I call Perfect Vision, meaning a compassionate universe. It is interesting that the Church of the Messiah on Commonwealth Avenue in Newton, MA is just a few buildings away from the one that has 2020 in big numbers on the outside.

The ice only melts when others experience the AWE. But that excitement soon subsides, until the next wave. What IF, what IF you were being hit by that wave repeatedly in multiple ways, every day? You would have to surf the wave. This is what David tells me. And sometimes I joke, I am “serfing the wave.” But truly since I know this story is about love, it’s a blessing and a curse. Blesser in French means to wound, and the word bless is contained in English in a different context. Remember that story of Jacob wrestling with the angel.

Sometimes the connects are sort of, well humorous, (humerus, they hit the funny bone)  and at other times they do go deep. On Valentine’s Day I met a man in the Herb Chambers waiting area, as my Mini was being serviced. As we talked he told me there is a fabulous movie about the American Indian with an actor, whose name he could not remember. Finally he came up with VAL Kilmer. Since I am keyed to words, and it was Val entine‘s day, well that didn’t surprise me. Later, I went with David to Tasca, a lovely Spanish restaurant for a romantic dinner. We got valet parking as these snow drifts make parking really difficult. After our meal, it took forty-five minutes for us to get our car returned.  So that was a FOCUS of my attention. And I just knew, the word valet would reappear for me, and sure, it did. Where?

Today in Mozart class. We were examining Mozart’s letters and sure enough, in more than one place he was upset that he was being treated as less than, a valet.

Is this all? Of course not. Here’s another. I went to Kolbo, the beautiful Judaica store in Brookline while waiting for my car to be serviced. I wasn’t actually thinking to buy, but the menorahs were so artistic! The one that caught my attention was actually not the one I purchased. I bought a blue  moose with a little red bird sitting on his rump. He truly engaged me. I knew moose would come up again for me and soon. I almost expected to be offered mousse for desert at Tasca. I had creme caramel. Yum.

This morning I was tidying up before leaving for Brandeis Bolli class. The last thing I folded, turned out to be an old T shirt of David’s. Yes! A reproduction of a large moose, by artist  Carl Rungius, The Glenbow Museum, Calgary titled On Yukon Waters.

There is more. Valentine’s Day I was thinking about getting a little crystal clock fixed. Then I opened Writers Almanac to a beautiful Ted Kooser love poem about time.  My friend was blown over because he had just read  the James Carroll editorial in the Boston Globe about the change from analog to digital.

The timing of all this, one could say, was remarkable!

Maybe this story has everything to do with, Time. I am feeling tired of wanting so badly to share a story. Wake me when the alarm clock goes off.