Sunday Sundance - 2/27

The Oscars may be the focus of the film scene tonight, but there's still a sundance in this girl's corner of the world.  I got to spend the weekend with my nieces and two children of friends who are like family, so today's sundance is dedicated to them.  Abbie is 9 and Lily is 5.  Elizabeth is 10 and Donnie is 7.  I had a really nice time playing with them and, moreover, observing them play together. The personas and grown-up situations they project for themselves are at once perfectly recognizable and strangely blurred, fashioned in birthday candle opacity.  When you grow up, you can't really see what they're envisioning in their imaginations.  You can't see the thing of it. Parallax doubles your perspective.  But you can remember, participate, and encourage.  You can love.  Here to the left is a piece from FOUND Magazine, an online site that publishes random print articles that people dig up from their closets or simply just find lying around.  I love the girlish innocence that resonates from this little girl's letter to the tooth fairy.  What a privilege to witness such intimate sincerity.  What an invitation to love.  Remember being a little kid and imagining conversations with people you admired and looked up to?  What an invitation to love.

Poem of the night: An Invitation by Shel Silverstein This is the opening to the collection Where the Sidewalk Ends, a book beloved to my sister, me, and now Abbie and Lily. If you are a dreamer, come in.

 

Sunday Sundance - 2/20

*Come dance the silence down through the morning*

-The Counting Crows

Songs of the night: 
Angel of the Morning by Juice Newton
Angel of the Morning cover by Shaggy
Ring of Fire by Johnny Cash


Photo of the night>>original by yours truly


Poetry of the night:
That strange flower, the sun,
Is just what you say.
Have it your way.
-"Gubbinal" by Wallace Stevens

 *La lune, trop rousse, de gloire éclabousse 

ton jupon plein de trous.*

Valentine's Day

*Please send me your last pair of shoes, worn out with dancing as you mentioned in your letter, so that I might have something to press against my heart.* - Goethe

So here it is, Valentine's Day.  With all my heart, with all my love. With all the tender thoughts tucked away down in my worn through shoes, I wish you all a lovely day of love.

Song and Music Video of the Day: The First Day of My Life by Bright Eyes

Poetry of the Day - "Night Drive" by Seamus Heaney. Heaney wrote this for his wife. It's so quiet and gentle and beautiful. It reminds me of the time when my friend Landis and I made waffles together at his house and after we were done eating and cleaning up, I stayed in the kitchen to wash all the extra dishes that had accumulated so his mom wouldn't have to when she got home from work.  I didn't mind doing it.  It was a labor of love. Years later, Landis said he stood there in the kitchen doorway watching me wash those dishes and thought "She's the kind of girl who will like doing those things for the rest of her life." And he was right. It's my ordinariness. He loved my ordinariness.

Seamus Heaney

Night Drive 


The smells of ordinariness 
Were new on the night drive through France: 
Rain and hay and woods on the air 
Made warm draughts in the open car. 


Signposts whitened relentlessly. 
Montreuil, Abbeville, Beauvais
Were promised, promised, came and went, 
Each place granting its name’s fulfilment. 


A combine groaning its way late
Bled seeds across its work-light. 
A forest fire smoldered out. 
One by one small cafés shut. 


I thought of you continuously
A thousand miles south where Italy 
Laid its loin to France on the darkened sphere. 
Your ordinariness was renewed there.

Epic Poetry of the Day:

The Odyssey, Book 23 - When Penelope and Odysseus are reuinted.  There are several passages in this book of the poem that make me cry. In my own personal religious beliefs, I take marriage very seriously and believe it is a sacred promise that you make not only to each other but also to God.  I know Penelope and Odysseus are fictional characters but I still find the story of their marriage- in particular Penelope's great faithfulness to it-so moving.  Penelope was loyal to her marriage bed for twenty years, never knowing if her husband would ever come home from war.  When Odysseus finally does come home, she is afraid that it isn't really him or that maybe the gods are trying to trick her.  She is hesitant to embrace him and welcome him.  But when he starts talking about a secret design in the structure of their bed, which he built and only he and Penelope know about, she doubts no longer.  "And as when the land appears welcome to men who are swimming, after Poseidon has smashed their strong-built ship on the open water...and only a few escape the gray water landward by swimming...so welcome was her husband to her as she looked upon him."  All that time, twenty years, Penelope was swimming, scared and exhausted and alone until Odysseus came and she saw her shore once again.

Just Because of the Day (dedicated to Jes, Ang, & Cait): A Friend Like You by Joshua Radin

"Many times I've gone without a home, a meal, a pair of shoes...If you had three, you'd give me two. There's no other friend like you" - Joshua Radin

Memory of the Day: Valentine's Day 2007 Surprise Snow Day


Turn on your lovelight <3

Make Way For Ducklings

This is a rare glimpse into the window of my childhood between when my mother died and my father remarried.  I am feeding ducks at the summer cottage of close family friends.  If you look closely, you can see that I am wearing a belly shirt.  Not necessarily obscene for an 8 year old, but probably not what my mother would have allowed under her supervision.  My father was trying his best.  He braided my hair that day and many other days for several years.  Our relationship is not always easy to handle.  A loss of that kind of magnitude-a mother, a wife- brings families together but also creates devastating divisions.   

Valentine's Day four years ago (the big special one with the surprise snow day) fell on a Wednesday.  My dad came over to visit me at school the following Saturday, knowing that I was still sad from my recent breakup.  He brought me flowers and took me out to dinner.  Today he gave me my favorite Gerber daisies and a book of e.e. cummings poetry.  

Song of the Day: You Are My Sunshine 

Tomorrow is Valentine's Day.  Tomorrow and the next day and the next.

Like a box of positives, it's a plus love

Another fine mashup of love to love here this Saturday night...

Songs:
Can I Kick It? by a Tribe Called Quest (cuz who says love songs gotta be all about love, and also it's where I got the title for tonight's post from)
Mellow Mood by Slightly Stoopid - love love looooooove this song. if i get knocked up, i want this kind of plus love.

Clip (dedicated to Jes): scene from Almost Famous.  At the age of 24... remember that? ;)

Poetry of the night: A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act 2 scene 1. The exchange between Demetrius and Helena is one of my all-time favorites, especially Helena's speech below.

HELENA 

    Your virtue is my privilege: for that 
    It is not night when I do see your face, 
    Therefore I think I am not in the night; 
    Nor doth this wood lack worlds of company, 
    For you in my respect are all the world: 
    Then how can it be said I am alone, 
    When all the world is here to look on me? 


 Saturday night's all right for fighting. <3

I Like My Body When It Is With Your Body

Because sometimes, it's just exactly what you need.

Freshman Year

Senior Year

I miss college dorm sex.  In my experience at Gettysburg, you knew what you were getting into and who was getting into you.  You could pretty well count on him being a smart, relatively upstanding young man free of transmittable disease.  No one on campus was getting chlamydia. No one was getting pregnant. Sometimes you were getting drunk,  sometimes you were getting sober.  This is the perfect time and setting for fuck buddy love. I'm all grown up and graduated now and the idea of this kind of engagement in the real world just doesn't seem as plausible or even attractive.  That's ok.  It was pretty much as perfect as it gets.  I will always remember it with fondness.  I will always remember the gentle rushes rushing gentleness gentleness rushing  brought back to my nether heart. I will always be grateful that it belonged to me. I will always be glad that it was him.  If you are reading this, I am glad it was you.

It's not the sex. It's not the incredible sex. It's not the attention or the company. It's not the feeling of being held.  It's just exactly what you need.  Tuesdays at 4, every other Spring break, senior year finals week.  For once, you just know when it's right.

Poem: I Like My Body When It Is With Your Body by e.e. cummings
Song: Looking for Shelter by Good Old War
"You don't have to belong here. We'll just know when it's right." I miss college dorm sex. <3

We Have Got To Show Each Other Some _____

Love. "We have got to show each other some love," is what everyday hero Wesley Autrey, who jumped on NYC subway train tracks in 2007 to save a man having a seizure, advises us.  It makes you think about what more you could be doing for strangers.  Here are two stories of everyday heros and the extraordinary sacrifices they made for their fellow man. Tonight's post is dedicated to such love.

Man Is Rescued By Stranger On Subway Tracks

College Baseball Star Receives Kidney from His Own Coach

Song of the Day: "Bowl of Oranges" by Bright Eyes

I came upon a doctor who appeared in quite poor health.
I said "There is nothing I can do for you
that you can't do for yourself."
He said "Oh yes you can. Just hold my hand. I think that would help."
So I sat with him a while and then I asked him how he felt.
He said, "I think I'm cured. No, in fact, I'm sure.
Thank you Stranger, for your therapeutic smile."


Poem of the Day: 
"Casabianca" by Elizabeth Bishop

Love's the boy stood on the burning deck trying to recite `The boy stood on the burning deck.' Love's the son stood stammering elocution while the poor ship in flames went down. Love's the obstinate boy, the ship, even the swimming sailors, who would like a schoolroom platform, too, or an excuse to stay on deck. And love's the burning boy.

And love's the tumbling boy, tumbling on to the tracks...

He's Got The Whole World - A Wednesday Mashup

Love is Love is Love

Young Love

Video clip: Scene from The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Twist & Shout)

Love Forever Young

Country Love Songs (two for the young lovers, two to grow old to):

"Mine" by Taylor Swift

"Our Song" also by Tay Tay

"Forever & Ever, Amen" by Randy Travis - Sooooo cute. Definitely going to be one of my wedding songs.

"Livin' on Love" by Alan Jackson - another country classic that's super-sweet and makes you love old people that much more

Love Love

Roommate Love - When You Need To Be Stopped from Eating Cookies in Bed

"You'll never go further than you can with a friend"

Orangatan & Hound Dog Love

God's Love

Song: "He's Got the Whole World In His Hands"

Alternative footage, live from space (if you're not a nerd, skip this): Scene from Rocket Man [I've Got the Whole World In My Hands"

Bottom Line: Love is Love is Love <3

The Other F Word

Family

Today's post is dedicated to family love.  Family is a subject I could go on about for hours on end.  Perhaps someday I will write a book on it.  Tonight I will only touch the tip of the iceberg.

This is what I have to say about my immediate/biological family: I love them. We are. I love them and we are.  I was born into people of incredible strength.

Generation after generation, incredible strength.

I call love different things on different days.  Some days, with family, you have to bend that rule backwards and look for different things to call love.

My college years were so rich in personal and intellectual development.  For one of my theatre classes sophomore year, I had this assignment where I had to come up with 5 questions on a subject that made me uncomfortable and get responses from at least 3 people.  The subject I chose was, of course, family.  I was supposed to confront people with them and ask them in person but the introvert in me won that battle.  I'm glad it did because the email responses I got were so rich and powerful.  They were intimate, touching, sometimes painful, and always beautiful.  I wish I could publish them here but they are not mine and are not for the world to see without permission.  I will share the questions I came up with.  They alone speak volumes to me about my own journey of personal growth and maturation.

1. List three things that come to mind when you think of your immediate biological family.  They could be very relevant or very abstract-- an object, story, word, phrase, emotion, image, memory, you name it.  Anything.  For you psych. people, I think this is akin to Freud's "free association" thing.

2.  How has your biological family been significant/or not significant to you to this point in your life?

3.  Are there/have there been things beyond the "societal norm" you've felt about your family that you've felt guilty for feeling?

4.  As your level of reasoning has matured since the basic childhood limit of singular definition, how has your concept/definition of family changed, evolved, expanded, etc. if at all.  Are there any specific stories/instances/ vignettes that go along with this?

5.  Do you feel that there is something that separates biological family from social family or could the words "family" and "friend" be eliminated as separate entities and instead just all labeled under the category of "people we love" or some other title?

Finally, for the poetry of the day, I pulled out another artifact from my sophomore year - The Norton Anthology of African American Literature.  The two poems I have selected reflect on family with such raw grace.  They made me cry when I had to read them over and over again for class.  The second one was written from prison.  If you want to read something that will punch you in the gut and make your heart swell at the same time, black American authors are a good place to turn.  

Poems of the day: 

Nikki-Rosa by Nikki Giovanni

The Idea of Ancestry by Etheridge Knight

Love, Becca

p.s. for more inspiration in family photography check out awkwardfamilyphotos.com

Guy Talk

In honor of Super Bowl XLV today, when guys around the nation will be gathering together around television screens, slapping each other on the butt as they watch other men on tv slap each other on the butt, today's post is dedicated to bromance.

Clip: I Love You, Man

Clip: Scrubs Guy Love Song

But just a final word to the wise, boys, Derrick Comedy reminds us of what can happen when bro love gets carried away.... :p 

Clip: Bro Rape

Love you, boys <3

Girl Talk

Simply put, I love being a girl.  


Poem of the day: "A Girl" by Ezra Pound


Song of the day: "(Cyanide) Girl" by Beck


Clip of the day: Vada and Thomas J's kiss from My Girl


Here's to all my sisters out there <3

Dressing You Up, Dressing Up In You

Dressing You Up: Lars & The Real Girl.  


My take on what's going on is that this depicts the kind of situation where someone has so much love to give, but has a hard time seeing themselves as someone who has a lot of love to give.  He's trying to overcome an incredibly damaged childhood, but the characteristic of "damaged" is still really ingrained into his self-image and his fears about the way others see him.    I can relate to this on a level.  It's like..you're you..you're yourself..your life is your life..the trauma is as normal and familiar as your left thumb...it doesn't seem like a disfiguration because it's all you've known...yet there comes a point, and this is especially sad for children, when you realize the visibility of the damage...when you're enjoying a mother-daughter event like costume fittings for a dance recital just fine without your mother and then the fat girl in front of you with pee stains on her ballet tights turns and says "Where's your mother?" and you realize that everyone else is thinking the same thing, only they are too polite to say it.  It's no longer just an issue of "can I do this," it's also about "do I look the part."  The difference here is that while I turned out pretty normal and functional (in the context of this situation anyhow :p), Lars's character is still pretty screwed up and socially inept.  He can't handle the risk involved in real human interaction, so he real loves a pretend girl (doll), or pretend loves a real girl, depending on how you want to look at it.  The prop substitute allows Lars to engage in role-playing confidence and normalcy, to "look the part" before actually "being the part."  To show the community what he would look like as a normal social being, before actually following through with it.  


This movie also depicts the kind of love that exists in communities.  The love that is inspired when a group decides to rally around an individual in need because he is one of them and they look out for their own :)


Finally, while most of the drama in this movie is very public, I absolutely love the intimacy of this scene where Lars is singing to Bianca.  It's like someone uncovered a thriving patch of violets under a heap of volcanic ash...violets whose roots fed their deep eternal song as though they'd never been choked of a single day of sunlight.  It's beautiful.


And last but not least, simply because I absolutely love this love song, 
Belle and Sebastian's Dress Up in You. 
"I'd hate to see you on the pile of ‘nearly-made-it's.  You've got the essence, dear, If I could have a second skin I'd probably dress up in you." <3

Out of the Mouths of Babes

This post is dedicated to children, and the special kind of love they bring.  Never let it be said that there aren't times in your life when a 5 yr old suffices for your best friend.  At age 20, I decided that living at home was no longer an option I was willing to consider for my adult life.  I made sure I had a summer internship in Philly that required me to live in the city during my summer break from college.  Before I found an apartment in center city, I moved in with family of family friends - people who's relatives we were good friends with, but who were otherwise strangers.  I'd never met them before showing up on their doorstep with all my clothes and dorm crap jammed into the back seat.  They were wonderful to me and treated me like their lost fifth child (they already had four kids, ages 5-14) during the two weeks I lived with them.  But I was still scared and lonely.  Oh was I ever scared and lonely.  And little Orestes, the 5 yr old and baby of the family, became my best friend.  Every day when I came home from my internship he'd be waiting for me at the door.  He'd run and give me a big hug and ask me all about my day or he'd ask if I wanted to play legos or read books.  His view of our relationship was just so genuine and innocent.  Of course Becca wanted to play legos.  Of course Becca wanted to read books. And for those two weeks, I genuinely did.  

Here are photos of me holding my niece Lily when she was a baby and posing with her older sister, my niece Abbie.  I can't wait to be a mom.  Actually, I can wait, but not for too long.  When I graduated high school, I was so focused on finding a suitable mate in college to settle down with and starting popping them out.  I told everyone I didn't want a career if it was going to compromise my ability to build a strong marriage and family.  My views have changed considerably since then.  I realize now I am in no way responsible enough to start having kids and that there are lots of things I would like to do before having them.  Still, it ranks really high on my list of life priorities.  I don't think women should be expected to want and/or have children.  But I don't think they should be thought less of for embracing motherhood as the defining endeavor of their life, either.  My mother wasn't fortunate enough to be present in my life past age 6.  I hope that I am luckier and I hope that motherhood isn't a disappointment. I hope it's everything I imagine it to be and more.  I hope that I'll be a really good mom.  I want that kind of love in my life so badly.

Clip: This little guy explains how cookies are the way to a kid's heart

Clip: Jessica reminds me of the power of loving yourself - this girl knows what it's about - when you're happy with yourself, it infects the rest of your life

Finally, some great quotes from kids on love and relationships.  My favorites: "Love is when someone hurts you. And you get so mad but you don't yell at them because you know it would hurt their feelings." Oh can I relate to that one. And, advice on how to make someone fall in love with you "Tell them you own a bunch of candy stores." (Del, age 6)  Damn. I always fall for that one.

When all is said and done, children are a blessing. That's all there is to it.

From Both Sides Now

These things are dedicated to love in the process of coming undone, and love in the aftermath of falling apart. 

Songs: "Driving with the Brakes On" by Del Amitri

"Bushwick Blues" by Delta Spirit

"English Girls" by Ryan Adams

Poem: Talking in Bed by Phillip Larkin

Reluctance by Robert Frost

Play: Landlocked Blues by Becca Lausch (it's 3 pages long, just ask if you want to read it)

This is dedicated to the kind of love you have to keep hidden and secret because for some reason or another, people won't understand it.  I once said to my professor, "Imagine how awful it would feel to realize you were in love with your brother or sister."  She replied, "Imagine how wonderful it would feel to realize you were in love."

Clip: By Way of the Green Line Bus

And last but not least, on Groundhog Day, this is dedicated to love about to take root <3

Clip: Groundhog Day

Love, Love, Love

Imprimis:

All you need is love. -The Beatles

While I can't say I have found this particular edict from my beloved fab four to ring completely true in my own personal experiences to date, I will wager that of all the things we need, love is the most important.  We need salt, we need water.  We need time to be together and time to grow wiser.  We need inspiration and fortification, hands to hold and fornication.  We need discipline, poetry, education, grace, and a good warm pair of woolen socks.  We need the kind of friction that fits like a brace and turns abrasive if we lose hold of one another, forcing us to fight back into alignment.  We need the cool dark lovely night and the orisons of the moon.  But above all, we just need love.       

I've never really been bitter about Valentine's Day.  Never been a girl to relish in anti-heart's day parties and penis pinata smashing. However it wasn't always my favorite holiday from the get-go, either. No, something special happened to seal old VD the tops in my heart. 

Four Valentine's Days ago, I was a shy 19 yr old college freshman, nursing a heart still swollen from my first real break up.  I went to bed the night before crying softly and thinking maybe he'd wake up and say "I wish she were here next to me this Valentine's Day morning," and then he'd call, and I and my crazy little heart would go running back to him and crawl up into bed and things would be ok, if only for a day.  But of course this did not happen.  He did not call. He did not text.  He did not break the three week wall of silence that lead up to that morning and would continue on for a good 15 months thereafter.  What did happen was a snow day.

On February 14, 2007, Gettysburg College woke up to a completely unexpected, unpredicted, unanticipated foot of snow.  Our classes were cancelled, emailed our professors (many of whom lived within a few blocks walking distance and easily could have held lecture), go outside and play.    The sunlight crackled through with an extra magnitude of brightness, reflecting off the lake of virgin snow outside my dorm.  I pulled the shade down extra tight and snuggled back under the covers, indulging in the happiest three hours of extra sleep until the sounds of laughter from boys playing ice hockey in the quad and the girls throwing snow balls at them woke me from my slumber. My friends and I went around laughing and taking pictures in the snow.  Our hands got so cold I don't think we made it through even half the cigarette we split between the three of us.  It was such a nice surprise, it caught us all so off-guard.  It seemed as though happiness was infectious that day.  Whether it actually was or not, I can't say. Maybe I'm the only one whose tortured heartbeat was so syncopated by the heavenly surprise. But ever since then, I can't think of Valentine's Day without remembering the feeling of being really genuinely happy.

And so it is, I think, with love.  

Four years later, despite more heart ache, and once again an empty space in my bed where a boy used to lay not very long ago, I can't think of love without remembering the feeling of being really genuinely happy.  Of being alive and focused on a whole new level.  Of the peace of mind, the utter relief, the faint, fractured pulse beating through shades of navy blue. I'm sure I've cried myself to sleep many more nights than not, but somehow this hasn't made me the least bit gun-shy.  I only seem to want more.  

More love, please. More life, please.

And so this year I have decided to dedicate something to the cause of Valentine's Day.  Love in all its infinite varieties, not limited to college dorm-sex romance, or romance in general, for that matter.  From here on out, let this little corner of silicon interface be my love letter to love actually.  Love between mothers and sons, love between neighbors and friends, love between that lady in South Dakota and the rock she felt compelled to marry.  Unpretty love, ugly love, fake love. Whatever love.  I will attempt to assemble artifacts (quotes, clips, photos) daily during the two weeks advent leading up to the big day, and then after that whenever I feel like it.  In between updates on real news like the crisis in Egypt, check back for  a reminder of what the world revolves around when it's not revolving around money, nukes, oil, and religion. 

Love, 

Becca <3

Song of the Day: All You Need Is Love by The Beatles

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4p8qxGbpOk

Poem of the Day: How Do I Love Thee? by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/how-do-i-love-thee/

Clip of the Day: 500 Days of Summer: You Make My Dreams Come True

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tJoIaXZ0rw

Through the Looking Glass - Valentine's Day Special Edition