lions, and tigers, and bears!

I have seen three snakes these past 30 days, easy.

The first: dead and flattened on the road in front of my house (right by my mailbox). (sad).

The second: alive and slithering, in my front yard. I was sitting on a blanket, reading, and it popped up from a hole right in front of me.

The third: a big long scary black one in the middle of the bike path, sunbathing on the concrete. I nearly crashed into Avery, going around it.

I've also been attacked by beetles in my sleep.

And was bitten by a spider in my sleep last night (have the battle wound to prove it).

Fished a (giant! 3 inch long! .5 inch thick! zebra striped!) slug off my kitchen floor the night before (the second one!)

And some dark, indistinguishable creature (either a big cat or a raccoon) has scared the dickens out of me twice, scampering past on my front porch, while I've been scrambling for keys.

(Nattada and I are strong, and not too squeamish. It's our home, and we can share it with the critters/elements; it's a lesson, I think, in recognizing that we are big and small in a world that is at once big and small).

On the plus side, there is a family of deer living in my back yard. They keep nuzzling outside my window. I see them often.

And I found a four leaf clover by the same mailbox where the snake was smushed.

Also on a moderate tangent, I've been floored/humbled lately by the number of people (including strangers) who have looked after me lately. There is certainly a lot of sadness in this world, but there is also a lot of kindness. Yeah, a lotta kind kind, baby.

Words by Sharon Van Etten
"Holding Out"
FROM: Because I was In love

I was floored
by your humble outlook on the world
around you,
who and all you are.
I was floored
by the way you take me
seriously,
even when I'm joking.

Damn, damn, damn, damn.

I'm not tired and I'm tired
of not calling out
on the street I was holding out
Holding out,
'cross the table I was holding out,
trying to find a lover like that.
Holding out,
like the wind I was holding out,
staying still,
hoping no one else would see me.
Hoping calm,
replacing silence, drying palms.
Do I need a reason to hold you now?
'Cause I'd hold you now,
yeah I would hold you now.
One night,
And all I need is one more day.
Holding out,
for something that feels okay,
and the right thing to do is wait.

Holding out,
holding out,
holding out for you.

I am strange,
Believed in fairy tales at a young age.
Circumstance,
now I kick myself in the pants.
And then you came to me
in a faraway way,
and I'm bringing you something
I want you to have,
it's the biggest part of my heart
that I still got.

Hoping arms--
no--
Holding out
I'll be holding out.

holding out.
I'll be holding out,
holding out.
Holding out,
holding out for you.

On being unkind to yourself//and dreaming in reverse.

(Cause I sure can be unkind to myself)

(We can all be unkind to ourselves).

photos by Tom Chambers--dreaming in reverse collection. View it here.

Someone like you- by Doug Paisley.

I've seen you stumble
I've seen you fall

I've seen you brought down, feathers and all

Picked yourself up for the ones that you call
Your best friends.

I know you've been fighting

What we can't see

Sometimes it takes many faces to be

It takes a time and a place to be free

But in the end

Who would be so cruel
To someone like you
No one but you
Who would make the rouse
For the things that you do
No one but you.

I woke up this morning
Looked at the sky
I thought of all of the time passing by
It didn't matter how hard we tried
'Cause in the end

Who would be so cruel
To someone like you
No one but you
Who would make the rouse
For the things that you do
No one but you.

---

*This was hauntingly-beautiful at Nelsonville Music Festival, where Cheyenne Marie Mize sang duet, and played violin. Cheyenne and Doug both have Daytrotter Sessions where you can legally download samples of their work, unplugged.

words

boxes.

things I don't have the English for.
(definitions/explanations/ words taken directly from here and here)

Vovohe Tahtsenaotse (Cheyenne)
To prepare the mouth before speaking by moving or licking one’s lips.

Sigurista (Tagalog)
A person who is particularly concerned that everything goes as planned. The kind of person who will not initiate a particular action unless s/he feels 100% sure that the desired result would be obtained.

Komorebi (Japanese)
The sort of scattered, dappled light effect that happens when sunlight shines in through tree leaves.

Hiraeth (Welsh)
A feeling of longing associated with displacement, but not necessarily displacement from one’s original home. An intense yearning to be somewhere you are not.

Khalas (Arabic)
A term used to mean that something is completely and irrevocably done, finished, and over.

Zastóy (Russian)
Intellectual stagnation.

Moit (Scottish)
Pretended indifference/shyness while speaking about a thing one is very keen for.

Talkin (Indonesian)
To whisper instructions to the dying.

Saudade (Portuguese)
A vague and constant desire for something that does not and probably cannot exist, for something other than the present, which indicates a mental turning toward the past or toward the future. It is not an active discontent or poignant sadness but an indolent, dreaming wistfulness. One can actually have ‘saudades’ of someone with whom one is. In this case it would indicate a feeling of loss projected towards the past or the future.
It can also be described as the emptiness and absence one feels when something or someone “should” be there in a particular moment, but is missing.

(Also described as "the love that remains")

(*** it's different from "nostalgia," though that might be its closest english equivalent, because it has a sort of fatalistic connotation attached to it; it is at once an emptiness and a living again).

Torschlusspanik (German)
Literally translated as a “gate-closing panic”. It is sense of anxiety or fear that one’s life is passing them by and that their future opportunities are diminishing.

Dostoprimechatelnost (Russian)
A place you can take notice of a hundred times. It is generally translated as a “point of interest," but it means much more.

Toska (Russian)

Vladmir Nabokov describes it best: "No single word in English renders all the shades of toska. At its deepest and most painful, it is a sensation of great spiritual anguish often without any specific cause. At less morbid levels, it is a dull ache of the soul, a longing with nothing to long for, a sick pining, a vague restlessness, mental throes, yearning. In particular cases, it may be the desire for somebody or something specific, nostalgia, love-sickness. At the lowest level it grades into ennui, boredom."

Mamihlapinatapei (Yagan) (indigenous language of Tierra del Fuego)

The wordless, yet meaningful look shared by two people who both desire to initiate something but are both reluctant to start

----

Do you understand? I'm not sure I understand. And maybe I'm manic and maybe I'm musing, but Oh! it's impossible to say it all.

Jenny Lewis is such a dreamboat.

for real.

Most of us are in love with illusion, anyway; at least she's honest.

fixed my "give a damn"

and just in time.

don't forget the flowers, someday

[i know you will].

Our memories are such selective mischief-makers, aren't they?

here's to:

1. big-bully/silly-momma/the vampire-in-the-chair game
2. fox and the chicken
3. ghost-folks on first and second
4. sun salutations in the wee hours
5. rock hounds
6. and historic mounds
7. and hand-me-down ice-skates
8. newspaper routes
9. homemade playdough
10. looms
11. and yarn
12. and rock tumblers
13. red wagon race
14. bags on my feet
15. letters from TF
16. meteor-watchin' past bed-time
17. bonzettes
18. Daley-Poe, and L-Poe and Little-Poe, too
19. craft sales and
20. library summer reading programs
21. butterfly netting
22. firefly catching
23. wrestling matching
24. living-room performances
25. and spies out the way-back
26. mmmm i wanna linger
27. ya skunk
28. wanna Scrambled Dog?
29. beat ya in the clean-plate-club

Cat Stevens' "Trouble"

Is still the saddest, most heart-wrenching thing I've ever felt/heard.
And I can't take it off repeat.

Caitlin

dedicated me some love.

viva wildpack.

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.

the real thing.

Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz (New Spain, 1648-1695)

En perseguirme, mundo, ¿que interesas?
¿En que te ofendo, cuando solo intento
poner bellezas en mi entendimiento
y no mi entendimiento en las bellezas?

Yo no estimo tesoros ni riquezas;
y asi, siempre me causa mas contento
poner riquezas en mi pensamiento
que no mi pensamiento en las riquezas.

Y no estimo hermosura que, vencida,
es despojo civil de las edades,
ni riqueza me agrada fementida,

teniendo por mejor, en mis verdades,
consumir vanidades de la vida
que consumir la vida en vanidades

30-loves list. (for Dale). (and also for myself).

1. Love of family.
2. Love of friendship, that becomes a kind-of family.
3. Love of the way we can be many different things to each other.
4. Love of farm stillness.
5. And farm movement.
6. And love of knowing that I might plant the garlic, but I do not make the garlic grow.
7. Love of service.
8. Love of the humility that allows oneself to be served by another.
   
9. Love of the capacity for reinventions.
   
10. Love of second chances, with things right in front of you.
11. Love of saying sorry.
    
12. Love of music, and the way it shares things between people (the way it shares things between the multiple people in one person).
    
13. Love of moments when I recognize I'm human.
14. Love of my cat Comet.
15. And my old cat Chewy (rest in peace).
16. Love of the people who have passed--physically, or emotionally--from my life, for they are and always will be a present part of who I am.
17. That is, Love of the way Love lingers, even when bodies and hearts do not.
    
18. Love of functioning in a Communion of Saints.
    
19. And of the Joy and value in little pleasures and safeties.
20. Love of my body (on a good day).
21. And my spirit (on a good day).
    
22. Love in strength and flexibility (but not malleability).
23. Love of the way I am big and small in a world that is big and small.
24. Love of warm things.
25. Love of the intimacy allowing one to speak a coded language, that only one more understands.
26. Love of spending a lifetime, almost knowing one another.
    
27. And the way that people return to each other after miscommunications to try to communicate again; their persistence shows a caring language cannot capture.
    
28. Love of deep peace.
29. Love of not taking oneself too seriously.
    
30. Serious Love.

oh, brother! birthday!

(I am shocked and shocked again, by all the beautiful people in my life).

Gary is totally cheesing here. Love it. (Also, Gary! proof! You really love Frances!):
Tim monopolizing my sister :) (just kidding, Tim):
I am a whole awkward head above Ashley:
This photo sums up our relationship perfectly:

Oh, brother! birthday! (photos) by Leslie Albanese is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

on Libraries, Cayle Adams, and Neil Young.

One of These Days
from Neil Young's Harvest Moon.

One of these days,
I'm gonna sit down and write a long letter
To all the good friends I've known
And I'm gonna try
And thank them all for the good times together.
Though so apart we've grown.

One of these days,
I'm gonna sit down and write a long letter
To all the good friends I've known
One of these days, one of these days, one of these days,
And it won't be long, it won't be long.

And I'm gonna thank,
That old country fiddler
And all those rough boys
Who play that rock 'n' roll
I never tried to burn any bridges
Though I know I let some good things go.

One of these days,
I'm gonna sit down and write a long letter
To all the good friends I've known

One of these days, one of these days, one of these days,
And it won't be long, it won't be long.

From down in L.A.
All the way to Nashville,
From New York City
To my Canadian prairie home
My friends are scattered
Like leaves from an old maple.
Some are weak, some are strong.

One of these days,
I'm gonna sit down and write a long letter
To all the good friends I've known
One of these days, one of these days, one of these days,
And it won't be long, it won't be long.

One of these days, one of these days, one of these days,
And it won't be long, it won't be long.

words Microscoft Word tells me aren't words.

1. liminal
2. situationally
3. intersex
4. intranationally (strangely; it accepts "internationally" as a word--go figure).
5. intersectionality
6. transnationalist
7. transnationalism

There's a word in Spanish I've always loved: ensimismamiento
the definition is: concentrándose en los propios pensamientos.
(and a loose English translation would be: a noun for the action of two beings' uniting themselves in each other's thoughts, which become the same thought).

My parents call it "minds touching."
And there's a pretty sweet Stephen Dunn poem about it, too.
Ensimismarse is the verb, and ensimismado is the participle--but get this: ensimismado, the participle, is also used as a noun to mean the person whose mind touches yours. (Ensimismada would be the female equivalent).

That word doesn't exist in English. I'm not so sure the person exists outside of language, either. Maybe for moments, but not for a lifetime.

Love isn't thinking the same way; it's caring enough to commit to trying to understand.

Transnationalism, on the other hand, is very real.
And so is liminality. Oh, liminality. I can feel it.

Yeah, I'll dig a tunnel, from my window to yours.

A series of fairly unflattering photographs.

(proof that we really do love each other):

over a decade of brother/sister/sister/brother.

photos by Leslie Albanese is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Title from Arcade Fire's "Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)"

oh!

Congrats to Dale and FiFi on their recent engagement!
Do we look Brady Bunch or what?


Photo of Leslie Albanese & co. was acquired from Nick Bowsher's wedding photo booth. Please contact the post-author, prior to use.

Holiday

"For my sister who sometimes needs to take time to grieve with the world. Don't forget what a beautiful place it is. With love from Frances, Christmas 2010."

[photo: cousins Maize (head-bopping), Zoe (leap-frogging), and Oliver (mohawk-rocking);
they are part of my beautiful place]

Wait- Galway Kinnell

Wait, for now.
Distrust everything, if you have to.
But trust the hours. Haven't they
carried you everywhere, up to now?
Personal events will become interesting again.
Hair will become interesting.
Pain will become interesting.
Buds that open out of season will become lovely again.
Second-hand gloves will become lovely again,
their memories are what give them
the need for other hands. And the desolation
of lovers is the same: the enormous emptiness
carved out of such tiny beings as we are
asked to be filled; the need
for the new love is faithfulness to the old.

Wait.
Don't go too early.
You're tired. But everyone's tired.
But no one is tired enough.
Only wait a while and listen.
Music of hair,
Music of pain,
music of looms weaving all our loves again.
Be there to hear it, it will be the only time,
most of all to hear,
the flute of your whole existence,
rehearsed by the sorrows, play itself into total exhaustion.

--

Maybe faith is just an active--it cannot be passive--acceptance of others' love, and the hope that, despite all the darkness, we share enough goodness between each other to keep on//fight for.

Merry Christmas.

[[a little red box]]

(click to enlarge photos)

"One must be thrust out of a finished cycle in life, and that leap is the most difficult to make--to part with one's faith, one's love, when one would prefer to renew the faith and recreate the passion."
-- Anais Nin

"he was a good guy, but he had the laugh of a bad guy"

Cheese Manicotti, Stuffed Roasted Artichokes, and Fried Breaded Eggplant will be the most decadent, most artery-clogging Christmas Eve Feast. Ever. (Albanese style).

These past 3 days, I've enjoyed the likes of Ms. Molly Shea, Ms. Ericka Mobley, Mr. Gary Alan Bearden (+ Marina!!!), Mr. Alex Williams-Witzky, Mr. Shaun Thomas, and my newly engaged Canine Best Friends who are coming over tomorrow, too, for some Torres-inspired Pizza. Word on the street is: it's the kind of pizza that gets you free cab rides for life. Oh yes, and family. One could say I've been enjoying my family.

Here are some truisms:
1. my gas tank is low
2. my wallet is thin
3. my future is vague
4. but I'm surrounded by folks with captivating laughs.
5. and in a non-fatalist sort of way: I feel (more than a little) fortunate

Sometimes, I swear, it all comes down to mirrors and lenses.