Good afternoon to you all!
It’s been a minute since I’ve sent a real update, so I’d like to do that here shortly. But first I wanted to let those of you who ordered books from me know they have arrived! They have already been numbered and signed, and I am currently in the process of packaging them up and getting them ready to send to you on five different continents (!!!). It’s a slow-going process, as I have hundreds of books to pack and I am doing this work solo, but I hope to have them out to you by the end of the week. Wish me luck!
It has already been a very happening year here. I didn’t expect to be so frazzled so soon! Between this book (and perhaps another!), custom poems, cooking meals, fussing about finances, trying to bribe birds to come to our yard, parenting a toddler, and going through the routine Aha!s of self-reflection, suffice to say I am tired.
But more than I am physically tired, I am tired inside. Sitting here, I am aware of the hiss of my sleeping son’s sound machine, the chatter of birds, the whirs of wind and trucks outside our window, the swish of my wife’s thumb against a screen, our neighbors engaging in friendly conversation, rapping on each other’s doors. Nothing’s wrong with any of this, but I am unsettled. I am craving a kind of stillness I don’t quite know how to find these days.
Is there any such thing as true quiet? If so, where? And how might I find it?
I’ve moved outside to our hammock now, where I rock gently, close my eyes in contemplation. When I open them, I notice the way the leaves above me rustle in such green glory you can almost see them absorbing the sunlight. Starlings perch on our birdfeeder, just the usual two today, although a third has newly begun to come by. Clive and Winette, my dear cardinals, have also arrived.
Maybe (I don’t know, but maybe) the quiet I seek isn’t about silence, not exactly. Maybe it’s more about oneness. Maybe it’s more about sinking into the world like a sleeping child, heavy and comforted. The birds are not less noisy here, nor are the wind and trucks and neighbors. But somehow I am. Less noisy. I have stopped my objections, and in joining this day in its goings about, I become just another small piece of the work it does, the story it tells. I feel the rusty wheels of my resistence stop grating, squeaking. Shhhh. Let me be parked here for a while. It’s not a bad place to be.
If you are a member of this newsletter, you know due to sickness we’re an episode behind with our monthly Daybird Sessions. Well, we’ve got a bonus episode for you here! It’s very fitting, and accidentally so, with what I was feeling when I wrote today’s newsletter, so I decided this one should be shared with all my readers. If you are not a member yet, may this gifted episode bring a little sweetness to your day. (And if you have ordered a book from me, you’ll be getting a card with it about how to get a few months’ membership free, so you can enjoy the episodes past and some of those to come.)
And one last note: If you like what I do here, please do share it with your friends. It matters more than you know! Whether you are here for my poetry and prints, my updates and sales, my newsletter musings, or my sort-of podcast The Daybird Sessions, or a bit of all of it, thank you. I’m grateful you are!
TRANSCRIPT
Alex Blue:
Hi, I’m Alex Blue.
t.r.h. blue:
And I’m t.r.h. blue.
AB:
And this is The Daybird Sessions, Episode 4: Praise, praise, praise that sap-sticky life and Mary.
TB:
Praise, praise, praise that sap-sticky life
Look at your life, green thicket around you.
Look at it, strewn across the floor,
listen, crunching underfoot,
noisy with birdsong,
feel it, sap-covered and
sticky, as a life should be.
Going out and back will show you this:
there is no way to walk the same path twice,
not if you are watchful, if your
eyes, your ears, your heart are wide with
love or something like it.
So fill your senses with pleasure, with
surprise, with thanks.
Tire them out. Go ahead!
There is only so much can be adored today,
so drink what you can of that cool water.
Let your belly be full.
Praise the daylily now, for tomorrow it dies.
Praise the heron today as she flies overhead.
Praise the deer as she dips in the pond.
You may never see that again, and
oh, is it marvelous.
Praise, praise, praise that
sap-sticky life of yours,
changing and messy and too-short,
too short to see it all, too short to not bless it
with every wow you have to give.
AB:
[Singing]
There’s a tree out front
In the yard where we’re gonna live
And the stairs lead up
To the room we’ll be cooking in
And you said this place is magic
So I knew we had to have it
‘Cause I know you’re always right
And honest I don’t know about destiny
But somehow this house became a living thing, oh oh
So while you sit by the fire reading poetry
I will love every word that you say to me
Mary, my home, oh Mary
We can sit outside
In the garden we learn to grow
And when the flowers die
In the winter under the snow
You remind me of the magic
There is beauty in the tragic
And I know you’re always right
And honest I don’t know about destiny
But somehow this house became a living thing, oh oh
So while you sit by the fire reading poetry
I will love every word that you say to me
Mary, my home, oh Mary
You are the roses and the trees
You are the earth that speaks to me
So while we lay in the bed reading poetry
I will breathe in the life that you give to me
Mary, my home, oh Mary
Mary, my love, oh Mary
Mary, my home, oh Mary
AB:
This has been The Daybird Sessions. Thanks so much for listening.
TB:
You can support me, t.r.h. blue, by signing up for my weekly newsletter, The Daylily, and purchasing prints of my poetry at www.notesontheway.com, and by sharing my work with your friends.
AB:
You can support me, Alex Blue, by listening to my music wherever you listen to music, and by joining me on Patreon at patreon.com/imalexbluenow.
TB:
Thanks, and see you next month!
Mailings and Musings