We went to lunch early today so I might talk to a friend's mother about having cataract surgery. She was so full of frightened questions, and I am sure what I said did not answer them all, but I am also sure that she understood I am filled with nothing but admiration for my doctor and excitement for how well I see now. Perhaps just talking to someone who has had the experience will relieve her anxiety. I hope so because there is nothing I can say that comes anywhere near how miraculous the result is. And if she got nothing else from it, she could see that I was pleased with everything I could see, and had elected to have the second eye done as soon as possible, even enlisting my doctor to go to another hospital so I would not have to wait three weeks to have it done, and that he did it says a lot for him as well!! Once she has had the surgery, I truly hope she will be as pleased and amazed as I have been!
I spent so much time looking for a poem this morning I almost did not get ready to go out in time. Now, almost the first one I see is one I had not read before and which moved me, thinking of us walking through all the woods of our youth!
The couple in Van Gogh's blue wood is walking
where there is no path, amid tall,
seemingly branchless blue and pink trees. The tree crowns
are beyond the frame, reaching up into our mind's eye—
because we know where trees go and that they are full
of wind and a thousand softly stirring
machines that are alive. Equally out of sight, for
nests of intricately woven strength and fragility hang
like proofs that there are no diagrams or maps
for life's most important journeys. The horizon
at the couple's back, between the trees, is black.
They walk toward light. Crowds of waist-high flowers,
on thick-leaved stalks, sing in stout slurries of pink and white.
The couple cannot think of anything good
ever coming from anger, so they are more happy than not.
That could be true. Maybe I want it to be
true of me, of us. And like us, they may have worn paths
to the most forest-deep secrets in each other's lives.
Or perhaps they are only now on their way to the place
where they will become lovers, the excitement of their flesh
through their clothes singing, making them careless,
giddy, and light as birds in flight.
Of course, we can't know any of this. Perhaps, even Van Gogh
didn't know anything about them: so many unseen possibilities
lived in a blue wood, so like ours.
Richard Levine
I often look at paintings and make up stories about the people or the scenes in them, it's half the fun of going to a museum, all those stories to see. I also happen to believe there are not diagrams or maps for life's most important journeys, otherwise each new couple would get their own marriage manual, and all new parents would get a book of instruction when the baby comes into this world. And for us, we also cannot think anything good ever comes from anger, and so mostly we are not angry and when we are it easily fades into our normal good nature. All our possibilities have come to this reality, and I cannot think of anyone I would trade with, for all there are times of annoyance and being out of sorts, they are just that, annoyance and out of sorts, not big upheavals or fights, because we cannot think of where else we would like to be or of anyone else that would share so much of our lives or love us for just what we are, warts and all!
It's a lovely Saturday, the sun pouring a clarity of light in the windows, and little pieces of the blue sky with loud voices hop up and down the tree branches exuberant and raucous. People are out walking, families, lovers holding hands, kids on bikes, dogs, cats, all enjoying sun and breeze. Hope you get a chance to do the same, enjoy the day!
Van Gogh: Undergrowth with Two Figures
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