Duck 14

Posted on July 13, 2011 by literarylee

A Bouyed (Duck)

(Duck Series Gallery)

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From the Bride’s Father’s Notebook

Posted on July 12, 2011 by literarylee

The series of essays called “From the Bride’s Father’s Notebook,” are my perspectives on the swirl of emotions and events surrounding our daughter’s wedding.  When she got married at the end of 2009, I kept a journal for the two weeks around the great event.  I wanted to set on paper an account of those days that was not just a description of the events, but my (and our) feelings and reactions to it.  Life’s odd contrasts amuse and amaze me.  I like the coupling of rare and common, the sonorous discordant, the diamond in the straw.  A wedding amplifies and magnifies these fascinating, joyful absurdities with a smack between the eyes and when it’s your child, at your heart, too.

From the Bride’s Father’s Notebook (All the articles)

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From the Bride’s Father’s Notebook – Day 15

Posted on July 11, 2011 by literarylee

January 3, 2010 – Sunday

I don’t have a lot more to say or think or feel about this whole thing.  We’re sorry to be saying good bye to our daughter and her husband, but they need to be getting back to college, where the new semester is starting in just a few days.  Since the drive from here to there is 10 hours, they need to get going early.  In our life, we’ve had to say a lot of goodbyes with all the moving, so we’re familiar with that melancholy moment.  Still, though we’re hesitant for this watershed event to be over, we’re ready to get back to regular life.  After these tumultuous, fun, fascinating, exhausting, memorable two weeks, we’re dazed yet satisfied, tired but energized.  We are sad to see these two leave, but glad and reassured to know they’re in good hands, each others and God’s.

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First Ink (Pen redux)

Posted on July 9, 2011 by literarylee

I drew my mightier-than-the-sword pen and spilled ink on the virgin page.  I came, I saw, I wrote.  This page, nay, this journal is mine!

A humorous event:   I asked my wife, who was running an errand yesterday near the stationary store, to pick up a new Cross refill for my pen.  Late this morning while writing something at work, the cartridge ran out of ink.  I’ve been thinking for some time I was about ready for a refill, but it wasn’t until yesterday I felt it with some urgency.  Maybe the pen and I have some strange supernatural connection?

So the ink I laid down on the pure, white page was itself, also virgin, fresh, pure.

Was that ink at the top of the cartridge, what emerged first, thicker, richer, the fatter part risen to the top, perfect for lush, dense, amazon sentences?

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A Few Words to the Newly Departed Broccoli

Posted on July 8, 2011 by literarylee

Farewell dear friends,
oh broccoli green,
your like I’ve never,
ever seen.

From seed no larger
than a dot,
you grew more than
I’d ever thought.

A meter high
with foot-long leaves,
greater than
I’d dared believe.

And oh! your produce
green and yummy
filled many and many
a hungry tummy.  Continue reading →

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The Rider Chronicles 6 – A Grandfather’s Blessing

Posted on July 8, 2011 by literarylee

You rode in on a wave of anxious expectation and over-long labor with an apt name: Rider.  What other waves of energy,  ferment, and hope will you saddle, bridle and ride through this world, this life, this crazy, wonderful, frightening universe?  My grandson, may you tame the vast forces around you: individuality and community, art and love, wisdom and generosity and ride them onward, learning and loving, taking and giving.  May you know and ride with the One who rides the clouds of heaven who rode from birth through death to life again.

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Header Notes Note (An Audience Participation Event)

Posted on July 8, 2011 by literarylee

Over the coming weeks I will be incorporating more photographs into The Life Literary and am experimenting with different options for the best way to do that.  I would be grateful if you would click the link above or here for Header Notes. Then, please click the links on the Header Notes page and let me know what you think.  Can you see the pictures?  Is it easy to click to the pic and then return to the blog?  Please leave a comment, or possibly a suggestion of a different photo site I should consider, in the Comments portion of the Header Notes page or send an email to my assistant Argyle Schield at: aschield@thelifeliterary.com.  The links may only work until July 25, 2011, so try them out soon.

Eventually, I will link certain posts with larger photo galleries, plus include links to galleries of photographs with the sort of pithy, entertaining captions you’ve come to expect from The Life Literary.

 

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The Joy of Pen (or The Sensual Pen)*

Posted on July 7, 2011 by literarylee

(Some thoughts on the occasion of retiring a full journal and starting a new one)

My pen’s heft comforts me.  Its smooth sleekness sends shivers of delight up and down my spine.  I caress it gently, lovingly, enjoying the feel of it in my hands.  Even when I’m not writing with it, I twiddle and twirl the magnificent silver writing instrument in my hand.  This small object, a gift from my wife about four years ago, has become one of a very few precious possessions.

The simple joy of pen and ink

I write online.  Obviously.  Cyber-words on video monitors of all shapes and sizes continue their march on actual print: books, newspapers, magazines and notebooks, like the one in which I wrote the first draft of this brief essay.  I’m not fighting it, but I’d like to mention a few ways pen and ink and paper excite me in ways that the bits and bytes I’m seeing on the screen right now just can’t.  Continue reading →

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Duck 13

Posted on July 6, 2011 by literarylee

Quacker Meeting

(Duck Series Gallery)

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The Rider Chronicles 5 – Grandpa’s Work

Posted on July 5, 2011 by literarylee

A couple weeks ago we camped with Rider and his parents.  This adventure was in conjunction with a music festival we attended where Rider’s father was selling his company’s beverage.  I was glad for a mini-vacation, the chance to spend some time away from home at a lovely site along the Hudson river about an hour north of New York City.  I was especially grateful for the weekend because it gave me time with Rider, the first I’d had since his birth day.

I enjoyed holding him and watching him in that outdoor setting.  I think he liked it too.  He loved being held face up so he could see the trees and sky.  I was also glad to be there to give his mother a break, even if for short periods at a time.

Grandpa hard at work

Continue reading →

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