Christmas Poem: Eco-Scrooge

While awaiting the end of the world in 2012, I wrote this poem after watching Michael Caine in The Muppet Christmas Carol. Our family puts on our own Christmas Eve program in between the supper and the opening of the presents. Afterward, we have that post-celebration "what chaos have we wrought?" feeling, and so I sometimes feel the need to remind ourselves that it really is okay to go a bit overboard when celebration is called for. So this poem was my contribution for that year, after realizing with a laugh that Scrooge was the the first modern prototype of a puritanical environmentalist.

In honor of my brother-in-law, who loves George C. Scott's performance in his favorite version, filmed in Shropshire England, produced by Entertainment Partners Ltd., first airing on CBS in 1984

We used to tease my father-in-law that he would like everyone to start out the new year with fresh packs of underwear and several bottles of vitamins, and that would be a fine Christmas, indeed. But he is quite generous and kind, and not the inspiration for this Scrooge. My reaction, rather, is to a lifetime of reading magazine articles full of tips for better living through simplicity. I'm all for that, but not for every day. I firmly believe that it's healthy to go a bit crazy now and then, so this was written in that spirt.

Eco-Scrooge

To find a bold spokesman for the life of slim pickins

Especially at Christmas, flip through Charles Dickens.

Within his bright Carol lives a small Ebenezer

A principled man with his heart in the freezer

All Christmas delights oppose his green morals

Never at ease, he must rest on his laurels.

He says,

"Heaven awaits those content with themselves

who need never dream fancies of Santa nor elves.

This day should be marked like any man's birth

A toast to his health and a modicum of mirth.

I eschew a fat goose, not just for its prices

A Tofurkey suffices-- no life sacrifices.

Sugary plums create tooth fur and rot

The purpose of canes striped to eat, I know not.

The avoidance of glutens, casein and dairy

Keeps the belly concave and the countenance merry.

The utility of gifts become ghosts of the past

Held fast for a time but not built to last.

In favor of gifts bought with gold for a bargain

The Savior would rather a small footprint of carbon.

A blanket or coat tightly wrapped warms the bones

Coal burns not cleanly, nor frackened large stones.

The poor have the edge for they walk and don't ride

Premium oil's not taken out of their hide.

The sweat of our brows is required by earth...

That which we reduce will measure our worth."

We all know how scrupulous Scrooge was converted--

To the plight of his soul he became plainly alerted.

But if you are consumed this whole Christmas season

With right indignation that stems from good reason

By sights that seem wasteful, greedy, displeasin'

Then reread and recycle this poem meant for teasin'.

© copyright 2012 by Gilded Lily Press 

Grammy nominated The Muppet Christmas Carol, 1997

An enlightened Michael Caine as Scrooge

A still from a live production of A Christmas Carol by the wonderful Gaslight Theater of Tucson, which scared the bahoogas out of the kids in attendance in 1997. Curiously, the televised Jacob Marley did not. Treat yourself to local theater, which provides the most immediate and vivid setting for scenes of these intimate and highly unnerving visitations.

As Good As It Gets for the Holidays

Jack Nicholson got it right. He makes a speech in this movie that I had to copy down. His delivery surpasses the written word and I can hear his voice when I remember "the Noodle Salad" speech that he delivers from the back of a sports car. Why post this now, you ask?

I have some family members who are going through something hellacious. And it isn't just a bad time or a downturn. It's like every conceivable avenue of horrible has laid itself before them to walk. I didn't even go into detail, but someone said to me upon hearing this, "We all have hard lives." And I thought, Uh, no. Hard things come and go for everyone, of course. Much of that is their perception and what feels hard to them. But some people just plain have it hard by any standard. There are situations that are like something out of Dickens, except too modern to be comforting by virtue of being quaint. Whole new levels of hell get invented as mankind progresses. There is nothing wrong with perception in certain cases. Some situations can make our eyes boggle. Rough stuff at the holidays? Well, so is evergreen and holly.

With all of the hardship that can coincide with a lengthy holiday season, I admit I find it perplexing that there are seminars advertised to people for how to "survive" the holidays, whether it comes to their careful eating habits, their family relations, their expectations, their spending or their frenzied activity. There are magazine articles, books, television programs, church sermons, lectures and cartoons that try to teach us how to get the most out of the holidays without everything turning ugly and burned out. That's a lot of time spent explaining to us that we don't have time to pay attention to extraneous activities such as attending seminars that sell tickets about how to survive the holidays.

Thanks, Santie, but the dolly is much nicer and less confusing

The concern with materialism surrounding Christmas started in the late 1800s, so this problem isn't going away anytime soon, apparently. There is so much discussion about it and strategizing and conferring that it now seems like death and taxes. The Holiday Problem will always be with us. That's crazy, but that's how it is. Yet, there could be something good in all of that. The conflicting values get people thinking and communicating about how to do it better, and as bizarre as that is, the Problem is a gift that demonstrates what we are blessed with-- the freedom to even think and talk about it at all. That is not true for everyone in every society.

Back to the "Noodle Salad" speech. It's more appropriate for summer-time festivities. But it came to me now, and feels like a humorous shadow side to all of the twinkling lights, without falling into bleakness. I offer it to all of the people who are feeling bad-- and feeling bad about feeling bad--  as permission to not have a jolly attitude on what can be a really spirit-trying day. The Grinch would not be so fun to watch, if he didn't start out grumpy. (Of course, I don't advocate being unpleasant or jaded to such a bright green, or stealing from others out of spite. Not good form, at the least.)

I give you St. Nicholson, the original Bad Santa:

Jack in Coke

"Some of us have great stories, pretty stories, that take place at lakes, with boats, and friends, and noodle salad-- just no one in this car, but a lot of people. That's their story. Good times, noodle salad. What makes it so hard is not that you had it bad, but that you're that pissed that so many others had it good. "

-- from As Good As It Gets, written by Mark Andrus and James L. Brooks

Give Thanks to Your Past Self

Many of us have traditions for expressing our gratitude for our blessings, and as a nation we decided to do this together on the same day. There is a lot of activity and preparation for feasting and celebration.

Thanking your past self is a quieter and more personal part of gratitude. You will experience a more profound general outlook of gratitude if you can thank not only the greater benevolent forces in your life, but if you can also thank yourself. 

If you do this, your future self will thank you, too. But only if you actually do this-- to consciously say thank you to your past self. It turns out, as many psychological studies have shown, that when we do things that require us to use the left part of our brain, we benefit from them more emotionally in terms of satisfaction. The right brain is a bit more impulsive, reactive and chaotic, which is great for creativity. But we need the balance of the left brain's witness to what we do with those impulses.

A young Charles Schulz, already looking uncertain about his chances
from the Charles Schulz museum

For example, we might have a moment of panic that we have misplaced our keys. We thought we had them in our hands or pockets just a moment ago. We look around for a while with our heart beating, only to find that they are hanging on the hook that we installed for this purpose. Automatically, we hung the keys there without thinking. We feel relieved and might say "Thank God" and go about our day. It is no bad thing to feel that we have been granted minor reprieves and beneficence from a deity, a positively organized universe, a natural bent toward luck, or any number of belief systems that we cherish. But in cases like this, it is not as psychologically healthy to feel that we found our keys because we were at the mercy of random good days and bad days.

When the left brain intervenes and recognizes that the past self set up a system to prevent the loss of keys on a regular basis and is recognized in turn for having done that, the psyche responds with a greater feeling of confidence. It believes that we are looking out for ourselves, and not sabotaging ourselves. The right brain is different. It's the one that sends up thoughts of every kind, including new and inventive ways to scold, berate, and recall every mistake and lapse of judgment and lay it before you like a storyboard.

Charlie Brown days come to everyone-- flying at kite-eating trees, and persistently being duped by Lucy into running at the football, thinking, "This time will be different!" So when we're lying on our backs in the dust with Lucy looking down at us, we tend to say those self- negating thoughts out loud with our left brain, along with AAUGH! from our right. When we do this, we layer on more cement that says we are consistently foolish, or uniquely cursed, or singled out for failure. That may feel grander and an easier belief to commit to. Successes can then feel accidental and flukey, and the psyche remains persistently wobbly, expecting the worst. It is harder to commit to wobbly.

If modesty or self-deprecation is a hallmark of our character, it can be difficult to change to a pattern of self-recognition without feeling like a bragging ass. This style of grateful recognition is not the same as invented affirmations that might feel unprovable such as "I'm lovable just the way I am!" If you simply say to yourself, "thank you, past self" for having paid a bill on time, for having left the house early enough, for feeling rested by going to bed earlier, and everything else that is proverbially prudent, it adds up to a sense of well-being for your present self, and is based on actual evidence. If it's a conscious statement, this also weeds out unconscious pridefulness, which is just another send-up from the right brain that is overcorrecting for all of the times it yelled at you.

As you cultivate a grateful spirit in the coming year, include the simple acknowledgement of yourself and your own kind and helpful deeds into that practice. The future will hold much gratitude that you know will be there.

The Occasional Critic: Pride & Prejudice, Who Wore it Better?

Here at Ulterior Colors, we have on staff a person whom I have come to regard as "The Occasional Critic." She looks remarkably similar to me, but her tone is definitely more opinionated than mine. She hopes not to offend but to illuminate. I find that I agree with most of her views on various movies, but as she is not a regularly published critic, I felt called upon to feature her here, because otherwise, her unique perspective would go unrecorded.

A prejudiced critic suitable for every occasion

Like Elizabeth Bennet of Pride & Prejudice, she goes by different nicknames depending on the person speaking to her. She could be a Beth, or a Lizzy or a Miss Liz, but in Critic mode, she is known as Liza. I wasn't aware until recently, of Liza's thoughts that compare and contrast the two filmed versions of Pride & Prejudice-- one produced as a mini-series by the BBC, starring Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth-- and the newer feature film released in theaters with Keira Knightly and Michael McFadden. I came across an involved email discussion with a friend of hers who preferred the second film to the first, and Liza was just not having it. As I said, she knows her own mind when it comes to movies.

This is Liza's side of the exchange. If you find yourself wanting to comment back, either in agreement or with a "nay", you know what to do. If you find yourself wondering how Liza could have spent so much time discussing movies by email, know that I was wondering the same, myself. Obviously I need to give her more to do around here.

Liza prefers a laptop computer for important missives

She writes:

I like the BBC version (we'll call it "the series") better. But, I guess the movie version was good in and of itself, if one had never read the book. I didn't like the look of its production straying from the Austen template, even if the director set it further back in time on purpose. It looked more fitting to the Brontës: cruder, muddier and meaner, in spite of Elizabeth traipsing around with six inches of soiled hem in the series. That wide shot of Keira Knightly standing on the cliff with her hair and dress whipping around her while she is lost in melancholy thought isn't the best interpretation of her character. That shot could be of Catherine Earnshaw from Wuthering Heights, or of Jane Eyre upon the northern moors of remote Yorkshire, and not of Elizabeth Bennett in the pastoral shires scattered near lively London. 

Elizabeth the Precarious? Nay, Elizabeth is always sure-footed

And Elizabeth just isn't melancholy in temperament, is she? That's how the whole movie struck me--  melancholy. I thought that some of Austen's other books had hints of melancholy, but their main tone is upbeat and comic, or at least sardonic, when they move into distressing scenarios. Mansfield Park seemed like a departure for her, roaming to the edge of Brontëland, but even that one never went to any excesses of Romanticism. In Austenland, if someone flings themselves onto a rainy slope and falls down, it won't be caused by terrible imperatives of the soul, but because a besotted young girl like Marianne Dashwood keeps doing that to the chagrin of her family, yet is happily rescued by Austen in the form of suitors at both times. But when Jane Eyre exiles herself out into the rainswept moors, we nearly lose her to a fate worse than death (to Charlotte Brontë)-- an ejection out of England to the other side of the world as a missionary's wife. When Emily Brontë's Catherine Earnshaw crosses the moors to find Heathcliff, in nothing but her nightgown, Jane Austen would have rolled her eyes. It's one thing to let your afternoon dress get a little dirty as you make your way to your sickly sister. It's quite another to clamber wet t-shirt style at night to your adopted brother.

Jane Austen, looking not too unlike Liza's friend, who is actually named Darcy, and who wrote her master's thesis on Mrs. Bennet. The other friend who preferred the movie version will remain unnamed. 

Austen would never have approved of any of her characters making scenes, even in private. I wonder if part of the reason that this movie adaptation has caught on so much with teens is due to that borrowed melancholy and rainy background. There's also more sexual tension in the movie than in either the book or mini-series. You can imagine the Twilight moments between this Darcy and Elizabeth, when they might be strolling in the woods, suddenly growing fangs for each other. 

The Colin Firth series shows the attraction between the two, but you don't sense that there was more than a really great mind-meld (and heart) about to happen. There are no vampires here. In fact, Northanger Abbey is about a young girl who needs to get over the Gothic books she reads that inspire her belief in ghosts, which nearly costs her the positive regard of her fiancé.

Unlike the smilingly chaste, sober and intellect-driven characters in the series, the movie version leaves us with no doubt that Darcy and Elizabeth got a Pemberly groove going on after the wedding. A post-nuptial scene of this kind wouldn't be realistic, because "Miss Austen" wouldn't have known how to write one beyond a misty imagining, as far as we know. She doesn't give us reason to believe that she knows any further, and keeps that issue to herself.

Source: Pulp the Classics

Overall, the movie lacked the exquisite, socially restrictive tension that the miniseries achieves. I'm not sure that people who see the movie will come out of the theater with as full an understanding of just how cramped and stilted everything was for those characters, with the prevailing excessive attention to courtly manners of that time. There is a sufficient level of manners in the movie, but there is also a scene of Mr. Bingley coming right into Jane Bennet's sickroom while she's in bed. This shocked me because it would have shocked Jane Austen. Another unsettling scene is of Mr. Darcy marching into Elizabeth's room at the inn, to deliver his confessional letter, that made me look away because it broke the spell. Austen would have been scandalized at such a breach of boundaries by the irreproachable Darcy, but worse, it diffuses the tension that Austen carefully builds with her narratives. By the time the suitor comes to declare himself to the girl, we're all bated breath and tied up in our seats. Having a young man stride into a private bedroom where the girl is alone, before any sort of understanding has been reached, lets out our corset strings too early. Austen doesn't write bodice-rippers, but at least we feel that her main characters will have a greater ease of breathing in their new life upon engagement and marriage.

Reading Jane Austen can make us think about things her characters do not, because those things are beneath their notice. Even though Jane Austen chose not to bring those things to theirs or our attention, being a modern reader, I do notice them. For instance, I notice the tacit acceptance of the whole class system, and how much of their lives is made possible by invisible, off-stage servants. There is no curious nor compassionate interest in the strata of society made up by the villagers of these estates-- the people that we don't ever meet in her stories-- such as the farmers, the milk maids, and the families of the house servants, that would all be living nearby and going to the little church, where the book opens. There is also little portrayal of how much of their lives that the landowner would be expected to govern. 

Was I not definitive enough?

I don't think Mr. Bennet could have spent so much time just reading in his library or puttering in the garden, unless Austen had allowed him that liberty simply for the sake of his somewhat dotty personality. As the landowner, he'd have to be concerned with crops, disease among the animals, and any births, marriages, illnesses or death among the servants and their families. He would have to know if the parson were in good standing with the church and would also need to know theology well enough to gauge if the preaching included any sort of unsanctioned philosophy or politics that might threaten his holdings, or the social structure. He would eventually be apprised of a scandal between the laundress and the stable boy and have to mete out discipline.

Jane Austen only focused on, and rightly so, from a narrative standpoint, the lives of her own class and its own pickles. She doesn't give voice to anything outside of her experience, and I think that's what makes her observations and voice so strong and effective to this day. She doesn't stay rigid with her views, and sometimes changes her sentiments from one book to the next, but there's never a point when I stop and think, "Oh, she's really showing her ignorance, here." Instead I know I'm being entertained by a master storyteller of the parlor, the drawing room, the ballroom, the dining room, a carriage and a country lane. There is rarely any reference to what goes on in the kitchen, the stables, the washroom, or the chicken coop. So, when "movie Elizabeth" is playing on a swing in the barnyard, I didn't buy it, even if that might have been the norm for a young girl. It's as if the director moved us out of Austen's world on purpose. He wants to serve us watercress sandwiches made from coarse brown bread, and that just leaves me feeling like I wasn't at a proper tea.

Does Jennifer Ehle concur? Quite.

A director and his team can have liberties with the text, and the actors can have liberties with the script, but they need to keep it within the literary world provided them, or else the energy leaks out. If we see Elizabeth lazing on the swing like a child, carefree in bare feet, with a greater amount of physical outlets for a young, active body, then it diminishes our sense of oppressive boredom and lack of useful purpose for most girls of her class. Without that sense we can't fully understand what makes the idea of being the mistress of Pemberly seem like such a fantastic life to enter. When Elizabeth is touring Pemberly, and reflects that she 'could have been the mistress of all this', she is not revealing a regret stemming from avarice. Instead, we can imagine Elizabeth doing all sorts of activities that she would thrive on, instead of just hanging out at home waiting for something to happen. We can guess that she might be involved with Darcy on the runnings of the estate and have opinions to voice, and social events to arrange, and children's education to oversee. They would not be the lackadaisical "governors" that her parents were, or completely self-centered, like Bingley's sisters, who simply want grander surroundings. 

My imaginings of all that come out of Elizabeth's frustration and embarrassment of her parents, the Bennets, and how their frailties and mismanagement impact the lives of their daughters so severely. When the offer by Darcy of marriage comes along, we can gather up much hope for her future domestic happiness, which is why their mutual misunderstandings are so grieving to witness. The idea that someone of her elevated character would miss out on Pemberley, and that the place might be bestowed on someone as mean-spirited as Miss Bingley, feels nearly tragic. 

In Jane Bennet's case, it feels tragic that she would miss out on having someone adore her, the way Bingley does, but you sense that their greatest happiness would come from just enjoying each other's company, and would be torn away only when the family or the estate is in need and to attend to them like the good angels they are. They're not quite right for overseeing a place as far-reaching and stately as Pemberley. 

Keira Knightly and Matthew McFadden,  Focus Films 2005

In the movie version, Darcy and Elizabeth leave us with a picture of their 'incandescent happiness', which fits Jane and Bingley better, because the pool has been lit up with candles and now Darcy can go around in his nightshirt and she can sit in a robe and they can smooch and all is respectable. This is more like a first date on "The Bachelorette" show, rather than a Jane Austen novel, where these sorts of intimate moments were never depicted. If the Darcy couple stays this relaxed and swooning, Pemberley might fall into decline.

The BBC series ends right after the double wedding, because we don't need to travel all the way to Pemberley for a peek at the honeymoon. We are satisfied that Elizabeth will always be industrious and full of good sense, unlike her mother, and will provide a good foil for Darcy's brooding. She won't allow him to shut himself up in his library, as her father does, even if she has to provoke him into coming out. We're confident that while Elizabeth is alive and in charge, Pemberley will see its 'golden age'." 

Chatsworth House of Blakewell UK, used for set location of Pemberley

Pride & Prejudice & Klan Kardashian

A special blend for your afternoon indulgence

There's never a bad time of year for reading or watching a Jane Austen story, yet the approach of winter is so very right for it. Nothing helps along a gloomy day like Vitamin Austen. Raise your teacups, pinkie poised upright, if you agree. 

Kris Jenner, Matriarch of Kardashian clan, by New You magazine

There is also something extra satisfying in re-reading Pride & Prejudice at this particular time, following recent shenanigans of the Kardashian clan. Never has Mrs. Bennet come to life for me more clearly, in light of the "Momager" mindset of Kris Jenner. I now get an even keener sense of how mortified Elizabeth Bennet is of her family's progressively improper proclivities, when I re-read the description of Mrs. Bennet: "She was a woman of mean understanding, little information, and uncertain temper. When she was discontented she fancied herself nervous. The business of her life was to get her [five] daughters married; its solace was visiting and news."

Mrs. Bennet as played by Alison Steadman, BBC 1995

Lydia Bennet, played by Julia Sawalha, purposefully shocking the visiting vicar

A similar plot point between the fictional family and the reality show family is that one of the daughters is audacious and creates a sexual scandal without thinking of the effect it will have on anyone else. The story is a familiar one for each era, and the two families keep audiences on both sides of the Atlantic diverted, either by written installments in 1813 or by televised episodes in 2013.

From parlor chat to televised talk show, Kris Jenner explains her decision to put all of her girls on birth control, starting at age fourteen. According to her, she did this "to protect them", when her oldest, Kim, announced that she was "starting to feel sexual." Perhaps she also hoped for them to catch something while visiting a young man's home. "After all, people do not die from trifling... colds."-- Mrs. B

In neither case, must we imagine what goes on in the conversations between family members, and how much they grate against each other in the midst of the scheming. We have immediate and detailed access to letters, confidential tête-à-têtes and confrontations, as well as public social gaffes, misunderstandings and manipulations.

"Mrs. Bennet… unable to contain herself, began scolding one of her daughters. 'Don't keep coughing so [Khloe, er], Kitty, for heaven's sake! Have a little compassion on my nerves. You tear them to pieces.'
'I do not cough for my own amusement,' replied [Khloe] Kitty fretfully."

The portrayals of prettified and demur voluptuousness are clearly designed to create a visible catalogue for prospective suitors. In this way, the females can disprove their father, Mr. Bennet, in his assertion that "they have none of them much to recommend them. They are as silly and ignorant as other girls."

But to keep the peace, Mr. Bennet mollifies Mrs. Bennet by discussing the idea of his introducing their daughters to the new single neighbor, Mr. Bingley: "You and the girls may go, or you may send them by themselves, which perhaps will be still better, for as you are as handsome as any of them, Mr. Bingley might like you the best of the party."

Mrs. Bennet in turn, tolerates Mr. Bennet's peculiarities as long as he does her bidding, and she both reassures and remonstrates with her daughters by saying, "I do not know how you will ever make him amends for his kindness; or me either for that matter. At our time of life, it is not so pleasant I can tell you, to be making new acquaintance every day, but for your sakes, we would do anything." And the girls themselves would do anything for their sakes as well, it would seem. 

And what effect on the patriarch have all of these estrogen-fueled hi-jinks caused? 

 "Mr. Bennet was so odd a mixture…

of quick parts...

sarcastic humor...

reserve... 

and caprice...

Bruce Jenner outfitted for his upcoming role in the third installment of The Hunger Games

...that the experience of three and twenty years had been insufficient to make his wife understand his character."

Elizabeth feels strongly that her sister Lydia's flightiness among the popular and eligible English officers stationed nearby, and her subsequent elopement with one of them, is to be blamed by parental indulgence. She contends, "Perhaps I am not doing her justice. But she is very young; she has never been taught to think on serious subjects; and for the last half year, nay, for a twelvemonth, she has given up to nothing but amusement and vanity. She has been allowed to dispose of her time in the most idle and frivolous manner, and to adopt any opinions that came in her way."

Although Elizabeth rejects Lydia's offer to help her find a husband among the uniformed celebrities by saying, "I do not particularly like your way of getting husbands", Mrs. Bennet is as happy as a Klam. She has accomplished no fewer than three marriages by the end of that year. All's well that weds well.

Mr & Mrs West ride off into the sunset with North

Exceptional Excerpts: The Diary of Virginia Woolf

I had read some of Virginia Woolf's fiction while in school and then again whenever a film reminded me to read her: Orlando with Tilda Swinton, The Hours with Nicole Kidman, Mrs. Dalloway with Vanessa Redgrave, Kenneth Branagh's To the Lighthouse. I even suffered through Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton's alcoholic vitriol in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" because I had thought it was about the writer. It most definitely is not.

Recently, my sister sent me a beautiful song by the Indigo Girls, written as an homage to The Diary of Virginia Woolf that had struck a chord with the songwriter, Emily Saliers, during her own college days. In the last few months I have felt prompted by this song to read some of the short stories I have missed, and the diary itself.

Aside from her aloof and wry commentary on upperclass English society, what strikes me most about her entries is how much of her years were spent in London and its suburbs while under attack from German bombers during the Blitz. Food becomes rationed and then scarce. Although my own country has been at war for the past twelve years, I rarely experience anything in my daily existence that is a direct effect of this war. 

What is also remarkable is her stolid and then detached tone about the fighting, the threat of the draft, the loss of young men, the return of men who aren't whole or well, neighborhood attacks of deadly influenza, and the destruction of nearby places. Because she is from the English upper class, it seems she expects herself (and her husband, Leonard) to create a false calm to serve as an exemplary subject of the great Pax Britannica that ruled over the previous century.

There also seems to be a general and oppressive understanding that the war will be discussed in most public gatherings and forums, and yet it is kept on a purely political plane, and never truly informative or personal. As a result of this stifling of such an observant mind, most of her writing seems to be explained by her quote about an artist friend of hers who had a strict upbringing: "I feel about him, as about some women, that unnatural repressions have forced him into unnatural assertions."

Here is the gorgeous song, with lush string instrumentation:

or go to link

and some of The Diary. Enjoy:

1915

Monday 4 January

Philip came after luncheon, having 4 days leave. He is sick to death of soldiering-- told us tales of military stupidity which pass belief. They found a man guilty of desertion the other day & sentenced him; & then discovered that the man did not exist.

Friday 15 January

Then we talked about the war. We aren't fighting now, he says, but only waiting for the spring. Meantime we lavish money, on a scale which makes the French, who are fearfully out at elbow, gape with admiration. We are bound to win-- & in great style too, having at the last moment applied all our brains & all our wealth to the problem.

Thursday 28 January

I saw a beautiful woman in the Bus; who could hardly contain her laughter because a great military gentleman was thrown on to her lap, like a sack of coals, which seemed to tickle her greatly, & the more she laughed, the nicer I thought her. About one person in a fortnight seems to me nice.

Tuesday 28 August

German prisoners now working for Hoper: work very well, if given tea at 4:30, which they insist upon, & will then work an extra hour.

Wednesday 5 September

Clouds brewed over the sea, & it began to rain at tea; then great thunder claps & lightning. Difficult to distinguish thunder from guns. German prisoners walked across the field. They are now helping on this farm. Corn over the road still standing in shocks unstacked. Servants stayed at Charleston all night; say that there was gun fire as well as thunder.

Tuesday 11 September

A perfect rather misty but cloudless day, still & very hot. Odd to find no flowers in the hedges, all brown & dead, because of the storm. Often a sound like rain, which turns out to be leaves falling. German prisoners stacking corn at the back of the house. They whistle a great deal, much more complete tunes than our work men. A great brown jug for their tea.

Sunday 30 September

A perfect day. Up on the top, & found a handkerchief full of mushrooms. Met Nessa & Roger walking up to meet us. They heard guns over London & saw lights last night. Another raid. We heard nothing; save Mrs. Hammond, who heard the guns very loud, as she went home. Clear moonlit nights.

Saturday 20 October

Happily, or she might say unhappily for Alix she didn't presumably wander in Piccadilly all night, or the great bomb which ploughed up the pavement opposite Swan & Edgar's might have dug her grave. We heard two soft distant but unmistakable shocks about 9:30; then a third which shook the window; then silence. It turns out that a Zeppelin came over, hovered unseen for an hour or two & left. We heard no more of it.

Monday 22 October

The moon grows full, & the evening trains are packed with people leaving London. We saw the hole in Piccadilly this afternoon. Traffic has been stopped, & the public slowly tramps past the place, which workmen are mending, though they look small in comparison with it. Swan & Edgar has every window covered with sacking or planks; you see shop women looking out from behind; not a glimpse of stuffs, but "business goes on as usual" so they say. Windows are broken according to no rule; some intact, some this side, some that. Our London Library stands whole, however, & we found our books, & came home in the tube, standing the whole way to Hammersmith, & have just come in. Bert is wounded, & Nellie has gone to Liz. She felt it her duty & also her right-- which shows how the servant is bettering her state in this generation.

Thursday 25 October

With time one would naturally welcome wet & wind; already the worst chill of them is over, because one thinks of them as safety against the raid. So today I hardly grumbled, though it was heavy rain, cold, dark, inhuman, primeval weather."

Sunday 28 October

Still no raids, presumably the haze at evening keeps them off, though it is still, & the moon perfectly clear. 

Friday 7 December

Then we took a tram to Kingston & had tea at Atkinsons, where one may have no more than a single bun. Everything is skimped now. Most of the butchers shops are shut; the only open shop was besieged. You can't buy chocolates, or toffee; flowers cost so much that I have to pick leaves, instead. We have cards for most foods. The only abundant shop windows are the drapers. Other shops parade tins, or cardboard boxes, doubtless empty. (This is an attempt at the concise, historic style.) Suddenly one has come to notice the war everywhere. I suppose there must be some undisturbed pockets of luxury somewhere still-- up in a Northumbrian or Cornish farm house perhaps; but the general table is pretty bare."

1916

Friday 11 January

Home I went, & there was a raid of course. The night made it inevitable. From 8 to 1:30 we roamed about, between coal hole kitchen bedroom & drawing room. I don't know how much is fear, how much boredom; but the result is uncomfortable, most of all, I believe, because one must talk bold & jocular small talk for 4 hours with the servants to ward off hysteria.

Monday 5 June 

And expecting a raid, we asked Barbara to sleep. This time it began at 9:10: the warning at east. It was far louder this time. An airplane went over the house about 11:30. Soon after the guns were so near that I didn't like to fetch a pair of shoes left in the bedroom. We had arranged mattresses in the kitchen & after the first noise slackened we lay all together, L. on the kitchen tale, like a picture of slum life. One thud came very near; but in an hour we had the bugles, & went up to bed. The thud, which L distinguished from the rest, came from the explosion of bombs at Kew. Nine people, I think killed. Servants become plaintive, & Lottie began talking of the effect upon her head; they hint that we ought to leave London.  

1917

Tuesday 9 October

We had a horrid shock. L[eonard] came in so unreasonably cheerful that I guessed a disaster. He has been called up. Though rather dashed for 20 minutes, my spirit mounted to the certainty that, save the nuisance, we have nothing to fear.

Two Veterans Day Poems for Two

For two brothers in the womb, at arms, in the Middle East, in the West, gratefully, never at rest

For Danny

I pay both a gardener and a soldier

One I see bent on my lawn

pulling at morning glory

that strangles the cypress wall

The other I see bent in a fix

on a cease and desisted man's eye

Piles of limbs bagged and removed

clipped troops thinned and hauled away

Leaves falling red near my room

Red so bright if I taste them

curling with amber and gold

on the wetted walk below 

Song for Billy

Your boots were laced

with guitar strings

Your tattooed songs

shot through your veins

A sheik of sanded down

handed down tunes

Their shimmering chords

pin up your spine

So much to salvage

but no one to save

Strike up your camp

your band waits today

Strum a canteen

or sip from your grip

A tank of dark ale

won't loosen your lips

Don't bite down hard

on a bullet of shame

No better-off somedays

to sneak up and blame

Stamp out the words

you found in your feet

The self-same boots filled

with raindrops and heat

They'll come when you call

off the hook on a riff

They'll follow you wherever

you march off a cliff 

                      -- Lizbeth Leigh

bombs bursting in air

 Copyright © 2010 by Gilded Lily Press

Go Put Your Hand Upon a Mountain Part 2

Continued from part 1

My own growing was gradual, because it took a while for the mountains to work their spell on me. They are fascinating in their variability, because they reflect the weather happening all around them. Sunny days diminish them to one-dimensional haze, overcast days bring out their contours, rainy days obscure them in clouds, and snowy days frost their peaks in brilliance. Never has a sight remained with me as vividly as the entire range on fire, burning a slowly lowering ring of threatening radiance. The ash-filled air created billowing fuchsia and violet sunsets to offset the charred ridge tops. In a few years, small and pale scrub bushes dotted and then filled in the charcoal, where once the deep emerald pines had spread, ascendant.

Photo credit: Elizabeth.Poscher for Google Earth

No matter how these Catalinas were robed or what they were called, they were an immovable constant in each of my days. In a deep and hidden part of myself, I wanted to be like them. I wished to be outwardly unpredictable, transformative and reflective of life's changes, even if that required vulnerability. I wished to be inwardly forbearing and abiding of all of that change. I wanted to be shaped by both forceful upheaval and slow reckonings. 

The woman I met was mountain grown with her dramatic uprootings, disasters and daily ploddings on foot. When I dropped her off at her apartment on that night, I held back the impulse to offer to take her to the foothills, the base of her longing, and wished her well. It was even harder to refrain the next time I saw her.

I was cleaning out my car, and a slip of paper fell from the passenger's side door to the exact center beneath the car. I had no idea if this paper was important or timely, so I backed the car out of the garage and then picked it up. It was a certificate made out to her from her chain hair salon for the highest earning stylist in the city for that month. When I had some free time in the coming weeks, I showed up at her location and waited with others in a first-come first-served promotional the shop was running. I didn't want to startle her or refer to our private exchange in front of a bustle of customers and co-workers in the full light of day, so I decided to ease into a chair and cool my heels. 

Her hair had changed from black and straight at shoulder length to a short and curly blonde bob. But there was no mistaking her, and I gleefully watched her chatter and laugh with her clients, in the same salted honey voice that had filled up my car. When my turn came, I sat in her chair with the certificate on my lap, and answered her lively questions about my hair. She was playing with it, and not looking at me, but soon in the mirror I watched the dawning of recognition and a flush of shyness as she covered her grinning mouth with both hands. She took back the paper and fanned herself with it. I had to ask, and the answer was still no, she had not yet visited a mountain.

Once again, I badly wanted to offer to drive her, but I listened instead to my anxiety each time that idea occurred to me. Upon reflection, I realized that what I was offering was to take over her story, with myself at the wheel, seeing all of her reactions and slurping up her gratitude with a sense of importance. She needed to keep moving herself toward her goal, and I needed to remain simply a fellow person who gave her a ride and returned her lost property. I needed to stay on my own course of learning forbearance.

There's no doubt in my mind that she made it there. Maybe her hair was styled differently again, maybe she was alone, maybe she was accompanied by her husband only or maybe she invited a crowd of old and new friends. However she showed up, I can see her palm, fingers together and then spreading out, finally home, and in her element.

Photo source: Vintage Everyday, Yosemite National Park

Into the Mystic by Van Morrison