Lazy Sunday

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I got this wonderful book at the on-post library book sale on Friday. It is a collection of First Lady Jackie Kennedy's favorite poems. 

There are some gorgeous poems and I wanted to post some of my favorites. I haven't done a Sunday Art post in a while, but felt inspired reading this book last night. 

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Fog 

By Carl Sandburg 

The fog comes

on little cat feet. 

It sits looking

over harbor and city 

on silent haunches 

and then moves on. 

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Fireflies In The Garden 

By Robert Frost

Here come real stars to fill the upper skies, 

And here on earth come emulating flies, 

That though they never equal stars in size,

(And they were never really stars at heart) 

Achieve at times a very star-like start . 

Only, of course, they can't sustain the part. 

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Hope Is The Thing With Feathers 

By Emily Dickinson 

Hope is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul, 

And sings the tune without the words, 

And never stops at all, 

And sweetest in the gale is heard;

And sore must be the storm 

That could abash the little bird

That kept so many warm. 

I've heard it in the chillest land,

And on the strangest sea; 

Yet, never in extremity,

It asked a crumb of me 

I think this is just the loveliest book. It would make a wonderful Mother's Day gift too. The poems were compiled by Jackie Kennedy's daughter Caroline and include memories and stories about her parents. I am only part way through and can already tell this will be a book I will  return to over and over throughout the years. 

Back in NY

I am relieved to be writing this from the Watertown Starbucks next to my favorite person. I made the drive back from Virginia Saturday morning, and arrived around 3:30 to our gorgeous new house. I am completely in love. The house is amazing and I can't wait to start all sorts of projects. We already made a run to Lowes so I can start priming tonight and painting tomorrow.

The summer weather did not quite follow me north. I have traded the 86 degree Atlanta for a 46 degree Watertown. However, the sun is shining and I have my gorgeous new place so I am happy.

As a substitute for Sunday Art, here is my all time favorite summer song. The Traveling Wilburys is made up of George Harrison, Jeff Lynne, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, and Roy Orbison. They were a kind of super-group/collaboration and have some amazing songs. My favorite is Handle With Care. 


The beginning of every summer at the lake was marked with this song. We would start playing it at a specific point on the high way so that it was just ending as we pulled in. I really don't know what it was about this song, but from about the age of five I was obsessed.

Been beat up and battered round
Been sent up, and Ive been shot down
Youre the best thing that Ive ever found
Handle me with care
Reputations changeable
Situations tolerable
Baby, you're adorable
Handle me with care
(chorus)
Im so tired of being lonely
I still have some love to give
Wont you show me that you really care
(bridge)
Everybodys got somebody to lean on
Put your body next to mine, and dream on
Ive been fobbed off, and Ive been fooled
Ive been robbed and ridiculed
In day care centers and night schools
Handle me with care
Been stuck in airports, terrorized
Sent to meetings, hypnotized
Overexposed, commercialized
Handle me with care
(chorus)
(bridge)
Ive been uptight and made a mess
But I'll clean it up myself, I guess
Oh, the sweet smell of success
Handle me with care

Y'all should definitely check out more of their songs. I hope that summer has arrived for other parts of the country. As for me, I am just hoping it won't snow again. 

Sunday Thoughts

I had the most amazing time celebrating a dear friend Rebecca's marriage yesterday. We drove up to Chattanooga and then just came back this evening. It was a beautiful and simple wedding which had gorgeous details. Since the wedding was early afternoon, she brought in a coffee and doughnut cart for guests. It was a unique approach that I haven't seen. I know food trucks are a growing trend with weddings, and I loved the coffee and doughnuts. They also had other finger foods and tea. We went out to dinner afterward and had amazing burgers at Urban Stack in Chattanooga.

Every wedding I attend makes me think about my own now. Hearing my friends say those same vows makes me overly emotional. Marriage is such a huge thing to promise someone, and I have such hope and joy for my friends. I can't help but reflect on my wedding and that inspired the poem for today. One of our readings was from Khalil Gibran's The Prophet. I love the sentiments in this poem. To me, it highlights the importance of the individual within marriage. Our other reading was Carry Your Heart With Me by e.e Cummings. That poem is my favorite, as evidenced by the name of my blog. These two readings have different ideas of love and marriage, but I think it is important to have a balance between the two in any relationships.

Love one another, but make not a bond of love:

Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.

Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup.

Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf

Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,

Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music. 

Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.

For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.

And stand together yet not too near together:

For the pillars of the temple stand apart,

And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.

I tried to think of what piece of art best represented Rebecca. She and I met while studying abroad in Verona, Italy. She is a wonderful person, and perhaps one of the best representations of true Christianity I have ever met. She is so loving, forgiving and full of grace. I immediately thought about Michelangelo's Pieta in Rome. It depicts Mary cradling Jesus after the crucifixion. It is beautiful and also heartbreaking. 

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I was lucky enough to see this statue in person in Rome. It is even more breathtaking in person, and anyone who visits Rome should be sure to go to St. Peters to see it. 

Sunday Art

Well hello Sunday. We are headed into Syracuse for lunch and Lane is starting his next tattoo. I am continuing on to D.C tonight, but wanted to do a quick post with some art that I have been loving this week. I have loved Monet's Haystacks for years. I used to go to Chicago and see them at the Art Institute.

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I think there is something wonderful about these paintings. Monet would paint the same subject in multiple lights and seasons. The same haystack looks remarkably different depending on the light. Although he is famous for the water lilies, I like the haystacks better. 

Sunday Art

Since Feeling is First 

By. e.e cummings

since feeling is first

who pays any attention

to the syntax of things

will never wholly kiss you;

wholly to be a fool

while Spring is in the world

my blood approves

and kisses are a better fate

than wisdom

lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry

- the best gesture of my brain is less than

your eyelids' flutter which says

we are for each other; then

laugh, leaning back in my arms

for life's not a paragraph

and death i think is no parenthesis

I went to Paris for the first time when I was thirteen. I can remember walking into the Louvre and seeing Winged Victory for the first time. I thought it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I have been back a few times since then, and each visit is like seeing an old friend. I love the simultaneous beauty and strength found in Winged Victory. 

Molly On Pinterest

Sunday Thoughts

There are people out in the hotel parking lot decorating their cars today. More of soldiers comes home everyday, and I am so excited for their families. Seeing the signs like "Welcome Home Daddy" and "Proud Army Parents" makes me a little teary.

I don't have any paintings today. I have loved The Odyssey since I read it for the first time in high school. I have reread it many times since then. Although there are so many unlikable characters, one that I immediately connected with was Penelope. She is the wife of Odysseus, and left behind while he headed off to the Trojan War.

After the war she is left to defend her kingdom against the suitors who covet her husband's crown. I think any woman facing a deployment would find a connection to her. She was left alone for a decade, unsure if Odysseus was even alive.

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Human beings live for only a short time, 

and when a man is harsh himself, and his mind knows harsh thoughts, 

all men pray that sufferings will befall him hereafter 

while he lives; and when he is dead all men make fun of him. 

But when a man is blameless himself, and his thoughts are blameless, 

the friends he has entertained carry his fame widely 

to all mankind, and many are they who call him excellent.

(Penelope to Odysseus 290)

O fortunate son of Laertes, Odysseus of many devices, 
surely you won yourself a wife endowed with great virtue. 
How good was proved the heart that is in blameless Penelope, 
Ikarios’ daughter, and how well she remembered Odysseus, 
her wedded husband. Thereby the fame of her virtue shall never 
die away, but the immortals will make for the people 
of earth a thing of grace in the song for prudent Penelope.

(Agamemnon praising Penelope 350


"My dears, heaven has been pleased to try me with more
affliction than any other woman of my age and country. First I
lost my brave and lion-hearted husband, who had every good
quality under heaven, and whose name was great over all Hellas and middle Argos,
 and now my darling son is at the mercy of the winds and waves, 
without my having heard one word about his leaving home.

Sunday Art

These are all from Cozamia. I love their art, and am definitely thinking about getting one for our house. The chevron patter below is my favorite, and I think it would be possible to make using a canvas and tape to create the white areas. These have been all over Pinterest, but I wanted to highlight them here too.

All pictures from cozamia

Love by Roy Croft
I love you
Not only for what you are,
But for what I am
When I am with you.
I love you,
Not only for what
You have made of yourself,
But for what
You are making of me.
I love you
For the part of me
That you bring out;
I love you
For putting your hand
Into my heaped-up heart
And passing over
All the foolish, weak things
That you can't help
Dimly seeing there,
And for drawing out
Into the light
All the beautiful belongings
That no one else had looked
Quite far enough to find
I love you because you
Are helping me to make
Of the lumber of my life
Not a tavern
But a temple.
Out of the works
Of my every day
Not a reproach
But a song.
I love you
Because you have done
More than any creed
Could have done
To make me good.
And more than any fate
Could have done
To make me happy.
You have done it
Without a touch,
Without a word,
Without a sign.
You have done it
By being yourself.

Sunday Art

This Sunday's art is particularly special to me. They are all by our family friend Walter Cumming. We have a gorgeous piece by him that we received as a wedding gift. He has some amazing work from his time in Europe as well as the in the U.S. 

All work can be found on his Website

The Road Not Taken 

By Robert Frost 

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;	5
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,	10
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.	15
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Sunday

Firstly, I have to thank Beverly at la la love learn and laugh for tagging me with the Liebster Award.

I like this award because it is geared toward newer blogs, or blogs that don't have quite as many followers as some others.

Here are the rules: 

1. Choose five up and coming blogs with less than 200 followers to award
2. Show your thanks to the blogger who gave you the award by linking back to them. If you're not already a follower of their blog, that might be a great way to show appreciation for the award.
3. Post the award on your blog. Be sure to link back to the 5 blogs you awarded so that others can visit them.

I want to give this award to Laura at Loving Life in Love. I haven't been ready for very long, but I immediately loved her home improvement post. Laura has a great sense of style and great posts. She also has the cutest dogs you have ever seen. 

 

I mean she posted this picture: 

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You have to love it. 

So I have been thinking that my Sunday posts will be art that I love. Poems, songs, paintings, anything that strikes my fancy. 

I posted a link to this during Pinterest Wednesday, but I wanted to post it again in its entirety. It is one of the most beautiful descriptions of marriage I have ever found. It makes me tear up every time. 

The Bravest and Most Beautiful Affair 

By Ann Voskamp 

In his sleep, he finds my hand.

It’s the only one I’ve ever known.

Hand in mine, that wraps around a waist, draws in close, slumbering strength always holding on.

I don’t know how another man’s skin feels.

My grandmother lived that kind of courage. The kind that made a vow and had the bravery to let it age.

The wrinkled faithfulness of monogamy, it can look pedestrian, the kind that finishes well, parades up through the Arc de Triomphe, battle scarred, and the tourists just blithely shuffle by, pigeons taking to oblivious wing. She told me about this.

I remember it, nights like these.

How she said that the bravest love is wildly faithful and it falls hard again every morning. How it puts the toilet seat down and the cap on the toothpaste and winks for those already-won eyes. It knows what we seek may be found in what we already have. And there can always be this — the allure of the vows.

I feel his skin, his hand around me in sleep. We sleep like this this night after years of nights, light of the moon stretching long across our room, the pillows, us growing old in this romanced ordinary. It’s grace and fresh gratitude that can make us strong enough to marvel in the seeming monotony of anything. And the happily married have eyes that look long enough to make the familiar new. When he comes up behind me and hugs me at the stove, I still whisper it to him: “I still can’t really believe I get to be married to you.” Grandma washed Grandpa’s underwear for fifty six years, and she said it was always so good.

Warm it falls on the nape of my neck, his sleep breath, close. I press closer. There’s this beautiful drama’s in a long faithfulness and aged love might be heroic. God knows the passion of a covenant.

His stubble rubs my shoulder.

He makes me, shape and rib, and my head’s full of how we’ve known each other and how he still is mystery and how the want is still all his. We sleep in matrimony and it is holy —

us just laying together here in a breath of forever…

Painting of Paris by Paul Ferney

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