1926 National Geographic, back cover.
Tag Archives: women
If you don’t like the weather…
Click on the word “weather” (up above this sentence, underlined) to hear cute (and very short) jingle
– drawing and jingle by Mary MacGowan
Orange and Sad
I’m back
My faded orange nail-polished toe (with impressive bunion) next to a shoe from China circa 1950, made to fit a woman who endured the ancient art of footbinding. My sister and I each treasure this strange little shoe, so we take turns owning it. I have it this year.
See photo below for greater understanding.
Heartbreaking Swiftness
the reason is: you are drunk and this is the edge of the roof
My desire-body, don’t come strolling over this way. Sit where you are, that’s a good place. When you want dessert you choose something rich. In wine you look for what is clear and firm. The rest is self-hatred and mocking other people and bombing. So just be quiet and sit down. The reason is: you are drunk, and this is the edge of the roof. – Rumi
The Standing Babas
The Standing Babas were men who’d taken a vow never to sit down, or lie down, ever again, for the rest of their lives. They ate their meals standing up . . . They even slept while they were standing, suspended in harnesses . . . The pain was unending and terrible . . . Tormented, tortured, the Standing Babas were never still. They shifted constantly from foot to foot in a gentle, swaying dance . . . The faces of the Babas were radiant with their excruciation . . . [they] assumed a luminous, transcendent beatitude. Light, made from the agonies they suffered, streamed from their eyes . . . The Babas were also comprehensively, celestially, and magnificently stoned. They smoked nothing Kashmiri – the best hashish in the world . . . and they smoked it all day, and all night, all their lives . . . For a tiny moment in the infinitude of his suffering I almost felt it, what the human will can drive the human body to endure and achieve.
– Gregory David Roberts, “Shantaram”
A Dramatization in 3 Acts
Not Enough Being
Men Too Loud; Today’s Silence
AGES 20 – 58: MEN MAKING NOISE AT ME…
MY LIFE NOW, ALONE. SILENCE IN THE MORNINGS, FREE TO GAZE OUT WINDOWS BEFORE RISING
I ACCEPT FULL RESPONSIBILITY FOR ALLOWING THESE MEN TO DISRUPT MY LIFE AND MY WELLBEING. MANY DIFFERENT MEN HAD MANY DIFFERENT AGENDAS; THEY WEREN’T ALL BAD PEOPLE. I STILL HOPE, ONE DAY, TO FIND A TRUE LOVE TO SHARE SILENCE IN THE MORNINGS. TO GAZE OUT WINDOWS BEFORE RISING. TO SHARE.