{"id":18573,"date":"2016-11-25T11:02:30","date_gmt":"2016-11-25T16:02:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=18573"},"modified":"2016-11-25T11:02:30","modified_gmt":"2016-11-25T16:02:30","slug":"not-all-but-this-much","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2016\/11\/not-all-but-this-much\/","title":{"rendered":"Not All, But This Much"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"'Milky<\/a><\/p>\n

[Image: “Milky Way & Zodiacal Light<\/span> over Lake Dumbleyung,” by Trevor Dobson (user inefekt69) on Flickr<\/a>. (Used here under a Creative Commons license.) The photographer’s description says, “Lake Dumbleyung is about 215km south east of Perth. It’s famous for hosting Donald Campbell’s successful world water speed record attempt back in 1964. The lake was much fuller then but I was hoping for at least some water to cover the bottom of the many dead trees that line the shores, I wasn’t lucky though.”]<\/em><\/p>\n

From whiskey river<\/em><\/a> (italicized lines):<\/p>\n

To Live in This World Requires<\/strong><\/p>\n

To live in this world requires
\nthat you leave your house every morning
\nand step into the wind
\nEvery morning: with all your memories
\non file and the future pinned to some wall
\nyou will have to build and tear down and
\nbuild again. If you get there. If. If.<\/p>\n

Into the wind: first you walk the dog whose
\nblessed face belies the beast it is built upon
\nMillennia behind you, that beast enters a cave
\nand decides whether or not to kill a child sleeping
\nby a fire. It does not kill the child
\nbecause its heart has been surprised by love
\nBoth softened and sharpened by it, inexplicably
\nInexplicably, to this day<\/p>\n

And on this day, the wind relents
\nThe morning star lifts itself into a changeable sky
\nand you, carrying extra weight, wearing
\nlast year\u2019s clothes, start walking towards the train
\nSeeds that grew from ancient science digest in your stomach;
\nyour bones begin to separate because science did not plan
\nthis length of life; your heart slows down and you feel
\nthe pressure of dragging a million, billion years
\nbehind you. A million, billion lie ahead that you
\nwill know nothing about<\/p>\n

Thus, harnessed to time, facing the inevitable,<\/em>
\n constructed by science and fed on inexplicable events<\/em>
\n taking place somewhere in the middle of history,<\/em>
\n your day goes by. Miles away, the ocean<\/em>
\n murmurs to its own beloved creatures, a mountain<\/em>
\n applies pressure to the weaving of a golden seam<\/em>
\n And in your house, the dog wonders<\/em>
\n if you will make it home again. And each day,<\/em>
\n despite or because the performance of this feat<\/em>
\n is both a mystery and a triumph, somehow<\/em>
\n you will. You do<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Eleanor Lerman [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

<\/a>…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Knowing you are alive is feeling the planet buck under you, rear, kick, and try to throw you; you hang on to the ring. It is riding the planet like a log downstream, whooping. Or, conversely, you step aside from the dreaming fast loud routine and feel time as a stillness about you, and hear the silent air asking in so thin a voice, Have you noticed yet that you will die? Do you remember, remember, remember?\u00a0[*<\/a>] Then you feel your life as a weekend, a weekend you cannot extend, a weekend in the country.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Annie Dillard [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Not from whiskey river<\/em> (excerpt):<\/p>\n

Miss Peach: The College Years<\/strong><\/p>\n

III. The Essay<\/p>\n

It is dumb to know what one has longing for.
\nI am moved by the orange stitching on a girl\u2019s corduroy book bag.<\/p>\n

I, too, wonder what I am happy about.
\nThere is always something natural in pieces<\/p>\n

like sand or snow. If early Western cultures
\nhad perceived the surface of the day as wrapping around them like a shell,
\nI wouldn\u2019t be here right now.
\nNot exactly me, not exactly here, not exactly now. The world spreads out<\/p>\n

from how we look at one thing. I tell myself this and then I look at things for hours.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Catie Rosemurgy [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

You Can’t Have It All<\/strong><\/p>\n

But you can have the fig tree and its fat leaves like clown hands
\ngloved with green. You can have the touch of a single eleven-year-old finger
\non your cheek, waking you at one a.m. to say the hamster is back.
\nYou can have the purr of the cat and the soulful look
\nof the black dog, the look that says, If I could I would bite
\nevery sorrow until it fled, and when it is August,
\nyou can have it August and abundantly so. You can have love,
\nthough often it will be mysterious, like the white foam
\nthat bubbles up at the top of the bean pot over the red kidneys
\nuntil you realize foam\u2019s twin is blood.
\nYou can have the skin at the center between a man\u2019s legs,
\nso solid, so doll-like. You can have the life of the mind,
\nglowing occasionally in priestly vestments, never admitting pettiness,
\nnever stooping to bribe the sullen guard who\u2019ll tell you
\nall roads narrow at the border.
\nYou can speak a foreign language, sometimes,
\nand it can mean something. You can visit the marker on the grave
\nwhere your father wept openly. You can\u2019t bring back the dead,
\nbut you can have the words forgive<\/em> and forget<\/em> hold hands
\nas if they meant to spend a lifetime together. And you can be grateful
\nfor makeup, the way it kisses your face, half spice, half amnesia, grateful
\nfor Mozart, his many notes racing one another towards joy, for towels
\nsucking up the drops on your clean skin, and for deeper thirsts,
\nfor passion fruit, for saliva. You can have the dream,
\nthe dream of Egypt, the horses of Egypt and you riding in the hot sand.
\nYou can have your grandfather sitting on the side of your bed,
\nat least for a while, you can have clouds and letters, the leaping
\nof distances, and Indian food with yellow sauce like sunrise.
\nYou can’t count on grace to pick you out of a crowd
\nbut here is your friend to teach you how to high jump,
\nhow to throw yourself over the bar, backwards,
\nuntil you learn about love, about sweet surrender,
\nand here are periwinkles, buses that kneel, farms in the mind
\nas real as Africa. And when adulthood fails you,
\nyou can still summon the memory of the black swan on the pond
\nof your childhood, the rye bread with peanut butter and bananas
\nyour grandmother gave you while the rest of the family slept.
\nThere is the voice you can still summon at will, like your mother’s,
\nit will always whisper, you can\u2019t have it all,
\nbut there is this.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Barbara Ras [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

<\/a>____________<\/p>\n

* Interestingly, whiskey river<\/em> omits the brief portion of this passage which begins, Have you noticed yet that you will die?<\/em> The passage appears in both sources cited by whiskey river<\/em>… maybe there’s another version which omits it. (Not that I’m complaining; I’ve done the same thing in this post, with a different quotation.)<\/p>\n

[back<\/a>]<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Image: “Milky Way & Zodiacal Light over Lake Dumbleyung,” by Trevor Dobson (user inefekt69) on Flickr. (Used here under a Creative Commons license.) The photographer’s description says, “Lake Dumbleyung is about 215km south east of Perth. It’s famous for hosting Donald Campbell’s successful world water speed record attempt back in 1964. The lake was much […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18584,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"A wealth of sufficiency: 'Not All, But This Much'","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[247,1393,250,5,36,251,4159],"tags":[295,786,2390,4448,4449,4450,4451,4452],"class_list":{"0":"post-18573","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ruminations","8":"category-whiskey-river-runningaftermyhat","9":"category-art","10":"category-06_writing","11":"category-reading","12":"category-poetry-writing_cat","13":"category-essays","14":"tag-annie-dillard","15":"tag-eleanor-lerman","16":"tag-astronomy","17":"tag-milky-way","18":"tag-observation","19":"tag-catie-rosemurgy","20":"tag-barbara-ras","21":"tag-sufficiencies","22":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/milkyway_zodiacallight_lakedumbleyung_inefekt69_thumb.jpg?fit=600%2C311&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-4Pz","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18573"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18573\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18583,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18573\/revisions\/18583"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18584"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}