{"id":20288,"date":"2018-05-19T15:44:21","date_gmt":"2018-05-19T19:44:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=20288"},"modified":"2018-05-19T15:44:21","modified_gmt":"2018-05-19T19:44:21","slug":"almost-almost-too-tired","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2018\/05\/almost-almost-too-tired\/","title":{"rendered":"Almost <em>(Almost)<\/em> Too Tired"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"intrinsic-container intrinsic-container-16x9\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/19823932\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p class=\"smalltext\"><em>[Video: <\/em>Ten Things I Have Learned About the Sea<em>, by Lorenzo Fonda. (Identified as the inspiration for the second whiskey river excerpt below.) For an interview with the filmmaker, see <a title=\"The Atlantic (August 3, 2011): 'Ten Things I Have Learned About the Sea,' by Kasia Cieplak-Mayr von Baldegg\" rel=\"noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/video\/archive\/2011\/08\/ten-things-i-have-learned-about-the-sea\/469977\/\" target=\"_blank\">this brief interview<\/a> in <\/em>The Atlantic<em> (August 3, 2011).]<\/em><\/p>\n<p>From <a title=\"whiskey river: 'Explaining the Attempt to the Doctors, Beginning with Two Lines from Darwish,' by Leila Chatti\" rel=\"noopener\" href=\"http:\/\/whiskeyriver.blogspot.com\/2018\/05\/they-asked-how-would-you-like-your.html\" target=\"_blank\"><em>whiskey river<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>Explaining the Attempt to the Doctors, Beginning with Two Lines from <a title=\"Google Books: 'Unfortunately, It Was Paradise: Selected Poems,' by Mahmoud Darwish (relevant lines highlighted)\" rel=\"noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=Nz1TCy39aPQC&amp;pg=PA21&amp;lpg=PA21&amp;dq=%22They+asked:+How+would+you+like+your+death?%22+%22Blue,+like+stars+pouring+from+a+window%22&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=zUXrs3yZrO&amp;sig=rLA9meYtr3p3PO0WxolFsQtpO-o&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ved=0ahUKEwidh9-zu4zbAhVC7FMKHTtfB8IQ6AEIWTAO#v=onepage&amp;q=%22They%20asked%3A%20How%20would%20you%20like%20your%20death%3F%22%20%22Blue%2C%20like%20stars%20pouring%20from%20a%20window%22&amp;f=false\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Darwish<\/em><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>They asked: How would you like your death?<\/p>\n<p>Blue, like stars pouring from a window.<\/p>\n<p>I took the blue pill, and then<br \/>\nanother. It was easy<\/p>\n<p>but still my ghost, here, tethered.<\/p>\n<p>I have been living such a long time<br \/>\nfor someone my age.<br \/>\nI have been living in pain, etc. etc.<\/p>\n<p>Yes I have tried<br \/>\nthe hard labor of joy. Yes<\/p>\n<p>most days I do not want<br \/>\nto die and too take pleasure<\/p>\n<p>in sparrows, splashed sun.<\/p>\n<p>Sadness has a long tongue and wide mouth and hounds<\/p>\n<p>me wherever I go.<br \/>\nThere are women<br \/>\nwho hold the door open, beckon.<\/p>\n<p>They are blue and it is blue where I am not.<\/p>\n<p>The thing about stars is they are dead,<br \/>\nor some are and there is no discernible difference.<\/p>\n<p>Do you understand? Something calls my name<br \/>\nlike my mother used to.<\/p>\n<p>I am tired<\/p>\n<p>and something is calling, calling.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(Leila Chatti [<a title=\"Tumblr: Heteroglossia (Jacqueline Winter Thomas)\" rel=\"noopener\" href=\"http:\/\/heteroglossia.tumblr.com\/post\/173372183999\/they-asked-how-would-you-like-your-death-blue\" target=\"_blank\"><em>source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;<a title=\"whiskey river: 'Ten Things I Have Learned About Life'\" rel=\"noopener\" href=\"http:\/\/whiskeyriver.blogspot.com\/2018\/05\/ten-things-i-have-learned-about-life-1.html\" target=\"_blank\">and<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>Ten Things I Have Learned about Life<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>1. Life will lure you into oblivion.<\/p>\n<p>2. Life is inconceivably bigger than me.<\/p>\n<p>3. Life is a mirror. If I am happy, it will be happy. If I am sad, it will be sad.<\/p>\n<p>4. Life doesn&#8217;t know what time it is, since time lies in life itself.<\/p>\n<p>5. Life is a living creature, and no breathing movement of it is equal to the previous.<\/p>\n<p>6. Life will kick your sorry human ass, no matter what, anytime.<\/p>\n<p>7. Life will bore you to death.<\/p>\n<p>8. Or it could make you feel like a six year old kid again.<\/p>\n<p>9. Life is both heaven and hell, and the living soul can only guess what awaits beneath.<\/p>\n<p>10. Life knows something that we don&#8217;t.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(&#8220;adapted from Lorenzo Fonda&#8217;s <a title=\"Vimeo: 'Ten things I have learned about the sea,' by Lorenzo Fonda\" rel=\"noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/vimeo.com\/19823932\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Ten Things I Have Learned About The Sea<\/em><\/a>&#8220;; otherwise unsourced)<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Not from <em>whiskey river<\/em>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>All Summer Long<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The dogs eat hoof slivers and lie under the porch.<br \/>\nA strand of human hair hangs strangely from a fruit tree<br \/>\nlike a cry in the throat. The sky is clay for the child who is past<br \/>\nbeing tired, who wanders in waist-deep<br \/>\ngrasses. Gnats rise in a vapor,<br \/>\nin a long mounting whine around her forehead and ears.<\/p>\n<p>The sun is an indistinct moon. Frail sticks<br \/>\nof grass poke her ankles,<br \/>\nand a wet froth of spiders touches her legs<br \/>\nlike wet fingers. The musk and smell<br \/>\nof air are as hot as the savory<br \/>\nterrible exhales from a tired horse.<\/p>\n<p>The parents are sleeping all afternoon,<br \/>\nand no one explains the long uneasy afternoons.<br \/>\nShe hears their combined breathing and swallowing<br \/>\nsalivas, and sees their sides rising and falling<br \/>\nlike the sides of horses in the hot pasture.<\/p>\n<p>At evening a breeze dries and crumbles<br \/>\nthe sky and the clouds float like undershirts<br \/>\nand cotton dresses on a clothesline. Horses<br \/>\nrock to their feet and race or graze.<br \/>\nParents open their shutters and call<br \/>\nthe lonely, happy child home.<br \/>\nThe child who hates silences talks and talks<br \/>\nof cicadas and the manes of horses.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(Carol Frost [<a title=\"Google Books: 'Love and Scorn: New and Selected Poems,' by Carol Frost\" rel=\"noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=asOTz7mTOdcC&amp;pg=PA73#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false\" target=\"_blank\"><em>source<\/em><\/a>])<br \/>\n&#8230;and:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Such is the state of life, that none are happy but by anticipation of change: the change itself is nothing; when we have made it, the next wish is to change again. The world is not yet exhausted; let me see something tomorrow which I never saw before.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(Samuel Johnson [<a title=\"Google Books: 'The novels of Sterne, Goldsmith, dr. Johnson, Mackenzie, Horace Walpole, and Clara Reeve' ('Rasselas,' by Samuel Johnson\" rel=\"noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=I2cOAAAAQAAJ&amp;pg=PA371#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false\" target=\"_blank\"><em>source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;and:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>In Tennessee I Found a Firefly<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Flashing in the grass; the mouth of a spider clung<br \/>\nto the dark of it: the legs of the spider<br \/>\nheld the tucked wings close,<br \/>\nheld the abdomen still in the midst of calling<br \/>\nwith thrusts of phosphorescent light&#8212;<\/p>\n<p>When I am tired of being human, I try to remember<br \/>\nthe two stuck together like burrs. I try to place them<br \/>\ncentral in my mind where everything else must<br \/>\nsurround them, must see the burr and the barb of them.<br \/>\nThere is courtship, and there is hunger. I suppose<br \/>\nthere are grips from which even angels cannot fly.<br \/>\nEven imagined ones. <em>Luciferin, luciferase<\/em>.<br \/>\nWhen I am tired of only touching,<br \/>\nI have my mouth to try to tell you<br \/>\nwhat, in your arms, is not erased.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(Mary Szybist [<a title=\"Google Books: 'The World Is Charged: Poetic Engagements with Gerard Manley Hopkins,' edited by Daniel Westover and William Wright ('In Tennessee I Found a Firefly,' by Mary Szybist)\" rel=\"noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=-m9uDQAAQBAJ&amp;pg=PA123#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false\" target=\"_blank\"><em>source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;and:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The relationship between cause and effect within the domain of physical objects and phenomena reflects a dynamic that is not limited to physical reality. This is the dynamic of karma. Everything in the physical world, including each of us, is a small part of dynamics that are more extensive than a five-sensory human can perceive. The love, fear, compassion, and anger that you experience, for example, are only a small part of the love, fear, compassion, and anger of a larger energy system<br \/>\nthat you do not see.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(Gary Zukav [<a title=\"Amazon.com: 'The Seat of the Soul,' by Gary Zukav\" rel=\"noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/B000SEHS8K\/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&amp;btkr=1#reader_B000SEHS8K\" target=\"_blank\"><em>source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[Video: Ten Things I Have Learned About the Sea, by Lorenzo Fonda. (Identified as the inspiration for the second whiskey river excerpt below.) For an interview with the filmmaker, see this brief interview in The Atlantic (August 3, 2011).] From whiskey river: Explaining the Attempt to the Doctors, Beginning with Two Lines from Darwish They [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20298,"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":"Almost (Almost) Too Tired","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":[247,1393,250,5,251,4159],"tags":[1764,2125,2380,3761,4730,4731],"class_list":{"0":"post-20288","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-poetry-writing_cat","12":"category-essays","13":"tag-carol-frost","14":"tag-samuel-johnson","15":"tag-lorenzo-fonda","16":"tag-mary-szybist","17":"tag-gary-zukav","18":"tag-leila-chatti","19":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/tenthingsihavelearnedaboutthesea_lfonda_sm.jpg?fit=640%2C362&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-5he","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20288","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=20288"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20288\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20299,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20288\/revisions\/20299"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}