{"id":8205,"date":"2011-06-17T07:09:18","date_gmt":"2011-06-17T11:09:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=8205"},"modified":"2011-06-17T06:32:57","modified_gmt":"2011-06-17T10:32:57","slug":"the-shape-of-what-you-live","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2011\/06\/the-shape-of-what-you-live\/","title":{"rendered":"The Shape of What You Live"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

[Image: “Angular Momentum,” from xkcd.com. The tooltip\/”hover title” at the original page<\/a> says: “With reasonable assumptions about latitude and body shape, how much time might she gain them? Note: whatever the answer, sunrise always comes too soon. (Also, is it worth it if she throws up?)”]<\/em><\/p>\n

From whiskey river<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n

Remembering<\/strong><\/p>\n

And you wait. You wait for the one thing
\nthat will change your life,
\nmake it more than it is—
\nsomething wonderful, exceptional,
\nstones awakening, depths opening to you.<\/p>\n

In the dusky bookstalls
\nold books glimmer gold and brown.
\nYou think of lands you journeyed through,
\nof paintings and a dress once worn
\nby a woman you never found again.<\/p>\n

And suddenly you know: that was enough.
\nYou rise and there appears before you
\nin all its longings and hesitations
\nthe shape of what you lived.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Rainer Maria Rilke [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n

You’re really just an ongoing set of events: boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, one after the other. The awareness is keeping up with those events, seeing your life unfolding as it is, not your ideas of it, not your pictures of it. See what I mean?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Charlotte Joko Beck [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

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

See the Flowers<\/strong><\/p>\n

See the flowers, so faithful to Earth.
\nWe know their fate because we share it.
\nWere they to grieve for their wilting,
\nthat grief would be ours to feel.<\/p>\n

There’s a lightness in things. Only we<\/em> move forward
\nforever burdened,<\/span>
\npressing ourselves into everything, obsessed by weight.
\nHow strange and devouring our ways must seem
\nto those for whom life is enough.<\/p>\n

If you could enter their dreaming and dream with them deeply,
\nyou would come back different to a different day,
\nmoving so easily from that common depth.<\/p>\n

Or maybe just stay there: they would bloom and welcome you,
\nall those brothers and sisters tossing in the meadows,
\nand you would be one of them.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Rainer Maria Rilke [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

My instruction for meditation practice is much the same as my instruction for psychotherapy: “Don’t duck.” Maybe it’s a little cavalier to say, because sometimes you have to duck or you get blown away. But if I say to myself, “This is painful, but it’s O.K.,” and I stay there, then it’s just what it is and then it changes. But when I run away from it or I push it away or pretend that it’s something else, that is the suffering. All those maneuvers that we do to avoid saying, “This is true. This is what’s happening” — the maneuvers themselves are the suffering.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Sylvia Boorstein [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

The Fair<\/strong><\/p>\n

Before the gates opened, before popcorn
\nand cotton candy drifted down throats<\/span><\/p>\n

like sweet and salty summer evenings
\nof childhood, before the townspeople<\/span><\/p>\n

confessed to the music and lights,
\nthe Ferris wheel baskets swung empty<\/span><\/p>\n

in a slow arc, one by one, offering color
\nto the sky — red, yellow, orange, blue.<\/span><\/p>\n

Just roving boys, what else could we do
\nbut follow the sandaled feet of girls<\/span><\/p>\n

out to the fair to buy them rides
\nuntil our pockets turned up penniless,<\/span><\/p>\n

until we lost them in the dark
\nthe way sparrows will fly from you,<\/span><\/p>\n

until our last walk past the fun house
\nmirrors stretched our bodies like gum,<\/span><\/p>\n

when we caught ourselves looking
\nback at ourselves for the first time.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Hank Hudepohl, from The Journey of Hands<\/em> [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

I never know what I’m going to find when I start free-associating for these Friday posts; there’s always a surprise of some kind. When I plugged the phrase shape of life<\/em> into Google, I wasn’t all that surprised to find a 2002 PBS series about evolution<\/a> by that title. (Sample topics: “What animals were the first to hunt? Do you need a head to get ahead?… How do humans fit into the shape of life? Why have animals with backbones enjoyed such success?”) I wasn’t all that surprised to find references to a song by a trio called Kink Ador. What surprised me was finding that song to be an infectious blend of funk, jazz, and rock… from a Nashville-based group said variously to resemble the Talking Heads, the Police, Lady Gaga, the Muppet Show, the Kings of Leon, and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. (Kink Ador is fronted by vocalist\/bass-player\/trumpeter (!) Sharon Koltick, described at their site<\/a> as “like Sting except more likeable.”)<\/p>\n

Here’s Kink Ador’s video for “The Shape of Life to Come”:<\/p>\n

<\/object><\/p>\n

One non-surprise: all three of them, including the drummer, sometimes seem ready to dance right away while playing — especially in that long minute-and-a-half instrumental which closes the song. I’m no dancer myself, but I can’t say I blame them: that’s some serious move-music going on there.<\/p>\n

Lyrics:<\/p>\n

The Shape of life to Come<\/em><\/strong>
\n (lyrics by Sharon Koltick; music by Kink Ador)<\/em><\/p>\n

I hear the mournful music, I hear clapping hands.
\nWe play along on guitar and drums.
\nOur footsteps tap tap, add to the requiem,
\nfeed the remembering with each tap tap.<\/p>\n

Our reflection in the window makes us move fast
\nbut we can’t outrun what’s already passed.
\nSummer birds sing, I hope it never rains again
\noh there’s nothing to fear.
\n***it’s the shape of life to come.<\/p>\n

We take a short respite in a street cafe
\nget away from time, get away from light.
\nYou say a few kind words, and I say amen.
\noh there’s nothing to fear.
\n***it’s the shape of life to come.<\/p>\n

(claps, snaps, and laughs, drum section)<\/em><\/p>\n

I was born a no one with an ordinary name
\nbut I’ve advanced myself, I’ve had huge gains.
\nI’ve got titles on my crown, and I’ll never hit the ground.
\noh there’s nothing to fear.
\n***it’s the shape of life to come.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Image: “Angular Momentum,” from xkcd.com. The tooltip\/”hover title” at the original page says: “With reasonable assumptions about latitude and body shape, how much time might she gain them? Note: whatever the answer, sunrise always comes too soon. (Also, is it worth it if she throws up?)”] From whiskey river: Remembering And you wait. You wait […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"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":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[247,1393,74,273,50,251,713],"tags":[971,1078,2416,2417,2418],"class_list":{"0":"post-8205","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-ruminations","7":"category-whiskey-river-runningaftermyhat","8":"category-music","9":"category-comics","10":"category-language-writing_cat","11":"category-poetry-writing_cat","12":"category-humor-writing_cat","13":"tag-xkcd","14":"tag-rainer-maria-rilke","15":"tag-charlotte-joko-beck","16":"tag-sylvia-boorstein","17":"tag-kink-ador","18":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-28l","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8205","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=8205"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8205\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8206,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8205\/revisions\/8206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}