Monday, April 30, 2012

The weeping angel


How does one express grief?
 Yesterday, Cheri, her cousins from Connecticut, and  I toured Cantor’s Art Center at the Stanford University campus. We visited also the grave of Henry Clay Lathrop, the brother of Jane Lathrop Stanford. 25 years ago I visited the grave for the first time while attending a conference in Stanford University.

I remembered being moved to tears at that time after I saw the statue of the weeping angel.I felt the same overwhelming emotion yesterday.

Saturday, April 28, 2012

Best wishes

I wish everyone a wonderful weekend.

Friday, April 27, 2012

Chess and writing


Lately I’m playing a lot of chess by emails. I have 8 games all going at the same time.  My opponents are from England, Luxembourg, France and Canada. We send our moves by emails.
When I’m in deep with chess I could not write any poetry or any writing at all. It seems that my imagination plays with monarchs and knights and pawns only.
I could only describe a little bit my walk to the river.

Thursday, April 26, 2012

Singular sensations


Singular sensations




A looking eye is not necessarily a great eye. The looking eye sees instants, moments  that tell stories. 

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Cloudy morning


Napa has a new riverfront,with a new Veterans Park, a river walk along the Napa River, and new buildings.
There are new art pieces in the Art Walk. The sculptures have an action-related theme. Some establishments have sculptures that are not part of the Art Walk project.
During my walk in the downtown. I saw a group of school children with their teachers doing a field trip to see a mural in one of the government buildings that showed the community immigrant pioneers. The teacher explained the history to the students.



The morning was cloudy. There was hardly a breeze. There were very few people walking.

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

In bloom


Yesterday, during my walk to the river, the friendly fisherman, who I often talked to, told me, 5 days ago after several weeks of empty fishing, he caught a 23-inch sturgeon . He was very excited.





The flowers were in bloom in many frontyards.

Monday, April 23, 2012

Voices


I hear many voices, loud and silent. They seem to come from the sky like voices of angels. Some voices crawl on the fisherman’s line to the fish that swims on my dreams.
Others are grievances that knock on the doors. They are like porches- cluttered, unwanted.
Voices can be fragrances or harmonious luxury of colors that greet me in my walk in the neighborhood. They dance with the breeze and known to hypnotize those who look too long.

Voices fill my mind. They come like invited guests and keep me company. Sometimes they enter surreptitiously and disturb my concentration.


I’m not a child, restless, with activities. I’m a child, content, who gets lost in a play.

Saturday, April 21, 2012

A day for cycling


I woke up early this morning to help with other club members man the course of the Cycle4Sight and Rotary Ride for Veterans, an annual event in Napa Valley, with proceeds going to the Enchanted Hills Camp for the Blind and Visually Impaired  and the Pathway Home, a place of rehabilitation for veteran/warriors returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with post traumatic stress disorders. 
Lots of hot air balloons in the sky. 2,000 or more riders for the event. Afterwards music and booths with wine tasting at the finish.





Today was sunny and really warm day-a beautiful day.

Friday, April 20, 2012

Have a wonderful weekend

Today was chess, grandchildren, and baseball.
Cheri picked up our 4 1/2 year old garndson from school. We played Lego and constructed a sportscar and played chess. Took him home then we proceeded to the high school to watch our 15 year old grandson plays in the junior varsity baseball.


Have a wonderful weekend.

(photo of our 7 1/2 year old granddaughter)


Thursday, April 19, 2012

Old vines


The very old vines still blossom and produce very good wine.
A new medical study shows: "Staying active fends off Alzheimer’s, even in people over 80.”
                                                                the very old vines


the younger vines

Learn another language, a new hobby. I'm trying to learn photography and reading the book-The Photographer's Mind.

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

It's like magic


Our 4 and 1/2 year old grandson loves to play tic tac toe with his grandma. He knows when he will win one tic tac toe. He writes carefully left handedly the X or the O. He smiles  and relishes the pleasure of winning one from his grandma. Yesterday I started teaching him the rudiments of chess. When one of his pawns reached the eight rank I told him he can convert the pawn into a queen. He remembered the story of the girl kissing a frog that turns into a prince. It’s similar-a pawn into a queen. “It’s like magic,” he said.
The happy moments of childhood and the grandparents with their grandchild playing a very simple game. It’s like magic but better-it’s real.

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Spring


Spring arrives with the sun and garden blooms. Time for your sandals and walking shoes and journal yourself to health. You can smile with your shin splints at the beginning but soon your calves will be as sturdy as Hercules and Diana.
One thing more-outdoors is where living is.

Monday, April 16, 2012

Regrets of the dying



I couldn't remember how and where I found this blog of Bronnie Ware.
Inspiration and Chai
Warmth for the soul and the body
She wrote about regrets. 
REGRETS OF THE DYING
  1. I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me. 
2. I wish I didn't work so hard.
3. I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.
4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends. 
5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

Please go to her website for her complete blog.


Saturday, April 14, 2012

Have a wonderful weekend

Babysitting the grandkids.
I wish everyone a wonderful weekend.

Friday, April 13, 2012

After the rain


My parka cuts the wind’s direction
and my thought, the future
hangs like a fisherman’s line
waits through the rain.


What if the mountain 
is full of temples?
Prayers may wake the tigers
and prowl the forest.


Time is sheltered
inside our fears.
What is williwaws?
I asked once. You laughed.


The trout swims away like my dreams.
The rains stops.
I decide not to walk
and pray.


You call, singing poetry, 
like returning hummingbirds.
Tiger and temples are one
like a prayer, you and me.

Thursday, April 12, 2012

Curiosity


I am always eager to experience a delicious noodle soup, an interesting story and an exciting chess game.
I have yet to learn how to cook a decent soup, narrate a captivating yarn or play an imaginative chess game.
What I need is the curiosity of a child?

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Never too late


“It’s never too late to be what you might have been.”
George Eliot

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Breaking bread


“There is a communion of more than our bodies when bread is broken and wine drunk. And that is my answer, when people  ask me : why do you write about hunger, and not wars or love?” M.F.K. Fisher

(photo taken at one of the gates in Jerusalem)

Monday, April 9, 2012

Waiting for hummingbirds


The bird feeder waits for the hummingbirds like when I close my eyes and wait for ideas to come. Is the time wasted if the ideas do not come?
When fisherman casts his/her line and waits for the fish to bite the whole day and no fish bites is it a day lost?
I’m close to the end of the Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald.

Sunday, April 8, 2012

Happy Easter

HAPPY EASTER

Saturday, April 7, 2012

Hope


Today the suns shines in the valley.  Colors are alive. Everything seems glorious.


Today is Holy Saturday and the Vigil of Easter. According to the Little Black Book (www.littlebooks.org) there are four parts to the Easter Vigil:
 The Ceremony of Fire, The Liturgy of the Word, The Liturgy of Baptsm, and The Liturgy of the Eucharist.

"The Liturgy of the Word: Listening to the word of God is to give hope, that all of history is in God's hands, that the universe ultimately works toward good, not evil."

(photos taken of our friend's backyard)

Friday, April 6, 2012

The Greatest Commandment


Today is Good Friday. Jesus died today. He taught us the 2 commandments printed below.


 28 One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”
  
 29 “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.[a] 30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’[b] 31 The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[c] There is no commandment greater than these.”

32 “Well said, teacher,” the man replied. “You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him. 33 To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”

34 When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” And from then on no one dared ask him any more questions.

from:Mark 12:28-34
New International Version (NIV)
The Greatest Commandment
                                                                                      (photo of the Holy Sepulchre Church in Jerusalem)

Thursday, April 5, 2012

Creative or innovative


Innovation and creativity. Can one be creative without being innovative? Can one be innovative without being creative? Are they similar or two different things?
Association of ideas. I think it’s about the age of  four when children develops their ability to associate different ideas and things with each other. 
It’s a game to play with the young children: ask the children to pick a word for every picture or photo you show them.The children will surprise you on what they think about.

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Random thoughts


The fishermen have not caught any fish since 3 weeks ago. “It’s the relaxation,”one of the fishermen told me. “How about the rain,”I said. “It has to water the earth,” he answered. A walker came by with his barking chocolate colored labrador. “I just saw the other day a silver colored labrador. It looks black when the dog moves but it’s really silver,” he said. I thought a silver colored one is rare. His dog continued to bark. Maybe the dog didn't like me.
I bid them a good day. I resumed my walk. The day was sunny and cool but warm enough for me to remove my sweat shirt.
The bamboo should not have any problems growing.

Monday, April 2, 2012

Teamwork


“The most profound trend...is a sharp shift toward scientific teamwork....The reason is simple: the biggest problems we need to solve now require the expertise of people from different backgrounds who bridge the gaps between disciplines.”-quoted from Imagine by Jonah Lehrer.

Sunday, April 1, 2012

The Last Week




"Jesus' teachings of love, and mercy and forgiveness, I think, really should dominate our lives,"says Bart D. Ehrman, author , Did Jesus Exist? The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth. (quoted from the NPR interview, April 1, 2012.)
Today, Palm Sunday,  is the beginning of the Holy Week, the most sacred time of the Christian year. I'll be reading  this whole week beginning today until next Sunday a slim book-The Last Week, What the Gospels Really Teach  About Jesus’s Final Days in Jerusalem, by Marcus J.Borg and John Dominic Crossan.
(Cheri and I visited Jerusalem last September. The photos were taken at the Garden of Gethsemane.The trees are ancient olive trees.)