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THE MUSE OF PROCRASTINATION
STRIKES AGAIN
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This was to be that long
productive week for me. What else is there to do between Christmas and New Year, when the
house is quiet and the telephone doesn’t ring, but turn your mind to serious work? By
serious I don’t mean writing the Great American Novel or hunkering down at the piano
to ferret out a musical passage that has eluded me for months, but the really tough stuff:
making some kind of order out of my desk(s), filing discs, cleaning up my bedroom,
removing boxes of things - that only I can go through - from every room poor Edward has to
enter. And, downloading and answering personal E-mail that deserves a better fate than
ninety days of hard time at the bottom of an electric mail box.
I’d hoped to get a few flight plans ahead [what else is new] so that Ken can have
some back up and a bit of time off too. Most of all I headed into the Christmas holiday
with a sort of "all things neglected and put off in 1998 should be done, put away or
set in motion before the dawn of ‘99" philosophy. So much for good intentions.
Bring on the reruns. Well maybe not just yet. Still it’s an hour before deadline for
tomorrow’s flight plan and I’m nowhere near finished with it, or am I?
- RM 12/26/98 |
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John Amos o
Wilson Cruez o Gerard Depardieu o Marlene Dietrich o Tovah Feldishuh o Sydney Greenstreet o Howdy Doody o
Rich Jones o David Knopfler o Oscar Levant o Dr. William Masters o Louis Pasteur |
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Love is an act of
giving. Giving is an act of love.
Don’t be too quick to question everything. There are wild
roses that have bloomed far into December seemingly without reason.
There are no wise men. Only men and women who go on gaining
wisdom.
Most of our needs should far exceed our grasp. Or what are
needs for? |
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CHRISTMAS
PAST
I loved your face
on Christmas Eve,
though it was framed
by such a noisy crowd.
Seeing your eyes dance
and dance in my direction
was how I came to know you.
Seeing you beyond the tree
and only later on
beyond my reach
was how I came to love you.
And if you loved my face
as much as you love Christmas.
I’d be safe from year to year.
The same anticipation
that you hold for holidays
would smother me,
and glad I’d be to die so loved.
-from "The Carols of Christmas," 1971
SWEET SEASON
Here in
the California winter
a mile away from snow
we hike down through
the holidays happily
but not so hurriedly
that we forget
our friends who celebrate
this same sweet season
beneath the southern sun.
And may we never
once forget
the birthday of God’s Son.
Good God give us more
than just our daily bread.
Pride in what we do for you,
hope for every new tomorrow,
love for all things living.
And as we forage in the New Year
let our foraging be done
in your name only.
Make the songs we sing
songs of praise
and not of glory
God of our fathers
Be the one our singing turns to
As this Christmas passes into history.
-from Rod McKuen’s Folio,
1975 and "An Outstretched Hand," 1980 |
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