and then there is JD Salinger..,

I have just been rummaging around in my blog and note that I have 10 drafts for posts I was going to finish but didn't for one reason or another. If I went through my boxes of fabric I promise I would find at least that many garments half finished. Most all of them would have potential, just like the blog post ideas, but for one reason or another I simply do not want to return to them. You will note I determined to complete the one on Ed Kennedy and send it on it's way. When I did so I knew it was not my best effort and regardless of how I try to tell myself that I can just walk away from something that is less than my best I am fighting the urge even now to go delete and revise it. I'm not going to imply that I am or could ever be an author of the likes of Salinger, but when he died this week with all of the rumored unpublished work, I understood exactly why.

So I am not a Salinger, but I am also not yet dead. When his treasure trove of work is published we will no doubt be amazed and wish to add our own comments. Now the question comes, did he stop putting himself out there because of an inflated ego or for a lack of one? Did he just not care about our comments or did he care too much or was Catcher just too hard an act to follow, even for him. The literary world waits with baited breath and strong opinions. 

For myself I blame a certain lack of focus and discipline, both essential for a perfectionist with an ego about writing. I would go so far to say that all of us who blog are egotist for believing that what we say is worth your time, but I must add that all of my blog roll friends I have met in real life are quite charming and entertaining. They are also quite forgiving of me and all my folly and fantasy. 

I know you are patiently waiting for me to come to the point which is I need to put these fledging ideas to rest so I'm going to be pulling them up one by one and posting them in an un-Salinger-ist manner. Please keep what is worth keeping and like you always do, with a breath of kindness, blow the rest away. 

Edward Kennedy, A Belated Eulogy

The black umbrellas made me cry. Seen from above they were anonymous circles of grief, each representing the private feeling of an unseen human beneath them, maybe you, maybe me. Other eyes were focused on the flag draped casket but while it was centermost, I could think of nothing but the rain falling on the overlapping black disks. Someone on face book this week said they wish they could fast forward through all the bad parts of life. I did not comment because it was useless to explain to her why tears are just as important as laughter. If we had the remote control of life in hand it would be too tempting. We would never grow, never change and life would have no meaning.

You will all have your own private opinions about Edward Kennedy, the youngest child of an illustrious high profile family. I do not seek to change anyone's mind about him or his family. You can think them heros or villains as you will and argue either side with equal weight of evidence, but if anyone had reason to want the bad times to move faster, he had the right. He was a man made by circumstance from Chappaquiddick to his good bye to his brother Robert at the funeral in 68. He, the youngest, was left to bear the heavy responsibility of carrying out all the visions of his three dead brothers.  He stood firm and worked hard with a humility that was not typical of the Kennedy clan and at the end he was braver than I think I could have ever been.

I left this post for so long because I could not find the picture of the umbrellas. Now time has marched on and it seems his beloved Massachusetts has turned away. I wonder how long it will be before another ambitious Kennedy steps up to try and fill Ted's shoes? 

Time keeps slipping into the future

Don't give up on me quite yet. I truly intend to come back here when things get sorted. Meanwhile for those of you who have not heard my grandson arrived Jan 20 2010 at 2:25 in the afternoon. My daughter wanted privacy for the labor so she and Marc and the midwife were the only ones in the room when Logan Avery Everett came into the world.  However the other grandmother and I managed to defy all the staff and lurk just outside the room until we heard his first cry. A few hours later we four grandparents flocked in to meet the new love of our life and tell the amazed new Mom what a great job she had done.

I have much to say about it all but not now. Trying to keep up a full work week through this all has taken a toll. For now, pictures will have to suffice.