" COME live with me and be my Love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That hills and valleys, dale and field,
And all the craggy mountains yield.
There will we sit upon the rocks 5
And see the shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow rivers, to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.
There will I make thee beds of roses
And a thousand fragrant posies, 10
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroider'd all with leaves of myrtle.
A gown made of the finest wool
Which from our pretty lambs we pull,
Fair linèd slippers for the cold, 15
With buckles of the purest gold.
A belt of straw and ivy buds
With coral clasps and amber studs:
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me and be my Love. 20
Thy silver dishes for thy meat
As precious as the gods do eat,
Shall on an ivory table be
Prepared each day for thee and me.
The shepherd swains shall dance and sing 25
For thy delight each May-morning:
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me and be my Love. "
sometimes, I am doing nothing, and I hear in my head the first two lines of this poem:
"COME live with me and be my Love,
And we will all the pleasures prove"
something about the flow of it CAPTURES me & then I have to look up the poem and read (usually aloud) all of it.
oh christopher marlowe. I like you.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
soneto xvii de mi vida.
I had a weird flashback tonight in class. Dr. M was talking about teachers we had in the past who prepared us for exams/tests and gave us assessments directly related to what we had learned.
Even though British Literature II was not my favorite class in college due to Professor I’s crazy teaching antics, his assessments were incredibly fair.
I was thinking about how he gave us three essay topics that we were to prepare for but only one of which we would actually be writing on for our essay exam.
It led me to think about how the topic we wrote on was chosen.
professor I wanted to make sure that it was chosen as randomly as possible… assuring us that it would be so as he sipped out of his coffee cup, rumored to not be full of coffee.
Each student in class had a number next to our name in the grading book. So he picked a number. I don’t remember what number. Say, three. Then he had person #3 pick another number. Maybe they said eight. I’m not sure.
And person #8 was e. Professor I said, “Okay, e, pick a number. That’s the person that gets to pick the essay topic out of the hat.” He picked some number in the twenties. It was me. I was the number.
Everyone laughed because e and I talked constantly, walked to and from class together, probably thought we were together. What are the "odds?" ha.
One usually thinks of random number calling as being unrelated, random in every sense of the word, and yet everyone saw the silliness and irony of Professor I’s random essay choosing “system.”
A was in that class. She was one of the people who somewhat raised her eyebrows when Professor I said my name as being “the” number. She always told me that me and e were fated to be together, and gave little Finnish sayings to validate her opinion. If I had known what would ensue over the following six months, I might have thrown up on the spot. But I didn’t. I laughed with everyone else.
I don’t know why that part of things came up tonight.
As I’ve dealt with singleness and thought about past and current hurts, it’s been good to remember that whatever I wanted so badly in the past, no matter how much it hurt to let it go, I did eventually let it go.
In my current state, tonight in class, when all of this flooded into my head, I thought, “This too shall pass.”
I don’t have to grow cold in order to watch what I think I want drift away. I don’t even have to mope around. I can. And I probably will. But there was a lot of freedom in recalling my former admiration and affection for e. And the wide eyes we both had at the irony of the number he picked being mine. It makes me remember the excitement of the idea of fate and that initial and lingering attraction to another person. That feeling that it’s perfectly okay to be silly and to feel silly.
Sure, it makes me sad. I don’t even really like talking about it. And it really angered me the other night when someone brought him up. Maybe he thinks it’s odd that it still bothers me. I don’t feel hurt from it, but past wounds still ache when prodded by the wrong person.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the type of environment I want to create for my students to learn. I keep going back to the same word: value.
I want my students to feel valued by me. I want them to know without a doubt that I am on their side and that I know that they can succeed in learning English.
Every time I am called Teacher or Maestra, my heart gets bigger. It’s amazing. It’s an honor to be called those words. It helps me know that they value me.
And that’s where my wounds so often come from. A sense of feeling devalued by another person. It should never happen. But it does.
One of my favorite poems says,
“Te amo sin saber como, ni cuando, ni de donde.”
(I love you without knowing how, or when, or where)
And I would have to add,
“Te olvido sin saber como, ni cuando, ni de donde.”
(I forget you without knowing how, or when, or where)
Because it seems that it is in the forgetting, or rather, the decision to not dwell, the moving on, that I find the strength to find and recognize value and being valued and valuing others and all what life is. And that, is healing.
Even though British Literature II was not my favorite class in college due to Professor I’s crazy teaching antics, his assessments were incredibly fair.
I was thinking about how he gave us three essay topics that we were to prepare for but only one of which we would actually be writing on for our essay exam.
It led me to think about how the topic we wrote on was chosen.
professor I wanted to make sure that it was chosen as randomly as possible… assuring us that it would be so as he sipped out of his coffee cup, rumored to not be full of coffee.
Each student in class had a number next to our name in the grading book. So he picked a number. I don’t remember what number. Say, three. Then he had person #3 pick another number. Maybe they said eight. I’m not sure.
And person #8 was e. Professor I said, “Okay, e, pick a number. That’s the person that gets to pick the essay topic out of the hat.” He picked some number in the twenties. It was me. I was the number.
Everyone laughed because e and I talked constantly, walked to and from class together, probably thought we were together. What are the "odds?" ha.
One usually thinks of random number calling as being unrelated, random in every sense of the word, and yet everyone saw the silliness and irony of Professor I’s random essay choosing “system.”
A was in that class. She was one of the people who somewhat raised her eyebrows when Professor I said my name as being “the” number. She always told me that me and e were fated to be together, and gave little Finnish sayings to validate her opinion. If I had known what would ensue over the following six months, I might have thrown up on the spot. But I didn’t. I laughed with everyone else.
I don’t know why that part of things came up tonight.
As I’ve dealt with singleness and thought about past and current hurts, it’s been good to remember that whatever I wanted so badly in the past, no matter how much it hurt to let it go, I did eventually let it go.
In my current state, tonight in class, when all of this flooded into my head, I thought, “This too shall pass.”
I don’t have to grow cold in order to watch what I think I want drift away. I don’t even have to mope around. I can. And I probably will. But there was a lot of freedom in recalling my former admiration and affection for e. And the wide eyes we both had at the irony of the number he picked being mine. It makes me remember the excitement of the idea of fate and that initial and lingering attraction to another person. That feeling that it’s perfectly okay to be silly and to feel silly.
Sure, it makes me sad. I don’t even really like talking about it. And it really angered me the other night when someone brought him up. Maybe he thinks it’s odd that it still bothers me. I don’t feel hurt from it, but past wounds still ache when prodded by the wrong person.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the type of environment I want to create for my students to learn. I keep going back to the same word: value.
I want my students to feel valued by me. I want them to know without a doubt that I am on their side and that I know that they can succeed in learning English.
Every time I am called Teacher or Maestra, my heart gets bigger. It’s amazing. It’s an honor to be called those words. It helps me know that they value me.
And that’s where my wounds so often come from. A sense of feeling devalued by another person. It should never happen. But it does.
One of my favorite poems says,
“Te amo sin saber como, ni cuando, ni de donde.”
(I love you without knowing how, or when, or where)
And I would have to add,
“Te olvido sin saber como, ni cuando, ni de donde.”
(I forget you without knowing how, or when, or where)
Because it seems that it is in the forgetting, or rather, the decision to not dwell, the moving on, that I find the strength to find and recognize value and being valued and valuing others and all what life is. And that, is healing.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
...
amy, this is mainly for you. for a lot of different reasons. but mostly because you're my only blog follower. (:
i'm lying here in my bed and i'm really sad. you know why. i'm exhausted by this inward battle but don't know how to win it. it's so easy yet the hardest thing. my mind goes crazy and i just want to disappear.
the only thing that repeats in my head is, "i need jesus. i need jesus. i need jesus." over and over and over again.
and what does that even mean?
i ask that a lot lately.
'trust god.'
what does that mean?
or more, how does one make a decision to do that?
O Love that will not let me go...
why won't you let me go? why do you hold on?
i know he has marked me. the label that i most identify in the bible is somewhere in the old testament, probably in one of the prophet books, where is says something like, "you are mine." i think that is my special word with god. i am his. he looks at me and says, 'mine.'
and i try to do that with things i want in my life. i look at them and say, 'mine.' but they aren't mine. they're his, too.
i need jesus. yes. i do. but more than that. i need to want jesus more than anything else. holding nothing back.
i wish i could say that this realization makes me the sadness disappear. but although it sheds light, it's still there. it's like the poem on my wall which reads,
"I will complain, yet praise,
I will bewail, approve;
And all my sowre-sweet dayes,
I will lament, and love."
i don't know how to be strong. and intellectually i know, "when i am weak, he is strong." but i need to know this in my heart and believe it. and i want to. and i hope it happens. because, i can't.
i'm lying here in my bed and i'm really sad. you know why. i'm exhausted by this inward battle but don't know how to win it. it's so easy yet the hardest thing. my mind goes crazy and i just want to disappear.
the only thing that repeats in my head is, "i need jesus. i need jesus. i need jesus." over and over and over again.
and what does that even mean?
i ask that a lot lately.
'trust god.'
what does that mean?
or more, how does one make a decision to do that?
O Love that will not let me go...
why won't you let me go? why do you hold on?
i know he has marked me. the label that i most identify in the bible is somewhere in the old testament, probably in one of the prophet books, where is says something like, "you are mine." i think that is my special word with god. i am his. he looks at me and says, 'mine.'
and i try to do that with things i want in my life. i look at them and say, 'mine.' but they aren't mine. they're his, too.
i need jesus. yes. i do. but more than that. i need to want jesus more than anything else. holding nothing back.
i wish i could say that this realization makes me the sadness disappear. but although it sheds light, it's still there. it's like the poem on my wall which reads,
"I will complain, yet praise,
I will bewail, approve;
And all my sowre-sweet dayes,
I will lament, and love."
i don't know how to be strong. and intellectually i know, "when i am weak, he is strong." but i need to know this in my heart and believe it. and i want to. and i hope it happens. because, i can't.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)