sprite writes
broodings from the burrow

May 7, 2009


fame!, little fingers, and a good end to the day
posted by soe 5:40 pm

As Clare pointed out in last week’s comments, I have been blogging three beautiful things each Thursday (and on the occasional off day, as well) for more than four years now. If you look through the TBT archives, that gives us 24 pages totalling 232 posts on beautiful things. Even not accounting for the posts where I had seen so much loveliness it spilled past three items, that still gives us roughly 700 small moments of beauty noted since 2005.

Clare herself will mark the fifth anniversary of her blog, Three Beautiful Things, on May 18. She records three pleasurable moments every day and is narrowing in on 5,500 beautiful recordings over the course of her tenure. Clare, I salute you!

I write this introduction in part because it’s been a rough week. Work has been hard. Personalities have conflicted. It seems like the sun may never come out again. And yesterday, a student at Wesleyan, where I worked for seven years and the source of my master’s degree, was murdered by a stalker a block from where I used to live. It’s weeks like these when beauty seems secondary to hatefulness and ugliness and malaise. Yet that’s probably when it’s most important for me to note down that life is not without hope and that the rain leads (eventually) to rebirth.

1. At the ballpark, a horde of teenagers come rushing toward me on the concourse. They are skipping. And singing.

2. A woman and her young son sit on the bus. The baby is sucking his pacifier, his head on mom’s shoulder. His hand reaches toward her cheek and gently caresses it.

3. Susan and I head downtown to meet up with Michael and Julia. We sit by the fountain for a while, watching a duck make a water landing (as opposed to using the duck ramp on the far side of the pool). Then we head up to the tea shop and sit outside and drink warm beverages and eat cookies and talk. It rains a bit off and on, but it doesn’t matter.

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May 4, 2009


monday music at midnight: happy birthday!
posted by soe 11:08 pm

Happy birthday to American icon Pete Seeger, who turned 90 on Sunday.

Pete and Bruce

I have been lucky enough to see Pete several times. While the concert before Barack Obama’s inauguration, when the shot above was taken, was amazing, nothing will ever compare to the concert of 2001. Pete was due to perform as part of a music and politics festival at Wesleyan the night of Sept. 11. Understandably, the concert was postponed, but two days later Pete drove to Connecticut and performed before a room of people still reeling from the week’s events. We were broken and numb, hurt and alone, but, somehow, Pete, with his spry step and his banjo and his unshakable belief in the healing powers of music and community, forced us to sing away our heartsickness and enabled us to start moving forward. I will be forever grateful for that evening of grace-filled togetherness.

And in that vein, I offer you some of Pete’s music. If you know the words, he’d be delighted to know you’re singing along.

John Gorka’s birthday cover of Pete Seeger’s “The Water Is Wide”:

Smithsonian Folkways’ Birthday tribute video in honor of Pete Seeger:

Pete Seeger leads all of Madison Square Garden in the singing of “Amazing Grace” at his 90th birthday party/concert Sunday:

Happy birthday, Pete!

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May 3, 2009


wee tiny socks
posted by soe 11:21 pm

I promise to regale you with stories of my weekend — filled with embassy visits, tea drinking in the rain, and a small fiber gathering — a bit later.

But before I get to that, I wanted to show you what arrived in the mail last week.

This is my second year participating in Emily‘s Wee Tiny Sock Swap.

I knit a sock and sent it off to a fellow knitter, Kirsten:

Pencil Topper

(The sock I knit was made with Woolarina merino/tencel in the colorway Kelp.)

And a different knitter, Donna, sent me a wee tiny sock:

A Wee Tiny Sock for Me

But she didn’t stop there. Donna sells homemade stitch markers and double-pointed needle protectors and she sent me one of each, perfectly personalized based on sneaky questions she asked me:

Monkeys and Paris

She also sent me some fairy notecards and a bookmark and a postcard from Colorado.

Wee Tiny Swap Kit

I felt terribly spoiled. Thank you, Donna!

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