Celebrations

We are still eating leftover cake. This weekend my family threw their third party in as many weeks. Three weekends ago it was a surprise birthday party for my sister. The following weekend was a graduation party for me, a lovely evening of friends and family and laughter and candlelight, out under the maple tree behind our house. This weekend was my sister's birthday, her high school graduation, and my grandmother's birthday, all on Saturday. Of course this called for another party. It was inside because of the rain, but still a celebration of girlfriends, grandparents, laughter, camera flashes, cake, more candles, and a pair of hands pressed affectionately in a corner of the family room (as romance is blossoming for one of my brothers).

But we couldn't eat all the cake. Carrot cake from the graduation and chocolate cake from the party are slowly disappearing now, as siblings nab small pieces throughout the day. It's a family tradition.

And now my sweet brother is sitting at his computer making beautiful artwork out of pictures of his girlfriend taken this weekend. Meanwhile, Little One is in raptures over her new pink nightgown and the thunderstorm that's blowing through. ("Oh Sarah! It's so dark outside! I love it when it's a dark storm outside 'cause it's so cozy inside. And guess what! I am so excited about putting on my pyjamas tonight! Because I have a new nightgown . . .")

And in a private celebration, I used the last of my Borders gift cards to buy Richard Wilbur's Collected Poems: 1943 - 2004. I had forgotten the wealth a single book of poetry can hold. In scattered quiet moments this weekend I flipped it open, and each time was delighted by fresh beauty. Because I can't read them to you, I'll post some here. For now, here's the one I discovered while paging through the book in Borders (the poem that convinced me to buy the book):

The Reader

She is going back, these days, to the great stories
That charmed her younger mind. A shaded light
Shines on the nape half-shadowed by her curls,
And a page turns now with a scuffing sound.
Onward they come again, the orphans reaching
For a first handhold in a stony world,
The young provincials who at last look down
On the city's maze, and will descend into it,
The serious girl, once more, who would live nobly,
The sly one who aspires to marry so,
The young man bent on glory, and that other
Who seeks a burden. Knowing as she does
What will become of them in bloody field
Or Tuscan garden, it may be that at times
She sees their first and final selves at once,
As a god might to whom all time is now.
Or, having lived so much herself, perhaps
She meets them this time with a wiser eye,
Noting that Julien's calculating head
Is from the first too severed from his heart.
But the true wonder of it is that she,
For all that she may know of consequences,
Still turns enchanted to the next bright page
Like some Natasha in the ballroom door--
Caught in the flow of things wherever bound,
The blight delight of being, ready still
To enter life on life and see them through.

(Collected Poems: 1943-2004 [New York: Harcourt,
Inc., 2004], 5)

More to come.