Olivia's thoughts on all kinds of stuff

Saturday, May 30, 2009

Why?

Well, this is certainly one fantastic reason.

Monday, May 25, 2009

This song is in my head

I'm kind of crazy about these 1960s music video clips.

Another? Thought you'd never ask.

"You get the picture?"
"Yes, we see."

Don't go to Arlington Cemetery with your hands empty.

I haven't been to the cemetery in a while. It's a lot to take. When I was little, thinking about my dad and other service members made it rough, and now I'm 26 and my generation is fighting this war that I can't bring myself to believe in. And there's the other stuff that you all know about.

I haven't been in a while.

But I woke up Saturday morning wanting to go. I thought about the kids who'd joined up because they didn't fit in here and thought maybe they could fit in better doing a job where they didn't spend a lot of time in one place and then spent that time learning that once again, they didn't fit in. I thought maybe they'd need flowers, too.

I woke up Monday morning, resolved. Walked to the Giant near my metro station and strode to the flower section. Saw carnations and Gerber daisies dyed all sorts of red, white and blue. I picked yellow roses because yellow reminds me of the cavalry and because roses would stand the metro trip better than the other flowers. I bought yellow roses to divide up between two headstones -- one of a person I loved, and one of a person I'd never met.

(I'm not going to lie -- part of me wanted to go to be a bit of a tourist. I'd never seen the Tomb of the Unknown, so I walked there first. They were in the middle of holding the wreath-laying ceremony there. It's a beautiful, marble theater.)

I finally made my way to Section 60. Looked up the name I knew and unwrapped my flowers. The name I didn't know belonged to Corporal Eckland. He was born a year before I was, and he died the year that I graduated from college.

I have only been to two funerals in my life and I confess that I don't know exactly how to behave in a cemetery. I feel rude for walking over graves, though the grass has been grown atop specifically to diminish any guilt about such things. I put the flowers down behind the American flags and stood quietly for a minute or two. I didn't linger like the pretty blond widow in a blue dress and oversized sunglasses. I didn't talk to anybody. I'd spent an hour getting to Arlington and spent less than ten minutes with those I'd come to see.

I was glad I got the flowers. At first I felt it might be a mistake. I didn't want people on the train or on the grounds to waste feelings of sympathy. I didn't lose a cherished parent or sibling. I didn't lose the love of my life. I didn't lose a child. I felt like a phony -- like one of my friends had lied to the waiter about it being my birthday. Or something a little more sensitive than that.

But I left, glad I'd taken the flowers. Couldn't go with nothing, with my palms bare when the both of them had given until they couldn't.

Sunday, May 24, 2009

The National!

I get to see these guys in concert tonight:

I'm slightly concerned that they'll be a little boring live. But I'm mostly just excited that I get to watch really hot guys play musical instruments and sing all sexy for a few hours.

Thursday, May 21, 2009

Things that made today kind of awesome

1. Ate lunch outside.
2. Saw really cute little kid and got to hear her talk in her really cute little kid voice.
3. Rode on a Metro train driven by the most enthusiastic conductor ever. It was like being taken home by that kindergarten teacher whose cheesy singing still managed to win everybody over. I like to eat, eat, eat apples and bananas...
4. Walked outside.
5. It's a secret.

Today proved unexpectedly awesome. Isn't it lovely when that happens?

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Twice Shy, by Seamus Heaney

Her scarf a la Bardot,
In suede flats for the walk,
She came with me one evening
For air and friendly talk.
We crossed the quiet river,
Took the embankment walk.

Traffic holding its breath,
Sky a tense diaphragm:
Dusk hung like a backcloth
That shook where a swan swam,
Tremulous as a hawk
Hanging deadly, calm.

A vacuum of need
Collapsed each hunting heart
But tremulously we held
As hawk and prey apart,
Preserved classic decorum,
Deployed our talk with art.

Our Juvenilia
Had taught us both to wait,
Not to publish feeling
And regret it all too late -
Mushroom loves already
Had puffed and burst in hate.

So, chary and excited,
As a thrush linked on a hawk,
We thrilled to the March twilight
With nervous childish talk:
Still waters running deep
Along the embankment walk.