T.S. Tuesday: You've Cat To Be Kitten Me Right Meow
On Sunday night I came across this internet meme and my new favorite cat pun. Which is ironic because yesterday at the library whilst browsing the 821.912 section, which for those of you who don’t know, is the glorious Dewey decimal ranking devoted to the poetry of T.S. Eliot, I discovered something earth shattering, for me at least.
I discovered that T.S. Eliot had a not-so-secret affinity for cats, well, writing about them at least. I found a marvelous collection of zany cat poetry titled, “Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats.”
According to the shameless book flap, “These playful verses by a celebrated poet have delighted readers and cat lovers around the world.”
He originally wrote the poems in a series of letters to his godchildren. Later the poems were compiled into book form and shared with the public. Many of his memorable cat characters were later adapted for Andrew Lloyd Weber’s musical, Cats.
As a single female writer/blogger I am hesitant to admit this, but if T.S.-freaking-Eliot can boldly proclaim his love of cats, then so can I. I love cats.
So you can imagine my cat-ostophic delight at this discovery. I’ve just read a few of the poems thus far, but I must agree with Time’s assessment (circa 1993, again the book flap unabashedly proclaims) that there is “Enough ferocious fancy and parody to knock the spots off most cat books.”
Now I don’t read many cat books (please stifle your surprise), but Eliot’s collection of cat poetry may quite plawsibly be the best.
Alright, alright, any more puns from me would be a feline-y, so I will defer to the master himself.
Here’s my favorite of Eliot’s cat poems, The Ad-dressing of Cats, being performed by talented mew-sicians in the musical, Cats. Enjoy!
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lcnCd_Gyfc]
And because we’re talking about cats, I just have to share my absolute favorite cat video on the interwebs. I warn you now, you might pee your pants.
For those with a lower tolerance for parody, but still enjoy a bit of punnery, check out the Princeton Tiger’s compilation of 56 Movie Titles Made into Cat Puns.
Whelp, cat’s all, folks!
T.S. Wednesday: The Meaning of Life
“Time past and time future
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.” T.S. Eliot, Burnt Norton, Four Quartets
Point to one end, which is always present.” T.S. Eliot, Burnt Norton, Four Quartets
Transitions are tough for me; I think they’re tough for everyone. I’ve spent the last months, nay year, deciding whether I should stay at my job, stay in the country. I’ve oscillated between living in the future, what could be, and the past, what has been and what could have been. Both the memories and the dreams sear vividly across my eyelids as I sleep to the world in front of me, the day before me, the moment that flits by.
My bathroom wall used to don a Lululemon poster that contained—along with myriad other inspirational quotes and phrases—the saying, “Living in the moment could be the meaning of life.”
Before I read Ann Voskamp’s One Thousand Gifts and before I immersed myself in Eliot, I would have chalked the phrase up to pop psychology and over-priced yoga pants propaganda. Not now.
As I contemplate Ann’s excursions into eucharisteo, or thankfulness, in every aspect of her life, I can see her journey to joy, to God, to meaning, is a pilgrimage to living in the moment. To naming the graces. Counting the gifts. Stacking the joy.
The journey to God is the quest to unlearn our clinging to the past. The challenge to relinquish a life lived solely in the future.
Naming gifts brings meaning as the moment is acknowledged, fully lived.
Eliot writes in his poem Burnt Norton,
“What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden. My words echo
Thus, in your mind.”
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden. My words echo
Thus, in your mind.”
I am tired of straining to hear the regretted footfalls thump-thumping against untaken paths. I grow weary of a world of speculation.
And so I will keep at this naming of gifts, this stacking of joy. I will scrawl in my notebook the thanks of the moment:
* A time of extended merriment with friends old and new.
*Soft mist blanketing, softening the valley as the miles dart by on quiet freeways.
*The sharing of stories and journeys and pig cheeks' carbonara.
Another way I will orient myself to the present is by implementing a Bucket List for my last two months at my current job. Instead of withdrawing, disconnecting, and playing the Lame Duck Grant Writer, I will engage. I will create new challenges. I will try new lunch spots with my coworkers. I will write new blog posts. I will dance my butt off at our newly scheduled weekly Wii dance parties.
I will celebrate the past and I will dream for the future, all the while pointing to the present.
***
Questions: Are you more apt to relive the past or spend your time dreaming and scheming for the future? What helps you live in the present, in the moment? Any suggestions for my work Bucket List?
T.S. Tuesday: Shall
In my writing this week about the God of movement and transformation and transfiguration, one of my favorite T.S. Eliot lines has been illuminated.
Believe me.
This. is. ground. breaking.
These words are a part of me. They flow involuntarily from my lips, like curse words and Help-me-Jesuses from the mouths of the shocked and endangered.
My favorite phrase from all of Eliot’s poetry (and that's saying something) has been transformed.
“And so the darkness shall be the light
And the stillness the dancing.”
I noticed a new word the other day.
The darkness SHALL be the light.
Shall—like, not yet.
Not yet.
That's not how I pictured it. With Eliot’s poetic prowess, his omission of the second “shall be” in the phrase “The stillness the dancing,” stillness and dancing became one in my mind. The words interchangeable in the syntax; the images interchangeable in my mind.
The phrase evokes a sense of darkness = light. Stillness = dancing.
But that’s not what Eliot says.
Darkness BECOMES light.
Stillness BECOMES dancing.
As Ann Voskamps puts it in One Thousand Gifts, they are transfigured.
“Darkness transfigures into light, bad transfigures into good, grief transfigures into grace, empty transfigures into full.”
Darkness transfigures into light. Stillness transfigures into dancing.
Darkness ---> Light
Bad ---> Good
Grief ---> Grace
Empty ---> Full
Stillness ---> Dancing
Eliot’s not calling us to pretend that we see things we don’t or to imagine that our motionless bodies are boogie-ing. But to anticipate. To be patient.
Because “the darkness SHALL be the light and the stillness the dancing.”
And this, this is comforting.