How Great the Art?

Twist but don't shout at Bonnet House in Fort Lauderdale

In a recent twist of fate, SAM and I were invited to stay at a distant relative's condo in South Florida. As fate would have it, this invitation coincides with our 35th wedding anniversary. The place is ours to enjoy for the time being, and what a place! I won't post a picture of the inside of the condo since it's not mine to show off, but I will say that the art it contains is inspiring.

Daughter, don't sit under the camellia tree with anyone else but me

 Before we traveled that far south, though, we made a pit[hy] stop in Tallahassee to visit Daughter and her hubby and to deposit Peanut.

Peanut makes herself at home while visiting Daughter and Son-in-law

She (the cat--and possibly I--not the daughter!) has/have put on quite a few excess pounds whilst living up north. Is it the stress of the cold or just living in Illinois that "comPounds" the problem of weight gain? If Peanut could talk, she would probably tell me to take a chill pill and relax. You can't make the wheels of Illinois' state government turn any faster than they are used to moving. Just because Florida could issue a professional license in short order (10 days) doesn't mean that Illinois can or will do the same for me (9 weeks and counting).

Speaking of wheels turning, while waiting on the license, I've been working on a train song. I always have liked that genre for some reason. Daughter gave me a guitar for Christmas in 2013, and I am finally trying to learn how to play the darn thing. Since we gave him a guitar this past Christmas, Grandson and I have been taking lessons together from a teacher employed by Mike's Music in Carbondale, Illinois. Ever since I saw Tommy Emmanuel in concert, I've been wanting to try my hand(s) at the art.

"Trunk art" at Bonnet House in Ft. Lauderdale

I wonder...If this tree we saw at Bonnet House Plantation in Ft. Lauderdale could be turned into an instrument, what song would it sing?

A to Z Blogging Challenge: E is for Emerson and Essays



Image of Ralph Waldo Emerson borrowed from this site

What's the first thing that comes to mind with the word "essay"? Ugh! It's that theme paper I had to write in Composition class, the one where I had to make a point and defend it. No wonder essays went the way of horse-drawn carriages. They're kind of fun to read for nostalgia's sake but not consumed on a regular basis by the reading public. It's more relaxing to do stuff like look for Waldo in a picture than try to see things from another Waldo's (Ralph W. Emerson's) perspective. Take a deep breath and think happy thoughts. Don't tax your brain. It is April, you know, and by now we've all had enough of taxes.

Who writes essays anymore? Actors and musicians are idolized, but other arts are ignored. Yes, writing is an art, even the nonfiction kind. The mind of a writer paints in colors imagined by the reader, with brushes assembled hair-by-hair in experience. That experience can be personal and/or gathered from other writers. A written story continues--while adding to--someone else's story, a thread picked up and added to a skein of yarns:

There is one mind common to all individual men. Every man is an inlet to the same and to all of the same. He that is once admitted to the right of reason is made a freeman of the whole estate. What Plato has thought, he may think; what a saint has felt, he may feel; what at any time has befallen any man, he can understand.

Who hath access to this universal mind is a party to all that is or can be done, for this is the only and sovereign agent. 

Of the works of this mind history is the record. Its genius is illustrated by the entire series of days. Man is explicable by nothing less than all his history...This human mind wrote history, and this must read it. The Sphinx must solve her own riddle. If the whole of history is in one man, it is all to be explained from individual experience. There is a relation between the hours of our life and the centuries of time...We as we read must become Greeks, Romans, Turks, priest and king, martyr and executioner, must fasten these images to some reality in our secret experience, or we shall learn nothing rightly...

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays (First Series), "History," 1841

What are you taxing your brain with or adding to the skein today?

See A to Z Blogging Challenge for links to more "E's" from Challenge sponsors and other writers.