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#17-7: The Golden Hour

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#1 · November 7, 2014, 2:31 pm

Posted by: virginiaknowles <virginiaknowles@...>

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​​The Hope Chest with Virginia Knowles

#17-​7: ​The Golden Hour

​November 2014​​

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Dear Hope Chest friends,​

​​

It’s November! I think autumn is my favorite time of year. It just seems so cozy, and I love the coolness it brings to my tropical home. ​



I actually started wearing sweaters this week!​ We’ll be gearing up for the holidays soon and that brings its own kind of busy joy.

​​

​Virginia in November 2014

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​

In
late September, we had the pleasure of seeing my dad and his sweetheart Annie
for the first time, and now we are looking forward to their wedding on
Valentine’s Day. You can read more here: A Visit with Dad and
Annie.

​

​

October was Domestic Violence Awareness month, and I put up three new posts. I hope you’ll take the time to read and then share the links on social media: 

On a more cheerful note, inspired by a blogging friend, I decided to do a 

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31 Days of Autumn Grace series. I actually posted every day in October on my 

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This Mom Grows Up blog. I have linked all of the post at the bottom of this e-mail.

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​Last​

 

​Saturday, three of my kids acted in a tableau vivant (living picture) of Goya's painting "The Spell." This was for a Creative City Project exhibition 

directed by my husband's cousin

​ Deborah​

 in downtown Orlando.​

​ It's a pretty spooky picture, but Goya was trying to satirize stereotypes and superstitions about witchcraft. As a descendant of the last and oldest person falsely accused and hanged during the Salem Witch Trial hysteria, I can certainly understand the sentiment! You can see all of my tableau pictures here.

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​Melody, who is in third grade, is studying the Revolutionary War era in our American history class at home school. I find that she does best with stories rather than piles of facts, so we've been reading about George Washington, Ben Franklin, Molly Pitcher, and other famous people. Today we started reading a biography of Noah Webster, who compiled the first American dictionary and other books. I'm hoping his love of reading and learning will be contagious, even a couple of centuries later! We're also learning about birds for science.


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In this issue of the Hope
Chest, I have the pleasure of presenting two pieces by my daughter Joanna: an
essay and a poem. She is a senior at UCF in Interpersonal Communications, and
is investigating her options for grad school. She will be interning this spring
at the New Hope for Kids Center for Grieving Children.

 

But first, my most recent
poem, “The Harp in the Willow,” which is inspired by Psalm 137, a lament of
Israel in exile. I had seen the phrase “harp in the willow” in a vintage quote
I had run across, and wondered what it meant. Some poems start like that, with
a musing. I think you’ll see that with Joanna’s poem, too.

 

 

"The Harp in
the Willow" (A Poem)

 

​

​

“The Harp in the Willow”

 

by Virginia Knowles

 

We hung our harps in the
willows

When we could sing no more

They dance in the branches

To the tune of the wind on
their strings.

 

This is not our homeland

Captives we are, far from
our own paths

We are poor in spirit:
mourning

Remembering, lamenting,
longing.

 

We can spare no lilting
melody to amuse

The mockers who lock away
our destiny

Our lives are not in
harmony here

And we cannot sing of joy.

 

Sing we will, one day, for

Someday freedom is coming
and

Harps dancing in our hands

We will sing our
sojourn home.

 

 

 

P.S. #1: I added more to the original post than the poem. You can
read it here. "The Harp
in the Willow"

 

P.S. #2: I am also thankful that in Christ, we can rejoice even
when life is not going our way. If you are discouraged, I think you’ll like the
song in this post. Grateful Grace
#2: "Broken Hallelujah" and the Story Behind the Song

 

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“The
Golden Hour”

An essay by Joanna Knowles

 

“Once upon a once a time, Max and Liz went to the grocery store
and they covered themselves in salami and Swiss cheese, over their eyes and
their belly buttons and…”

 

I felt the hot breath of my three little
brothers pressed in close, trying to ignore the faint musky scent of their
carpet and the solitary Lego poking into the small of my
back. I was big sister, and I was silly distraction from various arguments one
or two walls over. I spun a new Max and Liz story on many a night, for many
months. My homework papers lay untouched for this sacred half hour or so, and in this golden window I was myself -
not judged, but adored. They hung onto my words and giggled hysterically,
scrunching further into their long stretchy t-shirts and rolling around on the
carpet. The faint outline of their teeth glowed by night-light. I prided myself
on my creativity, my fluid ability to speak directly from my imagination. I
found identity in those moments. I felt a fierce loyalty to those little
gremlins. 

 

I don’t know exactly what happened, or maybe it was dozens of
little happenings when I noticed what normal 13-year-old girls did on their
evenings. They giggled around lava lamps and played truth or dare, talking
about crushes and periods and pimple remedies. I never got pimples and I didn’t
know how to talk to boys other than my brothers, but I figured I should. And I
started slowly learning the ways of normalcy, or rather, mass-enacted boredom.
 

 

I found my mind going other directions, as I would
half-heartedly settle into my storytelling position and merely say, “Once upon
a once a time… the end.” And I would shrug my shoulders, saying, “I got
nothing.” The boys would pester me, prod me, and even make up their own
first sentence, looking expectantly at me to pick up where their words trailed
off. I felt frustrated at myself, but I figured that the more distant I was
from my silly imagination, the closer I was to being normal, to being cool, to
being the new version of myself.

 

I then found myself making excuses about why I couldn’t tell any
more stories. I feigned headaches and busyness. I watched the sparkle
in my brothers’ eyes dim and their shoulders fall as they slipped into their
bedroom by themselves.  

 

I didn’t simply lose my ability to tell a story; I temporarily
lost my ability to be a part of a Story. I was a main character in these three
boys’ lives and then I stepped off the stage. I drew the curtain too soon. I
let the opinions of invisible and insignificant critics be my guide as I
stepped into what I thought I should be, only to find deep disconnection within
the increasingly frenetic search for outside approval. I grew to yearn for
those magical nights, when my long hair fanned out on the carpet and I stared
at the ceiling, continuing the adventures of Max and Liz and hearing my
brothers inhale and exhale in three different rhythms. In my mind, I can still
hear their choruses of “Tell another story, just one more, please!” and I know
that there had to have been a last night when I obliged, even if I can’t
pinpoint that night in my mind.

 

“Hey, Joanna, remember when you told us Max and Liz stories
every night?” my now 17-year-old, six-foot tall brother asked me recently. 

 

“Yeah, yeah I do,” I said wistfully. 

 

 

“inspired
by 20th century”

A
poem by Joanna Knowles

 

as
he was walking down the street

looking
down at those shoes that so badly needed to be shined with a rag

already
made black

with
the grease of all the shoes of Brooklyn,

he
saw the street on which we now walk,

 

as
we busily scurry to the next diner, which used to pipe the ragtime blues

and
now just holds the echoes.

 

to
the next museum, which frames the rag with which those shoes were shone

of
the man who walked on

this
ground, repaved. in 1937, '63, '78, 2012,

a
hundred times in between.

 

but
to him, he was in that moment...

which
we, now, call history.

but
to him,

was
the mundane.

 

that
penny on the ground, stamped with 1925

is
one he would kick to the gutter without

a
second thought

but
we would pick it up and polish it off and sell it

for
a million pennies

before
a second passed

 

history
is a funny thing

the
moments of a day to day life, so seemingly insignificant

but
then studied, analyzed, in decades to come

as
we seek to grasp our similarities

as
we exclaim about our newfangled discoveries

made
since those days

 

those
days

of
vintage sepia, grainy black and white

but
that ground he was looking at was in full brick color

and
when he looked up to see that streak of blue bird across the sky

and
Orville and Wilbur were brought to mind

 

we
see that bird, we think Boeing 747

nature-inspired,
now technologically-feasible flight uninhibited,

breakthroughs
made!

we
are the generation who revolutionized this place

called

earth.

 

but
no, not true

generation
upon generation

thought
built upon thought

civilization
osmosis uninhibited.

we
pull from the past and propel to the future

doing
our take-and-give part in this hazy progressive mystery

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called

time.

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~*~*~

Thank you, Joanna, for letting me use your essay and poem!

​
​And now for the links!​

 


Recent posts on my
blogs:

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​31 Day of Autumn Grace series:​


​

​


Thanksgiving Posts from Previous Years:


Autumn and Thanksgiving Foods:

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