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    #17-7: The Golden Hour

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    738 Posts
    #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

    ​​

    ​

    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 

    ​​

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

    ​​

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

    ​

    ​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.

    ​

    ​

    ​

    ​ 

    ​

    ​​

    ​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.


    ​~*~*~

    ​

     

    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

     

    ​​

    ​​
    ​​
    ​

     

    “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

    ​​

    called

    time.

    ​

    ~*~*~

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

    ​
    ​And now for the links!​

     


    Recent posts on my
    blogs:

    ​​


    ​31 Day of Autumn Grace series:​


    ​

    ​


    Thanksgiving Posts from Previous Years:


    Autumn and Thanksgiving Foods:

    --

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