Archives for 2012

For Taylor

October 4, 2012 By Talya Tate Boerner

Taylor Sandquist, my beautiful, twelve-year-old niece, wrote the following poem for her English class.

Where Poetry Hides

In my fat, black and white cat’s crazy, teeny tiny

brain.

In the small #1 cabin on a lake in Arkansas.

In a nice, pretty resort in San Diego.

In my strange brother’s mind, who acts like a

crazy monkey.

In my pink Dell laptop.

In my nonie’s old, torn-up house.

In my dad’s clean, neat house.

In my oval/heart-shaped pool.

In the twisty, hilly and dirty campground of

Wyoming.

In the old basement of my other grandparents’

house.

Taylor Sandquist

Musical Pairing:

What Makes You Beautiful, One Direction

Taylor and Talya at the BAT cave.

Sammie

A friend recently asked what would happen if everyone now reading Fifty Shades of Grey read 90 Minutes in Heaven instead? I think he was annoyed that anyone would devote any time to anything unrelated to religion.

Interesting.

What if people who refuse to read one over the other, read both? Or if those who never read at all read something? Just read. A paragraph, the comics, a children’s book, a blog post…

Diversity stretches our minds, makes us think through the cobwebs.

Books are great companions, some better friends than other. They find a way into our lives, drawing us in, teaching, helping us learn, unlearn, think, re-think. If we never grow and change, nothing changes. Or maybe a book reinforces what we already believe.

If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking. (Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood)

People who read a thousand books, live a thousand lives within the pages, connecting with the characters in the stories, the authors who formed the words, the other readers – those who suggested it, those who read it a hundred years ago.

Certain books I read over and over, leaving a part of myself between the pages each time, taking something new with me at the end, a feeling, a thought, a memory. Years later, re-reading it, I find myself again, a younger person but the same person, familiar but with broadened horizons. Maybe I see it in a totally new light because I’m a different me.

Reading only one book, one genre, having one idea, one life is limiting. Never feeling the exhaustion of the Old Man fighting the marlin, never drinking a mug of butterbeer or eating a pumpkin pastie, never hearing the choiring of the trees…

Never being sprinkled with pixie dust or reviving a secret garden or swinging through a jungle… Never journeying to Middle Earth or colonizing Mars….

Oh the places you’ll go!

Books are magical.

Even the different ones.

They make you think.

talya

Grace Grits and Gardening
Farm. Food. Garden. Life.

Musical Pairing:

Narnia, Steve Hackett

“Think and wonder, wonder and think.”

― Dr. Seuss

I’ll have my margarita in a ryder cup, please. No salt.

October 1, 2012 By Talya Tate Boerner

Friday morning before sunrise, I found my husband sitting in the dark on the couch, half-naked, in a trance. With the newspaper still unopened, he was totally mesmerized by the television without yet having read the comics, typically his first priority of the day.

What had captured his soul so early?

Me: Oh, you’re watching golf.

John: It’s the Ryder Cup. He spoke without moving his eyes from the television, without blinking. I went back upstairs.

Thirty minutes later…

John: I think you should expand your blog and write about sports. Write about the Ryder Cup.

Me: But I don’t know anything about the Ryder Cup.

John: You could research it today, and then write something for this weekend.

…and then he went off into an animated golf hallucination, a long commentary of information specific to the Ryder Cup as I tried to write about Miss Suzy. I listened with one ear, occasionally shaking my head in agreement yeah, uh-huh, maybe, sure…

I believe this topic came up in part due to our conversation the prior night over Tex-Mex at Matt’s.

John: Three is the lucky number for the Rangers. (He seemed excited…)

Me: Are they 3 games back?

John: NO! (He seemed disgusted…. )

I sipped my margarita slowly to avoid a brain freeze yet prepared for the forthcoming brain-freezing explanation.

John: The Rangers’ magic number is 3 to clinch the third straight division crown. We’re heading into a weekend series against the Angels. Only one win and we lock up a playoff berth (or something to that effect). Were his eyes dilated??

Me: Oh. That’s good, right?. But I’ve kinda moved on to football. I thought the World Series was like in August or early September. Is it late this year?

John: (gulping beer…) No, same time. Every year.

Me: Hmmm. Ok.

And then he fell head first into a lesson on the American League and National League. I was SO afraid he would quiz me on which league the Rangers are in, but he didn’t. American League? 50-50 chance right?

I’m sorry, I know baseball is America’s sport, but since Craig Barnett hit me in the head with a fast ball in junior high, cracking teeth and goose-egging my jaw, it’s not my favorite. But I’m glad the Rangers are doing so well, and I really like Ron Washington. I just don’t think the sports should overlap.

‘Tis the season for football.

Later in the day, I took his advice and turned my attention to the Ryder Cup. According to the Ryder Cup for Dummies site “it’s the best damn event in sports.” All of sports? Strong statement…

The crowd is allowed to cheer and heckle the players, which I admit sounds more entertaining than the typical, quiet-as-a-funeral golf. The players wear matching uniforms, very cool. And the format is team oriented – I bet Tiger hates that.

Part 2 of my research involved watching the Ryder Cup. Assuming the proper lying-on-the-couch golf-watching-position, I was just in time to see Bubba Watson tee off. With the crowd cheering and laughing, golf seemed almost sporty, more like the NBA players who are forced to shoot free throws through fan ruckus. Still, the comfy leather couch and monotone sports announcers blended with a rare afternoon rain shower, lulling me to sleep. I slept soundly for over two hours.

Heavenly, this Ryder Cup.

talya

P.S. After the weekend, the Rangers’ magic number is now two…and, Europe stunned the U.S. in a wild Ryder Cup comeback.

Musical Pairings:

Just the Way You Are, Billy Joel

I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t swallow, the sphincter factor was high. – Hale Irwin, who lost a one-up lead with two holes to play, Ryder Cup 1991