The dishes will not abandon you. I get as tired as anyone of doing them. But then I’m pissed about something and my hands need a task. Or then—sometimes!—I love my life so much I want to slow down and savor it, make it last, and what task is right there to oblige? Damn dishes is right.
Steve Edwards
Ars Poetica?
I have always aspired to a more spacious formthat would be free from the claims of poetry or proseand would let us understand each other without exposingthe author or reader to sublime agonies.In the very essence of poetry there is something indecent:a thing is brought forth which we didn’t know we had in us,so we blink our eyes, as if a tiger had sprung outand stood in the light, lashing his tail.That’s why poetry is rightly said to be dictated by a daimonion,though it’s an exaggeration to maintain that he must be an angel.It’s hard to guess where that pride of poets comes from,when so often they’re put to shame by the disclosure of their frailty.What reasonable man would like to be a city of demons,who behave as if they were at home, speak in many tongues,and who, not satisfied with stealing his lips or hand,work at changing his destiny for their convenience?It’s true that what is morbid is highly valued today,and so you may think that I am only jokingor that I’ve devised just one more meansof praising Art with the help of irony.There was a time when only wise books were read,helping us to bear our pain and misery.This, after all, is not quite the sameas leafing through a thousand works fresh from psychiatric clinics.And yet the world is different from what it seems to beand we are other than how we see ourselves in our ravings.People therefore preserve silent integrity,thus earning the respect of their relatives and neighbors.The purpose of poetry is to remind ushow difficult it is to remain just one person,for our house is open, there are no keys in the doors,and invisible guests come in and out at will.What I'm saying here is not, I agree, poetry,as poems should be written rarely and reluctantly,under unbearable duress and only with the hopethat good spirits, not evil ones, choose us for their instrument.Berkeley, 1968"Ars Poetica” from The Collected Poems 1931-1987 by Czeslaw Milosz.Source: The Collected Poems: 1931-1987 (The Ecco Press, 1988)
Are you a People Pleaser? I copied the quiz questions from the web site about the book and thought they were interesting. I think a lot of this is cultural female training and as we work at it we get better at doing the right thing for ourselves which does help others. How much does religious training play a role here?
Even though I might disguise, suppress, and repress it, I feel resentful, obliged, overwhelmed, guilty, anxious, overloaded, drained, exhausted, low, helpless, powerless, or victimized.
I put other people’s needs and wants ahead of my own and feel as if I come last.
I worry about not being liked, getting into trouble, hurting feelings, looking like a “bad” or “selfish” person, or being rejected, abandoned, or alienated if I say no, express needs, have limits, or am honest.
I say yes without considering the meaning and consequences and then feel trapped, overwhelmed, anxious, or resentful, or piss people off due to backing out or not having the bandwidth or skill set.
I struggle to ask for help and fear being a burden and inconveniencing or discomforting others, resulting in dismissing my own needs, expectations, desires, feelings, and opinions as my being oversensitive/needy/difficult/selfish/demanding.
I say yes based on feeling guilty, afraid, obliged, or anxious.
I’ve had stress-related illness or burnout or felt tipped over the edge into a temper that left me feeling ashamed.
I’m the go-to person, whether it’s with work, family, friends, or exes that pop back into my life when they’re at a loose end.
I fear that I’m not good enough, and I blame it for other people’s feelings and behavior or life not going my way.
My interpersonal relationships tend to involve my trying to rescue, fix, or change others or being their pet project.
I’ve missed out on things I genuinely want to do because I’ve said yes to something I shouldn’t have.
I’ve been involved with an emotionally unavailable or abusive person, and I continued dating/hooking up with/getting back together with them or stayed in the relationship despite its being unfulfilling or unhealthy.
I worry that my success, happiness, or personal growth will outshine others or cause them to feel unhappy, left out, or abandoned.
When people don’t acknowledge, appreciate, and reward my efforts, I feel wounded, resentful, neglected, abandoned, depressed, used, or abused.
I’m self-critical, fear failure and making mistakes, overperform and overcompensate, or hide out and coast.
I struggle to say no at work because I’m afraid of looking lazy or incompetent, seeming as though I’m not a good team player or promotion material, or risking burning bridges or inviting retaliation.
I use hints to try to get others to meet my needs and wants or to understand my feelings rather than communicate these directly.
Sometimes I’m fuming or panicking in my head when people ask or expect me to do something, yet I still say yes.
I give too much.
I say yes, go along with things, or stay silent even when it’s to the detriment of my well-being because I’m afraid to say no or don’t know how to say no.
The Joy of Saying No: A Simple Plan to Stop People Pleasing, Reclaim Boundaries, and Say Yes to the Life You Want
by Natalie Lue and Harper Horizon
It takes Anne Lamott a few words to say what the rest of us spend our lives searching to express.
Perhaps that's why her books — which she's been publishing since the 1970s — are received as wisdom distilled. She's previously expounded on creative writing ("Bird By Bird), faith ("Plan B"), prayer ("Help Thanks Wow"), courage ("Dusk Night Dawn"), mercy ("Halleujah Anyway) and more with her signature big-hearted wit.
In her latest, "Somehow," she goes after perhaps the most daunting of all topics: Love.
A notable fiction writer first, Lamott moved into memoir with the release of her 1993 book, "Operating Instructions," about being a single mom. Since then, she's written about her journey with addiction, Christianity, becoming a grandmother, the creative process, getting married for the first time as a senior citizen and so much more.
Below, Lamott speaks to TODAY.com about where she finds hope and inspiration.
I wanted to leave something behind for my son and grandson that would contain every single thing that might help them no matter what the future holds. I have very grave concerns about the climate. I started writing these pieces that I felt were very hard-fought wisdom, but sort of funny at the same time. It turned out all of them had something rather to do with love. So that's how I came to write a book on love. It was an accident.
I always think of what Mr. Einstein told us: There's really only one thing moving at different speeds, and it's energy. Because I'm a believer in a different reality besides the visible, I believe that there is this energy inside of us and surrounding us that we're all made of, and we're made for it, and we're called to it. We have it to offer to those who are feeling frightened or empty.
I think of love as this tender-hearted gentleness of feeling from the heart in the world.
The great novelist Gabriel García Marquez said we have our public self and our secret self. My public self is very loving and generous. To be a Christian means to follow this revolutionary, brown-skinned leader from the Middle East. And he says, "Feed everybody and get everybody water. And if you don't know what else to do, maybe sit quietly and pray. And he frequently says, I really think you need to eat, you seem very tense. Why don't you go down to the water and wait for the next boat and fish to come in? And we'll talk later."
But in my secret self ... oh, I feel I'm so ambitious, competitive, judgmental. I get so jealous. Those have been my crosses to bear.
I just am grateful that my mind doesn't have a PA system because I talk and preach goodness and kindness to, especially to people who are hurting, which is most of the people in the world. Then in my mind, I'm just scrambling and striving to get ahead of everybody. Especially with a book coming out, I feel like I'd be one of the people on the Titanic that is pushing even older old ladies out of the way so I could get to one of the lifeboats. So I don't pretend to be a good Christian — I just happen to really love Jesus and to have found a home in him.
It changed when I got sober. When I was using drugs that gave me visions of the ethereal and celestial and took me deep into myself, where there was something light, colorful and lovely.
Then I got sober and I started to experience God as the group of drunks helping me stay sober one day at a time.
I just see God as love. That's what I teach my Sunday school kids. Love is God. When you see loving, generous acts between people, that's God.
That's the movement of grace in our lives. When you feel generosity and surrender and stamina, that's the movement of grace. I experience grace as a spiritual WD-40. When you're clenched up, knotted up, then something very mysterious spritzes you — it's often some form of love.
I think I have the theological understanding of a bright second grader, and I don't care.
I think there's one mountain, which is union with the sacred, the holy, the source. I think there's many paths up that mountain.
Many people who who come to my readings or who read my books ran screaming from their cute little lives or fundamentalist families, where they were told that they were garbage or that if they lived this way, loved this way, behave this way, they weren't loved and they weren't accepted, and they were going to rot in hell for all eternity.
It must be really nice to be that sure of yourself. I'm not. Like I tell my Sunday school kids, whatever age they are, I say, "You are loved and chosen as is. You don't have to do anything different for God to love you or me to love you. You don't have to become who everybody thinks you should be when you grow up. You are loved and you are chosen to be surrounded by kindness and really safe, healthy adults and all the beauty the world has to offer. And when you're sad or you've made a horrible mistake, hallelujah. Come sit down with me. Boy, have you come to the right person."
I find writing very hard. I've been under a book contract since I was 24. I'm 70. I've found it hard going every step of the way. Every writer I know has a ping-pong game going on in their brain between raging ego and really bad self-esteem. Twenty books in and I still grapple with that.
The writing is a habit and the writing is a debt of honor. My dad was a writer. I watched him — the habit of him, which was that he sat in his office at 5:30 every morning, rain or shine or cold or hangover or flu, and he got his work done. Then he made us breakfast. I learned that habit: You don't wait for inspiration.
I sit down every morning and I say this little prayer: Please help me get out of the way so I can write what needs to get written. I see myself as being the secretary for the material. The material doesn't have hands. It has chosen me to get down. I take a long, quavering deep break. And no matter what, not to sound like a Nike ad, I just do it.
It goes badly almost every single day. That's why in "Bird By Bird," I write about terrible first drafts. I don't ever feel deeply inspired. I would almost rather be watching cable news or going for a walk with my dog. But I sit down and I push my sleeves back. I feel like I got one of those golden tickets in "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory." I got to grow up to be a storyteller — try to find the truth and share it in a way that isn't preachy and condescending. I'm saying, "Got a minute? Come sit by the fire. We've been doing this 30,000 years but I don't think you've heard this exact story yet."
My husband, Neil Allen, who's also a writer, reads everything I write, and he edits everything.
I have always given my son every story that he's mentioned in since he was about 10, so that he could either authorize it or say, "No, I don't want you to tell this story." And then I did it.
My grandson doesn't read me yet. But I dedicated this book to him. He knows what I'm about. He's heard me read my stuff. But I can safely say he hasn't read a word of the new book yet except for the dedication that says for Jax.
The world you create in your art is a real place. Mikel Jollett
https://blog.myswimpro.com/2017/11/10/recovery-for-swimmers-what-you-need-to-know/
Swimming is an excellent form of exercise, and it's a fun leisure activity you can engage in all year round. However, like any other form of workout, you may experience a few frustrating episodes of leg pain and cramps after swimming.
There are a number of factors that can be attributed to getting leg pain and cramps after you've finished swimming. From lower legs that are not adequately conditioned, to being dehydrated, there are multiple causes for those dull aches in your leg muscles and the cramping that takes place just after a couple of laps in the pool.
If you find yourself constantly wondering 'why do my legs ache after swimming', you've come to the right place as we shall explore some of the leading causes of leg pain post swimming together with what you can do to overcome it.
Why do swimmers get muscle pain?
Lack of conditioning
One of the main causes of leg pain is the lack of conditioning. If you haven't been exercising for a while, your muscles don't have the endurance they need to keep going for an extended period of time. Hence, the first few times you swim, you'll probably experience some soreness or fatigue in your legs toward the end of the workout. That's normal, as long as it isn't severe enough that you can't swim anymore.
Muscle fatigue due to overuse
Swimming is a great full-body exercise and a fantastic cardio workout. However, swimming can cause some serious muscle aches and pains in the legs due to overuse and fatigue because of its repetitive nature.
Swimmers have a higher risk of developing a condition known as exercise-associated muscle cramps, or EAMC[1] due to constant overuse. Strengthening your muscles and learning when to give them a break is vital in order to prevent overuse injuries.
Dehydration
Dehydration may cause you to experience leg cramps while swimming because you have not replaced the fluids lost from your body due to sweating during the workout. Dehydration also reduces the amount of oxygen that is able to get around the body, which can cause your muscles to experience fatigue more quickly.
Leg muscle tension during swimming
Constantly trying to point your toes during kicking may create tension in your calf muscles and lower legs. Persistent tension can lead to cramping and calf pain after swimming.[2]
The good news is that you have the power to prevent these issues from happening or keep them from getting worse. Incorporate some of the following measures to alleviate muscle fatigue and avoid getting those achy legs after swimming.How to recover fast after a swim?
- Stay hydrated - Drink plenty of liquids in order to prevent dehydration. Replacing fluids lost during exercise with fluids containing electrolytes is one way to avoid dehydration from causing leg cramps.
- Proper warm-up - Make sure to warm up before you start swimming. If you do not warm up your muscles prior to a workout, they are much more likely to suffer from cramps and other injuries during exercise.
- Adequate stretching - Regular stretching can also help prevent cramping by improving flexibility and preventing tightness (which can lead to cramping). Stretch out your hamstrings by touching your toes while standing up straight. Lean forward from the waist and stretch out your back by touching your hands to the ground in front of you or reaching behind your back.
- Leg strengthening exercises - It's important to know how to strengthen your legs for swimming. Strong legs are less prone to injury and more capable of handling intense workouts.
Squats are great for stronger legs. Squats work your legs and lower back, two areas that often suffer from swimming-related injuries. They also help improve your balance, which is essential for swimmers. To do this exercise, stand with feet hip-width apart and place hands on hips or hold a weight plate across your chest. Slowly bend your knees as if sitting down until the thighs are parallel to the floor. Then return to a standing position.
- Body conditioning - Swimming is a full-body workout that targets the arms and exercises the shoulders, abs, and legs. If you don't strengthen the rest of your body, you may end up with muscle soreness and pain that can affect your ability to swim comfortably.
So, it's important to strengthen your arms and core in addition to your leg muscles before taking on a challenging swim workout. Planking, leg raise and the bridge are ideal strength exercises for swimmers as they help strengthen the arms and the core muscles.
- Incorporate different forms of therapy:
- For immediate relief from leg pain after swimming, try icing your legs for about 15 minutes with an ice bag or cold compress.
- Use a compression device that can improve blood circulation and oxygenation. SPRYNG leg compression wraps are the perfect post-workout recovery tools for active recovery from swimming.[3] These portable and easy to wear recovery tools can help your sore leg muscles alleviate pain as you get on with the rest of your day.
[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3445088/
[2] https://pursuitathleticperformance.com/2015/do-your-calves-ever-cramp-when-swimming-heres-why/
[3] https://myswimpro.com/blog/2017/11/10/recovery-for-swimmers-what-you-need-to-know/
Last night before bed I looked out from the 3rd floor porch and spotted a black kitten in the garden below. It was on top of my picnic table. It was running in circles and pawing at the umbrella pole in the center of the table. The mama cat was sitting beside it on top of the table. I kept watching as the kitten never stopped moving. The mama cat looked up and was watching me. The kitten was having fun jumping off the table to the bench and back up again. Later I peeked out. By then it was dark. Two fireflies flashed in the bushes. The cat and kitten were gone.
“Confront the dark parts of yourself, and work to banish them with illumination and forgiveness. Your willingness to wrestle with your demons will cause your angels to sing.”
― August Wilson
“I been with strangers all day and they treated me like family. I come in here to family and you treat me like a stranger.”
― August Wilson, The Piano Lesson
“You got to be right with yourself before you can be right with anybody else.”
― August Wilson
“Have a belief in yourself that is bigger than anyone's disbelief.”
― August Wilson
“In the valley of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.”
― August Wilson, Gem of the Ocean
“When the sins of our fathers visit us
We do not have to play host.
We can banish them with forgiveness
As God, in his His Largeness and Laws.”
“I done learned my mistake and learned to do what's right by it. You still trying to get something for nothing. Life don't owe you nothing. You owe it to yourself.
- Troy -”
― August Wilson, Fences
“When your daddy walked through the house he was so big he filled it up. That was my first mistake. Not to make him leave room for me.”
― August Wilson, Fences
“Don't you try and go through life worrying about if somebody like you or not. You best be making sure they doing right by you.”
― August Wilson, Fences
“Don't you think I ever wanted other things? Don't you think I had dreams and hopes? What about my life? What about me. Don't you think it ever crossed my mind to want to know other men? That I wanted to lay up somewhere and forget about my responsibilities? That I wanted someone to make me laugh so I could feel good? You not the only one who's got wants and needs. But I held on to you, Troy. I took all my feelings, my wants and needs, my dreams...and I buried them inside you. I planted myself inside you and waited to bloom. And it didn't take me no eighteen years to find out the soil was hard and rocky and it wasn't never gonna bloom.”
― August Wilson, Fences
“Like you? I go out of here every morning… bust my butt…putting up with them crackers everyday…cause I like you? You about the biggest fool I ever saw. It’s my JOB. It’s my RESPONSIBILITY! You understand that? A man got to take care of his family. You live in my house… sleep on my bed clothes…fill you belly up with my food… cause you my son. You my flesh and blood. Not ‘cause I like you! Cause it’s my duty to take care of you. I OWE a responsibility to you! Let’s get this straight right here… before it go along any further… I ain’t got to like you. Mr. Rand don’t five me money come payday cause he likes me. He gives me cause he OWE me. I done give you everything I had to give you. I gave you your life! Me and your mama worked that out between us. And liking your black ass wasn’t part of the bargain. Don’t try and go through life worrying about if somebody like you or not. You best be making sure they doing right by you. You understand what I’m saying, boy?”
― August Wilson, Fences
“I ain't never found no place for me to fit. Seem like all I do is start over. It ain't nothing to find no starting place in the world. You just start from where you find yourself.”
― August Wilson, Joe Turner's Come and Gone
“Okay, Troy...you're right. I'll take care of your baby for you...cause...like you say...she's innocent...and you can't visit the sins of the father upon the child. A motherless child has got a hard time. From right now...this child got a mother. But you a womanless man.”
― August Wilson, Fences
“I cried a river of tears but he was too heavy to float on them. So I dragged him with me these years across an ocean.”
― August Wilson, Seven Guitars
“ROSE: I been standing with you! I been right here with you, Troy. I got a life, too. I gave eighteen years of my life to stand in the same spot with you. Don't you think I ever wanted other things? Don't you think I had dreams and hopes? What about my life? What about me. Don't you think it ever crossed my mind to want to know other men? That I wanted to lay up somewhere and forget about my responsibilities? That I wanted someone to make me laugh so I could feel good? You not the only one who's got wants and needs. But I held on to you, Troy. I took all my feelings, my wants and needs, my dreams...and I buried them inside you. I planted a seed and watched and prayed over it. I planted myself inside you and waited to bloom. And it didn't take me not eighteen years to find out the soil was hard and rocky and it wasn't never gonna bloom. But I held on to you. I held you tighter. You was my husband. I owed you everything I had. Every part of me I could find to give you. And upstairs in that room...with the darkness falling in on me...I gave everything I had to try and erase the doubt that you wasn't the fines man in the world. And wherever you was going...I wanted to be there with you. Cause you was my husband. Cause that's the only way I was gonna survive as your wife. You always taking about what you give...and what you don't have to give. But you take too. You take...and you don't even know nobody's giving!”
― August Wilson, Fences
“-How long you been with the rail road now?
-Twenty-seven years. Now, I'll tell you something about the railroad. What I done learned after twenty-seven years. See, you got North. You got West. You look over here you got South. Over there you got East. Now, you can start from anywhere. Don't care where you at. You got to go one of the four ways. And which way you decide to go, they got a railroad that will take you there. Now that's something simple. You think anybody would be able to understand that. But you'd be surprised how many people trying to go North get on a train going West. They think train's supposed to go where they going rather than where it's going.”
― August Wilson, The Piano Lesson
“Everybody in a hurry to slow down.”
― August Wilson, Radio Golf
“All you need in the world is love and laughter. That's all anybody needs. To have love in one hand and laughter in the other.”
― August Wilson
“I was born to a time of fire.”
― August Wilson, The Piano Lesson
“CORY: You ain't never gave me nothing! You ain't never done nothing but hold me back. Afraid I was gonna be better than you. All you ever did was try and make me scared of you. I used to tremble every time you called my name. Every time I heard your footsteps in the house. Wondering all the time...what's Papa gonna say if I do this?...What's he gonna say if I do that?...What's Papa gonna say if I turn on the radio? And Mama, too...she tries...but she's scared of you.”
― August Wilson, Fences
“ROSE: You can't be nobody but who you are, Cory. That shadow wasn't nothing but you growing into yourself. You either got to grow into it or cut it down to fit you. But that's all you got to make life with. That's all you got to measure yourself against that world out there. Your daddy wanted you to be everything he wasn't...and at the same time he tried to make you into everything he was. I don't know if he was right or wrong...but I do know he meant to do more good than he meant to do harm. He wasn't always right. Sometimes when he touched he bruised. And sometimes when he took me in his arms he cut.”
― August Wilson, Fences
“i love music more than food!!!!!!!!!!”
― August Wilson, Radio Golf
“CORY: The whole time I was growing up...living in his house...Papa was like a shadow that followed you everywhere. It weighed on you and sunk into your flesh. It would wrap around you and lay there until you couldn't tell which one was you anymore. That shadow digging in your flesh. Trying to crawl in. Trying to live through you. Everywhere I looked, Troy Maxson was staring back at me...hiding under the bed...in the closet. I'm just saying I've got to find a way to get rid of that shadow, Mama.”
― August Wilson, Fences
“Woman . . . I do the best I can do. I come in here every Friday. I carry a sack of potatoes and a bucket of lard. You all line up at the door with your hands out. I give you the lint from my pockets. I give you my sweat and my blood. I ain't got no tears. I done spent them. We go upstairs in that room at night . . . and I fall down on you and try to blast a hole into forever. I get up Monday morning . . . find my lunch on the table. I go out. Make my way. Find my strength to carry me through to the next Friday.”
― August Wilson, Fences
“You can't visit the sins of the father upon the child.”
― August Wilson, Fences
“I don’t need nobody to bleed for me! I can bleed for myself.”
― August Wilson, Joe Turner's Come and Gone
“You right! You one hundred percent right! I done spent the last seventeen years worrying about what you got. Now it’s your turn, see? I’ll tell you what to do. You grown . . . we don established that. You a man. Now, let’s see you act like one. Turn your behind around and walk out this yard. And when you get out there in the alley . . . you can forget about this house. See? Cause this is my house. You go on and be a man and get your own house. You can forget about this. You can forget about this. ‘Cause this is mine. You go on and get yours because I’m through with doing for you.”
― August Wilson, Fences
“Troy: "Then when I saw that gal [Alberta]...she firmed up my backbone. And I got to thinking that if I tried...I just might be able to steal second.”
― August Wilson, Fences
“I just want to come and sit on your front porch and drink mint juleps.”
― August Wilson, Seven Guitars
Rebecca Solnit article
You cannot win a debate with a shameless liar, because what you’re supposed to be debating are facts and positions. A lie is a kind of poison; once it’s in the room it makes an impression that is hard to undo, and trying to undo it only amplifies it.
Rebecca Solnit
Much has been said about the age of the candidates, but maybe it’s the corporate media whose senility is most dangerous to us. Their insistence on proceeding as though things are pretty much what they’ve always been, on normalizing the appalling and outrageous, on using false equivalencies and bothsiderism to make themselves look fair and reasonable, on turning politics into horseraces and personality contests, is aiding the destruction of the United States.
Rebecca Solnit
That’s where Helen Antenucci comes in. She’s been working as an MBTA train operator for 29 years — all of which she’s spent on the Blue Line — and it’s her mission to make the mornings just a little bit more bearable for her passengers.
“Good morning, buenos días, stay kind to one another,” Antenucci said over the intercom a little after 9 a.m. on Thursday. “Be well, be safe, be kind to one another, happy Thursday, have a wonderful day,” she said a little later.
Antenucci — who will be 82 in July — has become a local celebrity, with a devoted group of regulars who run to the front of her train at each stop to say “hi” and express their appreciation. Now, Antenucci, who works the 5 a.m. to 1 p.m. shift, has a new accolade that’s earned her recognition far beyond the Wonderland-Bowdoin route. Since February 2024, she is a certified Guinness World Record holder for being the oldest active female train operator.
Most passengers seemed unfazed when Antenucci’s soft, Boston-tinged voice replaced the automated one that usually announces each stop, but a few passengers smiled and looked around to see who else enjoyed the break in monotony.
“It makes a huge difference to have someone who’s friendly,” said Madeleine Steczynski, an East Boston resident and founder of the youth cultural organization Zumix. She got off at Aquarium Station (Antenucci let passengers know over the intercom that this is her “favorite station” and directed visiting tourists which escalator to take to be the closest to the New England Aquarium’s entrance) and made sure to stop by the driver’s window on her way out to wave goodbye. A woman sporting a Boston baseball cap followed, running toward the station exit but briefly turning toward Antenucci to yell, “I love you.” “I love you!” Antenucci said back. “You’re the best!” the woman responded before disappearing up the stairs.
Even those who aren’t on an “I love you” basis with Antenucci know that they have a special driver.
Audrey Inkiarto, who doesn’t know Antenucci’s name but recognizes her train by her bilingual greetings on the intercom, said that she always has a “pleasant ride.”
“It’s a fun train when she’s driving it,” she added. “The simple good morning, it makes my day better.”
Phillip Eng, the MBTA’s general manager and CEO, said in a statement that he was “very pleased to see Helen’s many years of public service getting the attention it deserves.” He added, “As someone who has had the pleasure of commuting on her train, I must recognize her customer-focused service, warm public announcements, and genuine well wishes that brighten the commutes of all Blue Line riders.” Jim Evers, president of Boston Carmen’s Union Local 589 — which represents MBTA workers — had similar sentiments: “Helen has brought so much joy to passengers and her colleagues over the years, and it is wonderful to see her recognized by Guinness World Records for her legacy of service,” he said in a statement.
Antenucci, a lifelong East Boston resident, began working as a train operator in 1995, when she was 53 years old. In 2019, a Boston Globe reporter interviewed her as she evacuated her East Boston home because of a nearby fire. She noted that she had packed her MBTA uniform. “I have the first train out tomorrow,” she told the reporter. “What am I going to do, tell them ‘No, I can’t come in?’” Currently, Antenucci lives with one of her five daughters (she is a grandmother of eight) and three Shih Tzus.
Before joining the MBTA, she worked as a hairdresser (she still has her license), in accounts receivable for a California company, and in customer service. She loves people, she said, so it was no coincidence that all of her jobs have involved interacting with the public.
Of course, those interactions can be positive and negative. And, though Antenucci was only met with well-wishers on Thursday, she said that she’s faced her fair share of angry passengers, especially during train delays. She chooses to respond with kindness.
“I tell them, ‘Have a good day,’ and that often doesn’t go very well,” Antenucci says, with a laugh. “But I can understand it. You want to get to work on time, you don’t want to be sitting on a train for a half hour, [or] waiting on the platform. I tell them, I couldn’t do what they did. They have my utmost respect.”
She calls her passengers her “heroes,” noting that, without them, she wouldn’t have a job.
“I love what I do,” she added. “I wake up every morning, and I do my happy dance.”
Antenucci’s outlook transcends the boundaries of the train car. One passenger told her she had started logging off Facebook each day with a post asking her followers to “be kind to one another” — a direct result of Antenucci’s train-wide messages. Another driver started using his intercom to tell passengers to “have a wonderful day” after hearing how Antenucci did the same.
In the almost 30 years that Antenucci has worked for the MBTA, trains have shifted from four cars to six and the process of driving has become progressively more automated. Dennis Moody, senior Blue Line subway car technician and a close co-worker of Antenucci’s, said that the changes to driving were akin to “going from Fred Flintstone to George Jetson overnight.” Antenucci, he said, “gravitated to the change.”
While she noted that the driving process has shifted over the years, Antenucci said that the biggest change for her has been how many new people from different cultures now flood the train. “There’s so many different stories from people,” she said, “and I love that.”
Currently, she has no plans to retire, though she would love to find a way to work directly with children in the future, an aspiration she developed after seeing how many young kids love learning about her job driving the train. And she’s keeping herself busy by crossing items off her bucket list: to celebrate her last birthday, she jumped out of a plane.
“It was scary and amazing,” she said. “And I told them, ‘If everything goes well, I’ll be at work the next day.’”
Madison Hahamy can be reached at madison.hahamy@globe.com. Follow her @MHahamy.
ROSE: You can’t be nobody but who you are, Cory. That shadow wasn’t nothing but you growing into yourself. You either got to grow into it or cut it down to fit you. But that’s all you got to make life with. That’s all you got to measure yourself against that world out there. Your daddy wanted you to be everything he wasn’t… and at the same time he tried to make you into everything he was. I don’t know if he was right or wrong… but I do know he meant to do more good than he meant to do harm. He wasn’t always right. Sometimes when he touched he bruised. And sometimes when he took me in his arms he cut.
When I first met your daddy I thought… Here is a man I can lay down with and make a baby. That’s the first thing I thought when I seen him. I was thirty years old and had done seen my share of men. But when he walked up to me and said, “I can dance a waltz that’ll make you dizzy,” I thought, Rose Lee, here is a man that you can open yourself up to and be filled to bursting. Here is a man that can fill all them empty spaces you been tipping around the edges of. One of them empty spaces was being somebody’s mother.
I married your daddy and settle down to cooking his supper and keeping clean sheets on the bed. When your Daddy walked through the house he was so big he filled it up. That was my first mistake. Not to make him leave some room for me. For my part in the matter. But at that time I wanted that. I wanted a house that I could sing in. And that’s what your daddy gave me. I didn’t know to keep up his strength I had to give up little pieces of mine. I did that. I took on his life as mine and mixed up the pieces so that you couldn’t hardly tell which was which anymore. It was my choice. It was my life and I didn’t have to live it like that. But that’s what life offered me in the way of being a woman and I took it. I grabbed hold of it with both hands.
By the time Raynell came into the house, me and your daddy had done lost touch with one another. I didn’t want to make my blessing off of nobody’s misfortune… but I took on to Raynell like she was all them babies I had wanted and never had. (The phone rings) Like I’d been blessed to relive a part of my life. And if the Lord see fit to keep up my strength… I’m gonna do her just like your daddy did you… I’m gonna give her the best of what’s in me.
by Emily Giambalvo
With so many gymnasts, these competitions can feel busy and mentally challenging, Cecile said, “but way better than the opposite.” Time isn’t spent with one athlete standing idly with her coaches soaking in the pressure. Instead, the WCC group is constantly in motion — giving corrections, moving mats and adjusting springboards. As athletes cycle through turns on each apparatus, the high-stakes environment resembles a familiar practice.
At WCC, the world’s most difficult skills have become routine. As Biles pushes the boundaries of the sport, her teammates figure they can at least attempt some of these elements, too.
“Sometimes in your mind you can think, ‘Oh my goodness, this is something huge I’ve never done before,’ but when the expectation is higher around you, it seems like it’s more possible for you to do,” said Caylor, who is competing at the trials but sees 2028 as her best Olympic opportunity.
‘It was a wonderful surprise, even 83 years late,’ said Virginia Hislop of Yakima, Wash., who was honored at Stanford University this month
By Cathy Free“I was just about to graduate, but all best-laid plans were put aside during the war,” said Hislop, now living in Yakima, Wash., where she is known to family and friends as Ginger.
“I always thought I could pick things up again sometime along the way,” she said.
Eighty-three years later at age 105, she finally got that chance.
On June 16, Hislop returned to Stanford University to receive the Master of Arts degree in education that she had come close to finishing at age 22.
When Dan Schwartz, the dean of Stanford’s graduate school of education, learned from Hislop’s son-in-law Doug Jensen that she had missed out on her dream eight decades ago, he decided that Stanford could help make up for lost time.
Schwartz did some research and learned that a thesis was no longer required for the coursework Hislop had completed before the war.
“The rules had changed since 1941 for her requirements, and she deserved a diploma,” he said. “I looked up her transcript and saw that she’d definitely earned it.”
During his opening commencement speech, Schwartz called Hislop to the stage to get her diploma before anybody else.
“I told everyone that usually you give a degree before someone starts their life, but now you get to see a degree awarded after their life has occurred,” he said.
“Ginger is a very sharp woman, and to see the beauty of her accomplishment was a wonderful thing,” he added. “When I met her, my first thought was, ‘Hey, wait a minute — this is someone in her 80s.’”
Jensen said he decided to contact Schwartz when he noticed that Hislop was feeling down after the death of his wife (and her daughter), Anne Jensen, last year. Anne was Hislop’s first child. She has also outlived her son William, who died in 2011, and her husband, who died in 1986.
“She and Anne were really close, so I began going up to Yakima and spending time with Ginger,” said Jensen, 79, who lives in Oakland, Calif. He and Anne were both Stanford graduates.
“Over the dinner table, Ginger began telling me stories, including how she’d gotten married before the war and wasn’t able to finish her thesis and get her master’s degree,” Jensen said. “Since all she was missing was a thesis, I thought maybe Stanford could give her an honorary degree.”
When Schwartz told him the university could do better than that, Jensen phoned Hislop with the good news.
“I thought he was kidding me,” Hislop said. “It was a wonderful surprise, even 83 years late.”
After graduating from high school in Southern California in 1936, Hislop said, she had hoped to become a lawyer, but her strict father put his foot down.
“It was a different time, and he didn’t think women should go to law school,” she said.
Instead, Hislop earned a bachelor’s degree in education at Stanford, then she completed the required coursework for her master’s degree.
After she met George Hislop at Stanford and they got married, she concentrated on raising their two children in Yakima, where they had moved to help George’s father run the family sheep ranch.
She said she wasn’t bothered at putting off her thesis, because plenty of other lives were also uprooted during the war.
“I spent five years as an Army wife, which I figure is the equivalent of a master’s degree,” Hislop said.
Even without an official master’s diploma, she said, she put her Stanford education to good use by serving on the Yakima School District Board of Directors for 13 years.
“I decided to run for the board when my daughter’s school told her she’d have to take home economics instead of advanced English,” she said. “I told them she could cook at home and that school was a place for academics.”
Hislop was also a founding member of Yakima Community College’s board of directors, and for two decades she served on the board of directors of Heritage University, which is on the Yakama Indian Reservation in Toppenish, Wash. She said her emphasis was helping Native American women have more access to education.
Although Hislop no longer serves on the board, she said she has remained healthy into her 100s by pulling weeds in her garden, attending educational lectures and symphony concerts, and doing her own grocery shopping.
“I no longer drive, but I have friends who will take me where I need to go,” she said, noting that she has lived in the same house since 1959.
Hislop’s advice to anyone hoping to reach her age is to “have some interests outside of what you’re going to have for breakfast.”
“I would also say to treasure your health,” she said. “Things will be a lot better for you if you pay attention to your body and not stress out so much.”
She said it was easy to relax at Stanford’s commencement ceremony because “everything moved along at a quick clip.”
“I’m always afraid of things like that lasting too long,” she said. “I was very happy it was brief.”
She still smiled, though, when she received a standing ovation after Schwartz awarded her with her master’s degree as four grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren looked on.
“We’re incredibly proud of her and the legacy of education that she turned into a family value,” said grandson Michael Jensen, 49.
He said that he and his cousins have always referred to Hislop as the “Evil Elf” because of her unfiltered comments at family gatherings over the holidays.
“She has a wicked sense of humor, and we can always count on grandma to liven things up,” Jensen said.
Hislop said they can also count on her to not display her new master’s degree in the living room.
“It’s now hanging in my closet, where I plan to look at it from time to time and remind myself that I’m a pretty good scholar,” she said.
I have been thinking of the difference
between water
and the waves on it. Rising,
water’s still water, falling back,
it is water, will you give me a hint
how to tell them apart?
Because someone has made up the word
“wave”, do I have to distinguish it
from water?
There is a Secret One inside us;
the planets in all the galaxies
pass through his hands like beads.
That is a string of beads one should look at with
luminous eyes.
translated by Robert Bly The Kabir Book Beacon Press page 29 poem 22.
Roger Deakin, Waterlog: A Swimmers Journey Through Britain
“When you swim, you feel your body for what it mostly is – water – and
it begins to move with the water around it. No wonder we feel such
sympathy for beached whales; we are beached at birth ourselves. To swim
is to experience how it was before you were born. Once in the water, you
are immersed in an intensely private world as you were in the womb.”
―
Waterlog
“The great thing about an aimless swim is that everything about it is concentrated in the here and now; none of its essence or intensity can escape into the past or future. The swimmer is content to be borne on his way full of mysteries, doubts and uncertainties. He is a leaf on the stream, free at last from his petty little purposes in life.”
― Waterlog: A Swimmer’s Journey Through Britain
I don’t wait for moods. You accomplish nothing if you do that. Your mind must know it has got to get down to earth. Pearl S. Buck
The secret of joy in work is contained in one word, excellence. To know how to do something well is to enjoy it. Pearl S. Buck
Every great mistake has a halfway moment, a split second when it can be recalled and perhaps remedied. Pearl S. Buck
It was winter in my dream and there was snow on the ground. I was bare chested walking downtown. I noticed man pursuing me on foot near the Cornerstone building. I was able to lift off the ground and fly a few feet each time he got close to me. I hoped this would not attract more attention but I knew I could also turn into an Anaconda and wrap around him to stop him.
Wystan Hugh Auden (1907 – 1973) was an English-American poet whose poetry was noted for its technicality and its political content as well as its morality and variety. Best known for "Funeral Blues”, "September 1, 1939" and "The Shield of Achilles”, he was born in York, but grew up in the Birmingham region in a professional middle-class family. After studying English at Christ Church, Oxford and spending a few months in Berlin in 1928–29, he spent five years (1930–35) teaching in Britain, then travelled to Iceland and China. In 1939 he moved to the United States and became an American citizen in 1946. His first book Poems at the age of twenty-three in 1930 was followed in 1932 by The Orators. His reputation as a left-wing political writer stemmed from three plays written in collaboration with Christopher Isherwood between 1935 and 1938. Auden’s move to the United States was partly to escape this reputation, and his work in the 1940s, including the long poems "For the Time Being" and "The Sea and the Mirror", focused on religious themes. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his 1947 poem "The Age of Anxiety", the title of which became a popular phrase describing the modern era.
From 1956 to 1961 he was a popular Professor of Poetry at Oxford.
Auden wrote many prose essays and reviews on literary, political, psychological, and religious subjects, also working at various times on documentary films, poetic plays, and other works. His poems became known to a much wider public after his death than during his lifetime through films, broadcasts, and popular media.
Here is a selection of quotes from his works:
“There must always be two kinds of art: escape-art, for man needs escape as he needs food and deep sleep, and parable-art, that art which shall teach man to unlearn hatred and learn love.”
“I’ll love you, dear, I’ll love you
Till China and Africa meet,
And the river jumps over the mountain
And the salmon sing in the street”
“The desires of the heart are as crooked as corkscrews
Not to be born is the best for man
The second best is a formal order
The dance's pattern, dance while you can.
Dance, dance, for the figure is easy
The tune is catching and will not stop
Dance till the stars come down from the rafters
Dance, dance, dance till you drop.”
“Poetry might be defined as the clear expression of mixed feelings.”
“Whatever you do, good or bad, people will always have something negative to say.”
“We must love one another or die”
“I will love you forever" swears the poet. I find this easy to swear too. "I will love you at 4:15 pm next Tuesday" - Is that still as easy?”
“The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.”
“He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.”
“Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those whom I love, I can; all of them make me laugh.”
“Behind the corpse in the reservoir, behind the ghost on the links,
Behind the lady who dances and the man who madly drinks,
Under the look of fatigue, the attack of migraine and the sigh
There is always another story, there is more than meets the eye.”
“A poet is, before anything else, a person who is passionately in love with language.”
“You shall love your crooked neighbour, with your crooked heart.”
“I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.”
“If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.”
“The way to read a fairy tale is to throw yourself in.”
“The image of myself which I try to create in my own mind in order that I may love myself is very different from the image which I try to create in the minds of others in order that they may love me.”
“Some books are undeservedly forgotten; none are undeservedly remembered.”
“Thank God for books as an alternative to conversation.”
“We would rather be ruined than changed
We would rather die in our dread
Than climb the cross of the moment
And let our illusions die.”
“In times of joy, all of us wished we possessed a tail we could wag.”
“A real book is not one that we read, but one that reads us. ”
“All we are not stares back at what we are.”
“You owe it to all of us to get on with what you're good at.”
“Evil is unspectacular and always human,
And shares our bed and eats at our own table ....”
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