June 11, 2012

And when I woke, by some miracle the sun was shining. But the operant word here is “was”. Before I can breakfast and get out to enjoy it, but after I have optimistically done my handwash and hung it out the window on the line, the skies open to a deluge. Ah, well. I have a happy morning harmonizing the melody of my first composition of this trip and finally, shivering, brave the elements to hike to the shopping center nearby to buy a warm sweater that zips up to my chin, leggings, and socks. In Rio. Really. But I’ve been here a week already so hopes for a heatwave are dimming. And I’m standing in line behind German tourists in flipflops doing the same thing. Thank goodness weather is secondary to my purposes for being here. I also eat a hot meal in a self-serve restaurant, wintery things like stew and rice & beans. Yes, I am giving in to reality. No matter how many trips I have had no use for the warm clothes I brought “just in case,” this one is the exception to the rule. Tomorrow I will find something colorful to photograph I promise, hopefully some flowers although they all seem to be hunkering down to keep out of the rain. But if I take any more shots of clouds and fog I’m going to have to forsake Choro for some most-un-Rio-like philosophical haiku, in honor of Han-Shan, the Japanese bard of Cold Mountain.

About these ads

Written by mairmusic

June 11, 2012 at 11:59 pm

Posted in June, Rio

7 Responses

Subscribe to comments with RSS.

magical shots. our temperature is planning to shoot upwards again :(
pictures of cool places makes one feel good and a bit jealous too.

Sharmishtha

June 12, 2012 at 2:21 am

Reply
- Oh, I am sending you a cool breeze in my mind. Be well, my friend.
  
  mairmusic
  
  June 13, 2012 at 10:36 am
  
  Reply
  - it reached us :) bless you for that.
    
    Sharmishtha Basu
    
    June 17, 2012 at 8:23 am
Clouds have there own beauty as your photos so clearly show…glad you got something warm to wear…shivering most certainly would change the tempo of what you write. :-)

slpmartin

June 12, 2012 at 9:22 am

Reply
- Funny. but, yes, proper clothes make any weather liveable.
  
  mairmusic
  
  June 13, 2012 at 10:34 am
  
  Reply
Wow! It’s a Rio I would have imagined.

Marilynn, those photos are great. The black-and-white so dramatic.

Jamie Dedes

June 13, 2012 at 9:42 am

Reply
- Thanks1 Yes, Rio is so beautiful it is impossible not to take great pictures whatever the weather.
  
  mairmusic
  
  June 13, 2012 at 10:33 am
  
  Reply

Who am I?

A mandolinist, a bandolimist, a writer, a photographer, a wannabe Brasileira. Check my webpage for information on my music and my sometimes life in Rio.

What is this?

I have made a plan for this year, beginning on my birthday- October 16, 2008 - to keep creativity in focus in my daily life, spontaneously, reflectively, and with intention, by setting in motion several series of small events. Every day I will take a photo and record a thought. Every week I will write a sonnet and photograph myself in the context of my life. And I will post it all here. Maybe not every day, but I will maintain the schedule of each series and post as often as I can. I think this will be fun, may be interesting, and will result in a considered year of small moments stolen from a busy life and strung together to make... who knows? At this point it's just a plan. Wish me luck~ here goes!

Email Subscription

“Year 2″ begins– so what’s changing?

I have completed a year of this blog-- amazing! And I've decided to continue on, because this document has become a treasured reflective spot in my life. There will be some changes for "Year 2," beginning on my birthday, October 16, 2009. I'll expand the options for my weekly poem beyond sonnet to add some other forms-- rondeau or triolet, possibly villanelle. I just added the decima in late January. And in August I am adding the pantoum. Definitions will appear below as the forms enter this page. I'll continue to post a photo daily, but I may post several pictures taken on one day over the course of a week if I have an interesting series. I may even post an old photo if I'm writing about something I'm thinking back to. I'll continue to have fun with this project & I hope you will too. Thanks for reading!

“Year 3″

For Year 3 I tried some changes, including other people in the self-portraits that accompany my poems, adding "Musical Sundays" to post mp3s of my music, but these petered out in a few months. This is simply a place for my daily thoughts & photos, and weekly poems in the forms I love. Onward...!

The material on these pages belongs to me

Everything published here was created especially for this project and is owned and copyright by me. When the project is complete I may do something concrete with some of it. So enjoy, but please, if you want to share more than a quote or two send people here, don't displace my work from its context or authorship.

What’s a sonnet?

A sonnet is a 14-line iambic pentameter poem with a unique and characteristic rhyme scheme. They have been written in Europe and England for centuries, and usually combine viewpoint and reflection in a personal yet universal way. I call mine blank-verse sonnets and try for a simple casual scan that observes yet obscures the form. Inspirations are the American sonnets of e. e. cummings and Edna "Vince" Millay.

What’s a villanelle?

A villanelle is an early French form with 19 lines using only 2 rhymes, traditionally broken into 6 verses. It's kind of obsessive, with lines 1 & 3 repeating alternately, the 4th time as lines 18 & 19. The lines can be any length, but don't seem to vary within a poem, and subjects include love, loss and challenge. Dylan Thomas, Elizabeth Bishop and Sylvia Plath all wrote them, and from the minute I typed villanelle in "Year 2 begins" I was itching to try it out because I've never written one. My first appear in Weeks 53 & 56. I've run some verses together, as many modern writers have done, for continuity and a cleaner line.

What’s a rondeau?

A rondeau is a form of medieval poetry that pre-dates the villanelle and also uses only 2 rhymes. The earliest come from an 8-line song form with 2 lines of music that repeat-- line 1 as 4 & 7, and line 2 as 8, rhyming the rest in a characteristic pattern. The result is a sturdy little poem that makes its point thoughtfully, and less obsessively than the villanelle, perhaps because the generating couplet is unrhymed, and the lines don't need to be the same length, just able to be sung or spoken in the same amount of time. The first ones appear in weeks 55 & 57. Sometimes the poetic form, sans music, is called a triolet.

What’s a decima?

A decima is an early 10-line Spanish poetic form, with a distinct break after the first 4. It uses an 8-syllable line and has an unusual but characteristic rhyme scheme. It's also a 19th-century form of improvised Cuban song so I thought it would work well in this blog format. My first appear in weeks 66 & 69.

What’s a pantoum?

A Malaysian form from the 15th century-- how exotic! It's a series of quatrains, w/ lines 2 & 4 repeating as lines 1 & 3 in the next. The last quatrain also uses lines 1 & 3 from the first quatrain, with the first line ending the poem. So every line is used twice. My first one is week 95.

Search poems by type

sonnet

villanelle

decima

rondeau

pantoum

Posts with music attached

archive: past posts

Search for words and phrases

Blog Stats

44,061 hits

Celebrating a Year