So long ago
sewing tiny pearl beads
around a gauzy net
to form a bridal halo
stitching dreams together.
Drops of crimson
from pricked fingers
drip upon the silk flower crown
white for purity
red for courage
blood for
hope.
.
.
.
Anniversary approaching. You can see the veil in question on an older post here.
He says
her laughing smile
captivated him.
The smartest girl in the school
he thought, as he sat silently
at the back of the class.
Too good for him.
The only girl who listens
to that crap classical music
that you like, they told him.
So he braved to venture a date,
but she turned him down
in favour of dorm pork chops
He was determined,
and Mozart entertained
Before she knew what had happened
she had a ring on her finger,
and a lifetime
of devotion promised.
Her laughing smile is
not quite as captivating,
she’s unlikely to be
the most intelligent
in the room,
time brings rationalization,
after all
she says he’s too good for her
with laughing eyes
that are still his.
Remember
city lights
blinking in the lake
your arms wrapped,
us enraptured.
You and I
embracing the mystery
of intimacy,
creating a history,
trusting the future,
facing dreams, and
dreaming of reality
enfolding before us:
Laughter, longing,
lasting love
.
.
.
The anniversary of our engagement is approaching, so here’s a poem in honour of the guy who’s had my back for 60% of my life. Look at how cute we were on that romantic evening! 😉 (Trust me that there are city lights reflected in the lake behind us. I had a pretty crappy camera!)
.
She gets these notions, ken?
Strange notions.
That because my great,
great,
great,
great,
great,
grandfather was a Scot
I need a kilt.
.
I won’t wear a kilt,
I said.
I am not connected to
my Scot’s heritage
I said.
That’s all right,
she said,
unloading
eight meters of fabric
and starting to pleat.
.
I won’t wear a kilt
I said.
What kind of belt buckle?
she asked.
So I picked the clan buckle
of my great
great etc
grandfather.
.
I won’t wear a kilt
I said.
Which pleat design?
she asked.
So I picked the pleat to the sett
(or so she tells me)
and she ironed
and ironed
and ironed
late into the night
and then she sewed
and sewed
and sewed
each stitch by hand
for night
after night.
.
I don’t want a kilt
I said.
She sewed
a linen shirt
and knit a lace jabot
and created sock flashes
and sock garters.
I ordered the socks and
the sporran from
Scotland
she said.
.
I really don’t want…
I said
Try this
she said
arranging a leather pocket
dangling from chains
around my waist.
No!
I squawked
It can’t go like that!
That’s like saying
X marks the spot!
She laughed
at my dismay.
.
Just try it all
she said,
arranging
ecoutrements.
I sighed
but did.
Walk up and down so I can see the swing,
she said.
Ooooooh,
she said
and led me back up the hall.
.
For our anniversary
she said
will you wear your kilt?
Yes,
I said
and did.
.
.
True story.
Outlander inspiration is clear.
Diana has a lot to answer for.
But most of it is good.
Verra good.
.
Here’s the proof:
and the more modern interpretation:
We should have taken some pictures from behind to show off…
(cough) the pleat to the sett.
It’s verra lovely.
<g>
Always remember “Happy Wife, Happy Life” or as Diana wrote him in the book plate for his copy of The Scottish Prisoner, “No one looks better than a man in a kilt.”
.
FYI- Here are a few of the posts written back while I was making the kilt with photos of the process:
https://shawnbird.com/2011/11/16/the-latest-obsessive-project/
https://shawnbird.com/2011/11/19/kilt-progress/
https://shawnbird.com/2011/12/06/all-done/
Note the dates- It’s been nearly 18 months since I finished. He’s worn it ONCE before today, back for that final drooling fitting. Plainly I caught him in a moment of weakness today. Or else he’s been reading Outlander again on his own. Good lad.
6 years later, here’s a lovely shot of the swing from behind! 🙂
You stand silently apart
You hover on the edges
distinct
observant
I mingle like sugar in water
wondering
wishing
longing
to draw you
into my arms
to hold you
to anchor you.
But you don’t know where
those hands have been.
You seek a quiet place
to find a peaceful oasis
for the discomfort of that skin
for the ramble of those thoughts
for the torture of that crowd
I stand apart
and watch you pull yourself
in pieces
I’m laughing and chatting
and wishing I could be enough
to give you courage
strength
faith in yourself,
but I’m not.
No matter how much
my heart is full to bursting
with wanting it.
You have to be
enough
alone.
The week before Thanksgiving in 2008, I was given Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight Saga to read by one of my English students. That Thanksgiving weekend I bought my own copies of the books, read through the series again, and then poured over Stephenie Meyer’s website, reading everything I could about the genesis of the story, the process of writing, what she’d done to find an agent, and the adventure her life had become.
I was completely, totally, thoroughly inspired. An idea sparked. I’d had a story floating in my head for decades. I’d written it down in a couple of versions before, but it wasn’t right. I had known I needed a hook, but I just couldn’t figure out what it could be. Stephenie gave me the solution: mythology. Just as she had used vampires and werewolves, Greek mythology could be melded into the experience I wanted to share in order to provide the depth and conflict that had been missing in previous drafts.
The Tuesday after Thanksgiving (that is, this very day four years ago) I began writing Grace Awakening. That first day, I wrote about five double spaced pages. The second day I did the same. Then the third. By the end of three weeks I had 75 pages of writing. I set the goal to keep writing 25 pages a week. I met or exceeded that goal each subsequent week. Twenty three weeks later, the first draft was complete. It was the week before Easter, and I had 155,000 words.
A couple of weeks after Thanksgiving in 2009, I went to the Surrey International Writers Conference. I pitched the book to a small Vancouver publisher. She was interested and asked to see more.
A week before Thanksgiving in 2010 I signed the contracts with Gumboot Books.
In 2011, Gumboot Books went out of business, but Grace Awakening Dreams was released anyway through Lintusen Press in July. By Thanksgiving 2011, it had been in the list of Top iTunes Fantasy books in Canada over a hundred times.
In 10 days, I’ll be back to the Surrey International Writers’ Conference to pitch Grace Awakening Myth, a companion novel that tells Ben’s version of his battle for Grace.
It’s a lot to be thankful for: four years of creativity, empowerment, challenge, excitement, growth, and adventure. It’s been an amazing ride!
Four years ago, when I started typing, I would not have been brave enough to imagine that I’d be in this place today. But here I am. My friend Heather observed, “Where will you be in another 4 years? Do you not love the “wait and see”‘ of life?” The thought of it hit me in the gut. Where will I be? I can only dream where Grace will be, keep writing, and hope I’m holding tightly to her coat tails as she explores the world!
I’ve been thinking a bit about marriage, this being a season of new marriages and significant anniversaries in our circle. We are seeing everything from the blush of new couplings, to those having reached a half century and stretching beyond.
Marriage serves many purposes. Once upon a time, a marriage could forge alliances, settle feuds, and enlarge estates. The bride was property to exchange, and the children would be the beneficiaries of those alliances. That was a long view of marriage, a kind of dynastic vision with the individuals’ place firmly seen as a small cog in a greater machine of familial destiny and power mongering.
Nowadays, we tend not to think such of great thoughts and purpose. Sure, a spouse with a rich or influential family provides a nice security, and undoubtedly a youthful trophy on an man’s arm gives him at least an imagined superiority over others. Some pay for their shallow reasons in hefty divorce settlements, and that’s the price of doing such business.
Way back in the second book of Genesis, God declares, “The LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” (Gen 2:18) and so God fashioned woman. Consider some ways to interpret that: a helper is a help mate, a companion, a consort, an accomplice, a partner, a protector, a guide, and a colleague (so says the on-line thesaurus).
A spouse (whatever the gender) must be all those things. What first brings a couple together may be prosaic, and some romantics might scoff at the dispassionate process that bonds some couples, though I think such sober decision making provides stronger glue than the chemical waterfalls of attraction and biological imperative. Sexual coupling requires far less effort than a lifetime partnership, after all. I know a lot of people who choose toxic partners repeatedly and then bemoan their horrible relationships. It seems ironic in the extreme that they don’t recognise that “If you keep doing what you’ve always done, you’ll keep getting what you’ve always gotten.” Choose your life partner for more important reasons than the colour of his eyes or how she looks in her jeans.
I once heard that falling in love releases massive amounts of hormones into your system. The result is that your brain is numbed and drugged, as the rush of dopamine is equivalent to a cocaine high. You can’t make rational decisions when you’re so befuddled. I heard that it takes a full year for your brain to clear the chemicals so you can think lucidly again.
The most important question to ask yourself when your brain function returns is “Why should I marry this person? What would the purpose of such a marriage be?” When you can step back and study the goals, you stand the best chance of making a marriage that will have staying power.
From Grace Awakening
Bright to Grace about Jim:
“He is everything I need and I’m better in all ways because of him”
Bright’s not the only one who knows how blessed she is.
I was recently asked the secret to a long marriage. It’s quite simple, really: Stay married.
When things are difficult, stick them out. When you’re angry, talk it out. Even when you want to, don’t walk out.
Celebrate every joy. Appreciate all the little things.
Aren’t you glad that I’m still the same age I was at the wedding?
Shawn L. Bird 
Join the Interstellar celebration September 1, 2012
Tags: amin bhatia, analog, anniversary, bhatia music, composer, Interstellar suite, music, recording, synthesizer
You know those people who have a single, straight forward dream, and from the moment they climb out of their cribs, they head toward it with determination? I have often wished I was as single-minded as my friend, Amin.
I’ve mentioned Amin before on this blog. When I met him (back when he was an oh-so-mature thirteen and I was a star struck ten year old), he was already striving toward his goal to become a composer for television and film. To his natural talent he added perseverance, practice, and experimentation. His whacky humour and considerable charm helped him attract people willing and able to support his dream. When he was in his twenties, he won major awards and prizes which led to the record deal that blasted Interstellar Suite into the universe.
Interstellar Suite isn’t popular genre music. It was hard to classify. Usually, it is labelled New Age, because how do you classify a masterpiece of orchestrated analog synthesizers? They didn’t have a big section in the record stores for “Electronic movie soundtrack for a non-existent sci-fi movie,” which is the truest label it could have had. “Stinking brilliant” would be a good label, too, but the sound afficionados shouted that far and wide. Amin composes for all sorts of shows you’ve known and loved (like Flashpoint), so you’ve probably heard his music. He’s won many awards; go to BhatiaMusic.com to be impressed by the list! You should go there just to listen to snippets of his work, actually. There is a delightful breadth of styles represented in his music.
This year Amin is celebrating the 25th anniversary of the original release of Interstellar Suite, and you are invited to be part of the grand adventure to commemorate the occasion with a galactic celebratory launch into new frontiers! Check out the details on the Interstellar Suite page and help the project go super nova! You know you’ve always wanted to mingle with the stars!
Now, if you know Interstellar Suite, and you have something amazing to share about it, you were asked to tell the crew about it. If you haven’t seen the plea, the deadline was yesterday, but the video about it is pretty entertaining and there’s some great music on it. Who knows, maybe you can still sneak your memories in if you contact them quickly…
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Here’s an added treat because you made it all the way through this post. While I truly wish there were photos of the 13/10 meeting, for all the inevitable mortification likely attendant, this one will have to do. This is my high school graduation weekend. I am chilling with a (soon to be) famous musician, and as you can tell by my laughter, I am having fun:
(What’s happened to our hair?!)
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