It’s been a pretty quiet week on the blog. I can’t believe it’s Friday already and I haven’t posted anything since Sunday. I had so many entries planned that never got written. Here’s a run down of what’s been going on.
Monday I spent the day in the kitchen, a room I’ve only had nodding acquaintance with in the past couple of months. I put a crockpot pot roast on in the morning, which involved chopping vegetables and browning the meat so by the time it was started it felt like I’d made a meal. Then I made a peach cobbler in the afternoon and finally I made side dishes to go with the pot roast: cabbage and mashed potatoes. So using my crockpot didn’t seem to save me from any work, it just invited me to do more.
Tuesday I think was a recovery day after I overextended myself on Monday. I had a headache in the afternoon and wasn’t up to much. (Plus there was that new book that came in the mail…)
On Wednesday morning I looked at the date and realized that the day before was the due date for Francis, the baby I lost in February. Didn’t feel much like writing about anything else and wasn’t up to writing about that either. It’s hard to put all my mixed emotions into words. Sadness and loss and that mingled with acceptance and the sure knowledge that it is all a part of God’s plan. The new baby kicking in my womb right now will never replace the child whose heartbeat I never heard, whose image I never saw on ultrasound and who never got big enough that I felt the stirrings of life. In some ways, the knowledge of that life gone feels very abstract, intellectual as the first part of pregnancy does. And yet I am full of gratitude for the second chance, for God’s mercy and love, for the healing when I feared for a while that I would never be able to bear another child.
Then yesterday (Thursday) I had a relapse of morning sickness. Was violently ill a little while after breakfast (evidently I’ve still got to stay away from orange juice, or something) and just managed to pull myself and Bella through the day until Dom came home and took us out for burritos. Today I was busy with errands that I’d been putting off: the post office and the grocery store in the morning and a run to Target for diapers in the afternoon. Dom made leftover soup for dinner and I’m very glad the week is done.
On to the weekend.
That was an awesome song (and by that I mean the lyrics, since it’s naptime and I had the volume on mute and only read the subtitles!) the images were pretty powerful, too…and it seems to end on somewhat of a positive note? Like, the modern person gets it now?
Lori,
You should definitely go back and listen to the music, if you haven’t already. It’s the sound as much as anything else that I find so haunting, just percussion and vocals, stark and fitting with the tone of the words.
I’m still not sure about the end. That forget all your troubles, let’s go dancing is a little troublesome. A kind of fatalistic shrug: eat, drink and be merry, let tomorrow take care of itself.
My dad found it depressing. He thought they didn’t get it. There was no solution offered because there is no return to the morals that were what held up the previous generations and gave their lives meaning.
I think that asking for a solution may be asking too much from a song, though. Perhaps all such a song can do is to mirror reality. The band in the video sit and watch as the story unfolds, all they can do is observe, not change people’s actions.
And I’m not sure what to make of the final image of the child burying a picture of the old man. Is it supposed to represent the modern generation’s forgetting their ancestors or returning to the soil? Is the flower an image of rebirth?
Maybe I need to go listen to it again.
Okay, I’ve watched it 1) to read the subtitles, 2) to listen to the music, and 3) to watch the video more closely…it’s about seeds, rebirth, and in some way getting back to the soil…and that the hope for all of this is in the youngest generation…that’s my take on it…but you’re right, the whole “let’s go dancing” thing at the end throws me off a bit.
I did some “googling” of this band and the song, and read a lot of comments on the you tube postings…I’ve read that they are pro-life, and alternately, virulently pro-abortion (which really is hard to believe…there’s other video footage of them at a Quebec festival and there’s TONS of families with little kids there…not really NARAL material)…and I’ve read that the sentiments in the song are specific to Quebec, and that the dancing thing is another tradition that they don’t want forgotten…brings joy into even the most difficult situations (the Great Misery, etc, that the lyrics speak of)…I just can’t stop playing it over and over and over!!!
Re: accent marks: I don’t know if it’s the same on a Mac, but on my desk top computer you can hit alt and a combination of numbers on the number pad to get the symbols you are looking for. On the laptop, you have to have the key board in United States – International before you can get the symbols. They are then made either by hitting the right side alt key and a letter or by hitting the ” and certain letters. Hope this helps – if you ever want to do symbols again. I spent many frustrating hours trying to figure it out – especially with my laptop – so I could get my name right.
No�lle