Since my last post, I've learned most of the lyrics to this song by heart. It will keep me from going insane if I ever get stuck in a dungeon or prison (Mrs. Reynolds, are you reading this?).

This song, like so many of Piaf's, is a waltz. The downbeat comes at the end of the line, the way the way the lyrics are written.

The words at the end of one line are repeated at the beginning of the next, and the similar words come in the same group of three musical beats. In the way words are repeated in different parts of the phrases, the song reminds me of a poem by Elizabeth Bishop, "Casabianca."

There's some wonderful tongue-twisting: "jamais aimais," and "que j'en mourrais d'amour."

Did people really go to balls and waltz in Paris mid-century when Piaf came out with these songs? These waltzes are a fantasy to me. They are wonderful to think about. Thinking of a waltz can almost take the tiredness out of a walk home. It's amazing how, when one is too tired to walk, one may still have energy to dance. Walking in sets of three is no problem.

If this post gets anyone to listen to Edith Piaf, that's enough for me.

Les mots d'amour

Musique: Charles Dumont; Paroles: Michel Rivegauche

Copied from http://fr.lyrics-copy.com/edith-piaf/les-mots-damour.htm

C'est fou c' que j' peux t'aimer,
C' que j' peux t'aimer, des fois,
Des fois, j' voudrais crier
Car j' n'ai jamais aimé,
Jamais aimé comme ça.
Ça, je peux te l'jurer.
Si jamais tu partais,
Partais et me quittais,
Me quittais pour toujours,
C'est sûr que j'en mourrais,
Que j'en mourrais d'amour,
Mon amour, mon amour...

C'est fou c' qu'il me disait
Comme jolis mots d'amour
Et comme il les disait
Mais il ne s'est pas tué
Car, malgré mon amour,
C'est lui qui m'a quittée
Sans dire un mot.
Pourtant des mots,
'y en avait tant,
'y en avait trop...

C'est fou c' que j' peux t'aimer,
C' que j' peux t'aimer, des fois,
Des fois, je voudrais crier
Car j' n'ai jamais aimé,
Jamais aimé comme ça.
Ça, je peux te l'jurer.
Si jamais tu partais,
Partais et me quittais,
Me quittais pour toujours,
C'est sûr que j'en mourrais,
Que j'en mourrais d'amour,
Mon amour, mon amour...

Et voilà qu'aujourd'hui,
Ces mêmes mots d'amour,
C'est moi qui les redis,
C'est moi qui les redis
Avec autant d'amour
A un autre que lui.
Je dis des mots
Parce que des mots,
Il y en a tant
Qu'il y en a trop...

C'est fou c' que j' peux t'aimer,
C' que j' peux t'aimer des fois,
Des fois, j' voudrais crier
Car j' n'ai jamais aimé,
Jamais aimé comme ça.
Ça, je peux te l'jurer.
Si jamais tu partais,
Partais et me quittais,
Me quittais pour toujours,
C'est sûr que j'en mourrais,,
Que j'en mourrais d'amour
Mon amour, mon amour...

Au fond c' n'était pas toi.
Comme ce n'est même pas moi
Qui dit ces mots d'amour
Car chaque jour, ta voix,
Ma voix, ou d'autres voix,
C'est la voix de l'amour
Qui dit des mots,
Encore des mots,
Toujours des mots,
Des mots d'amour...

C'est fou c' que j' peux t'aimer,
C' que j' peux t'aimer, des fois...
Si jamais tu partais,
C'est sûr que j'en mourrais...
C'est fou c' que j' peux t'aimer,
C' que j' peux t'aimer... d'amour...

When one tires of writing...

think of another Piaf song, "Les Mots de l'Amour," in which she says:

" Je dis des mots
Parce que des mots,
Il y en a tant
Qu'il y en a trop...:

Too many words! I've been bantering/defending myself on a different blog recently, and I think I've reached the point of too many words. It's not useful to type back and forth all day. Some is fine. Moderation is necessary.

Ajouté le lendemain:
Mais...quels mots! Que j'adore Edith Piaf et ses chansons.

Si Vous Etes Triste...

Ecoutez cette chanson: La Valse De L'Amour, écrite par Marguerite Monnot (et Piaf aussi, je pense).

My First Homegrown Tomato

A "Fourth of July" tomato, about the size of a cherry tomato, next to some snap beans and wax beans, also from the garden, and also diminutive

The beautiful tomato by itself

Wake up and smell the coffee

I woke up this morning at 5 am. Rain was pattering outside the window. I wasn’t sure, but I thought I had slept enough to get up. After all, I had to be at work early the next day, I reasoned, so being on an early schedule made sense. On the other hand, I had that hint of a sore throat that sometimes comes with too little sleep. But I wanted to get up. I was looking forward to my morning coffee. I don’t remember what I had been dreaming about.

As I woke up, my thoughts moved from the rain to coffee to the spiteful medical bill on my table, the one that I had already called to correct one time and had paid and should not have received.

The dawning of reality as I woke up reminded me of how the main character in Anna Karenina (link to the text), woke up from a pleasant dream about beautiful “decanter women” only to remember that he’d had an affair and his wife had found out and he had to do something about it.

Thinking of Anna Karenina reminded me that I had left the book at work the day before and therefore couldn’t read it on my day off unless I got it out of the library. Then I remembered how I had scraped my knee and elbow in the parking lot there.

At least, I tried to console myself, I hadn’t had an affair or done anything irreversible. Oh, yeah, I did… No, nothing irreversible. At least not anything I could remember at 5:30 am.

Addendum: I did get up too early, but wanted to get up so that I could write about waking up. So I wrote, then went back to bed!

“I Just Called To Say I—”: Music Box Updated: 07/18/13

A monkish little man with a perfectly round head and yellow body was banging a xylophone inside a wooden box, or so I imagined it as I lay there, eyes closed. The music box that was putting me to sleep played two phrases of “La Vie En Rose” in a fashion so regular and so clearly too fast that now it seems comical: "And then we kiss and then we fall in love or vice versa and I see the world through rose-colored glasses and we do it all again until the crank runs out--See you tomorrow." It was good luck if the music stopped exactly at the end of the song.

It was just a plain wooden box that played music. It sat on the corner of my dad's dresser, on the marbled surface near his collection of change, index cards from his front pocket, and a photo cube.  He had one music box, and I eventually had a collection of twenty or so ornate and highly breakable ones, yet his was particularly special. For one thing, it could rightfully lay claim to the term "music box," unlike so many snow globes that play music but are not boxes at all. 

I could expect to receive music boxes for Christmas and birthdays and anytime my mom’s friend Aunt Sue went somewhere exotic. We lived in Maine. My miniature musical universe included a Chinese pagoda, an Indian elephant, Pinocchio-like wooden villagers dancing in a circle, and a country farmhouse whose roof opened up to let the music out. Ice-skating ceramic penguins, propelled by the unwinding tune, raced around on a reflective, magnetic lake flanked by Christmas trees.

In the beginning, the music boxes just held air. And music. When my family moved to Kentucky, memories formed in them, seemed to come out of them. About that time, I, like Aunt Sue, began to travel: France, Ohio, Boston, New York. At some later point, home became a place to travel to.

"Somewhere Over the Rainbow" is slowing down, but the Chinese pagoda is going full tilt, competing, in the musical building category, with the farmhouse, playing "Oh, What A Beautiful Morning." I replace the Emerald City and pick up "Swan Lake," smoothly wiping its globe with the Pledge-sprayed "softy," which then threatens to get caught in the ceramic roses around the globe's base. Then I put it back on the mantel with the others. I dust and listen to my music boxes at the end of every visit home, a ritual that is both a preparation to leave and an appreciation of where I am and have been. 

I keep one music box with me wherever I am living, a mark of my particular civilization, my familiar world. The one on my dresser now is a maroon wooden box decorated with a picture of Victorian children in love. It plays "I Just Called To Say I Love You." The children, painted in some kind of lacquer that changes in the light, hold bouquets of holly and share an umbrella in the glinting snow. "I just called (dee dee dee dee) to say (bom dee dee dee dee) I love you (do-de dee dee dee dee dee dee dum de-do)." The first phrase is like a series of mounting questions that the second phrase--"And I mean it from the bottom of my heart"--resolves, finishing with a nice arpeggio..

Music boxes are time capsules of childhood. By twisting the crank and opening a music box, I transport myself back to a time when nice things seemed to appear in my life by chance. A music box collection! The music boxes are still there on my mantel, waiting for me, ready to tinkle out love songs at my behest. At the same time as they evoke youth and innocence, they also contain--and always have contained--a certain foreboding and suggestion of the end. 

The music slows as the crank unwinds, and as it slows, it saddens. What is bouncy and cheerful, almost over-caffeinated, when the music box has just been cranked becomes wistful when it is about to stop. The call will be cut off, and you don’t know when. It may end on any of those question marks. It is creaking out one note at a time. The notes have lost their rhythm. You start to wonder, “Was that the last one?” You hold your breath. 

You never know when something real and dear will become a memory.

Concord Contradance

For me, contradances aren't magical from the beginning. I started out the night of dancing at the Concord (MA) Scout House feeling shaky and foggy in the head. Of course, I had to start dancing the minute I had buckled my new character shoes and jump in halfway through the teaching of the dance. Then I had to swallow my pride and smile as people told me what to do and then told me, "Good," when I was "on." And try not to let my annoyance at all this distract me from remembering the next step.

I had a host of volunteer teachers. There's the elderly man who sang the music right in my ear as he swung me, then left me feeling guilty

for pursing my lips and pulling away. There's the sweaty, overweight guy my age who swings with his mouth open in a lazy grin, ready to drool, it seems, who also told me what to do or said "Perfect," when he was satisfied.

For those of you unfamiliar with contradancing, here's a basic description. At a contradance, people form couples and dance in two long lines from one end of the dance hall to the other. There were as many as three sets of dancers at the Scout House last night. Contradances are short sets of do-si-do's, swings, promenades, turns, and figure eights that repeat many times. With every repetition, each couple moves either up or down the hall in the line, with half the couples moving each direction, so that by the end of the dance, everyone has danced with everyone else in the line. That's why you can't avoid dancing with certain characters. It strikes me as very Democratic and nice. You should be able to courteously dance with anybody, even someone you don't particularly like.

It's one thing to swing with someone who's not your partner throughout the course of the dance and another to spend a whole 15 minutes dancing with a person. The real test of one's social skills comes when someone you don't like asks you to dance. One option is to avoid looking at that person so that they can't ask you. Another option is to lie and say you're taken. Another option is to say, "No, thank you," without explanation. Then you know that you'll hurt the person's feelings if you go on to dance with someone else. In the end, the best option is to dance with anyone who asks you and smile and have a good time. The only thing worse than a dancer you find annoying is a dancer you find annoying whose heart you've just broken.

Perhaps I write so much about the more difficult interactions at the contradance because those are the ones that made me think and the ones that I could describe realistically. It's easy to fall into clichés when describing classic, happy moments.

But there were many classic, happy moments at the dance last night. Along with the "annoying," swingers, there are men who make you feel like you're flying when you swing! There are times when everyone in the hall decides to stomp their feet or shout, "Hey," and the whole room reverberates. There are times when, instead of foggy in the head, "I feel pretty," and glow and smile and remember the dance every repetition.

The highlight of last night's dance was at the half-time break when my friends and I headed outside for fresh air. One of the dancers started singing English pub songs, and other people joined in. Many of the songs had choruses that I could pick up and sing along. My date, a singer, knew most of the songs. It was so nice to sing out there in the nice weather about how "Summer is a-comin' and Winter's gone away-oh."

I long to be one of those people who can be the spark of energy that turns a gathering of people into something wonderful. I mostly just join in when other people start things, be they conversations, dances, or song. How nice it would be to know how to make merry out of thin air!

After the dance, many of us - about twenty adults! - headed out for a late night swim. I felt like I were a hippy from the sixties. 'Nough said. The swim lasted about half an hour, long enough for me to get cold and want to get out. Again, I wished I could spark fun instead of just standing there with my hands wrapped around my sides. Well, we did get out eventually, of our own accord, not someone else's, thank goodness. We then headed to a pizza place, ordered our meals at 11:55, before the kitchen closed, and replenished our energy stores after a busy, merry night of dancing.

The Young and Beautiful Blogger

How old do you think I am, reader? Am I fat? Do I have wrinkles? Am I wearing a stylish outfit? Am I sitting in my pajamas in the basement trying to ruin Sarah Palin?

You don't know. That's one interesting aspect of getting to know a person through their words alone.

I recently read a memoir of Knopf editor Judith Jones, who edited Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. The front cover of the book, The Tenth Muse: My Life in Food, shows a black-and-white photo of a thin woman in a suit, with shoulder length, wavy hair and fine features who looks to be in her twenties. She wears a hat for traveling and gazes off into the distance, ready to take on the world.

This is the woman I pictured writing the first half of the memoir, which described Jones' youth and her adventures cooking and eating in Paris.

At some point, I turned to the back flap of the dustjacket and saw that the woman writing was actually old, probably in her sixties. She had long, whitish-gray hair and wore a purple knit turtleneck and ironed pants. She sat at a table, with a napkin folded in her lap and a glass of wine before her. She may have taken on the world in her youth, but she no longer looked it. She looked boring.

Who was the writer, the young woman or the dining dame? The words sounded young and vivacious, but the writer was old and staid-looking.

I concluded that a writer's words have little to do with their appearance or age. The words are ageless. When Judith Jones remembers her youthful adventures and describes them, her thoughts are basically still those of the young woman on the front cover.

That's not to say that one's mind doesn't change with age. One grows wiser, hopefully, and becomes set in one's ways, whatever they are. That's not to say that the mind, like the body, doesn't eventually deteriorate. But one's outward appearance of physical health or decline may belie the state of one's mental health.

The same probably could be said for the way one's appearance relates, or doesn't relate, to one's thoughts and words. I have always been tempted to think that skill, intelligence, and beauty go all together. A violinist making beautiful music, a witty writer, a sharp reporter on the radio... when I can't see the person whose work I'm admiring, I assume it's the work of a beautiful young woman.

I know, though, that the chances of that are the number of beautiful young women divided by the number of people in the world!

I am young. That much is probably clear by now. I wonder if my picture of the unseen performer will age with me or if she will remain young and beautiful even as I become old.

Reality Reading

It seems to me that the blog shares the main appeal of reality tv: it lets the audience escape into another world, yet one that's real. That world is unpredictable. Unlike a sitcom, in which things wrap up neatly in 30 minutes, reality just keeps going. There's always suspense, always a reason to watch the next episode or read the next post.

As someone fairly new to blogging, I really shouldn't claim to know what makes a good blog. But I have an opinion anyway. I think a good blog gives the reader the feeling that they understand the blogger and the blogger's thoughts. Blog posts have to be close enough to the blogger's true thoughts that the reader feels like they are being let into someone else's head. The voice of the blogger should be consistent. It should always sound like the same person writing.

A blog really is an on-line diary. It is reality reading. The example of a reality tv show I like to use is an old one: "Colonial House" and other "House" programs on public tv, where people were videotaped living as if in another time. The fun of those shows was to be let into someone else's daily life, and a life from another time.

In a blog, the audience reads about another person's daily life. A blog has the same thrill as an old diary you find in the attic. All the details are fascinating. You want to know what the person had for breakfast because it helps you to imagine the person. Somehow, the mundane details gain stature when part of someone else's life.

A blog can be about a particular subject. Molly Wizenberg writes about food in her blog, "Orangette." But she never takes food out of the context of her life, which is what really appeals to the reader. An essay about the soufflé would be worth nothing if you could not imagine Molly with her glass of wine patiently letting her soufflé cook, refraining from opening the oven door.

If people like to read each other's diairies on-line, why are we so close-mouthed at bus stops? Working as a cashier, I have found that people just need a little coaxing to open up and talk about their real lives. When a customer checks out, they may be content to exchange no more words than please and thank you with the cashier. But simply asking, "How's x day treating you?" has the amazing effect of making the customer reveal what's on their mind that day. It immediately turns the interaction from scripted to friendly. I think that people actually want to connect with each other in real life, not just virtual life, but sometimes are afraid to start.

When I am trying to be friendly to people I don't know, I summon courage from a Crenshaw in my family who once had a discussion about accents with the person sitting next to her on the bus. "In Kentucky, we say, "nas wyat ras" (nice white rice)," to which her companion replied, "Why, don't you like rice?" When I'm thinking of something to say to a stranger, I figure that if one can talk about rice, one can talk about anything.

Il Y Avait... A Glorious Moment of Understanding

I wish that I could download music to my blog. Until then, I will leave you to listen to "Il Y Avait" at this link.

I really love Edith Piaf's music. I love the songs themselves, the fact that they're in beautiful French, and the way Piaf rolls her "er's"and makes everything lo-ong and roma-antic. My favorite Piaf song is called "Il Y Avait" (see the lyrics at the end of this post). It's a song about two people who fall in love one spring and whose love passes with the season.

The rhyme is wonderful, particularly when it involves a lot of rolled r's: "Il y avait le printemps, le printemps des romans qui passait en chantant; et cherchait deux coeurs troublants, leur preter ses serments et en faire des amants." (Translation: There was a springtime, one of novels, that passed singingly, searching for two troubled hearts, to lend them its vows (of love) and make lovers of them.) It would be a beautiful phrase in English, but in French, when everything rhymes and ends in r, it's so much better!

Another beautiful aspect of this song is the personification of happiness, or le bonheur. When the couple falls in love, Piaf sings that: "Il y a eu la chaleur, la chaleur du bonheur qui leur montait aux coeurs." (There was the heat of happiness mounting in their hearts.) Later, after their romance falls apart, Piaf says, "Il y a eu le bonheur, qui s'est enfui en pleurs d'avoir brisé deux coeurs." There was happiness, which ran away in tears, having broken two hearts. Talk about breaking someone's heart! It breaks mine to hear those lines! I love the way happiness seems like a child who hurt someone unknowingly, innocently, and then regrets it. I love the way happiness can be described as breaking hearts. It is true that happiness and regret are two sides of the same coin. "Et la fille aux yeux reveurs.. tandis que dans leurs coeurs s'installait le bonheur." (And the girl with dreamy eyes, while happiness settled itself in their hearts.)

Another interesting point about this song is the way it shifts from imperfect to past tense.

The first phrases all begin, "Il y avait," or "there was." That's the tense used to describe a scene, the way things were, but not to describe concrete events with beginnings, middles, and ends.

The second phrase, which describes the lovers' first encounters, uses "il y a eu," not "il y avait." I think it's because this phrase describes specific moments and events, rather than a general situation.

The third phrase, describing the lovers in bed, uses "il y avait," again. It starts by by describing their room, a case where "il y avait," makes sense. Then it describes the couple "qui s'aimait et leurs phrases parlées de toujours." (The couple that made love and their timeless phrases.) "Timeless," situations definitely warrant the imperfect tense.

The fourth phrase, describing both the lovers at the height of their romance and the moment when springtime love moves on, uses the past tense. I think it's again because this phrase describes a particular moment, "il y a eu le moment, où soudain le printemps a repris ses serments," (there was the moment when suddenly Spring took back its vows) that it uses the past tense. I think that because this phrase used "il y a eu, " in some phrases, it used it for all of them, even though some, like "Il y a eu ces deux corps éperdus de bonheur et de joie sans pareil," (there were two bodies, wild with happiness and joy without equal) really are setting a scene and describing a general situation and could have taken the past tense.

The fifth and last phrase goes back to the imperfect tense. At the very end, the song uses the future tense, "Tant qu'il y aura des amants, il y aura des serments qui ne dureront qu'un printemps" (as long as there are lovers, there will be vows that only last a Spring.)

Or maybe the author just wanted to alternate between "il y avait" and "il y a eu."

It's a beautiful song in every way. The song gives me goosebumps even now. And the moment when I first understood the lyrics, one phrase at a time, was certainly "un moment merveilleux" of "joie sans pareil." It's thrilling to understand something for the first time, in an instant. It is like a thunderbolt, like a "coup de foudre." "Le coup de foudre," also means love at first sight. It's an appropriate double entendre. Happiness settled itself in my heart and stayed.

Il Y Avait - taken from lyrics.time (and edited by me)
Lyrics: Charles Aznavour; Music: Charles Aznavour and Pierre Roche

Il y avait un garçon qui vivait simplement
Travaillant dans le faubourg
Il y avait une fille qui rêvait sagement
En attendant l’amour
Il y avait le printemps
Le printemps des romans
Qui passait en chantant
Et cherchait deux coeurs troublants
Pour prêter ses serments
Et en faire des amants

Il y a eu un moment merveilleux
Lorsque leurs regards se sont unis
Il y a eu ces instants délicieux
Où sans rien dire ils se sont compris
Il y a eu le destin
Qui a poussé le gamin
A lui prendre la main
Il y a eu la chaleur
La chaleur du bonheur
Qui leur montait au coeur

Il y avait cette chambre meublée
Aux fenêtres donnantes sur la cour
Il y avait ce couple qui s’aimait
Et leurs phrases parlées de toujours
Il y avait le gamin
Qui promenait sa main
Dans les cheveux de lin
De la fille aux yeux rêveurs
Tandis que dans leur coeurs
S’installait le bonheur

Il y a eu ces deux corps éperdus
De bonheur et de joies sans pareils
Il y a eu tous les rêves perdus
Qui remplaçaient leurs nuits sans sommeil
Il y a eu le moment
Où soudain le printemps
A repris ses serments
Il y a eu le bonheur
Qui s’est enfui en pleurs
D’avoir brisé deux coeurs

Il y avait un garçon qui vivait simplement
Travaillant dans le faubourg
Il y avait une fille qui pleurait en songeant
A son premier amour
Il y avait le destin
Qui marchait son chemin
Sans s’occuper de rien
Tant qu’il y aura des amants
Il y aura des serments qui ne dureront qu’un printemps…

Molly Wizenberg and the Blog

Molly Wizenberg is my new hero. She writes a column for Bon Appetit, "Cooking Life," about a recipe/dish that is meaningful to her and the stories behind it. I have read her column for a while and always noticed that she was listed as "author of the award-winning blog, 'Orangette.'" Yesterday, I finally took a look at Orangette. Unfortunately, Ms. Wizenberg is taking a break from blogging this summer, so I could only read the archives. What I found was truly inspiring. It made me think (knock on wood) that I had a chance as a blogger, too; rather, that we all have a chance.

For starters, her blog did not start out as award-winning; it started like my blog did, or like any blog did. Her first entry was like any first entry, saying (I paraphrase, "Hi, I'm starting a blog, and this is my purpose." Her title came from a candy that was sitting on her desk while she was nervously trying to choose a title, username, and password for her blog. The way she described starting a blog resonates with me.

Another thing that reassured me when I read her blog is her easy writing style. Her blog is not a series of well-crafted essays (which are intimidating to try to produce and post on-line). Instead, it's a stream-of-consciousness analysis of her life with just enough focus to put a title at the top and call it a post. That is the kind of writing that fills my diaries and that feels natural to me.

Since I have only read "Orangette" for a day, these are just my first impressions. But, from what I've read, I get the feeling that Ms. Wizenberg started the blog in order to write about her life and what's meaningful to her. Because she loves food, it became a food blog. I stand corrected: at the beginning, she already had interest in food writing.

Though Ms. Wizenberg may have had an idea of "Orangette's" subject before she started, no one could have predicted its success or where it would take her. It's wonderful to read her blog posts before and after she became popular. It's not only a blog about food. The post-modern view of the blog would be that it's about how one's writing changes as one gains fame and recognition.

In my blog, I hope to write about all the different things that inspire me and see where it leads. Disclosure: Katie Crenshaw is a nom de plume.

Salutation

Thank you for visiting Crenshaw Seeds, a blog where thoughts are precious and cherished, where whims are recorded, where the tiny pleasures of life matter.

Thoughts and ideas are resources, and it's a shame to throw them away. If only memories of our minds were as good as the memories of computers. Since they are not, this blog is a backup for the hard drive of my mind.

A blog is not only a repository for thoughts and ideas; it's also a place to share them with other people. It's a lonely feeling when something inspires me and I don't share it with anyone. The essence of my personality lies in things that only I know and understand. While some people may like to keep their deepest thoughts private, I feel that those thoughts are "the real me," and the me that people would want to know and like. It seems a shame to keep that side of myself private.

Why would a blog reader understand and appreciate my whims better than, say, someone I encounter at the bus stop or the grocery? Probably because blog posts allow for fuller explanations than does small talk. And unlike in coversation, where it's only acceptable to talk when someone wants to listen, on a blog, you can write whether or not someone chooses to read what you write.

With that, I leave you to enjoy future postings on my blog. Please feel free to comment and leave notes.