View from the Couch

The eyes are the window to the soul... Love looks not with the eyes... Close up his eyes and draw the curtain close... And I could go on and on. There is an entire page of entries for Eyes in my tattered and torn Barlett's Familiar Quotations. And it is very tattered and torn and loved. Over 30 years old, the only reference book more abused is my Roget's Thesaurus, which I cannot find a decent replacement for. They just don't make reference books like they used to. But I digress. I haven't written for a month because I have been robbed of the normal use of my eyes. I scratched my corneas and they got infected. Then, after many visits to the doctor and many trial and error combinations of eyedrops and compresses and some gooey stuff I use at night, I have gradually regained my vision. A bit of backstory here. I am terribly nearsighted. I've worn glasses or contact lenses since the age of 6. If I am somewhere unfamiliar, I can't go to the bathroom at nigh...

5-22-08 KC McAuley For my lover - Every morning, Before I open my eyes, I feel your arms about me and I draw you closer. Such safety there Such love Such joy. Until I remember that you are not there. I only dreamed of you. Every day As I go about my business, I hear your voice nearby and I drink you in. Such understanding there Such love Such joy Until I realize that it couldn’t be you. I only dreamed of you. Every evening As the day dissolves I see your smiling eyes and I melt down to you Such laughter there Such love Such joy Until I blink and you have vanished. I only dreamed of you. Every night Before sleep has pulled me down I long for you and call your name. I close my eyes and open my heart. I hear your voice I see your eyes. I feel your arms. Such love Such joy. I only dreamed of you.

Most of my life, I have felt like I didn't quite belong. My brothers must have picked up on this and would always tell me that I wasn't really their sister. That my real family was the crazy family who lived next door and Mom and Dad felt sorry for me and adopted me. Somehow this made sense to me. I was so much younger than my siblings. I was always on the outside of whatever they were doing...watching and waiting until I was old enough to play too. Of course, by the time I was old enough for that game, they had moved on to a new one. I was never quite part of the team. My parents were much older and I went to cocktail parties and meetings where I sat in the dens and family rooms of other families, watching television or reading while the world went on on the other side of the door. There, but just on the edge. Waiting and watching. For a time, I thought I had found my place. The theatre seemed to be a gathering place for the odd, the strange, the eccentric, the ones ...

THERE WILL BE BLOOD - (2007, Paul Thomas Anderson) Paul Thomas Anderson has become a mature filmmaker. And THERE WILL BE BLOOD is his master American story. A tragic tale of a petty man who uses everyone and everything around him to assure his standing in the world. Daniel Day-Lewis' Oscar winning performance is the soul of this film. The heart, if you will, of a heartless man. We are never given the full story of Daniel Plainview, but only glimpses into the soul, cracks and fissures, like the ones where Plainview finds his oil. His life blood. It is suitably black and dangerous. Visually, I now wish I'd seen this on the big screen. The vast American landscape of the 1900's is one that I am attracted to. My father was born in Oklahoma in 1913. His father and uncles worked on oil rigs. I kept looking for glimpses of my ancestors in the blackened faces of these men. Plainview's son H.W. (Dillon Freasier), is an angelic wonder. A gentle face and soul juxtaposed ...

THE COUNTERFEITERS (Die Falscher, 2007, Stefan Ruzowitzky) The true story of the largest counterfeiting operation in history, this film is my kind of Nazi movie. When trying to present a story based on WWII and Nazi actions, I find that films tend to treat all Nazis as evil and all victims as saints. THE COUNTERFEITERS neatly avoids this by giving us a hero who is a known criminal. A man who is not even trusted in the confines of a concentration camp. Salomon Sorowitsch, was the King of Counterfeiters, a master criminal, who on the very eve of his departure from Germany in the late 1930's, is seduced into fashioning a false passport for a lovely Jewish lady. The following morning, they are discovered in bed by the police and Sol is sent to prison. Five years later, he is sent to a concentration camp where he uses his gift as an artist to secure better food and privileges painting portraits of the officers and their families. Suddenly he is taken from Mauthausen to Sachsenha...

I live in Portland, Oregon, known as the City of Roses and home of Nike, Columbia Sportswear, Coffee People and Powell's Books. For April, Powell's sponsored a poetry contest seeking original poems about Portland. The following is my entry. City of Rose KC McAuley The sun slips behind the west hills The light shifts and everything is bathed in color City of Rose Amber and violet And deepest of blue. The sun rises over the hooded mountain. The light shifts and brings back the color City of Rose Amber and violet And deepest of blue. From my window I watch each day as the light shifts across this city. My city. City of Rose Amber and violet And deepest of blue. And here is a link to the winning poems. They are all lovely ones. http://www.powells.com/poetrycontest/winners.html?utm_source=oneoffs&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=poet_winners&utm_content=Read%20all%20the%20winning%20poems

I learned recently that when a kill is made, the females surround the kill and let the children eat before the males of the pack. The females mean business and they will attack any male that attempts to breach the kill. And I had to ask myself, are we humans smarter than a hyena? Every 3.6 seconds, someone in the world starves to death. 3/4 of those deaths are children under 5. 75%! That is unacceptable and should be unacceptable to any thinking person on our planet. What do you think would happen if all the women in the world surrounded our children and INSISTED that the children be fed and housed and educated before one more penny is spent on war. I think we might just stop war. And think what the impact might be on the world economy. Farmers would be paid to grow food, not to NOT grow food. Instead of building bombs, we'd build houses and schools. Teachers and growers and pickers and canners and all those job forces would have to be increased. And with such a demand fo...