(this was originally posted on July 1, 2011, on another site as the Season Finale
Translation-I took a month off from blogging, and relaunched this blog on Blogger.
There was the Door to which I found no Key
There was the Veil through which I might not see
Some little talk awhile of Me and Thee
There was-
and then no more of Thee and Me
Quatrains anyone? They’re divine with honey, I'm told. The above is a quatrain, and has nothing to do with Amtrak.
The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, from where the above quatrain appears, was translated by Edward FitzGerald. Had he been named Edmund FitzGerald, you would
heard my screams all the way to Genesee Depot, WI. It’s about 2AM there right now and Ten Chimneys must be
dark and still, but the historic farmhouse and grounds are in order and ready for arriving guests: earthly or not. The house is a portal to somewhere or a inescapable vortex: trust me.
If you find yourself in the Milwaukee area and have a passion for historic homes, forgotten Broadway legends, and possess the slightest bit of childlike wonder....
...Ten Chimneys, the summer home of acting greats Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, is a mystical Mecca for we metaphysical types. (If you are just 'regular folks' you won't notice anything unusual.)
I lost my heart to that enchanted farmhouse: and i tried giving my heart also to the person who took me there. He refused my ardent advances, stating he just wasn't into a romantic 'anything' with me.
Months later, I tried to explain how this could have been handled more diplomatically, but I failed.
I’ve broken my own heart only twice over someone else. I take the responsibility. The situations were exactly 30 years apart. I realized it
was happening, and I couldn’t change the script, but I could change the ending. I had carried a torch for my high school boyfriend for almost 30 years. Now, I could eep mooning over Wisconsin's favorite son, or walk away and remain friends. I chose the latter.
Described once as ‘the most lavish single copy’ of The Rubaiyat, due to the hand-crafted binding which took two years to complete. Published in 1860, the rather plain interior pages were bound in Moroccan leather, and embroidered with gold leaf, It was decorated
with 1020 precious gems: amethysts, diamonds, ivories, rubies, olivine, pearls, topazes and turquoises
(what no emeralds?). The front cover featured three peacocks: the back cover a type of lute and the inside back cover-- a skull.
This spectacular item
was last sold at a March 1912 auction in London to an American bookseller, Gabriel Wells, for $2025 USD (equal to $57,000 in 2011) Sotheby's packed the book for shipping and arranged its transportation to New York and delivery it to Wells' office.
Today, of course, Mr. Wells copy would be worth much, much more. Assuming it survives intact(quite possibly), then found and successfully retrieved--from the floor of the Atlantic. This incredible and valuable artifact is but one among the millions of fragments of artifacts of the RMS
TITANIC.
I’m not quite in the same sinking fast position as TITANIC, but I find I must have some money, so I am taking a break from blogging. Time to rededicate myself
to avoid the financial and emotional iceberg I'm heading into. I thank all of you for your many kind emails and posts of support.
In what seems like a lifetime ago, my NKP profile had this cryptic quote:
"To become what you must, you must give up who you are."
Let's end with another Rubaiyat quatrain translated by FitzGerald:
I sent my Soul through the Invisible
Some letter of that After-life to spell
And by and by my Soul returned to me,
And answer’d "I Myself am Heav’n and Hell
and here’s a song for you.
Peace.
