the end of the innocence

i had a discussion with my sister some weeks ago about don henley's 1989 classic the end of the innocence. go watch it, i'll wait here...

Remember when the days were long
And rolled beneath a deep blue sky
Didn't have a care in the world
With mommy and daddy standing by

When "happily ever after" fails
And we've been poisoned by these fairy tales
The lawyers dwell on small details
Since daddy had to fly

But i know a place where we can go
That's still untouched by man
We'll sit and watch the clouds roll by
And the tall grass wave in the wind

You can lay your head back on the ground
And let your hair fall all around me
Offer up your best defense
But this is the end
This is the end of the innocence

O' beautiful, for spacious skies
But now those skies are threatening
They're beating plowshares into swords
For this tired old man that we elected king

Armchair warriors often fail
And we've been poisoned by these fairy tales
The lawyers clean up all details
Since daddy had to lie

But i know a place where we can go
And wash away this sin
We'll sit and watch the clouds roll by
And the tall grass wave in the wind
Just lay your head back on the ground
And let your hair spill all around me
Offer up your best defense
But this is the end
This is the end of the innocence

Who knows how long this will last
Now we've come so far, so fast
But, somewhere back there in the dust
That same small town in each of us

I need to remember this
So baby give me just one kiss
And let me take a long last look
Before we say good-bye

Just lay your head back on the ground
And let your hair fall all around me
Offer up your best defense
But this is the end
This is the end of the innocence

what was interesting is how different our memories of the song were. she finds it very political, whereas the only politics i can find is the stanza about the tired old man that we elected king (has anyone ever described reagan more aptly?). for me, that summer was the one where i had a very painful broken engagement. i was devastated and lost 17 pounds in a week, mostly in tears shed. that felt like the end of my own innocence and a real transition into adulthood. it caused my life to change course...shifting from plans to attend u.c. irvine to iowa city and the university of iowa. looking back, i think it made me less trusting of potential boyfriends for years afterwards, really ending my own romantic innocence...poisoning my own fairy tale. in other words, i found the song very much about my own situation, even though reading the lyrics now, i can clearly see that it was about one's parents splitting up. my own happily ever after had failed (thank odin now, looking back), so i sang along at the top of my lungs as i drove my little gold pontiac fiero and felt like the song was written specifically for me. especially after i met a handsome summer fling who gave me back some confidence and made those lines about the tall grass in the wind and the small town in each of us ring true. it was really more or less the anthem of the summer of 1989 for me.

for my sister, her departure for college was on the horizon and she felt the pressure of that. i think we both thought that our parents wouldn't be able to survive the empty nest, having such separate interests. so the words about daddy having to fly spoke to my sister and she felt a heavy weight of responsibility for keeping them together. and watching the video, with its odd 50s feel (aside from the shots of tattered reagan posters and ollie north), it does seem much more political that it ever seemed to me at the time. and though i was home that summer, i definitely didn't feel the same pressure my sister did to be the glue holding our parents together. in the end, their marriage held, though some part of me still wonders why when they shared so little. i suppose staying together was just what you did in their generation (speaking of the 50s).

in these times, where our entire existence is smeared in the nasty politics of our post-truth era, it does seem that our innocence has ended once and for all.

* * *

today's lack of truth has its roots in postmodernism.

i heard about this piece here on T.O.E.
and i'll admit to feeling a little guilty for all that derrida, foucault and baudrilliard i read in college.

* * *

the problem is way deeper than trump. 

thursday thoughts and a bit of creativity

first, thank you to everyone for your sweet comments about husband. he really is that cool. and maybe it was a little bit bragging to write about him, but i don't write about him that often, so he is a bit of a well-kept secret. of course he has faults, but they are pretty minor...he can misplace keys like no one else i know (except maybe this girl), he puts away dishes as if he doesn't live here and then when he's not around i can't find anything, and he has an uncanny knack for losing (and getting back) his wallet. and yes, he is pretty cute.

oh, but there is one more fault, i really wish he'd do something about his teeth...

*graininess of picture due to not having changed very high ISO setting from nighttime photography the evening before...and thanks for the teeth, TFM. :-) they were a big hit.

* * *

just wanted to share a bit of the stitching that sabin and i have been working on. i love so much that if i'm doing something, she wants to do it too. while i've been stitching on my circles, she's been embroidering free-form flowers in rainbow colors on squares of linen (you can also see, thanks to new giant-sized pictures, that she got a bit of chocolate on this one):

she's also embroidering bits of fabric to white linen. we've decided we'll incorporate all of her embroidery into a little lap quilt for her to use this winter when she's watching t.v. like her mother, she's a sucker for a nice blankie:

it's relaxing to sit and stitch while watching our nightly episode of a touch of frost on TV2 Charlie, the old people channel. i'm still working on my liberty circles, watching them unfold and waiting to see what they become, a process which i feel uncharacteristically patient about...

i got my bits of liberty fabric in this etsy shop, all cut into little squares already for quilting, i just trimmed them into circles. i haven't seen liberty fabrics here in denmark. i was inspired to search for liberty fabrics by the fabulous and übercreative margie of resurrection fern. (aside: über seems to be my word of the week, eh?)

but last night, i began on another little pair of capris for sabin. she loved the embroidery that we did by necessity on the blue ones after she ripped them, so we're doing some embroidered patches on these as well:

i love the design of this heather ross mendocino fabric (we've got it in blues too--no surprise there, tho' i do wish her fabric company would use higher quality cotton, it's a bit thin for my taste, but the design makes it worth it anyway). i ordered it from this etsy shop--fabric worm. they ship super quickly and it's at my doorstep in no time. i have to order it online since i've not seen these fabrics here in denmark.

we're going to a birthday this evening and it's about an hour's drive away, so i've packed my stitching supplies into my sweet little tiny happy zip bag that the wonderful kristina gave to me at blog camp.

i haven't even had the heart to take the tiny happy tag and kristina's MOO card off of it. it seems so fitting to use melissa's bag for my stitching supplies, as she is an embroiderer extraordinaire. i hope a little of her embroidery karma rubs off on my work.

* * *

i have to share the cake (#60 in the evidence of creativity) i made yesterday for our neighbor's birthday. our neighbors are a lovely retired couple who are like grandparents to sabin. they love having sabin hang out there and sabin loves to be there, and it makes my life much easier, so as a thank you, i made a strawberry meringue layer cake from nigella's forever summer cookbook, for else's birthday.

don't look too closely at those slightly burney edges, the instructions said to leave the cake in the pan to cool, but i think it was just a little too long in the heat of the pan for the delicate meringue. dang, these big pictures really magnify faults, don't they? moving on quickly to the next picture...

sabin picked the rose and the lavender in our own garden. our strawberries were finished, so we did buy the strawberries for it, but got some of the last danish ones of the season down at the green market.

* * *

i'll leave you with this lovely, summery song, by Goldfrapp, which i found thru sucae sounds. i hope your day has the feel of the day in this video and frankly, i hope mine does too: