Plato and Potato Chips
by
June Luvisi
Copyright 2012 June Luvisi,
All rights reserved.
Published in eBook format by eBookIt.com
ISBN-13: 978-1-4566-1042-5
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
Prologue
I married John, my college sweet heart, and when he died last year, we had been married almost 59 years. He was ill for years. Having had two hip operations, one back operation and having been diagnosed with prostate cancer, worry had been a familiar figure at our house. When in school, I had taken a lot of psychology courses, and thought I knew something about worry and stress and how to handle them, but I found theory and reality are two different things.
Eventually the atmosphere turned very bleak, and I sometimes ran out of things to say to cheer up my husband who had to deal with daily pain. And I began to worry that both of us might sink into depression.
I started thinking about what I could do that might be a source of strength for me as well as a source of knowledge for our four children and thirteen grandchildren. I was becoming more and more familiar with blogs and considered writing one about my life. I was hoping that what stood out in my memory during the 80 years I’ve been on this planet might provide a kind of personalized peephole into the past. My granddaughter Sam assured me that I could write this new genre without difficulty and pointed me off in the right direction. Along the way, daughter Susan, son William, and grandson John have helped in too many ways to count. All of their enthusiasm and expertise spurred me on. This is what emerged:
Just Starting
Posted on June 25, 2010 by June
Hi, I’m here.
Discovering Mozart
Posted on June 25, 2010 by June
Mozart came late into my life. It was not until I was in my forties that the lyrical beauty and emotional pulse of his music began to talk to me on a personal level. As a young child I remember listening to a magical “Singing Lady” on the radio who would intertwine her glistening soprano voice with the excitement of a fairy tale. How I would run to hear her voice and travel with her to enchanted lands. My own mother had a beautiful voice and would sing as she worked around the house. She never had training, but she had a natural gift. However, I was born at the height of the depression, and she was focused on hanging on to our two flat rather than on developing her own talent.
Later on, Judy Garland would mesmerize me with her “Over the Rainbow” in the Wizard of Oz. Even later, Patrice Munzel, to whom I was introduced in a high school music class, would become an idol. Beverly Sills was another admired voice.
Now I listen in rapture to our own family sopranos. And somehow the exquisite fragility of soprano singing seems to me to find its most fertile ground in the music of the supreme master, Mozart. Even when it’s not an opera, he makes the instruments sing. And my soul, too.
Just Sayin’
Posted on June 29, 2010 by June
For all you young people: If you think you know how fast time flies, be prepared. When you’re in your “golden years”, the passage of time can be like snapping your fingers!
Need for improved schools and Morning Joe
Posted on June 30, 2010 by June
God, how I love the morning! Especially this morning. Coffee, a perfectly ripe nectarine, a grilled Brie sandwich, oh, and some unbuttered green beans (to signify my good diet intentions for the day). I also hold good intentions to create a post on a daily basis, which I find is not that easy, given the interruptions of “ordinary life”. Hey, I’m retired, right? So, a posting I will go. I saw a face on Morning Joe this A.M. that contributed to this exhilaration. It was the face of a man who radiated his passion for a dramatically successful charter school program in Harlem.
The program utilizes year round schooling, something I have long advocated. Everyone agrees we have to do something to make our schools more competitive with the rest of the world, and maybe this program should be studied in depth for patterns of success. The program is identified as the Harlem Children’s Zone and it is led by Geoff Canada. We cannot look away from the deficiencies of our school systems, especially now when our children must compete in an increasingly global environment.
Truth and Beauty
Posted on July 1, 2010 by June
Oh, what is so rare as a day in July, today July 1, to be specific? About 70 degrees, sun washed air holding up a true blue sky, and yes this is a Chicago burb. I would compare this favorably with San Diego without question. Of course, Lake Michigan isn’t the Pacific Ocean, but these days with the horrific daily reports on the Gulf Gusher, living near the sea doesn’t have the same image it used to have. And we cannot forget the lush carpet of lawns, that holds our landscape in place. Yes sunny summer in Chicago can offer a beauty of its own. And as Keats said, “Beauty is truth, truth beauty”. The older I become, the more I agree. Emily Dickinson expressed this so masterfully: “I died for beauty but was scarce adjusted in the tomb When one who died for truth was placed in an adjoining room, He questioned softly why I failed, for beauty, I replied, And I for truth, themself are one We brethren are, he said. And so as kinsmen met a night, we talked between the rooms Until the moss had reached our lips, and covered up our names.
My apologies to Emily for errors, but I typed the poem as I remembered it.
Socrates and me
Posted on July 4, 2010 by June
Socrates said,” the unexamined life is not worth living”, and I couldn’t agree more. If a book I’m reading doesn’t cast light on human nature, I generally set it aside. By reading about other people’s lives, especially when these lives are convincingly conveyed on the page, I feel I understand a little more about my own life. Powerful writing helps me in my quest to understand life and put it in perspective. I think I have just assumed this would be true for most book lovers.
With this assumption, I casually asked a fellow book club member whether or not she too particularly enjoyed reading that enriched her philosophy of life. After uttering a flat “No”, she looked at me as though I had come from another planet. This was a woman with whom I had been in a book club for ten years! Now I’m thinking that perhaps she found me more than a little naive. Perhaps she thought that someone as ancient as I would have stopped asking such questions long ago. After all, wise old Socrates said, “All I know is that I know nothing.” Shouldn’t I become more set in my ways? Perhaps. Just one problem: Can’t do it. No way. To stop asking myself the big questions would be like trying to stop breathing. It’s not in my DNA!
Plato, Mozart, and me
Posted on July 6, 2010 by June
What is called music today often, to me, sounds more like a roar of rebellion or a demo of notes rolled around in the latest vocal fashion. Of course, I know this immediately sets me up as an old fogey critic. But hey, it’s not as though my definition of music is just the product of my “Donna Reed” generation. Plato said, “Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything.” And if you dismiss this as Platonic romanticism, consider Nietzsche’s