A Robin's Lesson

A few days ago, a robin was singing loudly on the roof. The building is L-shaped, so I could see him from my top floor apartment. I had the front door open to let the breeze in, heard him, and turned.

There he sang, his red breast sunlit against the shade trees behind him. I could see his chest working as he sang. His head pivoted in quick, jerky movements between songs, but never while he sang his three notes, descending in pitch and echoing around the space formed by the balconey and the roof overhang.

For most of his calls, there was an answering song in the distance. What was he saying? "Are you there?" "Am I alone?" Or, was his intent lascivious, "Hey, Baby, let's nest."

In all my decades and all the many, many robins I've seen, I've never associated a particular song with one before. Why? Am I unobservant? Probably. Maybe, also, it's that I see them in suburbia, where they move along quickly to avoid pets. Birds are usually obscured in the trees a lot, too, so it's hard to associate one song with one particular bird.

His song was good company. I wish I could understand his language.

After hearing that robin, I wonder what else has always been going on around me that I don't notice?

Literary Analysis

I'm an idiot about literary analysis, but I'm trying to get better. A discussion on an electronic mailing list has me confused about some things.

What is being analysed? My guess is it's the work, which is what is what is on the paper. That would mean what was/is in the author's mind isn't rightly a part of that analysis. It would be rightly part of a discussion of that work, but not the analysis.

Is it appropriate to assume the author has control over, or even awareness of, all the literary aspects of her work? Confusion about the role of a "muse" in a work's creation has me wondering this. Would an author never feel something is right without knowing why? Or, would the writer ever feel it is right for one reason when it is right for another reason?

My last confusion is about who analyses. (One author made the point on-list a little while back that his responsibility to a work is only to write it. Interpretation is an interplay between what was written and the reader, and he leaves it to each reader to decide meaning.) Each reader will bring with her a different life and glean meaning by laying that writing over a different interior landscape. In that case, how could every reader come away with the same interpretation? How could one be right and another wrong? One might be more sophisticated, I guess. Maybe that's what scholars mean by "right" and "wrong".

Maybe these kind scholars will answer some of these confusions in follow-up posts.

Is Desire to Be Charitable Just Another Power Grab?

Odd things seem correct when one spends time mostly alone.

It hit me a while back that my desire to help others is a desire for power. I want the power in order to help others, but does that matter? It's still a power grab.

It's probably also a desire to be strong; to be so strong that there is extra to give to others.

There is, too, an element of pride, of not wanting to be the weak or needy one.

Seems like charity would always be a virtue, but it seems even that can be corrupted by intent.

Although, the recipients probably don't care.