yesterday i saw bend it like beckham with shawne and it was excellent and today i took a detour along the river on the way back from lwc to look at houseboats (the artemis is for sale; 29 500 quid; narrow, 47ft; purple and green but i guess that can be repainted; call 01865 749363. or maybe 794363. can't remember). times like those i remember why i love oxford. and as for the other times -- peace is too easily shattered, isn't it? by the least violence. i am accused of being an ignorant and tyrannical liberal -- i stand guilty of the first, not sure about the second, and i guess i am probably liberal? i believe in love and truth and justice and freedom; but i'm not sure i believe in people -- myself first of all. *shrug* peter wimsey: the first thing a principle does is to kill someone. i think that's right; if you believe strongly enough, then everything goes down before it, including your welfare, and that of those around you. and if you don't care that much, then i guess that's human enough. tout ca comprendre...or rather, plus ca change...
If I can let you go as trees let go
Their leaves, so casually, one by one;
If I can come to know what they do know,
That fall is the release, the consummation;
Then fear of time and the uncertain fruit
Would not distemper the great lucid skies
This strangest autumn, mellow and acute.
If I can take the dark with open eyes
And call it seasonal, not harsh or strange
(For love itself may need a time of sleep),
And, treelike, stand unmoved before the change,
Lose what I can to keep what I can keep,
The strong root still alive under the snow,
Love will endure -- if I can let you go.
May Sarton, Autumn Sonnets II