lately, I’ve been on a quest to recapture some things I’ve lost. among those things: the ability to understand (first) and speak (second) spanish, the endurance (lip) to play the saxophone well, and the ability to play the piano. I’ve started down the road to recovery in each of these areas.

but I still have all kinds of lofty goals like re-teaching myself harmony (advanced music theory) and the music history I crammed but didn’t internalize. I’d like to be a good rollerblader. I want to re-learn how to program.

I also want to read all the classics. I want to read poetry and appreciate it. it’s something I’ve loved and have always wanted to spend more time thinking about. my favorite? e.e. cummings. =) he’s just plain fun – reading him is like playing a game. I’d like to tackle Walden, but I think that’s just too much for now. I’ve never really been into nature, so perhaps this winter when I’m depressed about the lack of warmth and spring.

the last time I was at the library, I picked up a collection of Shakespeare’s sonnets. I loved reading through that book… so much so that I was *way* overdue on my 5th or 6th renewal. =) here are my two favorites (especially the second – knowing me, can you see why?):

Sonnet 116

let me not to the marriage of true minds
admit impediments; love is not love
which alters when it alteration finds
or bends with the remover to remove.

o, no, it is an ever-fixed mark
that looks on tempests and is never shaken;
it is the star to every wand’ring bark,
whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.

love’s not time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
within his bending sickle’s compass come;
love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
but bears it out even to the edge of doom.

   if this be error, and upon me proved,
   I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Sonnet 130

my mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;
coral is far more red than her lips’ red;
if snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
if hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.

I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
but no such roses see I in her cheeks;
and in some perfumes is there more delight
than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.

I love to hear her speak; yet well I know
that music hath a far more pleasing sound:
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
my mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.

   and yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
   as any she belied with false compare.