Empty Room Full of People

What's the best way to stop your refrigerator from humming?
  Teach it the words.


I like to be anonymous in a crowd. It gives me distance both to avoid getting hurt or involved in complicated interactions and to observe and learn. And I don't mind writing these blog posts as though I have an audience while simultaneously hoping I don't (and, to a lesser degree, wondering if I do). My feelings about people are complicated that way.

Recently I've learned that several people who are important in my life have been having conversations about me amongst themselves. For, like, two months. And all with the best intentions. So talk about a complex mix of feelings: everything from betrayal, embarrassment and horror to humility, gratitude and obligation. I'm focusing on the gratitude as much as possible and moving on.

Chop Wood, Carry Water, Print Homework

It's silly to let a 10+ hour day of work stop you from the various and sundry post-work activities:
taking an afternoon trip to the chiropractor for yourself and your child
making an herb-crusted roast chicken for dinner (with rice and sweet potatoes as the sides)
going to the gym to workout
helping your husband haul boxes of freshly-cut firewood from SUV to living-room
doing dishes
critiquing your 8th grader's portrait of Charlotte Corday
facilitating printing of the rough draft biography of said Mme. Corday
doing laundry

I am grateful that I have been blessed with the energy and means to do the things I want to do in my life.

Now I just need to find a way to do a few more of those things instead of only the things I "should" do!

New Poet Laureate

Kudos to Sonoma County's new Poet Laureate, Katherine Hastings, founder of Word Temple. She's the 8th to hold that title and at her reception in Sebastopol today she was joined by those (still living) who have been thus honored before her.

It was wonderful to be in a room with so many poets and lovers of poetry, and to hear their visions put beautifully in words. I found myself spellbound listening to the offerings presented, and I was reminded again of the bridge poetry builds between self and self, self and others, self and the world. It's always good to hear poets read their work instead of just seeing those words on a page, especially when a poet seems to transcend the unavoidable limits set on us as mortal, fallible creatures.

I'm looking forward to seeing Katherine's Poet Laureate project blossom in the next couple of years, and I hope in some way to take part in it.

The Word of the Day

Today's word is reevaluate.

Miriam Webster says this:

to consider again especially with the possibility of change or reversal 

According to dictionary.com, the root value comes from the Latin "to be worth, to be strong."


At the risk of sounding drearily philosophical, I believe in the benefits - in spite of the difficulty therein - in periodically re-calculating the worth and strength of one's life, one's actions, one's character. I hope I'm not deluding myself in this, but I believe that each time I've done this kind of step back and audit I've come away with at least one blind spot partially brought to light. It's holding on to this elusive clearer vision and steering clear of old patterns of blinders that is especially challenging. The darker parts of our lives and souls are often so hidden - encrypted (from the Greek κρυπτικός) -  that it's as though we are mysteries to ourselves, as though there's a part of ourselves that is so foreign and unknown it might as well speak another language.

I write this with the perspective of three days between me and the real Saturday the 18th. But it's a good marker for Saturday anyway, and the four hour conversation D. and I had about our individual lives and our life together. It's a good way to place a marker.

Friday. Sushi. It's the Not-So-Little Things

Salad and plain sashimi for dinner tonight - really spoiling myself to celebrate getting through the week! Tomorrow starts the second week of the 8-week fitness/nutrition challenge. I've gone six days with no grains, sugar, dairy or artificial additives of any kind. Also no alcohol. Each day I write a very short "reflection" about the experience. I feel leaner, of course. And I am leaner. And I'm happy to say I don't crave any of the above-mentioned things, nor do I feel deprived. Depraved, maybe. Depressed, a bit. But not deprived.

New Hire

I was happy to have a new person added to the customer service team at work today. She'll officially start in two weeks, but it's such a relief to know that I don't have that particular weight on my shoulders any more. I'm hopeful that she'll be as happy to join the office as I am to have her!

Leaving for the Day

Today I left at 2:30pm to meet R. and K. at the Toyota dealership to get the old Prius serviced. While we waited, we picked up her new glasses and contacts and had a bite at the very delicious Rustic Bakery in Novato. Even a salad without dressing was yummy.

And I also had the Escape washed while we waited. So R. can go back up to school in safety (I hope) and we can drive the black hybrid in style.

In the end, although I'd thought I would go back to work, I did not do so. It felt rebellious!

Stretch

Part of this 8-week fitness challenge is 10 minutes per day of stretching.

Physically, I'm complying.

Emotionally and psychically, I'm trying.

Snake Shedding

Until a couple of days ago, when R's snake Sol shed her skin, I thought snakes only shed to make room for growth. It turns out they also do so to get rid of parasites. Who knew? 

Here's what WiseGeek.org says about snake shedding:

The shed skins of snakes often arouse curiosity among those who find them, but in actual fact, all animals shed their skins. This is not obvious in mammals such as humans, as it is an ongoing, unnoticed, process in which dead cells are continuously coming off. Reptiles, however, are different in that they shed periodically, and in the case of snakes, the entire skin normally comes off in one piece, a procedure that can be likened to removing a sock. This shedding is not without purpose: snakes replace their skins to allow for growth, as well as to remove parasites along with the old skin.

As a snake grows, its skin becomes stretched and worn. A point is reached when it cannot accommodate further growth, so a new skin grows underneath. When this is complete, the old skin will be discarded, along with any parasites it may have picked up. The new skin retains the same patterns and colors as the old.

Prior to shedding, a snake’s skin becomes pale and dull, and the eyes turn a bluish-white shade. This is due to a layer of fluid building up between the old skin and the new one underneath. During this period, captive snakes may be nervous and irritable, possibly because they cannot see properly until the old skin becomes detached from the head. They will not normally eat in the days leading up to shedding and will tend to hide, as they are vulnerable at this time.

Once the new skin has fully developed, the old skin is no longer firmly attached to the snake’s body, and shedding can begin. Sometimes, the reptile will immerse itself in water immediately beforehand. The snake will generally assist the process by brushing against something hard and rough, like a rock, and creating a rip in the surface, usually in the nose and mouth area. The snake continues to work on this rip until the skin comes off, inside out, in one piece.

Snakes shed quite frequently, but exactly how often depends on the species, the quantity and quality of food it eats, and, most of all, the age of the reptile. The average is two to four times per year, but young snakes, since they are growing more rapidly, may shed their skins every two weeks. When they reach adulthood, however, growth will have slowed, and they may only do it twice a year.

Shedding is not always without incident, and sometimes things can go wrong. For example, if the humidity in the air is too low, the skin can be too dry to shed. Portions of the old skin that remain attached can harbor parasites or provide a breeding ground for diseases. Furthermore, if the skin at the tip of the tail fails to detach correctly, it can cut off the snake’s blood flow over time and actually cause the end portion of the tail to come off.

I find this fascinating. Apply all of the above to a human being hoping to grow out of previous habits and into something new. The metaphor holds surprisingly well. 

Morning Bliss

It's Sunday morning. All the other people currently living here are asleep. Even the dog has gone back to bed.

So I have this blessing of a few minutes alone. Just me, my cup of black coffee, and my laptop. Words on the screen. Quiet, apart from the hum of the fridge and the sound of the rabbit munching on her food. The finch and parakeet are making beeping finch™sounds back and forth like an audio ping-pong game, too. But this is tolerable white noise. This is peace. There's even some sun hitting our back yard.

Perhaps this time is special because it's rare, but I wouldn't mind starting all my days like this. I feel there's so much good work I could do in this environment, before I lose a piece of myself to each person who is up and about in the house. Perhaps I should find a way to not be so easily distracted by the sound and movement of my family. There's something to be said for the absent-minded professor approach. I could be the mad poet woman who forgets to shop for her groceries, make meals, pay the bills, do the chores, supervise the homework, shower, speak English.

Well, maybe not those last two.

Let the Challenge Begin

I'm doing an 8-week fitness and nutrition challenge sponsored by my work (thank you, generous employer!). I want to try to keep it as low-key as possible around my family, because as my husband recently pointed out, no one wants to hear complaints about what you can't eat when you've put yourself on the diet. I get that. It's like a back-handed bragging to say, "Well, you people can have sugar and bread and dairy, but I can't."

So I'm doing this with humility and quiet focus. At least, that's the look I'm aiming for.

And while noting it here serves the dual purpose of entering my post for the day and more of the above-mentioned boasting, it also serves as accountability. I may gripe or brag about the process here and there over the next week. Might as well lay the groundwork now.

More about the challenge can be found here.

Pepper Potts. I'm Just Saying

We watched Iron Man 3 tonight. I just think Pepper Potts has it all. I'm not saying I would want Tony Stark as a love interest. Au contraire, mes amis.

But I so admire the way Miss Potts is beautiful, smart, practical, organized, strong, independent... It's a long list of adjectives. But still. The only thing I don't admire about her is that boyfriend. So much EGO. The very things that people find attractive about him repel me. So now you know. When I grow up I just might want to be Pepper Potts. Without Tony Stark.

Missing Posts

If I were a fence, I'd be falling over. (Ha ha. Get it? Missing posts? A fence? Thank you. I'm here all week. Tip your waitress.)

So I've skipped posting for a few days - 3! More than any since Dec. 1! - and so I'm trying desperately now to remember what, if anything, is worth posting from today. "Today" being Thursday and now being Saturday.

Did women keeping diaries and journals in the last two centuries ever do this? This retro-posting where they actually lied about the date and went back and wrote as though they were in that moment again? I don't remember seeing this, when I've read such things. I remember reading instead a weekly catch up in Anne Morrow Lindbergh's works, for example, where the author would recap in great detail the happenings of the missing days. I've chosen instead to write little snippets instead of in-depth analysis and review. I can say I'm saving the deeper thinking for my poetry. In fact, I'm going to keep saying it as it becomes more and more true.

Geek Humor

S. came home from school today and told us her beloved math teach had shared a joke in class that apparently had S. falling over laughing. Here's the joke:

Dear Algebra,
Stop asking us to find your X. We don't know where she is.We don't know Y, either. 

She laughed again (quite a bit) when showing us the joke. It's nice to know she has a sense of humor, even if it's a little geeky....

Epiphany Plus One

Many years ago, I heard Isabel Allende speak. One of the things she shared with her audience is that she always starts her novels in January. I'd remembered that she started on January 6th - Epiphany, and I carried that date with me as a significant date for serious writers until just now, when fact-checking brought it to my attention that she starts on January 8th, not the 6th, and not because of Epiphany but for her own personal superstitious reasons. 

So today marks a point between my false memory and my new knowledge. Which sounds symbolic, right? What is each day if not a marker between insufficient data and new input? I wrote the below this morning, or some slight variation of it. It's a little about the dangers of not-quite-forgetting something.

You missed Epiphany this year.

This seems telling.

You knew it was coming, that day

of marking something – was it the wise men

reaching their destination, finding it,

as Eliot suggested, “satisfactory”?

Or was it God incarnate, holy infant flesh and blood,

as impossible to conceive

– you can’t help the pun –

as dark matter at CERN?

There are things you haven’t taken the time to ponder,

and you are left feeling stupid

as a foreigner who cannot speak the language.

Stranger in a strange land in a new year,

the miracle approaching,

the miracle passed,

and you with a crick in your neck

from looking back too suddenly.

For Want of Will

The end of a stressful day is ugly; intentions and ambitions are thrown aside in favor of self-indulgence: puzzle, food, sleep. Even calling to mind those who are no longer here to speak their truth and do their good work doesn't shame or inspire me into making better use of the time I have. So I'm left with this: the cycle of disappointment, guilt, forgiveness, confession.

Blessing

It's a blessing to have friends, even for (or I think especially for) an introvert like me. I have few friends, but they are so very important to me. My friends have kept me from going insane more times than I can count. They put things in perspective, support me, offer encouragement, empathy, a sense of perspective, a sense of humor. I owe a great big "thank you" to my dear friends for their patience and kindness, today and every day they've been part of my life. If you're reading this, you should know who you are.

Thank you. 

It's Been Ten Years. How about a New Look?

Besides being dated, my old blog template was no longer as functional as one might want. So I've traded up to another basic boilerplate template. While it may not be ascetically striking, exactly, it does work and feel like something fresh and new to me.

Also, as an exception to the pattern from the last week or two, I'm posting this entry while the sun is still shining, before even the shift to twilight has brought out the sickle moon that D. takes a proprietary interest in. Last night, while on his way to OSH or Home Depot or some such place (he can correct me when he reads this) he phoned home to say that there was a gift in the Western sky for me. I went outside and braved the coming cold, and there it was - that fine curve of light that he used to capture often enough in airbrushed night-scape paintings in the late eighties and early nineties that it was almost like a trademark.

I'm a fan of the quarter moon, the half-cookie shape on its way to waxing or waning - at the tipping point - and me not knowing, most of the time, which direction it's heading. The sickle moon seems almost gone. The quarter moon is a still point in the pendulum. A pause, a balance, even if its just an illusion and no more permanent than any other phase of the moon.

Maybe if I gardened as guided by the Farmer's Almanac, or studied astronomy, or had a 2014 calendar, I'd know whether tonight will be moonless or slightly brighter than last night. As it stands, I only know that night is when we start the fire in the wood-burning stove, and put the lame chicken in the rabbit hutch, and when I crane over the jigsaw puzzle in a gluttony of piece-placing, trying to forget the burden of my 9-5 job (which is really a 6-4, most days). Thank goodness like the okapi, the moon takes care of itself without my attention.

Here's the Thing

I didn't know about okapi until very recently. It turns out really next to nobody really knew about the okapi until not that long ago.

Here's what they look like:


This is the way synchronicity works in my life. Giraffes have been my favorite animal since I was very young. The Okapi is the only member of the giraffid family apart from the giraffe itself. Okapi were brought to the attention of the world outside of the rain forests of the Congo region by Sir Henry Morton Stanley (of Stanley and Livingston fame) at the tail end of the 19th century. Stanley was born in Wales.

When I learned about the okapi, it prompted the following poem (not yet a final draft, I don't think), which I'd read at the poetry brunch the other day:

Here’s the Thing

                                                                                                                                

All the dark matter we cannot ken, or the notion

that the cosmos may be a sheen of bubble

or someone else’s dream, or that our sharpest senses are flotsam

fifty leagues above the iceberg tip of what can be perceived;

that our most grand endeavors (I mean Giza, the Great Wall, man on the moon)

are no more than one ant carrying one seed husk one foot.

I am telling myself this while telling you –

not to alarm or enlighten but as comfort.

Take the okapi, for instance.

We didn’t know about them for the longest time.

But ignorance did not impact them all that much.

Okapi by the thousands were born, mated,

died the deaths of  grass-eating creatures

and it was all right. I’m trying to say

it’s all right. Our knowledge

of a thing neither prerequisite

nor responsibility. You, for example,

could be anywhere including dead

or wherever one goes after that

and until just now I have forgotten

to set that burden down.

The Annual Puzzle

It's been a few years since I started the calendar with a jigsaw puzzle, but this time it's a 2000 piece landscape that sits in the middle of the living-room on a large board that D. brought back from his shop.

I think puzzles appeal to me because they employee my finding skills, entertain my OCD tendencies and allow for a sense of resolution otherwise lacking in life. How can I say no?

A Year Of Poetry

I'm stealing this post from my poetry blog, abashed that I hadn't put it in place when I thought I did.

The year has started well because of former Sonoma County Poet Laureate Terry Ehret's poetry brunch, where over three dozen people met to begin 2014 with aspirations that we put out into the world and to read and listen to poems. I read something newer that may not be in its final form, but it was good to try it on out-loud. And it was wonderful to hear such a fantastic range of poems from others.

There were themes of memory and darkness, life and death, beginnings and history and mystery and science. The northern lights. Carl Sagan's "little blue dot." Western New York in the winter, Sonoma County in the Autumn, San Francisco with the beat poets, skating a pond the midwest under bathed by the lights of the aurora borealis.

I've been reading Mary Oliver's Blue Pastures in the last month or two and have found so much inspiration and education in those pages, I feel it has changed my life.

Welcome, poetry read and written. Welcome, New Year.