May Eve

Monday, and tomorrow, May.

The roses are exploding into bloom in the back yard, and the irises are out - dark pink and wine, needing staking left and right so they don't fall over with the weight of their own heads.

I have often fallen over with the weight of my own head - my own over-thinking - metaphorically speaking. Thank goodness for the various stakes and twines that hold me up!

The End and the Beginning

I titled this post thinking about the end of the weekend and the beginning of the week. But so many things are ending, and so many beginning right now, I suppose it applies to the bigger picture too. I found myself unable to hold back tears at the Senior concert as I thought of how this was the end of an era, this decades-long push and pull to get N. and S. though school. The end of seeing my children and their friends growing up together. The end of being part of a community of parents and teachers working together to help these kids learn and grow, intellectually and spiritually too.

Yesterday I went to work after that visit to the Human Race, grocery store, and coffee shop. The library hosted 65 people for a California Poets in the Schools student reading. It was lovely, and I was glad I could spend part of my lunch peeking in on it. We hope to have the event at the library in future, too. I am all for making a connection between the library and the literary community.

I spent the evening indulging in chocolate, wine, and Netflix, wondering whether S. was enjoying the prom. N. picked her up, because I had it from reliable sources (especially S.) that no one really wants to be picked up from their Senior Prom by a parent. Perhaps she was thinking about the potentially silent ride back from Sonoma with D., the night driver of the team. At any rate, I went to bed early, trusting that all would be well in spite of my anxiety about the combination of a late Saturday night, post-prom drivers and country roads. I slept in late this morning, too. Very late. I probably got 12 hours of sleep, which (added with the iron) has made a world of difference to my state of mind. I also had a good workout at the gym and, as usual, ran some errands and took care of some correspondence. All things that had been weighing heavily on me. I also went to an event honoring our newest county poet laureate. I couldn't stay long, but it was important for me to be there.

It's funny how I set tasks for myself of my own design and then feel compelled to do them even when I don't feel up to it, and how I feel shamed if I don't do so. Blogging daily is a case in point. And yet, if we don't set tasks for ourselves that are in keeping with accomplishing the bigger goals, how can we get there? Writing daily is something I want to do, because I am owning (so new-age) the identity of writer. Hell's bells, as Nana would say. I am just saying that I want to be better at this, which is also to say I want a better understanding of myself and my life, and daily practice is necessary for such a thing.

I've been noting on a slip of paper those pages in the Sarton book with quotes I want to remember.

This is the most recent (from page 226):

Every new book is like a pilgrimage, a long long walk where faith in the eventual destination has to be renewed again and again.

Saturday Retro

I had decided to sleep in rather than join in the Human Race , but I just had the nagging, but unverifiable, idea that I had signed up to help with check in between 6:30 and 7:30. And I know myself. I do better with accomplishing duties, tired though I might be, and disinterested as S. might be in doing her part, than I do in skipping such things and letting go. So I got up early and went. I checked in (it turns out I was not signed up to help!) and was there for the below picture from the local paper, but then I left early and went to the grocery story for breakfast and iron - I am so anemic, and it's been a week without, and I think that, plus a lack of sleep, has me feeling especially low. And I took a few minutes at a cafe to drink coffee, but not to write, as I didn't have my laptop with me. As this post illustrates, I had let the blog go for a few days. Did not writing it also affect my mood and self-esteem? I think so.

Here's the picture:

A motley crew (and sans S.) but at least my hair keeps my head from looking especially tiny!

Friday Retro

Two hours at the DMV this morning. It's always a good combination of forced down-time, white noise, and people-watching under such circumstances, and I was struck by how the tone of an entire crowd can be swayed by either one crying baby or one ill-tempered man, or, on the other hand, friends reconnecting with a smile or a group of strangers cheering for each other when the automated voice announces, "Now serving G25 at window number 6." Now we wait two to four weeks for the duplicate title to arrive. Then we schedule pick up of the pickup.

I was also able to run some errands, have a good workout at the gym, do a few chores around the house, get S. from school, nap for 40 minutes (much needed), and go to see the Senior concert at the H.S. where S. sang "New York State of Mind" and played backup for "Cry Me a River" and another piece, and helped with backup singing for "Why Must I Be a Teenager in Love." N. and her friend Christina came too, then I drove C. home, negotiating with S. about whether she needed to walk in the Human Race or not, given the fact that she also had a bass lesson and prom the next day - even though she'd been sponsored to walk. I am reminded that one must chose one's battles.

Thursday Retro

It is with some sadness that i report the loss of Mushu, the enormous sailfin plecostomus we have had since he was an inch and a half long. I think we probably got him fourteen years ago. By the time he died, he was probably closer to two feet long, give or take. And his belly was wider than D.'s hand.

I probably have pictures of him somewhere. But this is a very close proximity to what he looked like:

Certainly, from bow to stern he was longer than my forearm. It is the end of an era. D. had been wanting to turn the 450-gallon aquarium into something else for a while, even before we lost the old koi. But he'd held off because of Mushu. There are still who knows how many ancient 5th (6th?) generation corydoras catfish in the tank. But I have a sense, based on the announcement D. made after taking the triple-bagged pleco corpse out to the trash, that their days are numbered. 

Wednesday Retro

Once again, up late trying to find the pink slip for the truck. The amount of paperwork I have put in piles to shred and recycle is impressive, until I think about how it represents only about a hundredth of what I have to go through. Bird by bird, as Lamott would say. I have decided to go to the DMV on Friday and take care of it then. So much for having the thing towed by the end of the month. And another day without the roofers returning to put in the skylights. But these, as usual, are first world problems. No big deal. And it's so nice to see how good the roof looks - without being blanketed in huge brown tarps!

Paper Hoarders Unite

It has become quite clear while trying to find the truck title in all the usual places, and then all the many, many unusual places where we have squirreled away paperwork, that D. and I have the same unhealthy tendency to keep papers, with little organization - or in my case, redundant but inefficient and inconsistent organization - that we haven't needed for years, or even decades. And will never ever need.

Even if I were to become famous, or he were to become famous, and some poor sod wanted to write a biography, the papers would be more of a hinderance than a help. They wouldn't tell the story of a life. They would only tell the story of a disease.

We haven't found the title after a collective 10 hour search.

I have, however, gotten rid of a lot of papers, more than half of which will be shredded or burned.

It looks like we'll just request the duplicate title, and that my chances for coordinating a pick up of the pickup (see what I did there) on Friday are slim. They'd need more lead time than that. And of course, the rush - after all the non-rush - is that we want to avoid dealing with registration renewal, which is coming right up. The silly corners one paints oneself into!

The roofers will install our skylights today, and receive some honey in exchange. Looks like a short sleep tonight, as I'll need to get up early to do many things that I didn't get done because I was rifling through receipts from 2003. *Sheesh*

Bee Prepared

A horrible pun for the title of this (retro)post, no doubt because I am a bit sleep deprived.

It was a surreal day today. And not only because it's the 12 year anniversary of Mom's death. After taking S. to school and going to the gym as usual, I made a call to our local public radio station's car donation phone line to start the coordination of donating "Big Blue," the diesel truck that has sat in front of the house, unused, for over a year - having been used only once or twice the year before. Then the rush to work, only to see that I'd missed a text from Christine, beekeeper extraordinaire, to say that she had my hive bottom ready to return, and it had a little something extra on it.

She'd made a split from one of her hives, and it was ready to go to its new home. Fortunately, I had everything I needed in my car already (hence the post title) except a strap to secure the box, bottom & top for travel. So I wrangled an extra hour for my lunch, rushed to OSH to buy tie-downs to supplement the painters tape she'd closed it with, rushed to her house(open the gate, drive up the hill, strap down the hive, load in car, open gate), drove like a grandmother home, and put it in its new place, opening it up right away so the poor things could have air. Then rushed back to work and finished the evening, helping patrons with a calm and professional demeanor, after having scrambled like a madwoman for the sake of the bees.

I got home around 9:45pm.

Then the search for the truck title began...

Weekend End

Around 8pm, I whine about being so tired, and not knowing why, and N. says, “Because you’ve been zipping around like a hummingbird on meth for days.”

There may be something to that, if I think of it. If I stop measuring by how much I didn’t get done this weekend and look instead at what I did do. [Here, gentle reader, you may skip to the next paragraph to avoid the dull list meant primarily as a reference for my future self when she thinks her life was empty or she lazy.] Dinner out (nice, but not demanding), repacked and hauled boxes of books and Christmas things up into the attic, vacuumed, did laundry (a daily task anyway) dismantled and scorched the empty bee hive boxes (a light touch with the hand torch to kill pathogens), weeded, went to a 2 hour beekeeper meeting, drove 20 miles to sit for an hour in the dentist’s chair to fix a little gap where food was getting stuck, walked the old college haunts, walked around the water with D., wrote, crushed and extracted some frames of honey, cleaned the chicken coop, drove S. to meet a friend for coffee, went back and forth to the house twice to assist with the extraction of a huge swarm, drove S. to rehearsal another 15 miles away…Okay. So maybe my sleepiness is a little justified.

Here are some pictures of the swarm I helped hive. It was in a bottlebrush tree in a mobile home park. My mentor (queen beekeeper extraordinaire, keeper of great beekeeping knowledge) did 98% of the work. I just watched and feathered excess bees and learned.

This is the swarm, large and heavy, in a bottlebrush bush.

My mentor taped 2 mediums together to make a deep for the new beekeepers who will receive this swarm. I ran home to get the hive bottom from my supplies.

Here are the bees on the top of the box, once we'd given the branch a few shakes to drop them down. We scooped the overflowing bees up to the top of the box using the short side of a primary turkey feather - one of a beekeeper's most helpful tools. 

A Meeting Attended, a Reunion Missed, and a Numb Mouth

Went to the Sonoma County Beekeeper Association's South Cluster's Bee Cafe today. (How's that for a mouthful?) Met with other "beekers" and spoke about swarms and splits, bee-buddies and mentors.
I got some good advice about what to do with my now-empty Margo hive, and how to monitor my booming Little Oak hive. I may do a dive into it tomorrow, weather and time permitting. There are new and not-yet beekeepers who would appreciate the experience. I may text them if I plan to do a dive. If I can get my yard ready for company in time, too. Ugh.

This weekend was a 30th anniversary college reunion at Dominican. Every year I think I should go. This year, I felt more certain I would, but even that would was 95% should. I even scheduled a dental appointment just a few blocks away so that it would compel me to be in the neighborhood. I thought I would drop in for an hour or so post-bee-cafe for the the ($20 at the door) beer garden and class photo. I thought of the two or three people it might be nice to see. I couldn't remember many others beyond the few writing majors I hung out with the most. But the closer I got to it, the more I thought there was no real argument strong enough to force myself to an expensive awkward situation that might lead to future "we should have coffee sometimes" dates with people I didn't really have that much in common with - then or now. I suppose this is a typical introvert's (and stingy person's) excuse.

But once I gave myself permission not to go, encouraged by my family, who know me well, I was hugely relieved. I did stop by after the dental appointment, with half my face feeling puffy and useless. I walked around the beautiful campus, remembering odd tidbits of my experiences there, thinking that if I ran into anyone, it would be synchronistic and significant. But the party was clearly over. There were tents containing folded tables and stacks of folded chairs in the lawn in front of Meadowlands. And virtually no one on campus. I skulked around the library and Guzman hall, and poked my head into a couple other buildings, feeling slightly melancholy but at peace in my solitude. And then I headed home.

D. and I went for a walk in the evening, and I did yard work after. I have so much to do before the back yard is what I think it could be. Much weeding and planting, and time for the planted things to become established. I am grateful that I enjoy the process as much as I do. 

So Far, So Good

Today was our 27th wedding anniversary.

D. started the day before work by stopping me from running around getting ready to say, "By the way. Today marks the anniversary of the best decision I ever made in my life."

What a sweetheart.

He continued, "Seriously. Not a day goes by that I'm not thankful." (Awwww.) "I think to myself, man, I am so glad that I bought that curved screen monitor." 

That's my guy.

We celebrated with dinner out (sushi). It was fairly late, because we both had worked all day. But it was a great start to the weekend. I'll give him another 27 or more, and then reassess. And we'll see if the curved screen monitor lasts that long. Huh!

Lunchtime Note

This is a lunchtime note, at work at the library, where books are honored, and we the custodians of them. Although that sounds laughingly pompous as I write it!

Yet, the people who work here all are readers. We have all lost ourselves, and, I’m willing to bet, have found ourselves, too, in books.

That’s what’s been happening to me for the last year. I am finding myself anew. 

There is a wonderful quote in that May Sarton journal (At Seventy). It comes early in the text. When asked why she loved being old, she quotes herself as replying spontaneously, “ ‘Because I am more myself than I have ever been. There is less conflict. I am happier, more balanced, and’ (I heard myself say rather aggressively) ‘more powerful.’ ”

I know just what you mean, May.

Go Slow

I am trying to be patient with myself, and not just...collapse...into "I can't" and "I'm done" at the end of the day. So after work, I had dinner then went to the gym, then asked myself why I feel so weighed down and burdened right now.

It may be the rejection note I received from my latest little foray into getting some poems published. I'm allowing that at some level, I may be feeling down about that. Or it may be that I've had too many nights with too little sleep in the last week or so.

All I can do to test my theory is sleep a bit more, write a bit more, send more out into the world - because there is a way in which publication is a numbers game, and I am too stingy with submissions. Or too lazy - and I can't expect acceptance letters from publishers who haven't even had the opportunity to read my work.

And in the meantime, I am just acknowledging that tonight, I feel heavy. And that's okay. I can still do a little bit. Better a little bit every day than giving up before I've even tried.

And in the meantime, because yesterday's post was a bit of a tease, here's a link to Odd Salon for those curious. It is really the most amazingly wonderful thing. What a way to learn weird things about history, architecture, art and science! I'm grateful to know a Fellow of the Odd Salon and to be able to get to an event every now and then.

Odd Salon!

N. and I just returned from attending Odd Salon, but as I am posting this on my phone, from the red stuffed chaise with Moira curled up next to me and my own eyes half-shut, the details will have to wait until tomorrow.

A Bit of Good News

I've been invited to read at the WordTemple series in Sebastopol next month! They usually open with a local poet, and then have a couple of rock stars for the main event. I'm so honored - and thrilled - to have been asked. I don't know yet with whom I'll be reading. More details to follow.

And in the meantime, I did turn in three offerings for my poetry group this morning. The others in the group are so extraordinarily talented and hard-working, I usually feel inadequate by comparison. But as the great Marvin Bell has been known to say, you don't learn how to bat by watching someone strike out.

Anything But Poetry

I have spent most of the day doing anything but work on the poems due today for my (soul-saving) poetry writers group. I spent my day gardening, and organizing boxes of things from the attic, and climbing up and down the attic's drop-down stairs, with its warning sign in Polish: "Uwaga!" cautioning me each direction. Then I took S. to orchestra rehearsal (5-9). Home so late. I ache from all the work of the weekend, and I would like nothing but to collapse.

But I'll stick it out a bit longer. I also started reading a May Sarton journal (begun the year she turned 70), and find myself wanting to quote May Sarton quoting other writers quoting other writers. I suppose if the lineage brings wisdom and comfort or insight or inspiration, why not? I didn't know Sarton before this. I think I shall like her.

And it's true, too, that all of these things (especially weeding before it rained and Sarton) were a type of poetry. work. Now the trick is to believe in myself enough to assemble three or four pieces for my dear and talented friends. When really, I'd just like a glass of wine, a hot bath, and more Sarton or perhaps Bradshaw. Anything but the thing I should be doing, which I feel incapable of doing well. Hence the dishes. And the laundry, first. And taking out the trash. And blogging.

Sarton, looking a bit like one of my grandmothers, in this picture: (photo by Don Cadoret)

Put a Fork in Me. I Have No More Spoons.

As in, I am done in and plum tuckered out again!

Just home from the swanky "Evening in Vienna" auction put on by the Symphony League to raise money for the Youth Orchestra's Europe tour. Helped set up, poured glass after glass of champagne and replenished the petit four tray, then cleared glass after glass, plate after plate, etc. The cleaning took until about 10:30pm. Approximately 175 guests, I believe.

So I've just enough in me to write this little note, with the expectation that tomorrow I can sleep in past 7am, catch my breath, write some more, help S. find that prom dress and maybe - just maybe - make it to a concert that I really don't want to miss, in spite of the expense.

Blame the IRS

This post is a day late, but I am backdating it. Thank you, Blogger, for letting me do so.

This year, for the first time in decades, we owe federal taxes. This is because of a necessary monetary shuffle. (Peter and Paul are both in the brink of bankruptcy, but we’ll survive.) I was having difficulty setting up a revised payment plan online – as it turns out, it’s because our original return payment plan status is pending, or the like – so I called the IRS, just days before taxes are due, expecting to wait before I could speak to someone.

After an hour on hold, my connection dropped.

I called back.

Two hours and ten minutes or so later, I reached a very kind and helpful agent (#10010etc.).

So we’re now all set.

The backstory is that while I was on hold, I left the house, picked up S. from school, took her shopping for prom dresses to multiple places (in thick commuter traffic, with the added distraction of making way for emergency vehicles), and had a phone with a dying battery and a charger that was barely working. It was comical….

(And here, I must pause, to go to work a day after all those events! I shall continue anon.)

This is Better

As a follow up, although there are downsides to working out in the evening (such as the crowd, and the lesser effect on changing metabolism, and having trouble falling asleep), I don’t require brain power for it in the same way I do writing in the morning. So until the day comes that I get up at 5am and do both writing and a workout before taking S. to school, I’ll be jostling the crowds at night. And writing – blessed writing! -  in the morning.

Yesterday, it rained heavily. For the first time in over a decade, D. didn’t care. We have an intact roof! No more bucket in the laundry room to catch that one leak. No more tarps covering the roof and preventing us from using the wood burning stove for heat – for fear of sparks. This sounds like an episode of Oregon Trail. But it’s not so dramatic as all that. It’s really first world problems, and in this case, first world solutions.  

Lesson Learned

So, now I see that when I go to the gym in the morning before work instead of writing,  the writing suffers.

Five Minute Musing

There is little of depth one can compose in five minute before rushing off to drop of a high school senior and spend a day in public service/social work at a downtown library. But even phrasing that sentence as I did tells a reader (tells me, myself, in this case, as I write it) about, if not certain predilections or points of view, than at least about the face I would want to show the world. Language does that. Diction, and flow, and voice. What one says. How one says it. I could spend five minutes ranting about the injustices in the world, were a different person. I could compose a sparse haiku. But instead, I combine a touch of philosophy with a little self-serving martyrdom and patting my own back, and then I go on to analyze it. Thus so much of my life is distilled. Perhaps nearly everything we do, in small ways, can be seen as metaphor for how we live our lives and who we are. Perhaps that's just the poet in me, thinking that.

Shake, Rattle, and Roof

Currently, it sounds like a herd of bighorn sheep with claw hammers are wreaking havoc above me. The roofers arrived at about 6:50am, and have been destroying the cheap roof (circa 1991) ever since. They’ve already found dry rot – we’re not surprised – and have explained that the way this roof was made, with skip under plywood (if I’m understanding this - I may need to correct it later in an erratum…) this house was more or less designed to rot from condensation in the summer. But so far, it hasn’t. They’ll put in ridge-line venting, but it won’t be able to vent – but this is something D. and the foreman, Nate, have discussed on my phone, while I orchestrated N. driving S. to school last minute. 

My biggest worry is that they not drop something on the beehive, and that the chickens stay as they have, in the other corner of the yard and well away from the open gate, until I leave for the day and pen them in. They will be loud and unhappy all day, so I am delaying that penning for a bit. I do wish I could stay home all day but I’m on the Children’s Desk at noon. 

The hammering, huge thumps, buzz of  blowers, and whine of saws continues, along with shouts in Spanish. I used my Spanish yesterday at the garage sale and this morning, too, although most of the roofing team speaks English better than I do Spanish, I suspect. This is most nerve-wracking for D., who has the territorial instincts of a Doberman, and N.’s cat, Sif, who is miserable. Moira, on the other hand, is keeping her post by the back sliding glass door, where she daily watches for – and sometimes stares down – the little field mouse that hides in the bale of straw we use for the chicken coop. Tango has resigned himself to misery in N.’s room. Between Saturday’s hauling of everything down for the attic and sorting for the garage sale, the hustle and bustle of the sale itself, and now this (bighorn sheep with power tools all over the roof), I think it would take puppy Prozac to cheer him up. On top of all that, he’d been taken to the pet store for a bath Saturday. Tough weekend for Mr. T. But he does smell better. 

I am writing because it’s either this, or nervously houseclean, or pace anxiously in the back yard near the bees. I’ll do the other things next. Writing first. Not real concentration, because I’m nervous too, but at least reportage of some kind.

Here's what's happening as of 20 minutes ago:

And here's what it looked like - to me, anyway - at around 7:30. I told D. significant, "They're digging in the wrong place!" which did make him smile, at least. Poor stressed-out man.