The Newest Addition

It was another good weekend of getting things done around the house. Saturday morning, I took the dog on a long early walk, got my hair done, took R. to riding lessons, took the girls to a birthday party, and then worked on the yard. I convinced the family that dinner out at a Chinese restaurant would be good, and it was. Sunday I worked on cleaning the house, ran to the store, and came home long enough to grab my things and go (late as usual!) to my writer's group BIC ("butt-in-chair") time at the Apple Box. Had about an hour of writing, got home to do more chores, R. had a friend over & I ended up staying up too late to squeeze every bit of the weekend out of the weekend that I could.

I've started again transcribing my maternal grandmother's oral history. Not sure how I'll finish in 2 weeks, but I'm going to try to mark the centennial of her birth by completing this project & sending the written work (approximately 120 estimated pages!) to my siblings and mother.

And the really big news - especially if you are my children - is that this evening, we added a new pet to our family. My husband has had understandable concerns about not contributing more chaos to our lives and so is adamant that another pet such as a cat or dog would be a bad, bad idea. However, some time ago, he agreed that if I were to get myself a small pet that could be contained in a cage, he would be okay with that.

So here's how it went down.

We were out of dog food.

I think I've mentioned before that a trip to the pet store with children is a dangerous thing. I prepared my kids by saying, "Now, we're going to the pet store, and we can look at the little pets, but we are NOT going to get anything."

We looked at the birds. Very nice. And then either because I was heeding the small quiet cry of Destiny or because I'm an idiot, I said, "Let's look at the rats!" And you know what? Neither of my kids said, "Gee, Mom, maybe we shouldn't. We're not going to get any new pets anyway, and looking at them will just make us want one."

Anyway, there was a little gate barricading us from the room with the rats in it, so either because I am intimately in tune with Fate or because I'm insane, I said to one of the sales clerks, "Could we please look at the rats?"

And the whole time, I'm telling myself, "You're just looking."

This is how people end up driving fully loaded Lincoln Towncars off the lot. I'm sure of it.

The little VOICE OF TEMPTATION AND THE CAPITALIST PIG AMERICAN WAY OF LIFE devil on my shoulder was whispering, "Well, maybe if they have a female and she's young, and not the curly hair variety, and if she looks like she has a good disposition... D. did say you could get a rat. And you haven't had one for about 15 years and you deserve to have a rat if you want to. You're a good human being. You're responsible. You'll take care of it. It can be a Writer's Rat and sit on your shoulder while you compose poems that Billy Collins will read! It will keep you company while you stay up late learning Japanese or transcribing those tapes!"

And at the same time, the VOICE OF REASON, ENVIRONMENTAL RESPONSIBILITY, AND STRENGTH OF WILL was quietly saying, "But you can't anyway because it would be stupid and you told the kids you wouldn't and you shouldn't do anything to make you look like a liar or be inconsistent with them. Besides, it's bad timing to get a pet because you're going out of town so it would be one more thing to have to organize with the babysitter. And what if the dog wants to eat it? It'll cost a lot of money. And didn't you say you'd get a pet from a shelter? How can you get a baby rat from an overpriced pet store while meanwhile perfectly sweet adult rats are being put to sleep at shelters because no one will take them? What kind of message are you giving your daughters? What kind of impulsive person are you? Are you crazy? What if D. only says he doesn't care, but a month from now he moves to Tahiti with a cute little brunette named Bambi and in his parting note to you he says, "I would have stuck it out with you if it weren't for that rat." ?

There was one female in the litter. She was very sweet. She had been handled by people since her eyes opened, and you could tell she'd been handled gently.

We put her back. We bought our dog food. We left the store.

S. was saying, "I want a rat! Please can I have a rat? Please?" and R., bless her heart, said, "Maybe when Mom gets back from her trip, okay?" and then she did a silly pratfall to make S. laugh - even though I knew that R. wanted that rat as much as I did, and that I did as much as S. did. The devil on my shoulder was having the same tantrum S. was having, and the little voice of reason angel was being so damn self-righteous and smug it made me hate myself.

We drove home. The pet store closed in 25 minutes. I knew this because I'd asked what time they closed. I called D. He stayed neutral, but when I said it seemed like a silly expense, he pointed out that we already had containers to house the rat & that money shouldn't be the thing that decided it for me. But he let me decide. I paced, talking to him out of earshot of the kids, who had already let it go. I checked out the acrylic tank we had to put the rat in. I looked at where it might go in the office. Metaphorically speaking, a scuffle broke out on my shoulders between the warring factions. Then, 15 minutes before the store closed, I gagged the angel of reason and said to the girls, "Well, you'd better get your shoes on and get to the car if you want to get that rat!"

They didn't really need their shoes on. Their feet didn't touch the ground between when we left the house and when they went to bed.

Winey post

Brutal, brutal day at work, followed by a couple of hours with the kids and then a party for a coworker who just got married. I'm home and it's not yet 10pm but feels like midnight.

I have a couple of glasses of red wine in me, so I'm relaxed and a little dopey (but not, of course, too dopey to have driven home from the party). I should think of it as the weekend starting early, although I have plenty more on my to-do list to do before Saturday morning really comes. Danged to-do list.

It's probably dangerous to post anything that I think is important at the moment, because it's likely to be highly influenced by the wine.

I'm not a mean drunk. I am a garrulous gluttonous drunk. I have a very low tolerance for alcohol. One glass of wine gets me a little dizzy and unable to move my eyes fast enough to keep up with my head when I turn it. But I talk. And eat. Two glasses of wine makes me downright silly while I talk and eat more. (But I drove home okay. Really.) I don't drink often. Also, if I drink alone, I'm a very paranoid drunk. The world seems a hostile place; alcohol opens doors in the fences in my brain where I keep the demons at bay. I'm not talking about some sort of metaphoric guilty conscience or bad memories. Or wait. Maybe I am. But mostly, I'm talking about drinking wine or a hard cider alone at night and then having the conviction that there are local hooligans or drugged-out neighbors or kitchen knives possessed by the force of evil, and whatever goodness and light I harbor may not be enough to fight them off.

This is where I say that:
A) I'm part of that generation of 30-something who saw Rosemary's Baby and The Exorcist and Amyteville Horror and The Omen at way, way too impressionable an age. It would have been better if I hadn't seen such things until I was older - somewhere around two or three years after NEVER.

and

B) Here are 10 things I would rather think about (and perhaps therefore give power to) than the above bad stuff:

1) finding what's been lost (two 8mm video tapes D. & I had torn up the house looking for, which showed up among my grandmother's oral history tapes, safe & sound)

2) my 10 year old wanting to wear a special hand-made frock from the Czech Republic tomorrow for a field trip to the local "Ag Day" because that's short for "Agricultural Day" and the dress if from another culture. (This after I've tried to trick her into wearing it for 3 family holidays to no avail). I'm glad she'll wear it. She'll probably get cow dung on the Eastern European cross stitch, but she'll be wearing it.

3) my 5 year old's conversations with all her toys in the bathtub

4) the lavender I planted in the front yard

5) red wine :)

6) mnemonics. Here are some of the many I've developed for learning Japanese:
-the word for "not yet" sounds like murder ("mada"), as in "I hope that murder is something that I will always be able to say I have not yet done."
-the word for "good night" ("Oyasumi nasai") starts with "Oh yeah!" as in "oh yeah, that's how it starts. Silly, but it works.
-one of the words for seven is "nana" and my Nana has passed away and is therefore somwhere that rhymes with seven
-"to leave behind" is "nokoshimasu" and when we go to Japan we will leave the kids behind. Kids in Japanese is "kodomo" (I just remember that one), and so I think "no" they're not with us "ko" short for "kodomo" and "shi" which is pronounced like the English "she." Our kids are girls ("she" not "he") so to leave behind is no-ko-shi with the usual "-masu" ending. Long and involved, but it works.

7) good poetry

8) good chemistry

9) Autumn will come every year whether I'm here to see it or not

10) I'm currently here to see it.

Sept. 18, 2004

My goal to write daily has been met so far. Thursday was the blog, of course. Friday I took the day off work in part to go to a workshop led by Ellen Bass. It was a inspiring workshop, and she is a good poet and a good person - gentle and thoughtful, but also with a sharp wit and keen ability as a teacher. She teaches creative writing in Santa Cruz, and apparently has done so since 1974. She spoke about "The Poem of the Moment," and she gave us some examples. She also had each of us try to start such a poem our own, at the end of the workshop. There were so many people in the room, about a dozen of us were sitting on the floor. I had a corner of a table to kneel at while I wrote.

I wrote a poem about telling R. about menstruation (the event itself is recorded in my 7/21/04 blog entry). And I was one of a few people who read their poems to the group. People laughed loudly at the right spots, which was gratifying. And Ellen said "Good work," among other nice things. But better than everyone's reaction was the fact that I wrote something new, and with some more work, I can add it to my collection of poems that are about life in general. (The other poems are about, or inspired by, role-playing games). And Ellen provided me with another look at what happens if you write poetry and send it out into the world and try to improve. I wouldn't mind having the awards and grants and recognition and publications under my belt that she has under hers. I have about twenty years to get there, I figure. "Lord willing and the creeks don't rise."

I also finished reading my neighbor's novel and wrote up a critique and got it all back to her (500+ pages of her double-space manuscript and 4 single-spaced pages of my comments and observations and suggestions). Phew! Glad to have fulfilled that obligation.

And I got a good start on cleaning out the house one corner at a time. Worked on our closet tonight. Threw out such things as the empty jacket for Heart's Little Queen LP and a slew of old AAA travel magazines. If we want to go somewhere, we'll look it up online.

I had thought I would go to bed but got a second wind. This after a day of running errands, horse-back riding lessons for R., a party for 3 hours and digging in the adobe for another 2 hours. I just feel energized. Or maybe the word I'm looking for is "manic."

(But at any rate, Clare, you'll be happy to know that I'm living more and more outside of my mind and in the present, where it's oh-so-nice to be.)

Here's a link to an Ellen Bass poem about praying in everything you do. K & B, please note the reference to riding the bus. You see how riding the bus really is very important in the whole scheme of things. It is not necessary to make fun of certain role-playing characters for liking to take public transportation. Public transportation is cool.

End of random thoughts for the day. I also worked on the new poem, earlier, and updated my "fitness" blog, so I met my goal again today.

Sept. 16, 2004

D's 40th birthday. We went out to dinner - sushi, of course. I just spent the last hour working on a poem. D. is playing Parasite Eve and having a birthday hot chocolate.

I believe 9pm - 10pm will have to be my set writing time, although again (working on the poem) I fell asleep with my fingers on the keyboard. Repeatedly.

Time for some zzzzz's. But here's the poem - rewritten for the 5th time, originally composed around June 1998, and maybe still not quite there!



McClure's Beach

We walked the length of it
until rocks checked our progress, and wind
had crusted our hair with salty grit.
Then we turned and trudged back,
once more past kelp that had been coughed up
in cold tangles by the waves.

Our daughter was tired but too tired to know it.
She kicked when I carried her, went limp
in the sand when I put her down to walk.
I thought the steep hill to the gravel lot
was all we had left to conquer.
But at a stream flowing thinly into the sea,
my husband stopped, announced:
"I've got to do it."

No sticks at hand, he used his boots
to crumble and crush the shallow banks
and smudge lines it had taken gravity and tide
uncounted hours to make. He found rocks,
lay them in the water to displace the hapless stream.
Our child whined and tugged at me;
both of us dismayed
by his need to redefine the land's borders
to change courses to the sea.

Slide

There’s been nothing huge in my life that has kept me from blogging. I just stopped making it a priority for a week. And look what happened. Slide, slide, slide. I’m not beating myself up. I’m making an observation. Writing is long-term important to me, and I don’t want to drop it for other things that are important for the moment. The damn laundry can wait another half hour. The kids’ dinner can’t, but the laundry can. For example.

About two years ago, I went to a sales training seminar through work. It was a frightening experience. It could have been worse, I suppose. But it was bad enough. There was much talk about MOTIVATION!! and SETTING GOALS!! and GETTING THE CUSTOMER TO SAY YES!! - that sort of thing.

What I took away from it – besides a renewed conviction that I’m not a sales person at heart – is the understanding that I could fake it if I have to, and the realization that what I learned could be applied to different areas in my life. So I have set goals and have seen them attained. Being a published poet. Running a marathon (I’ve run 2 half marathons – does that count?). Getting a new car. All have happened since I went to that seminar. I have also become closer to my family – another goal I set at the time.

So I’m going to make a new goal that I feel I can keep. The goal is this:

WRITE EVERY DAY.

Wow! What a unique idea! However, self-mockery aside, 9/15/2004 is as good a day as any to start. In fact, if every day I said, “I’m going to write every day!” and every day I did it, that would work, wouldn’t it? It works for recovering alcoholics to take it one day at a time.

Maybe my daily writing won't be a blog entry, but certainly it will be fiction or poetry or journaling in earnest. Not “today had tea with the Smiths” diary entries. Real journals, like the blog is able to be. I think I’ll add long and well-written letters (not email) to the list of qualifying writing, too.

I’m beating Julia to it and daring myself. And anyone reading this is my witness.

What this means, of course, is that I must honestly MAKE TIME to write. Ideally the same time every day, but I won’t worry too much about that right now.

I bought a beautiful little journal to write in when I’m in Japan next month. I can’t wait to fill it up.

Sept. 7th, 2004

A good, long weekend. The girls and I went to a "soup party" Friday night at a friend's house. She put on a pot of soup and the guests provided bread and wine. All the kids there played like sweaty rabid animals. At one point, another mom and I were watching the pack of them race around screaming, and she said with calm consideration, "You know, it's really like Lord of the Flies." And I nodded and said, "Yes. That's what it reminds me of."

Saturday R. had a riding lesson and then a slumber party and S. and D. and I did some shopping at a Macy's - a real department store - something I haven't done in years. I'm so used to going the cheaper route. But fortunately, no one was playing a piano by the escalator. I have a REAL problem with grand pianos in department stores. They make me laugh uncontrollably. Even though I'm sure it offends the pianist, I can't stop myself. It's just somehow so wrong. Wrong wrong wrong. Am I the only one who feels this way?

I'll try to put into words what's wrong about this. Certainly, part of it is the seriousness with which the businesses take themselves. But beyond that, it's like Nordstroms (or whoever) is saying, "Here. Please spend lots of money at our store. We'll entertain you with classy live music so you can feel like it's a privilege or some kind of culturally enlightening experience to part with your paycheck for clothes that you don't need made for pennies by third-world workers under horrible conditions. You can listen to a little Chopin while you propagate inequality. And by the way, that color looks great on you."

Okay. I'm off that soapbox. Thanks for listening. As I was saying: we made it out of Macy's with the purchases we needed. I had a moderate case of consumerism. But I got better.

Sunday I went for a long run with the dog - well, as long as he could handle it - after 3 miles, the poor thing had to feign a lame back right leg to get me to just walk, for heaven's sake. I guess a fur coat in 120 degree temperature is a little bit of a challenge, even if you're part sled dog.

I got R. from the slumber party, stopped at the grocery store, and got home with just enough time to turn around again and get the babysitter so D. & I could go to a swanky wedding in the Rotunda at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco. It was pretty magical: we were early. We found free parking. We were dressed appropriately. We found the reception just fine (at the Golden Gate Club at the Presidio) and the parking was also free there. The bride and groom were as happy as could be. The food was wonderful, the company was pleasant, and the weather was perfect. Scary.

Monday I slept late and spent some writing time downtown with the writer's group, then D. went off to game and the girls and I spent the rest of the afternoon into the night moving S. back to the room that used to be hers and had become the playroom. This meant moving large pieces of furniture in the 120 degree heat, and a thorough re-examination and R&D testing by the girls of every rediscovered toy under said furniture. I finished everything except the dishes, read half of my neighbor's novel copy, and slept.

Must now look at what I'll bring to our writer's group meeting tomorrow. Another very positive bit of news - just got an email from the editor of the American Poetry Journal asking if he could include another one of my poems in the next issue. Golly. This is a good thing. I said yes. I'm more pleased with this one than the last one he published, but I'm really tickled pink that the last one wasn't just a once-in-a-lifetime thing. Hooray!

Sept. 3, 2004

So I missed a couple of days of blogging and reading blogs. I'm still trying to shake strep, and have followed my traditional pattern of doing too much too soon and suffering the consequences. Plus, apparently the penicillin didn't do diddly against the tough little bacteria I'm hosting. Yesterday, I was put on another antibiotic. Should see results soonish. I hope! I look forward to the day when I can swallow without wincing or even noticing I'm swallowing. Once again, I'm in awe of people who go through life with chronic illnesses and maintain a positive attitude.

Please note that I have added a link to Clare's blog. I highly recommend a visit there. Clare is a deep thinker and a great friend – and she manages to write while mothering twin one-year-olds and 5 year old. True, she’s not home-schooling seven children but it’s close. (Thanks to Julia – another blogger you should read – for the link).

August 31, 2004

While I did not complete and send out my chapbook manuscript, I did compile the poems I'd like to put into that first chapbook. And I put together and sent out 5 poems to a reputable national poetry journal. I dropped them off in the post office slot at 9:50pm. Phew.

In the meantime, I see my work as so doggone juvenile, limited and/or self-indulgent. This is not me fishing. This is me saying I need to read more, broaden my vocabulary and subject matter, extend my voice and lengthen but tighten my poems. I don't think I'll get too obscure and academic and intentionally inaccessible, but I do need to move closer to something that can hold its own among the well-known poets in the country today. And dang, there are a LOT of those!

I realize this sounds awfully egotistical, the thought that I could reach that level. But if I don't believe my poetry will ever afford me a reputation and respect among peers, what are the chances that it will all on its own, without me thinking it could happen?

Tired, now. Still suffering from strep (can feel it at night), and last night I didn't really sleep. I played the "I'll set the alarm for an hour from now and get up and write" game from 11pm-2am. After D. got home, I told myself I'd get up at 4:30am and write. Then it was 5. Then I barely made it to work on time after all. So tonight, I'll try for a full (or almost full) 6 hours of sleep.

August 29, 2004

I turned 38 yesterday. The first thing I did was sleep past 7:30am. Then I roused myself and went out to get a latte and a haircut. I came back from the haircut to learn that the hospital had called to say that I have strep throat. So mid-day, I ran up to the hospital pharmacy and got antibiotics.

Later, I picked up a babysitter and D. and I went out to dinner. We tried a new sushi joint. Very nice. Afterwards, we walked downtown and browsed in the local bookstore together. We haven't just wandered and browsed like that in a long time. Wandering and browsing is what cows and horses and the gatherer contingent of the hunter/gatherer tribes do. We are usually more the racing and collapsing types. Or I am, anyway. D. actually has a great gift for relaxing. I could learn from him. If I stopped in one place long enough.

But the birthday was peaceful. I hung out, I napped. I did little. It was good.

And today was good, too. Slept even later. Did very little until I met the writer's group for coffee and butt-in-chair writing time. Still working on the poems. Deciding which to send out in a chapbook, and to whom, and when.

Something will go out by the end of the month - Tuesday! - anyway.

Birthday Eve

I didn't post last night because I couldn't swallow without the kind of pain that made me long for the good old days of childbirth. I'm better this morning, but since I've had this sore throat off and on for a couple of weeks with really no other cold-like symptoms and no fever, I guess I'll call the doctor and have them stick a giant q-tip down my gullet to see what's going on. The no-fever symptom doesn't really count for much in my book because I usually run below normal.

(Unlike my husband, who always runs a temp. slightly above normal, and for a while was able to trick school nurses into calling his mom and sending him home.)

I'm at work, and must catch up - so no greater note than this for now. It's my last day as a 37 year old. Puts me in mind of this Bill Collins poem:


On Turning Ten

The whole idea of it makes me feel
like I'm coming down with something,
something worse than any stomach ache
or the headaches I get from reading in bad light--
a kind of measles of the spirit,
a mumps of the psyche,
a disfiguring chicken pox of the soul.

You tell me it is too early to be looking back,
but that is because you have forgotten
the perfect simplicity of being one
and the beautiful complexity introduced by two.
But I can lie on my bed and remember every digit.
At four I was an Arabian wizard.
I could make myself invisible
by drinking a glass of milk a certain way.
At seven I was a soldier, at nine a prince.

But now I am mostly at the window
watching the late afternoon light.
Back then it never fell so solemnly
against the side of my tree house,
and my bicycle never leaned against the garage
as it does today,
all the dark blue speed drained out of it.

This is the beginning of sadness, I say to myself,
as I walk through the universe in my sneakers.
It is time to say good-bye to my imaginary friends,
time to turn the first big number.

It seems only yesterday I used to believe
there was nothing under my skin but light.
If you cut me I could shine.
But now when I fall upon the sidewalks of life,
I skin my knees. I bleed.

-- Billy Collins

Welcome Clare

I'm happy to see that Clare has JOINED US and is now blogging. Mwah-ha-ha! There's no stopping The Blog now. It will encompass the whole world -- or The Whole Entire World as Julia's heroic character would say (as in, "I have to save the whole entire world!")

Thank God as much as my job may demand of me - even on my "vacation days" (when I had 4-7 pages or calls a day), at least I don't have to save the world. As Sarah Connor put it, "Do I look like the mother of the future? I mean, am I tough, organized? I can't even balance my checkbook!"

The girls survived their first day of school. And I'm happy to report that so did their teachers. R's class of 18 has 11 BOYS. I want you to imagine instructing a drunk baker's shy-by-one dozen boys between the ages of 9 and 11. Okay, now stop. You should see your face.

And it's not like the girls in the class are sweet quiet demure little things. They can hold their own. They are tough, healthy girls. The kind that are pretty but dangerous. Yeah. That kind.

S.'s Kindergarten consists of playing, singing, hearing a story, playing, taking a walk, and playing. Except that it's a survivalist kind of playing. They have as toys things like metal shovels and a water pump. They will be carding wool tomorrow to sew into a pillow. I asked S. what they did today and she said with great excitement, "I got to wash my own dishes!"

I think the school will be good for me...er, for her.

August 24, 2004

Today was a wholly domestic day. I am tired but feel pretty good about what I accomplished, especially considering I didn't get dressed until after 10am.

By then I'd already taken 2 calls from work and had done a number of chores including getting the girls fed & ready to face a day of shopping for school and other school-starts-tomorrow type activities.

Did I mention that school starts tomorrow?

Both children will be in the same school, only a mile from our house. S. will be in Kindergarten. R. will be in 4th grade. I know I'm more excited about it than they are. Even as tired as I am.

I stayed up late sewing a little apron for S., according to the teacher's cryptic written instructions to all Kindergarten parents. (I pity anyone who attempted it who hasn't sewed much before. ) One side will be worn facing out during cooking, and the other during art. This is a Waldorf-inspired school, after all. With two years of kindergarten and no reading this first year. Although we're working on that at home anyway.

The girls have new lunch boxes, new shoes and some new clothes. They worked together to make their lunches this afternoon, after we got back from a massive Costco trip that it will take me a month to pay off. Good think I bought a month's worth of groceries. Or thereabouts.

Tomorrow I am taking the day off again, and there's the potential (if I get fewer work calls than I did today) that I'll have about 2 hours to work on my poetry.

My current goal: entering a chapbook competition. The postmark deadline is the end of the month. I have the poems - enough, I think. But I need to decide which to use and put them all together. And post some of my newer ones to the lists I belong to for critiques.

On another note, I started to learn Hiragana today. We leave for Japan in 8 and a half weeks. I'm starting to dream about having incomprehensible conversations with Japanese people. In my dreams, I don't understand what I'm saying to them.
And neither do they.

Singing Suzanne's Praises

Suzanne, who is in my writer's group, is tall and graceful, with beautiful long red hair.

She is witty. She is compassionate.

She is smart and kind. She is generous.

She writes things that are clever and insightful.

She once wrote a great essay about the pain of being labeled "average."

She is NOT average.

August 22, 2004

Tomorrow my daughters and I will leave at 6am and I'll drive us north, and home. The plan is to get back home in time to prepare for a Writer's Group meeting.

Okay. So I can't create a 25th hour in the day. And I am still not much good for anything after 10pm. But I can try to write. Even with the friggin' Olympics on in the same room. Right? Yeah, right. I mean "write."

August 21, 2004

I am back in Hemet. I have just had my first professional massage. It's a wonder I can type. My sister, who is the Southern representative of the "Let's drag Rebecca into the world of self-indulgence for her own good" Committee, lined up a day of massages for myself and 3 other friends.

My sister has had hundreds of massages, but this masseur apparently has spoiled her for anyone else. The technique he used with me is Hawaiian.

I found this quote about Hawaiian massage: "There is a sublime awareness that every cell of the body and aspect of consciousness suddenly becomes totally and completely filled with the presence of life force Intelligence, in an ever-vibrant stream of love, beauty, delight and goodness. Intelligence offers conclusive knowing that “I Am This Life” and “I Am One Being, Complete and Whole.” The contrivances and facades of self-image become transparent and unimportant. In its place, a wonderful and triumphant remembrance of true Self-identity emerges and fills one’s entire universe."

Uh.

That wasn't the exact method he was using.

But it was good anyway - even in spite of the fact that I was completely naked except for the hand towel / tucked in sheet that covered only what a small bikini would cover. I'm still modest to the point of prudishness, so to be so exposed (even to a professional) and try at the same time to completely relax was a challenge to say the least.

The method he did use, Lomi Lomi, is Hawaiian for "Make the client think you have 8 hands." Apparently, the idea is to reconnect all the disjointed parts of the body by rubbing them all at once in sweeping waves with the forearms and elbows and all 8 hands. This is unlike other methods of massage that compartmentalize the body into pieces as though they had nothing to do with one another.

I am now one happy intact body, with olive oil in my hair.

And all is well with the world. Everything is good. Anything that is not good is still good. It will all work out just fine.

Thanks, too, to the supportive comments to yesterday's post. They help just as much as the massage. And I didn't have to drink gallons of water after them.

August 20, 2004

I’ve spent the last two days fighting this feeling of being defeated.
Defeated about all sorts of things, but one of the biggies is not having (not MAKING) the time to sit down and write.

In a draft for this post, I whined and complained about how hard my life is. Now I’m much better and I can say only that something has to change. D. and I stayed up very late talking about all sorts of things (which was really important for us to do), including the fact that I HAVE to figure out a set time/day for myself. Alone. Without the kids. By myself. Alone.

You moms out there reading this understand what I’m saying. And I should count my work time as alone time, but really, all day at work I’m at the beck and call of 2-10 people at any given time – needy coworkers (anyone reading this is excluded from that comment) and needy customers.

I like to be needed. I like to help. I like to do my work well. It’s just not relaxing, quiet time, though – is it?

Oops. I thought I’d gotten all the self-pity out of my system. Nope. Guess not.

I’m better now.
Thanks for the read.

August 17, 2004

I have officially broken my blogging streak, but I'm not going to let that stop me from getting back on the write-everyday horse.

The flight home Sunday night was delayed by three and a half hours, so I didn't get home until 1am. Knowing I had to be at work at 6am, I just couldn't blog. I am weak. And then last night I chose sleeping over writing. Again.

The delay at the airport was a good thing, though. I love hanging out at airports and watching the people. I think about why they're traveling, where they're going, who's waiting for them at the other end. Or who isn't. And why not. I love the power of the planes taking off and landing, the over-priced gift shops, the food joints with people reading or working on laptops while they eat. There are people with tattoos, dressed in crumpled ill-fitting clothes, and people wearing the best suits. Some dress for comfort, some still dress especially well for travel.

I even enjoy studying how people respond to the new security measures. The men who protest about taking off their shoes, the mothers trying to juggle four children and all the little bits and pieces that go with them: blankets, dolls, gameboys, books, pillows, snacks, drinks.

I’m much more alert at airports than I used to be. I evaluate people more for hidden motives. I decide who is an undercover Federal Air Marshall (or who is IS, Kate). I try to avoid racism, but it’s hard not to give an extra glance to a young middle-eastern man traveling alone who looks nervous. Then I think, “I’d look nervous too if everyone in the airport were scrutinizing me.”

On a completely different note, today my older brother is 44 years old. My oldest brother turned 45 at the end of July, and my sister turned 36 a week ago. I'm next in the line-up. I used to joke that by the time they got to me, my parents were out of money for birthday presents.

August 14, 2004

I'm at my mother's house in Hemet, California. I've called this town the mobile home capital of the West, but I may have to change my opinion of it. Last night, my mother & sister gave me a tour of the newly opened Club House and facilities at the housing development where my mom lives. It's downright palatal. It's like a Palm Springs resort, only a tad cooler.

There's a marble-tiled high-ceilinged lounge with an enormous fireplace, a bistro area, a massive ballroom, a billiards room, a library, a gym with top-of-the-line equipment, and a game room. I think the idea for the last room is poker or chess, but the way I think, I see "Game Room" and I picture four or five wrinkled, stooped octogenarian sitting around with cranberry juice and goldfish crackers at midnight croaking things to one another like, "Okay, so you see this manor house guarded by three Orcs. What do you do, Violet?" "I pull out my broadsword and charge the place, Vernon!"

My favorite perk here is the Theater. It's a private movie theater with a big screen and a DVD player. Every seat is an extremely comfortable stuffed chair with a cup holder built into the right armrest. They show a different movie every week (this week it's "I am Sam"), but if no one is using the room, you can bring your own DVD and have a private screening. Between this theater and the incredible palm-tree surrounded courtyard, state-of-the-art BBQs and huge swimming pool, I'm thinking this is the place to be if you're 55 or older and don't mind living in Hemet. The hot tub is nice too. I estimate you can fit about thirty-two well-sized senior citizens in it easily. Some people's built-in backyard pools are smaller.

Today we slept late, had home-made eggs Florentine and coffee for breakfast (after I did a short jog), and then I payed my bills and we swam. For lunch, we had Chinese food. It had a very soporific effect. My sister and I napped. My mother played solitaire on her computer, and my daughter read all of Espiranza Rising.

I think the three of them are watching the Olympics now. Television, which does not exist as a medium in our house, has already cast its evil spell on R. Maybe I'll blog about WHY I HATE TV (by a former addict) soon.

On a lighter note, Spellcheck has once again brightened my day with its highly-evolved sense of humor. I just quickly checked this post, and I knew I'd said "yes" to fixing something I didn't mean to fix, so I reviewed once again.

I'm glad I did. I wouldn't want word to get out that the Four Seasons at Hemet has "a bigotry area" instead of a Bistro.

August 13, 2004

This weekend R. and I are flying to visit my mom and sister in Southern California. I'll leave R. there for a week with Grandma then will drive down next weekend with S. to spend a few more days and head north again before they start school. The summer is almost over. S. will have one more week of preschool and then we will have reached the milestone of having both kids in elementary school. At the same school. Dropped off at the same place, at the same time M-F.

Kindergarten is half-day. We have no idea where S. will go for after-school care. I might even have to line up baby-sitters at first. This may seem amazingly irresponsible of me - not having this figured out yet - but it is dependent in part on the other Kindergarten parents at our Charter School who are trying to organize a co-op or hire someone to do on-site afterschool care. This is one responsibility I'm not stepping up to take hold of. Yet.

The charter school, although good in many ways, is notorious for its poor communication skills. I could tell lots of stories to illustrate this, but it wouldn't be charitable. And I have other, better stories to work on anyway...

August 12, 2004

This year marks the centennial of my maternal grandmother's birth.

Allison Dorsey Hale Fadeley was born October 13, 1904 and died July 14, 1996. She was my mother's mother, the relative with whom I was closest. We shared a love of books, of education and English comedy, of coffee, and sour dough toast with red current jelly. I still miss her terribly.

The last few years she was alive, her sight was very poor due to macular degeneration. I would come to her house about once a week and help her with her bills and writing checks for charity (she was quite a philanthropist). We would talk about religion and politics and biographies and the day-to-day annoyances that came with growing older.

After her vision failed, Nana’s hunger for books had to be satisfied by books on tape and by me reading to her. She had me read the entire Mapp and Lucia series by E.F. Benson. She also had me tape myself reading it so she could listen to it while I was gone. So I have something like 30 tapes of me reading books to my grandmother. The tapes also captured her coughing, the long-dead dog’s tags clinking together while he scratched himself, and us laughing at the story and making random comments to one another. It’s a strange thing.

I also have her last driver’s license and her tax returns from the 1930’s, and pictures of her in front of a little plane she flew in sometime around 1920. I have cards and letters from the many close friends she had all over the country, and tapes from an oral history she and I worked on.

I’m transcribing the tapes. I hope to put them on paper and print it out for my mother and brothers and sister in time for the 100 year anniversary of her birth. Maybe later a fuller biography will come, but for now, setting down what she had to say about her life is enough.

August 10, 2004

Is there some reason that we can't all wear sari's and salwar kameez if we want to?

The day I gather my courage and buy such an outfit and wear it, I will be declaring independence from the opinions of others. Some of you may already not give a fig about what other people say, but I am not so thick-skinned or self-confident.

Indian clothes are beautiful, and practical and comfortable. (I think.)

And I know I should be able to wear what I want without caring, but I'm just not quite there yet.

I'm working on it.

When you see me in a sari, you'll know I've arrived.

August 9, 2004

I'm trying to feel no pressure to be brilliant, witty and insightful just because the people I care most about in the world (and whose opinion I value most highly) are reading this blog. This should help get the pressure out of my system: blah blah blah. There.

(I'm really writing this Tuesday mid-morning from work, in between telling people we can save their RAID arrays but that it will cost them over $20,000. And I must quit and post.)

August 8, 2004

All the extra sleep I got last night is now wasted and I'm going to start the week in a deficit again, but it was fun to stay up and watch Wasabi one more time. Without subtitles, so I had to work hard on both my French and Japanese.

We finished the gravel for the courtyard today. Or at least, everything we could without figuring out the fountain and a few other details.

D.'s mom came up for a while and told some very interesting stories about growing up in France and why her mother and older sister stopped speaking to one another. Family history. You gotta love it.

Who just tried to call me 15 minutes ago, though? Hmmm.....
You can try again, but I am going to bed now. Really.

August 7, 2004

Today after R. had her riding lessons and I picked up S. from a playdate, we went next door and met our neighbor's friends from Montreal and swam and chatted. They are nice people, kind people who are bright and friendly and have a good sense of humor. To see a couple who obviously love one another and their children, and to see them play with their children (two girls, 11 and 13) is very refreshing. It reminded me again of what I want with my family.

Tonight the local gym hosted a Parent's Night Out. For $25, we were able to take the kids to play in a fun safe environment from 6:50-10:20pm while we had a chance to be alone together. (With the added benefit that I didn't have to clean the house for a babysitter.)

Dan and I were able to talk about what's working and what's not working in our lives, and we had a good sushi dinner to boot. The girls came home exhausted.

August 6, 2004

Here's how you'll know I'm cheating: the time of this post is 11:59pm 8/6/04, which means I really am posting early morning 8/7/04.

What would I do without the Writer's Group? So nice to have accountability and an ear and two other sets of eyes, and so nice to hear other writers' work develop.

J. - good luck with the book treatment!
S. - good luck with contacting the PD!
(Go ladies, go!)

I, in the meantime (who am strung out on decaf mochas and on too much talking about myself) will research the market, work on short stories, work on poems - chapbook competition, deadline the end of this month - and in general try to stay focused (focus, Julia) on my work.

I have a drawer of rejection letters, but they're old. At the very least, I should update my collection of no-thank-you's from editors. Things don't get published if they sit in a drawer, and certainly they don't get published if they are never brought to fruition by busily typing fingers.

August 5, 2004

Can't post. Busy writing. Falling asleep too, but still trying at any rate to work. Perhaps I could wake myself up by writing about whale cheese, but it's hard to say, so for now, I'm sticking to the story I'm working on.

But I'm asleep. The nonsense words are starting to come. For example, if you skip past continents to Icleland-ica, the grease on the tire iron will shadow the pyramid under your breeze. See? I'm friggin' asleep, I tell you. The above was not some witty example of how I might sound while asleep. It's the real scary thing.

Maybe I can get up at 4 and write.....?

And the cry went up: "Whale Cheese!"

August 4, 2004

It's late again. The night sneaks up on me, daily catches me out.

I honestly think I need two days. One for work and family, and one for me. For writing and walking or running or just cleaning out my wallet. I mean, how many receipts can one keep?

Here's another neurosis I'll expose: I used to keep my Safeway grocery receipts so I could make a log of money spent on groceries per month. I long ago stopped that practice, but now I keep the receipts in my purse so I can take them home and recycle them. Because they're paper. And because I don't want to believe Penn & Teller's Bullsh**t episode about how recycling really does the planet no good. However, since the Safeway receipts also have my name on them, before I put them in my recycle pile, I rip out the part of the receipt that has my name. And that part goes into our little garbage bin of paper to be shredded.

I think of the "to be shredded" bin (really a nice wooden box D. made years ago) as a temporary pile, but in reality, I rarely take care of it, so it's the place any savvy identity thief should go directly to for easy criminal convenience since it contains a ton of personal information like account numbers on receipts and our signatures.

So another thing I could do in my second daily day would be shred that stuff.

HOWEVER

Since I do not have the luxury of two days per day, and since (as I've already pointed out), I don't like to spend too much time window shopping when I can't buy the item in question, less whining is called for.

And, as I'm just starting to see (thanks to Clare for the book that points this out), less thinking is what's really required.

I have a very very noisy brain. And an interesting personal relationship with the snooze alarm, too. I am the only one this happens to? Because the snooze alarm goes off (more than once) while I'm in a some almost waking state, my brain creates all sorts of wildly interesting explanations for what the alarm really represents. For example, I distinctly recall once understanding with brilliantly clear insight that if I hit the alarm button just right, I could get a few more ounces of sleep per minute, and as long as I didn't abuse the privilege, the time would not be too great for me to sleep another pound or so.

This morning I reminded myself that the snooze button's name was really Lolly, and that we'd been friends for a long time, so I could hit her once every seven minutes and she wouldn't mind. After the 3rd time, I remembered that her last name was Gagging.

This makes sense because every time I hit her, she shut up.

Please don't bother to post to say that I'm sleep deprived, because I know all of you who post are probably getting less sleep than I am.

August 3, 2004

Amazing. Somehow, I'm posting again. That three weeks to form a habit concept seems right on. Today makes three weeks since Julia challenged me to blog daily, and even though five minutes ago, I was sure I couldn't do it, I'm now writing. Again.

Kate has also presented something of a challenge by suggesting I submit something to Strange Horizons or Ideomancer.

Let's see what I have to offer in the way of old stuff [putting on my marketing hat, now]:

Hearth - the story of a childless couple who inherit an off-the-grid house that has a life of its own. Speculative fiction, maybe.

Rista's story - about a young women sentenced to exile after avenging a relative's death. She comes from a bi-racial, bi-cultural planet and is dropped, along with other criminals, on an "unpopulated" planet in the middle of nowhere. I don't even have a title for this one yet and I wrote it years and years ago. Science fiction/alien story - light on the science. Too long to publish as a short story, though. More like a novela unless I can tighten it even more.

What's Carried on the Wind (needs new title) - the story of a woman who can literally smell death, but only at specific times in her life, and how she learns to cope with that particular "talent." Speculative fiction.

Something from Quest (aka the Rowan story, aka Senior Thesis)? Apart from the fact that the main character must (thank you Anne McCaffery) be renamed - I think she is Mara now - is there anything I can pull from this? In this world, there are empaths and technocrats, badger-like emotional bloodhounds, wise women and refugees in hiding in the heart of the city. (Do you remember it, Clare?) This would be sort of like fantasy, but not in any high fantasy tradition. I'll leave the real stuff for Julia.

Maggie's story - near-future tale about a girl who works as a sorter at a thrift store and who finds an experimental gadget that acts to motivate its wearer to do whatever they might not otherwise be motivated to do. For better or worse. Seems like a good idea that is too "nice" and watered down, in retrospect. Could be so much darker & edgier. Could be really disturbing fiction if I let it.

Newer stuff:

Rock Garden - a woman going through a divorce takes her son to a mobile home park in the California desert. The son becomes convinced that the entire park is populated by aliens and the mother must try to strengthen his grasp of reality even while her own is faltering.

Trained as I was - could-be creepy Halloween story about a father who, on the way home from trick-or-treating, leaves his two young daughters standing on the side of the road so he can go investigate a mysterious circle of chanting people in a nearby field. (Thanks Dad.) I've been reworking this and other "family" stories.

Not yet written:

Whale cheese for Julia.

The story of the couple who bring their baby home from the hospital only to find that he has no belly button.

On that note, I think I'm going to go to sleep now.

August 2, 2004

It's Monday night. Every Monday night, D. goes to his friend's house & games until around 2am. I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, it's his chance to get out and blow off steam and he's a happier person for it, and it's certainly better than having him go watch a football game and drink great quantities of beer like some men do. Also it means that I can (and do) get a night of my choice out whenever I might need one.

On the other hand, it means that he's trashed every Tuesday and (I think) gets sick more often because he gets so little sleep once a week. I also feel that it makes him an enabler to his best friend's pathological reality-evasion. And I'm bitter that his friend never comes here. And I'm often suspicious about that, too. Why don't they game here? In our garage? Even once in a while? Blech. Blech. Blech. Excuse the ugly emotions boiling beneath the surface, please.

More of a problem than the others, his Monday night gaming session means that I single parent every Monday night & if anything comes up I might want or need to do, I pay a babysitter so I can go out. Tonight, for example, I went to an ADHD Overview at Kaiser so I could learn more about R.'s attention challenges and what they might be and what we can do about them. D. also cares about what might be going on with R., but it's Monday, so tonight I represented both of us.
It was a very interesting overview, taught by an obviously highly experienced, compassionate, bright doctor. It's pretty clear that R fits most of the categories and behavior patterns associated with attention issues. But there are other things going on, too, and D. and I are so intent on addressing everything WITHOUT medication, well..I know there's lots more to learn about how we'll do that.

On a completely different note, I think I'm going to get a new car. Soon. I just can't wait to own a hybrid any longer, and I've found I do not need the mini-SUV like I thought I did. I had started to make this decision anyway, and then I got a call out of the blue from my sister-in-law saying she had a friend who is looking to buy a slightly-used mini-SUV.

I think only an idiot ignores synchronicity.

August 1, 2004

I'm cheating. I'm posting early morning 08/02 but am backdating to call this 8/1/04's post, because I'll post again tonight.

The party went well. I know this because when I asked D., "How do you think they party went?" He said, "It was great!" And then he gave R. his fake psychopath google-eyed glare and said, "How do you think it went?" until she stammered, "Fantastic!"

D. knows that even if the guests arrive before I unload the groceries and while there is still a stack of dirty dishes on the counter and we have not disinfected the stinky dog pen (all of which was true in this case), of even if children melt down left and right and parents fight and things get broken (none of which happened, fortunately) - he knows that no matter how dismal a failure a party we host is, if he says the party went well, I'll believe him.

There were 8 children between 4 and 10 (including our two), and 11 adults (including us). Seven of the guests were neighbors, two were S's preschool teachers (current & past). D's father was the only relative who made it - and since he (and my oldest brother) have the same birthday as S., we were celebrating his day too.

There were no party games. I'd bought some "fun foam" for the kids to make things with, and that kept them very entertained. They just played, apart from that. And we had cake. Giant Care Bears on a Sugar Rainbow cake. Let me know if you'd like some - we have extra left over and it's going to take all my will power - plus this statement in writing in my blog - for me not to have any more of it.

July 31, 2004

It shouldn't take 4 hours of shopping to put on a small casual birthday party. Should it?

I hate shopping, and I always have. In particular, I don't like to window shop. I figure, if I can't have it, I don't want to waste my time or pine away and think about whether I'd like to have it. Half of the time, when I'm buying myself a "treat," I walk around the store with it for a while, doing other shopping, and then I put it back before I buy it. I ask myself, "Do I need this, or do I just want it?" Until the last few years, if I didn't really need it, I didn't get it. And I also never bought anything that wasn't on sale. Now I am less of a bargain hunter, but I still don't like to shop.

Part of my dislike for shopping may be a mild agoraphobia - agora being the Greek for a gathering place (like the marketplace), appropriately enough. I'm not so good surrounded by crowds of consumers. I have the same problem at amusement parks -a different type of consumer, but the same idea. Crowds of travelers I seem to be just fine with, so the subway in Japan should be okay. I think what makes a difference is whether the people are moving with a purpose or wandering aimlessly with a shopping basket and/or a glazed look on their faces like body snatcher victims.

And who likes Costco's stacks of heavy goods towering over their heads? We just live too close to the San Andreas fault for me to think warehouse shopping is a good idea. I for one do not want to die under a stack of Kirkwood branded canned goods after a strong rattle.

Another reason I hate shopping is the sense of waste. I distinctly remember many times when I would walk into a department store and see stacks and racks of new things - thousands and thousands of items- bright, and cheerful, and ready to buy. So much stuff. Who needs that much? How many of those things will the stores really sell? What happens to the things they don't sell? It has made me almost physically sick in the past. Now, if I think about it, it makes me want to never shop again.

Are these the suppressed emotions from a past life in a third world country, or what? I don't know. I just know that I'm no fun to shop with. R. deserves a medal after spending those 4 hours with me today. Poor kid. Good thing she likes to shop.

July 30, 2004

Sophie's having a birthday party Sunday, which means I expect to spend tomorrow cleaning up the back yard and otherwise trying to make things presentable - mostly for the sake of her few little friends who might be coming here who haven't been here before. I almost don't care what they think, but it is gratifying to tidy and bring order to things, especially when they're in a state that's so far gone that the change will be especially noticeable.

D's mother will probably come and his father certainly will. His sister might. The family dynamics are not fun, especially since his parents do not speak to one another at all, and his sister only exchanges the briefest of greetings with their mother - and that's only a development that's fairly recent.

But we'll all survive it. I think I will try for the second night in a row to go to bed before 10pm. I was trying to read earlier this evening and fell asleep doing that. Which is nothing new, but still, maybe I'll actually listen to my body for a change tonight and say I've done enough for today.

Yesterday morning my mother called, obviously upset, to tell me that one of my sister's two dogs had died. My sister is single, and her dogs have been so central a part of her life, and were so inseparable from one another, that this is a real blow. Her other dog isn't eating, but J. is keeping a close eye on her, taking her to work with her today, etc. It's hard.

I have no skill with words at all tonight; I'm only blogging out of habit.
God willing, tomorrow will be a better day...

Deep-Sea Divers

 
sometimes
we are deep-sea divers
and blind things leached of color
slide past our reach

we wear gloves and gear,
carry air as carapaces
on our backs, and know
ourselves beyond
our element

the pressure
of canyons
below us
is great,
but
the weight
of what lies
above
would
suffocate.

7/29/04 rbp

 

 

No Warning

The next door neighbors are moving. This should not bother me, because ever since they moved in almost two years ago, they have kept very much to themselves. I know they have a baby, because when Susan goes quickly in and out of her garage in her van, I can see a baby's car seat in her car, and once I saw the actual little guy himself.  Susan moved back to town from Tahoe to be pregnant and give birth and (ostensibly) to raise her child in a good family-oriented neighborhood. Her new husband (who has already raised at least one child) has been amiable, but in that "he always seemed like such a nice guy before we found out he was a wife-beater" way, and D. and I were saying to one another a few days ago that we disliked and distrusted him.

(And now I'm also paranoid that he has bugged our house and just because of that less-than-charitable eavesdropped conversation, they're moving. But that's just how my mind works.)

But here's what really bothers me to no end about them leaving - besides the fact that I'm concerned it has something to do with us bringing down the value of the neighborhood with our "do-it-yourself" demolition/reconstruction aspirations - as we've been working on our front yard, Mike has been talking to us about the project, and hanging out with D. to gaze thoughtfully at the enormous piles of dirt the way men sometimes do toward the end of the afternoon.  Just two days ago, I said, "Yeah, it's a mess now, but it'll be a pretty nice courtyard when we're done. You guys'll have to come on over and have lemonade or margaritas or something when it's finished."  And he said in his amiable-but-not-entirely-so voice, "Yeah, that sounds really good." Then we all had a nice chuckle and everything was friendly and right with the world in our tiny corner of suburbia.

And then today, I pull into our driveway and see a realtors sign in their front yard.  What's up with that? How long had he known they were going to leave? Why didn't he mention it? I mean, really - what's up with that?!!

Here's the thing, though.

How different is what I feel about what he's done from what people in my church might feel about what I've done? What kind of warning did I give them? A little, maybe, to some people. But I also had conversations with people after I was thinking about leaving, and I didn't mention anything to them. And these were people who probably felt they knew me a lot better than I ever thought I knew Mike. 

Hmmm. Gives me something to think about.

But first, sleep.

July 27, 2004

Another poem below- this one not mine. And yes, it's a bit of a cop-out because I really am dead beat and don't want to go to bed only to get up in 2 hours to meet this (now) self-imposed daily writing deadline.

This is where my blog's name originates, and it's high time I credited Mr. Eliot, who is one of my favorite poets in spite of any reason he shouldn't be.

Tonight I went to a lounge downtown and heard 4 local poets read as part of the Marin County traveling Poetry series. I knew two of the poets, and they were in fine form. The other two were new to me, one of them quite good. Many of the poems were about simply daily things seen through the eyes of the artist. I like to read those things, and I like to write them. But I also like work that is imbued with a depth and some allusion (even an ironic one) to the heart of the human condition. Eliot was good at that.

 

 
The Journey of the Magi

'A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For the journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.'
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.

Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins,
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory

All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death,
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.

    -- T. S. Eliot

July 26, 2004

D. did a tremendous amount of work this morning on the house. We now have a dumpster where there was a mountain of dirt, and two piles of gravel in the scooped out area for the courtyard. He also washed off the driveway and the mess of mud in the street. What a guy.

Something I wrote for him a few years ago, at a time when I was writing exuberant love poems in honor of characters from role playing games...


How you don’t inspire me

You should have been a fire sign,
poor man, though you can’t help it
if I’m not swung in dance, held fast by passion,
dizzy, blind, flung like comet’s hair.
(I know it’s not that you don’t care.)
We sit like muck at the bottom of the pond,
settled stuff to make gardens green and plenty.
Stuck in domestic clockwork, patient sprockets leaning
into one another and away
to circle back, click together,
grind and grove and push hard at going nowhere far,
but going firmly, going well.
You should have been a fire sign, or maybe water, even air.
Yes, even air, even anything but earth. You and your dirt,
flakey with minerals, thick and dark and patient like loam.

July 25, 2004

We had a visit from one of my oldest and dearest friends and her family today. (And I am not just writing this because I know that you're going to be reading my blog, C.
They have a five-year-old boy who is stunningly beautiful and brilliant, and the two best tempered more adorable one-year-olds I've ever met. We had such a good time hanging out together.

Before and after the visit, D. worked on the front yard (otherwise known as the front construction zone). I cannot believe how hard my husband is capable of working. He's like a machine. And he was gushingly grateful for my help when I did very little apart from provide moral support and dig out about a sixteenth of the area he's dug out.

Tomorrow we get a dumpster and gravel. We're well on our way. And in the meantime, we're giving our neighbors something to talk about.

R. is off at camp again. I drove her out this afternoon.

S. turns 5 on Wednesday.

D. is soaking in the tub.

The dog is asleep in the hallway.

I am practicing short, declarative sentences.

July 24, 2004

We now have a sizeable hole in our front yard, and the rose bush has been relocated to a spot in the back yard next to a couple of its distant cousins. The driveway looks like a significant but sloppy burial mound. I’m considering absorbing some of the cost of this project by charging admission to see the Holy Hillock, the final resting place of Sweaticus Alotium, patron Saint of Home Improvement.

The street in front of our house looks like flood waters have receded, leaving only a thick coating of mud and detritus.

My husband is exhausted.
The bobcat doesn’t even look winded.

Tomorrow friends are coming to visit, so I’ll rise early and do what cleaning I can after having run to burn off all the calories I consumed at a co-worker’s housewarming party today.

And somewhere in there, I’ll pack up R. for 4 more days of camp and drive her and a friend and the friend’s mom to the retreat center/campground at 2pm.

Next week is Sophie’s birthday party. We’re having a party here. Mostly the kids on the street and my in-laws – in other words, people who already know we’re insane, so when they see the state of the place they won’t even blink.

I’m so glad I dropped out of church so I could slow down the pace of my life. (ha!) Space abhors a vacuum, and I have a hard time with down time, obviously. The glass of wine today did help, but alas, the effects of alcohol are temporary. The problems brought on by over-committment are harder to coax out the door.

A Bobcat in the Front Yard

There's a bobcat in our front yard.

My four-year-old called it a "wildcat," as in,

"Wow, Papa really is moving a lot of stuff with that wildcat."

But really, it's a bobcat.

And we're completely tearing up our front yard, and in a few hours have ripped out plants that have been there since we moved in ten-and-a-half years ago. We'll carefully dig out more tomorrow, like a rose bush that I estimate to be about 15-20 years old.

When I say "we" I mean the corporate, spousal "we." But since I've done my share of picking adobe in the last few years, I don't feel too much like just a spectator.

The plan is to put in a courtyard off the front of the house, with a very tasteful fence separating it from plants that are as carefully planned as a Japanese garden while still being indigenous and drought tolerant. The nice thing about plans is they're plans - they're not yet realities that didn't live up to expectations.

But I think this really will be nice. It's one of the first home-improvement projects where D. and I share the same vision of what we want. He envisions a much thicker slab of concrete than I would have thought one would ever need (except to dispose of nuclear waste), but it's all right.

I just have to find a good new home for that rose bush.

Madeleine L'Engle

I only really have one thing to say tonight. I really like Madeleine L'Engle.

I stumbled across this
interview today.

More about her tomorrow, about how she and I met years ago and what happened then....

Breaking the News

As I was saying, I just told my daughter about menstruation.

She took it pretty well. Except for when she said, “You have got to be kidding,” and ‘Okay, now you’re really grossing me out.” and, “You mean this still happens to you?”
 
She’s only nine. I hadn’t planned on talking to her about all this yet, but a friend of hers (who is ten) just started, and I’d rather have R. hear about it from her own mother than from someone else. I’m trying to break a generation-old family tradition of disseminating this kind of information “too little, too late.”
 
And besides, I didn’t have a copy of Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret handy.
 
We had our conversation in the pantry. I hadn’t expected to tell her all this in the pantry, but that’s how it worked out. Part of my oh-so-clever strategy was to keep the conversation light. (You can stop laughing now.)
 
I thought that a big sit-down lecture with a scientific book would make the whole thing loom too large in her sensitive pre-adolescent brain, and that it would be better to say, “Oh by the way, you should know something…”
 
We were only near the pantry at first. But then when I said it was something that her 4-year old sister shouldn’t hear, she moved us farther next to the spice rack and shut the door so S. wouldn’t find us.
 
Years from now, I expect that the setting will be prompt much eye-rolling when she tells the story to friends or her own daughters. If she gets over being grossed out and has any daughters. 
 
I didn’t go into too much detail. I didn’t discuss sex. I know it’s too soon for that.  I just explained that when a girl’s body starts to get ready to someday be able to have a baby, the uterus, which is where babies (when there are babies) grow, needs to have blood in it to help the baby grow. This is where her exclamations started.. And then I said that when there isn’t a baby – as is usually the case – the body doesn’t need the blood, and it comes out.
 
She really did accept it pretty well, considering. I’ve assured her that she probably won’t need to worry about it for a couple of years at least. She’s had some follow-up questions. Her first was, “Does it change how you feel or how you act?”
 
I told her it doesn’t have to, and it doesn’t always, but that for some people it does. Sometimes. And I also said that other people say it does more than it really does. But we don’t go too far down that path. There’s a balance to maintain for ya. How to allow her to feel it’s okay to be emotional because of hormones without giving her another big gun in her already well-stocked arsenal of reasons for wild mood swings?
 
When R. was about 6 and a half, she burst into tears one January afternoon because, as she put it in a wail, “Now I know three people who have died! Nana, Abraham Lincoln, and that other man!”
 
 It was Martin Luther King Day.
 
And now, she’ll have to bleed once a month on top of all that.
 
Last night, though, she said, “Mom, about that period thing. Do men get it?” And I said, “Nope.” and bless her little heart, she said with obvious pride, “Oh, cool. It’s just a girl thing, then.”
 
Yeah. Cool. I hope she can keep this positive attitude. I think attitude counts for so much.
 
Today in the car (before we got her sister), she said, “Mom, about that period thing. Do you think I’m the kind of girl who will be able to handle it? Or do you think I’m the kind of girl who will freak out?” I assured her that based on everything I already knew about her, I was sure that she would be just fine with it. I almost said, “You know how you clean out the bottom of the bird cage without making a fuss about it?” but I caught myself in time.
 
Sometimes analogies are better left unsaid. 
  
  
  

July 20, 2004

Yesterday, I told my daughter all about menstruation.

This will be the first line of my post tomorrow, too. The post where I actually tell the story.  Those of you who don't want to hear rite-of-passage stories, don't read tomorrow's post.

Tonight's post is just to say that I am asleep and somehow still writing, having been awoken by my husband while I slept in my younger daughter's bed. ("Mommy, sleep with me just for a little while?!")

If I couldn't touch type, there would be no readable blog post at all today.  There would still be a post of some kind, because Julia "Mwah Ha Ha" D.  cursed me with this post-every-day curse. It's like the friggin' red shoes story only slightly less gory and religious and I don't think I'll have to cut of my hands to keep them from typing. Let's just say that they're doing their work without much else of my brain being engaged, and with my eyes closed while I sleep-blog.

If hadn't taught myself to type in college with a stupid computer typing game, this post would just be whatever random characters blind hen-pecking would yield. That, and whatever might be put on the screen by the force of my drool hitting the a random key on the keyboard.

Good night.

A Road Not Taken

I haven't yet gone to see King Arthur, but I know I will have to soon.  I may not like the film, but I'm compelled to see it in the same way that I've been compelled to read everything I've ever found about Arthur even when it was the worst kind of schlock ever printed.
 
In a parallel universe somewhere, I have a Master's Degree in Arthurian Literature from the University of Wales in Bangor. (Here's a link in English for those of you who don't read Welsh.)
 
After I got my BA in "English Literature with a Writing Emphasis" (and a minor in Philosophy), I was all set to go to the very tip of Northern Wales to study something that would have qualified me to do not much more than teach nutcases like myself in turn all about Arthurian Literature. 
 
I was accepted to the school. I even had a dorm room assigned. I didn't go.
 
What happened? 3 things, I think:
 
1 - I did not get the financial aid I needed and did not want to be fiscally irresponsible and take out a loan just to get a degree that would not have made me any more money than I could have made by having a job where I had a nametag and asked repeatedly,  "Would you like fries with that?"
 
2 - I realized that Arthurian Literature was just that kind of vicious cycle I mention above - what would I do with the degree? Would it change the world? No. Even worse, would it turn the legend that I so adored into something sprawled and wriggling on a wall like a bug? Would it kill my love for the story? Would I become one more person who had turned a hobby into a chore?
 
3 - I didn't want to be that far away from my boyfriend.
 
I'm sure you can guess which of these reasons most influenced my decision.
 
The summer before I would have started the Masters program, a friend and I spent 3 months traveling from Britain to Greece via Eurail and Youth Hostels, and one of our first stops was for me to tell the Dean at Bangor that I would have to back out of attending the school.
 
I took a picture of the dorm where I would have stayed.
 
Okay, and I just have to add this. You know that many of King Arthur's men would have been Welsh, right? And that Lancelot (a much later addition to the legend) would have been French? So before I even see the film, I am really irked by the fact that the only Welshman in the cast is playing Lancelot. What's up with that? It's like Highlander, where they had an American-born, Swiss-bred actor playing the Scot, and the Scottish actor playing a Spaniard (with a rotten accent). Hollywood. Sheesh.
 
I'll probably see the movie this weekend. 
 
Because I have to.  
 
Even if my blog spellchecker wants to substitute "Arthurian" with "earthworms."
  
 

July 18, 2004

Maybe not the final draft, but enough for now.
 
 
 
I am in Love with Old Men
 
Not just the idea of old men,
but the men themselves,
stooped and faded, mottled skin
loose at the elbows like the sweater
I’ve never quite been able to throw away.
 
The shorter, the better.
You don’t have to tell me
they were taller once. I understand
that before they began to walk
with such care, they strode
like giants over the land.
 
I want to swim in their Summer
memories. Men who once knew
how to tie seamen’s knots, how to whittle.
They were engineers, and drew
the world the way they saw it,
and only gave up the pipe under duress.
 
They may use canes now,
but when they were cowlicked boys
with tadpoles and muck in paper cups
they once, on a dare, burned something
alive with a glass and the sun.
Whatever life has done to them,
I want to eat it up.
 
Each old man who waits on a bench
for the bus to come – does he know
how close he is to having me
stop for him instead?
 
There beats a heart, still.
I want to cut it out
give it back to him and say,
“Look, how beautiful.”
 
 
6/04-7/04 RBP

Here's a good test of what a dare will do for me. I am so tired I can't really see straight let alone focus, but I'm writing.

After doing chores around the house in the morning, I did food delivery, then took R. to riding lessons. Then it was home for 10 minutes to get D. & S., a quick trip to the grocery store for salads, desserts, and a housewarming plant, and then to Walnut Creek to spend the day at my father-in-law's.

Here's what I'm too tired to write about:
* The food deliveries I've been doing for two and a half years
* R's riding lessons
* How children's lesson times are good for balancing my checkbook and paying bills
* How we forgot to eat the salads but remembered the desserts
* My father-in-law
* Company coming tomorrow
* What I expect to do in the 4-5 waking hours I'll have before they get here.
* Gwen the tooth fairy and remembering the right font in Illustrator

I'm falling asleep at the keyboard. The week of sleep depravation is hitting me with a vengeance.

The next intelligent step in my writing daily process would be for me to make a practice of posting before 9pm.

Bring a Bum to Your Birthday & Letters Home

Ah, yes. I realized yesterday that in typical fashion, I went off on a tangent and never finished the bring-a-bum-birthday party story. (And that phrase is *not* a judgement. It's just alliteration. I'm a sucker for sound-binding.)

If I remember correctly, R. went on to tell him when her birthday was and that we lived in the green house (did he know the one?) and that there would be a cake. And I think he sort of mumbled that he probably wouldn't be able to come. And I agreed that he probably wouldn't be able to come. I confess. I am not as enlightened as I'd like to be. I'm working on it.

I don't recall for certain, but I think that R's parting comment as he shuffled off was, "Maybe next year?"


Here are the letters she sent home from camp this week:

"Dear S.,
How are you? I
miss you alredey.
Write soon. Right now
I'm in my cabin listen
too the two most
anowing grils. Well I got
to go. Bye!
R.

P.S. Send some more notes."

- and -

"Dear mom and PaPa
I made a friend
Katie as sone as
I got Here. she is
so nice. She has
Dirty Blound hair.
And Blue eyes.
Heres wate she Looks Like."

...complete with a sketch of Katie, who D. said was fortunate to have R. for a friend, because judging by the picture, she had some serious anatomical challenges, such as her right arm being attached directly to her rib cage.


I love my kids. I find this amazing, considering the fact that even though I pushed them out of my body and they're flesh of my flesh, and I know that I'm responsible for their well-being and for raising them to be good, strong, loving people, they are really just strangers who happen to live in the same house where I live and who deplete my energy and time on a daily basis.

It's maybe more amazing considering that even though I have a great capacity to think well of pretty much the whole world, I have a very limited capacity to express love.

I'm working on that too.

And you know what? My kids are teaching me. I think it's no accident that, frigid detached soul that I am, I have been given two of the most affectionate people on the planet as daughters.

See? See? There's a reason for everything.

Benign Neglect

Today is R's fourth day at Girl Scout camp. I pick her up tomorrow morning. She went last year too, when she was only 8. But even then, I felt only a vague and nonchalant, "Oh I hope she has fun and doesn't get hurt."

A preschool teacher I know has called this behavior letting my children have their independence. I call it highly developed benign neglect. Child Protective Services might have another name for it. Maybe I shouldn't be a parent.

But really, I would worry if it weren't for the fact that R. makes friends with almost everyone she meets, everywhere she goes.

For example, when she was about to turn 5, we were walking to the local swim center, and we passed a man who looked like he'd been wearing the same clothes for a year without coming anywhere near a Laundromat or a shower. He was unshaven, and listing to starboard, and I'm pretty sure he was shy some teeth. He was also carrying a paper sack that was suspiciously bottle-shaped.

But other than that, he seemed like a nice guy.

I have this policy of treating human beings like human beings whenever possible. But I'm also not an extravert. While he and I politely nodded a hello (abiding by that unspoken social contract that keeps so much genuine interaction between strangers from happening), R. skipped up to him and said enthusiastically, "HELLO! Would you like to come to my birthday party?"

I felt several things at once. I was secretly hoping that his dance card was already full, but I also didn't want to be rude and un-invite him. (I mean, if vicious bug-eyed aliens invaded the earth, I'd probably try to figure out how to say "Begone foul creatures!" in just the right way so they wouldn't be offended.) So anyway, I didn't want him to feel uncomfortable about turning her down, which is what he and I both knew he had to do. And I wanted R. to continue to be friendly to the world, but I wanted her to learn that you can't invite a total stranger to your birthday party.

Or can you?

I tell you what; she's going to have one interesting life. She's got the angle on entertaining angels unawares. Or inviting bug-eyed aliens to tea.

...I just read this post to four-year-old S., who has been patiently waiting for me to finish - having only said, "Are you done yet??" twelve times in two minutes.

And she said, "Mommy? Mommy? Mommy?" and I said, "What?" and she said, "I want you to be a parent."

So I also just read the last bit to her too (to stall more), and she said, "I did not say it twelve times."

I'd better go now.

July 14, 2004

Okay, credit where credit's due: last night, Julia challenged me to post daily. So I am. So there.

The big news is that, just when I was starting to believe it wasn't going to happen, I received the premier issue of the American Poetry Journal in the mail.

It's glossy, and has a price on the cover, and an ISSN, and my name is listed on the back and also inside, and a poem that I wrote is in it. In print. On paper. Paper that people (besides the poets in it) will have to pay money for.

See Rebecca.
See Rebecca shamelessly self-promote.

Now how do you really feel about people who refer to themselves in the third person? Don't you find it strange? Rebecca finds it strange.

I have a co-worker, for example, who regularly sends email - from his email address, which those of us who know how to read can recognize as his email address - that he will be in late, or out early, or is on a break.

Let's call him Sparky. Just because I'm in that kind of mood.

So a typical email from Sparky might go

To: everyone@theplaceiworkthatwillremainanonymous.com
From: Sparky@theplaceiworkthatwillremainanonymous.com
Subject: Sparky will be in at 8:00 this morning.


To which I think, "Okay, Sparky. Thanks for the head's up. Now learn how to use the first person singular pronoun. It can come in so handy."

Sassy when I write after 7am, ain't I?

Okay, so it's after midnight, so this blog entry counts for tomorrow 7/14, right? But really, I'll be posting another entry then, so I'm considering this a late 7/13 post. So there.

I will need to leave for work in just under 5 hours. I have not slept yet tonight. I tell you what, sir. Either Lady Grey Tea has a heck of a lot more caffeine than one would think, or I'm still soaring from tonight's Writer's Group meeting. (Thank you Julia & Suzanne!)

It may be the adreneline from booking a hotel room in Japan in the middle of the night has something to do with it, too.

Very exciting stuff.

I really should sleep.

Really.

I should.

June 29, 2004

I think I've spent most of my life walking back and forth on a rickety vine bridge between love and duty.

And I hate heights.

A week ago, I resigned from my responsibilities as a Presbyterian elder and told the new pastor that I'm going to step away from the church for the foreseeable future. This comes after months of soul-searching and days of working up the nerve to tell the key people at the church about my decision. I was the co-chair of the Nominating Committee (who must now find my replacement), and the co-chair of the Adult Education Commission, which was just ramping up for a huge church-wide campaign to revitalize the spiritual life of every member of the congregation (no pressure there). I was also an active part of the women's retreat committee – a retreat that, ironically, made me tired just thinking about it.

And it's not just that I didn't want to do all of those duties. In the end, I didn't want to do any of it. My theology does not match the church’s doctrine, and maybe that didn’t matter for a while, but it matters now. I can’t get behind all that work when I don’t agree with the reason for it. Presbyterian’s aren’t typically very evangelistic – which suits me fine. But the new pastor believes (and I can see why) that being a Christian means being evangelistic, going out and making disciples of everyone, etc. Well and fine in theory. In practice, I can’t do it. Okay, won’t do it. Choose not to do it.

Does that mean that I’m going to Hell? Is there a Hell? Or a Heaven?
Hmmm...that’s another blog entry all together.

Regardless, I don’t feel that I’m turning my back on God. I feel that I’m turning my face to my own spiritual and psychic needs, and the emotional and physical needs of my family.

The pastor and other people I've spoken to have taken the news graciously and are supportive. I don't expect anyone to show up at my door with a Bible and Holy Water any time soon. And every day, I take off another layer of guilt and let it float into the ether. I feel liberated and energized. It's amazing the toll stress will take on you.

Last night’s writer’s group meeting was good. After the obligatory catch-up period, we wrote. And wrote and wrote.

I also sent 3 poems out to a poetry contest yesterday. Back in the saddle again.

So I had to squeeze the weekend into one day because I worked Saturday. Squeezing the weekend into one day included a very long run, household chores, skipping church, digging more of on the ditch in the front yard, taking the kids on their bikes to the park, grocery shopping, and making sure that the Father of the house got to do pretty much whatever he wanted all day. What he wanted to do is further purging of the contents of the garage.

I'm not sure how D. has gone from being such an avid packrat to someone who throws away everything with abandon. It's almost like a little switch in some gene has been flipped and now he takes things apart and stuffs them in the trash can in a state of manic glee. (I'm anticipating a letter from Empire Waste Management about the weight of our trash can breaking their truck's mechanical arm even though D. assures me this won't happen.)

I am almost there - having fantasies about throwing away the minutes from church session meetings from 9 years ago, for example. But to date, I have only successfully gone through belongings and thrown them out when I'm alone in the house and can concentrate. Apparently, I need silence to properly bid goodbye to old crap.

And time away from work to write a blog entry - this one has taken hours, ten seconds at a time. All for now.

June 15, 2004

Last night, I gave the girls foot massages and painted their toenails while we listened to Welsh harp music with the lights low - although not too low, or I would have ended up painting their feet too. Then we read a short story for Sophie, and continued with Chapter 3 of A Wrinkle In Time for Rachael and me. It was all going very smoothly. They were almost tucked into bed. There was a knock on the door.

It was a friend picking up a book she'd loaned me two years ago. A great book, I'm sure - but in all this time, I'd only read about a paragraph of it, and I handed it back with the relief of someone finally paying a library fine in full.

I could have shown her out and still taken advantage of the peaceful momentum I had going with the whole bed-time thing. But instead, she and I got to talking -- who am I kidding? we always get to talking --- and an hour later, we had almost solved my problem with finding meaning and balance in my life, while meanwhile, the girls had become completely wound up by tickling one another and doing cartwheels and wall-climbing without the appropriate shoes or locking carabiners in the fully lit bedrooms. The only thing they were missing was a brass band.

None of us got to sleep before than 10:30pm. Of course, now my husband (who does, thank you dear, read my blog) knows how negligent I am. But since he (whom I adore) didn't get home until sometime after 2am, I doubt he'll be hunting around too hard looking for that first stone to throw.

Besides, I think the girls had a lot of fun, and I don't have too many footprints to clean off the walls.

I didn't write. I didn't walk on the treadmill. I didn't get a full night's sleep. I didn't figure out the itinerary for my overseas trip. But I almost solved that problem of finding meaning and balance in my life. Wait a minute...balance...children doing jumping jacks at 10pm...there's an irony here, somewhere.

June 14, 2004

It was a good weekend.

We went to Monterey a little later than originally planned, because S. was sick Friday, and it didn't sound like a good idea to spend hours in the car with a feverish "four-and-free-quarters" year old and her bucket. But we left early Saturday, and made good time, and she was well for the whole weekend.

We went to the Aquarium both Sat. and Sunday. We've been members for 11 years now, and still are not sick of it.

We ate at the restaurant at the hotel, and had room service in the morning, and the girls swam in the pool - all compliments of the gift certificates the company had given out as a bonus last year. Very very nice. I even managed a 7 mile run yesterday along the beach. It's not every day that I get to jog down a well-paved path just a few yards from seals and otters.

(Friday I signed up for a half-marathon that I'm far from being ready for. But the run in Monterey was a start.)

Today it's back to the grind but fortunately I really do feel pretty recharged and ready to take on some of it, anyway.

June 10, 2004

A good friend pointed out that I hadn't posted anything here lately. So here.

Two more days until R. gets out of school. I'm more excited about it than she is. I've been counting down daily. Last week, I said, "Just think - Monday's the last Monday!" and she gave me a look and said, "Oh really? Is the world ending? Are there no more Mondays at all?"

We have no one but ourselves to blame for her sarcasm.

Today I have the usual all-consuming day of work, a Kindergarten checkup (and shots) for S., and then Kindergarten orientation that starts half an hour before a Church Elders meeting. At the Elder's meeting, I need to pitch a major church-wide program that would be starting in the Fall. I'll have to explain where the money will come from and who will lead all the aspects of the program.

I don't know yet whether my faith will be strengthened by all of this - because I can't possibly do it alone, and for me to be any kind of effective committee chair practically takes a miracle - or whether I'll just decide that it would be a lot more convenient and less stressful to be agnostic and leave the church entirely. How heretical is that ?

In the meantime, I'm back to writing more poetry more often. I prefer to succeed or fail in more solitary pursuits. Running, writing. No one but myself to blame and no one but myself disappointed if it doesn't work. Or at least I like to think so.

Aha! Just had a thought I should have had long ago. Why I haven't really put a book of poems together yet : it would introduce a whole new level of responsibility and accountability that I haven't had to face before. How cowardly is that?

June 4, 2004

Tuesday night I met a friend at a lounge downtown to hear another friend of hers read poetry. It turns out that I'd seen her friend at church a couple of times. I live in that kind of town. There were seven poets reading, all of them students of Terry Ehret. Terry is Sonoma County's Poet Laureate, and a founding member of Sixteen Rivers Press, which is a poetry collective for women poets in the Bay Area. When I grow up, I want to be a part of Sixteen Rivers.

The poets were good - some of them, including the woman we went to see - were very good. I went home and started work on two new poems and went to sleep far too late for someone who's been battling a head cold for a week. But it felt great to start something new.

Wednesday I squeezed in ballet class for one daughter, open house at the other daughter's school, rehearsal for a gymnastics show for the first daughter, and Japanese class - all within 2 and a half hours while my husband lay at home with a fever until he dragged his darling self out of bed to get the kids so I could learn how to buy sake in the native tongue.

I don't exactly remember yesterday, which may be a good thing.

I'm glad it's Friday.

Michael McNeilley Poem

A poem by the late Michael McNeilley.


morning becomes you

since you have to
start somewhere
honor the morning

choose your ritual
exercise or a cigarette
coffee tea or milk

meditation or simply
time at the window
make it your own

no need to look ahead
empty into the moment
some day the day

will end abruptly you
can count on that
let the morning open

like a crocus through
snow all beginnings
are precious

know the first step
whatever the
direction

you can never be sure
you are headed
the right way

but one step may be
all you have left
make it light

mcn