Pack it up, move it out

I hope to leave town within an hour for the workshop. I just need to run a few micro-errands first, and then it's a 3+ hour drive (alone! listening to whatever music I want!), and a three days of incredibly decadent time writing and workshopping poetry on the California coast. (My blogger spell chedk for "workshopping" prompted me for "worshipping." Hmm.) I know how very fortunate I am to have the funds to pay for this, and a husband who supports whatever I do, even if it means he has to single-parent for days. I don't take any of it for granted. I just hope to relax and go deeper into the moment (whatever the moment brings) and to write. And write. Not just blog, mind you.

Closer to quiet

Another full day. Hard to find space and quiet when activities are one after another: work, dr appointment, work, pick up girls, go home for 2 minutes to grab stuff, out to 4th grade play & potluck, home to do bed-time routine. I have a list of to-do's before I head out of town for the weekend, which means that I'm sleepy and suddenly feel that there's nothing more important than sleep.

So maybe there isn't!

Last push before a weekend away

The last few days of school are hectic, and in this case, more so because I'll be leaving town (just me!) on Friday for a writer's weekend away and I'm trying to get it all together before I go. The girls have parties and performances and potlucks. I have a pre-migraine headache. But the end is in sight! And so is sleep...

Family time

This evening, I spent about 3 hours on the phone with family members, sometimes talking about other family members. This is a unusual, especially the long conversation I had with my brother in Denver and his wife. We typically speak to one another only on holidays and birthdays or if someone is very ill. But he had just watched the video he'd made about 5 years ago from old family slides and Super 8 footage, and it prompted him to think about how, way back when before 1975, we'd been a family that did things together. He called to remind me. This coming from someone who'd once said he had next to no memories of his childhood. It was strange, and sweet too.

My dad had outpatient surgery today - the day after his 69th birthday - & is apparently doing very well. After the surgery (which took place while my brother was watching this family video with my father's mother), my dad took my brother out to lunch. My dad had a hamburger and two beers. What's odd about that is not the post-surgery beers (he'd had a urinary external catheter inserted). That's not odd at all. What's odd about the lunch that he had appetite for hamburgers and that he had (apparently) money to pay for it. After lunch, my dad went back to the van where he now lives with his dog. By choice. How do I feel about this? Detached. Of course. Detachment is my tool of choice around dad. It's one of the skills I honed as a child (along with minimalizing danger and second-guessing everyone) as a coping mechanism for living with him and his skewed way of interacting with people.

My sister called between calls from my brother to talk to me about summer plans, and my father-in-law called after that to talk about a get-together with D's aunt from Bulgaria and D's sister and her fiance. (A fiance we haven't even met yet!)


* warning - neurotic Rambling follows. Feel free to cut & run now. *

It's family time. I'm not sure how that feels. Which is, itself, a strange feeling.

I am comfortable with these people, but again, a large percentage of me is very detached. I hold back. I say the right words. I even know what a healthy response to them might be, but I seldom reveal all or even represent most of my truest self to anyone - among my siblings especially - for fear that they'll only use that integrity against me. How sad is that? They're not even manipulative or cruel people. I just feel like they might be. After all, we were all four shown examples of cruelty and manipulation on a regular basis by the same father. They might have picked up some of his tricks. I might have. One can't be sure.


Bleh.

Stoopid coping mechanism.

The hours I keep

Last night at around 1am, S came to the bed crying but not, apparently, from a nightmare. She was soon comforted and sleeping in bed again, but she'd reminded me that I'd completely forgotten (for 2 days) the project I'd agreed to do for her Kindergarten teacher - printing about 75 digital pictures for an end-of-year project. So I got up around 4am and worked on it until I had to leave for work. D gave the news that he'd bring the finished photos tomorrow, and tonight, after getting the girls to bed and napping myself, I got up again at around 10:30 and have been working on it since.

This means less than 6 hours of sleep again, followed by what promises to be another challenging day at work. It's the most intentionally I've burned both ends of the candle in a while - I even had a home-made latte earlier in the evening to make this awake-time possible - but it's short term, and I honestly can't see around it right now, so I'll make do!

The advantages to downtime

Today was as close to a perfect day as makes no nevermind.

I slept in - past eight! D. got up before me, which almost never happens.
I got up, lazed around a bit, then went for an hour run. Nice.
Got back, & D. had fed the girls breakfast & was working on setting up the Massive Fish Tank. I'd left them all happy, with the soundtrack to Oklahoma playing. And I returned to them all happy as well.

Puttered around, talked about summer plans, had a very late breakfast with D. while the girls giggled & played make-believe that S was a wild mustang that granted wishes (sometimes "opposite wishes") to people.

D. went to work & I painted one of the walls in the livingroom, which took hours because I was careful with the prep-time and the actual painting. I am notorious for getting paint everywhere when I paint, and for missing spots on the walls (I think the technical term is "holidays"). But this time, I did all right. I cleaned up, D. got home from work, and we headed south for dinner with Julia and family. I think it's safe to say that a good time was had by all. We had to drag the girls and ourselves away.

All Funned Out

The girls had a gymnastics show tonight. They both did their group routines very well. They are at a beginner's level; no backflips or handsprings or anything that would pose a safety issue (now that R has learned to tuck her chin when doing a forward roll). R's teacher and her partner came to the show too, which made R's day. I thought this was above and beyond. This particular teacher doesn't live in town, and has only taught R's class for about 8 weeks. I was grateful for her willingness to be there.

Before the gymnastics show, we had about an hour of rest - which meant a nap for D and S, computer time for R, and gardening for me.

Before that down time, we had all gone to a birthday party at a place that had a room full of giant jumpy slides and a jumpy obstacle course and a jumpy boxing ring. The kids wore themselves out. I showed my car to the birthday boy's grandfather, who had expressed an interest in buying it. He and his wife will think about it this week. I can't tell whether he'll get it. On the one hand, he didn't seem too keen. On the other hand, he mentioned that maybe he'd want to test drive it again next weekend, if that would be possible.

Before the birthday party, R had her riding lesson (and S tagged along), and before that, S had her dance class - only one more class/practice before that recital!

Before the riding & dance lessons, before breakfast in fact, I spent an hour in line at the local pool, signing the girls up for their first session of swim lessons for the summer. The city's Parks & Rec Department still hasn't come up with a better system for residents of the east side of town to register for swim lessons. There are obvious disadvantages of this go-in-person, get-in-line method. But the advantage is that it provides a community tradition. It's like having a Star Wars movie open every year a mile from our house; people wait and wait, with their lawn chairs and coffee - some people even get there an hour or more before the signups open - and there's this great opportunity to meet and greet friends and strangers alike.

If there were more things in life like the swim lesson signups, maybe we'd all slow down and get to know one another better. I think about parts of the world where one must stand in line for food, or water. I think of women washing clothes at a communal water source, or men gathering at a worksite. There isn't much of an equivalent in our society; even at activities where children are doing their thing like sports, the parents are often not there - they're running errands,taking another kid somewhere else. Or if they are there, they're not present.

Is this why I like public transportation, and Laundromats, and airports? Because they are places where one must wait with others who are waiting? Maybe I need places where waiting is forced upon me. What would happen if I thought of meditation as a type of waiting? The type of waiting that is accompanied by listening, watching, paying attention - without thinking. Just being.

The End of a Long Week

Just glad to have made it this far. Am fighting off a very mild depression that I know is sleep deprivation in disguise. Tomorrow will be extremely busy, but I'll feel better after 8 hours of shuteye.

Ever want to know more about Margaritas?
Here's a link that lists a few of the stories behind when/why the drink came into being.

And in the interest of balanced air time, here's a link to California Alcohol Treatment facilities.

Please note that I have not had anything to drink. But I'm considering going just crazy and having a margarita sometime this month. Whoa. Look out, folks.

The circus

The girls and I went to Circus Chimera between rehearsals for their gymnastics show.

I don't like circuses. There it is.

I can admire the incredible skill and training and hard work that goes into a circus. I don't mean to slight the performers and staff.

But I think watching this thing took a year off my life.

I used to think I didn't like circuses because of the bright lights and noise and all the people, and because I felt the pressure of Past Expectations working against me. For my fifth birthday, my mother got tickets for us to go to the Ringling Brothers & Barnam and Bailey circus. I remember completely falling apart there - hating it so much and crying so hard that we had to leave early. Poor mom. The next item on our party agenda was a post-circus trip to Farrell's ice cream parlor - the kind of place where they make the birthday girl or boy stand on a table while a hoard of underpaid, acne-faced waiters and waitresses, armed with drums and whistles, rush the party in a manic parade, singing loudly and in what I, as a five year old, found to be a very threatening manner. By comparison, the circus was a sea of calm.

Poor mom. She tried to plan a few more birthday parties, but there was always something about being the center of attention at a party that literally destroyed me. I couldn't wait for the thing to be over. And so, I often didn't wait. I have vivid memories of ditching my own birthday celebration more than once when I was little. I understand now why I hated it so much. But that's another story.

And about this hating the circus? I think there are a couple of another, more real reasons I feel this way about the circus, reasons that came rushing loudly and clearly back to me as I sat, palms sweating, between the girls. It's two-parted. One part is that so much of many circuses consists of people risking their necks just to entertain us. I mean, these people could die. Yes, they had a few safety nets and harnesses and ropes, and yes, they've practiced this stuff incessantly. But still. When one daredevil asked the audience (from on top of a Wheel of Destiny) if he should do more feats of derring-do, while everyone clapped and cheered him on, I was sitting there thinking "No! No! Stop! Don't encourage him!"

The other reason I think I dislike the circus is the tension that the audience and performers emote. The air is thick with all the feelings, and (not that I'm some magical empath or anything), the emotions around me can be overwhelming.

But hey - we survived, and the clown in this particular show was good, and no one died. So I think my daughters' circus experiences are already better than mine were.

Breaking the cycle, again.

Early to bed

I'm working a 5:30-1:30 shift tomorrow, so am determined to get to bed early.

The poem I worked on last night (a significant revision of / different take on the ants piece) had me concentrating hard enough that I snapped at both the dog and D when they poked their heads into the room. Maybe being irritable while writing isn't the best sign in the world, but where I am now, that's a sign that I'm focusing.

I mean, it's not like I'm writing Kubla Khan or anything, but I am guarding that concentration when I can get it.

There are so many activities with the kids this week and next week that I don't even want to write them all down. It's one thing after another. All good, and manageable (just), but a lot all the same. Not a good time to be sleep deprived. To bed, now.

Reality hits

This evening's realities, harsh & otherwise:

1 - I have not (quite) finished the poems I want to send out. But I am working on them, mid-breakthrough on one now. Even as I write this, I'm in a space, working on something honest. So I did not meet my own challenge/dare/whathaveyou. But this is also me giving myself a break. I'd rather send out better poems a couple of days late than bad poems "on time."

Sunday morning, as I was putting on my tennis shoes for a run, I looked up at the clock and said, "Drat. I'm late."

R. said, "How can you be late? You're just going for a run."

I said, "Well, I wanted to be back at 8:45 but I also wanted to run six miles, and I can't run that far and still get back by 8:45."

"So just run three miles," she said.


2 - See this, which Suzanne led me to from her blog. It's astonishing how many of people's secrets are negative and filled with shame. What happens to happy secrets? Are they not secrets to begin with? Or are they shared in person, more easily?


3 - We're all going to die. I hate that. Even though in my clearer moments, I know that it's really and honestly okay (in the big scheme of things), still it irks me sometimes.

What Day is it?

It was Monday, but it was a holiday, but I worked, but D didn't go to his friend's house, but we both spent the afternoon working hard around the house, but we had dinner together and then a lovely family walk around the block afterwards. It's late for me to be going to bed, but I've already been asleep for half an hour. I'm writing now, but I'm still asleep.

Dang.
Modern living is complicated.

Cleaning house at midnight

Up from bed to blog and do chores. The girls were tucked into the big bed later than usual, D is at his friend's house until the wee hours, and tomorrow I work 6-2 (hard to say "no" to that holiday pay). My mother-in-law is coming for a visit tomorrow, so I guess I should at least do the dishes. Maybe just that, though - for all I feel compelled to do more, based on a series of less-than-charitable comments she's made in the past about the state of our house.

I often think bitterly that she may have run a pristine house and prepared fine, multi-course meals for dinner every night, but she did not work outside of the home, and her children never were allowed to be carefree, messy children - even once, from what I can tell. There's more, but that would be more of me being less-than-charitable, myself.

I still haven't sold the Escape, but I'm trying to be patient and hold out for whatever I can make selling to a private party rather than losing more selling it back to a dealership.

I did have an offer from someone in Las Vegas to take over my payments (which I'm sure would have continued from "I'd like to help take over your payments" to something like, "Please tell me your bank account number, debit card number and PIN, and I can help. And by the way, my uncle in Nigeria needs the account information, too.") And someone named Guido (I am not kidding) with an Italian hotmail account also is interested in the car, and would I please email him to make a date. Sorry, Guido. You'll need to give me more than a form email for me to believe you are a valid customer.

The good news: meeting the writer's group today, writing a little, and walking away knowing I'll write more. I have a self-imposed deadline of Tuesday to send out new poems to *somewhere* for publication.

A good sign

Tonight we went to the house of S's former preschool teacher for a birthday dinner. Other parents of former students were there, and some of the teacher's friends were there too. It was a pot luck. I got a babysitter last minute.

And I did not feel stressed about preparing the steak and catfish I made, or the fact that we arrived late, or the whole concept of a party. This is so unusual for me, it's worth noting. I mean, typically, I am in tears or near it while on my way to a party. I understand why that is, now, I think. But I never reached an "I can't do this" point with tonight's social occasion. And we had a very pleasant evening.

If I can keep this sort of perspective up, I think it'll help prevent me from dying of stress-related illness or disease before my time.

Another entry just under the wire

My husband understands my commitment to daily blogging so well, he woke me up from my "nap" on the couch to make sure I wrote before midnight. What a guy.

Last Wednesday marked the twenty-second anniversary of our first "date." We'd met only a few weeks (was it days?) before at a party, and he'd invited me to join him and a Small Rebel Force - uh, I mean, group of High School friends - for the opening of Return of the Jedi. He'd shown up at my house (in this movie-trip carpool) with a gift for me - a black t-shirt with the original Star Wars logo silkscreened in white on it. He had a matching shirt. He'd made them both himself. Oh. My. Goodness. We were such geeks.

For ten years after we met, we went to Science Fiction conventions at least once a year. The "con" we were guaranteed to attend was BayCon, which takes place every Memorial Day Weekend at the Red Lion Inn in San Jose. To this day, I have residual panic attacks around Memorial Day weekend because I feel like I'm missing something, like I'm really late in packing my suitcase full of costumes and science fiction paperbacks and Pop Tarts and Cokes. It's all so very sordid.

But hey! Time (and children) changes everything. I haven't even seen the new movie yet, and I don't know when I'll see it. I don't really have enough fabric to make any costumes in honor of any characters. I just wrote a long piece about what I miss and what I don't miss about cons, but I don't even feel strongly enough about that to include it in this blog post. And just because D. has already memorized the soundtrack to Revenge of the Sith doesn't mean he'll be pulling out the styrene to hand-craft a half-dollar sized Millennium Falcon. Again. Any time soon.


Happy Anniversary, hon.

In the moment

I've been trying to listen to my very busy mind this evening. It never shuts up. And there's a background anxiety about "ALL THE THINGS I HAVE TO DO" which explains why I feel compelled to fall asleep at 8pm instead of doing "ALL THE THINGS I HAVE TO DO."

Hmm. What is this "have to?" At first, I wrote here "Half of those things I don't really have to do, and most of them (all of them?) I have put upon myself. So silly."

But really, nearly all of those things I don't have to do, and all of them, I have either put on myself or allowed upon myself.

So I am trying to focus on just what is immediately in front of me, the task at hand, whatever it is. For some people - some of you reading these words, probably - this is old hat. Me, I still don't have it down.

But then do I add to my List of things I have to do "Let go of the things you have to do."? You see what I mean. My mind just goes blahblahblahblah all the livelong day.

I am letting go of anything but the task at hand as best I can until it is time to pick up the next thing. I am Martha trying to become Mary. But still, "try" is the wrong verb.

"But the Lord answered and said to her, 'Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things; but only one thing is necessary, for Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her.'"
(Luke 10:41-42, New American Standard version.)

What is the one needful thing? Everything, I think. Or Nothing. Or, really, just Now.

Draft

A draft of a poem I first made notes for in February. I'm not sure of the advantage of posting something that is probably not the finished item, but hey - it gives me something to put here besides "had tea with the Smiths" or a link to someone else's creative output. For what it's worth. And here's my KQED-type disclaimer: the views expressed by the speaker are not necessarily those of the writer.




Valentine’s Day

The first step is simple: you fold paper lengthwise.
Next, cut tedious half-hearts, ear-shaped along the edge.
Apply glue liberally. It may seep out from under
the layers of pink on white on red, or red on pink on white.
That’s alright. For easy distribution,
write no names on your valentines.

As though we could parcel out our love in equal measure,
by simple hand-delivery of the sloppy product
of an afternoon at the kitchen table.
As though you would not secretly pick
the prettiest one for the girl you love the most,
the messy one for the boy you barely knew,
the heart that turned out worst
for the child who mattered least,
at least to you.

This is the advantage to store-bought cards: they are equal
in their cookie cutter pop culture colored presentation,
indiscriminate in their insincerity. They are all the same
in ways that we are not
and could never be.

Remind me

Ironically, so much happened today, I'm not recording it. Instead, one of my favorites by Billy Collins:


Forgetfulness

The name of the author is the first to go
followed obediently by the title, the plot,
the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
which suddenly becomes one you have never read, never
even heard of,

as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor
decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,
to a little fishing village where there are no phones.

Long ago you kissed the nine Muses goodbye
and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,
and even now as you memorize the order of the planets,

something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps,
the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.

Whatever it is you are struggling to remember
it is not poised on the tip of your tongue,
not even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen.

It has floated away down a dark mythological river
whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall,
well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those
who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a
bicycle.

No wonder you rise in the middle of the night
to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war.
No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted
out of a love poem that you used to know by heart.

--Billy Collins

www.bigsnap.com

S tries Jedi mind tricks

At the school rummage sale, there were four somewhat muddy, somewhat rusty bicycles going cheap. The bike we currently have for S. is really too small for her; she needs a taller one, even though she still uses training wheels.

So anyway, I was considering these almost-free bikes and called her over to look at them. They were all boys bikes, and two were probably no bigger than her bicycle, so there was not much point in considering those, but of course it was one of the smaller models that interested her most.

We had a brief chat about the pros and cons of the bikes in general, and I went back to staffing the money box, thinking that I shouldn't have shown her the choices and we were better off with something newer anyway.

About fifteen minutes later, a woman came to the front table and asked those of us working behind it, "Is it true that the bikes aren't for sale?"

"Oh no, they're for sale," the hostess assured her.

"Well, I just thought I'd ask you because someone said they're not for sale."

"Who told you that?"

"One of the girls here," the woman answered.

Call it mother's intuition. I saw S. playing with a large bird cage in the corner of the lawn. "Was it that little girl over there?" I asked, pointing to her.

"Yes, that's the one" the woman said.

Right.

(Imagine Obi Wan saying: "You don't need to see those bikes. Those bikes aren't for sale.")

I laughed. "Don't believe her!" I said. "She just said that because she wanted to get one of them. They're really for sale."

Ha ha. I laughed again. We all laughed. Those crazy kids.

It was less humorous a minute later when the woman's young son wheeled his purchase down the hill. S. happened to be looking up from playing at the moment that the boy walked by. Her head turned slowly to the left as she watched him go out the gate with his father to the parked cars. Then she frowned a little, and her head turned slowly all the way to the right as she leaned forward to peer past the battered tables and broken desks to the top of the hill and the pile of bikes for sale.

Her head whipped back toward the boy again, and you could practically hear a "click."

Her face changed: her eyes narrowed, her mouth tightened into an angry frown. She glared across the lawn at me. I had just taken the woman's money for the purchase, and S. knew it. The look she shot me would have slain me on the spot if it weren't for the fact that her Jedi Powers haven't yet reached their full awesome potential.

The other parents staffing the sale table saw the look too. They gave a collective sharp intake of breath.

"Maybe I'd better go talk to her," I said.

"Maybe you'd better," they all quickly agreed.

So I approached S., who appeared to be above speaking to the likes of me. After all, I was the person who had foiled her anti-sales tactics and allowed the bike she wanted to get away.

"We could think about getting you a new pink and purple bike," I started.

"I don't want a new pink and purple bike," she said, indignant.

"Well, uh..." I floundered.

Fortunately, she helped me out.

"What I want is a new Spiderman bike."

"Oh," I heard myself say. "We can get you a new Spiderman bike."

I also think I said something like, "We don't need to see his identification," and "These aren't the droids we're looking for."

Doomed, I tell you.
My husband and I, and anyone who ever dates my daughter.
Doomed.

Post rummage sale, pre-migraine

Must sleep now before head explodes. As Homer Simpson might say, "Stoopid headache!"

The school rummage sale was huge, and it was a success - but I wouldn't call it a huge success.

I spent hours and hours schlepping stuff around afterwards in the cleanup effort. Even with today's half off everything and then final hour of "a dollar a bag," we ended up with 3 truckloads and two vanloads full of stuff. And then some. About a dozen boxes of clothes and boxes of kitchenware, toys, stuffed animals, the usual one lonely Nordic track.

Assuming my head does not explode, tomorrow I will tell the story of daughter number two's efforts to control the sale's inventory.

A silly link

Just this today. Very silly, but fun.

Enjoy!

Marathon Day

Well, alrighty. The banana nut loaves have just been put in the oven. That sounds like a cryptic top-secret code phrase, doesn't it? I mean, especially this late at night, when one has been up for about, give or take, three years.

"The banana nut breads loaves are in the oven."
"Roger that. We have confirmation of a Bake Sale at oh-seven-hundred, sir."
"Over. I want a positive read on the Kids Sleeping before we commence with Blog exercise."
"Affirmative, sir."

*Sigh*. I don't write that kind of thing as well as Kate Bachus, but this late at night, my judgment is screwy enough that I try, anyway.


Before the baking of the loaves, there was the trip to the grocery store at 10:30pm for vanilla extract. And let me just say that if we all thought gasoline prices were bad, we should take a look at how truly impoverished we would be if our tanks required vanilla extract to run. Even the cashier did a sharp intake of breath when she rang up the bottle. Very nice.

Before the vanilla extract trip, there was the performance of Coppelia that S's dance school put on. I think she's about 10 years from being able to dance in a show like that. See this link for the story, if you'd like. It's a little twisted, but they did an innocent-enough production.

Before the dance show was gymnastics, before/during that, two trips to the Rummage Sale site to help set up, a quick trip home, a trip to Hospice to drop of a check from the Human Race, picking up the girls from school and a playdate, and a full and busy day at work. For the first time I can remember in a long time, I had no real "meal" at all today - just snacks grabbed here and there, mostly junky stuff.

I am not complaining. I am recording. I'd like to just write: "had a busy day," but if I ever look back and read this blog entry years from now, I'll be thinking, "What? Busy doing what? Where are the details? Where is the reflection and writerly focus? What really happened? Was there vanilla extract involved?"

Thus I am forced to expand the basic "busy day" plot.

Did I forget to Post today?

I sometimes think I will just plum forget to write here some day this year, but after the .34 seconds of panic wears off, I realize that it isn't likely. It's more likely that I'll write two sleepy posts in a fog of bloggines than that my brain would allow me to reach midnight without having done this at all.

Here's what I'm not writing about tonight
Star Wars
Three people I know who have birthdays today
The genocide in Rwanda

As has happened so often before, I'm literally falling asleep at the keyboard and couldn't even do the first of these topics justice right now.

Note to self:
blog early and blog often, and actually write something, for goodness' sake.

Mixed bag

What a day. There were small upheavals and long meetings at work, and the afternoon plans were set aside for a last-minute playdate at our house. I baked a pumpkin pie for the school's Farmer's Market and for probably the first time in my life, did not burn the crust. It's after 10 and now a loaf of banana bread is baking - also for the market.

After the girls and I had dinner, I took them with me to give blood (mine). Finally my levels were high enough for me to donate. R read a book on the Blood Bank's big van, and S told the folks that she wanted to be a nurse when she grows up, and she watched the whole process with real interest and not the slightest bit of squeamishness. Afterwards, one of the phlebotomists gave her gloves and a small bit of bandage for her to practice being a nurse with her stuffed animals. She now has a makeshift clinic in her bedroom. When I tucked her into bed, she said, "Mommy, be very careful of the Tiger. He has Lobo Fever, and that's very dangerous to humans." I assured her I'd be extra careful.

It looks like there are some changes coming at work, and I just gave blood, and in 3 weeks I'm going to a poetry workshop. The last thing I need now is to come down with Lobo Fever - especially if this is a 5 year old nurse's casual way of referring to Lobo Disease.

Here's the scoop on Lobo Disease, from webmd.com. The medical name for the disease is Paracoccidioidomycosis. Say that three times fast.

"Paracoccidioidomycosis (PCM) is a chronic infectious tropical disease caused by the fungus Paracoccidioides brasiliensis. The initial infection usually occurs in the lungs, but may also spread to the skin, mucous membranes, and other parts of the body. Specialized cells that line the walls of blood and lymphatic vessels and dispose of cellular waste (reticuloendothelial system) may also be affected by Paracoccidioidomycosis. If left untreated, life-threatening complications can occur. Most cases of this disease occur in South and Central America."

Yep. Not on my list of "Diseases I'd Like To Have."

It is, admittedly, a pretty short list anyway.

But still.

Educating the Federal Judge

So the story goes like this; when R. was about 6 1/2 months old, and I was back at work (but pumping milk 3 times a day at work so she would have that in her bottle), I was summoned for Jury Duty at the Federal Court in San Francisco.

It was for a racial discrimination suit that had been brought against the utility giant PG & E. I didn't try to get out of serving. However, just as I was realizing that I had pretty much been selected for the jury, I asked to have a word with the Clerk of the Court. The Clerk was a smartly dressed petite woman who obviously knew her stuff and had the respect of everyone in the room, including the judge (who was imposing in his own right). I mentioned to the clerk that I did have this, uh, situation, where I was expressing milk for my baby. And I asked how often breaks might happen, and whether there was a fridge where I could store the, uh, expressed milk.

So she went back to this U.S. District Court Judge and spoke to him at great length in hushed tones. There were whispers back and forth, and then the judge called the attorneys to him, and he requested that I join this little sidebar party they were having.

Please note that I was not feeling heroic at this moment. I was in a grand old courtroom with rows of prospective jurors staring at me, and the judge and lawyers and clerk in a serious legal-person huddle around me. I was feeling decidedly embarrassed. But here's what happened. The judge, a black gentleman who was probably closer to 70 than 60, asked that I explain to him just what my concerns were. So I did. It took some time, because he had never (I am not making this up) heard of such a thing as pumping breastmilk and saving it to give to the baby later. It was, apparently, outside of his realm of experience.

Once he did understand, however, he decided that there was no reason I couldn't serve on the jury. He said he would just make sure we had frequent enough (and long enough) breaks for me to do what I needed to do.

And that's how it played out. On any given day, after an hour or two of testimony, His Honor would say something like, "And I believe we will adjourn...?" with a careful look in my direction. My job would be to slyly signal with a raised eyebrow or slight nod or shake my head (depending on how I was holding up) and he would then finish his sentence with either, "...now for a half hour" or, "..in an hour and a half," etc.

I had educated a Federal Judge regarding the realities of being a working woman in today's world who is, at the same time, trying to do right by her baby. In retrospect, I was pretty proud of myself, and that took a little of the edge off of the embarrassment.

The trial lasted more than two weeks. I think we would have ruled in favor of the corporation (the man's case was weak, and every witness for him damned him further), but then, at the beginning of the third week, the corporation settled.

Add to the length of this jury service the distance (40 miles from my home), and the fact that the trial - at the SF Federal Building - started the day before the Oklahoma City bombing. You can imagine the shift in security from the first day to the second.

It was a tense time for all sorts of reasons. But I survived it, and I feel like I personally paved the way in that particular judge's court for any other breastfeeding moms silly enough to report for service instead of opting out as I'm sure (now) I could have done. Live and learn.

Or not

Okay, so the court story will have to wait. I don't mean to be a liar. But I saved blogging until so late in the day that I just don't have it in me to record a story here, or even talk about today's jury duty selection process.

I will record that I wasn't selected, and given the type of trial and expected length of the trial, that's okay with me. In general, though, I never try to get out of serving, and I wouldn't have tried to get out of serving today if it had come down to that. Most of us are asked to do nothing more than pay taxes as citizens of this country; the government requires so little of us, I feel it's important to do this much, and vote, and pay those taxes. I have that much trust in the systems that we have in place. They're not perfect, but they're better than most alternatives.

Although I will also say that I know plenty of people who feel they're sacrificing enough just sticking it out and staying in the U.S. while an administration they find either incompetent or sinister (or both) makes decisions they find abhorrent. And I understand that point of view, too.

2 hours of writing

So I had, theoretically, 2 hours of writing time today at the cafe downtown with Suzanne. And we did actually write, after the usual catch-up time and then me also running all sorts of current worries and inanities in my life by Suzanne, who always has a sympathetic ear and words of wisdom. We did miss the other third of our writer's group, Julia. Next time, Super Mama!

I worked on a poem, and I wrote about my writing, which strikes me as incestuous, somehow. But it did help, and I could have spent even more time writing, so those are good things.

Tomorrow, I report for Jury Duty - always an interesting experience. At least this time, unlike last time I was on a jury, I don't have a baby at home.

I will write the story of how I educated a Federal Court Judge about expressing milk tomorrow. You have been warned.

A little pigment, a whole new world

Our livingroom is in the process of being transformed. It was all so easy! I suggested we needed new paint. D agreed. I went to OSH early this morning and brought home a couple of quarts to try out. Neither color was right (in fact, one was very not right), but after I'd run around handling the Food for Families delivery and transportation for ballet class and riding lessons, all four of us went together to the hardware store & D & I picked the colors that would be right.

And voila!

With D doing 98% of the work (because my "liquid impaired" problem applies to paint too), the room has suddenly gone from drab and dirty off-off-white to a rich "roasted asparagus" rolled over "tea green" on one wall and vellum on another, with a nice pale neutral color replacing the sickly salmon that had been on the beams in the room.

Actually, "we" have a lot more to do with the velum and beams, but the green is done. It looks better than it sounds, and the gold-framed prints we'd had on the wall are great against the deeper color.

I am so grateful to have a husband who is willing and able to do this. And I'm glad I'm strong-willed (let's not say "stubborn") and comfortable enough here to insist that we make the change.

I lived in 11 houses the first 15 years of my life, and then in another 3 rental apartments before I was 20. This could have taught me to adapt quickly, to develop the skill of making a place my own in no time at all. I know someone who unpacks her suitcase to put clothes in the drawers in a hotel room even if staying there only one night. She learned from a life of travel that impermanence doesn't mean one can't be civilized.

But instead of teaching me to set up camp under even the worst circumstances, moving so much had the more predictable effect of causing me to avoid investing much emotion or self into the room or building around me. Why bother? Why concentrate on making a place perfect when whatever one did was going to last such a brief period of time? Or when, as a renter, I didn't have permission to paint the walls or nail holes in them for pictures anyway?

It has taken living here for nearly 3 times longer than I've lived in any other single home for me to start to feel safely settled in. But, as I'm discovering about so many things, better late than never.

One Thing Leads to Another

You know how these home improvement projects work. A few years ago, our guest bathroom was gutted from joist to roof (literally) and entirely remodeled because D's mom had given us the gift of a low-flow toilet.

And now that we have moved the old fish tank away from the livingroom wall in preparation for putting the new fish tank in its place, it seems that this is the opportunity we've been waiting for to repaint. Yup. You can only hold yourself back from brightening things up for so long, and apparently, 11 and a half-years is our personal limit.

So last night, even though I said I was going to bed, D. and I ended up staring at the empty corner where the old tank had been, and we realized the Golden Opportunity to turn an already complex and time-consuming project into a Neverending Project From Hell was stretched out before us like a box of upturned carpet tacks at a barefoot belly-dancing party.

And because we are such careful, plan-ahead Virgo types, we figured it would be a good idea to just sort of dash up to Home Depot tonight, after work and gymnastics and dinner, to grab a few gallons of a yet-to-be-decided-upon color and dang-it-all, start that project NOW so that we could finish it tomorrow and have it dry enough Sunday to move the new tank into the room.

The new tank, still in our garage, has 410 gallons of water in it. It has passed the pressure test. Tomorrow, we drain the thing into the neighbor's pool, a plan that was okay'd by the wife five minutes after being nixed by the husband. The upside is that the water doesn't go to waste. The downside is that the husband may end up blaming us for creating friction in any otherwise apparently functional marriage. We are such homewreckers.

Of course, there are minor glitches in every plan. For example, it wasn't until we were all walking out the door to go to Home Depot that we realized that it was 8:40 and the place closes at 9:00 on a Friday and it takes 30 minutes to get there. Math may not be my forte, but even I could see this was problematic.

And, yeah, D still has to make his custom dolly to move the 400 pounds (when empty) tank, and we need to mud part of the wall that was flaky. That kind of thing.

I assure you that it's only the wall that's flaky, not us. Oh, no. We're on it. We're sharp as the proverbial carpet tack.



Here are the fishies that started it all. The Coke can is for size comparison only but the perspective doesn't do the critters justice in spite of that: Lao Tsu, the big fish, is 17" long.

Shutting down, sir

S took a nap on the middle of the floor in the middle of a noisy livingroom today, at the house where she and R spend their Thursdays from 12:30-3:30. I was only half-joking when I asked the hostess, a great woman whom I admire very much & whose son is in R's class, if I could lie down next to sleeping S and take a nap myself.

You know, therapy is great, but it takes a lot out of you. I went to bed at 7:30 and am only up to fulfill this commitment. The rest, like the dishes and the mountain of clean laundry and spending time talking to D about his day and my day, reading that good book, watching that good film - all of that can wait.

I'm giving myself permission to check out and sleep a little extra tonight.
Not sick, just tired and withdrawn, and ok with that.

How are you?

Nothing to say

Nope. Nothing at all. Or, well, not really anything. Pretty much nil with just little suggestions of maybe a bit of a possibility of something that may (or may not) materialize.

Hmmmm.

Still not a lot to add to the above.
Except...

No. Not even that, I guess.




Last night I was pondering why I don't write more and I came up with the very certain (and possibly completely fabricated) realization that it's because I'm afraid I'd end up not sleeping, ignoring my family, & resenting my paying job and any other similarly trivial distractions. And those feelings would be in direct conflict with my equally strong obligation to order, structure, and the lifestyle to which my family and I have become accustomed (ie., one with a roof over our heads).

Shoot. You can see my dilemma, right?

I reckon the next step is to find a creative solution. Like, for example, I could stop thinking in such extreme terms, maybe. I mean, what's to say I can't set up 1 hour writing time 2 nights during the week and another 2 hour chunk guaranteed on Sundays? And what's to say I can't start to wean myself off of the artificial should-do's a bit more?

It apparently is a slow process. I've had this conversation in my head, with friends, and on the internet before now. Kinda like Groundhog Day, huh, D?

The things we do for fish

D has been working hard on the 450 gallon fish tank that will be replacing our two koi's modest (read: too small to turn around in) 60 gallon tank. If you saw our fish, you'd understand why this is necessary. These fish outweigh some housecats. It may take both of the adults in the house to lift the larger of the two out of the present tank and into the temporary tank that will house them while we move the present tank aside to make room for the new! improved! aquarium.

D's been building the new tank in the garage. He said it's a little like building a plane in your garage. I said, "Yeah, but planes have wheels." How will he move the tank from the garage to around the house and in the back door so it can be set up in the livingroom? He'll build a special dolly for it. Of course.

My mother fails to understand why we have to "lose" about an eight of our livingroom to this new tank, even though I explained that these fish are a like family, and we can't just give them away, let them die, or fry them up for dinner (even though they'd serve 12).

Between the saltwater tidepool/reef tank that runs the length of one of the walls of the garage, and now the Big Tank, I say we call this "Monterey Bay Aquarium North" and start to sell admission to classes of small school children. It will off-set the expenses associated with building the "exhibits," anyway.

I'll be sure to announce the Opening Day date and Members-only Early Entry hours as soon as those details become available.

Monday night, turning in early

Well, I don't know what you have left for the day, but I'm about done. I've given the kids 10 minutes more to color, etc. and 10 minutes for me to "scribble" as Jo March might say, and catch up on the internet (as Jo never did), and then we're hitting the hay.

Reading L'Engle's musings on "fundamental" Christianity and "literalism" has been encouraging. She always points back to the importance of Love. I wish I could keep it in mind more often, myself.

I was approached by a past school board member on Saturday with a question about whether I would consider "having a conversation" about me being on the Board. Clearly, she doesn't realize that while I seem responsible and discerning and involved, in fact, I dread responsibility and I am trying very hard to set boundaries in my life and keep it simple. Maybe it's time to practice the mantra that goes:

No. No. No.

Except that's not a very positive mantra, is it? Maybe it should be a question of saying "no" to them, but of saying "yes" to me, to my family, to space & peace. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Speaking of which, I have done a drastic thing and signed up for a 3-day poets' workshop at a retreat center near Monterey. It takes place next month. It's my way of re-affirming that I'm serious about writing. I've heard the workshop leader give a lecture and I think I can learn a lot from her. This afternoon, I was talking to another writer I know who is familiar with some people who go to that particular conference/retreat facility, and she said, "Yeah. That could be really a great experience."

"Or," she added brightly, "it could turn out to be just a bunch of really damaged people putting it all out there for 3 days."

Great.

I also now notice that swimsuits are entirely optional at the hot springs, and are, in fact, used less often than the alternative. This has left D wondering why, exactly, he agreed to giving me the weekend off (while he single-parents).

But honey, it could be such an...um...educational experience. My goal? To write poetry and more poetry, to pick up some more writing tips, and to do it all without myself somehow becoming a really damaged person. Hey. Goals are important to have.

Mother's Day

I was deeply happy for a good long stretch of time today. It made me realize that I only skip over the surface of happiness like a well-thrown stone most of the time. Real contentment, the sense that all is, in fact, right with the world, is a little too rare these days.

When did that change? I don't know. But I do know that it helped greatly to be home for most of the day - after taking R to riding lessons at 8:15. And it helped even more that D did the grocery shopping, made lunch, and did the dishes. His mother and stepdad were here, and we had a good time, considering. There were only a couple of tense moments - once when Larry started to talk about how the streets in Iraq were literally running with blood & I cut him off because the kids were within earshot; and again, after lunch, when the kids weren't around and he told the story of how he'd threatened a registered sex offender who works as a janitor in the same large hospital building where he (Larry) is working as a painter. The conversation got a little too graphic and I interrupted with a story about my dad (always a good conversation stopper) and he dropped what he'd been saying.

In spite of that, though, I felt like I had a good stretch of space to catch up on emails, organize papers, do laundry and tidy, while the kids entertained themselves. That kind of time is just the ticket to allow me to feel caught up so I can in turn settle down and breathe deeply, so I can rest my feet in peaceful waters.

Just finished reading Eve Green by a novelist 10 years younger than me. The nerve. I'd picked it up at random (I kid you not), so of course, it "randomly" takes place in Wales. It never stops in my life, apparently; that connection to Wales is always there in one form or another.

Now I'm reading Penguins & Golden Calves by Madeleine L'Engle. Essays on icons and idols, writing about America and Antarctica, and about her life with her husband and her life after his death. It's a good read. It's good for me to stay connected with this author, who is so much a Christian and yet still so able to allow God to live somewhere bigger than the box some Christians put him in.

Post race night already

It's been a full day. The race went well - I didn't walk at all, and did a pretty good time (for me), considering I hadn't been trainng for the event as much as usual.
I spent the better part of the day after that shuttling kids around and participating in the girls' school's May Faire, complete with maypole dancing from each class, strawberry shortcake, flower planting, garland making, prayer flag painting, and kids running around and being kids.

I've fallen asleep twice now, writing this. No point trying to come up with anything much that's readable, now....make that three times. -out-

Pre Race Night, not ready

Tomorrow is The Human Race, a 5k walk/10k run with about 8,000 participants that annually raises over 1 million dollars for non-profit organizations in the county. A 10k is 6.2 miles - and haven't run any further than 4.6 miles at a stretch since February. I should probably be worried, but what's the point? It wouldn't change anything. I have to hope the half marathon training leading up to February is still somehow in my system.

Besides, thanks to amazing generosity from co-workers, I've raised quite a bit of money for our city's Hospice, and the pledges will motivate me after the four mile mark, when I'm starting to wonder whose bright idea it was to do the 10k instead of the 5k, anyway.

It's just past 9pm now, and I'm going to bed - about an hour and a half earlier than I have all week. That should help with the run too, I think.

Pre-weekend mode

Let's just call this the beginning of the weekend. There's that one day of work to get through, but hey! that's just one day.

We do Superslow weight training twice a week at work. It's one of the biggest perks there is at the company, one of the reasons *not* to quit. The concept is that you use specially-calibrated machines to move the weights really slowly. It's not the number of reps that counts so much as spending 2 minutes on each machine doing exaggeratedly slow reps, 10 seconds in each direction. That way, within 20 minutes, you've had quite a workout. Sometimes my arms and legs are shaking pretty significantly by the time I wobble back to my desk after a session. My coworker once made fun of me, when just back from the gym, because my triceps and biceps were quivering when I reached out to dial the phone.

I usually don't want to do these workouts. It helps that our 2 trainers are awesome women and fun to spend time with and are, besides that, really good coaches. But still, it's a workout, not a half-hour of lying on a couch. And the weights are, well, heavy.

But the results of the training are great, and as another coworker pointed out once about each machine: "Hey. It's only 2 minutes. I can do just about anything if it's only for 2 minutes."

I may have already told this story. But my real point, now, is this: tomorrow is only 1 workday before the weekend. I can survive 1 workday.

And to Josh: we'll have to decline your generous offer of less-than-domesticated rats. But gee, thanks for asking.

(Is this what you mean by snarkiness, Julia?)

Miscellany

I'm still trying to sell the Escape. You can see it on craigslist.org here until the link expires.

We're also trying to find a home for something like 40 years (no, seriously) of National Geographics. D's father gave the boxes to us, and would like them to go to a school or non-profit organization as a lot. Once I know the exact years, I'll put that on craigslist too, I guess. Unlike many people I know, I have no experience at all with eBay, so I'm sticking to the local listings.

Dang.

I just started another sentence (and it was going to be a good one, honest) but Beatrice the rat walked on the keyboard and it went away. She's a worse critic of my work than I am. But she has turned out to be a great pet (when she isn't playing editor). She probably gets held or runs around the house 45-90 minutes a day by any of the four of us. When she is loose - which is to say, when the dog is not inside - she comes when you call her, even if she's in a distant room. Hmm. That's more than I can say about my daughters, as a matter of fact.

But I digress.

Beatrice and the dog (who is, I must say, a marvelous creature himself) have been introduced. She would climb right up his nose and sit on his head if we let her - she's that fearless and friendly. But Albion, wonderful though he is, would not be blamed for thinking that she is...well, if not an afternoon snack, than at least a fun new toy. And it's just too hard to un-bite the head off of a small animal.

Um. Sorry. Got gross there for a second.


I'm posting a picture from the race we ran last month, too. My first blog photo. Finally! Not the perfect picture of any one of the three of us, but it'll do.

The absolutely first thing you must do...

...is read Eloise Takes a Bawth sometime. It's zany, but it's also poetry.

Do you know about the author of the Eloise books, Kay Thompson? What a character. I had no idea. She was wild, eccentric, strong, determined and proud. She was probably very hard to live with, but at the same time she was inspirational. She never stopped, and she never looked back.

I truly admire people like that - artists on fire for life - but sometimes, I have to admire them from afar. Close enough to be warmed and lit up, but not so close that I burn to a crisp. My focus now is on creating my own light, having my own fire.

(And in the meantime, having fun fun fun by doing things like reading Eloise books to my kids.)

Somewhere in the middle of 8 hrs sleep

I fell asleep at 9 when I put the girls to bed, and now I'm doing this habitual "getting up only to post at around 11pm" thing.

What to say about today? Work was busy, as usual, so the day flew by there. After school and before the girls and I had dinner and a trip to the pet store, I was watching 6 kids: my 2, the next-door neighbor, the girl from across the street (who now knocks on our door 3 times an afternoon if we're not out front begging us to come out), and the siblings who had come over to play with my 2 kids to begin with.

It's crazy & impossible not to be completely In The Moment when in charge of that many children. One must abandon the thought of doing anything other than paying attention to the Present.

It is , however, tricky paying attention to the Present in multiple locations.

Julia was asking me to let her play inside with the rat at the same instant that Richie fell off the bike he was borrowing, and while I was distracted by that, S and Kira disappeared from Kira's driveway, where I'd had an eye on them. I saw from afar that Richie was fine (he got up and wasn't crying or limping), I put off Julia's request, and took her with me to find the other 2 five-year-olds. It wasn't too hard to guess where they'd gone because they'd just finished asking if they could go play at Kira's house, and I'd just finished saying, "No," because her mother was gone and there was no one there to watch them.

Sure enough, the front door to Kira's house was unlocked. I didn't feel comfortable going in while the other kids were in the street on bikes - I needed to watch them, too - so I called into the house from the front door for the girls to come out. It took a few tries, and then they finally emerged from a back bedroom. Before they were even close to me, Kira announced, "We're just eating crackers."

Right. That's always convincing.

"Really?" I asked. "You're not maybe eating candy?" (Kira's mother had told me a couple of days ago that they'd just found and raided a hidden stash.)

Oh, no, they weren't eating candy. They were busily chewing on crackers. Apparently the kind of Saltines that coincidently crunch just like hard candy crunches when you bite down on it in a quick the-parent-is-watching-me panic.

I was amazed at how fast they'd thought up a lie and how long they insisted on sticking to it. I asked a couple more times if it wasn't maybe, perhaps, for example, some candy they were eating. I even said boy, I bet it sure would be tempting to find and eat candy in a house when your mom and dad weren't there. I asked to see what they had in their mouths and their eyes got wide and a little wild and they clamped their jaws shut and furiously shook their heads, crunching and swallowing manically.

Meanwhile, Richie had fallen again, or maybe was finally really reacting to having fallen the first time, and he was lying in another neighbor's driveway, shaking his hand and groaning theatrically. And Julia was asking politely but plaintively if her dad was coming soon to pick her up.

Oh yeah, I was living in the moment then. It was so very Zen and peaceful.

I finally had to pull out the, "Gee, I guess we can't let you two play together if you tell stories to adults like this when you do," and that was enough to elicit the confessions. Not that they shouted out, "It's candy! It's candy!" They just nodded and when I finally put the question to them one more time.

I said, "Thank you for telling the truth," without adding, "finally."

I herded the children (except the girl-from-across-the-street) inside.

I got out the rat for Julia.

I got out more paper and pens for the Candy Thieves of Clairmont Court.

I cleaned up Richie's only-slightly torn palm.

I spent some time focusing on the "here and now" instead of the "here-and-there and now."



Actually, it was a good afternoon.

Many a new

Happy May Day!

Thanks for the comments, ladies. It's interesting. I completely believe that Clare could be a writer like her mom was and is, but I realize that I can't (maybe I should say, "can't yet") believe in it for myself. Is that an honest assessment of my lack of ability, or just my lack of belief in myself that's speaking? And if it's the latter, well, dammit, I need to take steps to change that.

Last month, I wrote a couple of new poems & posted one here. Here's what I'll do this month to strengthen/create my vision of myself as a writer. I'll write at least two new poems and will send something out to a magazine or journal. Today, the part of Julia-daring-me will be played by me. Since she's busy with a new baby and all that.

And I think Lisa 's comment to yesterday's post is valid. If such a thing can be done and if I can be thick-skinned/confident enough to stand the unavoidable potentially ugly fallout associated with it, I should try to change where I sit at work from one room to another. As one of Lisa's teachers once told her about Evolution: "Change, Adapt, or Die."

Hmmm. So what have I learned from my forty-five minutes on the internet tonight? That my self-esteem and self-confidence are still too low. That I shouldn't beat myself up over having low self-esteem. (Because for some reason, that just seems counter-productive.) That some people claim to have seen UFO's around the WTC during the attack. (You'll notice no hot link to those web pages. I'm sure you can find them if you're so inclined.) That Suzanne saw an amazing sight today. And (again) that I can sit down hoping I'll come up with something to say and - lo and behold! - the words come. Even if it's self-reflective stuff.

And since I have to get up for work in 5 hours (stop laughing, D), I'm done for now. And yeah, that sleeping 8 hrs a night thing didn't last (as some of you knew it wouldn't). But I remember it fondly, and it's something to try again soon.

Saturday night

I am so grateful for my husband's ability to listen to me and for his support.

D caught me looking at job listings and wanted to know how serious that was. So we had a long talk. Actually, as I was saying, I had a long talk and he had a long listen and good advice.

I am not an ambitious person when it comes to work. I have never been. I don't feel the need to push myself ahead in some career path. I do not strive for more and more money. I feel extremely fortunate that I do make a good living, but that's more accident than planning.

I want a job where I know what my duties are and I do them extremely well and am recognized for my competence. Beyond that, what do I need? Health benefits and hours that allow me to pick up my kids from school. But as for the rest? I was happy covering books with plastic at the library, which required next to no brainpower and by most peoples' accounts was hellishly monotonous, but to me was therapeutic and lovely. I was happy doing software troubleshooting which required thinking hard and fast all day long while keeping 20-50 customers and programmers satisfied. If I know my place and can work hard behind the scenes to make the machine function, that's good enough for me.

My unhappiness at jobs has more often than not sprung from personality conflicts. I know I'm not perfect, and I'm sure I'm not easy to work with all the time. But whatever faults I have, I think that I have a positive attitude at work in general. And I only last so long working with people who are chronically angry, or disrespectful of other people who don't share their political views or temperament. My skin is only so thick, and then when I've had enough, I've had enough, and any more of the same negative attitude or unethical behavior from colleagues is fuel for the fire of discontent. Maybe I need to participate in some kind of workshop where I learn to interact more productively with aggressive personalities.

Or maybe not.

Just because my childhood has given me the tools needed to put up with abusive people doesn't mean I should.

Perhaps what I really need is to be a writer. They work alone almost all of the time. Some writers complain about this. At the moment, I think it sounds heavenly.

Fretting about work is not something that one should be doing on a Saturday night.

Is it?

More Spring Cleaning

Happy Birthday to my half-sister Melinda, and to our friend Cheryl! I don't think either read this page, but it's the thought that counts, right?

In other news...
In our livingroom are about 10 boxes and half a dozen bags all packed up and ready to go to the girls' school Rummage Sale. I'd done much of the boxing earlier in the year, but tonight I also went through cupboards and did more purging.

I also have three bags full of items that wouldn't necessarily sell at the garage sale but are still in good enough condition to donate to charity. And then there's the stuff that I've just plain thrown out. It's very nice to think that after I drop those things off tomorrow, I won't have to see them again. Except while working at the rummage sale, when I can pretend they were never mine, anyway, all the while diverting the girls' attention from anything they might recognize and suddenly feel compelled to rescue from my heartless abandonment.

You know how it goes. "But Mom! That's my favorite little-stuffed M&M-in-a-baseball-hat guy! I love that one! How could you get rid of it?!"

I tell you. I'm heartless.

But really, we SO do not need all this stuff. Good riddance to it, I say!

I do have a fear that all these internal & external changes I'm going through will lead to me jettisoning more big things - like my job, for example. There are plenty of reasons to stay where I work. But there are also, I'm increasingly aware, reasons to leave.

I've been feeling dizzy lately, just that slight loss of equilibrium one might get after a glass or two of wine, or the sense of constantly listing a little that comes from having turned around in circles several times like kids do before they lie on the floor and go, "Woooow." And of course I think it could be anemia, or that I'm pregnant (extremely unlikely, but technically not impossible), or that I have a brain tumor. Or it could be, I think, just a physical manifestation of an internal state of being off-balance. I'm listing. I'm drifting. And I don't know what port I'm leaving or what port I'm making for. I'm trying to enjoy the journey, but I'm also a little worried that I've forgotten to look up and take mental note of the position of the stars.


Today makes a year since I started this Blog. Who'd have thought it would be so regular a part of my life? I'm glad. Even though sometimes it feels like nothing more than a combination journal/email to myself, some confidence and writerly habits have come from it.

My first post said, "Thus it starts. No promises. Just a beginning."


And now?


Thus it continues.

No promises.

Just a process.

Another old one

I wrote this poem three years ago, almost to the day, to be part of the "THE WILD POETRY ELIOT HYPERPOEM" project. You can see the original hyperpoem here. The idea is for different writers to use a line from "The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock"(in this case)and use it as a jumping off place to create something of their own, or to at least incorporate it into a poem somehow. I suppose you can either think of this as base, low plagiarism, or as another link in a long chain of artists inspiring one another. Or you can think of it however you like, actually. When I wrote it, I was very conscious of the war in Iraq having just started.




Portent

And how to explain that yellow smoke? Is it
signal smoke, the smoke of sacrificial offerings,
prophetic? Born of the burning of unholy things?
The yellow haze of gypsies, soothsayers and bombs.
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window panes
and will not be gone.

What good could come of such a thing? What could it signal
that is clean? See how it lies low and eager to come in?
Yes, you see what I mean. It is Spring again.
The roses reincarnate the yard, and still, outside
the yellow smoke hangs sullen and sulfuric, daring us to breathe.

We try to blow it free like cake candle flames, but the smoke
remains: muzzle pointed at us, the yellow of rotten grass,
of nicotine stained fingers and newspapers in rooms
where we pass time reading the same stale page.

I have measured out smoke in pipes and corridors;
yours are not the only eyes that burn from what presses
at the panes. I have seen the smoke of fires rise
with a full-moon wind, but that smoke rose. Since then,

since then pillars have smoldered low beneath our feet.
And I can only think two ways free: to open the window,
let the patient smoke in, to anoint the room with what follows behind;
or to bide time until it slinks to another street, every tatter of it gone,
and we can wipe the glass clean.

Daily poetry

Tonight I have neither thoughtful musings nor family anecdotes to tell. But I found this on Poetry Daily by Alan Shapiro, and like it. I only have a few more days of National Poetry Month to give me an excuse to post so many poems, but I'll probably continue to do so after April, too.
Who hasn't fallen out of love? Or risen out of it?



Takeoff

We didn't fall out of love,
old love, we rose — we rose
as in a plane, as in the moment
when the wheels lift
and the whole craft
shudders against the gravity
it then forgets as
all at once the runway's
fretful rushing by the window
slows and resolves to field
and tree line, the beaten
metal of a pond
the sun anneals;

we rose the way it all
grows clearer
as it diminishes till
a car drives in place
along a road that winds
and straightens, straightens to wind
again across a widening
landscape in which
nothing at all is moving
except the ever-
smaller sharper
shadow of our
getting clear of it.

Road rash

R took a spill on her bike this afternoon. It was a slow-moving spill, and she's only scraped a knee and her palm, a bit, and now has an arcing bruise in the shape of part of her tire on her inner thigh. I was down the street walking home with S at the time, and I saw that R didn't shed a tear as she got up and hobbled to our driveway. Another mom, who was collecting her daughter from a play-date when R fell, commented on how brave R was. I also praised her for being so calm while I cleaned up the cuts and applied antiseptic and bandages.

"That was quite a spill," I said. "I saw you fall."

"Me too. Up close," she answered.


Later, when we were talking about our best thing/worst thing for the day, R said that her best thing had been the fall. "I know it sounds weird," she said. But then she explained that when she was going down with the bike, it made her get rid of some anger she'd been holding inside about other things in her life. I can only guess that this is the anger and frustration that she catalogued for me yesterday: anger over having to endure the STAR testing at school, over being friends with people who aren't friends with each other, over her little sister getting on her nerves. She said that the fall pushed everything out of her except what was happening at that moment, and she sort of felt better afterwards for it. I wasn't sure whether to be relieved that she had this kind of release (I understand what she means), or whether to be afraid that it's the beginning of some lifelong pattern of self-abuse in the name of catharsis. This is just one example, too, of me extrapolating some little event out to an extreme conclusion.

But then she said that her worst thing was also the fall. So I think we're all right.

Placeholder post

Here's a placeholder post: an I'm-putting-my-quarter-on-the-arcade-game-edge-to-say-I-get-the-next-round post.

It's not that there is nothing to say. There is plenty to say. How the kids on the street spill out from the houses in the long afternoons to play, and how we moms talk in driveways about whether evolutionary theory really contradicts the story of creation from the Bible, and whether the careful phrases required by Positive Discipline are really worth it when one swat on the bottom seems imminently more expedient and effective, and where there's a good deal on groceries, and what we women on the cusp (or just past) of 40 want to be when we grow up. There is plenty to write about the satisfaction of so many blossoms on the orchid in the bathroom, and the simple gratitude that it is still alive, after all these years. About what isn't still alive - the relationships and habits and reactions that have died either tortuous or unnoticed deaths, the stars whose light we are still getting. About the mixed blessing of a rejection letter from a literary magazine. About the rat coming to us when she is loose in the house and we call her. About cheese. About whale cheese. About Wales. About what is inherited and what is learned. About the smell of basil, and the perfect blue-grey color of the BMW driven by the boy in High School I had a crush on.

But today, I'm just writing to record that at least I know, now, that when I sit down to write, there is plenty to say. And the words to say it all are waiting just like those kids to spill out into the world and play.

Backtowork eve

Got the girls to bed later than I wanted to, but still at a - *cough* - somewhat decent hour.

They did so well at the run this morning. R ran on ahead of us and says she did the mile in 15 minutes. The event wasn't formally timed, and I hadn't realized how informal it was until I got to the end and there was no clock, no timer, no nothing. I think S and I did the route in about 20 minutes, but that's just a guess because it started 3:30 min. after the 5k, but the 5k started "sometime" after 9am. At any rate, I'm proud of both girls. R says she didn't walk much, and S ran more than I thought she would. We did most of the route holding hands, except when she did a little sprint now and then. When she did walk, she walked fast, and we only had to stop once, when she insisted on unzipping the legs of her pants to turn them into shorts because she was hot. These pants have a handy design where you can adjust the length by adding or removing zippered sections of them - but since we didn't want to stop as long as it would take to actually pull off her shoes and remove the unneeded sections completely, for the last 1/3 of the mile or so, S had half of her pants fallen around her ankles. The effect was comical, but considering the circumstances (pushing ourselves to finish a run as quickly as we could), S and I cared about how she looked about as much as a woman in labor cares about how she looks.

Both girls ran the last bit of their race all-out. It's hard not to, when the finish has rows of people on both sides cheering you on. S and I were too far back to see R finish, but she said she passed several runners at the end. And S looked so impressive to me (just behind her as I was at the end of the race) pushing her short body for all she was worth, with her little arms and legs pumping. She's become taller and leaner in the last few months, but she still looked something like a determined little bull charging the finish line. (I would never use this description in her presence, and I mean it in the most affectionate way - honest. There's just no other comparison that comes to mind.)


On another note, I got to spend some much-needed time at the Apple Box "writing" mid-day while D took a break from work to watch the girls. I know that technically, talking about writing doesn't count as writing - nor does talking about other things count as writing. But it was still much-needed. I feel like I've had a real weekend.

Butter & Eggs Day Parade

S was in the parade today along with a quarter of the town's population (the rest of us watched). She walked with the girls' school. The theme was "That's Entertainment," and her school was trying to suggest old-fashioned things like jumping rope and music and dance and just plain "doing" instead of "watching" as good forms of entertainment. Very Waldorf of them. S was among the kindergartners in the back of the group, blowing bubbles. She seemed to have a good time. The town is small enough that we saw a dozen or more people we know downtown as we sat among the lighter crowd toward the front of the parade route.

Tomorrow, the girls and I will run that little 1-mile race together in the City.
It's a real family weekend. Except that D worked today & will work again tomorrow. Blech, I say. And he says double-blech.

Looking forward to writing time (BIC!) tomorrow too - if I can find parking while downtown is having an antique festival. (Be warned, SA, the joint may be jumpin')

I kind of dread writing these blog entries at night. It's been suggested that I switch my blogging time to the morning, but I couldn't do it at work, and before work, when it's still dark, I don't have time to get lost in a thought and find my way out through words. But even at night, even when I feel drained of anything but the energy to crawl into bed, once I start writing, my love of the process comes right to the surface, and I feel I could go on for a long time, enjoying what I'm doing. The exact same thing could be said of my running. As I lace up my shoes, I think, "Is this really necessary?" and after about 20 steps, I think, "Yes. Yes, it is."

Julia mentioned that she'd just read a Steve Martin book. I haven't read any of his books, but I found this quote and wanted to share:


"I think I did pretty well, considering I started out with nothing but a bunch of blank paper. ~ Steve Martin

It's all OK around here

My friend Laura gave me a copy of the music from Oklahoma yesterday, and we've all been listening to it ever since. In the car, in the livingroom, in R's room. D says he's made a copy for in his truck & at work. I mean, we're such a sappy happy family at the moment, wandering around humming "The Surrey with the Fringe On Top" and "People Will Say We're In Love."

I'm a sucker for lyrics that are clever. Cole Porter does the same thing, and Irving Berlin. Not that I know many of their songs, but those I know I like.

I do know the songs from musicals I was in: The Wizard of Oz in 7th grade, The Sound of Music in 8th grade, Westside Story in college. And yesterday, I Googled the boy I'd acted opposite as a teenager. He was Gregor Von Trapp to my Maria, and I was Mrs. Crachit to his Bob Cratchit in the Christmas Carol. At one point, we figured we'd had about 20 on-stage children together. Oh, the romance. I must say he has grown up nicely since he could sing higher notes than I could, and his career has sure taken off better than mine did. In spite of battling MS for years, he's done off-Broadway and tons of voice-overs and TV (such as CSI: NY). Go, Grant!

Well, I must tuck the little "I Can't Say No" gals into bed, now. As S pointed out about the song, "She says she can't say 'no' but she says 'no' when she says that."

Ah. Can't put anything past my kids, I tell you.

There's no translation for it

D just said he's "deprimé" (pronounced "day-preem-ay" with a French accent)which is apparently untranslatable, because the few words I threw at him - deflated, defeated, drained - didn't do the trick. I guess it's more like "totally without energy and feeling depressed about not having enough energy."

I know how he feels. I'm all daypreemay myself right now. But it could be worse. Apparently, the minimum wage in Cuba is being doubled May first from 100 pesos to 225 pesos - equal in US dollars from about $4.50 to about $9.40 a month. It would be worse to be daypreemay and trying to make ends meet in Cuba. Or plenty of other places in the world.

I'm reading Feed, and it's having a real effect on me. I highly recommend it to anyone who likes YA Science Fiction - a sub-genre, I guess. Highly. Like, way highly. It's all about death? And it's written in like first person, in this teenager's voice, you know? And it's like, totally affecting me so that I'm thinking da da da the world is heading in this direction and da da da we should all pay attention. On and on, as I read it. And I'm not really daypreemay from reading this book, because I get a charge out of a good book, even if it's a totally depressing good book. Or maybe because it's totally depressing.

Damn. I may never get out of therapy. Thank God for a good health plan and a reasonable co-pay.

Anniversary

14 year wedding anniversary today. D had roses delivered to my work: one pale peach rose for every year, and an extra red one in the middle for the years to come. He's a good man. I'm glad we found each other 22 years ago. And I'd say the same even if he hadn't given me roses: a good man.

A little lighter poetry for you

One of my all time favorites, from A.A. Milne:

The Four Friends

Ernest was an elephant, a great big fellow,
Leonard was a lion with a six foot tail,
George was a goat, and his beard was yellow,
And James was a very small snail.

Leonard had a stall, and a great big strong one,
Earnest had a manger, and its walls were thick,
George found a pen, but I think it was the wrong one,
And James sat down on a brick

Earnest started trumpeting, and cracked his manger,
Leonard started roaring, and shivered his stall,
James gave a huffle of a snail in danger
And nobody heard him at all.

Earnest started trumpeting and raised such a rumpus,
Leonard started roaring and trying to kick,
James went on a journey with the goats new compass
And he reached the end of his brick.

Ernest was an elephant and very well intentioned,
Leonard was a lion with a brave new tail,
George was a goat, as I think I have mentioned,
but James was only a snail.





I love the rhyme of "intentioned" and "mentioned." I love the wrong pen. And I love the snail's huffle. This is right up there with Nash's Custard the Dragon in my book. Just plain silly, and fun, and from a time before ours, but still something children today can love. Case in point.

I was deferred from giving blood again yesterday - the second time in a row - because of a low hematocrit count. This in spite of the fact that I take iron daily and was nowhere in my cycle (thank you for asking) that would have caused a lower than usual count. The culprit, I think, is probably coffee. The Blood Bank gave me a second copy of a purple photocopied leaflet entitled, "Hematocrit Levels Handbook" which tells me that, "Coffee taken with meals can reduce iron absorption up to 39%." Since I take coffee with, before, and after breakfast, it doesn't matter how many nuts, beans, apricots or raisins I eat - it's not going to help. One more reason to cut back.

On the other hand, apparently iron or stainless steel cookware helps: "One study found that spaghetti has almost 30 times as much iron when cooked in an iron pot than in a glass one." Who cooks spaghetti in a glass pot these days? And who knows what hematocritic value Calphalon has?

I must be tired. I started out with a darling poem for children and ended up discussing the health benefits of cookware. Heck. Maybe I am anemic. If I ate red meat, I'd have a big old steak to see if that helps me string sentences together any better. As it is, I guess I'll go have a raisin. Or a cup of coffee. Yeah. That always enables me to focus.

When 4 is better than 2

Four is better than two when you're talking about children entertaining each other. R's friend Richie and his little sister, S's friend Julia, have been busy since after 4pm with some elaborate political negotiations.

They currently represent two kingdoms - R & R are the emperors of Japan and China, playing in direct contradiction of actual current events by forming an alliance. Hmm. Do you think we could channel the friendly emperors in my house so that Nobutaka Machimura and Wu Dawei have productive talks?

Anyway, here Japan & China are in a feud against S & J, from the Kingdom of Jasmine & Some Other Princess.

But wait - borders change quickly! Now sooner had I written that than Richie is Merlin & R is King Arthur, and they're holding a unicorn hostage while announcing riddles that S & J must solve in order to gain entry to the kingdom.

Little did they know that the 5-year-olds already know the answer to the riddle of the Sphinx:

"What walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon and three legs at night?"

"A baby, an adult, and..." (this took an minute) "...and an old lady!"

The little girls have been allowed to be part of the kingdom. A proclamation has just been read. The princess is giving Arthur "the most powerfulist jewel" in the kingdom, and has rushed off with her sister the Other Princess to the ball which apparently has already started.

All this, and more, lasting over an hour total now. About as long as it would have taken to sit glassy-eyed in front of a video or two.

And yes, I know that the riddle of the Sphinx also (sometimes) includes "...and is weakest when it walks on 4 legs."

Man may be weakest walking on 4 legs, but when it comes to kids contained in a house, 4 is definately better than 2.

Look out Barbie and Log - it's Bottle & Tape!

So S has a piece of folded up clear tape that she calls "Tape." Tape has adventures. Tape has family (more tape strips and even some little scraps of paper - it's a mixed family). Tape has all of S's attention for extended periods of time while she narrates Tape's dramas.

Then, last night, S discovered Bottle. Bottle is an empty 2 liter Calistoga container, but really, that's stereotyping. He's so much more complex than that. Bottle has a strip of paper across his neck with a face on it. Yesterday, S pointed to the face and said that if Bottle looked a little unhappy, there was a reason. Bottle had been playing at the school playground, and his friend had pushed him, and he fell down on a big, big piece of glass, and it cut his head right off. But then a girl helped him put it back on, so he's better. But he's still mad at the friend who pushed him.

This story has varied little since the first telling. R asked her about 10 minutes later about it, and the only change was that S added, "Oh, and *I* was the girl who helped him."

Tonight at the dinner, we were all being goofy as usual, but R had just done something extra polite. This prompted D to make a joke by tossing another newly empty 2 liter bottle behind his shoulder and saying, "I'm so glad you guys have such great table manners!"

S exclaimed, "Oh good!I can make Bottle's dad!" and R and I busted up.

We could hardly stop laughing, so we had S explain her story again to Papa, and it was the same thing (almost verbatim). Except that she did clarify about the decapitation.

"He had to go to the hospital. It was kind of an emergency."

when saturday night isn't

It really doesn't feel like Saturday night, because it really didn't feel like a day off today, and because I need to be at work tomorrow morning at 6am.

This was my day - by choice! so I'd better not complain, huh? And it is pretty dull reading, so skip to a more interesting site if you'd rather. This one, for example, I found by Googling "interesting web site."

Okay, my day:

7:40 - take Ford to dealership to have airbag-light-staying-on problem checked
(jogged home from dealership -3.3 miles)

9:30 - take S to dance class, bring R. While S has dance class, R & I have hot chocolate and mocha, respectively, and split a chocolate & regular croissant, at the Tea Room, which Lisa, among others, has called her favorite spot for breakfast (see Feb. 21 post).

10:40 - S's dance class gets out 10 minutes late. We go home, grab a few needed items (like helmet and crop) and go to R's riding lesson. S and I hang out while R rides.

12:45 - go from R's lesson to Novato. Get the Prius washed, then go to the dealership across the way to have 5,000 mile maintenance (on the car, not us). We walked from there to the mall across the way, had lunch at Fresh Choice & then window shopped Pier One and shopped for clothes at Target (pronounced "tar-jay," if you'd like).

4:15 - leave Target
4:20 - return to Target, with moaning and groaning kids in tow, to retrace our steps through the store to find a pair of sunglasses I'd dropped. These are the same sunglasses that had gone missing for a couple of days before I'd found them in the car hidden next to the passenger seat, and I was not going to lose them again. Find the glasses on the floor in the kids' clothing section, where we'd been 20 minutes before.

4:30 or so - pick up Prius.

5:00 or so - go home, picked up D, go to the Ford dealership, pick up the Escape, D & I drive back home in the 2 cars. Then D goes back to work (until 8pm) and I try to get yardwork done/make dinner/mind kids at the same time, and am unsuccessful in all but making dinner. Pour myself a glass of wine and have a happy rest-of-the evening. I'd had wine Wed. when S's ex-preschool teacher was over, but apart from that, this was the first time in weeks that I'd had any alcohol. A little goes a long way when you drink so seldom.

8:15 - read a bedtime story to the kids in the big bed. Asleep by 8:20. (I am, that is. The kids might have fallen asleep around 8:30.)

9:30-10:40 - hit snooze button for alarm countless times. Finally get up, convinced that I wouldn't be able to write a thing.

11:06-11:33 - yawn an estimated 26 times while blogging.

11:39 - go back to bed.

happy poetry (formerly, briefly, titled "draft"!)

I know. I'm so chipper and happy in my poetry. But really, if I wanted to write cheerful rhyming verse, I'd apply for a job with a greeting card company.

It's been a really long week, and now that I'm at the end of it (although tomorrow will be busy and I work Sunday), I'm just so relieved.

And I just spent an hour tooling around on the Web looking for a good poem to post here. I read Ezra Pound, ee cummings, William Carlos Williams, Marianne Moore, Wislawa Szymborska, Dylan Thomas, Theodore Roethke. I must say, none of it was very cheerful. So I thought I would check out "humorous poetry," which led me to limericks.


Um....I reviewed several of those.

Um.

There were none that were appropriate to post here.

To the Ants

I also have a poem about a spider. And about scarabs. But this is neither my first or last poem about ants. Nor is it finished, so constructive criticism and suggestions are appreciated, for those of you inclined. (Thanks to Josh & Julie for your comments last week. You may note some changes.)


To The Ants

If you stay, no good can come of it.
It will end in a way neither of us wants.
I know, you are just doing your job. You scout
for new ground, a place to raise a family,
the next home for a cluster of eggs.
But my task is to keep counters
clean of single-file lines, no matter
how handsome the individual parts
of the moving social whole.

I hope you know I admire you:
your strength, symmetry, absolute
dedication to the cause. How you care
for your dead, how you tidy up.
Even the way you create
chemicals to lay trails and hail nest mates
seems a feat too great for such a tiny creature.

But that’s just me. The next person
who comes along will not be so kind.
You will find a thumb blocking out the light
from the kitchen sun, until there is
only a darkness more absolute
than the deepest tunnels you dig.


c 4/05

Entertaining

Tonight S's past preschool teacher came over for dinner. We had a great time, especially because it was very relaxed.

At the end of the evening, our guest and I took turns reading pages of a story about a leprechaun for S, then the girls were tucked in and probably asleep within about a minute. Now the dishes from the home-cooked meal are done, the dog's been fed, I've (pretty much) blogged, and I'm still awake but ready for bed.

I will post the newly revised Ant poem tomorrow, after a little more feedback from the Yahoo poetry group.

Bright April

I used to like Sara Teasedale's "I Shall Not Care", and I think the sliver of me that is an angst-ridden teenager still has a soft spot for it. But while looking for it online, I ran across this one, which seems more appropriate, in a broader sense, now:


There Will Come Soft Rains

There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;

And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild plum-trees in tremulous white;

Robins will wear their feathery fire
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;

And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it done.

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree
If mankind perished utterly;

And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
Would scarcely know that we were gone.


Sara Teasedale



Now, isn't that cheerful?


But I mean, honestly, that you can either look at the way in which the world has gone on fine before us and will do so after us - before and after each of us, individually, myself included, and before and after all of us, collectively - and you can find this to be about the most depressing, ego-deflating, terrifyingly brutal thing, or you see at is as a comfort. It means that the mountains in North Wales that I feel a part of will be just fine without me. Dinas Bran will continue to crumble into ruins, and the gorse will bloom every year. Fortunately, I am not responsible for the sun rising in the east and setting in the west. That's some relief.

I've mentioned my love of ants. I've written a new poem about them. And after I test it out on an online poetry community I belong to, I'll post it here. Because it's April, and I am working on poems before the coming of the soft rains.