Whoa, bath

My mother used to tell this story about me. When I was about two years old, my family went to the ocean. It was the first time I had seen the sea, having spent the previous months of my life in Colorado. Apparently, when I was shown the great Pacific, my eyes widened and I said, "Big bath." My comment when the waves rolled into shore? "Whoa, bath!"

That's my plea to the Tricky Parts of Life right now, too. Hang on a minute, here. Where's the pause button? Let me catch my breath. I need time to think, to take it all in.

As Eliot says, "April is the cruellest month." No kidding. And a component of its cruelty lies in the vibrant but mortal beauty of the natural world this time of year. The irises and roses are blooming in the backyard. We have our annual nest of house finches just outside our front door, in the box D. custom made to fit in the eaves last year. The rain has stopped (for now, anyway), and green things are screaming "Spring" all over the place. There's this abundance of life and beauty, and then there's this whirlwind of other stuff going on. Iraq. Virginia. Melted Freeways. And all the personal ups and downs.

Two weeks ago Friday, one of my half-sisters and her husband came into town, which was wonderful. But they were only able to stay overnight and until the morning, which was a shame (but understandable, since the drive back to Moab isn't too quick from our neck of the woods, and Monday mornings, and work, come whether we want them to or not.)

That same night, we had a call with the news that D's mother had had emergency surgery. They'd removed her appendix, but the real reason for the sudden pain that sent her to the hospital was a tumor in her colon.

Saturday, we took turns visiting her. She was an ideal patient - great attitude, careful with herself and good at following the care giver's instructions, but also obviously determined to heal quickly and be discharged quickly. (By Sunday morning, she was not only taking walks around the halls but also made her own bed.) The tumor was sent to the lab for tests, but I've never seen anyone look so healthy less than 24 hours after surgery.

Saturday night, we went to an 80th birthday party for friends of the family. This, too, was an emotional event - there were dozens of close friends of the hosts, some of whom we hadn't seen for about twenty years. I tell you what, when I reach 80, I'd consider myself abundantly blessed to have half as many friends as Mr. L. has. It seems key, in the way that love and crossword puzzles and a glass of red wine a day for some are apparently all key to a long and happy life. (I know all these things intellectually, it's actually *feeling* them and living them that I have trouble with.)

Sunday, after visiting my mother-in-law in the hospital again, the girls and I came home to find our next door neighbors having a huge birthday party for a 3-year old in the family. There were about 30 people in their Sunday best, and a Jumpy ("El Chapulin" or grasshopper) full of kids. We waived hello & went into the house, but within minutes, the mother of the birthday girl had come over to invite us to the party. And so the girls wrapped up a "new" stuffed horse of R's with a chocolate bunny in a box as a present, and we stepped into the Great Unknown Mexican Village next-door. It was such a fantastic experience, too. We were welcomed like we were royalty. We practiced our Spanish (the English speakers among the group humored us), and much authentic food was brought to us at the table they'd cleared in our honor. When I explained that I didn't eat red meat, one of the hosts dashed off and came back bearing a big bowl of fruit for me instead. People who have been living next to me for a year and who have said no more than two words to me were suddenly opening up like they'd just been waiting for the right moment to become friendly. As maybe they had. We heard I don't know how many repetitions of the traditional Mexican piñata song "Dale, dale dale" before we finally took our leave, carrying plates of home-made tomales for D. and confetti-covered candy in wrappers covered with alien logos and mysterious Spanish names for refined sugar. And even after we'd retreated to our comparatively stilted, silent and under-populated anglo-saxon home, the neighbors came to the door one more time to give us party favors - hand-made basket (the medium was pastel pipe-cleaners) filled with more Mexican sweets and even a dollar bill for each girl.

Do you know what it felt like? It felt like the whole weekend was about opening myself up to feeling Love for other people and then getting it back ten-fold. That's what it felt like.

The following Tuesday, we learned that the tumor they'd removed from D's mom was malignant. I got the news 10 minutes before rushing off to a meeting at the girls' school where the Administration showed up to tell the 6th grade parents (surprise!) that they (the Administration) had serious concerns about the "viability" of the class for 7th grade. There were, they suggested, too few students for a healthy Junior High group. They wanted to get feedback from the parents about this. About 2/3rds of the class parents, myself included, voiced strong support for continuing in spite of the smaller size. A few other parents talked about the value of moving to a larger school. We were to meet again in a week for the decision from the Administration.

Within a week, the news was official. And so we've been looking into Plans B, C and D for the next two years of R's education.

And did I mention that D's current remodel ran into a complication? This particular wrinkle required that he dig through the foundation in the garage - and no, it is not a good sign when there are salamanders living between your slab and the ground - and make a 6' pit in the adobe under a corner of the room, weld a rebar spiral (actually a very cool-looking sculpture) and put it in the pit, and then fill the pit with about 20 bags of concrete. I don't know what the neighbors (who, as of the party, had been our new-found friends) thought about us hauling wheelbarrows of dirt out of our garage. They might have suspected that there was a body being hidden, but the truth is, D and I were kind of hoping we'd find a body so that the authorities would come and do the digging for us.

Then April 23rd came. The anniversary of Mom's death.
The girls and I drove out to the beach. We got there late in the day, thanks to my tendency to just hop in the car after a quick glance at a map and with a vague idea of where I'm going. At least it was scenic, being lost that half hour... At the beach, the girls ran through, and rolled and slid down, the soft sand dunes, giggling and yelling at each other to try this, try that. At the ocean, their wildest manic moods and loudest screams just dissipated in the salty air without bruising my psyche.

We walked along the shore, looking for treasures. I found a piece of shell with a snake-skin pattern to its white surface. I thought of Anne Morrow Lindbergh's Gift from the Sea. It's been so long since I read it, it would be like a new person reading the book for the first time. I thought about Mom. We wrote messages in the sand to her. I wrote her full name, the date she was born, the date she died. In memoriam. We faced West and sang "You Are My Sunshine" loudly and out of tune into the wind. The girls used rocks and shells to spell out greetings, X's and O's, we miss you, we love you. I think R wrote a private "please get in touch with me," request. Officially, I didn't see it. We had barely finished our scribbling when an incongruously huge wave rolled up out of nowhere. We raced for higher ground as it rolled over the words, smoothed the sand, and sucked our letters into the water.

Five days later, in a toy store in the country, I picked a "free fortune" out of a basket. At random. It read, "You are the beautiful Mother, washing waves of love across sand."

Exercising the Brain

For the last 4 days (including today, this is me on a lunch break), I've been in training classes about 2 hours from home, commuting each day. This means that I leave home nearly two hours later than usual and I get home nearly 4 hours later than usual. It's amazing how quickly I can form habits - arriving at the same time, parking in the same place in the same lot, going to the same extremely up-scale grocery store for a coffee and a few minutes before class, leaving at the same time. It is a creature that likes its routine, Precious.

(posting this now, 2 weeks later, for posterity, I suppose...)

David Bromige and other poetic stuff

I'm working on a poem but it needs more time to rise at room temperature, so I won't post it yet. And I didn't enlighten the world yesterday with my witty blog-banter either.

But tonight I am inspired, first because I went to see David Bromige read. The evening began with several of his greatest admirers and other fine poets read his work in homage to him. Bromige is a frighteningly brilliant man and at the same time so completely humble and accessible, he might as well be canonized now, for all he's apparently an atheist. I can't say I always follow all of his work, but he's the real deal.

The second source of my inspiration is the latest Richard Shindell CD I got. I'm trying to think of how to describe him - a John Denver with no sentimentality and ten times the talent? A modern-day Don McLean, maybe?

At any rate, the poetry & music had me all worked up, and driving home I felt pretty moved. Moved to get lost writing in particular. (What!? Is it really after 11pm? How did that happen!?)

It's bound to be an emotional time for me anyway. D. is tearing apart the garage - our pantry is now on sturdy (function, not form) shelves in the kitchen, my [adjectives deleted] mother-in-law and her husband are coming for lunch tomorrow, and Easter marks the one-year anniversary (the holiday, not the date) of the last time I saw my mother alive. Yeah, that last thing just might explain the vulnerability. Bear with me, folks.

Observation made at 1st grade pickup

A child was swinging in the playground behind the school building.
I couldn't see the swing, but I could hear its shrill creaking,
like a seagull rhythmically crying out again and again in a rusty voice,
screaming in defiance against the rule of the sea.

Moon poem #2 (informal)

Forget About the Moon

The moon is a slut. I mean,
everyone loves her at one time or another,
and she plays us all the same-
spares no one her studied wiles.
The tramp draws you in, full of smiles
and smooth magic, pulls rabbits from a hat.
She builds you a house. She promises greatness,
then behind your back, she turns
into nothing more than a thin fickle
scythe of a whore. She cuts you down.
She lays you low, then she goes
missing for a night or two, the bitch.
You start out with your heart
beating its moth wings lighter than air,
un-scorched to the shore of her light.
But in the end her kisses are glass-sharp dust,
her hands are the siren's rocks. She is
distant. She does not need
you. She is cold. In the end
she is oh so cold.


c. rbp 07

Moon poem #1 (formal)

I'm working my way through form poems by writing a poem in each form I can find. Because I feel I need to be familiar with them all, and this is the best way I can think of to do that. Besides, sometimes things come out of the structure and stricture that wouldn't emerge otherwise. Here's a moon poem that came out of that about a month ago (can you guess the form?). I'll post the less formal (and less polite) one tomorrow. Have to pace myself if I'm to last the month.


I Want to Forget The Moon Was My Lover

I want to forget the moon was my lover,
the grand chiaroscuro curves she'd wind
around me, and how her charms would over-
come me when her smile lit the faceted rind
of the sea. I want to forget the might
of us, or how, eclipsed, I felt completed.
I'm done with tilting my face up at night
or scanning afternoon skies, defeated
if I miss her changeable shape. Instead,
I'll let the force of fusion rub my feet,
I want an x-class flare to kiss my head
and burn my tidal trysts away with heat.
I want thirteen million kelvins at my core:
the sun's molten fire. No less, no more.


c.rbp 07

It's that Month again

National Poetry Month has arrived. This is the day of the year when I ponder the irony of identifying a time specifically for poetry. Why is it necessary? Because its value will be lost, forgotten, otherwise? Because 30 days a year is all we can stand of it? It feels like an endangered species act to me.

But then again, there are lots of other important things being honored in April which are not necessarily endangered. I have researched and learned that this is also (apparently) Alcohol Awareness Month, Emotional Overeating Awareness Month, Learn Thai Month, National DNA & Genomics & Stem Cell Education & Awareness month, National Pet First Aid Awareness Month, Prevent Lyme in Dogs Month (which seems a little redundant to me), Soy Foods Month, Stress Awareness Month, and Workplace Conflict Awareness Month (especially important for those times when one worker has had it with another worker's insistence on reciting poetry in April).

At any rate, in honor of the label assigned to the month, and because I just saw her read 9 days ago, here's an Ellen Bass poem. It's from her new book, due out in June.

DON'T EXPECT APPLAUSE
-Tibetan Buddhist maxim

And yet, wouldn't it be welcome
at the end of each ordinary day?
The audience could be small,
the theater modest. Folding chairs
in a church basement would do.
Just a short earnest burst of applause
that you got up that morning
and, one way or another,
made it through the day.

You soaped up in the steaming
shower, drank your Starbucks
in the car, and let the guy with the
Windex wipe your windshield
during the long red light at Broad Street.
Or maybe you were that guy,
not daring to light up
while you stood there because
everyone's so down on smoke these days.

Or you kissed your wife
as she hurried out the door, even though
you were pretty sure she was
meeting her lover at the Flamingo Motel,
even though you wanted to grab her
by a hank of her sleek hair.

Maybe your son's in jail.
Your daughter's stopped eating.
And your husband's still dead
this morning, just like he was
yesterday and the day before that.
And yet you put on your shoes
and take a walk, and when a neighbor
says Good morning, you say
Good morning back.

Would a round of applause be amiss?
Even if you weren't good.
If you yelled at your kid,
poisoned the ants, drank too much
and said that really stupid thing
you promised yourself you wouldn't say.
Even if you don't deserve it.

by Ellen Bass

Yes, I'm still here

In case you were wondering.

Perhaps after I finish preparing our tax information for the accountant we're seeing tonight, I can write about going to San Francisco with friends, about the school Knighting Ceremony, the shoji screens in our bedroom, about the MEPS survey and Snow White.

Until then, there are SO MANY other blogs worth reading. I suggest jumping into one of the ones I list and going from there. Have fun, kids.

Saint David's Day and other news

I celebrated at work with scones and wiki links for my coworkers. They're so kind to humor me.

In addition to it being St. David's Day, a few other things of note happened today: R. announced that she and her "boyfriend" had broken up (note the lack of quotation marks around broken up, thereby denoting my desire that the breakup be real where I was hoping the "boyfriend" concept was not).

She said that she just felt tied down and stressed out by having a boyfriend, and she agreed that I was right (I love this kid) that she was too young for all that.

I have learned over the years to hide great happiness when it's necessary. I played it casual.

"How do you feel now?" I asked.

"I feel great."

"Oh. That's good, then. How did he take it?"

"Fine, I guess," she said. "Later, I heard he borrowed someone's cell phone and called another girl asking her to be his girlfriend."

Now I wonder about this boy (whom I do like): if you start rebounding at 12, does that establish the pattern more fully? Is it like cigarette smoking in that way?

Also, yesterday I had a long talk with my 93-year old paternal grandmother. She went to the doctor at the beginning of the week for problems she's been having with her hip, and while she was there, they had a hard time finding her pulse. One thing led to another, and although her doctor for her hip says she's got a few more miles in her, another doctor is talking about by-pass surgery to address serious issues with her heart. She says the cardiologist is such a nice man, and he's done so much to help her, she's sorry she's going to end up turning down his surgery suggestion. "I hate to disappoint him," she told me. But she says she can't see dealing with the recovery at her age, and really just wants to spend the rest of her life peacefully on her farm in remote northeastern Colorado. I agreed that not disappointing your doctor is probably not the best motivation for having open heart surgery, but it's hard to think of her body winding down when she's always been so amazingly tough.

The other thing of note from yesterday was that I submitted 4 poems for possible inclusion in a local anthology. One was oldish, one was new, and two were pieces from quite a while ago that I reworked extensively in the last few days. I also have two other brand new ones in the works, and as long as my family and friends can handle me being vague and distracted - even more than usual! - I feel like I can really only grow as a poet. It's been a long time since I sealed up manila envelopes with cover letters and SASEs, but it's a little like riding a bike. It's just that now I'm less interested in a Sunday ride and am more interested in training for the Tour de France. I haven't bought the little black pants or funky shoes, but I've got a hat that will do, and I'm starting to pedal, baby.

Cheers

Sometimes my life feels like an unevenly written sit-com. I think if anyone could witness what happens once I pick up the kids from school, if anyone were to shadow me as a me-in-training, they'd either be astonished that I was sane or would be selling my life to a producer. Or both. But at least I would have someone else with whom I could laugh or cry or shake my head in amazement or hang my head in despair. Or drink.

At the moment, after my first day back to work in a week and my first day picking up kids from school in as long, I think I may not survive this parenting thing.

My eldest daughter now has a "boyfriend" (I'm putting it in quotes so it seems, to me anyway, less real). She has "kissed" him "a couple of times" but they're "taking it slow." She is 12 and a half. Almost.

Did you like the kissing? I want to know, hoping against hope that she did not.
She did, sorta. Did he? He seemed to, she says. "In fact, he just smiled afterwards, like he didn't have a care in the world."

I wish I could say the same of me.

It's not even 6pm. I'm having a glass of wine. It seems to have helped. I think this is a bad pattern. The wine-drinking and the boyfriend kissing. Both bad, so young in life.

I'm trying to slice garlic for dinner, now - after realizing that a head (not a clove, a head) of garlic was missing from the fridge and had been put in daughter #1's desk drawer for her private snacking (which may, actually, solve the boyfriend kissing problem). And daughter #2 tag-teams the pre-teen announcements with her own emergency:

"Mom, there's a big problem with my room." She looks like she may cry.

"What is it?" I ask, thinking maybe more plutonium has been found, like that last time.

"I don't have any hanging files."

This is what happens when you add hanging files to one daughter's desk and not the other's.

"Hmm. That is a problem," I agree (because the wine is already making me agreeable) "But," I explain, "We can't have hanging files until we find those 2 metal bars that go in the bottom desk drawer. You need those to hang the files on, and I have no idea where they are."

"Or," I stupidly muse out loud, "we could make something to go there and hold the files."

So for your entertainment, you can guess what I'll be doing after dinner:

a) sleeping, because I wake up at 3:45am every work day, and one glass of wine will knock me on my butt

b) figuring out a way to make faux hanging-file-bar-things, because it's only fair, and besides, my second daughter's problem is easier to face than my first daughter's latest development

c) offering more raw garlic to daughter #1

d) sending both kids to bed early so I can lose myself in an intellectually pointless episode of Friends. You know, the TV series that the rest of America watched 15 years ago

e) gloating over having written a blog post

f) all of the above

Cheers.

Vacation

I have been on vacation. I have been on an extended sabbatical-like vacation from family and work but not from home, and it has been lovely. I have evidently been on vacation from blogging, too, but I have rough-drafts (for my own reference) of what happened between 2/10 and 2/19, as well as those other days between then and now.

I have written a couple of poems - although one was a haiku and such hardly counts in my mind. Sorry, but there it is. So little, so little.

I have figured out the next important plot points in the old novel. I have started to write them.

Most importantly, I have reorganized the office in our home to be my own space. A writer's study, as it were. I've cleared out everything that was not mine, or didn't have to be there. And now I'm reintroducing what didn't fit before, finding better places for it. And I'm getting rid of things, too. Thank heavens for the school rummage sale!

I have written. I have given blood - literally, although I know some writers who consider that writing amounts to the same thing.

I have done much less than I thought I would, but I guess that's the current lesson I'm learning. Great expectations not quite fulfilled, but certainly more done than would have been if I'd set my sights too low.

A thought about messengers

I've always loved that the word for angel comes from the Greek for messenger, άγγελοσ. It's always felt true that angels, those messengers from outside (or perhaps far inside) our day-to-day perceived realm, might be so beyond our current ken as to be terrifying. I have a poem with a line, "The angel's first words are 'Do not be afraid.'" It's a telling greeting.

All too often, we translate ignorance into fear into hatred. There's a connection between this and ideology and (un)holy wars, too. But what do we know about angels? And yet instead of angels being something we cannot comprehend and therefore hate, we have made them into tall people in long white robes with wings and halos. We've simplified them and humanized them, the way we apply human characteristics to animals. How far apart are angels hovering above us with harps and bull dogs playing poker?

I like Madeleine L'Engle's concept from A Wind in the Door of a cherubim being a compilation of wings, eyes, and spurts of flame and smoke. A creature with a voice like a cello.

There is so much we don't know, can't know. Yet. And most of us therefore don't think about it, while others (I'm not specifically singling you out, Josh) spend a lot of time thinking about the unknown. I could get lost there, too, and sometimes I regret spending so little time seeking enlightenment through the blossom of a weed or the swirl of steam over a teacup.

But even if I don't delve into mystery on a regular basis, I hope, I pray, that I will avoid reducing the sacred to pablum.

Friday on the fly

Today I did not go to the gym as planned; instead, I ran a couple of errands and then, before picking up the kids, sneaked a peak at the very beginning of the new Battelstar Galactica series. There was a time when I was such a big Battlestar Galactica fan (not when it was first out, somehow, but when it was already in syndication), that I knew every line to more than one episode. I was aided in this memorization by the audio tape I created by holding the black chunk of a tape recorder up to the TV screen so I could replay the sounds, even if I couldn't record the video. My friends and I tried to figure out how Pyramid was played. I swore using BSG swear words. (I sometimes still do.) I made satirical drawings showing how to tell the difference between Cylons and Storm Troopers. This would have been around 1980 or 1981, I’d guess, just as puberty was tweaking my already overly imaginative brain. But it seems like a million yarens ago now.

**
After I picked up the girls from school, we ran one more errand to buy a birthday present, came home and sewed for a bit, then took R to school for the long-anticipated sleep-over. There were more chaperones and no one was sleeping outside, thanks to the rain, so I felt better about leaving her. We had celebratory sushi (D’s A was my excuse this time), and I watched a video with D & S until I fell asleep on the couch.

I woke up to watch one more episode of Friends. I seem to be doing a lot of escaping into video these days. I doubt it’ll turn into any kind of trend, but it does feel like I'm living on the edge. Whoo-hoo. Look out.

Thursday tidbit

In my ongoing retro-post series

R. was taken out to the barn for her knightly task by the other girl’s mom, and S. and I took a 3-hour nap. THREE HOURS. Ahhh....

We got up for dinner only, and got to bed fairly early again. D. came home much later to report that he had gotten an A on his class mid-term and an A for the first semester. I’m so happy for him. It’s amazing what a difference it makes when one is in school because one wants to be, and not because one has to be.

Wednesday, a little less brief

I helped with the 6th grade lit. circle again today. Josh had brought it to my attention that the book (The Bronze Bow) was recently taken off the curriculum at a nearby school district because of criticism from parents and religious leaders in the community that the book is anti-Semitic and promotes Christianity, and is in general not good enough as a literary piece to warrant teaching in spite of those other factors, besides being considered not applicable to the Roman history block it was supposed to compliment. This prompted me to do more research and speak individually to the class teacher (who was aware of the debate) and to the other two lit circle leaders. There were fascinating reactions from everyone, who felt (as did I, frankly), that the book does not degrade Jews or make the case that Christianity is better than Judaism, and felt even more strongly (as I did not) that there was such a thing as being too politically correct or careful. My concern is that I might have cultural blinders on, or be underestimating the hurt this book has caused people.

However, the whole hububb simply emphasized for me the need to teach children to be smart readers: be sensitive to the influence of an author’s own background or intentions, understand that historical fiction is both liberated and handicapped by our incomplete knowledge or skewed perspective of history, understand the power of the written word for good and ill.

As it turned out, none of the 4 kids I worked with saw a reason for the fuss at the other school, and in the cold rainy weather at the tail end of a demanding school day, they certainly weren't up for any philosophical conversation about the dangers of mis-interpreting text. So I didn't push it. These are kids who have been exposed to a lot of religions and mythologies in their years at this Waldorf-inspired school, so maybe they are just more accepting of the idea that people have different belief systems? (A tolerance that some friends of mine would call "open-minded" and others would call "lukewarm" - and therefore to be spit out.) In any case, we ended up focusing much more on the story and the characters and how the children responded to both than we did discussing anything else.

After school, R. went to a homework club and S. fell asleep on the couch for the 2nd day in a row. The flu has clearly taken a toll on her. That, and/or it's another growth spurt.

S. is close to R.'s height as it is, so R. said about the possibility, "God, I hope she's not doing that!"

Tuesday in brief

Today I am able to walk a little easier, but still clearly recovering from the race.

I neglected to mention a Pointy (writer’s group) meeting in the evening yesterday. So nice to share the projects we’re each working on with one another, and I’m lucky to have supportive friends who are also great editors!

After school today, R. went with a friend after school to get her (the friend’s) ears pierced. The friend, like R., had been forced by her mother to wait until she was 12 for this rite of passage.

I was 10 when I had my ears pierced. My mother (then 40) and my sister (then 8) had theirs done at the same time. I remember that it was shortly before our family’s Christmas trip to Hawaii. I can’t tell you exactly why the 2 memories are joined – maybe it was because we’d had to take the ear-care kit with us to the hotel? Or I’d been able to get a pair of shell earrings that I wouldn’t have had a need for, before? Either way, the piercing itself is not as significant in my memory as is the fact that the three of us did it together; a shared new experience for all of us, a small but still (for a 10-year-old) exciting adventure embarked upon together.

I don’t relay this story to S., who at 7 now feels that she shouldn’t have to wait until 12 to get her ears pierced. (The “It’s not fair!” refrain.) It doesn’t help that R. agrees that her little sister shouldn’t have to endure non-pierceness as long as she, the first born trail blazer, had to wait. But I'm standing my ground. For now.

Meet the Press

Quite an exciting day at work.

Literally a bus-load of press arrived to tour as part of a Cisco event: our company was chosen by Cisco to be be showcased as a unique customer case study for their products. We had journalists from several important IT trades including Computerworld, eWeek, Information Week, InfoWorld, Network World, SC Magazine and CRN. There were so many people, they had two separate tour groups going through the building and getting the scoop on who we are and what we do from each department head. There were also journalists from Japan with an interpreter, but even though I brushed up on my greetings and had my meishi (business card) ready, the groups moved through while I was on the phone and I never had to use either. Fine with me.

Nice to have that kind of recognition from the industry in general, though. I've been with the company for 9 years and I still think what we do is way cool. And I am not just writing this because a couple of my colleagues sometimes read this blog. Honest.

Race Day, Day of Rest

There's probably a mathematical way to calculate this - a formula using distance plus muscle fatigue divided by attitude and training with the square root of the power of endorphins and recovery from the flu thrown in, but for whatever equation you use, the last 3.1 miles of a 13.1 mile race are always as long as the first 10 miles. And the last 1.1 miles is as hard as the 2 miles before that seemed to be.

But I promised myself a whole ton of water, and (dog-gone-it) all the little carby snacks I wanted at the finish line, and I managed to run the race slowly but steadily. One pit stop. Only one walking stint (for 2 minutes). Far from my best time - 2:31 (2:36 by their clock, I think, but it took 5 minutes to cross the start line because there were about 9,000 people there). But I did it.

Spent the rest of the day lying on the couch and even watched another video with the kids. Sheer hedonism. Out of control.

Off a beat

S woke up with a fever and the second kind of flu. No ballet class or rehearsal for her for Snow White.
R made it as far as riding lessons and getting on the horse (a well-tempered grey named Harley), but then I was called back 5 minutes from the barn by the instructor, who said R was looking very pale and probably shouldn't ride. Strike two.

I was responsible for food delivery to 9 families for the Food for Families program (through our Committee on the Homeless in town) but because it was the second Sat. in a row - I was picking up someone else's turn last week - I forgot (!) and was an unprecedented 2 hours late with the boxes. Fortunately, everyone was still home and no one was too irritated at the lateness of their groceries. You would think it wouldn't matter what time the food arrives, but it does, because they have to sign for the boxes and can't go anywhere until we get there.

The rest of the day was spent mostly being lazy and even - as a family - watching a video, something that hardly ever happens. The video was lousy. The company was great. And lazing was lovely.

Got to bed fairly early in preparation for the half marathon Sunday, which D. says I'm crazy to try to do since I just got over the flu a couple of days ago. But I trained for this and (more to the point, if you know me) I paid for it. So I'm going and I may run even slower than usual, but I'm doing it, dang it all.

Last man standing, fallen

D succumbed to the flu today (the stomach variety, as opposed to the high-fever/cough variety). We were all in bed by 7:30pm.

I definitely feel like we're out of balance and things are falling apart around here, a little, and temporarily.

It's like our own little family re-enactment of the Dark Ages. Without the fleas.

Sick, that's all

About 5 emergency trips to the bathroom and 20 hours of sleep later, I feel I'm well enough on the mend to go to work Friday...

Better to have this now than *just* before the half marathon Sunday, I suppose.

Happy soul, miserable body

The day went so well until just before midnight. Work, a short run at the gym cut even shorter because R was home sick & needed tlc, then (once D was home & we could tag-team parenting), I escaped to a Kay Ryan reading hosted by Marin Poetry Center and a fundraiser for their H.S. Poetry program.

Okay, I know this is not very eloquent, but Kay Ryan rocks.

Besides a score of awards including a Guggenheim fellowship and NEA fellowship, she was named to the "It List" by Entertainment Weekly (for what that's worth), and one of her poems has been permanently installed at New York’s Central Park Zoo. As she explained at the reading, the poem is installed in plastic along length of a low retaining wall. She said, "I like to think of kids running by, and reading it. And, you know, defacing it."

She's got that combination of wry humor, and dead seriousness, and true gift, that makes her irresistible (to my sensibilities, anyway). She's a minimalist. Her work is deceptively accessible, but upon re-reading (she repeated many of the poems she read), only gets better.

I like what she said about going to an AWP conference:

Once, when I was about twenty-five and not yet entirely aware of the extremity of my unclubbability, I did try to go to a writers conference. Thirty minutes into the keynote address I had a migraine. It turns out I have an aversion to cooperative endeavors of all sorts. I couldn’t imagine making a play or movie, for instance; so many people involved. I don’t like orchestral music. I don’t like team sports. I love the solitary, the hermetic, the cranky self-taught. Make mine the desert saints, the pole-sitters, the endurance cyclists, the artist who paints rocks cast from bronze so that they look exactly like the rocks they were cast from; you can’t tell the difference when they’re side by side. It took her years to do a pocketful. You just know she doesn’t go to art conferences. Certainly not zillion-strong international ones, giant wheeling circuses of panel discussions.

Yeah. My kinda gal. When I grow up, I want to be a lot like Kay Ryan.

I just need to make some changes in my life to facilitate getting somewhere with my work. Well, actually writing the poems, and then getting somewhere with them. D and I had a brief talk about it and I feel more supported than ever by him in this regard. He who does not (of his own volition) read poetry.

So. All well and good, until I get home feeling questionable, and go to bed early only to wake up with S's version of the flu. Not the weight loss plan I'd envisioned.

Here's a Kay Ryan poem from the poetryfoundation archive as an end-note, though:

All Shall Be Restored
by Kay Ryan

The grains shall be collected

from the thousand shores

to which they found their way,

and the boulder restored,

and the boulder itself replaced

in the cliff, and likewise

the cliff shall rise

or subside until the plate of earth

is without fissure. Restoration

knows no half measure. It will

not stop when the treasured and lost

bronze horse remounts the steps.

Even this horse will founder backward

to coin, cannon, and domestic pots,

which themselves shall bubble and

drain back to green veins in stone.

And every word written shall lift off

letter by letter, the backward text

read ever briefer, ever more antic

in its effort to insist that nothing

shall be lost.

On the mend

The girls are both better. It's almost as though they had 2 different flu's - R had a fever and no energy, but her stomach was fine and now she has a post-flu cough. S was sick to her stomach every 2 hours for 10 hours, but had no real fever.

D and I remain well, although I was sabotaged again by a glass of wine with dinner and I fell asleep early on the couch and woke up an hour later, very grumpy in part because D had been playing a PS2 game in the same room while I slept and the incessant maddening tune that accompanied it had invaded my dreams, and in part because I didn't get to the gym for a short run like I'd told myself I would.

I think I need to just plain NOT drink alcohol. Even a small glass seems to erode my humanity, and between that and lots of "comfort eating" while I was home with the girls, my self-esteem is in sad shape.

I need to write a poem to restore my faith in myself.

Make that two

S is down for the count, too. She woke up at 2am (just after R finally settled down for the night from her nightmares) to say that she felt like she was going to "frow up."

I must say that I have never met a more conversational nauseous person in my life. She was so matter-of-fact about it that I didn't take her seriously at first.

It's a conversation worth recording - soon, before I forget it! - but not at the moment...

Both girls out of school & D & I tag-teamed it, both missing some work.

Had a great writer's meeting with the Pointy gals - we all brought something, yay! to finish the day.

Still one fallen

R still has the flu, which is unusual around here, where the 12- or 24-hour variety is the norm. I slept in and went for my run late, and walked more of the 10 miles than usual. I'm telling myself that I'm saving up for the 1/2 marathon next week, and that it's better to walk with the blister that was forming than to tear up my feet now. My old shoes are too old to do well with long runs, and my new ones are not yet broken in enough. A quandary, but hardly worth worrying about.

R. said that she felt like she was floating Saturday night. I asked, "Did your hands feel like two balloons?" and she said the sort of did, and D. told me to stop already with the Pink Floyd references. We explained the allusion to R., but in her flush-faced state, she cared even less than usual how clever we were.

Saturday in review

R still sick and S walking around with a can of Lysol like it's a security blanket periodically hissing "stay away!" to her debilitated sister.

I had food delivery and S had dance class, then several unanticipated hours home to work on chores and tend to the ill, as well as a 5-mile run at the gym, before S had to go back out to ballet rehearsal (she'll be a Bird of the Forest in Snow White in a couple of months). Then S and I were off to a birthday party for the son of one of my few blog audience members (Happy Birthday Luke!). Note to self: 5-7pm is the perfect time for a kid's party. It doesn't interrupt your day, it includes dinner, and by the time you're done, the kids can go straight to bed.

Skate night and the flu

After school, both girls had brief play - dates which gave me just enough time to grocery shop alone (alone!) before picking them up again and heading north with two of their friends to the roller skating rink for a school fund-raising skate night. On the way up, R said she had a headache she thought had been brought on by the smell of another girl's mint tea, but as soon as we walked in the door of the bright, loud, chaotic skating rink, she fell apart into little pieces and it was clear that she was sick.

I passed the baton to a couple other moms to watch S and the other girls I'd brought, and R and I hung out in the car with the heater going (R shivering and crying and telling me about her horrible day) until D came and got her. Then I went back in and skated around slowly with S many times - although she's getting quicker with each trip to the rink, it's still harder to skate slowly with her than it would be to skate quickly without her.

Now I'm just hoping no one else gets sick.

8 years ago today

This marks the anniversary of my mother's quadruple bi-pass surgery. She used to celebrate today as a second birthday.

One of the doctors (my sister would remember which one) told her that the surgery should increase her life by 5-7 years. I don't know how much mom remembered those numbers, but I wish he'd said 15-20 years instead, just in case the number did actually have an influence. She started to fail almost exactly 7 years after the procedure.

Someone pointed out to me today that some people hear a number like that and it becomes their reality, and some people hear a number like that and it becomes the odds that they're going to beat.


So, I'm cleaning up our office at home and run across a design book on country homes that had belonged to Mom. It's full of beautiful photos but not my style, and so I'm pondering whether I should donate it to the school rummage sale or trade it in at the used book store, when I notice that several of the pages are neatly dog-eared. It pulls me up short. Those were the pages Mom especially liked, apparently, and for a minute I just stand there wondering what element of what chintz pillowed, wickered, antique-scattered bedroom called to her. Did she plan to mimic it in one of her rooms? Had she already incorporated elements of this book into her house? Only she would know, but I still don't have her new phone number, the belongings have scattered to the children and charities, and the house is inhabited by a renter with her own pictures on the walls.

This isn't the first time this kind of thing has happened, and it won't be the last. Hell, I don't even need a phone number. An email address would be fine.

Wild Wednesday

After a weird night spent sleeping on the couch in between reading chapters of The Bronze Bow so I could lead a lit circle in R's class, it was one of those days where there wasn't time to do anything but hurl myself from one thing to the next.

Work included a little bug troubleshooting (which I *love*) & training a new employee, then I left early to run home for 10 minutes of typing up the lit circle discussion questions I'd come up with. Jaunted to the 1st grade class (with blueberry muffins and rice, soy & cow's milk and carrot sticks) to celebrate S's Half Birthday circle. Did the 6th grade lit circle time, back to the lower grades' campus to vacuum the 1st grade class room, then took the girls the the dentist. After that, we went to the gym so I could get in a 30 minute interval training run. We picked up dinner on the way home, after dinner I did some work for the school auction, a few chores, and squeezed in one episode of Friends. Ok, yes. Up way too late. But momentum can do that to you.

If every day were like this, I'd just sit down and become catatonic out of spite. Since it's not, I can survive it.

Tuesday notes

I suppose any day that ends in making mini blueberry muffins with a 7-year old can't be ALL bad, right?

And for that matter, any day that includes dinner with the family is never to be taken for granted. Except for the way that special moments can be snapshots frozen in memory, we won't have this, the girls and D and I sitting at the table and giggling over any old thing, forever. I'm enjoying it while it lasts.

Girls' afternoon out

Today S. had an after-school playdate & R. and I did a little shopping and hung out together. I was surprised at how excited we both were at having the chance to spend time with each other.

An afternoon alone with R. is so different from an afternoon alone with S. It reminds me of the time I used to spend with my maternal grandmother. She'd alternate weekends with her 4 grandchildren, and she once told me that because we were such different types of people, she'd customize the activities to suit each guest. So with my oldest brother, she might play board games, and with my older brother, she might go for a walk. She and I would read or take nature hikes, while she and my sister might play cards. We all liked different things to eat, and all preferred different heirloom dishes to eat with. She spoiled us with her undivided attention and her appreciation for our uniqueness.

I can't say that my time with R. yesterday reached such magical heights, but we did feel conspiratorial while we gallivanted from store to store buying duct tape (and there's Another Blog Post waiting to happen) and earrings. We're doing it again tomorrow, too - whoo-hoo!

Run, Write, Shop

...a place-holder post for Sunday's activities. This is all for my own future look-back journaling reference, folks. At some point, I'll work on profundity again.

Company

...a place-holder post for the entry about 4 other moms, no husband or kids, and five bottles of wine...

Slamming the Poetry Slam

...a place-holder post for my experience at the local library at Poetry Slam night.

Such drama!

First there was a last minute plan for a classroom sleepover for the 6th grade, a reward earned for good behavior last year. Then (and for extremely good reasons) there was an even-more last minute cancellation.

I would guess that there were about a half-dozen kids who shed tears about this, but mine was one of the kids that pretty much cried herself to sleep about it.

Sometimes life's disappointments are so hard. Another mom said, "It may be that the lesson the kids have to learn is that the world doesn't revolve around their excitement." In other words, just because they collectively wanted the sleepover to happen so badly, and almost to a one had gotten their parents to sign off on it doesn't mean it was a good idea.

You tell me: a dozen especially high-maintenance, wild 11 and 12 year olds, one capable female teacher but no other chaperones, overnight in a classroom (and some reportedly planning to sleep outside) alone on an unguarded campus sharing a fence with a homeless shelter in a neighborhood in town known to have gangs. Hmm. Potentially a problem, here? Too many alarms started going off for too many of the more intuitive (or self-described "clairvoyant") parents. And even as pollyana as I typically am, I'd say there are just enough risks added together to make postponement in favor of a better plan a good idea.

But not all of these concerns can - right now - be shared with the kids - or even to some of the parents - because of the exponential drama it would create. So the message went out that it was too-last minute for too many parents and the logistics were such that we had to nix it. (But such wailing & gnashing of teeth anyway!)

I would like just ONE week without a flurry of emotional emails among class parents. I'm glad our kids are at this school. It has tons going for it and it's been great for the girls. I love this teacher and consider her a friend (although I agree there was poor judgement in this case), I am very fond of almost all of the other parents.

I just wish everyone would tone it down a little. Damn mass hysteria.

Yesterday's post today, again

It's just as well I don't have a Time Machine. I'd do no end of monkeying around. I mean, I'd stomp all over every butterfly in sight on my way to stop a cup from falling to the floor and breaking.

I'm easily distracted by unimportant things. Ooh! Look at that! No, wait, what's that? But I forgot about that, and oh- hold up, I have to - there's that, and oh yeah, look at this, too. Wow.

But something that IS worth checking out is Lisa's new blog, When I Grew Up I Wanted To Be A Horse.

Lisa has blogged daily for about a month now, and every entry is a good read.

Since Lisa is one of the people responsible for me having a blog entry for every day in 2005 (it was Julia's double-dog dare that started me, other friends' encouragement that kept me going, and Lisa's bribe of sushi as a reward for my diligence that really saved me when I was faltering), I may have to reciprocate the favor.

Except that unlike me, Lisa probably does just fine with only her own internal motivation. (But the offer of raw fish stands, Lis.)

There's always tomorrow...

Thanks to Julia for pointing me to Will Wheaton's post about procrastination and writing.

I don't usually read Wheaton's blog (although my husband does), but I sure appreciated his comments and the comments of his readers on this topic.

He describes the FORMULA for procrastination. At last! Now that I know what determines the behavior, I feel like I have more control in licking it.

I'm telling ya, hope springs eternal.

Thanks, I needed that!

You know how it is when you laugh until the tears are streaming down your face and you're shooting snot from your nose and, in the end, the funniest thing of all is how hard you're laughing?

Suffice it to say we had a good writers meeting tonight.

Bird Formations

Bird formations, San Rafael California. 12/23/06 4:30pm This is a fairly long video, but check out especially around the 3rd minute. Amazing.

Breaking the surface

I'm painfully aware when I write these quick daily posts that I could be saying things that are so much more significant, deeper. Worth writing. Worth reading.

I'd like to toss a stone into the still water and watch it go down. I'd like to note the stone's slight wobble, back and forth like a falling feather, as it sinks to the bottom. I'd like to meditate on the ripples that spread from its entry point.

Instead, I find myself skipping stones across the surface.

And worse than that - what I think is a stone ends up being just a piece of bark, and it doesn't even skip, but bounces once at most, and blows away.

Everybody sing! Rat's got the baby...

R. has a new pet rat, which she "earned" by keeping up with schoolwork and homework, keeping her room clean, taking more of a share of caring for the other pets, and maintaining a good attitude. This last is especially important when you're talking about a pre-teen.

I had mixed feelings about the possible bribery/threat component with "earning" something, and at times, R. said she wished she didn't have the pressure hanging over her. But she did a good job for the few months she was working for her pet, and in the end, it was some kind of agreement between her and D. to which I was not privy (I think it was mostly the attitude issue) which made the decision. He helped pay for the cage and food. She bought the rat.

I'll post a picture of R. and her baby, whom she named "Magpie," very soon. For now, here's a shot of me with one of our many rats. In the foreground you can just see the head of my grandmother's Schnauzer, Casey, looking up at me. I don't know whether he's looking at the rat or the ball, but this is a pretty cool testament to how comfortable I was with animals, even at a young age. (It's doubtful that the animals were as comfortable with me...)

Caught

Twice today when I was working on a poem, I got caught.

The first time, a co-worker walked by me while I was staring into space, and I jumped, and he wondered what I'd been doing. "Writing a poem," I explained. Although I was nowhere near pen, paper or computer.

The second time, I was driving the car with S. in the back, on our way to pick up her sister. We were stopped at a light, and while trying to form an idea, I did something with my right hand - just a gesture, like I was shaping clay in mid-air, I guess - and S. said, "Um, Mom? What are you doing?"

"I'm writing a poem," I said.



I've been thinking about the space I'm in when I'm creating - not just physical, but mental, physic, what have you.


I sometimes feel that I am an ecstatic.


But then my break is over, or the light turns green, or the dog needs to go out. I know I'm not alone in this dancing between practical life and the siren call of a Muse. But I had to write *something* for today's post, and here's what came.

"Not Fish. Snake scale!"

So for those of you who remember that scene in Blade Runner when Deckard is examining the photo of the replicants using a computer that allows him to see things in such detail (and around corners) that you never would have known they were there otherwise...

I had to think how close to reality that concept is now with the Gigapan camera. (Although you can't tell it "Enhance 224 to 176. Enhance. Stop." and have it listen to your voice. Yet.)

I heard a piece from PRI's The World yesterday where they described this device and what it can do. It's what's been used to create Google Earth, and maybe half the people (which would make 1 or 2 people) who read this blog have already heard of this long ago (I'm slow to catch on to these things), but still. This is, to me, anyway, SO AMAZING.

The camera is being used in a joint project from Carnegie Mellon University, NASA, Google, and National Geographic. The home page for the project is here. Check out the links to panoramas to see how incredible this tool is. As the team explains:

The project's long-term goal is to help us learn about and meet our neighbors across this globe, and learn about our planet itself.

The team is motivated by the desire to encourage global citizenship and understanding by connecting people, places and events through the utilization, exploration and sharing of dynamically viewable images.

A consumer version of the device is coming, as is are software tools to use in conjunction with it, and instructions for making your own, apparently.

And if I read slashdot more often than once in 2 years, I would have seen their article about Microsoft Live Lab's Photosynth, a software which "takes a large collection of photos of a place or an object, analyzes them for similarities, and then displays the photos in a reconstructed three-dimensional space, showing you how each one relates to the next."

As a kid, I loved to read science fiction. As a teen and young adult, I wrote science fiction. Now, it seems, so much of that fiction has become fact. There's a whole blog entry (or several) I could write about this, including what's happening on Mars. (D. is the expert on that.)

There's still plenty to explore, plenty of ideas to put forth that won't exist for a long time. There's still science fiction to write. It hasn't all come true yet.

But what an age we're living in!

Nothing Random

I'm reconnecting with poetry more and more these days, even as, this week, a poetry list I've been part of for 10 years comes to an end.

So because I'm trying to go to bed now-ish, and get more than 4 hours of sleep in a row (just to try something different), and in honor of poetry, I thought a link to today's Poetry Daily's selection would be a good quick entry worth doing.

And lo and behold, today's poem is Lotus Feet by Mary Cornish [read it! if not now then in their archives once it's there] - just I've started to catch up on the blog kept by Kate - aka Lotus Ice.

Nothing Random.

Why sleep when you can game?

Just now hitting they hay after an evening (ok, night) of gaming with the girls.

I know.

GEEK.

Sunday recap

The day in review, a "tea with the Smith's" post only for future reference and to meet my apparent intention to have a daily entries in 2007:
slept in until 8
fixed the kids breakfast
ran (8 miles)
wrote at Apple Box with writer's group gals (Welsh novel)
grabbed lunch for the kids (sandwiches)
helped 6th grade teacher clean classroom
home briefly
walked to grocery store with kids and dog
got ice cream with kids and dog (the dog & I had none)
walked home
dinner
bedtime routine
15 minutes of work on the 1000 piece jigsaw I started Friday
slept
got up to do dishes & laundry & blog

g'night, Irene.


:)

Dreamtime

A huge headache sent me to bed early, but I told myself I'd get up to write before midnight.

That worked about as well as it usually does.

I don't really sleep, anyway. I just have pauses between dreams.

All this 12th Night season it has been dreams and more dreams: of disenfranchisement: exile and exodus, fighting, fleeing, working, singing, speaking other languages, unrequited love.

A tip for the wary: do not let someone who thinks he is your friend tell the Queen, in front of members of the Court, that you and an unsuitable courtier have feelings for one another. Even if you haven't acted on said feelings, if they are untoward, the Queen will have to have you both killed for it. Or if she's feeling especially lenient (and because she really does care about you and your would-be lover), she'll only command you both to marry someone more appropriate. Immediately. Which can be more painful than a quick death, actually, because then you're forced to live out your lives apart from one another. *sigh*

I wish my 12-year old daughter would stop talking about Johnny Depp and the characters from the Pirates movies.



It apparently is affecting my subconscious.

Friday Friends

After about six weeks of being without a new episode of the old series Friends (we've been watching Red Dwarf instead), we got a little present from Netflicks today, so I don't have anything else to say except Happy Friday - the DVD player calls!

Help, I've fallen and I can't get up

Sugar is Evil.

And I may need some professional intervention to pull myself out of it's wicked, wicked clutches. I'll be putting notes to myself on the fridge next. Notes like: STOP!

This is a cry for help from somewhere under the cheesecake and fudge and See's candy and cookies and cinnamon rolls and chocolate dipped biscotti and marzipan fruit that I've been spending furtive time with like it was a long-lost, done-me-wrong-but-I'm-somehow-back-for-more lover.

help!

Oh, and Note to Self: "I'm training for a half-marathon" (even if I am) is not any kind of Magic Holy Water that will undo the vile results of binging on said Evil Sugar in all its nefarious incarnations.

Witnesses are beneficial, however. So thanks for listening, and for witnessing as I tell myself, "Pull up! pull up!"

This morning

What I Dreamed

It is the sacred greentangle, the jungle time
of the jaguar. I come to help with the start.
This: twin cubs coming into black fur again
from the womb before daybreak, before the next moon away.
Their woven vine nest cradles hang low in boa branches
Indra's nets suspended in the wet air. I come
to birth the holy and beat a hasty tattoo home.
But the jaguar purrs it means two years
apart this time, two years in the task alone.
Alone with Jaguar, and the cubs-to-come,
and a shaman made of shadows.
Shadows made of green.
Green that drips from canopy
to hotplate leaf-deep floor.




rbp 1/3/07






...first draft, 35 minutes of keyboard chatter and backspacing but I said I'd work on poetry for the writer's group gals, so here ya are...

Burrowing

I've been feeling guilty. No one who knows me well will be at all surprised by this. The Guilt du Jour is that I can't seem to rally interest in day-to-day important stuff, like work and thinking up what to do for dinner and staying awake long enough to hang out with my husband after he gets home from work and after the kids are in bed.

But then today at the gym, I ran while listening to my newly-loaded iPod (I've had it a year but just plain haven't ever loaded it up). And while I was stretching and blasting something by Richard Shindell, I realized that it may not be depression or even seasonal overwhelm that's hitting me. It may just be a need to dive deep and delve, get lost somewhere below the surface for a while and see what I can pull up. I felt like I needed to be autistic in a corner. I feel like I need to tune out the world for a while. And guess what? Once I had this epiphany (or "apostrophe" as some would say), the guilt disappeared as quickly those Christmas cookies we made last week. Poof. It's withdrawal for the sake of art. Nothing to feel bad about at all, when it's fallow time, as Julia has pointed out.

Anyway, back to Richard Shindell - a plug for the sake of any folk music lover, here, but in particular: Clare, check out 'The Ballad of Mary Magdalene' and some of his Spanish tunes(here is one), and Kate, you may be interested in the cover he and Dar Williams (of course) and Lucy Kaplansky did in Cry, Cry, Cry of James Keelaghan's Cold Missouri Waters, the story of the Mann Gulch fire in 1949. Amazing stuff. A little write up of him at the Folk Music Society of Huntington site sings his praises, too:

Somewhere between the witty despair of Leonard Cohen's lyrics and the haunted Elysian landscapes of Richard Thompson's guitar, between the deeply ironic writing of Randy Newman and the evocative vocals of Michael Stipe, there lies the work of RICHARD SHINDELL.

~and~

Richard Shindell is at once an unassuming everyman and an enticingly enigmatic presence in contemporary music. The details of his life are hardly a secret ... would-be Episcopalian priest, now self-described agnostic, family man, a father of three; but there exists within his writing and performance something profound, wild, and unknowable.

I like that in a writer.

Okay, end of plug. Back to the burrowing for my own wild...

The New Year from the Central Coast

We're in the hotel room, the rest of the family dozing or just starting to stir before we pack it up and head home from our weekend in Pismo. We had a good visit with my oldest brother and his family (and his wife's large, close-knit clan too), and my sister and her boyfriend also came North from San Diego to spend a couple of days here. My other brother couldn't have come if he wanted too - he's been among those snowed in in Denver.

I've spent some time trying to figure out why I can't seem to blog lately, and since even trying to think about why I don't blog seems too difficult, I've now come to the conclusion that, as often happens around the holiday, I'm really just trying so hard to survive, and get through one more day, and tackle the to-do list, that there is no time left for peripheral luxuries like writing.

This is wrong. I know how wrong it is. I know that writing is as important to me as, say, eating, taking care of my family, sleeping, exercise & breathing (which consume my attention in roughly that order). But because writing anything of worth requires Time and Quiet, it hasn't been happening. Same old saw. But - it's also a new, hopeful year. And already D. and I are talking about the need for separate creative spaces to facilitate our work. We require such different things to create. He likes to be surrounded by the hundreds of small things he's already crafted - little pieces of aluminum and steel and delrin (not delron) and even tantalum that he's machined, models he's built, illustrations he's done - and he likes to hear music. I prefer silence and something closer to a monk's cell, and a space that is entirely my own, without someone else's "energy" there. So we're working on what it will take to have different rooms for what we're doing.

S and R and I went for a walk out to the end of Pismo pier at sunset yesterday (it was D's turn to nap in the hotel room), and we talked about New Year's Resolutions.

S said, "My goal for 2007 is to not die."

"Good plan," I said.

I didn't realize the alternative was even an option, but she reminded me that it's important not to take anything for granted. It's good to start with the basics.

Saturday, short-changing along the way

The problem with trying to do too much in a day is that you often have to do too little of the too much...

So we cut out of R's riding lesson early, to make it to a BBQ late. And I left the BBQ early to pick up S from Nutcracker rehearsal. It was a logistical nightmare juggling the two kids and their 3 activities on top of a food delivery (boxes for the week + frozen turkeys for 7 families) and errand-running. But we survived, and now that I'm writing this (at some unspecified date in the future), it all seems like it is in the distant past.

In fact, I can scarcely remember the details of the day. Thus is the importance of recording these things, I suspect.

Friday, from what I remember

So I know I'm not fooling anyone by posting something 6 days after the fact, but since we all have the ability to use our IM-MAG-IN-A-TION, we can imagine that it's Friday night, and I'm looking back on the day.

I worked until 8:30, so an 11.5 hour shift, which didn't feel bad at all, actually.

R. was home sick, which changed my errand-running plans slightly. I did manage to take a couple of naps, and on the whole, was not too wiped out by the working-the-night-shift experience.

Night owl

Working the night shift tonight. Although I feel perfectly capable of sleeping between incoming phone calls (and have permission from my boss to do so, provided I can be wide awake to give a quote, which I can be), I also may well use this time to catch up on some work.

Time alone, with only the white noise of dozens of PCs and server racks for company, is actually beautiful. I'm loving this so far.

Of course, the night is - relatively - young yet.

Not too late

Tonight I spent time working with my friend Molly in what is probably most conveniently described as a grief counseling session. There was a lot more to it than that. Molly is an extraordinary woman - a henna artist who also does personal growth work (including past life work, which is a whole other blog entry...).

But regardless of what anyone else might say about the methodology, I feel like a good deal of healing took place.

Thanksgiving is coming up. I'll be spending the holiday with my birth mom and family, including close relatives I've never met before (!), and I'm very excited about it, but I also know that it'll be a time when I'll be thinking about my mom a lot. It was important to "process" (what a clinical term for what the heart really is doing!) some of my emotions around my mom's death.

Note to self: it's never too late to have a conversation with someone you've lost.

Tuesday 11/14/06

Hooray!

I've found Radio Cymru.

Now I can have streaming audio IN WELSH while I write the novel.

I only understand about one in ten words, but just hearing it makes me so happy. It's my own home immersion program!

Maybe it's time to check in with the WASNC (Welsh American Society of Northern California) again, too. It's been a while.

Monday, November 13th

Great day in terms of writing - both the novel, and the transcription of the 6th grade class' adaptation of The Little Prince, which they will perform next month.

I now know things about my characters that they won't know for years.

Sunday, November 12th

Thank God our kids let us sleep in. I can't get enough sleep lately. I'm foregoing all sorts of things, like (ahem) writing, in order to sleep more than 5 hours a night. I'm sure it's the dark months that do this too me. When the sun sets at something like 4:30 in the afternoon, it seems like bedtime.

At least I still had time to jog a little between making a big Sunday breakfast and going to a birthday party all afternoon, so I didn't feel like I only hibernated all day. Although if I had, I guess it wouldn't have been so bad. I feel like I'm fighting something off, but whether it's a flu or depression/overwhelm or just the dark days, I couldn't say.

Saturday, Nov. 11th

Another packed Saturday with only about an hour of downtime. Not enough!
Although the daylight hours were literally filled with shuttling kids around from activity to activity (and one of the kids was a guest), at night I got together with some other moms from the school and talked about all sorts of Big things (mostly the stuff that happens before and after life, and what that might mean). I'm not so good at small talk or chit-chat. I don't really care where you bought your shoes. I want to know what you dreamt last night.

Friday Nov. 10th

I was feeling that this blog was really nothing but a recording of the symptoms of my neuroses, way too narcissistic and angst-ridden. And while all that is true, it's *relative*, you know what I mean?

I stumbled across this livespace site for poetry today and thought, "Well, hey, it could be worse."

And this just in from the Welsh news:

The research reveals that among older people in Wales
66 per cent were not looking forward to the winter months

That's crack research, man.
Sorry. Sarcasm running high. Should be better tomorrow.

Lantern Walk

The girls' school does a lantern walk for the youngest grades. The children all make their own lanterns, and then families come on the designated night to walk together by these little bobbing lights, carried by 5-8 year olds, singing songs under the stars.

I found this description of the tradition at the Waldorf School of Atlanta site:

Martinmas/Lantern WalkLantern Walk
November 11 marks Martinmas, in honor of a Roman soldier elevated to sainthood for his selfless kindness. Martin is the patron saint of the poor, beggars, outcasts, and the homeless. He is known for his gentleness, his unassuming nature, and his ability to bring warmth and light to those who were previously in darkness. On the evening of Martinmas, Martin’s deeds of goodness and acts of kindness are remembered with singing and a Festival of Lanterns. Children in kindergarten and the younger grades, together with teachers and families, carry handmade lanterns as they walk into the cold, dark evening. A story recognizing “the light” of another gives the children an experience of caring and sharing as we move toward the darkness of winter. The older grades may do outreach projects in celebration of the spirit of St. Martin.

I've never heard anyone at our school mention St. Martin (in the fields or otherwise), but the kids did hear a story told by their teacher (while the parents stood in the hallway and tried to stay quiet) before the walk. It really was lovely, and a beautiful clear night to boot. S. was a little un-calm and un-quiet, and her light even blew out at one point, but someone kindly re-lit it and we survived singing the same 3 songs about a million times (I think R has been traumatized by this part) in good spirits.

Again, I may sound the slightest bit mocking about this, but it's just to acknowledge tcynicismism of others. The fact is, I love traditions, and this one is very sweet and symbolic, and the poet in me just wants to take it all to another level and cry at all these little kids, bravely holding up their flickering lanterns in the cold air so that we can see our way to walk with one another, singing back the dark.

November, and colder

I know that this part of California has no real clue about what cold is. But there's a chill in the air that makes me think this weekend would be a good one for us to start chopping some of the larger chunks of oak firewood we have in the backyard into stove-side morsels.

And yes, I realize that it's really a dirty trick to disguise a honey-do as a blog post. So no, I'm not doing that. That would be counter-productive. (And we don't need counters. We need shoji screen closets. I'm just saying.)

*ahem*

Anyway, added a few hundred more words to the novel. I think Mair is just about to talk Annie into going to visit Hamza as he convalesces at Griff's uncle's farm. And Idris hasn't confessed yet to knowing the thugs who beat up Hamza. But Annie suspects that he has more information than he told her at dinner. The farm is beautiful, even in the rain. I'm looking forward to getting there.

Placeholder post

To say no new words on the novel, but I've started dreaming about the characters.

Although I realize that doesn't count toward words written, I consider it a good sign.


Went from work to picking up the girls at school to the library, then the gym, then picking up dinner, then voting, then out for a night of girls gaming. Home much too late to do anything but crawl into bed for a few Z's...

Election Eve

And I have not even started to look at the mountain of candidate and initiative literature that has come in the mail over the past many weeks.

I am a below-average citizen in this way. I take the duty to vote, and to serve on a jury for that matter, very seriously. But I am always relatively ill-informed (out of sheer laziness or overwhelm, I suppose) until shortly before I cast my ballot. I could use the excuse that more information on a given measure or candidate might emerge and change everything right before the election anyway, but the truth is, I just follow an old pattern of procrastination and cram. I'm one of those voters you see sitting in her car in a parking lot at the voting station, reading through the paperwork, chewing her nails and deciding whether the League of Women voters is right this time. That's the sad, honest truth.


2016 words toward my 50,000 word count for the month. I can't assume it'll happen, I know, but I'm hoping the weekend will bring a little catch-up time. Meanwhile, I'm shooting for the 1600 or so words a day it'll take to hold steady.

On time for once! and through a glass darkly...

That is to say that this is a legitimate, not retro-dated, post.

I slept, oh, about 14 hours last night. I guess (as they say) I needed it.

I think more than the actual sleep, though, I needed to check out. I mean, completely. I seem to have that reaction to certain stresses.

For example, I slept through three months of high school.

Seriously. I had mononucleosis, but that was just a medical excuse. I slept through those three months. I slept through the home-tutor coming with papers on sex ed., and because of my natural prudishness, it took me *years* to even consider thinking about whatever might have been covered in that class. I slept through family fights. I slept through us moving from one house to another in the same neighborhood. I mean, I woke up in a new room and thought, "Oh. I guess that's that, then."

I do remember a little black-and-white TV in my bedroom, and the horror of waking up in a fog, and seeing that The Dukes of Hazard was somehow on yet again, and being too exhausted to get up and change the channel or even call for someone else to do it.

I remember thinking I was better, and going back to school, only to have a relapse. I remember that it wasn't until I finally felt well that I realized how ill I'd been.

That's one of those things that makes me ponder about heaven, or enlightenment. We may think we're fine as we bumble and knock around with one another in the world, trying to do the right thing. But later, at some point later - then we'll be really fine. And realize how handicapped and tunnel-visioned we are now.

Just a thought.

November novel word count: 1134
Slowly regaining lost ground

If I go to bed RIGHT NOW, I'll get 5 hours and 15 minutes of sleep. Which is not bad at all, considering The Dukes of Hazard won't be on when I wake up.

Nutcracker: the saga begins

What a mix of a day. Here's the "had tea with Mrs. Jones" breakdown, then:
Got up, went to gym for a quick workout.
Fed S. breakfast.
Started a food delivery (4th year delivering weekly boxes on a rotational basis to low-income families).
Picked up R. from the retreat.
Returned cleaned dishes to the other moms.
Met D. at the cafe near S's ballet class, where he was waiting after dropping her off.
D. & R. left so he could take her to horseback riding.
I had breakfast and wrote a few words toward the novel.
Picked up S. from class.
Finished food delivery.
Picked up lunch for S. & while she ate, at home, I braided her hair for Nutcracker pictures.
Took the empty food delivery boxes back on the way back to the ballet school, where I was on duty for make-up for the lambs, Gingerbread cookies, Crystal sprites and Chinese Tea who were getting their pictures done. S. was among the batch of Gingies being photographed.
Five hours later, came home with S.
Was stupid enough to lie down at around 5:30.
Did not wake up except to move from bed to couch and sleep through dinner.
Did not move again except to go back to bed.

Additional novel word count: about 20 words.
Falling behind, but doing so shamelessly.

Survived!

I survived Red Tent day, which started at 3:10am with me blearily creating the rest of the letter, printing it on fancy paper, and putting it, and a poem I wrote in 1997, in a special envelope for R. to receive later in the day.

Work was work. Busy, as usual, but easy compared to the rest of the day.

After work I got the car serviced, and while that was happening, I bought supplies for a special gift for R. & then started to create it - sitting at the dealership service dept. trying to fit inspirational stickers on purple paper inside a frame which R. and I will replace with photos of her grandmothers and their mothers - a tribute to the women from whence she came, as it were.

Came home, got S. from school, spent 1.5 hours chopping vegetables for stir-fry for 15 (while D. valiantly helped put together the gift and generally do everything else that needed doing while I sliced and diced).

Raced to the home of another mom, where she and I and a third mom prepared the rest of the meal.

Got to the yurt location, went for a walk with R. (who was as excited as I have ever seen her, and who did NOT stop talking the whole time we power-walked around the block, in the dark).

Gave her the gift, which she liked (thank goodness!). Had dinner with her and the other moms & girls, and then had a time of sharing what the girls had discussed during the day.

Came home around 9:30 with the dishes from the dinner, washed most of them, called it a day.

New words added to the novel: NONE.
2nd day of goose-egg word count in a row.
Am I daunted or shamed?
Neither.

It's not that I have lower expectations of myself these days & don't even try to rise to the occasion.

It's that I love myself enough to let it go if I don't do it all.
Interesting how being pushed hard enough seems to do that to you.

Day of the Dead, Part 2

I was told not to retro-date blog entries with a tell-tale 11:59pm timestamp. But I don't recall actually promising not to do so.

Confession: I did not work on the novel today (apart from coming up with new names for a couple of minor characters).

Instead, I started work on a letter for R. that will be given to her during a retreat she and the other 6th grade girls in her class are having this weekend. The retreat is a Red Tent event (in this case, actually taking place in a yurt), where she and the other girls will be able to spend time with their teacher and each other learning about the changes that are starting to come for them - some already, some in the next year or two (or five). They'll be in a yurt, as I say, that is decorated in red, with sumptuous pillows and scarves and candles, where they can talk about what happens in adolescence, can look at other examples of changes in nature (I'm sure butterflies will come into this somehow), can discuss their feelings about themselves and about becoming young women (which I trust they're all bound to do eventually). They'll probably look at self-image issues and will do an art project. They'll have their meals made for them and served to them. In the evening, the mothers will come and walk with their respective daughters, and present their daughters with these letters and with a gift. The gift can be opened at a later time. It's a symbol (of whatever we choose it to be a symbol of). It's part of this rite-of-passage we're creating for them.

After the walk, we'll have dinner and a time of sharing together, then the mothers will leave and the girls will have a mom of one of the boys in the class come and do henna for them.

You'd have to have an idea of how Waldorf education works to understand why this is not a surprising sort of thing to happen with our little charter school. To some of my "readers," it all may sound as hippy and airy-fairy as it gets. And I know I sound like I'm poking fun at it. But in reality, I think this is great that the girls will have this experience.

I've much more to say about it, but even when I'm manipulating time (as with the datestamp of the post), I seem to run out of it.

Day of the Dead

One of the classes at the girls' schools made alters for Dia de Los Muertos, and at yesterday's Halloween festivities, I saw them all displayed together.

I have mixed feelings about this holiday. It seems to embrace a darkness that I find disturbing, with all the skeleton and skull imagery and the idea that spirits are either not really gone or that they come back to visit. Even the bright colors seem too carnival for my puritan blood.

But on the other hand, this year, I'm thinking of my mom, and I had half a mind (I have half a mind in general, even on good days) to create an alter for her. I was sorry that the day had passed without me doing this, but then I found on an Iowa State web site that the 2nd day of the festivities is for adults, which the first day is for children:

The traditional observance calls for departed children to be remembered during the first day of the festivity (the Day of the Little Angels, "Dia de los Angelitos"), and for adults to be remembered on the second day.

So there's always tomorrow. Which seems to be my just-get-through-today
motto right now. That, and "Why limit yourself to taking on what you can actually accomplish, when being an overwhelmed martyr has such a long and respected tradition?"

Bleh.

So, for those of you (writer's group gals, this means you) who are "supporting" me (if you call threats, dares, and reverse psychology partnered with soul-deep, unflagging encouragement "supporting"), my Nanowrimo word count to date is 441.

And for those of you who are have asked about the costumes, I finished both of them. In time, even. Will post pictures. And have not lost more weight since the initial 5 lb. drop, but have not gained back any either. Still no progress in that cure-for-cancer thing, though.

There's always tomorrow. One hopes, anyway.

Head Above Water. Just.

I'm working on the novel. A little.

Mostly, I'm working on making from day to day as gracefully as I can. I mean respectfully, optimistically, and with dignity. As opposed to growling, snapping and whining at myself and the nearest target (unfortunately usually my immediate family).

This sounds so pathetic. I mean, I'm not in Iraq. I don't have cancer. Life is in general so good. I have no serious complaints. My problems are petty, middle-class problems.

But here's what seems to have happened. AGAIN. I seem to have bitten off more than I can chew.

I somehow (while sober, mind you) signed up to absolutely accomplish the following, all in the same 2 weeks:
Finish the novel
Lose 10 pounds
Lead training sessions at work (I have finally created my first PowerPoint presentation!)
Make not 1 but 2 costumes

(The last of these necessitated unpacking my mother's sewing machine and then finding the foot pedal - which itself took 3 hours - and experiencing again, more deeply, that loss. Grieving alone seems to still be a full-time background-process job - a unix geek could do a PID of my brain & heart & find all sorts of interesting stuff there.)

This is on top of the usual working fulltime, running the kids to gymnastics & dance & riding, and the meetings for school & the Nutcracker rehearsals, and preparation for an upcoming (and very cool, yet to be blogged) Red Tent retreat for the girls in R's class.

I bit off too much, and I'm paying the price for it. And writing about it exorcises the stress, but still. How many times will I have to learn this lesson?

At least once more, apparently.

What do you mean I haven't blogged?

I can't blog.
I'm too busy finishing the first draft of my novel.
Somebody thinks I can't finish it by Nov. 1st, in time to start another 50,000 words.

Oh, ye of little faith, I say.

Ptttthhh to ye, I say.

What I learned this week

How to sew the strap on ballet slippers.

R has decided to drop gymnastics and take up ballet.

She had 3 words to report back after the first "drop in" night for the beginner teen/adult class (which they said she could attend even though she's 12):

"Sign me up."

So I will. Clearly, both my daughters have an interest in dance that goes beyond what I felt for the art form as a child.

When I was little - maybe 4 or 5 - my mother signed me up for a ballet class. I fought extreme shyness every lesson in order to go, but not because I wanted to dance. Instead, I went back for the brief storytime that was a part of each class, when the instructor would tell an installment of the Nutcracker to all the squirmy little girls gathered in a spill of pink tulle around her on the floor.

What I didn't realize was that the story was just a hook to get us to come back. I didn't expect that it would actually end, and that there would be no Sheherazade-like continuation of the entertainment. Once Clara came home, and I saw that it was going to be all dance and no plot from then on out, I refused to go back.

I think I've learned since then that sometimes life is the story, though. If only you look for it. I mean the students, and the teacher, and the chalky smell of the studio, and the way the mirror was a little warped - all those things were the real story. The Nutcracker was a red herring, nothing more than a plot element that drove this particular character away and into another direction.

Sewing the strap on the ballet slipper while S chatters. Having R grin and say, "Sign me up!" That's the story right now.

Squirrel pox!

It's good to know that someone cares about the Squirrel Nutkin's descendents, the little red squirrels in Britain.

Apparently, they're reintroducing drays of them to Yorkshire from a reserve in the Welsh island of Anglesey (aka Ynys Môn) to boost the population in the face of the evil, potentially pox-ridden American grey squirrels that are the scourge of the trees in Britain.

See the story of the reintroduction here.

And more about the folks who are trying to save them, The Friends of the Anglesey Red Squirrels, here.

You can also read about it in Welsh, if you'd like.