Snow White And Selected Works

Today there are two performances of the Petaluma City Ballet's latest production.

S. dances as a Celtic Maiden in one piece set to Irish music, which has a lot of attitude (we're talking leg positions, not the other kind). Then she's a demon in Snow White, working for the Queen. Very slinky and creepy and fun, she says.

But before that, she's at preparatory orchestra and sectional rehearsal.
I'll pick up R., who has been camped out at a friends house for days, and we'll go home, change, and head on over to the theater. This year we'll miss Petaluma's annual Butter & Egg Days Parade for the first time in many years, but I'm sure it'll be there for us next year.

I'm currently at Peet's, enjoying what is probably the highlight of my weeks: time alone with coffee (still decaf for Lent!) and my laptop, where catching up with non-work related computer tasks - email and the like - and writing (!) are made possible. Such a blessing.

Finished reading Pegasus by Robin McKinley yesterday. CURSE YOU, ROBIN MCKINLEY!

I had forgotten that it's a two-book story. I was in such denial that even two pages from the ending, I was happily thinking that soon everything was going to get resolved. Not. This, I now understand, is one of the great and terrible dangers of reading using your daughter's Nook. Even with little numbers on the screen to say how many pages you've read out of how many pages exist, you aren't holding the bulk of the book on the left with only the cover and a few slips of paper on the right to tell you there's no possible way the story can be resolved before the book ends. Serves me right for not supporting the author by buying her work in paper form.

Now I have to wait until next year to find out what happens to Sylvi and Ebon. Bah.

On a related note, here's a fantastic quote on writing from a Nanowrimo pep talk Robin McKinley sent last year:

Writing can be the worst, and often is—but it can also be the best. May you come out of that month knowing what you want to do next, and eager to keep going. Try to remember the peregrine days on the days that your husband/wife/roommate/dog needs steel wool to get you off the floor. And keep writing: the only way you can learn how your stories work is by letting them tell you. By putting live words together.

She inspires me. So do Laurie R. King, Gillian Bradshaw, Rhys Bowen, and Kate and Julie and Suzanne and Clare. If I remember that, and read not only what they write but also what they write about writing, it'll stand me in good stead.

A room full of no's

Apparently, that's what I got when I called in to work today to see if my department wanted me to come in, after all, because someone else had called in sick.

I could take this to mean they dislike my leadership and would rather have a cat's-away day. Or I could take it to mean they support me in having a day off to relax for a change. I choose the latter.

However, I realize that I carry work and other worries around me almost all the time. So I will need to learn to set things like that down more quickly and easily. And the way I operate, I will have to not worry about worrying to much. Jeez. And how old am I, and I'm still working on that one?

Ack! I'm melting...

What *is* it that makes me wind down so at the end of a day?

I really feel for all the world like my energy is being leached into the earth.

Low blood sugar? Dehydration? Stress? Or just coming down from the (off-the-wagon-confession alert) 2 cups of real coffee I had today.

Whatever it is, I can hardly keep my eyes open, and eating & drinking & going for a walk - not in that order - has not helped. Maybe I just need more sleep. Hmmm.

Will try to take tomorrow off work. In theory, I'm really doing it. In practice, it will be challenging.

Rite

R's just gone through a little modern rite of passage: she's passed the driver's permit test.

As she pointed out, I seem to think it's a bigger deal than she does.

Before the test, R. seemed so young. The DMV clerk sounded a little skeptical when asking for her age. But as R. stood in line to have the test graded, she looked so grown up, with her short spikey hair and modern-cut glasses, her brown leather jacket brightened by the colorful scarf she wove at school last semester.

I'm stealing a shot of hers to show the scarf. Without the leather jacket, hair & glasses like they were, you don't get the full effect. But I love that scarf. And the kid's not bad either...

Ganging agley

Well, that's embarrassing.

Makes me think of Burns.

I'm writing this Thursday, but am pretending it's Tuesday. Who's fooled, and who's the fool?

Walking the Talk

Here's where the tricky part of commitment comes in- sticking to it when you'd rather not.

So I will stay off the caffeinated coffee until Easter,
I will post this entry as part of my daily writing exercise,
I will go to the gym now, at 8:35 at night, for my 20 minute workout.

Where there were shoulds, let there be wills.

Belated Birthday Shout-outs

March 31st: D's sister and my biological father. (Um. Not the same person.) It always makes me smile that my first (birth) name was the same as that of my sister-in-law, who shares a birthday with my birth father.

April 8th: Two important friends: B., whom has the audacity to be living and playing all the way on the other side of the map lo, these last several years; and E., who has returned to southern California to start a whole new chapter in her life.

Four significant people in my life, and only one of whom I was able to (or managed to) wish happy birthday on said person's actual birthday.

And I don't think any of them are reading this blog! But I'm putting well wishes in writing and out into cyberspace anyway. As my beloved maternal grandmother always said - a phrase I have since made my own - "And many happy returns of the day!!"

Catch up - already!

Posting Friday's post Saturday and Saturday's post Sunday - doesn't bode well. But it's not enough to daunt or discourage. Onward!

I managed to get a chunk of yard work done today, although it barely put a dent it the weeds. R. asked me, "Why do you like to weed so much?"

"Really?" I replied. I mean, who doesn't like to weed? What's not to like? But I guess she was serious, and just as there are people who like to iron (I'm thinking of you, Kate) when I can't fathom ever liking to iron, apparently there are people who don't like to weed.

D. painted a wall in the livingroom he's been meaning to paint. We're working on the long checklist of things to do to get the house in order. It's a great feeling, working together toward a common overarching goal.

Fell asleep while the family watched Tales from Earthsea. I remember those LeGuin books being so very important to me around 8th or 9th grade. I loved them. But now, I can't remember the plot, the characters, the setting.... Maybe this is because I did not re-read them. But it was interesting to note that things that one can love can be forgotten so thoroughly.

Also, not knowing how closely or remotely the film followed the book means I don't have a way of knowing whether my inability to recognize the story was due to creative license or to early Alzheimer's.

Friday Retro

(posted Saturday morning...)

Yesterday's writing was only what was done at work, so the creativity was within the scope of business. Which is not to say it didn't engage some of the same parts of my brain as novel or poetry composition does.

Had a traditional Friday family movie night (we rented Tangled). And unlike many Friday movie nights, I stayed awake for the whole film before the inevitable snooze on the couch.

The rain that had been forecasted was mis-forecasted, thank goodness. I'll have a dry(er) garden to tackle this weekend. Looking forward to getting something significant done!

Friday Eve

The downside to posting late at night is that I've usually spent my quota of optimism by then. Left home at 7am, returned him at 9pm. Nearly 12 hours at work. I left with things still undone. But I love my job, and especially my new position. And I did make it home in time to check in with the kids on homework, distribute vitamins, tuck S. in, encourage R. to finish the project due tomorrow.

Going to bed "early" so I can get up early and do the things that I just can't face tonight, but which must be done before I leave the house again. Still won't get 8 hours of sleep, but it'll be nearly that. Hooray!

Is it Gratitude if there are qualifications?

So I'm grateful for every day I have here (ie., on this earth), and today was certainly not the hardest day I've ever slogged through.

There were even many little blessings: laughing with D. at the end of a long unload of our respective challenges, hearing about S. choreographing with her friends (to Laura Veirs' Wide-Eyed, Legless, nonetheless!), seeing R's cute super-short hair cut, and knowing that as frustrated about school as she may be (and oh, how she hates emails home from teachers with their concerns!), she is not giving up and not backing down.

But still, this is a day I'm happy to put to bed!

Tuesday Bricks and Birds

Left home at 7am, got home at 9pm. A long day, and not without its challenges. But I'm home, and there's that "Big Horizontal" piece of furniture that I love so dearly around this time of day. I love you, bed.

But it's telling (to me, anyway) that my first thought upon coming home, besides, "I'm done," is "I have to write."

So even though my daily creative writing snippets are no more than a few lines, and these blog entries are hardly more than that, I feel like I'm building brick-by-brick - okay, actually pebble-by-pebble. And you have to start a foundation somewhere.

Or, as Anne Lamott would say, "Bird by Bird."

Whirlwind year

This year has probably brought more changes in the first few months than any year I can remember. And it looks like the changes are still coming.

I suppose, as they say, even good changes can lead to stress. But so far, even though my head is spinning, I'm kind of enjoying the dizzy feeling that comes with it.

Hang on - wheeeee..!

Sunday driving

Beautiful day, but I spent more of it away from home than at home. The gardening, what there was of it, happened yesterday.

Today it was like this: get up, take the dog to the dog park, then me to the gym, a haircut, the grocery store, Peet's, home to pick up R. and D., R. to riding, D. and I up north for a drive. Then home briefly again, started a water change for the 400-gallon tank, off to get R. from riding, drop her off at home, down to work for an hour or so, home. Dishes still undone, writing put off to the end of the day.

However, the resolve for changes brought on by the good weather and April, is still there. Thus the writing, the gym, and a stick to healthy eating for today. I know all these will be a one-day-at-a-time thing. So, for today: check! done.

Q1

I'd never thought in terms of quarters before. I've never had to. Now, as a manager - and a sales manager, at that - Q1, Q2, Q3, and Q4 have been added to my regular vocabulary. Or at least the idea of them has.

Eventually, I may be able to stop counting months on my fingers to reckon when one Quarter ends and one begins. But for now I have to subtly move my fingers as though I were playing scales on an invisible piano while I think January, February, March. April, May June. It's the little tick I've been known to have when calculating how much sleep I'll get if I go to bed right now. D. has teased me about it for years. Fingers are handy, this way.

It is April. The rain has stopped, at least for now, and all the green blooming lift of Spring is evident everywhere: bursting up from the cracks between paving stones, and topping the trees along the streets in clouds of white and pink, and completely taking over our back yard. I can't fathom how much weeding and garden preparation lies ahead of me. And coming home when it's nearly dark during the week doesn't help. The few times I've arrived at the house when it was still light out, and not raining, I've grabbed the dog to take him to the dog park or have launched into dinner preparation.

So I've got this new lifestyle in mind: writing daily, getting the family to sit down to a healthy dinner before 7pm, regular visits to the gym, gardening. And I've decided the best strategy for make this lifestyle possible boils down to regimentation. Regimentation and revised priorities. Okay, so the two strategies for making this lifestyle possible are regimentation and revised priorities. And accountability. Three! The three strategies...well, at any rate, those are among the elements that I believe will make the difference between meeting my goals and just talking about my goals.

April Again

Okay, so no one said this would be easy, in spite of the ease with which I'd envisioned it: just start writing. Daily. As a practice.

In order to reach the goal of being a published professional writer (be it poet or novelist). Make writing part of each day. The start of the day, even. Something that happens from five to six before it's time to awaken the family and start that headlong hurl into the next fifteen hours.

But last night was a hard night, with nightmares and midnight anxieties. One of the dark times of the soul, for the few hours that it lasted. And so rising at five seemed, if not impossible, than at least very difficult.

So I told myself I would write tonight. And this, at least, I've done.

Where Things Stand

...or sit, or stagger. Take your pick.

But the current surface-skimming state of affairs - or at least what comes to mind - is this matter-of-fact update:

D. works.
I work. I drive - about 100 miles a day during the work week.
The girls are in school.
R. plays soccer and rides when she can. She also volunteers with a local equestrian therapy center.
S. dances, and was just put in a good role in the Nutcracker. She also continues to make progress with her bass, that fog-horn, cow-lowing instrument that I've come to enjoy listening to while I fold laundry.

I don't write as much as I long to, and lately I feel that this not-writing-ness is less a casual burbling stream outside my window than a full-throated river quickly gaining speed as it crashes toward the sea of Lost Opportunity. And I'm tired of walking along it or sometimes putting a toe in the bracing water. And I don't want to build a bridge. Instead, I want to dam it and channel that power into words on the page, words on the screen, and Something of Worth (intrinsic worth, mind you - not just that false worth suggested with capital letters). Otherwise, what's the point?

Worse than writing without any spirit in the words, worse than writing poorly, is wasting the drive to write.

I think I want the writer's life. I could be wrong. But I'd like to test the theory more than I have in the last year, anyway.

Hurry up and Wait

I realize that saying how long I worked today or how little I slept last night is a symptom of insecurity. It's fishing for sympathy. So I'll temper it with lack of detail. But I'm starting to feel it, here in the coffee shop with my writer pals, trying to remember the plot of that old novel that needs finishing...

Someone observed last week that my "self-awareness" was so extreme as to be crippling.

So is shyness or claims of introversion a manifestation of narcissism? Self-exiled in self-involvement? I think maybe yes.

I miss Wales with an physical ache. The Welsh call it hiraeth. Heart-sick homesickness, even if its for something that isn't technically your home. Writing something set there both helps and makes it harder.

But I have these characters in limbo between plot points who I feel have been looking up at me expectantly over crossed arms, occassionally checking their watches and sighing heavily. Like, Hel-LO? Remember us?

So I'll see if I can move the ahead a couple of squares on the board.

Bird by bird.

Fallen but Rising

Last week I was hit hard by a fresh reminder of how we are all, to some degree, morally compromised. Flawed, yes. And sometimes really ethically broken. But also, even the best of us, scarred by a thousand little cuts--nicks in our integrity. Does this make us human? Or keep us from being human? Or is it the recognition of it, and how we respond to that, the test of the caliber of our humanity?

I spent a couple of days feeling old and as in mourning. I think it was over the loss of another layer of innocence. Is there any going back?

But this is, after all, a time of change for me. After a year plus being dormant in so many ways, I feel new things coming. New and good, slowly building up like green seedlings pushing through the damp dark earth toward light. Have I said this before? If so, I hope I can attribute it to the cyclical nature of things rather than neurosis. I'd rather believe it's a valid rebirth happening, and not same-old-tune mutterings like a drunkard's forgetful promise.

(a piece of garden, 4/09)

Does this count as redemption?

There's something like absolution (although self-given) that comes with deleting the worthless placeholder posts from last month.

As always, taking the pressure off of myself for not blogging daily leads to a higher likelihood that I will blog. And so removing the reminders of where I fell short of my own standards feels like me forgiving myself and erasing a poor record.


The weather is wet and cold and oddly autumnal for nearly mid-May. It's wonderful weather if one is inside. No need to water the newly planted garden today!

Ballet & Bubbles Press

Check it out!


http://www.petaluma360.com/article/20100305/community/100309717

And this is Wednesday

Having posted daily recordings of nothingness, while the days themselves have been anything but...

It's Wednesday. D's truck ("Big Blue") is currently broken down and will need to be towed to a repair shop.

The girls are playing violin and bass in the livingroom while D starts a fire.

I haven't looked at my personal email in days and haven't logged on to FB for probably weeks.

By the time the sun sets, I'm done.

But I think getting back into running 3-4 times a week will help. It's been way too long, and my plans for walking and running without the benefit of a treadmill (and all the reading I can get done while on said device) have come to little.

Sad but true.

The change in the time on Sunday will mean it will feel like 4am when I get up in the morning Monday-Friday, but it will also mean more light late in the day, so more time to run and to take the dog to the dog park before my energy completely wanes with the setting sun.

Sunday, more cleaning, Moon Circle

Saturday, spring cleaning, Alice

Friday!

Dydd Dewi Sant 2010

Happy St. David's day, one and all!

Brought daffodils, scones, muffins & Welsh flag to work today to celebrate.

Another afternoon of running around and evening of caring for the family. But in spite of some bumps along the road, we're all well and reasonably happy. And overall, very silly.

Dydd Dewi Sant hapus iawn i chi!

Diverse day

Got up early, took dog to dog park, went north to help lay Marley floor for dance competition, came home & made breakfast, gardened, went to friends' house to watch the hockey game, went north with the girls in tow to watch 2 hours of ballet competition, dinner out, home, bedtime routine, bed. That's all.

Saturday, actually Monday

Two days after the fact, but let's pretend it's Saturday night. This is ironic, because Saturday was the day in the last week or two when I have done the most actual writing. And yet, in spite of working on a poem for an hour or more, I didn't post here. Until now.

A Tree Falling

Another morning-after retropost.

So this has been interesting. I'm tempted to feel like this has become a private journal, and that no one else is reading it. Which means I may be more inclined to bare my soul and less inclined to care about grammar. No, actually. I'm sure I can't stop caring about grammar. Even fragments are intentional.

"Intentional fragments" - I kinda like that.

And of course I re-read and edited this. It's a wonder all those hand-written journals from my younger years aren't full of crossed-out lines, or scratched out pages...

Mundane marathon

The litany of the day:

Got to work just after 5am, worked 8 hours, picked up S. from her ensemble class after school, took her to bass lesson, picked up other people's children at their school, dropped them off at the meeting point in town, got home, dropped off S., took the dog to the dog park because he was CRAZY from being inside all day, picked up S. for violin, took her to class, took her home, dropped her off, ran back up to her school for a mandatory parent meeting, got home at after 9pm, consoled sickly R., heard a bit about D.'s day, collapsed!

Thank goodness the violin+bass lessons are short-term. S. is quickly on her way to only bass.

I think the highlight of the day is proving my tested theory that one can fit a quarter-sized bass and 4 children + driver in a Prius. :)

Aren't you hungry? Aren't you tired?

My family must bear the burden of me asking them why they haven't gone to bed yet when I'm tired, or asking them what they'd like to eat when I'm hungry.

Interesting that I seem more ready to transfer my needs to them than to acknowledge them as my own. What's that all about?

Wordle of Set Down This

Inspired by Suzanne's entry. Here's a Wordle of this blog. Hmmm. I'm not sure if it only looks at recent entries - I am guessing that's the case. It's nearly 10pm now, and the kids are just (finally) in bed. I haven't completed my chores for the day, but 4:40 comes so early...well, it looks like I've been brought low by the mundane again. Fighting off a sore throat, feet chilled because my office is the least insulated room in the house, and the wood-burning stove is not nearby. And I'm ready to call it a day without having written poetry or finished the laundry. However, I did put 89 miles on my car in the normal course of the day. And I worked my eight, got the dog to the dog park, delivered various children (mine and other's) where they needed to be--on time--,attended the Board meeting, supervised homework, made S. lunch for tomorrow, listened to violin and bass practice, critiqued R's latest story, balanced the checkbook, paid the bills, replied to a couple of emails.

I'm sitting here telling myself that this, too, has its place in the Significant Work of the world. Its place and its time, and its own grace as well.

One step forward, one step nowhere...

Getting back to writing daily is a stumbling process right now, even with my youngest asking if she can write for 30 minutes while I write for 30 minutes.

But when 30 minutes don't come until 9:30pm, sleep trumps scribbling. At least, it should for her. And it did for me.

Another day, another opportunity to move in the right direction...

Time is so weird

Funny. How late it is seems inherently tied to how tired I am.

11:45pm can seem not late at all if I happen to feel wide awake, whereas 7pm can seem like the wee hours of the morning if I'm sleepy. The latter is usually the case, and in general, I do "shut down" after 8pm. Tonight, ironically, is an exception. I won't be so chipper when my alarm goes off in 5 hours, I'm sure. But it's been a good day. And by "good day," of course I mean "productive day" - a satisfying combination of duty and pleasure, and of the pleasure that only comes (for me, anyway) with duties having been done fully and in good time.

One can only hope that one sleeps better when the chores have been completed. Because one certainly sleeps less.

offline today

I spent the whole day sans computer and didn't miss it for a moment.

Walked the dog to the dog park and back for the second day in a row. It's nearly 3 miles and that makes for a 2-hour venture if we spend more than 15 minutes at the park, which we always do.

I could get used to daily long walks. Really I could.

A year ago

It's the one year anniversary of my father's death, so of course I've thought about him a lot today. I'm not ready to write more about it. Some deaths don't lead to poetry for a long time, I think.

But I did start to write an ekphrastic poem this evening, as I'm now part of an ekphrastic poetry group.

Part of the jump-start process. Day 3 of Lent.

Feb. 18 2010 retro-post

At 12:30am, in bed, I thought "Oh no!"

Day two of a renewed commitment and where were my 30 minutes?!

So I lay in bed and meditated - really - until around 1am.

It also occurred to me that:

1) the red chaise sofa is entirely too comfy, especially when next to a fire in the wood-burning stofe, and its siren song of sleep is overwhelming. The time I would have spent writing was lost in its chintz arms.

2) my life at the moment does not lend itself to contemplation. I must change the configuration. But it probably can't be done in two days. Three or four may be required.

Ash Wednesday

It's Ash Wednesday.

Although nominally I'm still an "Elder," I've been away from the Presbyterian Church for about six years now.

But Lent brings out the wannabe ascetic in me, and for the last couple of days, I've been thinking about what, if anything, I might give up for Lent. I stopped eating poultry in October, so giving up meat of any kind is already taken care of. I could give up fish, but that's no real sacrifice. I've already had chocolate today. And coffee. So too late for those two old favorite candidates.

But really, I know that this year it's not what I need to give up. It's what I need to take up again.

As in, Time.
Time to reflect.
Time to write.

30 minutes a day, minimum. That's my commitment for the Lenten season this year. Me. Alone in my office, 30 minutes every day. Writing. Or meditating. Or praying. The sacrifice of giving myself over to quiet or creativity. Or both.

Blogging more often may keep me honest. You'll notice, perhaps, that I offer no "oh-my-goodness! It's been months since I added a blog entry" apology. (Um. Except for that.) I don't have time for the posturing of regret, that's why.

But here's something I wrote January 16th that I wanted to post. For the record.

It takes a certain amount of ego to be a writer. Or at least, to be the kind of writer that puts her writing out there, for world consumption—whether that is in a blog, or in a poem or essay or novel. It takes enough ego to assume that what you have to say is something that other people want to hear. Or alternately, it’s just as possible that it takes enough ego to not care whether other people want to hear it or not.

Yes, there are usually other forces at work: a love of words and language, for example. Or the drive for examination and reflection, for observation and expression. There’s often a low-level, basic need to use the written word to process one’s thoughts and understand the world.

I’m certainly compelled by this last source of motivation. Writing frees me of the weight of input through the release of output. It clears my brain of clutter and allows me to breathe. It doesn’t mean the rest of the world wants or needs to hear what I’m putting in words. But this worry over other people’s reactions has dictated so much of what I’ve chosen not to do or say in life, I’m starting to feel that no only is it high time I left that concern behind, but in fact I have some making up to do. And an unknown, but certainly shorter-than-before, time in which to do it.

I’m also driven by that love of language. Not so much individual words (although some of them are quite nice) but how they can be used. The right turn of phrase—something unique and startling—can do wonders for me It can make me feel as content as a cat in a slant of sunshine, or as thrilled as John Muir at the top of a tree in a lightning storm. It can instill in me a deep and profound hope in the whole future of the human race.

I’m writing this now because for weeks I’ve been forcing the Muse, bringer of the mood and vision that brings me offerings of insight and vocabulary, to get in line behind everything else. I’ve been moving my hand in a dismissive wave to direct her to go and wait behind the others. Behind work, shuttling children, supervising homework, making meals, offering moral support for the family, going to meetings, paying the bills, walking the dog, sorting socks. The list is extensive, as the Muse could tell you. If I allowed her to speak at all, beyond whispering that the way the winter has exposed hidden bird nests in bare branches warrants a poem, or that walks in the open air are key to a healthy soul.

Certain themes repeat. Like a little string of notes, a melody strung into every movement of a symphony, there are phrases that surface in one’s life that are only distinct from what has come before by the altered circumstances around them. The tug of war between what is necessary because of practical considerations and what is necessary because of spiritual and creative hunger comes up again and again for me. Obviously, someone has to do the dishes. And obviously, even with others helping, sometimes it has to be me.

But because I believe denying myself whatever drive or gift is my birthright may well lead at best to a wasted or bitter life, and at worst to a fatal implosion that will take everyone around me down with me, I’m going to stop and look at the naked nests. I’m going to walk in the open air. I’m going to write.

Halloween / Nanowrimo Eve

At the cafe with a writer buddy, after a morning where it seemed everything was conspiring to challenge me. Every task felt difficult and cumbersome. I think I simply slept too late and waited to long for that first cup of coffee, and as a result was running behind and with a headache for three hours.

But the dog has been walked, the food boxes have been delivered, the daughters have been dropped off at their respective locations. R. is doing her weekly volunteering stint at a therapeutic equestrian center, S. is dancing, and D. will probably be putting more mud on the walls in the entrance way.

And I am (in theory) focusing on writing. With a cup of coffee.

It's a beautiful October day, clear and not too cold. Halloween has almost always been my favorite holiday, and I would normally be full of Fall euphoria. But any light-heartedness has been tainted by the sobering news of an H1N1 diagnosis for one of S's closest friends from dance (they even share a locker, which I've since wiped down). I've also just had news of two deaths in a local family from the virus as well. It's easy to brush it off until it hits so close to home. But this is, as I say, sobering.

On another note, tomorrow (well, midnight tonight, actually) Nanowrimo starts. The goal: write 50,000 words toward a novel in 30 days.

Why? Because I writing is satisfying for me, and I like to do it. And I clearly like a challenge like this. There's also the possibility that I can come up with something worth editing and sending out into the world. And besides, if I can jump-start the habit of writing daily, after November I can apply that same time and discipline to poetry. I also have this crazy naive notion that poems will come as I work on the novel. I do believe that creativity breeds creativity, and that opening up oneself to the Muse pays off.

Sure, I don't seem to have the time or energy for such shenanigans. But it's only one month, and it's this type of forced time-constrained focus that enables me to drop away the unessential busy-work that otherwise consumes my weeks.

I've started reading The Four Hour Workweek, and although I'm not far into the book, the concept of changing how I look at what I do with my time has already inspired me.

So I'm going to do this. I'll keep track of word counts here, which means that Nanowrimo brings the added benefit of me blogging more often, and keeping tabs on a more regular basis with my FB and personal email accounts. If I'm not on the computer, I'm not online. And if I'm not online, I'm disconnected and behind in correspondence. Sometimes that's just what I need as an overwhelmed introvert. But a month of reading and responding to messages instead of shoving them under the cyber carpet won't do me any harm, either.

How long, how long

What a tremendous and unprecedented hiatus. Even knowing how busy I've been and having decades of first-hand experience with my propensity to procrastinate and withdraw, I'm amazed at the extended blog-silence.

So much has happened since June. Time marches on, moments well worth recording come and go, and I think, "I should blog this. I should write about that." But as someone once told me, "'Should' implies a negative," and the moments remain unrecorded. Many will be forgotten, unless they surface at a random time and are written later. Not that writing immortalizes, anyway. Certainly not with the volumes of thoughts and musings and personal histories being poured onto virtual pages. Who would read it all? Who, in the long run and the scheme of human history, will care?

I've been well, but overwhelmed. Something about shifts in schedules - my own and the kids' - and about new stresses (private high school expenses, heavy workload, puppy, home remodel, being part of 3 carpools) and the loss of old coping mechanisms (I miss the gym!) has lead me to retreat and avoid the computer entirely. I hardly read friends' blogs. I have a FaceBook account but don't sign in very often. I get up, go to work from 6-2, drive kids (my own and other peoples') from place to place from 2-6, then do dinner, homework supervision, dog walking, chores. And I call it a day as early as I can, avoiding anything extra.

But I've always had resurgences of creativity in October, and I'm well into the month and looking forward to participating in Nanowrimo again in November.

I don't know how I'll write 50,000 words in a month. But I know I do well with outside accountability when it comes to writing, and I know that writing does me almost as much good as regular exercise - keeps me sane and stable, helps me cope with stress. And creativity breeds creativity. And writing puts me online, where reading and writing blog posts and being inspired by, and connected to, friends, can happen more regularly. These are all good things.

I may not write posts as frequent, insightful, compelling or moving as those of my friends (see links on sidebar), but writing is how I process thoughts and feelings, and not processing thoughts and feelings is so detrimental to my health. So here's to pulling myself up out of isolated silence and back into the world of words.

This week and next

As I was telling a friend today, the last week in May and first two weeks in June are always brutal. This week, R. is in Oregon (Ashland and whitewater rafting) with her 8th grade glass. At work, I'm doing the crazy Dance of Many Fires to Put Out while we transition to the new database. By the end of the week, I will have worked 11 days in a row, but at least I left early today to see S. perform in her violin recital. Saturday S. & I will go to a mother/daughter gathering for the 3rd grade class. (It's a Waldorf school, remember, so this is called a "Moon Circle." In the afternoon, I expect to spend time writing with my writing pals (after much too long a break!).

Saturday also would have been my dad's 73rd birthday. I'm already thinking of Grandma, and how hard the day will be for her. I think mourning my father has been this huge process running in the background. It's hanging, and I can't seem to force quit or fully start it. (Sorry. Geek mode.)

Next week will be full too: graduation, 3 ballet performances & R's ballet recital. My sister will be in town, which is great. It's the first time I will have seen her since before the surgery, though, so I'm also a little nervous. I'm looking forward to showing her that I'm completely fine, but I'm afraid she may be looking for signs that I'm not. (If you're reading this, J, I'm doing great - honest!).

It helps to know the language

When my family and I watched a version of The Railway Children some time ago, we laughed long and hard at the children trying to communicate with the Russian soldier who turns up in their village. In an attempt to identify the language he's speaking, one of the kids says in a slow, clear delivery: "Are...You....Welsh?"


But I love this BBC story from Halloween last year:





As the article states:

The English is clear enough to lorry drivers - but the Welsh reads "I am not in the office at the moment. Send any work to be translated."

When officials asked for the Welsh translation of a road sign, they thought the reply was what they needed.

Unfortunately, the e-mail response to Swansea council said in Welsh: "I am not in the office at the moment. Send any work to be translated".

So that was what went up under the English version which barred lorries from a road near a supermarket.

"When they're proofing signs, they should really use someone who speaks Welsh," said journalist Dylan Iorwerth.

I should say so!

Why, hello there

As arbitrary as a number on a sheet of paper (or a screen) is, the beginning of a month, after such a long time silent, seems like a good time to take up keyboard and post some kind of communiqué.

Even if the message is nothing more than "Hello again."

I'm still here. Still alive and well, even if the last few weeks I've felt that writing online (and often, even being online) was more than I could manage.

But without further apology or ado, I'm back.

Here's a picture from the family's trip to Canada in April. Much of the trip was spent seeing wild and rescued animals. We went to two wildlife sanctuaries:
Pacific Northwest Raptors and the North Island Wildlife Recovery Centre

Here's one of the employees at the Raptor center with one of the many birds that live there:



We also spent time at World Parrot Refuge, home to over 700 parrots with the idea that the birds should not be pets but should be allowed to flock in huge cages together. They give you earplugs when you first enter the facility, and in the one hands-on rehab area, one of the birds is quick to pick them out of your ears.



























..

April Eve

March and April are the months for poetry contests, and I am scrambling, just a little, to send out a few things here and there. Thus the earlier-than-usual dragging myself out of bed today.

R. has been accepted to both schools to which she applied, but one was too far out of our budget without a ton of financial aid (which was not forthcoming), and the other only means some small but worthwhile lifestyle changes. Not eating-Top-Ramon-every-day sacrifices. But just paying attention and spending as little as possible on anything not truly necessary.

I received my father's death certificate, the coroner's report and some of my father's writings from my brother. It took me two weeks to work up the nerve to open it, and I've only read the first part of the coroner's report. I'm not pushing myself.

On a much lighter note (and what wouldn't be a lighter note than that?) I also received two glossy-covered copies of The Pinch, in which my "award winning" poem appears. It's satisfying, seeing it. Not thrilling. Just satisfying, like stepping back, rake in hand, to see the yard has been successfully cleared of leaves.

The Recrudescence of Routine

So it goes after big events; the resumption of the quotidian seems anticlimactic.

I donate a kidney.
My father dies.

Well, and the kids go off to school, and I go back to work, and the meetings are scheduled, and it rains, and the days grow longer, and the bills are due, and the clean laundry must be folded and put away.

Except that I want the experiences of February to have made a change that stays with me in some tangible and obvious way. So I've made this new commitment to myself as a poet, and I start each day by reading poetry, then writing something (notes toward a poem or a first draft). I sweat the small stuff less - this will take concentration and practice - and I honor other people more, and I am grateful for the many gifts I've been given, without feeling the need to protest that I don't deserve them or must return them. The giving is an expression of the gift-giver, and it's not my job to determine my worthiness to receive whatever I am offered. I am humbled, and grateful, and thus I learn a bit more about Love.

Good news, bad news

The really good news is that the kidney transplant surgery on the 10th went very well. Apparently, my left kidney paid attention to all the pep talks and heartfelt conversations I had with it, and it went to work right away as Mark's new kidney. He and I are both recovering well and getting better every day. I came home the 12th and he went home the 13th. My other blog has more details. Yesterday, which was a day that lasted a year, we went back to the university medical center for our individual checkups, and the doctors agreed that everything looks fine.

However, while we were at the medical center, I also received a phone call from my sister with the very sad news that my father had passed away. He died early yesterday morning. The circumstances of his death and of his life, combined with what he did and more significantly did not believe, all suggest that there will probably not be a service. But I still wish I could travel now (it's too soon after surgery according to the doctors) so I could go to Colorado to be with my 96-year-old grandmother and my brothers (my eldest brother just flew out to be with my older brother).

I had the good fortune of speaking to my dad the day before he died. We'd only seen each other 3 or 4 times in the last 25 years, and only spoke on the phone once or twice a year. But he'd heard about the transplant and called ostensibly to talk about that. And we'd said all the important things you hope to say to, and hear from, a loved one before they die. So while I'm mourning the loss, I'm also grateful that he'd called me. It's more complicated than that, of course. It always is. And I'm writing about it elsewhere. But this is how I'm recording this fact, for now. I hope that wherever Dad's spirit is now, it's at peace.

The Season of Preparation

It's raining, but there have been recent days of spring-like warmth and sun, and that coupled with circumstance--new President, upcoming surgery, deadlines for High School--has pushed our household toward the work that comes with, and brings, hope.

We've eschewed the local public high schools for R. in favor of two private high schools, and the related applications, essays, paperwork and financial aid applications have taken time, as have interviews and visits and the SSAT test one of the schools required. We'll have to prepare our taxes within the next week to meet a deadline for "individualized tuition" for the schools, because we simply cannot afford either otherwise. Fortunately, we've been told both schools are helpful in this area.

We've also tackled various projects at home. One of these projects is the ever-popular “We’re going to clean our rooms!” game my daughters enjoy in which they pull everything out of closets or off shelves and put the gazillion resulting toys, socks, hair-bands, pens, scraps of paper, gum wrappers, beeswax sculptures, rollerblades, homework assignments, Legos, Barbie shoes, scissors, Polly Pockets and books in huge piles on the living-room or bedroom floors, thereby illustrating the dictum that is the sister to “it’s always calmest before a storm”: “it’s always messiest before a mess.”

But after several weeks of to-be-sorted piles in every corner, and a trip to the hospice thrift store with a carload of donations, things feel a bit cleaner. Costumes that had been put in the attic have been used for J's recent birthday party and then put up in the new garage storage area. Christmas things have been put away, finally, and also in new lighter boxes--rather than the historically interesting but very heavy WWII medical chest we've always used. D. has started, and finished, a new walkway in the front courtyard. Progress.

On an unrelated note, I’m seeing dogs everywhere I go. Lots of people walking dogs in the teasing sunshine, dogs in cars with tongues lolling and tails wagging, dogs in the laps of patrons sitting in coffee house patio. The girls and I have started asking about another dog, thinking about taking the plunge into being a dog-owning family again. The one year anniversary of Albion’s death is approaching, and as sometimes happens, I was aware of it subconsciously before I realized why I had suddenly started to think of him and miss him. But D. is nowhere near ready to open himself up to the potential heartache of loving another pet as much as he loved Alby, only to lose it to its shorter allotment of years. So we'll stick to the current more-than-sufficient menagerie of 2 big outdoor hutched rabbits, two noisy indoor caged parakeets, a spoiled rat who spends her afternoons on R's shoulder (or in her shirtsleeve, nose poked out), and the 400-gallon fish tank. The corey catfish have been laying eggs, and D. devised a way to save them from the two giant greedy koi (who are not pescavores but like eggs). And now we have a couple dozen of the tiny things in a nursery, getting bigger every day. Maybe Spring is not that far away after all.

New Year, New Post

Rather than the contrived and apologetic back-dating that would mean I had a fake entry to show for January 1st, I'm writing the second day into the month to wish one and all a Joyful, Healthy, Prosperous New Year.

This year I will write more poems.
I will spend less money.
I will take more time to be alone and contemplative because it feeds me.
This year I will donate a kidney to a friend. And recover. And celebrate his recovery.
I will laugh more and fret less.
I will be grateful for every gift, large and small, understood and mysterious.
This is a year of change, but all of it
good.


For those who did not receive a Holiday card from us (yet), here's a link to the picture we sent out this year. It's a change from tradition because D and I are actually pictured, and the girls look rather silly. I've been calling it "goofy but happy" and it's from our trip to Vancouver Island in June. This is from the ferry ride back to the mainland.

And by the way K & B and Tom, if you're reading this... I believe you have moved (not together, but separately) so here's a public appeal (although I know an email to each would have sufficed): I need addresses from you guys so I can send a card your way. Please and thank you.

Blessings and warmest wishes to all. Here's to 2009!!!







Wind-blown self-portraiture at its best.

Mary Oliver

I went and saw Mary Oliver read tonight. And. Well.

Wow. For more detail regarding my reaction, see the Practical Poet Blog.

Among other things, she read from a memoir she's written about Molly Malone Cook, with whom she lived for many years. She said that Cook taught her to observe the world differently. She read, "..attention without feeling, I began to learn, is only a report."



Note to Self: You got that?

Thanksgiving weekend, belatedly posted

Four days away from the usual routine is such a blessing.

Our Thanksgiving was simple. I cooked for an army even though it was just the four of us and D's mother. On the menu (as usual, from Bon Appétit for November 1994 unless otherwise noted):

Turkey with maple herb butter
Broccoli casserole (family recipe)
Bacon and buttermilk mashed potatoes (R. helped with this one)
Brown sugar-glazed sweet potatoes with spices, almond slivers and mini marshmallows
Popovers (another family recipe)
Cranberry sauce with raspberry vinegar
Glazed pearl onions with raisins and almonds
stuffing
pecan & pumpkin pie, vanilla bean ice cream

I've gotten full just writing about this meal!



Grandmère & the girls at the table.

Lightly touching down

About a month ago, I felt like there was a larger than usual number of issues hanging in the air above me all the time. They were a mix of serious and trivial Unknowns, and even though I knew that they would all be resolved eventually, it was stressful waiting for those resolutions. I'm a control freak, right? And these were all things I really couldn't control. I listed some to a co-worker at the time:

Where will R. going to be going to High School next year?
Who will be our next President?
Will I or won't I be donating a kidney in the next few months?
If not, will it be becuase I'm actually borderline or pre-diabetic?
When will I really be starting my new job at the office?
What will my new hours be, and how will they affect the 6-family school carpool?
How will S. be cast in the Nutcracker?
When will D. finish the under-construction awning in the back yard?
Is the rat's tumor operable?

Like I said, some of that is pretty trivial, but I'm still so grateful that most of these things have, in fact, resolved themselves in the best possible way.

The rat's tumor was removed for a reasonable charge and she's doing great. We probably extended her life by 6-12 months with the operation, and I can't say enough good things about the compassionate, reasonably-priced vet who did the job.

The Presidential issue worked out as I was hoping and praying it would, and we probably won't be moving to Canada in the near future. :)

S. will be playing a Mouse and an Angel in the Nutcracker - and she'll even have a 20-second solo as the angel who delivers Clara's crown to the Sugar Plum Fairy.

The awning was completed in record time, and it's absolutely beautiful, especially with the white LEDs adorning it. I'll have to put in a picture (writing with my Writers Group pals a cafe at the moment, so it'll have to wait...)

I have started in my new position in Customer Service at work, and my hours have shifted enough to allow me to sleep a little more every night but not so much that I had to change the carpool.

I am not pre-diabetic, and the kidney donation is still a go, pending a couple more tests. (See Nephronotes for more).

R. has visited a couple of High Schools and has 2 more to visit, but she's very excited about the local Waldorf school in particular, and it happens to be the place that I had felt would be her best fit, too.

Is that it? I think that's it.

All those heavy things hanging above my head, lightly touching down.


How many of the heavy burdens that we let fall from our shoulders become stumbling blocks, and how many are transformed into firm stepping stones that we use to move ahead?

Satire. Or not.

I'm so close to the target demographic for this, it's almost not funny. If you know what I mean. Eh.

Heaven help me

I've created a Facebook account.
I guess I've finally started to catch up with the social networking 21st century.
I don't even know how to direct you to my site or what becoming a friend entails, but I'm sure I'll get up to speed.

You know, in my copious free time.

In the meantime, my friends can become my friends in a whole new way.

Um. Wait.

That didn't sound right.

But you know what I mean.

One Month Later. Here's where I've been

So check out this new blog for a little update for you all:

www.nephro-notes.blogspot.com

If I've seen silent it's because life has been busy, with this added element that may come as a surprise to some of you.

It's all good, though, and I hope you'll be able to offer support as I travel down this new road.

The girls are doing great with their schooling and various activities, both blooming a little more every day, but sufficiently silly and geeky to assure me that they are, in fact, our children.

D's shoulder (he has a small tear in his cuff) is actually better, and the PT and Glucosamine may have made a difference.

Work is going well too. I've had a great time working more directly with the rest of the inbound sales staff. And although I miss being in the same room as the recovery engineers, and although I'm really looking forward to transitioning to Customer Service November 1st, I've learned a lot from the very professional, very hard-working bunch on the third floor.

I am in the middle of the annual weight-loss competition at work. Down to about as low as I've ever been as an adult, with a few more pounds to go. I get to the gym as often as possible, and write more and more. But mostly for the benefit of that other blog (SEE ABOVE).

I hope to spend November writing furiously, too. While the family prepares for Winter, and Nutcracker, and the holidays. They have Christmas decorations in all the stores, and I'm pretty sure it's for Christmas 2009, because it's too late for the 2008 marketing, the way the world works these days.

And let me also say this, even though not all my readers may feel the same way. (And if you don't agree, call me. We'll talk about it.) Go Obama!!!

ARRRR!

It be talk like a pirate day, mateys!

What I'd Rather

When I wake up, all sorts of doors open in my head, and the day's concerns and duties, things I must do or remember, stride in and all start talking at once, vying for attention. It's like a bad party scene where no one is listening to one another, and everyone has had just enough to drink to make them loud and selfish. I grit my teeth and marshal whatever order I can, and give myself a pep talk in the din.

But what I want is this: to wake to peaceful stillness, silent and rested, and walk alone out well-washed French doors into a morning just blooming into color out of the gray of dawn. I want to walk down a path through hills with the birds making their declarations of existence, and the sky high and open.

I want the particles of my body to be loosely held together by whatever joyful contract they originally made with one another, instead of being bound tightly in corporeal mass by the glue of stress and will.

Still here

Still alive.
And well, too.
Just not blogging these days.

But I thought I'd break radio silence with this tiny note.
A (re)start.

Confession

Forgive me reader, for I have committed the sin of hubris.

I thought I could write daily.

Well, I thought I could write daily and do a lot of other things daily too.

But every morning, I launch myself out of bed (after multiple bargaining sessions with the snooze alarm - my earliest waking moments are measured by 7-minute intervals), throw myself into the day, and am hurtled from one thing to another until I give up sometime around 10:30 (give or take) and surrender to the reality that I can't do it all.

And this in spite of my capacity to believe, over and over again, that if only I marshaled myself better, I could accomplish what I've set out to do.

Well, drat.

Today my goal is to be gentle with myself. I think my mother's somewhere telling me to slow down and take it easy. Yeah. Like I've ever listened to that advice.

Returning late

Another full day of conference, and then home just before midnight after an uneventful flight.

Before I left Phoenix, I had dinner with my half-sister M. and her family at a somewhat questionable restaurant near the airport. It was so good to see them and catch up, even if it was only for a short time. (Thanks for the visit and ride to the airport, M!)

It was, as it always is, so nice to come home.

Geekiness and Buffets

The last few days at the developer's conference have been a combination of lots of new information - I now know even more painfully how little I know and how many new, exciting things I *could* be doing, if I only I had the time to learn the steps better - and these thrice-daily buffets where I could, theoretically, eat plate after plate of food. I limit myself to one plate per meal, but I don't pass on dessert either.

Sunday 7/13/08

Immersed in FileMaker Developer Conference stuff all day, feeling a little flu-like in the evening. But nothing an early night in the nice JW Marriott Desert Ridge hotel room won't cure.

Kids home, Mom away

This morning I drove out west past pastures and redwoods and tiny towns to pick up S from her Presbyterian camp. She didn't seem any taller or dirtier than she'd been when I dropped her off, but after a few hours at the pool, this girl tans like nobody's business, and her skin was a consistent shade darker than I remembered (the consistency is how I knew it wasn't dirt). She had a good time, she said, but she was definitely saddened by the fact that I was going to be leaving almost as soon as we got home, and wouldn't be back for a few days.

D took me to the airporter on his way to pick up R and her friend from their designated Girl Scout Camp bus stop a couple of hours south. Apparently, S babbled the whole drive down. And the whole drive back.

I got to the airport hours before my flight was to leave, but I didn't mind. I've probably mentioned this before, but I love to hang out at airports and people watch. I think I like the idea of seeing a concrete representation of something that's true at a metaphysical level. We're all on journeys. We're going away. We're coming home. We're leaving old for new, or vice versa. And we're not alone.

Everyone seems to be represented - old, young, all races and religions and social classes. I know there are some who can't afford to fly, some who are afraid to fly, some who are too ill or otherwise unable to fly, and some who just plain have nowhere they want or need to go via plane.

But enough of us pass through airports at one point or another that it feels like I'm seeing a cross-section of the world. And each of us brings to the gate our own story of our own journey, like some kind of internal carry-on item that we couldn't check if we wanted to.

Date Night #2

I went to the gym this afternoon - after a nap in my car in the gym parking lot! - and then did a little more cleaning of the girls' rooms. And laundry. You would think that without the kids around I'd do something more exotic - like, I don't know, blast 80's music and drink a dessert wine in the afternoon. But cleaning without anyone else in the house is sheer bliss for me. What can I say?

We didn't make it out to a movie two nights ago, but last night, D & I went out & saw Get Smart, which was a bit of a treat for us primarily because we'd both grown up watching the show, and both like the actors. We're probably the target audience for the film. We also went out to dinner at D's new favorite burger restaurant afterwards. It was good food, but I'm really better off not eating so late.

D and I love spending time just talking. We have every reason to believe that we'll still be friends and still enjoy hanging out together after the nest is empty. Especially if we keep the conversation going between then and now.

Tonight, we went out for sushi. We sat at the bar and chatted with the sushi chef - something we never do with the kids - and just relaxed. Rented a couple of movies and watched one of them. Tomorrow I pick up S and then D picks up R while I'm off on a business trip. I'm still preparing to pack, which means doing all the laundry I can. It's bizarre, but familiar, behavior. I don't know when I'll move beyond the stage of recognizing it to the point of changing it. Hmmm.

Workaholic wannabee

It's apparently a good thing that I am forced to leave the office more or less "on time" every day to pick up kids, because apparently otherwise I'd habitually work 50 hour weeks.

There was a quarterly meeting for my current department today that kept me there until 2, and I didn't really leave until 2:30, but I didn't mind at all. So much of my life feels like I'm playing catch-up that putting in a little extra effort or time somewhere helps me feel closer to successful. As much as I enjoy the process more than the results in most of what I do, it's horrible to know that there is so much unfinished business. Especially hard for a Virgo. :)

At home, I got to work on house cleaning and cleaning the girls' rooms in particular. After all, I did warn them I'd be doing so, and I got their permission for me to get rid of things that they really truly don't use. I was surprised how quickly they agreed - especially R, as a teenager who is starting to guard her privacy - but I think they understand as well as I do that they have just too much stuff, and it gets in the way, makes it hard for them to find things, and probably clutters their inner life in some way as much as it trips them up in their outer life.

I didn't get far, and that's probably because of the weird ADHD way I have of cleaning. It's If You Give a Mouse a Cookie re-titled If You Give a Mom a Room to Clean. On my way to putting one thing away I'd see something else that needed to be done, which would take me to another room, and a third thing that could be moved, and a fourth task that was begging to be completed. It was pathetic. In the end I got more things done or half-done than not done, but nothing completed. Which makes me grateful that I have another day and a bit more before the kids are back and I leave for the next business trip.

Camper number two away

After work, and a frantic bout of labeling items with our 8-character last name and packing them up, I got S. to camp. We missed the official check-in time by "that much" but it only took a couple of minutes to do a "late-reg" check-in at the office. The camp is nestled in the redwoods, but even with that aromatic green shadiness, it was very hot when I dropped her off, and I anticipate three really hot days for her.

There was a little added excitement in the flurry of packing and leaving - S had a tooth come out (with her helpful yanking), and even though I encouraged her to leave it at home so the tooth fairy could pick it up under her pillow in her room, S decided to take it with her at the last possible second. This necessitated a quick dash into the house for a dollar coin and a fast scrub with brass polish to get the tarnish off - because the Tooth Fairy always leaves a shiny coin.

I left the campsite hoping the delivery instructions and the hidden coin would make it to the right counselor without S any the wiser, and I drove home a "free" woman with no one but myself and my husband to answer to. I love my kids. But I also love time to myself. This may be only the first of an increasing number of events that will mean both kids are away from the house, and maybe it's good preparation for the day when they're more gone than home. But I don't have to worry about being at loose ends or wondering what to do with myself when that day does come.

Check!

Checking off my list for the week:

Survive another day of temperatures over 100.

Swim at local public pool with S (more mommy-daughter time)

Read at poetry reading at bookstore 15 miles south of home as part of Traveling Poetry Show. (I always feel like a circus act when I hear that title.)

Delegate camp packing to S and D while at said reading.

Blog. How self-referential. Blogging about blogging about blogging. Reminds me of what you see if you angle a couple of mirrors just right - endless self. This is like digital narcissism, I guess.

Mommy-daughter time

S had her first day of Dance Camp today. The camp is 3 days a week, with various classes for ballet, tap, jaz, character (folk) and choreography, as well as pre-pointe. I think the pre-pointe is just stretching because the girls are so young, but she and her classmates are very excited about it. It marks a move toward the Big Time for them.

After work, I picked her up from dance & we had tea and coffee at the Tea Room before heading out to visit the camp she'll be going to later in the week. We got a tour from the very patient Camp Director, and hung out for about an hour and a half at the playground and walking along the creek. We also walked a prayer labyrinth - a narrow path in the dirt lined with rounded river stones that wraps around in a spiral not unlike this:




The idea, I believe, is to walk it while praying or meditating. It's not the kind of thing you dash through fast or skip over, but either response might be normal for an 8-ear old, and I was pleasantly surprised at how quietly and respectfully S. walked it.

I thought of the labyrinth as a metaphor for life. We think we're making no progress, because we double-back on ourselves as we go. But we are indeed moving from point A to point B. And when we think we're as far as we can go, we're not - but again, we must wind back and around to get to the end - only to find that there is no end, and we have to loop back yet again to the beginning once more - sometimes passing close to one another, sometimes far from one another - but on our own journey, if on a common road.

The last half of the walk, as we passed each other, we would reach out and brush our hands together. Kind of a meditative hi-five.

We drove the 45 minutes back to home, I napped (exhausted) on the couch for an hour - which S later claimed was "like, 2 hours" and then took her to her Math club - more of a games night than anything.

Some time in the evening, she said, "We should spend some mommy-daughter time together." I said, "Um. What was this afternoon, then?" I guess 4 hours in 8 years doesn't cut it. Especially if you nap. I'll work on that.

Day of rest. Or not.

Sabbath. Hmmm. I worked 5am-1pm today (weekend pay is a good incentive), then got home & double-checked R's "I got everything!" packing job for camp. She's getting better at the art of packing light - rolling her clothes, not bringing too much and yet remembering the essentials like more than one pair of underwear. She did chose the biggest, fluffiest and heaviest towel she could have, and forgot a mess kit and canteen, but it didn't take too long to finish up and drop her off at her friend's house for their early morning 90 minute drive to the Monday morning bus for camp.

We'd wanted to visit the closer-to-home campgrounds where S will be going later in the week - to familiarize her with it, since she has a hard time when left "alone" in new/unknown environments. But it was too late to make it out there today, so we'll do it tomorrow instead.

D has completed the move of the water heater in the laundry room - we have hot water again, hooray! And the washer & dryer are re-hooked up. So I have no excuse not to do the piles of dirty laundry. Except for that wanting to sleep thing...

The time it takes to be green

So the girls and I decided to do what we could to avoid using the car today, and we biked instead. Sounds easy enough, but the first step was finding locks in the garage, and then biking to Longs and then KMart, to find and buy chains to use with the locks. The only chain I found was made in Japan (to the US co's specifications, as though that made up for the foreign manufacture). I got it anyway. Then we biked to the pool, locked the girls bikes up, and I biked to the gym - two workouts in one! - and then I biked to a coffee shop to have an iced coffee and negate the benefits of the biking while filling out bills and a letter for R to receive in camp next week.

When I went to pay for my drink, I found to my dismay that my little wallet was missing. I ended up racing back (on bike, of course) to KMart to try to track it down, assuming that it was probably long gone if I'd dropped it there. By some miracle (thank you, guardian angel!), someone had turned it in and it had all of its contents still in it.

After I biked to the pool and escorted the girls home, we gave up on being green and used the car for the couple of additional errands we had to run for the day.

It was a good exercise - both physically and in terms of adapting to a new lifestyle. But it's taught me that this kind of living requires really good planning. Also, it means allowing for additional time as well as becoming adept at keeping track of all the details as you go - like wallets, for example.

Fourth

I posted an old 4th of July poem on The Practical Poet page to celebrate the day, but we mostly spent the day at home, puttering and doing chores, and (in my case) just being lazy in a post-stressful-times way. We'd had invitation to 4 great parties, and originally had planned to visit all of them if possible, but in the end we only went to the traditional gathering for fireworks at our friend's place on the other side of town.

The girls and I did run the Kenwood 3K at 7:30am - which meant waking up before 6am to get there on time. We took a friend with us - the ex-next door neighbor's girl, who is only 3 weeks younger than S. She and S. and I jogged, then walked, then jogged, then walked most of the route, until I finally got S. to agree to let me run ahead. She'd been anxious at the start of the race because we'd been briefly separated, and it made her clingy for the first mile plus of the 1.8 mile race. In the end, I passed R. (who had run ahead of all of us from the beginning), and got to the finish in time to snap shots of all of the girls as they came in. We also waited for our neighbor's mom to cross the finish line - she'd run the 10k, which I normally do, except she'd really been training for it and posted a respectable time for such an unkind, hilly course.

The fireworks were fun - the kids and adults all got along swimmingly, and we made it home at a decent hour. As always, I was relieved to find our house not on fire upon our return. I tell you. I can be so paranoid sometimes.

It's Official

The announcement went out at work today that I'm moving from the Inbound Sales group to the Customer Service department. This means my focus will be on giving customers news about their recoveries (including billing and invoicing for the work), as well as making sure that the customers are happy (or, hopefully, thrilled) and that the engineers and shipping folks all have what they need to perform the recoveries and get the jobs out the door. It's a problem-solving, colleague and customer supporting kind of role, and I'm super excited about the move. I think it suits my disposition and utilizes my strengths better than does a position in sales, with its related competitiveness.

And I'll still be able to provide whatever support I can (based on experience and knowledge that I've gathered over the last 10 years) to my colleagues in sales.
I'll also be able to use my foreign language and writing skills more. ¡Necesito aprender cómo hablar más español!

I probably won't start my new duties until late this month, as they have to find and hire a replacement in my current department. And apparently, no one is super eager about taking the 5am-1pm shift. But by the end of August, anyway, I should expect the transition will be complete. Also by then, the Customer Service department itself will have moved to a remodeled area on the first floor of the building, and I won't be sitting among the buzz of dozens of computers and servers or the cacophony of ringing phones and quoting salespeople.

D. insisted on going out for a sushi dinner to celebrate. Yeah. Twist my arm.

Sustenance

I've joined a discussion group where we're looking at Sustainable Living,
and judging by the first meeting tonight, it's exactly what I need when I need it in my path to living more responsibly and intentionally on this piece of rock.

Since probably a third of the readership of this blog is also in the group, you already know what I mean.

For the rest of you, I'll try to expand.

But not now.

I've been told that my 4 hours a night of sleep are worrying my spouse.

New Years in July

It's a time of change.

We recently got a new dishwasher (the previous one being 30+ years old), and a new front-loading stackable washer and dryer. These have already lowered our utility bill.

D's work on the remodel is moving along steadily, and what's emerging is gorgeous. Of course.

We've also got new toilets, which may not sound so glamorous but believe me when I tell you that one's quality of life is directly related to the minutes spent plunging vs not plunging.


We're just back from a trip to Seattle, Vancouver Island and Crater Lake, and it was the BEST family vacation I could have imagined, and we've got a new outlook and broadened horizons as a result.


It looks like there will be changes in my role at work in the not-so-distant future, and I'm very excited about that too.

And I'm shifting my focus in general - away from half-marathons and toward 20 minute workouts and more time to write. Sent out a poem for a local contest last night. Am glad I pushed myself to write it and get it out there.


And about that Writing thing.

Let's see if posting daily in July (starting yesterday, today) helps me keep it at the front of my mind. One can hope.

Greetings from Klamath Falls, OR

It's day 2 of our family vacation. Yesterday, we beat our own usual 2-hours behind schedule record by adding another 2 hours to it! After many hours of folding clean laundry and cleaning out pet cages (a standard courtesy for the pet-sitters), R. said, "For once, couldn't we just go on a trip without cleaning the whole house first?"

I really do appreciate my family's patience with my get-it-all-in-order now compulsive issues. And for the record, I held myself back a lot (otherwise we'd still be at home, I suspect.) I didn't have the girls clean their rooms, and I didn't wash the kitchen and bathroom floors like I wanted to so desperately. So we all make sacrifices.

I'll write more as I can on the road. We're about to leave for the train station, now!

A Quarter of A Century

That's how long it's been since D asked me to be his girlfriend. Standing under the stars in the driveway of my friend's house, after D had snuck out (I think he'd been grounded) to bike the few necessary blocks and crash a girl-only party to talk to me, I distinctly remember thinking, "Ah! This must be what Juliette felt about Romeo."

And I remember that even in that head-spinning, heart-thudding moment, part of me was observing, analyzing, and assessing how cliche it all was. But that doesn't mean I could stop myself from being swept of my feet. Detachment only goes so far in the face of wild first love.

I was 16. He was 18. (It tells you something about his home life that he'd been grounded at 18.) He was my first and only boyfriend, and to this day is my best friend, confidant, lover, the father of my children, and the smartest, funniest, most creative and most complex person I know.

We officially became a couple June 11, 1983. We broke up around September 1986 and got back together again somewhere around February 1988, and we've had our rough patches here and there since then - but we proudly count that time apart when calculating the longevity of our relationship, because without that dramatic breakup and the subsequent maturation, we wouldn't be where we are today.

So here's to you, D. Thanks for everything.

And in the interest of embarrassing us both, a couple of shots from Marin Sierra, July 1983:





















(We've come a long way, baby!)

Such is the age

...and such is the insular geeky nature of my family.

S. said Saturday night, "I know what a clone is. But what's a cyclone?"

It wasn't because of Myanmar that she was asking - we don't have TV, don't take a paper, and D hadn't yet read about Nargis in the Japan Times online, nor had I yet heard about it on NPR.

We'd been watching an episode of "Jeeves and Wooster" and the word came up.

And of course, R. speculated that a "cyclone" might be a cyber-clone.

World events? Meteorological phenomena? not a clue
BBC comedies? Replicants? oh yeah, we got that covered

Something new

The new site, one that I'll use as a "professional" web page, at least for now, is called The Practical Poet, and can be found here.

I actually have two reasons to break out the bubbly - the new site, and the amazing news I received yesterday that one of my poems I'd sent out into the wide world of competitions in March has won first place. I'll share the details once the journal has announced the results officially. I'm still reeling a bit - wondering if there's been some mistake, but enjoying the whirly ride.

Ping post

Still here, alive and kicking, and working on a new (!), more professional-use blog site to be "launched" this month, as part of my celebration of National ("forced recognition") Poetry Month.

Doesn't "launched" sound like there should be a bottle of champagne involved?

Back in the game

I've mailed off poems to five separate competitions this month - all reputable and fairly judged, from what I can tell - with the added benefit in almost all cases of a subscription in exchange for the reading fee, and significant prizes for first and other places.

We shall see!

It feels so good, at any rate, to put those SASE's in the envelope and send them off. As Suzanne and I discussed recently, the anticipation of responses is like the hope one might feel in the time between the buying of the lottery ticket and the revelation of the winning numbers.

And even though I know my chances for winning the contests are not fantastic - yet! wait until next year, when I'm that much improved! - they probably are better than those of winning the lottery.

Mis Mawrth Happus Iawn i Chi! And about the ficus...

Or "Happy March to You!" for my non-Welsh speaking readers.

I missed officially celebrating Saint David's Day this year because I wasn't at work to bring in scones & show off my Red Dragon flag, and I didn't post a blog entry Saturday either. But Mother Nature in our corner of the world celebrated for me, with good weather and daffodils trumpeting the advent of spring everywhere.

A year ago, I see, I had just sent off poems for inclusion in an anthology. Saturday, I mailed poems to be considered for a contest - the first of many such mailings. (Really, Julia.)

D and I did a ton of work around the house over the weekend. His big project was getting rid of the now-defunct 50 gallon saltwater tank that had been "temporarily" moved to the livingroom when we started the garage remodel. Inspired by his hard work, I was up until 12:30am this morning trying to find a new configuration for couches, chairs & the 26-year old ficus in the room - something that was feng-shui and would keep us from feeling like the place is just a jungle with a TV in the corner. But the tree is more bush than tree, and until we do some kind of topiary chiropractics with it, it insists on dominating the room.

In looking for a nice generic image of a ficus to add to the post, I found this quirky link www.theficus.com.


That link in turn lead me (2 links later) to this article & quote by Donald Trump:

There's no plant as beautiful as the ficus, and no plant that does the trick like the ficus.

(Hmmm. Maybe Mr. Trump would like to provide us with a small stipend as a reward for having lovingly coexisted with our plant for so long? A girl can only hope...)