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?