Spring is Here! and an Update on Before Noon

Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's - all of winter, St. David's day and the beginning of Spring has come and gone.

Much has happened and nothing has been posted on this blog. D. and I were not sorry to see 2014 go, as it was a year of necessary but painful reassessment and hard work.

He's moved his shop back into the house/garage because the building his shop was in was sold and nowhere else worked for his current budget. But his business continues to be steady.

R. has moved closer to home, having found it too difficult to get a job and too expensive to stay in a an apartment 4+ hours away without one. Lots of identity work going on there, too.

S. is still playing in two youth orchestras but would rather be writing or singing any given day.

I've gone to my first Residency for my MFA - a fantastic experience. I've written poems, commentaries and cover letters for the program, corresponding with the phenomenal Kwame Dawes as my current advisor. I am so blessed to have his insight, support and editorial eye.

I've been to Colorado to stay with one brother and go to another brother's wedding.

Finishing Line Press continues to offer my publication for sale here, and now it can be purchased on Amazon as well here.

There are plans for a book launch at the Occidental Center for the Arts on July 11th. I'm lucky enough to share the launch with two wonderful local poets, Else Rosager and Clara Rosemarda. More details to follow.

In general, though, I have not fully stepped into the life of a writer. Mostly because 50 hours a week I'm focused on being a Customer Service / escalation manager. I shall have to either become a more prolific poet in spite of my work situation or find a different way to manage things. That's all there is to it. Life's too short to give so much of it to something that doesn't feed one's soul or make the planet a better place. 

Web Site

It's official. October 1st I launched my web-site.

You can see it here.

I hope to develop it as my work progresses!

Next Stop - Graduate School!

This is a duplicate of the entry I posted at my Practical Poet blog, so you're welcome to read it either place! Last week was full of personal and poetic happiness: the arrival of our first cat in over ten years (after prolonged negotiations with my husband), the arrival of the promotional postcard for my chapbook, and - most wonderful of all - the letter stating that I had been accepted into the MFA program at Pacific University, Oregon.

This last bit of news represents a huge step ahead in my journey as a poet, and I am so grateful to the two wonderful people who wrote letters of recommendation, to the instructor who put in a word for me, and the admissions folks who said yes to taking a chance on me.

The work is only starting, and while I am of course nervous about the work that lies ahead and whether I can bring enough to the program to really make it pay off as it could, I'm sure that a year from now, I will have grown as a writer.

I just found this helpful note from Wesley McNair, the Poet Laureate of Maine:

The poet takes a journey that opens his heart in two ways, deepening first his intuitive awareness, from which his poetic insights come, and secondly, his compassion for fellow humans and all the living things with which he shares the planet. Without the development of this second thing, his poems may turn inward and lose contact with the very audience to which poems must be addressed.

This leaves me very mindful of the need to develop "this second thing." I'd come to the same conclusion on my own, recently; ie., for my work or words to ever have any worth or value beyond some shallow self-therapy or mildly entertaining observations, I must love fellow humans and the natural world much more deeply than I currently due - especially in the case of the former. I need to expand my compassion and my capacity for compassion for the poetry. I'd originally posted this entry on my official poetry blog and had written, "Here I veer dangerously away from this being a dry or objective blog entry toward territory usually reserved for my personal blog, but no mind. Let it be the beginning of the work of connecting with whomever might follow these pages."

Confession

I broke down and cried tears of relief and gratitude today upon receiving encouragement and support from yet another poet whom I respect as a writer, a teacher and an all-around good human being.

I hadn't realized how much I'd been holding my breath, hoping she'd find my work of some worth, until I had the confirmation that there is something to what I'm trying to do, and I am moving along the right path.

I've come a long, long way on the road to self-assurance and self-actualization, but obviously, I'm still loitering a little more around the curves and forks of the road than I might have realized.

And Up Some More

I have now sent the manuscript, cover art, author's photo, endorsements to date, etc. off to Finishing Line Press for the work of putting Before Noon in print. (check!)

Pre-order sales will start shortly, then if all goes well and there are sufficient orders, they'll print it and distribute it before the end of the year.

I hope to launch a website for myself shortly that will take the place of the Practical Poet blog and will provide links to publications.

In the meantime, I have extremely supportive friends assisting me with the application process for Pacific University's MFA program. In the next week I'll complete my work for the Sept. 1st deadline and send everything off to them. Even deciding which poem to critique for the application has been an educational process. Shall I write of the use of Welsh cynghanedd in Dylan Thomas or Gerard Manly Hopkins? Or of the pithy wisdom of Kay Ryan? Or the philosophy in Richard Wilbur? I think a piece by W. S. Merwin has captured my interest the most for this critique, so that's probably the way I'll go.

So my embracing of my identity as a Writer is progressing well. If I were to base my image of myself on what Rhys Bowen generously wrote in my letter of recommendation, I'd quit my day job and simply write, submit, publish, tour, repeat for the rest of my days!

As it stands, I will stick to the regular paycheck and health benefits a bit longer, I think, while the kids finish growing up enough to support themselves and while I develop my writing muscle and skills, my body of work and my reputation a bit further.

Stepping Up

I've frequently thought that I would be well served in embracing my identity as a writer if I were to post blog entries more frequently. Blogging regularly would be a means to more than one end. I'd be writing more than just a little poetry each day, therefore putting in the time with the scales and finger exercises that improves one's work. I'd be documenting my journey. And for those in my life who keep up not by seeing me or by Facebook (which I frequent only infrequently, after all), more regular posts would give them a way to stay up-to-date a bit.

I think the two primary reasons I feel discouraged about blogging are the thought that nothing I have to say is all that important and the feeling that there is already so much noise out there in the world - so many voices, beautiful and clumsy, on the internet and elsewhere, scrabbling to be heard. Do we really need one more? And that takes me right to an insecurity about my poetry, as well. Does the world really need one more mediocre poet?

The answer, perhaps, is that while no one is clamoring for a half-assed poet, what the world does need more of, what we all need, are people who are consciously living with integrity and compassion, speaking their truth "quietly and clearly" as the Desiderata prescribes. And I feel that writing is how I relate to the world most deeply, how I exist most fully. How I get to the best iteration of myself, as it were. It doesn't feed the hungry, and it may not feed the world, but it feeds and replenishes me, which gives me the energy to act kindly and generously to others.

There's my morning "thinking on screen," then. Happy Saturday.

Plus ça change, plus ça change!

There seems to be no end to changes in my life in the last twelve months.

As of today, I have relinquished the people-management/supervisory role I've held for the last three and a half years at work. I've stepped down to just managing escalated issues and other challenging-enough tasks. I'm so grateful for the understanding and support of my peers and (especially) my superiors at work for allowing me the ability to acknowledge that it's time for me to regain a healthier balance in my life. The pressures of hiring, firing, scheduling, interpersonal conflicts, requests, demands (many self-imposed), stats, quotas, meetings, decisions and responsibilities have all taken their toll on me. So although I'm feeling very tired tonight as the announcement was sent out to the company that another manager will become Director of Customer Support and oversee both "my" department and his, I'm also extremely relieved and hopeful for the future.

Part of the announcement that was sent out described my pursuit of an MFA in Poetry, making that next step in my life official. Now I need only get together all the application material, figure out financing, request letters of recommendation (!) etc. and cross my fingers that I'll be accepted into the program of my choice this fall to start with the Winter Semester in January.

And in the meantime, I continue work on genealogy (just finally ordered FTM) and beekeeping (am now a member of the local beekeeper's association). And I am coming up to the deadline (in a month) for my first chapbook manuscript. So I think the next twelve months will be exciting ones as well. All positive challenges, though, God willing.

Also I've started work on my url, as it seems to be a common feature for many (not all, of course) poets. Bird by bird.

Yes, but To Whom and For How Long?

Thus goes the punch line to the joke whose penultimate sentence is, "It's Lent!"

It's Lent.

Just wrapping up 60 days of a nutrition/fitness/lifestyle challenge - is it time to take up another challenge of some sort for 40 more days? A discipline? A sacrifice?

Sure. Why not?

Writing sounds good, as always. Let's say 30 minutes a day toward the goal of a publication.
So not just a blog, this. But poetry. "Craft and sullen art."

Recommencement.

Stones at the beach in Aberystwyth, Wales. Morning 8/10/13.

Flux

I started to write this post while at the Apple Box on Saturday and am finishing it at another (more ubiquitous) coffee establishment Tuesday night. 

The lesson that keeps coming to me in the last week is that all of life is in a continual state of flux. Change and transition are constant. So things go well, things go poorly, one is happy and one is sad - but that's all right. 

The weather has shifted again so we're back to some sunshine, but with the added blooming flowers and slightly longer days, it feels like Spring is coming, and with it hope and optimism.

As more personal drama unfolds around me and emotions run high, I find myself feeling (mostly) calm and centered and clear. This is very helpful, because objectively, I can look at everything that has come to light in the last eight weeks or so and realize that it's the kind of chain of events that could derail or depress or distress a person. I'm not sure where this equanimity is coming from, but I'm grateful for it. Perhaps listening to Pema and meditating has helped. That, and long and frequent conversations with friends, including that best friend to whom I'm married.

D. surprised me last night with a custom home-made chicken coop for our little lame Nefertiti and for any future hens we might have. It was composed of recycled pallets (cedar) and special paint - which he shared was on sale.

Love it!!

In the Moment

Is it all human beings, or most human beings, or just some of us (myself included) who are incapable of sustaining the memory of being cold when we are hot, or hot when we are cold, or hungry when we are full, or the idea of mortality when we are breathing?

I wake up and am grateful I have made it through another night, so that I can try yet again to figure out a way to be that will honor this amazing gift I've been granted. (Please, Lord, let me figure it out.) It's not a given that one will wake up each morning. Less than a week ago, my coworker Ron - 43 years old, healthy, loving gentle Ron, whose 4-year son was only recently diagnosed with cancer - Ron did not wake up. It's believed that he died in his sleep from a massive heart attack.  My mind grapples with a way to understand this and comes up empty. I'm not alone in feeling the shock.

It's pouring rain as I write this, and I've just returned from a memorial service in the coastal town where Ron and his family lived. I didn't stay for the reception afterwards. In times like this, I want more than anything in the world to retreat, to be alone. Maybe other people feel the need for community, and long to share their grief and memories of the beloved who has left us. That's just not how I'm wired.

When I got home, though, I called my older daughter to tell her that I love her. Right now, it feels especially important to communicate such things. If Ron can die in his sleep, any type of sudden loss seems possible. My daughter is recovering from some kind of cold or flu, and although she has missed a few classes, she'll be coming back into town next weekend - but during the conversation, she admitted that at the moment, as she comes to terms with all of the unhealthy aspects of her parents' relationship with one another (is it really that bad? I wonder) she is not inclined to want to speak to either of us or to see us. While it's very difficult, even painful, to hear this, I also understand that just because she needs this space, it doesn't detract from the fact that we love her, and she loves us. That love is a constant, regardless of temporary circumstance.

But as I say, with the rain, and the grief and the loss and the pain, it's hard to remember sun and Spring. Hard to remember warmth when your fingers are numb with cold. Hard to accomplish the aforementioned figuring out of how best to move forward when one is feeling one has already squandered so much time. How can I make my life count for more than it does? Most schools of thought put a great emphasis on love and in connecting with one's fellow fallible humans. It's all about love. It's all about relationships. Family. Friendships. This daunts me rather than encourages me. I can hardly find the resources to love and support myself; it seems impossible that I could be part of community. I just don't have the wherewithal to relate to others in any sincere way, so I continue to isolate myself like a wounded animal needing time to heal - while frantically feeling that this is too passive a way of being when my time may be horribly limited. Silly, isn't it?

I suppose the best thing today is give myself the gift of time - to prioritize my life so that I am taking that time, which I feel is such a limited resource, and using it but not filling it. In other words, instead of panicking and packing every moment with something active but in the big picture empty, I will try to breathe slowly, and let the moments be full in and of themselves. I have never been a patient person, and I have never been good at doing nothing. But perhaps if I can learn to honor the Now, and the Now, and the Now, I won't be wasting time concerned that I've lost the past or that I have no future.

Before Revision, Vision

Gee, let's look again at why I may feel a little adrift. The roll-call of what's happened in my life in the last eight months:

my oldest daughter graduated from high school and moved out
her boyfriend became her girlfriend (it's complicated but also not very)
my younger daughter stopped taking ballet after 10 years of dance and joined a 2nd orchestra
my husband left a job he's held for over a dozen years and started his own business
I went to Phoenix for a wedding, Wales for a sabbatical, Colorado for a funeral and Japan for business
I had a surprise suitor - flattering, but not at all welcome and not mutual
I lost five friends, family members and/or co-workers to death- some expected, some very sudden
I hired three new employees and fired one long-standing one
I've been forced to scrutinize my relationship of 30 years with my husband

I think that's all. Just that.

And so really, it is little wonder I feel I haven't been able to catch my breath, to take it in and find my way. I'd like to re-vision my life and en-vision where I want to go, what I want to do - kind of what I want to be when I grow up, I suppose. And as a colleague pointed out today, "Gee, all you have to do is buy a new house and a new car to complete the list!" She's right. And what's funny is that those two items are actually on my list.

But I also feel like I can't seem to get my brain around where I am now.

Can you find your path to the next way-station, the next place to stop for the night, if you don't have a "You Are Here" X on the map? Perhaps. Another friend whom I ran into at random last night (is any of this random), said, "Sometimes you don't have to 'sit with it' - sometimes you just know the change has to happen and you just do it."

New Month, New Post

So I did break my daily posting streak by a week and a half; however, rather than go back to fill in blanks I'm starting fresh again with the new month.

The swords of daffodil leaves are starting to cut their way through the winter earth, heralding (in my mind, anyway) the approach of St. David's Day. March 1st. Spring.

There's the struggle to push through dark and cold and the dead tangled messes inside & out right now, toward warmth, light, growth and green. This weekend I'll be working on the back yard and the clutter in the house.

Three weeks into the eight-week fitness challenge; it's been going well. With one exception, I've had no dairy, no grains, no alcohol and no sugar (not even honey) since Jan. 10. It's been surprisingly easy - have I already said as much? That and daily exercise, stretching, drinking lots of water and getting lots of sleep - all combine to keep my body healthy even if my mind still feels numb with overwhelm.

But as I say, the daffodils are making an appearance.

Empty Room Full of People

What's the best way to stop your refrigerator from humming?
  Teach it the words.


I like to be anonymous in a crowd. It gives me distance both to avoid getting hurt or involved in complicated interactions and to observe and learn. And I don't mind writing these blog posts as though I have an audience while simultaneously hoping I don't (and, to a lesser degree, wondering if I do). My feelings about people are complicated that way.

Recently I've learned that several people who are important in my life have been having conversations about me amongst themselves. For, like, two months. And all with the best intentions. So talk about a complex mix of feelings: everything from betrayal, embarrassment and horror to humility, gratitude and obligation. I'm focusing on the gratitude as much as possible and moving on.

Chop Wood, Carry Water, Print Homework

It's silly to let a 10+ hour day of work stop you from the various and sundry post-work activities:
taking an afternoon trip to the chiropractor for yourself and your child
making an herb-crusted roast chicken for dinner (with rice and sweet potatoes as the sides)
going to the gym to workout
helping your husband haul boxes of freshly-cut firewood from SUV to living-room
doing dishes
critiquing your 8th grader's portrait of Charlotte Corday
facilitating printing of the rough draft biography of said Mme. Corday
doing laundry

I am grateful that I have been blessed with the energy and means to do the things I want to do in my life.

Now I just need to find a way to do a few more of those things instead of only the things I "should" do!

New Poet Laureate

Kudos to Sonoma County's new Poet Laureate, Katherine Hastings, founder of Word Temple. She's the 8th to hold that title and at her reception in Sebastopol today she was joined by those (still living) who have been thus honored before her.

It was wonderful to be in a room with so many poets and lovers of poetry, and to hear their visions put beautifully in words. I found myself spellbound listening to the offerings presented, and I was reminded again of the bridge poetry builds between self and self, self and others, self and the world. It's always good to hear poets read their work instead of just seeing those words on a page, especially when a poet seems to transcend the unavoidable limits set on us as mortal, fallible creatures.

I'm looking forward to seeing Katherine's Poet Laureate project blossom in the next couple of years, and I hope in some way to take part in it.

The Word of the Day

Today's word is reevaluate.

Miriam Webster says this:

to consider again especially with the possibility of change or reversal 

According to dictionary.com, the root value comes from the Latin "to be worth, to be strong."


At the risk of sounding drearily philosophical, I believe in the benefits - in spite of the difficulty therein - in periodically re-calculating the worth and strength of one's life, one's actions, one's character. I hope I'm not deluding myself in this, but I believe that each time I've done this kind of step back and audit I've come away with at least one blind spot partially brought to light. It's holding on to this elusive clearer vision and steering clear of old patterns of blinders that is especially challenging. The darker parts of our lives and souls are often so hidden - encrypted (from the Greek κρυπτικός) -  that it's as though we are mysteries to ourselves, as though there's a part of ourselves that is so foreign and unknown it might as well speak another language.

I write this with the perspective of three days between me and the real Saturday the 18th. But it's a good marker for Saturday anyway, and the four hour conversation D. and I had about our individual lives and our life together. It's a good way to place a marker.

Friday. Sushi. It's the Not-So-Little Things

Salad and plain sashimi for dinner tonight - really spoiling myself to celebrate getting through the week! Tomorrow starts the second week of the 8-week fitness/nutrition challenge. I've gone six days with no grains, sugar, dairy or artificial additives of any kind. Also no alcohol. Each day I write a very short "reflection" about the experience. I feel leaner, of course. And I am leaner. And I'm happy to say I don't crave any of the above-mentioned things, nor do I feel deprived. Depraved, maybe. Depressed, a bit. But not deprived.

New Hire

I was happy to have a new person added to the customer service team at work today. She'll officially start in two weeks, but it's such a relief to know that I don't have that particular weight on my shoulders any more. I'm hopeful that she'll be as happy to join the office as I am to have her!

Leaving for the Day

Today I left at 2:30pm to meet R. and K. at the Toyota dealership to get the old Prius serviced. While we waited, we picked up her new glasses and contacts and had a bite at the very delicious Rustic Bakery in Novato. Even a salad without dressing was yummy.

And I also had the Escape washed while we waited. So R. can go back up to school in safety (I hope) and we can drive the black hybrid in style.

In the end, although I'd thought I would go back to work, I did not do so. It felt rebellious!

Stretch

Part of this 8-week fitness challenge is 10 minutes per day of stretching.

Physically, I'm complying.

Emotionally and psychically, I'm trying.