outloud

30 Things I Love Right Now

2011-09-15T10:54:00.002-04:00

...written by me, and brought to you by TJ Beitelman (cruise his site...it's awesome).

Quiet Work

2011-08-18T09:51:00.006-04:00

Today, I came across a comment from a July post that I'd missed. It's lovely (you can read it following my post "Taking It up a Notch"). I don't know who it's from but this sentence from it got me thinking and inspired me to write this post (in which I have no idea what I will say):

"Thanks for reminding me what lovely, quiet work it can be to stay away from the long slide down..."

That's almost more than I can ask for...being that reminder...in my life, my writing, my friendships, my teaching.

I have not yet published a book, or gotten out of debt, or had children, or fixed the dent in the side door of my Subaru, or had success in lasting love (tho M. is still picking berries for me, even if from afar). I will turn 40 in less than two months. I can't do lotus position anymore. My hips are bad. My employment situation is up in the air. When I write a paragraph like this with so many "I"s I worry I'm still overly consumed with my own problems.

Those are the things that can plague me on a bad day, a day I forget what it was like to live at the bottom of that long slide down. I forget how I clawed my way up and out (I thought *I* was doing it but I had more help than I ever thought I'd need). It doesn't seem necessary to say more than that.

Except maybe that it's the little things we start with that save our lives. For me, at one point, it was doing the dishes.

Today, it's taking walks.

I read this just an hour ago in an interview with poet Mark Doty:

"The inner life happens in the body and the body is always somewhere. For me, it's the vehicles the world provides, what Whitman called 'the dumb beautiful ministers' that allow us to see the soul."

My "dumb beautiful ministers" right now are my sneakers and the trees and the pots in my sink which last night sat one inside the other--the soapy water flowing over the sides of the smallest, and into the next and the next. A dumb beautiful fountain. Just dirty pots. In my sink.

Parading

2011-07-21T23:41:00.006-04:00

Oh, the delays, the procrastinations, and the putting-offs!

Do you know how many blog posts I've written in my head over the past weeks?

Since my last post about going up Alander, I have walked, hiked, trespassed, sat in front of a waterfall, eaten more wild berries, made granola, taken more pictures of flowers, and taught three poetry classes.

I also got to experience a Great Barrington parade in honor of the town's 250th anniversary! And what a parade it was.

My pictures don't quite capture the full spirit of the event―how it felt to walk slowly down Main Street, floats and tractors and clubs of all shapes and sizes, and run into people I know (as much a part of parading as the parade itself). A year ago, it wouldn't have been so. Stopping here to talk to Joan. Stopping there to sit on a stoop with Sarah and watch the gymnasts front-walkover by. I got my first real sunburn of the season. Had a cold drink.

Good old-fashioned summer fun. (And all out right outside my door.)

Boys with rhythm:

Women with rhythm, and really pretty dresses:

A big man in a tiny car.(Who are the Shriners, anyway? And why do they drive around in miniature autos?)

A cool video of a cool-ass bike. Some kind of antique bike club...

s.

The most rockin' float of the parade by our local samba enclave:

And, of course, you can't have a parade w/out Smoky:

So that was Great Barrington on July 10.

To come: More pictures of flowers. Because I can't stop.

Taking It up a Notch

2011-07-05T18:21:00.005-04:00

So today my friend M. took me up Alander Mountain. 6 miles round trip. A good percentage of the tract is uphill and good percentage of that tract is *steep* and uphill.

Today was also hot and humid. And the trail was still damp from the last rains we had so it was buggy. I also felt a hot-spot forming on my heel (underneath the moleskin I'd applied before the hike). Joy!

Then we got to the peak. The reward. Panoramic views of NY, MA, and CT all in one shot.

The next reward?: A really good avocado. Then an orange. Then half a Cliff Bar. And some half-melted dark chocolate. Then water, water, water. Then...M., a berry expert, picked me a handful of wild blueberries, tiny and sweet. And I ate them two at a time staring out at the Catskills.

After the descent, a big and healthy lunch. A good day all in all. I feel tired and worked in the best way possible. If I hadn't been taking my walks the past 6 weeks, I'd have suffered going up that hill. As it was, I was challenged, but not embarrassed. :)

My legs felt strong. And my body able.

Nothing else inspiring to say today. The pictures tell the tale.

Graffiti & Gratitude

2011-07-02T00:15:00.019-04:00

When I take the Castle Hill route, I have to walk under the train tracks, through a little tunnel, and up a set of stairs.

This morning, with the light and my mood, the coolness in the air (54 degrees and the first day of July!), I spent a little time with the graffiti in the tunnel. It's a mix of once polished mural and gritty Great Barrington teen scrawl (despite what some may think about Great Barrington, it does have grit...it just takes a minute to see it):

This one is a good directive for this new life of mine that includes walks:

(In gold spray paint on a rusted-out banister: free your inner [couch] potato. Easier to listen to this way, an affirmation with edge.)

This one, tho, is my absolute favorite. I think it's brilliant. I love most the little monster-alien's left chicken-scratch hand:

Then I came up and out of the tunnel and found this:

And this:

And this one I took special for you, my favorite big old tree:

On today's stroll, I also ran into a friend who stopped and talked with me, while her car idled. While we were talking a big-ass utility truck slowed near us, looking for a downed power line. I knew just the one he meant (I thought) and pointed him in the right (wrong) direction. He eventually found his sister truck just up the block from where my friend and I were having our spontaneous morning meet-up.

Once my friend drove away, I got to walk past the utility mania and interact with the burly dude from National Grid. I apologized for leading him astray. He said it was okay. He smiled. And was chewing gum. And adjusted his hard hat. He said they needed to know about that other one too (at the bottom of Castle Street, at the top of the stairs that lead back down to the tunnel). It's outside of a house that no one seems to inhabit. It's been there for weeks: a big branch pinning down a gather of wires and cables.

I am now delighting (that word again) in the fact that I live in a place where I can run into someone I know, who stops their car to say good morning. And talk to a friendly and appropriately macho telephone worker man.

I've lived other places like this. But not for a very long time.

Morning Fog

2011-06-28T08:36:00.007-04:00

Whenever I wake to fog, I always think of Carmel Valley, California, where I grew up (pictured here) like Great Barrington was at 7:00 this morning. On my walk, the fog-shrouded hills looked like thoughts that had not yet come to the fore. Back there somewhere, getting ready.

So. My walks. I'm doing them. I'm still, some mornings, forcing myself out of my apartment (when I get enough sleep, I'm usually more eager) to get my sneakers on. I'm still in awe of early morning and the fact that I'm out in them walking around. I promised myself 4 times a week, and I've not made bad on that promise yet.

Some things:
The birds delight. Every morning. Boisterous and busy and constantly distracted.
My legs are getting stronger.
I don't get as out of breath when I walk up Castle Hill Rd.
I'm always, always glad that I went.

There are more things I want to do to make way for more delight:

*Like turn my computer off MUCH EARLIER at night, and get more sleep, and hence increase my walking eagerness first thing. (I need an RA, like in a dorm, to enforce quiet hours!)

*Give myself more time for reading (I'm embarrassed to tell you how long it's taking me to get through the last third of Carver: A Writer's Life, and it's one of the better biographies I've read).

*More poetry. Always more poetry. My own, and others.

On that note, take a listen to this poem from one of my current favorite poets (tho he's been around a long time, I've just only discovered him), reading one of my favorites (it's hard to get out of your head afterward: "...a grain and an inch, a grain and an inch and a half.."):

"When You're Lost in Juarez in the Rain and It's Eastertime Too" by Charles Wright

What I Listened to on My Walk

2011-06-24T16:58:00.010-04:00

I brought my I-pod with me this morning on my walk, on the East Mountain route. It was the only way I could get myself out the door today. It was a messy battle between Determined Laura and Grumpy Laura.

Heed my advice: Get out the door as fast as possible. Do not wait. Do not ponder your wardrobe. Do not stand in front of your stove and enter into a decision-making process about espresso? or no espresso?

I came to my senses (divine intervention?), grabbed the I-pod, and got the hell out of there. I had my ear buds in for just a few minutes, trying to figure out what kind of music I was in the mood for.

The only answer I could come up with was: espresso.

Thankfully, I kept hearing birds and couldn't stand the separation between me and the place I was walking through, so I took out the headphones and put the whole thing away.

Before long, tho, my own internal i-pod, was playing a poem (how I wish it were my own), in my head, one I've been listening to over and over in my car on the way to and from work (thanks to the invaluable anthology CDs from The Academy of American Poets).

"Matins" (#7) by Louise Gluck. I've read it before, years ago The Wild Iris. But it never struck me. In fact that book bored me to death at the time. But I'm looking at it again, and it's striking me.

A lot of things are striking me. And I'm telling you, it's because of these walks. Well, maybe it's because I'm teaching writing again and because of the walks and, maybe in this particular case, because I'm 39 not 22.

Something new is afoot, that is for sure (and this despite a recent slew of rejections from magazines).

I suggest, if you can, to read this out loud, and slowly. Matins, if you don't know, are morning prayers. And this is the last, I believe, in the series (each poem titled the same, "Matins").

Matins (#7)

Not the sun merely but the earth
itself shines, white fire
leaping from the showy mountains
and the flat road
shimmering in early morning: is this
for us only, to induce
response, or are you
stirred also, helpless
to control yourself
in earth's presence--I am ashamed
at what I thought you were,
distant from us, regarding us
as an experiment: it is
a bitter thing to be
the disposable animal,
a bitter thing. Dear friend,
dear trembling partner, what
surprises you most in what you feel,
earth's radiance or your own delight?
For me, always
the delight is the surprise.

****

For me, too.

The Big View

2011-06-21T13:16:00.013-04:00

(This picture was taken from the apex of my Castle Hill route.) When I want walking yesterday morning, I decided that no, it's not really about whether it's early or late (as mentioned in my last post), it's about the fact that I'm moving my body.

Once I got to the top of Castle Hill, I re-decided: no, it's not that either, it's about interrupting morning habits I've collected and strung together inside my apartment (not that they are necessarily "bad" habits, but they are habits and can dull my day).

When I got to the point on my walk where the view is greenest and best, I decided this is what it's about: The Big View. The kind of view required for my peace of mind.

And I have been getting this view on my recent walks--whether or not I'm standing looking out on East Mountain, or walking away from it. It's all of it: the moving, the getting out of my apartment, the old canopied trees. It's the dogs and the people and the houses and the neighborhood. It's saying good morning to people. It's watching people say good morning to each other. It's being there early enough to watch orange plastic-wrapped newspapers being tossed out of a jeep (people are still reading print news!).

All of this=the big view.

I'm not trying to put a pretty bow on all this and say how happy I am and ain't life amazing? It's not like that.

For a time, a long time unfortunately, I was a sad and unhappy person. Or maybe more accurately, I suffered a great deal. We've all suffered a great deal I suppose. But relative to my life now and my life then--a great deal was a great deal.

I couldn't *feel* the simple things. I couldn't watch my mood change from beginning of walk to end. Couldn't watch how over a period of a week, and many morning walks, my thinking was different. Couldn't enjoy the cool air. Didn't know what unadulterated delight felt like.

Nothing helped. Nothing worked. Until it did.

Now, on the other side of the small-view days, I enjoy a lot of things. Feel a lot of things. Notice a lot. And I think of where I grew up. Mostly here, on this plot of land where my parents built us a house:

Actual views like this one are so key to remembering what we're actually walking around on.

And that's what happens on my walks. I remember.

Sunday, Sunday

2011-06-19T11:49:00.004-04:00

This morning I woke to a battle-free zone.

I'd had only 5 hours of sleep, and couldn't get back to it, so at 7:30 am, morning air coming through my window, I thought: I have to get out there. Not to exert myself, necessarily, but to get out in it. I was missing the morning.

Up until a couple of weeks ago, this thought would have been so small and so quiet and the enactment of it so unpracticed, that it would not have entered the realm as something I'd actually do--get out of bed and put comfy clothes on and get out in it.

When I got to the top of Castle Hill and started walking toward Lake Mansfield (I'm embarrassed to say that even after living here for over a year, this is my first glance at Lake Mansfield) I knew what the problem was with yesterday's walk, why it wasn't as enjoyable: I'd walked into the end of a morning rather than into the beginning of one. Granted, this morning I was not up at sunrise or anything, but yesterday, when I started my jaunt at 9:00 a.m. or so, the world had already opened shop. I was a latecomer, and walking to walk, to know later that I'd done it.

When I go earlier, like I did this morning, and when all I want to do is be out in the early air, it's not about exercise. It's about being outside, inside the morning, seeing what's happening.

And I was so rewarded. It was BEAUTIFUL out. Cool. Green. Blue skies. Hazy. The trees busy with birds and squirrels. A little wind. A few dogs out with their people. Two neighbors--a burly guy in his late 40s with a tool belt on and an elderly woman with her pooch--talking about the water that had gathered on the fairway where he'd golfed the day before.

That was the image I walked with the rest of the way: "Water on the fairway" (in a heavy Boston accent).

I am surprised (and sheepish) about how little I know of this town. Every day, so close by, I am walking into neighborhoods I've never been in, down streets that are completely new to me. I see people I've never seen, ever, anywhere (that I know of).

I feel like a visitor--in a good way. A visitor getting to know her town.

(p.s. I tried to find a good image for this post, but decided next time I'll just take my own pictures.)

Mom Knows Best

2011-06-18T10:33:00.005-04:00

I could write about my walk this morning (I took the long route, in the direction of East Mountain), and the super cute dog I met named Saki, and the elderly couple on their porch in their robes talking about the plants in their yard, and how the hints of humidity and heat in the air along with the occasional mutant-giant-sized fly dive-bombing my head brought on some dread about the onset of summer, but turns out that sharing what my mom has to say about her experience with getting herself out for a stroll is going to be way more inspiring than me whining about Northeastern weather (there's plenty of time for that, afterall).

My mother has been diligently reading my recent posts about walking. Here's an email exchange we had. (She gave me her permission to share it.)

****

Laura,

GM (Grumpy Mom) is putting on her arch-rocker flex-plus sneakers and going for an after-work walk around the clinic before heading home. Thanks to DL [Determined Laura]. Hrumph!

Mom

****

Me: Fantastic! How'd it go?

*****

Mom: It went about the same as your walk. For the first quarter mile I contemplated walking faster so I could get it over with sooner, but then...I started noticing the cool breeze, and the orange daylilies, and the birds... So--I guess you could say it did what we all know, but try to deny, it's sure to do. Make me smile. Make me a little gladder to be alive.

****

I think my writerly inclinations must live in my genes. Thanks, Mom! I want to see some orange daylilies.

The Biggest Battle Yet

2011-06-15T11:20:00.007-04:00

This morning Determined Laura had to pull Grumpy Laura out onto the streets of Great Barrington by her hair.

It’s just walking so I don’t understand the logic behind my resistance. All I know is that when I’m fuzzy with sleep and still in my pjs, the world out there feels like it’s on the other side of an obstacle course (a psychological one in this case). Those who have no trouble exercising and getting themselves going, those who jump out of bed ready to face the day, may roll their eyes at this.

But I’m guessing if this were easy for most people, everyone, on a whole, would be much healthier and happier than they are.

In my case, DL had to grab GL and drag her out there. Which she did. And we walked.

God I was in a horrible mood. I had a headache, felt stressed about work, about the seemingly brief battery life on my new expensive phone (really, this is a main worry? Time for me to roll my own eyes at my own self…), about getting “everything” done (what the “everything” is I have no idea).

And my mood and stress stayed thus for about 60% of the walk. But then the thing that always happens--at some point--happened. I was walking along the sidewalk, gaze down of course, and noticed this tiny white flower poking up from some weeds. I didn’t stop or linger, but a small surge of delight followed.

Grumpy Laura was like “Seriously? A flower… What’s happened to you?” Then as I looped back over to Castle Hill Rd to start my return descent, I walked by this house I love: Three stories. Pale yellow. Light blue shutters. No one’s ever there. No cars. No signs of life.

There’s something about this house that makes me feel calm. I was trying to figure out what it was when it hit me--it’s the huge old tree that sits in the front yard and hangs over the whole scene. I think it’s a maple tree--but I’m not good with trees, and don’t know if maples can get this big.

The rest of my walk, all I noticed was just how huge the trees are in this neighborhood. Reveling in this, I realized it had happened. That this big beautiful tree was unarguably bigger than my bad mood.

I felt calm. I felt better. I felt good. I didn’t feel suddenly relieved, but it was as if thinking about other things, good things (big, old, beautiful trees), for long enough for my brain to loosen its grip from work stress, from worries about my ridiculous phone, from “everything,” and deliver that relaxation effect that Gretchen Rubin reminded me of in The Happiness Project.

Mission accomplished.

I do wonder, as a side note, if my intense resistance is exactly for this purpose. I mean, if I started my morning walk feeling awesome, ready to enjoy the wondrous neighborhood behind the old train station, and the walk ended badly, like with a headache, I’d be hard pressed to do it all over again the next day.

This way, I’m encouraged. Inspired. And I hope, if you're reading this, you will be too.

Oh What a Beautiful Morning

2011-06-11T11:29:00.003-04:00

On my walk this morning:

I saw a smushed days-dead frog in the road.

And a black Corvette that had been so long in one spot its tires were sunk about 4 inches into the earth.

And a crazy cute dog covered in mud from his chest down and the happiest creature I've ever seen.

I obsessed about the new smartphone I just ordered. It's going to be bigger and heavier than any phone I've owned, and I worry how I will cart it around. Can I get a chain for it and wear it around my neck? Some wheels and a leash? If I hook it to my waist band, will it even out my mal-aligned gait? A girl can hope...

It was a gorgeous morning for a walk--post-rain, everything glowing green, cool air. I took a different route this morning, heading west instead of east, so no Wheelchair Man today, but I stopped on the bridge and looked out over my town's small river and felt very lucky to be here.

Woops, I Did It Again

2011-06-10T09:47:00.005-04:00

I went on another walk. I know. It's crazy. It takes all of Determined Laura's brute force to get me out of my apt. And once my legs are moving, I'm in disbelief. Do you know how many mornings I've thought: I should go take a walk. Just as many mornings as I didn't.

And I went early enough that I beat Wheelchair Man to the pavement. He was idling in his garage when I walked by and waved. "Good morning to ya!" he yelled. There's not many people I'd describe as jolly (especially since I don't really like the word). But Wheelchair Man is jolly. He doesn't have a belly or a round face, but he nonetheless exudes the quality. I predict we will become friends.

I was reminded this morning of 1997 thru 2001 when I lived in Alabama. Everything in the neighborhood I walk through here in the Berkshires is sagging from the weight of humidity, sagging and lolling about. Birds. Squirrels (the squirrels and I in Tuscaloosa had an ongoing battle). Fuzzy firs. Maples. I feel weirdly homesick for that now-tornado-wrecked town.

Talking then Walking

2011-06-07T08:01:00.008-04:00

This morning, after a horrible night's sleep, I uncharacteristically got myself out of my apartment BEFORE I HAD COFFEE to go on a quick jaunt.

Here's why: I started reading that damn book The Happiness Project--a book I'd never have read except two women friends, both brilliant writers I respect, recommended it.

In the book, Gretchen Rubin talks about how even walking can trigger the body's relaxation response and reduce stress. She talks about exercising for energy not vanity. Not that walking is really "exercise" per se. But it's something. It's more than nothing. Once I read it in black and white--especially during a time when I feel somewhat stuck and uninspired in my life--I couldn't get it out of my head.

I started changing into walking clothes all the while carrying on a conversation with myself:

Grumpy Laura: "You're not really going to do this are you?"

Determined Laura: "Shut up. If I think about it too much you'll win and when I walk out of the building in two hours into a beautiful morning to go to work, I'll feel that pang of regret that I didn't get outside before having to go inside all day."

Grumpy Laura: "But it's 7:15 in the morning!"

Determined Laura: "I know."

Grumpy Laura: "But you haven't even had coffee yet! YOU. NO COFFEE. How is this even possible that you're moving around like this?"

Determined Laura: "I'll have my coffee when I get back. We can wait until then. It'll be that much more enjoyable."

Determined Laura won. She went on a walk in a beautiful Berkshire morning.

To tell you the truth, my mood wasn't all that fabulous--but it was nice to be out and about. I saw four different people out walking their dogs. One woman sweeping her sun porch. Another guy doing push ups on his sun porch, and a dude in pajama pants and a fleece in his wheel chair zipping around the neighborhood trying to find reception on his cell phone.

I felt like it was my first day joining some club. The Club for People Who Take Care of Things (themselves, their bodies, their dogs). The Club for People Who Are Up and Moving Before 8 AM. The Club for People Who Want to Get a Jump on Things. Who Have Lives. Who Have Routines.

So I did it. A 20-minute walk before 7:30 AM without coffee. Hooray.

The Cool Thing

2010-09-09T09:09:00.008-04:00

So, the cool thing about taking such a monstrous hiatus from my blog, is that when I come back, I feel like I can write and no one is watching, and I don't need to succumb to the pressures of an audience (y'know, the ginormous audience that reads this blog).

I've been reading Keri Smith's blog this morning, which is something of a marketing vehicle, but I like her casual blogishness. And it inspired me to come here and see what happened.

Here's one that's happening: I've been thinking a lot. (This is a problem.)

I should be thinking less (and writing more). (Also eating less and sleeping more, but that's another blog post.)

Also, I'm reading this mini-novella-like short story by Chekov called "The Wife" and I'm captivated.

And like Ms. Smith I am trying lately to do one. thing. at. a. time. I pretty much fail most of the time, but when I am reading Chekov, I am successful. Reading him creates the same kinesthetic experience as reading Shakespeare--except I don't have to peruse any footnotes or keep a handy homemade cast list on hand to keep track of who is who.

This is what summer is for...

2010-06-16T22:46:00.008-04:00

It's been forever and a day (and probably another day after that) since I've posted on here. I don't know how a person balances 40-hour/wk job with writing a book with having clean clothes with eating well and regularly (and not out of a carton), keeping friends, keeping fit, keeping reasonable hours...not to mention (some of you) children AND a husband/wife/girlfriend/boyfriend...AND...a BLOG?!@ How?

I'm actually asking.

But that's not really what this post is about. It's about the project that's been mentioned several times, every now and again, on this blog--In the Eyes of Everyone (ITEOE)...mysterious, forthcoming, vague. All of those things.

And to add to it: Off we (creative compatriot [CC]--TJ--and I) go for an ITEOE adventure (a.k.a. pilgrimage). It might sound like just a rocking good weekend. But it's all in what you call it, so we're calling it a pilgrimage. And we hope to deliver the documented goods of said pilgrimage (as relayed on CC's blog):

"I'm fitting to go see crazy Glen Hansard [Laura's note: "read: Swell Season"] et al up in the northeastern United States in July. Plus there will be a Gogol Bordello mosh pit in New Jersey with Laura, the Creative Compatriot. (I am a wanderlust king, indeed....)"

It's true. Two friends. Two concerts. Two nights. Two different states. Two totally different kinds of music. Two separate emotional attachments to two different constellations of musicians. It's going to be superb. I can feel it. (And the Gogol Bordello show will be lucky 13 for me).

Maybe we'll see you there.

Shut me up

2010-03-28T16:51:00.005-04:00

So here’s what happened:

I’m sitting in my third floor apartment reveling in the quiet--no one using the laundry room, outside a calm Great Barrington Sunday. Then I hear laughter and scuffling. Pretty soon there’s a small pack of teenage boys gathered in the alley/courtyard my apartment building shares with the back of the Mahawai Theater and the backdoors of the shops on Railroad Street. (And pack is really the right word).

The teens are clean cut enough, in jeans and sweatshirts, two wearing down vests. They are fake wrestling and playing hacky-sack with an empty Poland Springs water bottle, raising dust. I am immediately annoyed. They are full of energy and noise. Drunk? I wonder. But no cigarettes and two of them are knocking back water (which I realize from my own partying days could be anything). They don’t seem drunk anyway.

They are roughhousing and no one is falling or slurring. I conclude they must be tripping. What would a yell out of my window into the echoey alley sound like to them? But before I can do it, a woman across the way yells from her apartment window: “I’m going to call the police!” Thank god, I think, it's bugging someone else.

The boys don’t hear her. They look up like maybe they hear something. Finally, a ground-level shop owner comes out of his back door and shoos them away. “You guys can’t be back here,” he says. He’s not an unimposing guy. Bald. Big dark mustache. Long dark coat. I know him from town. Right on! I make a mental note to thank him later for saving my Sunday.

Flash forward three hours:

The quiet has returned save the hum of a far-off generator. I’m nursing a headache while I work on my laptop.

I then hear the beginnings of a light hip-hop beat. Music coming from someone else’s apartment I assume. Just behind the beat a wave of collective voices rises, some kind of chorus. It’s probably one of the body workers who has an office in my building, or maybe my sweet neighbor T. doing some peppy yoga to some tunes. Sweet or not, I am annoyed once again. The singing dies down then picks up. Seriously? I say out loud. I actually like the music, but I’m not going to admit that because someone somewhere is not thinking of their neighbors.

I crawl across my bed to look out my window, see if I can pinpoint where the music is coming from. I scan the apartments across the way, but movement in the courtyard catches my eye. And I have to put my glasses back on to confirm that there is, again, a pack of boys, the same pack of boys, only this time there are more of them, and this time they are not raising dust or kicking a plastic bottle back and forth.

They are dressed in jackets and ties. They are in a half-circle and they are bopping and bouncing to the beat of music. Then their voices start.

Gorgeous!

Last night when I was parking, I noticed the marquee at the Mahaiwe: “An Afternoon of A Cappella” with the Steiner School.

I know now who the troublemakers were. And why they were so full of energy. I am happy for them. Maybe even a little jealous. They are excellent and talented and they are about to perform!

So just shut me up.

In the Eyes of Everyone: Assignment completed FINALLY!

2010-03-19T12:49:00.007-04:00

So the assignment from my creative partner over at beitelblog was the following:

In Nick Hornby's novel High Fidelity, the protagonist...opens the book by listing his Desert Island Five All-Time Greatest Heart-Breaks, and then he goes on to justify each selection. So, make a list. Your Desert Island Five All-Time Greatest...somethings. Resist media if at all possible -- books, movies, music, tv shows, etc. Something human (whatever that means). Something real (ditto). Then justify your selections with a single sentence each. Photos optional. Due Dec 15.

Dec. 15th. Right. It's now March 19. Which explains the new dialogue the two of us have embarked on which will be showing up on our blogs about why it's so damn hard to follow through with "making stuff."

You'll notice the result looks nothing like the assignment. There're six things instead of five. It's video. And I wouldn't call them Desert Island clips as much as my top-six favorite visual moments captured on my handy FLIP camera. The point for me was that I did get into it, I did feel moved, I did enjoy making it, and I FINISHED it. I also had something of a vision (this is why In the Eyes of Everyone's tag line is "a project for everyday visionaries") even if the result is somewhat disappointing when held next to that vision. And I worked on it. THREE HOURS it took me to make this thing, and that was after I cut each clip (I limited myself to 5 to 10 second clips). My first ever moving-image project. So it feels good and humbling to have done something and to be posting it.

Enjoy, and do the assignment. His way. My way. Start it. Let it morph. And even if it takes you THREE MONTHS, finish it...and then e-mail it to us!

intheeyesofeveryone@yahoo.com

New Assignment: Coming soon!

2010-01-08T11:24:00.004-05:00

So I didn't post a new assignment before the turning of the year as promised (actually, technically, I didn't promise...so I'm going to try not to feel too guilty). I've been too busy having a love affair with my new FLIP camera: Concert footage! Hoola hooping! Graffiti! All of that, plus an assignment, coming soon-ish.

Make Stuff Results!: Historical, Tasty, Sacred, Part 2

2009-12-15T21:28:00.042-05:00

[Sorry if the appearance of photos and text is screwy...it shows up differently depending on your browser...if anyone has any suggestions...I've not had this problem before].

To see Part 1 of this blog post or if you don't know what this post is referring to, scroll down; you can always go here to read about the assignment.

Here are the three remaining responses to the first assignment given on my blog for In the Eyes of Everyone. (Is anyone else struck by the fact that 4 out of the 5 assignment responses for "sacred" include children? I'm not surprised just...struck.)

Here's Jedda Bradley's response (and you should check out the blog she's co-created called orangepeel, for moms to share about how to put "zest" back in their lives); historical, tasty, sacred:

Here's a photo response from Mariani Didyk (yes, my mom); she chose pictures in her own collection to respond (the "tasty" picture is my little sis, when she was actually little; she's now 34); historical, tasty, sacred:

And, last not but not least, a submission by Susan Bearman, creator of blog Two Kinds of People; historical, tasty, sacred:

Stay tuned for a new assignment to be posted before the turning of the year!

Make Stuff Update!

2009-12-04T01:47:00.003-05:00

I have pictures to post!
I have responses!
I have had no time to actually post them!
I will have time this weekend!
And there's another assignment on the way!
I'm going to write one more sentence because it's 1:50 in the morning and a 1:50-in-the-morning post, however short, deserves a sixth sentence with a sixth exclamation point!

Make-Stuff Results!: Historical, Tasty, Sacred, Part 1

2009-11-30T22:18:00.026-05:00

Assignment: Three pictures—
Something historical. Something tasty. Something sacred.

I'm posting two of the four responses I have so far in this post, and I'll post the remaining two by the end of the weekend.Some of the responses included pictures taken especially for the assignment, others were from personal collections...

In the Eyes of Everyone will launch online in a more official way in 2010; this is a way for me and my creative compadre to test the waters, start collecting submissions, and get the word out. To read more about this particular assignment and about the project, scroll down a couple entries, or click here.

Here's Jessica Atcheson's response (thanks, Jess, for being the first!). You can see and read more about Jessica on her smarty-pants, righteous-babe blog, Partly It's the Boots...historical, tasty, sacred:

Marie Gauthier, creator of the blog A View from the Potholes...historical, tasty, sacred:

(Note: If you are reading this and are still planning to submit, it's not too late! I will be posting a new assignment next week but send your responses any time for any assignment and I'll get them up!)

Make Stuff!!!

2009-11-17T14:26:00.010-05:00

Those of you who were reading my blog, y’know back several months ago when I was actually keeping it up, may remember that I did a little plug for a project that is in the works with one of my partners in creative crime. (He’s someone I’ve known for going on 12 years, and he has a most awesome blog that you should all read regularly.)

Last May, he traveled north from the wilds of Birmingham, Alabama, to pay me a visit and we got to talking about how the current creative channels that we had affixed in our lives weren’t quite doing it. We wanted to produce unexpected things that fell outside of the we-earned-our-MFAs-in-creative-writing box. We wanted to feel like our lives were a more adequate response to the inspiration that we felt daily as we walked around doing what we do—seeing films, reading books, talking to folks, going to shows (of all kinds), listening to music, traveling, etc.

Maybe these new things we produced would sometimes make us a little uncomfortable. Maybe they wouldn’t require a lot of skill except for the art of psychological letting go—of the result itself, and of the face the result made out in the world. More importantly tho, was this two-word phrase that kept coming up again and again in our conversations and e-mails and follow-up phone calls—an impulse, a command, maybe even a demand from some bigger force.

The simple two-word phrase: MAKE STUFF!

And so was born our future project—In the Eyes of Everyone: A Project for Everyday Visionaries—a title I beg you not to steal but instead tattoo on your brain so when we launch our site in 2010, you will recognize it and go there and become part of what is going to be an exquisite and inspiring project that will surely spawn a movement.

Last week, TJ (aforementioned partner in creative crime) and I decided that we were tired of all the talking and planning and untangling of logistics and thought we better start walking our talk and actually start the project. So we concocted creative assignments for each other, set a deadline, and went to it. Here is the assignment TJ gave me:

Assignment #1a for the future launch of In the Eyes of Everyone:
Take three pictures: 1) something historical, 2) something tasty, 3) something sacred

Before I post the documentation of the assignment, my whole point of this blog post is to say: DO THIS ASSIGNMENT and SEND ME YOUR PICTURES at intheeyesofeveryone@yahoo.com along with permission to post them here and on the future website for In the Eyes of Everyone. DO IT! IT WILL MAKE YOU FEEL GOOD. IT WILL MAKE YOU FEEL AWAKE. IT WILL MAKE YOU WANT TO MAKE MORE STUFF!

#1: Something historical

#2: Something tasty

#3: Something sacred

You can also go to TJ’s blog, and read the assignment I gave him, and do that one instead, or DO BOTH!

Join us … do an assignment. Be one of the good ones, and make stuff!

Cups and Ice #5: Easy Reader

2009-11-13T23:40:00.002-05:00

O M G.

My new friend T and I have been exchanging YouTube finds from the priceless 70s shows we grew up with--Electric Company, 3-2-1 Contact, Zoom. Here are my two unearthed favorites.

The pants! The dancing! The free love!

I Love This

2009-11-08T09:44:00.003-05:00

A good way to start a Sunday. I'd heard this song before, off of John Prine's duet album called In Spite of Ourselves, but it's so great to see it.

Here's John Prine and Iris Dement singing "In Spite of Ourselves":

All I Wanted...

2009-10-31T14:19:00.004-04:00

This is a really well-written, poignant, bittersweet story published online today in the NY Times "Modern Love" column (will be in the Style section of the Sunday Times).

It's written by Holly Welker, a friend of a friend, who has recently completed a memoir about her experiences as a Mormon missionary.

Read it. It's not long and it goes by fast. And the last image is a killer.

If you love it, forward the link to friends and/or post it on your blog. Writers helping writers!

"All I Wanted Was a Hug" by Holly Welker, "Modern Love" section in the New York Times

[image above by Christopher Silas Neal]

Writing Contest for Great Literary Magazine

2009-09-25T16:25:00.006-04:00

I was the assistant editor for the premiere issue of this magazine, Alligator Juniper, back in the late nineties, and my short story "New River" was published in it—my first national publication. The magazine has won all kinds of awards and grants. And even if you get rejected, you get a super thoughtful personal letter from an editorial staff member... Deadline is soon! Check it out!

Call for Submissions: Alligator Juniper seeks fiction, creative nonfiction and poetry for its annual contest. One week away from the deadline, and submissions are not as plentiful as in past years. Shewrites members, please send your best work!

Postmark deadline: Oct. 1st, 2009

Click here for guidelines.

Alligator Juniper has received the AWP Director's Prize for Undergraduate Literary Magazines, three times in its thirteen year history. The journal is a publication of Prescott College in Prescott Arizona.

Improv Everywhere: Mp3 Experiment

2009-09-20T13:40:00.001-04:00

What I Did on My Summer Vacation

2009-09-12T19:46:00.009-04:00

So I went on a vacation. A few of them actually: An actual vacation from work (like a paid one), a blog vacation, a vacation from staying on top of every single thing, a not-worrying-too-too-much-about-my-diet vacation, a vacation from the Berkshires so I could go on a vacation in the loveliness of Arizona (and oh how I miss it so).

What follows are pictures from my trip (which include 4 days in Prescott, AZ, and 3 in Phoenix at the beautiful Sanctuary resort/spa...so the really boring ones of random trees and different-colored walls were taken under the influence of relaxation and beauty...thank god for summer spa deals):

Arizona Trip (a.k.a. trip to heaven)

Cups and Ice #4: Five Ways to Eat a Corn Chip

2009-08-16T14:49:00.008-04:00

Okay, so I'd just come home from boxing class (awesome), worn out, starving, and feeling a bit loopy from the exertion of the class. All of the above resulted in me sitting in my kitchen, eating corn chips, and messing around with my web cam. I've taken a few pictures with it but never recorded video. What better time? Nothing to do, nowhere to go-oh (yup, as in The Ramone's song)...

I did the following video in that spirit, just me screwing around in my kitchen, testing out the computer gear, intending to keep it solely private. But when I watched it, it made me laugh so hard that I dared myself to post it here--embarrassment isn't always a bad thing. I realize the following may permanently disqualify me from an honorable position in the cultural-discourse hall of fame. With that in mind, I present you with what was initially just a web-cam test (and you get to see some of what I tend to do to entertain myself when I'm completely alone):

Thirty Things I Love Tonight

2009-08-12T23:32:00.008-04:00

I am copying my friend over at Beitel-Blog because I haven't felt like blogging at all and I read his post and I wanted to follow suit immediately.

So...30 things I heart on this night:

1. Lists like this one.
2. Days off—which I am about to have two of
3. Green & Black's 85% Dark Chocolate
4. TV
5. "I was married" by Tegan and Sara: "I was married in the sun (tell me where, tell me where) against the stone of buildings built before...."
6. Hilarious pictures of me and my sisters from our trip to Ithaca last month
7. My dad
8. Saying "labral tear" which is what my new physical therapist thinks might be what is ailing my hip...labral tear...labral tear...try it (saying it I mean)
9. Coconut Bliss!
10. That I signed up for a boxing class (Sunday, 10:00 am)
11. The sound of the man-made waterfall over by the paper mill
12. Being alone in my apartment!
13. Spreading myself throughout the place from bedroom (strewn shoes in the hallway) to living room (collage supplies and half-made postcard collage on the coffee table) to the kitchen to the laundry room (overflowing dirty laundry in a basket on the washer). ME everywhere!
14. "We Did Not Make Ourselves" by Michael Dickman: "I didn’t make my brain/but I’m helping to finish it//Carefully stacking up everything I made next to everything I ruined in broad/daylight in bright/brainlight"
15. My sisters
16. Striped socks (see above picture)
17. First issue of Wholphin, arrived today, 2.5 hours of short film extravaganza
18. Black pants, black scarf
19. Vito coconut water (with tangerine)
20. Green & Black's 85% dark chocolate (it's worth mentioning twice)
21. That people at work call me "LD," "LauraD," and variations thereof
22. My new green TheraBand that I will use, per my new physical therapist, to work the muscles of my right butt
23. Midnight
24. The dream world I am allowed into when I sleep
25. The hot air balloon in the collage I'm making, and the trio of working men standing on sand pointing up at it
26. A deep breath that's truly deep
27. "our deaths were mineral"
28. In the Eyes of Everyone: A Project for Everyday Visionaries
29. The number "29"
30. Closing my eyes.

Dream It: A Review by Laura Cococcia

2009-08-06T22:18:00.007-04:00

First, a word from me, Laura Didyk. As an active member on the new online writer's community She Writes, I've had the opportunity through the blogger's discussion group I started on the site to meet a ton of groovy women active in the blogosphere. One of those women is Laura Cococcia, creator of the The Journal of Cultural Conversation.

Laura agreed to do a guest post for my blog (and I'll be doing one for TJCC very soon).

******************************************************************************

Dream It. List It. Do It!
by Laura Cococcia

Last year, a dear friend gave me the book Dream It. List It. Do It!: How to Live a Bigger & Bolder Life, from the Life List Experts at 43Things.com.

The book's premise: To encourage readers to write ideas down to help answer the question "what do I want to do with my life?" It seems a timely and apropos cultural question—the more I read, the more I discover how individuals everywhere are digging deep to prioritize personal goals and clarify their life purpose.

Life is short, so why not get going?

Dream It. List It. Do It! helped me launch Laura Reviews and The Journal of Cultural Conversation. And it helped me make a very long list of practical projects I'd love to complete during my lifetime.

But it also inspired a number of ideas that actually have nothing to do with completing a project. These are just things you may have always wanted to do that you haven't yet. Like throw mashed potatoes at the person sitting next to you at a dinner party.

I thought I'd start the conversation by sharing my top 3 straight from the book:

1. Be silly: Dress like a penguin and slide in the snow.
(Hard to do in NYC, but I will find a way.)

2. Be famous: Host a talk show.
(I'd LOVE to do this, but I have no idea what to call it. Any thoughts?)

3. Cook more: Deep fry a pickle.
(I don't know how to cook anything besides toast and chocolate chip cookies, so the pickle might be a stretch, but I'll let you know how it goes.)

If you haven't yet read the book or visited 43Things.com, take a trip over and let us know a few of your life-list goals. Or, you can copy mine. I won't be offended.

Laura Cococcia works in global advertising and is the editor of The Journal of Cultural Conversation. An NYC resident, she is a voracious reader, obsessed traveler, committed foodie, and aspiring author. You can follow Laura and TJCC on Twitter.

Cups and Ice #3: A Thunderstorm

2009-08-04T14:02:00.004-04:00

To read a short explantion of my "Cups and Ice" posts, go here.

Just watch, or close your eyes and listen.

56.5 hours

2009-07-30T21:08:00.011-04:00

Since Saturday morning, I have worked 56.5 hours.

I know there are people in the world that work like that. But I am not one of them. Although I guess I am now.

Today after work (because today there was an actual after), I went grocery shopping. Grocery shopping, people! I never knew how enjoyable it can be when the first time in many days you are not in front of a computer.

I am not complaining about working a lot. I've actually been enjoying it because 1) I know it's temporary, 2) there's that whole team feeling that comes from working long hours with just a few other people, trying to get a magazine out the door, and 3) there's something to be said for working toward excellence for the sake of excellence...

Since last Saturday, however, I have thought every day about my blog. And here's just a sample of what I thought of writing about, if I'd actually written:

Hip pain

So You Think You Can Dance (again)

bobby pins: their history, my obsession with them, all the different places I come across them in my life (my purse, my car, my drive way, the kitchen, found stuck to the bottom of my foot on the way to the shower, and, yes, in my hair, under some twisted hank of bed-head mess)

that whole thing with exercise: how your mind can convince you, absolutely, that it would, in fact, be an unhealthy, self-abusive act to exert yourself in any way (only to do it anyway and feel afterward as if you've just had a massage).

breathing

So You Think You Can Dance

Been Taking a Break from a lot of Things

2009-07-25T09:16:00.008-04:00

Like from not eating dairy. Best ice cream cone ever. Being across the street from the Grass Roots Festival we could also hear the distant sound of zydeco, accordions, banjos, and lots of "woo hooos!"

I have been putting off posting—I haven't gone this long since the beginning of this summer (which is kind of a mis-statement since it's not actually summer yet, apparently, since it hasn't been hotter than 85 and it's late July. This anti-humiditarian is a-ok with that, tho.).

Since I've last posted about my early morning visit to the trainer, I

Had a second early morning visit with the trainer (he's the second trainer on the page)

Watched a most amazing duet on So You Think You Can Dance that I keep watching over and over (first video you come across when you scroll)

Went to Ithaca, NY, and back to see family, eat whatever I wanted (see photo above), laugh a ton, dance on hay, sit by a fire (like I said, not summer), and celebrate my sister and her best friend's birthdays

Watched a pretty incredible tap performance last night at Jacob's Pillow (or "the pillow" as its familiarly known in dance circles), Jason Samuels Smith and A.C.G.I. (Anybody Can Get It)

Noticed (just this morning, like right this second) how my speedy typing (a writer at work nicknamed me "the little machine") reminds me of last night, the speedy tapping...my fingers on the keyboard. Typing fast is no tap dancing but if you start going into the idea...it gets interesting (i.e., JSS's cousin was part of the performance last night--he does a spoken-word/rap thing and afterward he talked about the connection between that and the tapping).

So within each of those things above is a blog post. Which is why I've been procrastinating starting up again. Which thing do I write about, and how do I do it in the limited bog-writing time (the big question for everything, right?). And I love that I just wrote "bog-writing" because that's how it's felt lately. Very boggy.

I thought before I head to workin' on a weekend, I should just break the more-than-weeklong hiatus and say something, anything. So there you have it. (If you have a vote about my next post, feel free to say so).

[Also, note that you can now subscribe to my blog post, and you'll get an e-mail when I post; at the rate I'm going, you won't be getting daily nudges or anything]!

Proverbs

2009-07-16T07:27:00.005-04:00

She who goes to the physical trainer first thing in the morning should be rewarded with great sums of cash.

[I know, I know, it's good for me, I agreed, it's my fault, I get it. Still. Cash. I'll take 50s.]

Cups and Ice #2: GBF

2009-07-14T09:07:00.006-04:00

[Above taken from a notebook I've been keeping on a creative project I'm collaborating on with a friend, a project that you will most definitely get to see, explore, and feel called to participate in when it's launched next year. I would say "drum roll, please....." but it's not quite at the drum roll stage. It's more at the faint-slightly-annoying-tapping-coming-from-over-the-mountain-range-that-will-take-about-14-months-to-get-here? stage. When you hear that slightly annoying tapping, that's us! Me and Creative Partner in the laboratory, preparing to astound you.]

A Blog on Frogs!

2009-07-12T22:18:00.016-04:00

[Just a note that over there in the left column you can now subscribe to my blog and get an e-mail when I post.]

Today I went to Frogs: A Chorus of Colors, a live frog exhibit at the Berkshire Museum. Went with KD and had a blast (especially inserting appropriate voices and comments on behalf of the frogs—they were great sports!). I forgot how cool frogs are. How could I forget? I loved the dart frogs, the really poisonous ones with bright colors who look like race cars!

Enjoy!

The last one here is called a "waxy faced monkey frog" (coolest name ever).

Powering Down

2009-07-11T09:19:00.007-04:00

Last night, I did something revolutionary. With the help of a long-distance friend, I shut my computer down at 10:30 p.m. I know, I know, it's a little extreme. Let me explain:

On any given weekday night, after 8 hours at work in front of a computer, I come home, eat, get online and don't get off until approximately 12:40 a.m. (I'm not mindlessly surfing. I'm getting things done, really important necessary things that absolutely can't wait.) If it's a Friday or Saturday, chances are I power down even later than that.

Here's what I manage to get done once the laptop is put to sleep:

Floss and brush teeth, wash face, worry about the-barely-noticeable-to-anyone-else-but-totally-noticeable-to-me discoloration of my teeth.

Remember, in an overwhelming wave of anxiety all the other things I was supposed to do before bed (put clothes in the dryer, wash dishes, put together snacks for next day, do prescribed stretches and exercises, call my friend who lives in Chatham who I haven't talked to in weeks, relax, read, etc).

Actually do all these things at 1 o'clock in the morning (except relax and read), all the while berating myself for it (i.e., "I can't believe I did it AGAIN!"

Get under the covers carrying a small knot in my stomach for how tired I know I'm going to be the next day and how much better I'd probably feel—physically and otherwise—if I could manage to be more balanced in my approach to life.

Here's what I managed to get done last night from 10:30 p.m. to 1:00 a.m.:

Floss and brush teeth, wash face, worry about the-barely-noticeable-to-anyone-else-but-totally-noticeable-to-me discoloration of my teeth.

Realize in an in an overwhelming wave of relief all the things I was now going to be able to do before bed (wash dishes, trim and file my nails, do prescribed stretches and exercises, text my friend who helped me shut down the laptop to say thank you, read a little).

Get under the covers with a sense that everything was right in the world, or at least my world, and tell myself: remember this, remember how this feels.

I woke up at 8:30 a.m. refreshed, clear, and unencumbered by thoughts of how I wish I'd done it differently the night before. It may not sound like a big deal. But I've been wanting to do that for probably close to three years. This is the habit I've had, one I have not known how to break, until my friend said, "Text me at 10:30 p.m. and tell me you're off."

I'm now at my computer—which I feel happy to see by the way—cup of decaf next to the keyboard. Will finish up some online tasks and then head out the door for a hip-hop class. Good start to the weekend I'd say.

Cups and Ice #1: The Beckoning of Lovely

2009-07-08T21:38:00.010-04:00

Cups and ice—the things you bring to the party when you don't have time to make a main dish. So I'm introducing this new series of short posts that will allow me to share things that make me feel like...well, yes, like dancing. Or writing. Or making something that will make other people want to dance or write or make things that will make other people want...you get the idea.

I will say this about the creator of the following film-to-be trailer. Amy Krouse Rosenthal should be more well-known. Her name should be shouted from the shoulders of a tall man. She should be honored in a ceremony next to a fountain, no in the fountain in a city's center. She's a quiet and mysterious heroine of mine ever since I read her innovative memoir, An Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life (Denise H, best birthday present ever! Or was it Christmas? I can't remember...). This is her latest project, The Beckoning of Lovely. (I feel like she crawled inside my mind...but as a very hospitable guest.)

Ouch...

2009-07-07T23:37:00.007-04:00

This post won't be long as I seem to have a developed a rapid-onset case of tendinitis in my right hand/wrist/arm, with some pangs in my left hand.

Turning on a light switch, opening the toothpaste, digging in my purse for a pen.

OWWWWCH.

My inner hypochondriac is on the loose. I've been typing for 15 years. And now?

Probably I need to rest. A thing I don't do enough. More down time (I've been saying this for like, what, 5 years?). Meditation probably wouldn't be a bad idea either.

So here I go to try and get some rest.

How Studying Creative Writing Changed Everything: Part 3

2009-07-05T19:38:00.007-04:00

The image above is the culmination...no, that's not quite right...the proof of the fact that I indeed did spend a few years in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, earning my MFA degree in creative writing. And the fact that it's crooked seems appropriate. It was a rough process. Rough and wonderful and one of the best things I've ever done.

At first, I was sure I'd made a huge error in deciding on this particular program, because of its location, because of its location, and because of its location. As it turned out, the train that ran half-a-block from the apartment I shared with fellow student, Angela Jane Fountas, the way it shook our windows every hour or so, the pea-green sky during tornado season, the town and university thick with a history that was hard to stomach—all of these things wound their way into my poetry collection. (The fact that AJ rescued me from a roach-infested apartment across the way, inviting me to live in hers, is a testament to the sort of people that that program attracted...or maybe to Seattle where AJ had recently lived...or to the Greeks who are AJ's people...).

In any case, I could do a little commercial for University of Alabama's MFA program right here (the optional fourth year they offer, the so-cool-you-want-to-eat-it literary magazine the Black Warrior Review, their awesome reading series, the visiting writer's program, and the quality of the other students you are in workshop with), but I won't.

What happened to me at grad school could happen to anyone at any creative writing program;

1) I read novels for homework. And poetry collections. And I wrote papers. And stories. And poems. And essays. (I also got introduced to the work of some writers who changed the way I wrote. Too numerous to mention here in full, but here are a few that come to mind: Janet Kauffman, Alice Notley, Tomaz Salamun, and Larissa Szporluk, to name just a few.)

2) I got to be an editor in chief of a literary magazine (I mean, come on, CHIEF, in my title? It was a dream come true...).

3) I had TIME (this was KEY for me...just the time) to figure out what I liked and why I liked it, and then change my mind.

4) I got to experiment and write badly and even, mid-stream, change genres.

5) I met some people who I have been friends with since and are some of the most important people in my life.

6) I became a teacher!

7) I became a writer.

7a) Graced one semester with a fellowship, I was only required to teach one class, and, being finished with my class credits, I was able to just write. And I wrote daily. I'd never done that before. And I haven't done it since. Not like that. But that laid the foundation, and was the first time I really felt like a writer. First time I wasn't doing it for anyone else, that I wasn't just writing in my journal anymore. I was learning a craft. A craft! I started to enjoy how my mind worked—especially when I was sitting at my desk with my notebook. I started to think: maybe I can do this. For a long time. Maybe forever.

7b) I'm still doing it.

7c) There were some years after grad school that I didn't write at all, and wondered if I ever would. It was when I stopped worrying about being "literary" that I started to write the work that would make me the most proud. But I never would have written that stuff unless I'd had my experience in school to write against.

Self-discovery (the most non-literary word there is) is really what happened. Who I was, my values, my beliefs (about God, love, staying alive or not staying alive), the downfalls in my own character—these all became unseparate from the poetry i was writing. Writing wasn't a thing I was doing. It just was. And is. And ever. And I'm so glad.

How Studying Creative Writing Changed Everything: Part 2

2009-07-03T18:44:00.003-04:00

I don't think my first story in my first fiction-writing class was any good—I believe the assignment was to take a mythological theme and write a story based on that...I chose, no surprise, the story of the Phoenix, and wrote about a mysterious sexy guy on a motorcycle named Caley who was adored by the narrator, a young Southern version of yours truly (who liked to listen to Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald). Caley was hit by a car, was seen running his bike off the road numerous times, laying in the road awash with wounds, but then there he'd be the next day, not a scratch on him. It was a sweet story, and awful probably. But I'd done it. I'd written something from beginning to end, in a voice, in character, and even more than that, I started to understand something about my own interiority in relation to language.

I'd found a way to have a conversation with something that wasn't quite here but paradoxically more here than anything else I'd encountered. And I started being an observer—of what and who was around me, what and who was living inside me (there were a lot of people in there), of my past and the narrative patterns it consisted of, and this thing called the imagination.

The act of writing in a more intentional way, studying it as a craft (rather than just writing in my journal), felt like this: When a drawer comes off its runners and you jiggle it around and get mad and swear and, finally, because you're desperate, you slow down, take a few breaths, and feel around, you get a sense. And miraculously the edges of the drawer click into place.

I'm not sure what I am in that metaphor. The drawer? The frustrated person jiggling the drawer around? Either way, when I took that first class—in which reading and writing about books was part of the homework, and writing stories and reading my classmates' stories was the other part—something definitely "clicked into place." And I stopped fighting it. My desire to do it got bigger than my fear, as I've said before.

I took fiction. And memoir. And literature courses. I worked on the first issue of PC's national lit mag (Alligator Juniper, which just weeks ago won the AWP Director's Prize for Undergraduate Literary Magazines for the third time in its 13-year history).

I found mentors in my teachers at the college, and consciously understood for the first time what it meant to be a student. I listened to them and followed their direction without pause, because I was in love with language and story, with the flexibility of paragraphs (which could, I discovered, consist of exactly one sentence if I wanted it to), with Lorrie Moore and Raymund Carver, with short story collections and lit mags. I wanted to make people feel what they made me feel. I wanted to be good. Really really good.

I knew I wasn't done being a student, and to keep being one, I'd have to be graduate-school bound, MFA-bound, more-teachers-more-books-and-new-colleagues bound.

So, ironically (given where my very first short story took place) I headed to the Deep South.

(More tomorrow in Part 3! Promise, that will be the last "part.")

How Studying Creative Writing Changed Everything: Part I

2009-07-03T15:27:00.012-04:00

Where I come from, everything's a metaphor, so replace "studying creative writing" with anything that's grabbed you by the hair and playfully yanked, and that you mysteriously found yourself putting your whole self into.

If you haven't encountered this yet, a hint: it's probably the thing in your life that doesn't feel like it could be (or should be) "the thing," because it's too fun, too easy, and doesn't feel like work in the way that you are used to. Make no mistake, it's work. But of a different variety. The kind that moves you forward and takes you places and introduces you to people you'd never otherwise meet.

Just like my married friends have told me about meeting my future husband: meeting him will not feel like what you think it is going to feel like.

As for how and when my hair was yanked, well, the actual yanking probably took place pre-adolescence, but the big old pull came after I tried out Syracuse University for two years, then dropped out to follow the Grateful Dead (which is a whole different post), and ended up—after a handful of shows, a lot of drugs, many hot parking lots, and a stream of cities across America—at Prescott College.

There, after a quarter of creative arts courses (theater movement, photography, and "the way of the spiritual warrior"—no joke, awesome class), I finally signed up for Introduction to Fiction Writing. But I backed out at the last minute. So I signed up again, the next quarter, and again I backed out. That's how terrified I was of my destiny.

When I did finally get the courage up (and constructed a good argument for the teacher who wasn't convinced I'd actually take the class this time), I was 23 years old. Sad a lot. Stoned a lot. And hungry for approval. (I'll say that over the years, three of those things have changed. I'll let you be the judge.)

After writing character sketches and monologues and reading Raymund Carver and Lorrie Moore and Amy Hempel and Joy Williams (a few of the Lish-ites, as in Gordon Lish, as in crazy brilliant teacher man as well as Raymond Carver's infamous editor), and we dug into writing our first draft of an actual short story, I knew that I'd found "that thing," my thing. Or at least one of them.

(More to come, on the morrow, in Part 2. Happy fourth—whatever that means to you!)

A Great New Site for Women Writers

2009-07-01T23:54:00.006-04:00

So I'm a little behind with things, but totally busy at the same time. I only have five minutes before midnight, so want to post something quick so I don't officially miss a day.

This post is dedicated to the brand new (like just over 24 hours new?) awesome writer's website—for the ladies! She Writes. It launched yesterday and already has 250 members or so! It's got discussion groups on everything from the practical like marketing and promotion, literary groups by genre, and a really awesome discussion group on blogging (started by yours truly!).

So you don't have to be a writer with books to be on there—just someone who loves to write and is looking to learn some things about the writing world so they can move forward with the craft (whether you are a blogger, or a poet, or a fiction writer....). Oh, and you do have to be a woman.

It's a really fantastic group of people...high-level professional writers, as well as new folks. Come glean some wisdom! And share some. And be part of the early stages of what is going to grow to be a truly amazing resource.

When you join, look for my group: Bloggers: Let's Make It Work!

I'll be back with more verve in the next couple of days. I think I may be a tad overcommitted. Or just really inspired. It's hard to say which.

Follow Me (and I Will Follow You)

2009-06-30T09:41:00.005-04:00

Just a quick plug for my new "followers" widget on my left side bar. I'll take you to some fun places, and I'd love to have you!

Summer in the Berkshires, Prairie Home Companion, and Mosquitoes

2009-06-28T20:40:00.007-04:00

Today was a glorious day in the Berkshires.

In general, I love everything about summer in the Berkshires except maybe...summer itself. Summer itself = the heat, the humidity, the bugs, the finding the right summer attire, the bugs, and, then, finally, the bugs. But today has been an exception.

People flock into our hamlet-y towns (I say "our" like I am of this place, when in fact I sometimes walk right by my Subaru because of its new Mass plates...Honestly, I miss my old plates: New York, CDT 8981, oh where art thou?, but I am making the best of it) and aside from the annoyance of increased traffic and more people, it gives one some perspective, that goes a little like this: "oh, I live in the Berkshires. People come from all over just to be here and bask in its beauty, its pastoral magic, all the green lushness...it's a place where people literally summer." I mean to live in a place where "summer" is a verb is pretty...weird. And cool.

Saturday night, I went to Tanglewood with my friend KD, who treated me to an awesome seat at Prairie Home Companion...loads of FUN! At one point during the show the following people were on stage at the same time: Garrison Keillor, Martin Sheen, Steve Martin (go here to watch a YouTube video of Steve Martin playing banjo while a guy from the Steep Canyon Rangers—you can't see much but the audio is good), Heather Masse, and Arlo Guthrie...I mean, C'mon, that's pretty amazing. Both KD and I were lamenting the fact that neither of us brought a camera. But we clapped and sang. I felt like a true blue American by the end (and even a little wholesome...which is just...rare).

The woman sitting to our left asked us where we were from. And we said, "here". And she just shook her head, and said, "Wow. Lucky."

Lucky enough to be scratching my first ankle mosquito bite. Oy. My body's not a fan. Mosquito bites on my body are events. My skin is generally itchy and rashy anyway (that sounds scarier than it actually looks), so a bite adds a significant rise in the landscape. (Dr. Magic Pettus and I were hoping going gluten-free was going to help with the rash epidemic but so far, nada. It's only been three weeks so keep your fingers crossed).

But I certainly can't complain (even though I just did)... I've got it good.

Happy summer, everyone!

Getting off the Couch: Part 2

2009-06-27T12:51:00.019-04:00

The thought of not doing something that a huge part of me (that doesn't even feel like "me" necessarily because the desire isn't manufactured or dreamed up but just there) became more awful than the thought of doing the "something" and doing it badly.

Ryan Kasprzak on So You Think You Can Dance was interviewed right before he got cut (his brother, Evan, made it and is now in the top 14). [You can go here to watch highlights of their auditions from this season...really fun!]. Ryan does Broadway tap. He said that he heard over and over from teachers, producers, choreographers that he was too short, too chubby, too bald, too whatever to be successful in the kind of dance he wanted to do. "That shit kept me on the couch for four years," he said. He's done all kinds of things since he got off the couch. And he just auditioned for the next season of SYTYCD and will be going to Vegas for another shot.

At the end of graduate school, during my thesis defense, which marked a four-year MFA endeavor as well as a major shift from writing fiction to writing mostly poetry, one of my professors told me and the committee and those friends who'd gathered for the event that she almost fell asleep reading my thesis (a collection of poems).

Once you start, you have to deal with that who-are-you-kidding-anyway voice—and not always just from inside yourself. Then you have to actually keep doing the thing you got off the couch to do. You have to do things badly and deal with that. You have to hear criticism and experience rejection.

It's good for the bones is what I say—because you discover (or I did anyway) why you are actually doing something (i.e., Not so a certain professor will like your work). You find the you you are doing it for. You find that there is no Ultimate Final Approval. There are moments of glory—when you get published, do the performance, etc. But like artist Mike Mills says (see video on "outloud" blog June 19):

You just work your hardest and you do whatever the best is that you can, and you don’t like it...you don’t think you did very well so you do another job to prove that you're better than the last job you did and then the same thing happens and you do another one and then all of a sudden you're 41...and then you think I’ll do better on the next one and I’ll totally prove to everyone that I’m okay and you keep going and going...

It's more a lifestyle than a means to an end I guess is what I'm saying.

And the only way to get confidence—creative confidence—is to make things and keep making them—muscles, books, blog postings, photographs, dances, WHATEVER. And stick with the people who will cheer you on while you do it—but do it even if you can't find those people.

The best things I've heard from people after I've read my work in public are 1) they were moved and 2) it made them want to write and make things. That's not why I do it of course—any of it. I do it because when I'm not doing it, I sink deeper and deeper into my couch, wonder why I'm here, forget what the point is... Participating in the way that I do is the point. It's what gets me up every morning, makes me eat, post to my blog, go to work, see films, write poetry, go listen to live music (and exhaust myself in large rowdy throngs of other participants), be an extra in a video of your favorite band (see opening picture above)!

My friend KO was clearly inspired in a new way by Every Little Step. We had coffee Friday night and I saw it in her eyes. Something is changing and it's a beautiful thing to see.

Getting off the Couch: Part 1

2009-06-27T01:39:00.018-04:00

The couch being whatever that place is, that magnetized, attractive, comfortable metaphorical piece of furniture that keeps you from doing what you know you want to do...

The other night I got an e-mail from KO who was talking about a movie she'd gone to see, Every Little Step*, a documentary which follows the journey of several dancers through auditions for the 2006 revival of A Chorus Line.

Here's what she wrote in response to seeing the film:

When I was about 13 to 16 my dad used to take me to Broadway shows, and when I saw A Chorus Line (I think in '77 or '78)—that's what I wanted....It was so great to see these dancers that weren't all tall, skinny, flat-chested ballet types. I started taking jazz classes...I used to play the parts of the show in my basement, I had the album and would sing the songs when no one was home. But, being horribly shy, with no self esteem and certainly no one at home encouraging me—I shoved it to the back of my mind and whenever I thought about it—it was with the thought of 'Who were you kidding anyway?'

That last sentence is the most moving to me and the most important. I thought this for years after I quit gymnastics (and I even got to have a little bit of glory before I stopped competing). I didn't get to live my Olympic dream. I considered myself a failure for not staying with it. I don't think that now because I have a different perspective (ie; my body would not have held out), but I do know intimately, as a lot of us do, the sometimes-painful realization that "you can never go back." The really getting that you won't be 15 again. Or 18. That my right hip hurts if I move it a certain way...like in any direction besides straight ahead. That whatever I'm going to be or do has got to start right here with whatever I have and am.

Having said that, the present tense version of "Who were you kidding, anyway?" comes with the territory of living a creative life. For years, that phrase stopped me from doing anything. Writing. Dancing. Keeping a blog. Moving forward with creative projects.

I look at people who are successful—publishing books, performing, getting pieces broadcast on This American Life (ie; Things I Would Like to Do One Day...) And I'd get frozen in the mindset that that success, or even the "doing," was what other people did.

The belief is so specific that I used to imagine that those people all knew something that I didn't, that they got together at secret meetings, that they knew the "special people." But when I cleared all that shit away, I knew the only difference between me and them (in most cases) is that they got off the couch and did it. While I, more less, sat around just wishing I did.

This big, drastic couch period I am talking about for me was after a relationship ended. I was watching television, yup, on my couch, and it was some commercial with hip-hop dancers in it. And I felt the ache I usually did seeing amazing dancers. I want to do that! I could do that, too, if somebody just showed me how. But then "it's too late. I'm too old. I missed my chance." I heard myself. I thought: is that what I'd tell a friend if she told me she was aching to dance? No, I would tell her: go take a class! So that's what I did. I took a hip-hop class. The class led to being asked to be part of a group which led to rehearsing and dancing and competing and performing... it wasn't MTV. But there it was. The dream. (Did I mention I was not 18 doing this? I was 35. Just an FYI).

"Getting off the Couch: Part 2" tomorrow!

*

My Seventies, My Eighties, My Icons, My Stories

2009-06-25T23:11:00.011-04:00

Oh the fairest Farrah.

Story: My sisters and I used to play Charlie's Angels. We had walkie talkies and everything. We'd circumvent our house—while one waited on the deck for our mom to come into the kitchen to stir the soup, the other two would wait on the other side of the house, watching her put fresh pillowcases on pillows. We'd report back and forth: "Mama has arrived in the kitchen. She is now stirring the soup. Do you copy?" "We copy. Oh...Mama has now entered the bedroom. She is removing the pillowcases..." High-danger, high-intensity spy work. My older sis always got to be Farrah. I mean, it wasn't something you could argue since she had the ultimate in feathered bangs....

You're just a product of loveliness,
I like the groove of your walk, your talk, your dress.
I feel your fever from miles around,
I'll pick you up in my car and we'll paint the town....

Story: About five years ago, going through some old boxes at my dad's place, I found my first diary...in it was a short paragraph I'd written during an overnight with my family in San Francisco. I'd been listening to Thriller on the drive up—my first cassette on my first Wakman, and I had what I think was my first musically inspired spiritual experience. We were crossing a bridge or a large overpass where all of San Francisco was spread out before us. And "Wanna Be Startin Something" was blasting in my ears. In the diary I wrote, "On the way here, I listened to Michael Jackson really loud and looked out over the big city. I felt so powerful!"

Assignation

2009-06-24T23:37:00.009-04:00

I'm in the process of writing a short proposal for a Master's colloquium presentation out west--a thing, as a grad advisor, I am asked to do. I'll do something in the spirit of Learning to Love You More--the creative assignment (take a photo of two strangers holding hands, write about a scar and send a picture of it, videotape a reenactment of a favorite scene in a movie, etc).

Having said that, and as practice, I have an assignment for you:
Interview yourself about a memorable date you went on. Take on the persona of an interviewer. So you are not necessarily "you" interviewing you. You are an interviewer who knows nothing about said date. And who finds the subject matter (and you) endlessly fascinating.

Send to me at: lauradidyk1@yahoo.com and I will post right here on outloud (anonymously if you wish).

What are you waiting for? Go interview you. I can't wait to read it.

Bad Boy

2009-06-23T22:14:00.016-04:00

When I was 14, my best friend dated a guy who smoked Camels, wore black Converse high tops and a leather wrist band, and while the wanna-be cool kids like me wore their backpacks slung over one shoulder, this boy didn't even have a backpack. Since I'd never had an actual boyfriend, I was used to being the third wheel. In this case, I didn't mind in the least. I adored him. Eventually, my best friend tired of him and told me, in not so many words, that I could have him if I wanted. He was getting high too much (who wasn't?). He was on the verge of getting kicked out of school (who cared? He sure didn't seem to). "I think he really likes you," she told me. "He always asks about you."

I knew an opportunity when I saw one, so I quietly, without words, made my desires known (we each communicated so many things without actual words, in hindsight I wonder if communicated anything at all). I was just discovering psychedelic drugs. He was one of my guides, and the only one I knew who could ingest enormous amounts of LSD and still carry on a conversation--about the lyrics in that Doors song we loved in which *Jim Morrison crooned about “the end”* or *Janice Joplin and all her hair* or what we’d say to *Jimi Hendrix* if we got to meet him in the afterlife (“S’up,” is what he joked he’d say, with a casual lift of the chin). I worshiped this boy so much that I, a competitive gymnast at the time, failed physical education. After finally getting kicked out of school (for too many absences if I remember right), he'd rebelliously wander the halls, and then linger at the chain-link entrance to the pool smoking, waiting for me to get out of last period--no way was I going to act like I cared enough to don a bathing suit for a grade.

The weekend of my birthday, there was a big party at a friend's place that everyone was going to, but my dad was taking me and a friend to see *Howard Jones* (it was 1986 after all, and things could definitely only get better). The Friday before my birthday, on the stone wall that lined the park where a crew of us hung out, we had our most romantic moment yet. He didn't kiss me, but he gave me his watch to wear for the weekend. It had a Velcro band (again, 1986) and the watch face was big and digital. But I wore it through the entire weekend like the declaration that it was: "S & L 4Ever."

When I got back to school on Monday, I heard from a friend that he got drunk at the party and hooked up with another girl. An older girl. Who wore lots of make up. And denim skirts. Neither of which I could pull off. I was devastated. That was the end, "beautiful friend, the end" (Mr. Morrison had already warned me). We never got to kiss. Or hold hands. Eventually I gave him his watch back along with a note telling him how much I'd liked him and what an ass he was, but then followed it with: "but if you ever change your mind..." Even when my family moved from California to the East Coast at the end of that school year, I hadn't given up. I wrote him a long letter expressing all my unrequited feelings. No reply. You'd think a girl would get the message. I fantasized about the finally that I was sure we'd get to have one day.

In the last dream I had about him in my mid-20s, I was back in California, and we were sledding together in the woods down a snowless hill, cracking up the way you do when you're stoned, or in love. I saw him once more in real life on a return visit. We ran into each other at the park, on the stone wall. He was kind and polite but unromantic. He was nice enough to give me a ride in his truck to the bus stop outside of town. I can't say this for absolute certain, but it's possible that's the most alone we'd ever been, the two of us inside the cab of a truck with eight months and a gear shift between us. The conversation was awkward. I thanked him for the ride. And that was that.

Until today. While I didn't see him in real life, it's as close as some of us get these days: FaceLife. There he was. And wasn't. Staring at him through my computer screen, a fine man with a wife and children, it's hard to really get that it's the same person. Not because he looks different--in that, like me, he's no longer 15--but because I don't worship people now the way I did then. Or if I do, it last for 10 minutes, not 10 years. I kind of miss it, the deep knowing that yes, someone actually could be that perfect. There's an exhilaration to it. Like emotional bungee jumping. But I understand what that kind of worship really is. Then, at 7+8, it was all about him.

Now, I know that there's something almost harmful (albeit necessary?) about that vacuous, yearn-y feeling that can open up inside a person like an elevator shaft. Some of us spend a good part of our adult lives building the elevator, in the basement, so we can get on the thing and take a trip up to ground level...somewhere around our thirtieth year. At least that's what happened for me.

I'm not sure I wanted the guy as much as I wanted, like a friend recently wrote about an artist, to be him. Pure cool. Seemingly confident. Owner of a bad-ass watch.

Seeing his picture today put a period at the end of a very strange ellipses I didn't even know was still trailing after his name. I'll go sledding again with someone in real life. Someday. One day. In the meantime, solo sledding is pretty damn fun.

*Supplemental material*

Friendship: Ain't It Grand?

2009-06-22T19:32:00.002-04:00

Sunday Night

2009-06-21T22:07:00.007-04:00

This is the night of the week when I want to squeeze all I didn't get to during the weekend into these final hours before bed. When I wish there was another weekend before Monday. When my resolutions to go to bed early for once begin to seem unrealistic. And, sometimes, tho I hate to admit it, I start to panic a little. Not enough time, not enough time....

Last night I read this great passage in The Possibility of Everything, a memoir I'm currently reading by Hope Edelman (who has a lovely blog). (The book doesn't come out until September, but I got my hands on a review copy and I haven't been able to stop reading).

Here's the passage about time:

"I heard an interview with an excerpt on the Maya calendar. He was talking about the concept of time acceleration...We use a base-ten system for calculating time, but the Mayans used a vigesimal system, meaning base-twenty math. According to their calculations, each of the Nine Underworlds lasts for exactly one twentieth the time of the one it's built upon. For example, as the man on the radio explained it, the Seventh Underworld, which started in 1755, is 256 years long. The Eighth Underworld, the one we're in now, started on January 5, 1999, and will last for less than thirteen years--which is one twentieth of 256. The ninth and final underworld starts in February 2011 and will last for only 263 days. This is why, the man said, it took 15 billion years for cells to develop but only about a dozen for the Internet to take hold. Because the shifts between periods of light and dark happen twenty times faster in each new underworld, the amount of change that used to take place in a lifetime now occurs in a single year. If it feels as if time is speeding up, the man said, that's because it is."

From The Possibility of Everything by Hope Edelman, pp 112–113, copyright 2009. Random House.

Now I must go read a paragraph or two of E-Tolle. Come back to the Now, baby.

Testing the Waters...

2009-06-20T23:38:00.009-04:00

So last night was my first time taking my new eating intentions out into the world by going to a friend's most amazing underground dinner-party (a.k.a. "pirate restaurants," "ghetto gourmet," "underground supper clubs,"...if you haven't heard of this movement...coolest thing EVER...an individual event includes gourmet-leaning food with local farm-fresh ingredients. And as one collective in Austin, Texas, describes it, these dinners fuse "the intimacy of a dinner party with the ease of a restaurant." Private residence. Elaborate, excellent food. Reasonable requested donation. And new friends!)

So I was at one of these coolest-eating-things-ever events and once I soaked up the coolness of being part of one of these things, it was, I admit, a tad difficult. When I'm home in my own world, cooking my own food, just for moi, it's pretty easy to stay within the lines. And I actually did quite well at the dinner as far as what went into my mouth (though I did have a spring roll the wrapper of which was made out of white rice and had white-rice noodles in them, and I did, accidentally, get some of the main course's white coconut rice onto my fork when I was digging into the string beans).

Some people might say: why deprive yourself? Enjoy! It's just white rice for god's sake, we're not talking about a fish fry. And I know that some people might say that, because I am some people, and I was saying it to myself all night.

It was difficult. No way around it. When the fruit and triple-creme cheese came out and when the lemon cake with berries appeared in front of everyone but me, I felt like crying over my fruit, over my very beautiful, very colorful healthy dessert that was, in the end, just fruit missing that was missing its cake.

But I had to remember why I was and am doing this: Not to be good or pure or even to lose weight. Not so people will think well of me, or feel sorry for me, or so I can feel sorry for myself. I was/am doing it because making such a change is to feel powerful (instead of powerless). It's saying: I'm going to do this for myself because I don't think I can do it, which makes me want to do it even more because the seemingly impossible always exhilarates and motivates and, eventually, in the doing, astounds.

What I've been doing up to now in regards to sustenance wasn't working. Finding out what does work will mean life can be more effortless and my head won't be busy with: Do I have a migraine because I drank too much coffee? Or not enough? Did I not drink enough water? Or did I just eat too much salt? Am I dizzy because I have a tumor or because my adrenal glands are fu'd up because I ate only a scone for breakfast, like, five days in a row?

I'm an appetite in transition so my head is filled with different questions: Can't I just have one bite of that lemon cake? Why deprive myself of something so beautiful made with the loving and skillful hands of a dear friend at this cool event called an "underground dinner"? How much decaf do I have to drink before it actually equals a cup of regular (and, whatever the answer, isn't it just better to have a whole cup of regular and call it a day?)?

When I decided to try this out, I was very clear about why I was trying it out and it made sense (especially paired with a rigorous weekly yoga class and my Friday session with my charming but villainous physical trainer). So I'm just trusting that that me knew what she was talking about when she got us into this. And I guess I owe it to her to see it through, see what's waiting on the other side...

Tonight what was waiting at the end of my drive home from Albany was the 1 ounce of 70% dark chocolate that Dr. Hyman signs off on. Every now and then. Holy yum.

Mike Mills on the Creative Process

2009-06-19T09:19:00.006-04:00

My steadfast creative partner put this on his blog yesterday and I'm copying him by putting it on my blog. Miranda July of No One Belongs Here More Than You (see my blog, Tuesday, June 13) and Me and You and Everyone We Know (my second entry on Thursday, June 15, the Tyrrone Street video) is married to this guy, Mike Mills, who makes album art and directs off-kilter music videos. Here he talks about the creative process. If you can hang in for the last few minutes...I love how he talks about the arc of his creative life. It's so honest and emboldening.

He also says this great thing that I, as an immensely kinesthetic person, so relate to, that when he's making something, he just tries things and tries other things and then eventually something feels right and he just goes with it..."it's a body thing" he says. Amen.

From Ballroom to Modern...

2009-06-18T21:49:00.008-04:00

Had to watch the beautiful Russian Max Kapitannikov get cut from So You Think You Can Dance tonight. A most amazing ballroom dancer (and apparently a lot more...though he didn't show his colors enough on the show...here's a clip of him doing some funky hip-hop Latin fusion...).

Last night, I swooned over Jonathan Platero and Karla Garcia's duet. Jonathan is also a ballroom dancer (Latin) but this is a contemporary piece. What makes it so amazing is that he's never done modern dance in his life. Some gymnastics. But no modern. It's a subtle, quiet performance, but the lifts are gorgeous! Just wade through the first few minutes where they do this silly "get to know" segment, and I'd recommend stopping the video after the routine ends so you don't have to endure the obnoxiousness of the judges...they loved it, but still...the gushing almost ruins the performance:

Needless to say, they made it into the top 3 couples so were safe from elimination.

The Ultimate Goal

2009-06-18T00:57:00.008-04:00

Someone asked me about my blog today. They asked: “What’s your ultimate goal with it?” And it’s a good question. Because I’m a word person and a totally shameless Gogol Bordello fan, the world “ultimate” is what stuck out to me (the title of one of their most, well, ultimate songs). I gave the person a very short, admittedly insincere reply. Not a lie, just an I-can’t-explain-it-really answer. Half-embarrassed that I didn’t really know. And half-resistant to saying what was true since what is true isn’t really a goal so much as a whole bunch of stuff I don't know yet and can't explain.

The real answer would have been to blast this:

Or play this:

Or read the last several lines of Maurice Manning’s poem “Three Truths and One Story”: "There are words and there are deeds, and both/are dying out, dying away/from where they were and what they meant./God save the man who has the heart/to think of anything more sad."

Once, when I was very young, I had to walk the final bottom stretch of El Caminito Road to get to school. Something had happened with a ride, and to wait would have meant being late. So someone’s mother directed me down the road. “Just walk. And watch for cars.” It was a short stretch. But I was small and there was no sidewalk, just a big intimidating fence to my left that lined our town’s private airstrip. On that walk, I became very aware of the sound of my feet in the dirt. The crunching of my sneakers. And then I became very aware that I was aware. And I began to think about death, as I often did, and about infinite which usually scared me, but didn’t on this particular morning, and I thought about what I would be like when I was old, very very old, and I saw myself there. Old me. And young, small me was filled with a certainty that my life was going to be somehow extraordinary. I didn’t have those words then, but I knew.

In other words, the ultimate goal is, y’know, that.

All of it.

Making the Decision

2009-06-16T23:20:00.010-04:00

When I'm not doing what I know I need to do to get and feel better, I totally suck. As a former athlete, I am just not wholly Laura when I am not physically involved in Life. To not suck, I need to be Healthy, or at least need to be heading in the direction of the Top of My Game. I am a crazier lady without strength and prowess. Without them I suffer from a kind of spiritual anemia; it's subtle and chronic so it's easy to get used to.

Making these kinds of changes, getting off the couch and "moving around," are hard. But when I consider the alternative (ahem, not getting off the couch), then easy or hard just can't be part of the equation. The pushing myself up from the cushions just becomes Law. The same way that not drinking is a Law for me. It's powerful to act on your own behalf. Powerful for me to make my bed every morning. Wash my dishes. Get my oil changed. Keep my life going in a way I wasn't able to years ago. And it's been powerful, very recently, to have enacted into legislation the following:

1. Exercise: vigorous yoga classes and a personal trainer.
2. Quitting caffeine and surviving.
3. Cutting out gluten. And sugar. And dairy.
4. Throwing myself into cooking and shopping and cooking some more (and oh, the dishes!!).
5. A new and exciting creative project with a Dear Friend and excellent collaborator.

Even so, yesterday morning, I had a mini-meltdown on my bed before work when I couldn't decide what to wear. Which wasn't really about what I was going to wear or not wear, but about how I'd been exercising, and giving up stuff, and spending all my time washing and chopping vegetables and cooking grains and pretending I like soy milk, and YET, my pants felt no looser.

But I threw on jeans and heels and a pretty top and got in my wagon and drove to work anyway, because I gotta make the bacon.

I went back and forth all day about whether or not I should go to my regular Monday yoga class. I wasn't losing weight after all. Why bother? Until Dear Friend reminded me via an e-mail that bore the subject "pep talk," that weight loss or no, I was getting healthier, and spending more time writing and creating (even when what I'm creating are amazing, healthy meals and not always amazing, healthy essays or stories or poems). Would I rather eat badly, have no energy, and not be creatively inspired? Or be the same weight (especially when the weight I am is really just perfectly fine) and be healthy and more comfortable in my body?

Thankfully, my yoga feet carried me to class. Thank GOD they carried me to class. I broke through the seventh-chakra wall, or something like that. I don't know chakras. Or what #7 is. But I know now that my body is changing. After the class, my body looked different to me. Felt different. Is different.

Here's the deal: I'd been wanting to do yoga for more than 6 months before I actually went to a class. And I'd been wanting to turn my diet around about 1 year before I actually started doing it a few weeks ago. There's power in the suffering it takes to get to the jumping off place. And there's even more power in jumping into a better spot. In making a decision to do it. Like, really do it.

My next decision: Bed. This chick is toast. Actually, she can't be toast...she can be...a sprouted corn tortilla, which sounds ridiculous, so this chick will just simply head to bed. Or be that acorn sprout up there, heading to bed. An acorn sprout in her pjs and socks heading for the covers.

Confession

2009-06-15T21:35:00.005-04:00

Not only have I been watching So You Think You Can Dance but, yes, my please-be-non-judgmental friends and readers, The Bachelorette. I can't help it. I like to watch it. Like driving by an accident. You can't help but look.

I know it's a shallow thang. And I know that there's no way Jillian (or any woman) could know if someone is "the one" in two dates, or in one date on top of a glacier, or on a couch in two minutes at a cocktail party. And I know that it's sort of weird when you think through the whole thing: like how could your soulmate be in a group of dudes that a network has chosen for you? And where's the racial and ethnic diversity? Obama did just get elected right?

There's something about watching the show that feels like a weird kind of practice...What would I do? What would I think about that dude? The wine guy from my hometown in California? Or the bartender from Texas? And why is no one asking her about her? And why doesn't she notice that? My favorite guy decided to leave tonight because he was going to lose his job. Sad. Ed. I'll miss him. (Yes, I have gone as far as thinking about what it would be like to be on such a show. Laura's version. The Thinking-Outloud version. The I'm-37-and-fun-and-single-and-a-whole-bunch-of-other-things version)

Thankfully, I don't really need my own show (tho I'm not completely against it). I go on dates. I have sushi. I go to coffee (well, I go to decaf). I make tentative plans to go bumper boating. I just say yes when I want to, and I go, and I see how I feel. And if I'm not feeling it, I say so. Which has been the hardest part but the best thing to learn how to do in a kind, clear, unapologetic way.

There are always the guys I wish would ask me out, and they are probably the ones that won't ask me out, ever. (And they are the ones that probably shouldn't, for my own good, because they are too busy with their careers or just plain not fit for the phenomenon that is moi. So says a woman who made herself the most amazing Salmon, asparagus, sweet potato, lemon and rosemary dish and wanted to cry for two reasons: 1] because it was so damn good, and 2] because there wasn't anyone to share it with.)

3 lists and 2 recipes

2009-06-14T22:00:00.011-04:00

Today:

1. UltraShake* (thanks Dr. Hyman)
2. Decaf Americano at Haven with K.
3. Lunch with K.O. at the GB Co-op (the company was awesome, the food, so-so...when you're not eating gluten, sugar, or dairy...there's surprisingly little left to eat, even on the Co-op buffet)
4. Took my turn cleaning the apt.
5. Made some Detox Broth** (#2 thanks to Dr. H)
6. Dinner: leftover cashew coconut chicken (with lime and cilantro), baked kale, and a spinach and avocado salad with lemon vinaigrette made from scratch.
7. Digested on the couch and watched Mean Girls and contemplated the redesign of the NY Times Magazine (here's one reader's take)
8. Knew one answer for certain in the Sunday Times crossword: Eno.
9. Posted to my blog.
10. Now going to see what else I can cram in before bed. Choices: a) balance checkbook (which will free up some space in my brain's 'must-do' center), b) nail down my dates for my August Arizona trip (more space freed up), or c) dishes (which actually isn't a choice...now that I have a roommate it's a must-do-now).

Things I didn't do this weekend that I wish I had:

1. Worked on a story I'm in the middle of.
2. Got ahead on my grad student's evals for this semester.
3. Done another yoga session.

What I did do (and am glad I did):

1. All of the above 10 things.
2. Grocery-shopped my ass off and cooked a lot, which is actually a lot for one weekend.
3. Continued to not drink caffeine (at least not the full-powered stuff) or eat sugar.
4. Realized once again that the number of things I think I can get done in a day is usually pretty unrealistic.

*How to make an UltraShake

• 2 scoops rice protein powder
• 1-tbsp organic combination flax and borage oil
• 2-tbsp ground flaxseeds
• 1/2-cup frozen or fresh non-citrus fruit, such as cherries or bananas
• 6-8 oz. filtered water
• Ice
• 1-tbsp nut butter, such as almond or pecan butter (optional)

Blend all ingredients together to desired thickness.

**How to make UltraBroth

Chop up 6 cups of vegetables including sweet potato, dark leafy greens (I used kale), onion, turnips or parsnips, carrots, and add spices (I added: oregano, lemongrass, a couple bay leaves, and a bunch of fresh ginger).

Bring to a boil and then simmer for a few hours. Drain into a container. 2-3 cups a day. Keeps for about a week.

Miranda July outtakes

2009-06-13T19:54:00.012-04:00

After a little viniyoga with Jason Brown in my bedroom (seriously...yoga, with JBrown on my Ipod dock, on my yoga mat next to the bed with just enough room to do a sufficient vinyasa series). Mucho sweat. Ocean breathing. Crazy crazy tight right hip. Like, it's-never-been-this-tight-ever-before tight. I'm sure one or two manifestation psychologists would tell me this means something intense...I'm up for that. I'm always up for that.

Instead tho, I'm going to follow yesterday's thread (read: creativity, inspiration, getting off the couch and just doing it) and offer some of my favorite words from No One Belongs Here More Than You by Miranda July, the ultra-creative, you-almost-want-light-but-clunky-things-to-rain-down-on-her-and-cause-her-just-a-little-discomfort-because-she's-so-damn-original-and-brave-and-talented-and-relatively-young-but-she-inspires-you-so-much-in-her-creative-experiments-that-you-have-to-thank-her-instead-for-leading-the-way writer, performer, and filmmaker. Even when she has what the NY Times called "the cringe factor," I still love her because no matter what, she is sincere. To who she is. To what she does. To her imagination. Her weirdness. And that's what I want. To break through that 75th wall into a place where I just try stuff and never give up. Reading Miranda J, watching her films, etc, helps me remember that if I don't experiment, I really will end up on the couch watching TV and eating one baby ice cream sandwich after another.

So here's some MJ:

From "This Person"

Somebody somewhere is shaking with excitement because something tremendous is about to happen to this person....Possibly there is some kneeling, such as when one is knighted....Math teachers are saying that math was just a funny way of saying "I love you"...and the chemistry and PE teachers are also saying it....This person feels the sudden need to check her post office box. It is an old habit, but if everything is going to be terrific from now on, this person still wants mail.

From "Something That Needs Nothing"

We were anxious to begin our life as people who had no people.

Everything we had thought of as The World was actually the result of someone's job. Each line on the sidewalk, each saltine.

[re: a bad cockroach situation]
He said he would send someone over but that we shouldn't get our hopes up.
Why not?
Well, It's not just your apartment; the whole building's infested.
Maybe you should have them do the whole building, then.
It wouldn't do any good; they'd just come over from other buildings.
It's the whole block?
It's the whole world.

From "Making Love in 2003"

[re: an older woman with a younger man]
We learned to be discreet. It helped that nobody really cares about anyone but themselves anyway. They check to make sure you aren't killing anyone, anyone they know, and then they go back to what they were saying about how they think they might be having a real breakthrough in their relationship with themselves.

...I felt hunger. The body's expression of hope.

From "Ten True Things"

She seemed to have room for me; she never turned away in the pauses that allow for turning away....she never recoiled...This is a quality I look for in a person, not recoiling. Some people need a red carpet rolled out in front of them in order to walk forward into a friendship. They can't see the tiny outstretched hands all around them....

From "How to Tell Stories to Children"

It may have been in self-defense that Lyon's aggravated preteen body replaced itself with an unaggravated, rather amazing woman's body in the summer after her freshman year of high school. I thought this elegantly bubble-bottomed response was brilliant; I could not have said it better myself.

Nor could I. So I will stop blogging and go make some food courtesy of a Mark Hyman recipe and see what else the night has in store.

Namaste...and shit.

Shut up and dance

2009-06-12T09:18:00.012-04:00

Last night was a Bhangra class that Albany-J and I went to. Unfortunately, we didn't get to wear the awesome outfits [I picked the following video off YT for its homespun flavor.]:

Tonight? Salsa on2 [I will not be rocking the back-strapped shirt...and nor will Frankie Martinez, a sizzly figure in the mambo world whose upper body looks like he could be checking his mail while he's dancing but his lower body is like a whole other story, be teaching; I think it's a 60-year-old guy with longish hair and a penchant for multiple turns...if it's the teacher I'm thinking of. Laura will be taking half a Dramamine before class]:

Attack of Movement

2009-06-11T08:26:00.018-04:00

Real, unadulterated, unmanufactured inspiration comes when I least expect it--the cliche of all cliches. But, contrary to what the heart says, inspiration heats up the more one follows the ache--the exact thing we [read: I] want to avoid.

For example, I have a difficult time watching gymnastics on TV. When I watch the little ones flipping and spinning and balancing, my entire body remembers and longs for that kind of strength and control again. It makes me wish I were 15, not 37. (Here's young me in my golden years of competition.)

My body--and I suppose I'm talking about the creative impulse within the body--doesn't know that it's been 22 years since I've been able to move like that.

I've been watching So You Think You Can Dance. It's a two-hour ache fest. I don't want to watch it. Julia Cameron, The Artist's Way lady, she says that particular type of ache means something--creative envy most of all. Not watching the show would be avoiding what I know is in me. And it happened, by the way, the inspiration, the white horse, whatever you want to call it, when I watched 17-year-old Nathan Trasoras' audition. I was completely caught off guard and found myself half-weeping on my couch:

So I looked him up on YouTube and found more. And watched more. And cried more. Just like how Gogol Bordello has lit a fire in me--in a way that can't really be accounted for--Nathan's dancing has had me crying, and writing e-mails to friends, one to Nathan on Facebook, and another to my college dance teacher (now friend) who, dancing strong at the age of 49, reminds me that it's never too late and, bless her, pointed out, from having choreographed for me and danced with me and seen me move, that she could see me in Nathan's dance, his "attack of movement, clean lines, the feeling behind what he does." So Laura's going to make a dance. Even if the dance turns out to be some big creative mess. Face everything, avoid nothing. Isn't that the spiritual warrior's credo? Something like that...

Here's Nathan again. I'm fine if it doesn't move you like it moves me. Every time I watch this, I'm inexplicably filled. And, as we know with creative fire, it can't be explained or manufactured, which is what makes my reaction so awesome:

We have bodies.
Damn.

Key Lime Kream Bars

2009-05-31T10:53:00.016-04:00

Yes, "K" as in AmeriKa, as in Kosmic, as in some facsimile of "Kream." I've caught the "I-want-to-revolutionize-my-diet" bug. Sometimes (like now), it's when my vertigo starts being a more regular visitor that does it, or even more motivating: when I can't get the entirety of myself into my summer pants.

Step 1: put down caffeine. CHECK. (I could just stop here and call it revolution won. Coffee is mi amor. I judge people who take their coffee weak. And if I find myself without it--and accompanying half-and-half--I can find myself in the midst of a morning cry.)

Step 2: put down sugar (and simultaneously find sweet things that satisfy); the former I am working on, the latter: CHECK!

I found a recipe that I now know is going to serve as the doorway into my continuing diet revolution:

Ani Phyo's Frozen Key Lime Kream Bars

4 cups cashews (I used roasted because I couldn't find raw in bulk)
1/2 cup liquid coconut oil (I got the solid stuff, y'know cuz that's really the only kind you can buy in the store, and I warmed it at the lowest possible temperature--it melts at 76 degrees)
1/2 cup agave syrup
1 cup lime juice
1 cup water (as needed)

Blend. And put into a pie dish and freeze (approx 3 hours). If you have a regular blender like I do, I'd do it in two batches.

Note Ingredients en total are a tad on the pricey side. But they do keep for weeks in the freezer.

And I think of what Thich Nhat Hanh says to people who complain that eating "healthy" and organic is too expensive: Simple. Chew slower. Eat less.

I tried a small square this morning and I'm now going to put more trust into Ani Phyo (she's got a YouTube cooking show, too!). That tart lime taste. The consistency. The cold.

YUM!!!

Breathing

2009-05-23T11:09:00.004-04:00

So, I've started going to a personal trainer (piggy-backing on a workmate's sessions). Ah, to be so sore between your shoulder blades that you can't take a true deep breath--now that's working out.

Seriously, I didn't even make it half-way through the weighted jump roping before I had to go stand over the sink in the bathroom because I was sure something was going to come out of me. Even thinking of the Biggest Loser finale didn't help this time. My tough-chick workmate told me "just work through the nausea, Chas [trainer] will clean it up." If I hadn't felt so bad, I would have laughed.

Now it's Saturday and the breeze is coming in through the window and I'm trying to get my mind around creating a website for myself, which I'm noticing is the perfect distraction for sore upper back muscles and for actually writing the book that I hope to eventually publish and put on the website.

So I better go do some actual writing...but I'm stuck with the thing, and not feeling a lot of faith, which is usually when I start getting other ideas, for whole other books I should write TODAY. But I digress, and I procrastinate; off I go.

Recession 101

2009-05-18T08:48:00.005-04:00

So I'm driving East on I-90 on Friday night to pick a friend up from the airport and glance up at the swanky digital billboard that's right after the State Buildings Exit. Here's what I see:

Then when I'm driving West on Sunday after dropping my friend off at the airport, there's another version:

So I did some research. I googled "Recession 101" and nothing. I added "digital billboards" to that search, nothing, then "Albany, NY"...nothing. Finally I google the whole "stop obsessing about the economy" phrase and wa-la, a link to the Outdoor Advertising Association of America. Here's a link to the full slideshow.

This blogger says: AWESOME.

drink up

2009-05-11T23:00:00.007-04:00

This is in the Price Chopper in Great Barrington, MA, where I shop. I always find myself drawn to this sign, to the colorful drinks on the shelves beneath it, even though I'd never buy one. I'm sort of in awe of the sign I think. I keep being surprised it's still there. That no Price Chopper manager has walked by the aisle, glanced up and thought "hey...what the hell? Who put that sign up there?"

(A guy, not a manager, walked by right after I took this picture. He was wearing a black t-shirt. On the back was a picture of Osama Bin Laden. The headline above the pic said "Dying Fetus" and underneath the pic in smaller writing it said, "one shot, one kill." That guy could use a keg or two of the New Age beverage is what I say.)

Bag Head

2009-05-09T22:09:00.002-04:00

As long as we're on the theme of animals. F(*k. This made me laugh.

Quimby the Mouse and Andrew Bird

2009-05-08T10:48:00.004-04:00

From the This American Life: Live! stream they broadcasted this and last month in movie theaters throughout the land.

Inarguably dark, but it's a beautiful song, and Chris Ware's work is something.

Quimby The Mouse from This American Life on Vimeo.

Sunday Sunday...da..da..da..da...

2009-05-03T10:32:00.006-04:00

Have not successfully fought off cold. Am surrendering to bed. With my laptop. Started reading Proust Friday night. Remembrance of Things Past.

But my grandmother, in all weathers, even when the rain was coming down in torrents and Francoise had rushed indoors with the precious wicker armchairs, so that they should not get soaked, you would see my grandmother pacing the deserted garden, lashed by the storm, pushing back her grey hair in disorder so that her brows might be more free to imbibe the life-giving draughts of wind and rain. She would say, "At last one can breathe!"

Go grandma. And, of course, there is the genius of controlling a sentence that long (and this is a short one for Proust); look at everything that comes across in that short space: image, character, weather. It seems so natural it's easy to miss. I know I'll miss a lot of what's referenced throughout this book--I'm guessing...wars, historical leaders, cultural dog-ears--given my spotty study of literature, especially non-American, and especially because most of what I've studied has been out of context of historical narrative. Here's a book. Here's another book. And another. Disconnected dots. But I'll forge ahead with Proust's story. I've stayed away from some tomes long enough thinking I won't get all there is to be gotten. Here I go. Proust on a late Sunday morning, with a cold. Then I'm going to watch me a really bad Michelle Pfeiffer movie. Cuz that's the way I roll.

Saturday list

2009-05-02T11:54:00.005-04:00

The roommate made delicious banana pancakes this morning for breakfast. I can't remember the last time I had pancakes.

Clothes are in washer (a washing machine in the next room!).

More coffee to come.

A cold to fight off (the coffee ought to help).

A decision to make about whether or not to go to New York City tomorrow (considering cold and late-night return and big week ahead).

An essay to work on (where is it going? and how long will I go on? and how will it end?)

Dreams last night of unlikely friends pairing up in strange cities and getting married ("But you guys don't even really know each other!" I'm saying, in a cafe somewhere in the Middle East. I'm thinking: he is already married and reads philosophy and can't stand the New Age and she likes to burn sage and says things like the "four directions" and "Earth Mother." "You should at least live together first!" I'm shouting. But I'm like the person who returns from the afterlife...no one can hear or see me.). In the dream, I become more interested in life outside the cafe, all the browns and bustle and dust. Rickshaws. There were definitely rickshaws.

More boxes to sort through.

An ailing orchid to save.

But first, more coffee for that cold.

National Poetry Month, Day 30: W. S. Merwin

2009-04-30T23:07:00.002-04:00

And this, the loveliest poems, on the last day of National Poetry Month. Adieu to the serial poem posting... ah, but this:

Thanks
by W. S. Merwin

Listen
with the night falling we are saying thank you
we are stopping on the bridges to bow for the railings
we are running out of the glass rooms
with our mouths full of food to look at the sky
and say thank you
we are standing by the water looking out
in different directions.

back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging
after funerals we are saying thank you
after the news of the dead
whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you
looking up from tables we are saying thank you
in a culture up to its chin in shame
living in the stench it has chosen we are saying thank you
over telephones we are saying thank you
in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators
remembering wars and the police at the back door
and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you
in the banks that use us we are saying thank you
with the crooks in office with the rich and fashionable
unchanged we go on saying thank you thank you

with the animals dying around us
our lost feelings we are saying thank you
with the forests falling faster than the minutes
of our lives we are saying thank you
with the words going out like cells of a brain
with the cities growing over us like the earth
we are saying thank you faster and faster
with nobody listening we are saying thank you
we are saying thank you and waving
dark though it is

National Poetry Month, Day 29: Tim Earley

2009-04-29T21:57:00.002-04:00

POEM
by Tim Earley

Given the preponderance
of grass and sun

how could I be
anything more

than what
I am

which is a people
and I agree to agree that this

is lovely that day
is blue

and curving and better than
yesterday and walking through

the widowed light of a strange
hallway your shoulders

say things lots of things the most
things I’ve heard

so far yet to this point but there’s
always the next moment and

we’ll be people then too
and possibly walking but not forever

therefore the entire arrangement
is actually quite nice your shoulders

going on and on that way

National Poetry Month, Day 28: "She"

2009-04-28T18:38:00.001-04:00

A different kind of poetry, of the "found" variety. I couldn't resist.

"They don't want to do nothing. They want me to keep the box of rocks. I'm not buying a box of rocks for $138."
--Jodi Wykle, mother of boy who opened a new Nintendo DS to find...well, rocks (and a Chinese newspaper).

National Poetry Month, Day 27: Matthew Rohrer

2009-04-27T12:45:00.003-04:00

This comes from a blog called Starting Today: Poems for the First 100 Days, that has been posting poems written especially for and during the first 100 days of Obama's administration. You can visit the site and read like 99 other poems. I liked this one a lot:

Poem
by Matthew Rohrer

On Tuesday at noon the
sun suddenly came out I
swear I said to my
daughter something was happening but
what and the stars don't
care about us who we
elect or when we listen to
the radio and hear it
say President Obama is going
to shut down the prison
the stars don't care they
are forever exploding hydrogen atoms
slowly depleting dying like us
to them if they thought
at all they'd think everything
we do is in prison
the president said we could
write poems again saying "president"
that people would have to
think about not just understand
like he said "science is
coming, people" to which my
son said "did he say
science?" I said "I know
it's hard to believe but
the new president said science"

Matthew Rohrer (Brooklyn, NY) is the author of five books, most recently Rise Up, by Wave Books. A chapbook They All Seemed Asleep was just published by Octopus Books. Forthcoming is A Plate of Chicken by Ugly Duckling.

National Poetry Month, Day 25: Emily Dickinson

2009-04-25T18:43:00.009-04:00

[my life closed twice before its close]
by Emily Dickinson

My life closed twice before its close;

It yet remains to see

If Immortality unveil

A third event to me,

So huge, so hopeless to conceive,

As these that twice befell.

Parting is all we know of heaven,

And all we need of hell.

National Poetry Month, Day 24: Jane Kenyon

2009-04-24T18:54:00.001-04:00

Happiness
by Jane Kenyon

There’s just no accounting for happiness,
or the way it turns up like a prodigal
who comes back to the dust at your feet
having squandered a fortune far away.

And how can you not forgive?
You make a feast in honor of what
was lost, and take from its place the finest
garment, which you saved for an occasion
you could not imagine, and you weep night and day
to know that you were not abandoned,
that happiness saved its most extreme form
for you alone.

No, happiness is the uncle you never
knew about, who flies a single-engine plane
onto the grassy landing strip, hitchhikes
into town, and inquires at every door
until he finds you asleep midafternoon
as you so often are during the unmerciful
hours of your despair.

It comes to the monk in his cell.
It comes to the woman sweeping the street
with a birch broom, to the child
whose mother has passed out from drink.
It comes to the lover, to the dog chewing
a sock, to the pusher, to the basketmaker,
and to the clerk stacking cans of carrots
in the night.
It even comes to the boulder
in the perpetual shade of pine barrens,
to rain falling on the open sea,
to the wineglass, weary of holding wine.

National Poetry Month, Day 23: Robert Frost

2009-04-23T08:38:00.005-04:00

I memorized this poem for a class in grad school and had the experience with memorization that I'd heard other poets talk about. I came to understand the poem in a way I never would have otherwise. I think when I first read it, I had no idea what was going on, but I loved the title and the way it turns the poem at the end.

For Once, Then, Something
by Robert Frost

Others taunt me with having knelt at well-curbs
Always wrong to the light, so never seeing
Deeper down in the well than where the water
Gives me back in a shining surface picture
Me myself in the summer heaven godlike
Looking out of a wreath of fern and cloud puffs.
Once, when trying with chin against a well-curb,
I discerned, as I thought, beyond the picture,
Through the picture, a something white, uncertain,
Something more of the depths--and then I lost it.
Water came to rebuke the too clear water.
One drop fell from a fern, and lo, a ripple
Shook whatever it was lay there at bottom,
Blurred it, blotted it out. What was that whiteness?
Truth? A pebble of quartz? For once, then, something.

National Poetry Month, Day 22: Robert Pinsky

2009-04-22T18:23:00.004-04:00

I was just looking at National Poetry Month from my blog last year and man, I was ambitious! I posted bios and links and a lot of fun commentary. This year, with the NPM posts, I am more reliable but less fun. Shall we call it age? I think in life I have become less reliable and more fun, so maybe that makes up for it. . . .

I was going to first post "Nude Swim," by Anne Sexton, but saw that I posted it last year, and then I was going to post "Ask Me," by William Stafford, but saw that I posted that last year, too. I used up all my favorites! They are timeless, the good ones, but still...a gal ought to stretch herself a little...so... with that in mind, I present this poem, not new to many, but I discovered it only last fall and it flattened me. It has one of the best compound-adjective endings I've ever read. It looks long and dense, but it's worth it. Just read it slow and enjoy:

The Figured Wheel
by Robert Pinsky

The figured wheel rolls through shopping malls and prisons
Over farms, small and immense, and the rotten little downtowns.
Covered with symbols, it mills everything alive and grinds
The remains of the dead in the cemeteries, in unmarked graves and oceans.

Sluiced by salt water and fresh, by pure and contaminated rivers,
By snow and sand, it separates and recombines all droplets and grains,
Even the infinite sub-atomic particles crushed under the illustrated,
Varying treads of its wide circumferential track.

Spraying flecks of tar and molten rock it rumbles
Through the Antarctic station of American sailors and technicians,
And shakes the floors and windows of whorehouses for diggers and smelters
From Bethany, Pennsylvania to a practically nameless, semi-penal New Town

In the mineral-rich tundra of the Soviet northernmost settlements.
Artists illuminate it with pictures and incised mottoes
Taken from the Ten Thousand Stories and the Register of True Dramas.
They hang it with colored ribbons and with bells of many pitches.

With paints and chisels and moving lights they record
On its rotating surface the elegant and terrifying doings
Of the inhabitants of the Hundred Pantheons of major Gods
Disposed in iconographic stations at hub, spoke and concentric bands,

And also the grotesque demi-Gods, Hopi gargoyles and Ibo dryads.
They cover it with wind-chimes and electronic instruments
That vibrate as it rolls to make an all-but-unthinkable music,
So that the wheel hums and rings as it turns through the births of stars

And through the dead-world of bomb, fireblast and fallout
Where only a few doomed races of insects fumble in the smoking grasses.
It is Jesus oblivious to hurt turning to give words to the unrighteous,
And is also Gogol's feeding pig that without knowing it eats a baby chick

And goes on feeding. It is the empty armor of My Cid, clattering
Into the arrows of the credulous unbelievers, a metal suit
Like the lost astronaut revolving with his useless umbilicus
Through the cold streams, neither energy nor matter, that agitate

The cold, cyclical dark, turning and returning.
Even in the scorched and frozen world of the dead after the holocaust
The wheel as it turns goes on accreting ornaments.
Scientists and artists festoon it from the grave with brilliant

Toys and messages, jokes and zodiacs, tragedies conceived
From among the dreams of the unemployed and the pampered,
The listless and the tortured. It is hung with devices
By dead masters who have survived by reducing themselves magically

To tiny organisms, to wisps of matter, crumbs of soil,
Bits of dry skin, microscopic flakes, which is why they are called "great,"
In their humility that goes on celebrating the turning
Of the wheel as it rolls unrelentingly over

A cow plodding through car-traffic on a street in Iasi,
And over the haunts of Robert Pinsky's mother and father
And wife and children and his sweet self
Which he hereby unwillingly and inexpertly gives up, because it is

There, figured and pre-figured in the nothing-transfiguring wheel.

(From The Figured Wheel: New and Collected Poems, 1966-1996, pp. 105--106. First published in Plougshares, 1983)

National Poetry Month, Day 21: Mark Strand

2009-04-21T23:59:00.002-04:00

Hopefully these will be the last...(for winter, I mean).

Lines For Winter
by Mark Strand

Tell yourself
as it gets cold and gray falls from the air
that you will go on
walking, hearing
the same tune no matter where
you find yourself --
inside the dome of dark
or under the cracking white
of the moon's gaze in a valley of snow.
Tonight as it gets cold
tell yourself
what you know which is nothing
but the tune your bones play
as you keep going. And you will be able
for once to lie down under the small fire
of winter stars.
And if it happens that you cannot
go on or turn back and you find yourself
where you will be at the end,
tell yourself
in that final flowing of cold through your limbs
that you love what you are.

National Poetry Month, Day 20: Naomi Shihab Nye

2009-04-20T23:07:00.005-04:00

Two Countries
by Naomi Shihab Nye

Skin remembers how long the years grow
when skin is not touched, a gray tunnel
of singleness, feather lost from the tail
of a bird, swirling onto a step,
swept away by someone who never saw
it was a feather. Skin ate, walked,
slept by itself, knew how to raise a
see-you-later hand. But skin felt
it was never seen, never known as
a land on the map, nose like a city,
hip like a city, gleaming dome of the mosque
and the hundred corridors of cinnamon and rope.

Skin had hope, that's what skin does.
Heals over the scarred place, makes a road.
Love means you breathe in two countries.
And skin remembers--silk, spiny grass,
deep in the pocket that is skin's secret own.
Even now, when skin is not alone,
it remembers being alone and thanks something larger
that there are travelers, that people go places
larger than themselves.

National Poetry Month, Day 19: Joe Brainard

2009-04-19T17:12:00.005-04:00

Here's an excerpt from Joe Brainard's moving collaged memoir, I Remember, from 1975.

I remember the first time i got a letter that said "After Five Days Return To" on the envelope, and I thought that after I had kept the letter for five days I was supposed to return it to the sender.

I remember the kick I used to get going through my parents' drawers looking for rubbers. (Peacock.)

I remember when polio was the worst thing in the world.

I remember pink dress shirts. And bola ties.

I remember when a kid told me that those sour clover-like leaves we used to eat (with little yellow flowers) tasted so sour because dogs peed on them. I remember that didn't stop me from eating them.

I remember the first drawing I remember doing. It was of a bride with a very long train.

I remember my first cigarette. It was a Kent. Up on a hill. In Tulsa, Oklahoma. With Ron Padgett.

...

I remember how good a glass of water can taste after a dish of ice cream.

I remember when I got a five-year pin for not missing a single morning of Sunday School for five years (Methodist.)

I remember when I went to a "come as your favorite person" party as Marilyn Monroe.

National Poetry Month, Day 18: Robin Behn

2009-04-18T14:12:00.005-04:00

Gray Bird
by Robin Behn

Fathoms down, the whale
makes its song for the Other,
fathoms down and fathoms

upon fathoms far away.
The sound ranges out
like underwater mountains,

summits smoothed
by rain falling through
rain through deeper rain.

In the nearness small fish
flash and turn turn
and flash flash and turn.

But the mountains
in the background are still
in the background,

and something moves
along the dip and dome of ridge.
It is like the moon,

no, Neptune lapping
earth one and a half
times in this our life.

It takes the deep keen ear
and the gray heart
of the Other to hear it,

the way you have to turn
into earth
to feel earth turn.
Faith has a slow pulse.
Monks may know,
or those in steady pain.

We met every two years.
But now the undulation of our joy
lengthens to ten.

Around us,
our own lives
flash. Flash, and turn

away from this Other thing
whose crest and depth
undoes us.

Barnacled, sea-strewn pulse
confirming an
existence.

National Poetry Month, Day 16: Edna St. Vincent Millay

2009-04-16T08:22:00.008-04:00

I'm skipping right over the fact that I've skipped a day here and a day there this month....and present you with a favorite.

There are no words for Ms. Millay. Except hers.

Only until this cigarette is ended
by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Only until this cigarette is ended,
A little moment at the end of all,
While on the floor the quiet ashes fall,
And in the firelight to a lance extended,
Bizarrely with the jazzing music blended,
The broken shadow dances on the wall,
I will permit my memory to recall
The vision of you, by all my dreams attended.
And then adieu,--farewell!--the dream is done.
Yours is a face of which I can forget
The colour and the features, every one,
The words not ever, and the smiles not yet;
But in your day this moment is the sun
Upon a hill, after the sun has set.

National Poetry Month, Day 14: C.D. Wright

2009-04-14T22:14:00.001-04:00

Personals
by C.D. Wright

Some nights I sleep with my dress on. My teeth
are small and even. I don't get headaches.
Since 1971 or before, I have hunted a bench
where I could eat my pimento cheese in peace.
If this were Tennessee and across that river, Arkansas,
I'd meet you in West Memphis tonight. We could
have a big time. Danger, shoulder soft.
Do not lie or lean on me. I'm still trying to find a job
for which a simple machine isn't better suited.
I've seen people die of money. Look at Admiral Benbow. I wish
like certain fishes, we came equipped with light organs.
Which reminds me of a little known fact:
if we were going the speed of light, this dome
would be shrinking while we were gaining weight.
Isn't the road crooked and steep.
In this humidity, I make repairs by night. I'm not one
among millions who saw Monroe's face
in the moon. I go blank looking at that face.
If I could afford it I'd live in hotels. I won awards
in spelling and the Australian crawl. Long long ago.
Grandmother married a man named Ivan. The men called him
Eve. Stranger, to tell the truth, in dog years I am up there.

National Poetry Month, Day 13: Paul Celan

2009-04-13T08:35:00.002-04:00

O Little Root of a Dream
by Paul Celan
Translated by Heather McHugh and Nikolai Popov

O little root of a dream
you hold me here
undermined by blood,
no longer visible to anyone,
property of death.

Curve a face
that there may be speech, of earth,
of ardor, of
things with eyes, even
here, where you read me blind,

even
here,
where you
refute me,
to the letter.

National Poetry Month, Day 12: Michael Dickman

2009-04-12T12:17:00.005-04:00

If you have been following my blog this month, you might remember Day 1's poem, "Slow Dance," by Matthew Dickman. The poem below is written by his identical twin brother Michael. There was an article about these two in a recent NYer. And I remembered that the poem below is one I'd saved last year, to return to. I even sent it to a few folks, but I didn't make the Matthew to Michael connection until I read the article. In any case, here it is. A poem I covet.

We Did Not Make Ourselves
by Michael Dickman

We did not make ourselves is one thing
I keep singing into my hands
while falling
asleep

for just a second

before I have to get up and turn on all the lights in the house, one after the other, like opening an Advent calendar

My brain opening
the chemical miracles in my brain
switching on

I can hear

dogs barking
some trees
last stars

You think you’ll be missed
it won’t last long
I promise

--

I’m not dead but I am
standing very still
in the back yard
staring up at the maple
thirty years ago
a tiny kid waiting on the ground
alone in heaven
in the world
in white sneakers

I’m having a good time humming along to everything I can still remember
back there

How we’re born

Made to look up at everything we didn’t make

We didn’t
make grass, mosquitoes
or breast cancer

We didn’t make yellow jackets

or sunlight

either

--

I didn’t make my brain
but I’m helping
to finish it

Carefully stacking up everything I made next to everything I ruined in broad

daylight in bright
brainlight

This morning I killed a fly
and didn’t lie down
next to the body
like we’re supposed to

We’re supposed to

Soon I’m going to wake up

Dogs
Trees
Stars

There is only this world and this world

What a relief
created

over and over

National Poetry Month, Day 11: William Carlos Williams

2009-04-11T10:16:00.004-04:00

Not one of his famous. But one I love nonetheless.

Tract
by William Carlos Williams

I will teach you my townspeople
how to perform a funeral
for you have it over a troop
of artists—
unless one should scour the world—
you have the ground sense necessary.

See! the hearse leads.
I begin with a design for a hearse.
For Christ's sake not black—
nor white either — and not polished!
Let it be whethered—like a farm wagon—
with gilt wheels (this could be
applied fresh at small expense)
or no wheels at all:
a rough dray to drag over the ground.

Knock the glass out!
My God—glass, my townspeople!
For what purpose? Is it for the dead
to look out or for us to see
the flowers or the lack of them—
or what?
To keep the rain and snow from him?
He will have a heavier rain soon:
pebbles and dirt and what not.
Let there be no glass—
and no upholstery, phew!
and no little brass rollers
and small easy wheels on the bottom—
my townspeople, what are you thinking of?
A rough plain hearse then
with gilt wheels and no top at all.
On this the coffin lies
by its own weight.

No wreathes please—
especially no hot house flowers.
Some common memento is better,
something he prized and is known by:
his old clothes—a few books perhaps—
God knows what! You realize
how we are about these things
my townspeople—
something will be found—anything
even flowers if he had come to that.
So much for the hearse.

For heaven's sake though see to the driver!
Take off the silk hat! In fact
that's no place at all for him—
up there unceremoniously
dragging our friend out to his own dignity!
Bring him down—bring him down!
Low and inconspicuous! I'd not have him ride
on the wagon at all—damn him!—
the undertaker's understrapper!
Let him hold the reins
and walk at the side
and inconspicuously too!

Then briefly as to yourselves:
Walk behind—as they do in France,
seventh class, or if you ride
Hell take curtains! Go with some show
of inconvenience; sit openly—
to the weather as to grief.
Or do you think you can shut grief in?
What—from us? We who have perhaps
nothing to lose? Share with us
share with us—it will be money
in your pockets.
Go now
I think you are ready.

National Poetry Month, Day 9: Eugene Hutz

2009-04-10T09:15:00.005-04:00

I've been revisiting Gogol Bordello the way I used to...and decided to stretch the definition of poetry for yesterday's post. This short video makes me feel the same way that a perfect poem does...

National Poetry Month, Day 8: Marie Howe

2009-04-08T20:33:00.007-04:00

One of my all-time favorite living poets. So I'm offering two short ones by Ms. Howe.

Part of Eve's Discussion

It was like the moment when a bird decides not to eat from your hand, and flies, just before it flies, the moment the rivers seem to still and stop because a storm is coming, but there is no storm, as when a hundred starlings lift and bank together before they wheel and drop, very much like the moment, driving on bad ice, when it occurs to you your car could spin, just before it slowly begins to spin, like the moment just before you forgot what it was you were about to say, it was like that, and after that, it was still like that, only all the time.

From The Good Thief, Persea Books 1988

The Gate

I had no idea that the gate I would step through
to finally enter this world

would be the space my brother's body made. He was
a little taller than me: a young man

but grown, himself by then,
done at twenty-eight, having folded every sheet,

rinsed every glass he would ever rinse under the cold
and running water.

This is what you have been waiting for, he used to say to me.
And I'd say, What?

And he'd say, This—holding up my cheese and mustard sandwich.
And I'd say, What?

And he'd say, This, sort of looking around.

From What the Living Do by Marie Howe. © 1997

National Poetry Month, Day 7: Walt Whitman

2009-04-07T23:18:00.006-04:00

Can't go too long into April without dishing out some Whitman...these classic stanzas at that:

Song of Myself I
by Walt Whitman

I Celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.

My tongue, every atom of my blood, form'd from this soil,
this air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and
their parents the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.

Creeds and schools in abeyance,
Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never
forgotten,
I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard,
Nature without check with original energy.

National Poetry Month, Day 6: Mary Oliver

2009-04-06T09:12:00.004-04:00

So, here's the thing. Mary Oliver, Wendell Berry, David Whyte...these were the poets who pulled me into language very young, who said things, specifically about the natural world, that I didn't know you could. They wrote things that at the time made sense to me, and make sense to me still. I don't go to them anymore to inspire me toward the brilliant stanza or the line or even toward poetry in general. BUT they still inspire me toward thoughtfulness and attention and a general kind of spiritual looking-around, a kindness, if you will, toward the world.

I recently participated in a reading in upstate NY. One of the other readers read a poem he'd written that essentially made fun--and fun is an understated adjective in this case--of this kind of poetry, and at Mary Oliver's expense. By "this kind of poetry" I suppose I mean accessible poetry, poetry about the natural world (?), inspirational poetry, poetry that has made its poets successful and well-known, put them on NPR and allowed them to make a living at what they do, poetry that isn't tinged with the kind of snarky cynicism that makes me want to crawl under a rock. As my favorite rocker Eugene Hutz said in an interview last year, "It's too easy to be a cynic. It's too easy to be ironic. It's too easy to be negative...I think that being here on Earth is a gift to make a full use of before whatever the next stage is."

So, with that, I honor Mary Oliver, and all the other poets that don't have to be clever, cryptic, cynical, and ICKY in order to be brilliant:

Cold Poem
by Mary Oliver

Cold now.
Close to the edge. Almost
unbearable. Clouds
bunch up and boil down
from the north of the white bear.
This tree-splitting morning
I dream of his fat tracks,
the lifesaving suet.

I think of summer with its luminous fruit,
blossoms rounding to berries, leaves,
handfuls of grain.

Maybe what cold is, is the time
we measure the love we have always had, secretly,
for our own bones, the hard knife-edged love
for the warm river of the I, beyond all else; maybe

that is what it means the beauty
of the blue shark cruising toward the tumbling seals.

In the season of snow,
in the immeasurable cold,
we grow cruel but honest; we keep
ourselves alive,
if we can, taking one after another
the necessary bodies of others, the many
crushed red flowers.

National Poetry Month, Day 5: Jane Mead

2009-04-05T16:15:00.004-04:00

This woman runs a ranch in Northern California, and I love her poetry. It's often dense, but I like the puzzle of it...the way I have to work to get in there.

The Origin
by Jane Mead

of what happened is not in language—
of this much I am certain.
Six degrees south, six east—

and you have it: the bird
with the blue feathers, the brown bird—
same white breasts, same scaly

ankles. The waves between us—
house light and transform motion
into the harboring of sounds in language.—

Where there is newsprint
the fact of desire is turned from again—
and again. Just the sense

that what remains might well be held up—
later, as an ending.
Twice I have walked through this life—

once for nothing, once
for facts: fairy-shrimp in the vernal pool—
glassy-winged sharp-shooter

on the failing vines. Count me—
among the animals, their small
committed calls.—

Count me among
the living. My greatest desire—
to exist in a physical world.

National Poetry Month, Day 4: Catie Rosemurgy

2009-04-04T11:00:00.007-04:00

I read this poem often, and repetitively, because I understand it more each time. It's gorgeous, and written by a woman who I overlapped with at the University of Alabama.

Love, with Trees and Lightning

by Catie Rosemurgy

I've been thinking about what love is for.
Not the dramatic part where he gathers
until he is as purposeful inside her
as an electric storm. Not when he breaks
into a thanks so bright it leaves her split
like a tree. (How we all jolt back, our picnic
ten shades lighter, our hands clapped over awe
that is too big for our mouths, our raw hearts
more tender now that they're a little burned.)

No, not the connecting and charring part.
(After all, nothing we like to call lightning
stays very long among the branches.)
But the two of them, afterwards, tasting
the electricity. Nibbling the charge
on the ions. When her soul has already
risked coming to meet him at the wide open
window of her skin. When what is left
of his body still feels huge, and he sits draped
in his fine, long coat of animal muscles
but uses all this strength to be human
and almost imperceptible. They curl up,
make their bodies the same size, draw promises
in one another's juices. "You," they say.
I love it when they say that.

Would that they could give a solid reason.
Sometimes they even refuse to try. They make jokes
while cinching their laces—"I'll call soon,"
"You are so sweet." The rank sugar of his breath
doesn't summarize the world for her. "Not you," they say.

And nothing bad has happened. They just turn
the doorknob that has been shining in their hands
the whole time, walk out, and continue to die.
Same as the rest of us. So maybe love
is a form of crying. Of finishing
what autumn leaves always start and turning
a brilliant color before we drift down.

Name one living thing that doesn't
somehow bloom. None of them get to choose
the right conditions. Think of fire, of orchids.
She's already up the street when he feels
his body pale, close, and become insufficient.
"If you go," he says out the door, "I go too."

There is no one like him, but she has no hope
of ever proving it. Instead she stays up
pressing old secrets into his skin and asking
if it hurts. He sets her on top of himself
so he can't leave without her and confesses
to feeling as if he almost matters,
as if he no longer disappears
as soon as he connects with something
receptive on the ground. She says she will
split in half for him a million times.
They bring flowers and carpet and children
into the act, stand by one another's side
for years. They refuse to move, ever. They act
as if they've found the only hospitable
spot on earth. I love it when they do that.

Copyright © 2003 Catie Rosemurgy All rights reserved
from River Styx

National Poetry Month, Day 3: Galway Kinnell

2009-04-04T10:49:00.011-04:00

It's only the first week and I already missed a day! Oh, the keeping up...

This beautiful poem for Day 3 (yesterday) is a suggestion from my new friend Valerie R:

St. Francis and the Sow
by Galway Kinnell

The bud
stands for all things,
even those things that don't flower,
for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;
though sometimes it is necessary
to reteach a thing its loveliness,
to put a hand on its brow
of the flower
and retell it in words and in touch
it is lovely
until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing;
as St. Francis
put his hand on the creased forehead
of the sow, and told her in words and in touch
blessings of earth on the sow, and the sow
began remembering all down her thick length,
from the earthen snout all the way
through the fodder and slops to the spiritual curl of
the tail,
from the hard spininess spiked out from the spine
down through the great broken heart
to the blue milken dreaminess spurting and shuddering
from the fourteen teats into the fourteen mouths sucking
and blowing beneath them:
the long, perfect loveliness of sow.

National Poetry Month, Day 2: Bruce Smith

2009-04-02T09:22:00.009-04:00

This poem was written by a professor who helped guide me through my MFA and is from his book The Other Lover, which was a finalist years back for the National Book Award.

After St. Vincent Millay
by Bruce Smith

When I saw you again, distant, sparrow-boned
under the elegant clothes you wear in your life without me,
I thought, No, No, let her be the one
this time to look up at an oblivious me.
Let her find the edge of the cliff with her foot,
blindfolded. Let her be the one struck by the lightning
of the other so that the heart is jolted
from the ribs and the rest of the body is nothing
but ash. It’s a sad, familiar story
I wish you were telling me with this shabby excuse:
I never loved you anymore
than I hated myself for loving you.

And about that other guy by your side
you left me for. I hope he dies.

National Poetry Month, Day 1: Matthew Dickman

2009-04-01T09:26:00.009-04:00

Happy National Poetry Month! I'm going to attempt this again this year, trying, more or less, to post a poem a day. I am in the midst of moving apartments so it maybe be inconsistent at best. But to start the very first day off, I give you this lovely poem, a new favorite (and you can read a great profile about him and identical twin brother in the most recent NYer):

Slow Dance

by Matthew Dickman

More than putting another man on the moon,
more than a New Year's resolution of yogurt and yoga,
we need the opportunity to dance
with really exquisite strangers. A slow dance
between the couch and dining room table, at the end
of the party, while the person we love has gone
to bring the car around
because it's begun to rain and would break their heart
if any part of us got wet. A slow dance
to bring the evening home. Two people
rocking back and forth like a buoy. Nothing extravagant.
A little music. An empty bottle of whiskey.
It's a little like cheating. Your head resting
on his shoulder, your breath moving up his neck.
Your hands along her spine. Her hips
unfolding like a cotton napkin
and you begin to think about
how all the stars in the sky are dead. The my body
is talking to your body slow dance. The Unchained Melody,
Stairway to Heaven, power-chord slow dance. All my life
I've made mistakes. Small
and cruel. I made my plans.
I never arrived. I ate my food. I drank my wine.
The slow dance doesn't care. It's all kindness like children
before they turn three. Like being held in the arms
of my brother. The slow dance of siblings.
Two men in the middle of the room. When I dance with him,
one of my great loves, he is absolutely human,
and when he turns to dip me
or I step on his foot because we are both leading,
I know that one of us will die first and the other will suffer.
The slow dance of what's to come
and the slow dance of insomnia
pouring across the floor like bath water.
When the woman I'm sleeping with
stands naked in the bathroom,
brushing her teeth, the slow dance of ritual is being spit
into the sink. There is no one to save us
because there is no need to be saved.
I've hurt you. I've loved you. I've mowed
the front yard. When the stranger wearing a sheer white dress
covered in a million beads
slinks toward me like an over-sexed chandelier suddenly come to life,
I take her hand in mine. I spin her out
and bring her in. This is the almond grove
in the dark slow dance.
It is what we should be doing right now. Scraping
for joy. The haiku and honey. The orange and orangutan slow dance.

from the book All American Poem published by APR press

apartment hunting

2009-03-23T19:18:00.005-04:00

...is a little like internet dating. Sounds good, looks good, there might even be a nice e-mail correspondence beforehand, but then you show up, sit across the table from one another, and have a conversation. Reality. It's not for everyone.

Pretty soon they are telling you they don't believe in wireless technology, or sniffing your fleece coat and reporting that if you want to live in their house you'll have to change fabric softeners, and, "I just smoke in my office... I'm sure you can barely tell.." [cough, cough].

Onward...

It seemed beautiful to me

2009-03-08T23:28:00.004-04:00

I read this lovely thing about laughter the other night, in Marilynne Robinson's novel Gilead. The dying narrator, a minister, is walking by two local mechanics standing outside of their garage:

"There they were, propped against the garage wall in the sunshine, lighting up their cigarettes. They're always so black with grease and so strong with gasoline, I don't know why they don't catch fire themselves. They were passing remarks back and forth the way they do and laughing that wicked way they have. And it seemed beautiful to me. It's an amazing thing to watch people laugh, the way it sort of takes them over. Sometimes they really do struggle with it. I see it in church often enough. So I wonder what it is and where it comes from, and I wonder what it expends out of your system, so that you have to do it till you're done, like crying in a way I suppose, except that laughter is much more easily spent."