Saturday, July 12, 2014

Happy in Spite of Myself

It's a perfect July morning in Port Townsend. My friend Diane invited me to meet her for coffee, always a happy way to start a saturday: a dark chocolate mocha latte at Lehani's on Taylor Street while catching up with my dear friend. We had lots to share after her two week visit with her granddaughter, which concluded at a picnic at my house where Caitlin became fast friends with my neighbors' children, playing one spontaneous game after another, the girls walking hand in hand next door to check out the chickens and turtles and dog.

The way things go in a small town, it's easy to have a conversation interrupted with someone dropping by to join in, and of course that happened again today. Something new in my life will wait until another conversation, but I met another of Diane's many friends here as we sat and talked.

And then there was the wedding. Not an actually wedding out on the street, but there in the sunshine in front of Lehani's today we met, not only the usual visitors and their wonderful pooches, but one after another of the beautifully dressed and adorned members of a wedding party. They were heading into the Rose movie theatre, for their ceremony. Everyone looked tip top, from groomsmen to flower girls and then, of course, the bride, sweeping by in her gorgeous antique silk gown, her head wreathed in flowers. Grace is her name. The family is known here for having musically talented children, all grown now. A brother, Paul, walked up to us and chatted a few minutes. Carrying his guitar he said he'd be playing a couple of Beatles tunes, including "I Will."

I want to tell you something. I have been pretty low for a while, in one way. Feeling bad because I've gained a ton of weight…well, fifty pounds or so. Partly, I overeat. But also, where I used to walk 4 or so miles a day here, five or six days a week, now I barely take walks at all. There's no cartilage left in my feet, says the doc, accounting for the pain. Well, and some sort of cyst on the bottom of my right foot isn't helping. In any case, I hear my mother's voice in my head. As she aged she kept chastising herself, saying how lazy she was. She wasn't. She was old, overweight, and tired and unwell. I do not like, at all, feeling that I am like that at 66. Frankly, this last fifty pounds is killing me. Because I already weighed thirty pounds more than I did when I birthed my children, nine months pregnant. So of course I want to lose the excess, as much of it as possible. Today I'll begin again to make healthier choices. And to use an exercise bike someone gave me two weeks ago, which now resides by the front window in my living room. I need energy, and even before I lose much weight, that will increase if I eat the way I do when I feel great and get some daily exercise.

I need energy just to keep up, but also to more fully enjoy my life and to feel, again, like there's still some time ahead of me to do that. I was smart when I moved here and bought a small, manageable house. I am not managing it well but I easily can get to that point. I have this cute little electric truck that I drive all over town now and people who don't even know at me smile and wave everywhere I go. I thought about that this morning as I was driving downtown to meet Diane. She likely rode her bike five miles to town, played basketball hard for an hour before showing up in her Port Townsend Drizzle team shirt to have coffee with me. I can't measure myself by Diane. Or the fortyish woman next door, beautiful and healthy and tending her lush garden. Life dealt each of us different cards and we're each doing the best we can. A sweet little girl in a red dress gave me a hug before I left this morning and her energizer bunny brother flashed a smile. Strangers smiled and waved, young and old. On my way home from downtown, I drove through the park at Fort Worden, down by the beach, watching tourists sun and walk and enjoy their vacations. And I got to come home. Because I live here.

I remember my sis and I, years ago,  were on Block Island for a week's vacation, wishing that someday we could live somewhere as beautiful and special as that. And now I do. And she's coming in a couple of weeks to have a week of vacation with me and her eldest grandson. He'll be at Marine Science Center camp for the week during the days and we'll be having fun, too. I can't wait to share this time with them. So what if I'm behind in my chores around here? So what if I'm not at my best physically at this moment? To be honest, I'm at my best heart and mind-wise and that's pretty darned wonderful.

When I got home today there were flowers in a little vase on my doorstep, from the girl in the red dress, and chard, bunched in a glass of water, from her mom. Health and beauty and the full joy of life
. It's all right here.


Monday, June 23, 2014

Once again, a few minutes ago, I decided to search for my glasses. Nearly invisible, I lost them about two weeks ago and was sure, absolutely sure, they were here in the house. I don't live in a large house, just a little ranch. Yet, like some very bad joke on myself, without my glasses I couldn't find my glasses.

I've been wearing an old pair, badly scraped up and missing a nose piece, but mostly leaving them off around the house. I was more uncomfortable with them on than not.  So just now, when I found my lost glasses, in a little knitting basket on the living room floor near the fireplace, it was as if I hadn't eaten or drunk in two weeks and some kind soul gave me a sip of water and said "there there."

The duality of feeling hugely blessed and fortunate, yet being surprised at how big a thing this recovery was struck me. Then I realized why it was such a big deal. My mom had macular degeneration. And you know, I thought that I had a great deal of empathy for her in that. I thought I understood what she was going through, but I wasn't even close to really getting it. And now, as I slide my found glasses onto my face my heart leaps. I am liberated and comforted and whole again. I realize that for my mom it was all struggle and loss with her vision. She had her moments, one I witnessed as she twisted and turned her head to see the face of a grown grandson come to visit. She searched his face, moving her head around to try to get him into that limited view and when she did she was transformed. It was a little victory for her and a huge enhancement of her rare visit with him. She had seen and recognized his blue eyes.

She saw a flicker of eye and was overjoyed. I get to fill myself up with visual beauty every day, and I take it so for granted. I think that I don't, but this contrast of being without clear vision and now with it again, says otherwise.



Friday, May 2, 2014

Big Poetry Giveaway 2014 Results


Happy Day in May

Thirty five entries went into the bowl and four came out:

Susan Rich will receive Gary Copeland Lilley's Alpha/Zulu

Andrea Beltran will receive William Stafford's The Way It Is (first drawn of those who preferred Stafford's book)

Mary Jensen will receive Kathryn Hunt's Long Way Through Ruin

Faith will receive Sylvia Bowman's  We Met, Once Before


Soon as I have your mailing addresses I will send these out to you all!


Thursday, March 27, 2014

BIG POETRY GIVEAWAY


BIG POETRY GIVEAWAY —  5th. Anniversary Edition!!!
Here we go, beginning our annual celebration of April as Poetry Month, in style. If you love poetry, please leave your name and email address and, if you like, which book you hope to win, in the comments section below. You'll be entered in a drawing to win a book of poetry, for free, including shipping and handling. I'll try not to handle it too much before I send it out to the winner, though. And better still, this blog is one of many participating blogs. Follow the link to find a list of all participants and enter every one you wish to enter, along the left side of Kelli Russell Agodon's blog.
http://networkedblogs.com/VjHyU



Because it's the 5th. Anniversary of the giveaway I feel like giving extra books this year. I have chosen four, so on this particular blog you have four chances to win. 

Alpha Zulu, a book I treasure,  is by 
Gary Copeland Lilley.

Long Way Through Ruin, highly recommended,  is by Kathryn Hunt.

We Met, Once Before, is a beautiful new work, by Sylvia Bowman.

The Way It Is, is one of my favorite books (the title poem is a touchstone piece for me) by William Stafford.

These are not books I am parting with, I promise. I drove downtown today to my local independent bookstore, The Imprint, and bought copies especially for this giveaway. I wanted to give a couple of older favorites and two newer volumes. I hope you'll enjoy my selections. 

After my visit to the Imprint I got the dogs out of the car and walked them down Water Street for a way and then to one of our downtown stretches of beach. Facing the cloudy skies which filled the sky from  Port Townsend to Whidbey, I was reminded how many iterations of beautiful evening light there are, even when the clouds dominate our sky. Their towering darkness threw a light onto the water that left it looking like liquid platinum. It felt like the world around me was breathing beauty onto the surface, gently but with strength. As a poet I try to transform experience and thought and feeling, to have such an impact as that grey light did tonight on the waterfront. The world offers us so much. The least I can do is offer something back. Here you go, dears!