Thriving Together, in Art

We buried a friend last month. She was above all else a mother and an artist. Unique and loved, sorry to leave and ready to go. Her son wrote beautifully about her and especially about her last days. When I am a bit less raw about it all I will write something about natural burial, which brought her closest friends and family together to honor her and our relationships with her. But today I am thinking about three young artists I met twenty-some years ago, in a college campus apartment. Here is a poem I wrote, years later. An example of how art inspires art....though I'm not sure it's finished yet:

Hands

Three easels set up in a college apartment
three student-artists drawing hands.
One of them seems to be getting it true,
the other two point out. Someone says:
“hands are the hardest thing.”

That echo from the past comes to me now
because I can’t stop thinking of your hands,
remembering them, picturing them to the point of
tactile imaginings bringing them real, here and now.

Sam Shepherd man-hands,
sailor hands, builder hands, lover hands –
even resting they hold a lifetime and mine
resting in them look so small that, just to see them
–mine in yours – I am sixteen again, wanting to be your girl.

If I were looking only at hands
a curtain hiding the rest I would know
my sons’ at all their ages, my mother’s, my sister’s.
And yours - I would know yours.

The memory of these three young artists, Dom, Dave and Angi, helped me find my way into a poem. And at middle age they are still painting, having grown into their own styles and expertise. Elizabeth Warren wrote something so perfect about how we see ourselves as Americans. She said no matter how successful we are, we didn't get there alone. That we used what had been around us to help us succeed and that we owe a debt to our country, that we are in this together. She said it better than that and likely you've all read her words.

A year ago I bought some brush paintings by Angi. I've been wanting to change my home atmosphere to something more reflective of who I am today. They are not yet framed but my ideas are coming together and I'm hiring someone to paint the walls first, after years of thinking "I'll get to it soon." So it occurs to me that it's long overdue that I share these three artists with you! Take a look at their lovely work - maybe I'll be connecting new friends to them. Maybe you'll be inspired by them, or even want to hang a piece of theirs in your house, too. Here they are:

http://www.angishearstone.com/

https://www.facebook.com/comics.grrl

https://www.facebook.com/David-Trowbrige-Art-461115844076731/?fref=nf&pnref=story

http://davidtrowbridgeart.com/

http://www.dominicwhitestudio.com

http://

https://www.facebook.com/dominic.white.artist

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.

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.

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!

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! 

The Big Poetry Giveaway: WINNERS

Thanks to all who visited here and entered to win a book of poems to commemorate Poetry month!
As you can see from the photos, I put all of your names in the dragonfly box, stirred and with eyes closed, drew two entries as winners. I even used tweezers to feel more detached as I chose.

Margo Roby, I'll be sending you Mrs. Coffin and Miss Blood, by Sandy Diamond
Rod Wilder, I'll put your new copy of Billy Collins' The Apple that Astonished Paris in the mail.

May you each enjoy your prize!

Best,
Deb

The Big Poetry Giveaway

Spring is creeping in on us. Cherry blossoms decorate the still cold ground and wave pink against the sky. And it's nearly April, Poetry Month. In the past I've distributed poems to strangers as I walked around downtown, part of the Poem in Your Pocket concept of spreading poetry. This year I'm participating in the giveaway. And it's ever so simple. People can visit here and leave a comment and their email contact info for me from now until the end of April. A random drawing will be how I select two winners, sending them each one book of poetry. Since I am unpublished as yet, I offer two of my favorites:

On the left is Miss Coffin and Mrs. Blood, Poems of Art & Madness by Port Townsend Poet 

Sandy Diamond. May Sarton wrote: Begin Sandy Diamond's Miss Coffin and Mrs. Blood and you will have to finish it. As powerful as a long novel...compassionate....a work of art..."

And the book on the right is The Apple That Astonished Paris by Billy Collins. If you've read his collections or more recent books, I think you'll enjoy going back to this one. I loved it enough to buy it twice. : ) 

So there we have it. I'm an unknown and you needn't read my work, but let's keep spreading the love of poetry, together! 

Here is a link to the fabulous Susan Rich's blog where you'll find a list of everyone participating. Enter at all the sites you like! 

http://thealchemistskitchen.blogspot.com/2013/03/sign-up-now-to-participate-in-big.html

yrs,

Deb

It's been a long time since I've posted. In February I turned 65 and you'd think that would have been reason enough to write something for a blog titled Woman of A Certain Age, but no. What can I say about being in this time of life? Let's see. I skipped a rare dance at our Fellowship last week. Dancing doesn't call to me anymore, or if it does, it's a rare flash of a call from a song on the radio, which I rarely turn on, or something I'm playing on a cd, which sparks a spontaneous churning of my body as it tries to recall that old connection between body and feeling and sound. It can be cathartic. It can be breathtaking, in a disheartening sort of way.

So here's what being 65 is meaning to me, besides skipping dances. I have an incredible urge to do things I've been putting off forever. In a two week period when I was home sick with a bug/cold, I cleaned my library out and let go of about 17 grocery bags of books I don't believe I'll ever read or read again. It was not hard. It was freeing and exhilarating. So rather than feel spent, I felt like I wanted to tackle the next thing. 

I ordered blinds for all but two windows in the house. I've wanted to do this for twelve years. I always felt I couldn't afford them. I was not right about that. I was, in fact, wrong. So now I have blinds. I close them at night and the house is kept a little warmer and I feel more snug here, more nested. This is a wonderful cozy feeling. It makes my house feel more like a sanctuary than I've been able to create here since moving in. 

Before the blinds arrived I pulled out those paint samples I bought a year ago, the ones Jeanne Moore, a great person who's really good at finding colors for a space, had chosen for me. She called it a cameo palette and I was anxious to try it out but not anxious enough, apparently. Finally I painted around three large windows to see what the colors would look like. I think I'm really going to like the change, from himalaya green (which I've loved) to a sort of cocoa color in the fireplace/living room; a warm peachy beige in the dining area and a lighter brighter cream in the kitchen. There'll be a deep taupe-rose-like shade on the floating wall in the foyer too. 

While I was about it  I moved the living room furniture around. Finally the seating takes full advantage of the fireplace wall (not pretty but when there's a fire, as there often is, clearly the heart of this home) and makes the room feel like it's finally welcoming and comfortable. This involved moving some pieces out, which shouldn't surprise me. Clutter is a big issue and one I've talked about getting under control/changing for years. 

I moved the computer and newer desk back to the library along with a second sofa my friends Nancy and Earl gave me. This is a small room but it is so cozy now and doesn't feel isolating at all. Being more organized and the presence of the sofa softens it and makes it more inviting. This doubles as my 'tv room' or a place to watch Hulu or movies on my computer. The closeness of the sofa to the screen helps with this. The living room was long and narrow and it was hard to arrange things for multi purpose use, so the computer/tv was never really close enough to the sofa. Now the seating is gathered around the fireplace, which is the natural thing to do...in effect, a long rectangle has a square of seating in front of the fireplace. I can't believe it took me twelve years to figure this out. 

I'm tackling the kitchen next and the closets and the garage and....the realization seems to be that finally I am ready. Ready to de-clutter my life. To let go of more stuff. To please myself. 

The heaviness in my life is lifting. Or I'm pushing it out. And that goes for the body. It's taken me a long time to feel whole and healthy and I've been a compulsive eater all my life, so physical health is threatened by my current weight and condition. I can't walk the miles I used to a couple of years ago without my arthritic feet really acting up, so yesterday I started swimming. It's a beginning. I'm keeping fruit on the counter all the time and eating lots more oranges, pears and apples, the fruits of the season. Now I have got to get my meal portions under control. My hope is that this determined work to change my environment will help me to be as dedicated to treating my body well too. 

Best of all, everything I'm doing is to support a life I truly love. Writing poetry is my passion. I was asked, and honored to be asked, to sing for a fundraiser next month. I declined. When I first moved here and people asked what my passion was I said: writing, singing, acting and photography. What it's come down to twelve years later is the realization that I don't have time and energy to pursue them all. So all I've been doing for much of the past two years is writing. And it really really feels good. I'm creating an environment to feed my health and feelings of fulfillment while I pursue that passion. 

That's where I am. Anyone reading this: I hope this year has started off with you loving yourself and your space and nourishing your life as well as you possibly can. If you feel you're failing, like I did over the weekend, well, start again. You're allowed. 

5x7 Folded Card

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In Cases Like This

In Cases Like This

"It's cases like this that remind firearm owners about the importance of gun safety and making sure their children understand they should never touch firearms without their parents' permission."

The case referenced (Seattle Times, Oct. 26) is that of a four-year-old boy (not in Seattle but in Kitsap County) accidentally shooting his mother with a shotgun. Yes, I said four - not fourteen, but four. 

How could a four-year-old even hold a shotgun, you might wonder? Well, he wasn't holding it. And it wasn't loaded when he walked up to it. This little boy placed a round of live ammunition in the gun, whose bolt was already "pulled back and locked open" while it lay on his parents bed, ostensibly "under a blanket." 

The boy "slipped a shell" into the gun and "pulled the trigger." 

How did he come to have a shell? According to the police: "the boy's 25-year-old father had, at some point, given his son a shell to handle because he was curious about firearms and ammunition."

Really? He was curious? Well, it's good for children to be curious, isn't it? That's how they learn. And we should encourage healthy curiosity. Most of us don't encourage it by giving children live ammo to play with, or maybe that's just me - and everyone I know. To be clear, my former husband and his family were hunters. His was a lifetime NRA hunting family. I'm a vegetarian pacifist, but I really do believe the best we all can do is to live according to our own conscience. And I lived with it because my in-laws were also conscientious and clear about gun safety. My children's father kept his guns locked in cases, not lying around, and ammunition was locked in a separate case from the guns.  

The Sheriff's Office spokesman was quoted in the Seattle Times article as saying no arrests are expected but that if prosecutors decide to file charges it would be "something along the lines of negligence." He noted that the family "has been pretty shaken up by the incident." 

I'm writing with a lot of italics in this piece because what struck me as I read the Seattle Times article was that it matters very much how we say things. How we say things reflects a great deal about how we live and how we treat one another, how we take or don't take responsibility for our actions. And here we have the authorities who are charged with protecting us all giving this Dad a pass in a situation where he clearly and obviously was not only negligent but put his family in harm's way. The authorities might well say they have not given him a pass, that they are taking all appropriate action.  I hope that is true, but their words are not reassuring in this regard. 

At the time the child shot the gun the father was not at home. I imagine that the father did not intend the child to do what he did, but he made it terribly easy for the child to do. Because it's hard to wrap one’s brain around this, I repeat: the gun was on the bed, the child had his live ammo which Daddy had forgotten that he gave him, the bolt was pulled back and locked open. 

"All the kid did was drop the shell in the chamber, touch the bolt release and pull the trigger," the Sheriff's spokesman said. "He had probably seen his dad do it a hundred times."

Fortunately for everyone involved in this case there was a chair between the gun and the mother and the chair took a lot of the impact. The pellet wounds were less severe because of that and she was treated and released from the hospital.

That quote at the top of this page? It's from Dave Workman, who the Seattle Times says is the editor of Gun Week and a nationally recognized firearms authority. Experts are doing such a great job of guiding gun owners about safety issues, aren't they? 

In case you're worried about the little family affected this time, to recap: the 23-year-old mother has pellet wounds in her back, the father is, according to the Sheriff's office and the newspaper's headline, "kicking himself" and I'm guessing the little four-year-old boy is scarred for life. In cases like this, though, that's to be expected. 

Anonymity and Intent

Why be anonymous? I don't get it. I understand the value of stealth, as a friend puts it. He enjoys visiting cities because he can move about in them, among all those people, but still retain his privacy because no one knows him. For instance, he can sit in a coffee shop, undisturbed.

Here's another iteration of anonymity. Someone left an anonymous comment on my blog. It was a useful comment, factual in content and helpful to me because it addressed an error I made. I had relied on a memory which proved faulty and am glad to have the misinformation corrected.

The thing about the written word is that we cannot always catch the tone or subtext of it. However, we often do have an idea of tone and subtext when we know the person whose words we are reading.

In this case the correction seemed to have some attitude embedded. I could almost hear the words "you idiot" attached to the end of each phrase, which may or may  not be an accurate interpretation of tone.

I'm already mortified when I realize I've said something that's not accurate. And my friends know that I'm quick to own my mistakes, so it's difficult to imagine a friend commenting anonymously. Yet in this case it's most likely to be one of my Facebook friends who left the comment as it came very soon after I posted the blog to my Facebook page - odder still, as we are not anonymous on Facebook. 

In any case, it's okay to be a smart ass. Some of my best friends are smart asses. But I take their criticism better when I'm looking them in the eye. And as I said, I could be misreading the intent because of the fact that the writer didn't identify himself.

Critical comments are helpful to me, as this one was, and I do appreciate them. Some things are hard to say, to be sure. But this comment should not have been hard for anyone who knows me to say publicly or privately. 

I've changed the blog so it only accepts comments from people with names. I've never sent an anonymous letter to the editor, though sometimes that might have felt the safer thing to do. An anonymous comment on a personal blog? If the intent is good, what's the anonymity about? If the intent was to embarrass or shame, be honest enough to own it.

Deciding

Summer of 2001 I moved to PT. I didn't know anyone in the town, just my son's future in-laws who live about 20 minutes out. The job of unpacking, moving too much stuff into a smaller house, figuring out how to make home alone in a new place, was exciting and daunting. One evening as I stood in the garage breaking down boxes, the blush of sunset in the sky got my attention. I threw down the box-cutter, closed the door and started walking the mile and a half to North Beach.

I was just in time to walk down to the water and watch the sun set over Vancouver Island. There I stood, shivering, since I hadn't yet learned how chilly it is at the beach in the evening. Soon as the sun set, I turned to start the walk home, chanting silently "sweater, sweater, sweater. Next time: sweater sweater sweater" and hugging my goose-fleshed arms.

There was an enigmatic-looking man standing at the edge of the beach and as I passed he said "Don't you think it's a little declasse to leave 15 seconds after the sun sets?" Smiling, I shook his hand and we introduced ourselves. Small town. He knew I was new. I acknowledged that I was. Then he said this: Well, you're going to have to decide what kind of artist you are, since you live in Port Townsend now. I thought for a second and said "I'm a writer. Nice to meet you." Then I refused his offer of a ride and set off walking home.

As I walked, I thought about what I'd said. I'm a writer. I thought of how Dr. Emmel had encouraged her writing students to do that. "Do you write every day? Then own it."  I am a singer, a photographer, an actor, too. But the thing I can't not do is write. The fact that I haven't sent anything out to publishers feels delegitimizing, but I keep at it. I think of Mary Oliver writing for 25 years, seriously, before trying to get published. Patience. I keep at it, working at a daily practice.

Variety of experience certainly gives a person more to write about. It's fine to have other interests. But now, nine years after that evening on the beach, I'm still not sending stuff out and I feel more than a little foolish. The business of making myself the best I can be is unfinished at a time when the life I have ahead of me is scarily shorter. I am feeling the pinch of time.

But I do remember, that one day when a stranger on the beach asked me to choose, I did. What I have to do now is get up every day, choose again, and do what needs to be done.

Another Day in Paradise

Walking with Shadow at the end of a busy day  - just a quick spin around the dirt path behind the school and a walk through the fairgrounds was my plan. But right away we came across an off-leash dog, Stormy by name, sweet by nature. I unhooked Shadow and the two trotted towards one another, did a bit of circling and sniffing, then continued on to greet each others' women. The other gal doesn't live in the neighborhood year-round but shows up in summer to stay at her sister's for a while. Delighted to see Shadow, she seemed amazed at how fit the dog is.  "She's not even limping anymore!"  This past year of consistent daily walks, increasing our distance, has been good for us both. Shadow trotted off, signaling time to continue our walk, and I caught up and leashed her. Another perfect afternoon was passing too quickly.

Then we were walking through the fields at the fairgrounds, another woman walking towards us. She was carrying a couple of canvas shopping bags in one hand and what looked like an empty glass pie dish in the other. I recognized her as a local artist who I've met a few times and called out:

"Foraging for pie?"
"What?" she queried back.
"Are you foraging for pie? Because I don't think you'll find any out here - doesn't hurt to try."
"Whaaaaaaat?" she said, thoroughly puzzled.
"Oh!" said I, "that's not a pie plate after all. Sorry - I was being silly."
"Wondered what you knew," she said "because I was just having pie, but no, this dish had poppyseed cake in it."

She offered Shadow the dish to lick, saying "Now I won't have to wash it." She said she'd just been at her friend's memorial service and that it was a very good one. Given the direction she was coming from, I asked if it was for Etta. Yes, it was.

Etta is one of the first people I met here. She had a flower farm next to the fairgrounds, a beautiful place. She made bouquets and put them out at the end of her drive in canning jars on a table with an umbrella to shade them. She kept a small, slightly rusted tin there and a sign saying "Bouquets $6." You could put the money in the tin, or there was paper and a pencil if you needed to leave an IOU. Her bouquets were beautiful - sweet peas in spring, then peonies, then a grand variety of blooms and colors through the season. We walked past often to look or to buy.

I'd first met Etta when my son's wedding was drawing near and his future mother-in-law didn't have enough blue flowers in her garden for the arrangements she wanted to make. I walked down her dirt driveway, knocked on her door and asked Etta if she would have many blue flowers in August. She said that she would and, true enough, sold us two big white buckets-full on the wedding day and at a reasonable price, too. Somewhere I have a photo I took of her Gypsy Wagon out by the flower field where I found her that day when I went to pick up the flowers. She told me she kept it there for sleeping in summer.

From time to time after that I'd see her walk across San Juan Ave. to Admiralty Ave. to get a horse she had pastured there. I was sad when I heard this lively woman had died of cancer. But today I learned from her friend that she'd done well at dying. She'd taken charge of how she wanted it to go and her family and friends had been there to help and support her.

Still, this woman and I agreed, it's hard to lose one's contemporaries. We all know we will lose our parents and that's a tough thing. But we don't think about our friends dying. And when they do (as I learned a few years ago when two of my dear ones died in a month) it's a particular kind of loss. Our closest friends know all our secrets and we theirs.  And though Etta and I were not close, it comforted me to hear that she'd gone as well as she could and that her friends were holding the memory of her close.

It's not a half-bad thing when even strangers you touch remember you well. Just yesterday I'd remembered a woman named Judy, stopped at the corner of Admiralty a few years back when I met her on my way to the beach. Her bicycle lay on the ground, helmet still on her head, as she picked and ate thimbleberries. Picked isn't the right word. She, in fact, introduced me to thimbleberries, which I had never heard of, and showed me how they will fall into your hand with almost no encouragement when they're ripe. She's gone now, too, but for memories.

What happened there in the field today, though, was that this other woman and I talked about how much we love living here, how we are steeped in beauty and are always reminding ourselves how lucky we are to be  here. Then she pointed and asked me was that an eagle floating on an updraft above us. It was indeed and we watched it for some time.

Then, as we parted the woman asked me to remind her who I am, how we know each other.

I thought for a second, then remembered.

"I met you first, several years ago, at a Verbal Tease, those monthly readings that used to happen Uptown. You read a piece about how you had lived on a boat and the practical difficulties of that and I liked your work a lot. Also, you stopped one day when I was walking in the rain, to see if I needed a ride. That was awfully nice of you, but I was nearly home and said no thanks."

She smiled and we hugged and went on our way in opposite directions, both carrying and riding the ebb and flow of life in a small town.

Weeding Thoughts, Weeding Words

I'm supposed to be in the garden right now. Yesterday evening I mowed, so the weeds are far more noticeable. And I want to be out there working among the pink tulips, blue wood hyacinth, the blushing rhody, the budding lilacs. I'm a pretty hardy gal but I do not weed in a chilly rain - a warm misty rain, yes - but not this.

So instead, I am writing.  Maybe I should be grateful for the rain since I've just finished a draft of my third poem in two days. The pages of notes I have to write from, notes scribbled while traveling or in church on Sunday morning, to remind me of some thread that seems to be calling for examination and expression, remain untouched. The hands keep typing, though, which feels great.

The animals wonder why our breakfast is delayed and they're starting to prick my leg to nudge me along, but this is what I want to be doing - writing. When the day dawned chilly and wet, Plan B should have been: pay the bills, which have been waiting since last week. But my mind keeps weaving thoughts so I keep writing.

Today I was editing yesterday's work when an ordinary moment, something from about 13 years ago slipped into my head again to haunt me. Now that seems an oxymoron to  me: ordinary/haunting. But, though it's ordinary, it's an image that often comes to mind. Probably because it was sweet, unexpected, made me feel loved. And I crave that a lot - feeling loved. I crave romance; want to be wanted. Who doesn't? But why, of all the experiences in my past, does this one little moment keep coming to mind?

It wasn't a moment that signified the ultimate satisfaction of my wish to be desired and loved. It was an early moment in a two-year love affair, which ultimately left me sad and disappointed. But it was a sweet moment, a real moment. So I began with that and wondered why an ordinary moment can mean so much after years have passed. Then I thought of two more moments, not of the same ilk, but each their own. In the poem I describe each of the three moments. I reflect on each. And there it stops, at six three-line stanzas.

I read it over and wonder if the poem is whole. Is it saying anything? That final writer's question: so what? I don't know yet. It takes time between a draft and knowing if the work is meaningful.

At this particular moment, I think it's time to be grateful and remind myself that I'm weeding and cultivating one thing or another, rain or shine, inside or out...and that even poets need to pay the bills.

The Lucy Chronicles. The Lost Blog.

I found this in my string of copied blog articles on my desktop and don't see it posted on either of my blogs, so for the record, this was written between Oct. 15 and Dec. 16, 2009 the day Lucy died.

Me, Lucy and the sometimes-miracle of steroids

As I wrestle Lucy out from under the bed again, it hits me. She feels good on this drug. A year and a half ago I was ordered to take prednisone for three months because, a. the medical people I turned to for help thought it was the cure for what might ail me and b. when it became obvious that wasn’t the cure, they decided to keep me on it anyway because I was in pain and they thought it might help. It didn’t. I felt like crap. I was dull witted (it later turned out that could have been from B vitamin deficiencies), I was not physically relieved and I began to have the weight gain associated with prednisone use. Now Lucy, a cat, is having all the relief that I did not experience from the drug.

She had an accident in June, most certainly took a tumble in one of her Evil Kneivel style leaps, broke off a fang and split her lower jaw. She got repaired and recovered. For three weeks early in September I noticed her nose running again (the symptom that got us to the doc in June) and I started taking her in to find out what was wrong and get her some help. We saw two vets, in the same office, six times in less than two weeks. The first guy thought our regular vet had maybe missed a piece of tooth in surgery in June and it was infecting her jaw and sinus. The original vet didn’t think so but gave us antibiotics and said everything seemed okay. I persisted in returning because I have known and lived with this cat virtually every day of her now 16 years and I knew something was wrong. We had to find the reason for this recurring infection and treat her.

But no one was getting the urgency of the problem. I tried desperately to describe her struggle to swallow with all the mucous draining down her throat and the bare fact that breathing was becoming a constant struggle for her. Finally I took one of her quarter tablet antibiotics with me and asked the tech to please give her the pill so they could see for themselves how she reacted while trying to swallow. Then maybe they’d get why she was losing weight. I heard Lucy choking in the exam room. The tech stepped out a minute later and asked if they could do xrays. “Yes, please,” I said. Then the vet called me in, deeply sobered and said: “There’s a golf ball sized growth behind her heart, and two smaller ones in front, possibly on the lungs. I have to have a radiologist read it.” He gave her a steroid shot and by that night she was her old happy self, eating a bit and wanting love and attention. That was a Monday.  The report confirmed there was no hope, although specifics could only be learned through surgery and neither of us thought that was a good idea with a 16-year-old cat, especially given that the cancer was so close to her heart. He said to bring her the next day for a super steroid shot that would carry her 1-4 weeks and we would just work to keep her from suffering.

Lucy and I struggled through that night, me sure that each breath might be her last and at some point hoping it would be so she would not suffer anymore. Obviously, Monday’s  steroid shot had worn off. At one point she jumped down from the bed and continued gasping for breath under it. I fell apart, sobbing. Lucy jumped back onto the bed and came next to me again. So many times in my life I have seen cats do that, come to my side when I am crying or sick. I toughened up for her sake and just kept repeating “I’m sorry dear, we’ll get some help as soon as the vet is open.” And I called at 7:30 and asked what was the earliest time one of the offices would open so I could go in, warning them that we were not coming for the steroid shot because I did not want to see her struggling for breath again through another night when that shot wore off. By the time we got to the office I was not sure I should go through with it. Tony let me in and said he’d changed his mind about the shot and would instead give me a good supply of amoxicillin with prednisone in it and I could give that to her twice a day to keep her comfortable. This seemed a good idea. It took until night for her breathing to normalize again after another prednisone shot and I was ready with the pink liquid to keep her levels up so she would not be in distress.

Lucy’s amoxicillin/prednisone cocktail stopped working entirely after about a week. I was, in fact, taking her in to have her put to sleep when the vet remembered the stronger steroid shot (depo something) and that gave her a miracle week of being herself again. However, a week later another depo shot seemed to have no effect at all. That was Thursday a week ago. Last Monday I called and he suggested still another of the depo shots and this time, by Tuesday night, she was feeling better and we’ve had a whole week of comfort and cuddling.

This morning the nose is running again, the sure sign of another downward slide. I think we’ll just keep getting the depo shots until the cancer takes her or the shots no longer give her relief. I’m so grateful to be able to keep her comfortable and she seems to have adjusted to the little intrusions of weekly vet visits and me wiping her nose. She didn’t even run off this morning after I did that. I’m grateful, too, quite selfishly, for this extra time with her feeling well. I was not in a great frame of mind to accept another loss through death. Sharing these days with her, knowing where we’re headed, is helping me work towards acceptance.

Lucy and I have had lots of hours of petting and reading to her on the bed. I can’t know if I’ve got her for an hour more, a day, a week, a month, or six months. I believe she will die sooner rather than later and I remind myself this is about her, not me.

Born feral, Lucy has always been alert and watchful. Yet she’s a gentle, graceful companion who often pricks my skin, ever so lightly, to ask for petting. When I first come to bed she marches around me in circles, sometimes circling the whole body, sometimes just my head, crossing my chest each go ‘round. If I turn over, and boy do I all night long, she adjusts. She generally cuddles into some curve around my hips but lately has nestled a little higher near my chest. Remember that American Indian saying “It’s a good day to die”? Well, maybe so. But it seems to me that each day is another good day to cuddle with Lucy.

Some writers have a muse. I have a mess.

Sometimes when I start a new poem it feels so chaotic that after I sketch the ideas onto paper my head hurts. It's as if I birthed it, physically pulled each line out of my brain. There is no energy left for excitement about the birth. It's more like a crazy, messy conception, the aftermath of an unforeseen passion seeking honest expression, demanding it, refusing to be denied. The wildness of this process, followed by the sudden relief of having begun it, leaves me spent. Yeah, I see that this is all a terrible sex metaphor. Sans the cigarette. Anyway, when a poem begins that way, I have to put it away for a while. When I pick it up again, most often I'm surprised at what's there. Sometimes I barely remember it.  A few times I really have not recognized my own words. This has even happened with what I thought was a finished piece of prose. More than once in my life a teacher read my work aloud in class and I didn't know it was mine. But other times, with these crazy obsessively scribbled notes, it's like finding an old friend and being happy to see the familiar face. And then I'm ready to get to work on it.

I first wrote this note on the back of a page I started a new poem on a week ago. I still cannot go into the paragraphs and lines that are meant to become a poem and see what's there to shape. Just now when I turned the page over and glanced at it, the second I remembered what it was about I had to turn away.

So instead I wrote two new poems today. The first was exploring joy, love and gratitude in a complicated relationship. The second poem was the shadow side of the first. The part I'd left out. Because I have a tendency to do that: to look on the bright side and make that so important that I don't have to see the shadow for a while. But ultimately the shadow will be seen. By me at least. I usually can't look away for very long.

For now I'm calling it a day. Two poems. One with a good start; one out of too much pain to be good yet. And a third, raw still, which I can't look look at for now. And that one is the one - big surprise - that has the most potential. Of that I am certain.

Deliberate Fortunate Change

Since March, 2009, I've been keeping track, with a list on my Facebook page, of miles I'm walking. The idea is to keep myself honest so I don't fall into the trap of "thinking" that I am walking most every day when, in reality, it only seems that way. I reread an entry on this blog from last March this morning and was both heartened and warned by what I saw in comparing then to now.

The best news is that back then I was thrilled to be walking up to 3/4 mile each day (with an occasional 2-3 mile walk to push myself) and I was walking the 3/4 mile in about one hour. One hour, people. The year before that it was taking me half an hour to go around the block. It's a small block. Now I can walk three miles in an hour. I know that's not record breaking race time, but I'm not racing. I'm just trying to get healthier. I am noticing that my efforts to increase my daily distance are working. I almost never skip and almost never do less than one mile. And more often I do two. So I'm pushing myself to do two or  more, hoping to average two in a couple more months. I just checked my tallies and I was fairly consistent. The problem month was August. My cat Lisa was dying and I spent more time with her. A couple of days after she died, the second week in August, my neighbor died. My dear friends' dog died the next week. All of these things meant I spent a lot more time with friends and caring for Lisa. And then my Mother died. A trip to be with her. Only walking in hospital corridors. A trip to our hometown for the funeral and travel back to my own home. Only 21 miles that month. Plus, I had been walking less because the doc had diagnosed me with shin splints, which were causing a lot of pain. I had been so enthusiastic about walking thirty miles in March that I had done 41, 49, 47 and 49 the next four months. Clearly my body was not ready for this. But in September I did 26, then 39, 48 and a half. But only 31 for December because Lucy cat died on the 16th. and those last three weeks I was mostly in bed reading with her. January found me back up to 42 miles for the month despite being sick with a cold for a couple of weeks and completely missing a few days of walking.

What I'm getting from this review is that, while I am ready to increase my miles, I'd better be sure to do it gradually so I don't end up with shin splints again. Still, the fact that I am walking further in less time is most encouraging. And the fact that I've been pretty consistent, with the exceptions being for obvious good reason, makes me feel good. I'm off to a good start in February - my "month" starts the 28th. and ends the 27th. because that's when I started keeping track. I have two three-mile days in already, with one at one mile and another at 2. Today is one of those dreary, rainy, chill-that-goes-to-the-bone days, but I will probably still walk. Thanks be to Shadow for this! I don't like to let her down.

I've lost about 20 pounds these eleven months. Slow and steady. People are starting to ask me if I'm on Weight Watchers. A woman told me on Sunday that she saw me at a reading a week ago and noticed my face is getting thinner. I've always believed that change involves patience, consistency, honesty and a change of habit. Like a lot of people who live alone, I had become a lazy eater - even though I'm a vegetarian. This laziness seems to be absent now and I am cooking more, eating better. I feel less craving in general and less need for chips and desserts. I feel - satisfied. And that's got more to do with my whole day and the accumulation of good days, than simple appetites.

Another habit I've gotten into while living alone is procrastination on tasks and cleaning. The past two months I see a big difference in that area. Walking out to the living area in the morning I feel happy to be up and starting my day because the house is basically clean and there are not constant backlogs of everyday chores staring at me - no piles of dirty dishes, laundry, no fur-covered carpets. I'd even gotten to the point where I let burned out light bulbs linger in their lamps until maybe 6 or 7 of them waited to be changed. You can see where that left me - in an increasingly depressing darkness. Not now.

So maybe it's a bit of a reverse domino effect. One good thing leads to another. Maybe someday we'll have a catch phrase: Good things come in threes!

Last night, at the end of a lovely happy day, I pushed the envelope and stayed up until 1 a.m. again. I used to do this all the time and wrote about it last March as a twisted way to try and lengthen my life by lengthening my waking hours. But re-reading that post reminded me of how awful I feel when I get up without enough sleep. And the body has its own clock; one does wake up at the expected time, even, usually, when exhausted. So I am reminded that the price for late hours is too high for this body. It throws me off for days. I get less done. I get discouraged. So when I am tempted by a 10-midnight Improv class, I must remember: it's not worth what it costs me later in body damage and disruption. I'll wait until I can take an earlier class.

Meanwhile I'll keep stretching, keep walking, keep cooking. And I'll keep making the hard choices. I skipped the Requiem performance yesterday in favor of getting the laundry done and spending quality time with a friend. I've turned down two performance opportunities in favor of maintaining this healthy momentum. And here I am putting writing first on my agenda today, another promise I made myself, regarding changing habits.

I titled this blog entry Deliberate Fortunate Change but I haven't said anything about the fortunate aspect. I am conscious of the fact that despite some tragic turns in my life, even in the past few years, I am so fortunate to be financially stable and not have to search for a job (yet) or work at one I hate or have to expend most of my energy to do. I've volunteered a ton in my life partly out of appreciation for my own circumstance. But I am also fortunate to live in a beautiful, nurturing place and to have dear and loving friends. I am grateful for all of this every day. I know how lucky I am.

As for the job of being my best self, I'm finding more quality in more time at home. I think I appreciate everything more because of the choice to do less and be more.

The Cutest Couple in the World

Can you be cute if you're 6'4" and you're wife is 5'9"? My brother-in-law Paul and my sister Kathy are not an elderly couple so we're not talking cute in that longevity sense. They are not silly people who wear odd colorful clothing or have unusual hobbies. They are Evangelical Christian, Republican, grandparents, loving and hard working people who have a sense of humor. And it's a good thing they do. Things happen. Things have always happened in their lives, home, orbit. And the sense of humor gets them through - no that's not fair. The sense of humor helps them be in their life and not standing outside it, whining about what might not be going well. So this little example of how they relate is not anything original out of my head. It's something my sis shared with me in an email the other day and I find it too good to keep to myself.

She wrote that Paul had taken the day off work because he had not slept at all the night before. When she woke up he confessed to her that he had tossed and turned all night long because he could hear a woodpecker that had previously drilled a hole in their house, sitting in the cavity, repeatedly fluffing its feathers. The head of their bed is on an outside wall and they have always had trouble with woodpeckers working on the wooden clapboard siding on their saltbox set in the Pennsylvania woods. I'm sure Kath understood and empathized with Paul's dilemma. Then he said: "Yeah, it was driving  me crazy, this woodpecker just fluffing its feathers over and over. Then I realized that wasn't what I was hearing. What I was hearing was you snoring."

Fluffing its feathers. Snoring. What kind of mind and imagination comes up with that as an explanation for a mysterious sound in the night? It was an "aaaaaaaaaaah" moment for me when I read it. And then Kath signed off her email saying: "So he's home napping now. Either that or he's moving his stuff into the guest room."

Nerve

I keep trying to take myself seriously. It’s a process. I’m at that point where I’m staying conscious that writing is the most important thing, for me, that I do. Yet I don’t give it nearly enough of my time. So today I remembered that Monday is the day that local poets gather at Lehani’s from 5-6pm and put their names in a hat to get time to read aloud to one another. It’s been months, if not a year, since I last went down to try out new material and see how it’s working. Today seemed the ideal time to push myself towards being more present and diligent as a writer. I pulled out the poems I’d written over the past four months and read them through to see which might be most ready to read. I was only looking at those I felt were my best of the recent efforts and wow did that bring home how easy it is to start congratulating oneself on new work. Poems I thought were done, polished, as near-to-perfect as I could make them, all seemed suddenly slight. Then, I wrote a new one, based on things that came up as I took a long walk in the woods today. I worked it and liked where it landed on the page. It looked good, sounded good, too. But if poems I’d been working on for 1-4 months seemed less desirable after a little time out of sight, how could I trust a new one? Still, it’s important as an artist to stand and deliver. I find that I know better how well a poem is working when I read to an audience, rather than just to myself at home. It’s not just whether and how that audience reacts, but the fact that my own awareness is heightened by risking the reading of my work to people I know are discerning and thoughtful writers themselves. 

So I printed out half a dozen that I thought, for various reasons, might be my strongest choices, punched them, put them in a notebook and drove downtown. (I'd likely read three but I prefer to have choices even in this situation.) When I got to the door I saw no familiar faces inside. In fact there was almost no one there and it was 4:50. The owner confirmed that they had indeed changed to Friday evenings at 5. I deflated. I was not relieved, but disappointed. It was like standing on the edge of the dock with my toes hanging over, bent into first-dive position; or taking my paddle firmly in hand to push off the bank of the Nantahala River and into the rapids. When you’re ready, you’re ready. Not necessarily ready to succeed but ready to try. Maybe this is just a reminder to me, like the title of that song by Madeleine Peyroux that I’ve been listening to so much lately: Don’t Wait Too Long.

Come to Mama! I've still got it - cooking a fabulous sauce.

Maybe it was because I lay on the couch last week, sick with a cold, and watched some Julia Child episodes on a public TV fundraiser. Or maybe it was just my kitchen-womanly pride, but I wanted to cook this week. I mean really cook. So I did. Thursday evening my friend David was stopping by upon his return from a trip. I'd offered a homecoming dinner. I felt lousy at that point but figured I had to eat, too, so I made a risotto and wow did it taste good. Just a classic arborio rice, glazed in some hot oil and garlic, then a cup of white wine cooked into that, followed by the long simmering to absorb, cup by cup, about a quart of broth. The result? Hot, creamy, flavorful risotto. I made a side dish of acorn squash halves, baked with some butter melted in the cavities, and then filled those with peas which had simmered with finely chopped onion and dill. Talk about comfort food!

Then Sunday, while visiting with  my friend Denise, I roasted some parsnips, onions and pears (after tossing them in olive oil) and blended half of that with broth and half with cream and then simmered it all together while reducing a cup of balsamic vinegar to a thick drizzling garnish. WOW! What a success. Actually I worried that after coring the parsnips (which I've never done before and am not at all sure is necessary) that they were not enough, so we added some carrots to the roasting mix. This soup was a savory, delicious treat, far exceeding my expectations. I would not have known there were pears in it but I surely won't try making it without them. Something very right was going on in that roasting pan and soup pot. I've already bought more parsnips and pears to try it again without the carrots. I accompanied the soup with my favorite corn bread, which is made with sour cream and is corny enough while also being moist and tender. It worked but I think I'd prefer the soup paired with a yeast bread or chebe bread.

I guess I was feeling my oats at this point, because I invited another friend to dinner on Monday night. I had an unexpectedly busy day Monday so found I was very tired by mid afternoon. But as the dinner hour approached I decided I did not want to compromise the meal or choose some easy old standby to make. I'd been thinking all afternoon about what I'd like to have and at about 4:30 it came to me. Pasta with Vodka sauce. My friend Shari shared the recipe with me years ago and I could not find it to save my soul Monday night. So I made it from memory. First I sliced some tiny carrots julienne style and sliced up some baby zucchini, green pepper, then sauteed all that in some olive oil with herbs and crushed garlic until just tender. Then I turned off the heat and put a lid over the veggies to keep them warm. For the sauce, as Julia would say "first you make a roux:" 2tbsp. butter/melted then 2tbsp. flour stirred quickly in; then add a cup of cream, slowly whisked into the roux until smooth. Stir in, a bit at a time, a cup of white wine - I make this recipe with white wine because I prefer the flavor of wine to vodka. I used a full bodied chardonnay. [Now is a good time to start the pasta cooking.] When the wine you've added to the initial cream sauce has smoothed into a velvety texture, gradually add more cream until you have about 2 1/2 -3 cups of it. Then, stir in a couple of big handfuls of fresh, finely-grated Parmesan. Fresh Parmesan melts in nearly instantly. The "fresh" grated stuff we buy in the store takes too long and leaves the sauce vulnerable to separating. I hadn't made that pasta sauce in years. Sometimes Alfredo is disappointing to me - bland. But I love this.  I laid the pretty melange of veggies over the pasta which I'd tossed with about 2/3 of the sauce. (Next time I might saute mushrooms until brown and have just those with more pasta and the leftover sauce.)  I did scratch the idea of making hot chebe bread. I felt the pasta was enough starch for this meal. Such a rich entree, though, demands a salad. I had some good green leaf lettuce and added to that a cut up fresh pear, some toasted walnuts and a few shavings of Asiago cheese. I shook up a quick dressing of finely chopped leek with balsamic vinegar and olive oil. The balsamic and leek made a great flavor contrast to the pear and Asiago.

Honestly, I surprised myself. Like a lot of single people living alone, I'm pretty out of practice at putting actual meals on the table. I take a lot of short cuts but try not to compromise myself nutritionally. It's just easy to bake a potato and steam some broccoli or make a quick omelet. But a meal like this one makes me wonder why this gluten free vegetarian ever goes out to a restaurant. Plus, I'd been feeling worn out and yet I did this. Not just any old meal, but this. Telling about it, I'm reminded of my Aunt Van, who was maybe my age now (nearly 62) when I saw her leaving my Mom and Dad's house one day by the back door in the kitchen. She paused at the round mirror over the radiator where my  mom kept a hairbrush and always checked her hair and make-up before going out. Aunt Van, a statuesque woman with dyed chestnut hair and I Love Lucy red lipstick, thrust out her chest like a pin-up and said aloud to the mirror: "Uh! Van, you still got it!" As I floated around the kitchen and felt myself near accomplishing my vision of a lovely meal, I felt a little like my spunky Aunt Van. Come to think of it, I don't think Auntie, fabulous as she was, would ever have pulled that off.