Almost New Year's...

(Okay--couldn't resist another Audrey picture..even tho she has nothing to do with this post.)

The holidays are all but done, and 2009 is nipping at our heels, in much the same way as Jake nips at mine when I'm late with his meals, his snacks, his treats, or whatever cat-business he thinks I should be about--and am not. 

Unfortunately I find that the new year has the same disregard for my agendas as Jake does. Forget that I'd like to (finally) get back to my novel, begun almost four years ago. There are Christmas trappings to be packed away and returned to the storage space. Forget that I resolved LAST year to submit some of my work to magazines; I have a new computer to break in and a printer to set up. Forget that I had such a good start last fall on exercising; I have a trip to Baltimore each week now to check in with my mom. 

As a favorite poet of mine (John Ciardi) once said, "Where is the flaw in us that lets in the trivial?" He may not have meant it in quite the same way, but it is so easy to let the trivial take over, and figure that the rest will all happen somehow, someday. My brief  sojourn as a Franklin/ Covey facilitator had the answer to that one: in class after class, I spouted the wisdom that "someday" is not on the calendar, and that the only way to make something happen is to plan for it, to divide it up into manageable pieces and schedule those pieces into your day. 

Easy for me to say; much harder to practice. (Sorry to any of you who were in any of my workshops...) I'm very good at buying planners, and I am right there, realizing how important it is to write things down (particularly now, when my memory has a distinct resemblance to a piece of well-holed Swiss cheese) -- but actually walking the walk after I've talked the talk? That's another thing altogether.

But 2009 is just around the corner, and now is the time for good intentions. Since I'm apparently following the road to hell anyway, I may as well add some paving along the way. Okay. First step, a planner. Second, a gift to myself of the time I need to update said planner each week. Third, a resolution to write for an hour every morning. Fourth, another hour each week to submit and keep track of submissions to publications. Fifth, a half-hour each day for exercise, repugnant as that is to me. I owe it to myself, and to young Audrey and the rest of my family, to enable me to stick around long enough for them all to REALLY get tired of my weak-willed ways. Sixth, (and runner-up in the 'repugnant' category) Weight Watchers meetings every week and adherence to their healthy eating mantra, no matter how much I hate vegetables.

That's it. The likelihood of my sticking to all of these is slim--but there's a new administration in town. If Obama can take on the mess we have here in Washington, I guess I might hope to make some change in my own little fiefdom, population one. 

Happy New Year, one and all, and best of luck on your own improvement programs!

A Christmas Perspective

Last year, I’d been in New York overnight with my friend Jan from San Diego—and a cold front had swept in with snow and ice. Upon our return to Alexandria, we'd minced our way in total darkness down my alley—which could have doubled for Rockefeller Center in the amount of ice-covered surface it represented. Cold and tired, we reached the house unscathed. I turned to Jan: “THIS is why we bought the place in San Diego,” I said. She laughed, and not long after, we made our way upstairs, and blessedly, to sleep.

The next morning, I woke early and came downstairs. Before we’d left, I had made a mental note to bring in my two schefflera plants that had so enjoyed their summer outdoors. Like most of my mental notes lately, this one had gotten lost in my filing system, and I fearfully stepped outside to see if they’d weathered the storm. Limp and green-black with frostbite, they languished in their baskets, beyond hope of saving. My mood was as gray as yesterday’s sky had been.

Jan came down soon after and was bubbling over with excitement.
“It looks just like a Christmas card!” she said.
“What?” I replied, my head full of what’s-for-breakfast and what-time-do-we-have-to-be-where.
“Your patio: it’s like a Christmas card with the holly and the snow on the bushes,”

Now, I had just been out there, and I hadn’t seen any Christmas-card-pretty scene. All I had noticed were dead scheffleras and the treacherous ice on the flagstones and the puddle of dirty water left by my shoes as I came in the door. Just as, in New York, while Jan and two other California friends were catching snowflakes on their tongues, I was calculating the probability of train delays and the effect of slush on my shoes.

Sadly, I have the same mindset again this year. I think I need a little Christmas. As Mame says…”right this very minute.” I need to escape from the practicality and gloom-ridden everyday thoughts and worries and pointless concerns that we all fall victim to. I need to change my focus to what I have, from what I have not; from what is, to what could be; from what is wrong, to what is right in my world. It’s so easy to forget blessings, to collect grudges and to hunker down, Scrooge-like, and count them off, one by one, happy in our own misery and that we can give to those around us.

It’s Christmas!! And it is time to be a child again—to see the world as a beautiful place, full of wonder and mystery. It’s time to do things we’ve dreamed of doing—like skating at Rockefeller Center, if only for a few minutes; like walking across the Brooklyn Bridge in gale force winds just to see the view; like strolling past wondrously-decorated department store windows and gawking in awe at Brobdignagian snowflakes suspended over Fifth Avenue and trees so festooned in lights that they glow behind your eyelids as you walk away. It’s time to walk down the street and smile at people, to read our childhood Christmas books, and even watch some holiday movie classics. It is time for hot chocolate with marshmallows and Christmas cookies and eggnog, despite carbs and cholesterol. It’s time to see the Christmas card in our everyday, and to inscribe it with a heartfelt “Happy Holidays!”

It is Christmas once again, and it’s time—past time—for friends and family and lights and singing and larger-than-life living. Christians see this time as one of hope and faith, but I believe it extends beyond the doors of our churches. Christmas is a time to believe in each other again, to find that child inside, to rediscover what we were and what we dreamed of being and to once again--with a gift, a kind word, an understanding ear-- light a hopeful candle in someone’s eyes…. maybe even our own.

Merry Christmas.

Guilty!

Note to self: you know you talk too much when the proprietor of a shop you visit maybe once every couple months a] recognizes you and says "You Facebooked us!" and then b] follows up with "And how's young Audrey?"

(In my own defense, I will say that the young woman--Amy-- has a 3 month-old of her own, AND that this was the shop where I rifled through her entire stock of knitted alphabet blocks to find all the letters of Audrey's name...but still....)

I actually got to meet her little boy, James, and--I know this will surprise all of you--he seems to be as happy a baby as Audrey is: kicks and grins and squirms and generally indicates how happy he is to make your acquaintance. Perhaps we can get them together. Amy (his mom) says he likes older women. :)

White Rabbit

"I'm late! I'm late! For a very important date! No time to say "hello", "goodbye"--I'm late! I'm late, I'm late, I'm late!"

The White Rabbit, in one or another incarnation of Alice in Wonderland

The date I am late for is Christmas--and it's barely two weeks away. At no time in my life have I ever been this far behind, and I really have no excuse: no job, no little children, no obligations, no big party to throw..the days just slipped by, and here I am, with nary a present bought, no tree (that comes Friday), cards not written (or even more than a draft Christmas letter), no stamps purchased, or cookies baked.....what happened??? Did I just miss all the cues?

So. For the next two weeks, any non-booked time is hereby dedicated to Christmas shopping, to re-tracing my steps to pick up all those possible gifts I've seen, but didn't buy; to seeking out some clever ideas for those difficult people on my list, to (probably) resorting to giftcards where necessary...

Heigh-ho.

Happy birthday: not a wish--a reality.

I turned 60 this weekend, and one of the best things about growing older is that I can do it with a wonderful complement of friends and family. I was reminded this weekend of how much they all mean to me, of all they have done to make my life as complete and happy as it has been thus far.

There are thousands of quotes about friendship, but surely the oldest is still the best (Remember that when you talk to THIS old lady...) "...faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love."

Amen.

Those Christmas dishes...

Okay. I found them, stacked on a shelf in a closet for easy access. My Christmas plates and mugs have replaced my ordinary everyday ironstone, and the holiday season is now officially in session.

I don't know what it is about having Christmas dishes. It is (possibly) a wasteful enterprise. After all, why have a complete set of dinnerware that is used for only a month or so out of the year? What's the point?

It started for me with the innocuous purchase many years ago of a couple red cups and saucers. They would go with my white dishes well enough, and would add a note of holiday color to the table, I thought. Later, when I saw a couple salad plates in the same bright red, I added them. I could use them in February for Valentine's Day, too. But then, I found my snowman plates. They were white (like my everyday dishes), with blue rims (like my china!) and had red accents (I could use my red pieces with them, too!) The snowman theme made them appropriate from December through February, thus quelling my qualms of guilt. As if God blessed the purchase, that Christmas, my sister (all unknowing) gave me a set of mugs in the same snowman pattern.

However, even though I am a dish freak (let me tell you someday about my green cups with the square saucers) there's more at work here. Opening a cabinet and seeing my holiday dishes lifts my spirits. Every table setting says "Merry Christmas" and every routine cup of tea reminds me that there's something special about today. Usually that 'something special' is a to-do list of seasonal chores, but...nevertheless, there's a joy in that, too. Putting out my dishes, putting out my Christmas decorations is putting out my memories. I'm decorating my life again with all the trips, all the Christmases, all the happiness of all our years as a family. Every piece of red or green or holly-trimmed bric-a-brac has a story, and all those stories add up to today. And today, like all our Christmases, like all our yesterdays, is worth remembering.

Onward

Thanksgiving is over, and in the interest of gearing up for the next holiday in the parade of things-to-do, I planned to jumpstart my Christmas decoration process by retrieving all my Christmas stuff from storage on Wednesday, and starting in on it today. That explains why I am currently sitting in a living room that looks like ground-zero at the North Pole after the explosion.

I have a lot of Christmas stuff--and that's like saying Barack Obama has a few problems, come January. I mean, A LOT of Christmas stuff. Maybe it's because I'm from Baltimore, the capital city of tacky. Maybe it's that we've downsized our house more often than our decorations stash. Maybe it's just that I like Christmas, and can't resist a reindeer or a Santa. Whatever the reason ("his heart or his shoes"?) I am fruitlessly engaging in the placement game at this point. How can I rearrange the furniture to fit in the requisite Frasier fir? If I pack the everyday knickknacks away, will I ever find them again? Where are the Christmas dishes? (I still don't think my son-in-law understands the concept of Christmas dishes. I think my sister and I invented it some years back...) How long must an object remain stationary before it should be decorated?

But enough lolly-gagging. I have piles of Santa Clauses and reindeer...and a sweet pair of baby ice skates I found not too long ago that need a place to hang. There are wreaths to hang and bells to jingle and Christmas songs to load on my Ipod. And of course, those Christmas dishes... Only four weeks to go.

Ladies of Liberty

We had the good fortune last night to attend a lecture by Cokie Roberts (sponsored by the U.S.Capitol Historical Society) on the role of women in government. Though there is plenty of grist for that particular mill in the recent presidential campaign--and now, Obama's cabinet selections--Ms. Roberts chose to speak about previous eras, where the role of women has been either overlooked or underplayed. Using primary sources such as previously unpublished letters and reports written by women in Washington, she amply illustrated her point that American women have wielded power and influence in government since before the Revolution.

I'm ready to seek out both her books at this point. I obviously have a lot to learn about the women who helped make American history.

Unexpected treasure

(1947 Deller reunion--click to enlarge)

This week, when I went over to Baltimore to see my mom, I was surprised to find that she had visitors: two of my cousins (my Uncle John's daughters) whom I had not seen in at least 40 years.

Lest you think we have long-standing family feuds or something, let me say at the outset that I have somewhere in the neighborhood of 35 first cousins--on my mother's side alone--so it's always been sort of difficult to keep up with each other. I, unfortunately, have always left that task to my mother, who has always been an inveterate letter writer.

We went to lunch and had a great visit before we all had to disperse for our assorted destinations. But this short encounter left me with an itch to look back at all my pictures and files and --in my most intrepid of excursions--into my own memories to see what information I had about my family.

The short answer is that the most rewarding stuff I found was the work of my mom. Letters telling about her childhood, written to granddaughters and nieces, and anyone else who asked. What treasures these pieces of paper are: all that's left of our family history. And my mom is one of the last of her generation who can tell those stories.

Looking at all this, I asked JC what we had to tell about what our lives have been like. His answer--as I'm sure many of ours would be--was that nothing much has happened to us that was interesting. Hmm. I imagine my mom didn't think blackberry-picking with her dad was earth-shaking either, but the window she gives us on what life was like then is wonderful and tremendously interesting to us city-dwelling couch potatoes who get our blackberries from Chile via the local supermarket.

It would be a great gift to our children to tell them where we came from and how far and fast we have traveled in our own lives. Maybe we should all start writing down our memories.

Responsibility

I am heartened by the outcome of our recent election. Not because of the Obama victory, though that is, I believe, a good thing. Not, in fact, because of the overwhelming landslide that carried Mark Warner into office, even though that restored my faith in the Virginia electorate. It was not even Virginia’s return to the Democratic fold that prompted my restored feelings of optimism, although that was long overdue. No. My uplifted emotional state is due to the return of responsibility.

Perhaps it is just me (and those of you who know me know that that prefix statement REALLY means that I don’t think it is) but there has seemed to be a slow and steady decline in any feeling of responsibility in any number of fields over the past twenty years. From students who were willing to blame everyone and everything but themselves for their failures to salespeople who met complaints with a smile and an indifferent shrug, America has been suffering from a severe case of not-my-fault-ism and unwillingness to expend even the slightest energy toward righting wrongs.

Since I seem to have an overdeveloped sense of guilt and/or responsibility (vestiges of my Roman Catholic upbringing) I have been exceedingly frustrated and disturbed by this trend, and have been only too willing to work overtime at assigning blame. I have run through the usual suspects over the years, with my villains running the gamut from too much TV, to not enough supervision, to parents more interested in money than kids, to lack of community due to air-conditioning and garage-door openers (don’t get me started—I’m not always rational)..to just plain laziness. I had stopped short of government, but then along came George Bush, who has proved a convenient and likely scapegoat for just about everything else, so why not pile on?

This presidential campaign exacerbated every scrape and scratch on my bruised and battered sense of what’s right and wrong. So much of what went on in speeches and campaign ads and even in the proverbial smoke-filled rooms (which now seem to hold only pundits and talking heads and their laptops) just seemed to be so…unworthy of our political process. While it was abundantly clear that the road across America was littered with policies and programs and industries that were seriously broken, debate centered around personal attacks and misrepresentations (on both sides) of what the other candidate stood for. Never before had I witnessed such a crying need for critical thinking skills among the electorate, skills that would allow voters to tease out the truth from statements that went wholeheartedly for the biased interpretation of just about everything.

Capping this assault on my own good sense and that of the American voter was the selection of Sarah Palin as the Republican vice-presidential nominee. Instead of being greeted by a rousing country-wide tsunami-like bellow of “John McCain, what are you THINKING??”, this announcement apparently generated enthusiasm for the Republican ticket.
Now, in the interest of perfect honesty here, I will say that I could have voted for John McCain up to that point. He seemed to be a reasonable man, with policies as reasonable as much of his competition for the nomination. But someone somewhere at the Republican convention must have slipped something into his drink, hypnotized him into some sort of weird political trance, changed his reading glasses, or erased his conscious memory in some way…did the Vietnamese ever watch The Manchurian Candidate?...and he walked out on stage apparently convinced that Sarah Palin was the answer to the American voter’s prayers. I guess that assumes that we were all praying for Caribou Barbie, a woman as insular as they come, whose convictions vary with her location and current ambition, and whose inability to utter a complete and cogent sentence boggles the mind. Had John McCain teamed up with just about anyone short of the anti-Christ, he might have done better in my book. Unfortunately for him, the best speech I heard him make, the most heartfelt and honest look at the mind of John McCain, was his concession speech. Had he spoken that well from the beginning, had he ignored his handlers, had he run from his own heart, he might have been president today.

Which (sort of) brings me back to my initial statement. Responsibility is that quality that people hunger for. We want someone who will deal with us and the issues from a position of honesty and candor. We don’t necessarily want someone who will tell us it’s all right, or who will trumpet “Mission accomplished!” when it’s not. We want someone whom we feel we can trust, and that someone has to be a responsible individual: one who demonstrates-- and brings out in us-- our best qualities and our highest levels of patriotism.

I don’t know that Barack Obama has better answers for the problems that beset us. I don’t know if he can fix what’s broken. In fact, I’m pretty sure he can’t. One man, even with a Democratic majority in Congress, can only do so much, and we are in pretty bad straits. However, I know how he makes me feel, how he makes other people feel, how he makes the country and the world feel. He makes us feel that we are not going to be victims anymore, but will be active participants in rebuilding our own corner of the world, and our reputation in the farther reaches of it. He is treating us as the responsible people we can and should be, and once were. He expects us all to be more than we are, and he’s allowed us to dream again of what we could be.

I hope that none of us is disappointed.

Over?

Well, I've cast my vote and now, will be sitting back to wait and see what everyone else has done. If people hold to their previous statements, at least half the population will be moving to Canada (that seems to be the universal threat if either "that one" OR "that WOMAN!!!" ends up winning.) While I don't really believe those threats from either side, it is apparent that there will be at least a few highly disgruntled voters tomorrow morning.

The task at hand, then, for all of us, seems to be adjusting to the outcome. No matter who wins, it's going to be a rough year for all concerned. I cannot imagine taking on any task as gargantuan as the one that faces the winner. No matter how low the bar set by our current president, expectations will be high, and those expectations all hold a tinge of desperation. While I think the American public has a rather healthy attitude toward the value of campaign promises (summed up by "Yeah. Right...") all those words and all that rhetoric are bound to come home to roost some time.

So...to all the candidates, winners and losers, I will say, as someone once said to me after I lost an election, "I don't know whether to say I'm sorry, or to congratulate you." I think the real winners are those of us who no longer have to listen to campaign ads, or avoid proselytizing friends, or debate the merits of the candidates. My blood pressure is bound to recede a few points at not having to listen to inflammatory idiocies on a regular basis, and not having to defend my intelligence against the everyday spout of lies and misdirections that constitute a presidential campaign. I know there is more to come in the analysis and rehash of the actual election process and the endless electoral college explanations. I know I will see much more of the candidates and their reactions, more maps, more talking heads, and more laptop-wielding politicos on TV...but the end is in sight. Thank God.

A Week with Audrey

Let me say this at the outset: I am no baby person. I have friends (forgive me, all of you) who melt at the very sight of an infant, who adored every moment of their children's babyhood, who cried when their little ones boarded the kindergarten bus. Not I.

My children were (and still are) wonderfully beautiful and intelligent, but I loved them most when they finally learned to speak. Perhaps it is my basic insecurity. I get panicky when I don't know what I'm doing--and babies are (and always have been) the ultimate unknown country. How do you KNOW what's wrong when they can't tell you, when their only switch seems to be OFF or ON, smiling or crying? I need more sophisticated controls, more fine-tuning.

We have spent this week in San Diego in the company of our daughter and 4-month-old granddaughter. Young Audrey is a marvel. If one ever wondered how our species survives, all it takes is one look at her in the morning when she wakes. One wriggle, one baby kick and squirm, one sunshiney smile, and we are toast. Anything she wants or needs is hers, whether it be room service at 3 AM or an extended walk in the garden to distract her from whatever is causing her to whimper...she can trample all over our sleep patterns and restaurant ways and recreational reading habits, and we barely notice. She smiles at us as if we are what she prizes most in this world--and that is reward enough.

Don't get me wrong. I suspect that if I were to be the primary caregiver for an infant, I would probably fail utterly. My daughter (and son-in-law) do an admirable job, with remarkable good humor. I can do a pretty fair back-up routine, and haven't forgotten the basics of diaper-changing, baby-holding and transfer, and the intricacies of car seats and porta-cribs. But I am still not a baby person.

I may, however, be an Audrey person, and I hope that Audrey turns out to be a Grandma kind of little girl.

Cloud

Is it the economy, or the presidential mudfest, or the time of year, or what? I'm finding it difficult to read the paper, or follow through on projects, or even write much. The weather has been gorgeous, but there still seems to be an oppressive black cloud hovering overhead, making it hard to breathe. I think it's called the future.

I went through the paper yesterday and there's not much joy in Mudville. Negative headlines far outnumber (if not obliterate) positive ones. I'm no Pollyanna, but when the only happy-face headline involves the results of Lehman Brothers contributing to a Habitat for Humanity housing effort in India--and the worry that funds for charity projects like these will dry up--I think we're in worse trouble than just the economy. Is there nothing good happening anywhere?

I'm tired of the McCain/Obama campaigns. Both sides are just repeating the same old songs, with additional random accusations flung at the other guys. Why not say something new? Why not address the reality of the situation and at least try to offer, if not hope, at least some sympathy? I don't believe much of what I hear from either camp any more. Just let us vote and get these people and their petty accusations off my TV screen.

I can't help worrying that, with all the mud that's been thrown, the emotional tenor of the campaigns, and the rampant fear engendered by the economic crisis, whoever wins will be the long-term loser. When campaign appearances start to sound like KKK rallies, and even candidates can't rein in their own supporters, when people who want us to elect them show no signs of being thoughtful citizens, much less LEADERS, even economic worries take a backseat to fears of anarchy. How far have we regressed as humans? The only way to get through hard times is together, with the support of our friends and neighbors--and it appears we are even losing that in today's divisive atmosphere.

When our financial gurus start bruiting about sums of money that we can barely comprehend, when presidential "assurances" cause the market to drop even further, when it's becoming increasingly clear that there's no one left in charge who we can trust or rely upon, what do we do? Covering our eyes, holding our ears, and singing at the tops of our voices hasn't seemed to help (and I suspect that's what we've all been doing for the past few years.) I'm not sure that there's any remedy except to put our heads down against the wind, gather our courage, hold on tightly to whatever we have left, and try to bull our way through the storm.

It would sure help if we didn't have to do it alone.

Kingston Trio

Nick Reynolds is dead. Nick Reynolds, as in Bob Shane, Dave Guard...and later, John Stewart: the Kingston Trio. I am sure that means nothing to the vast majority of people online, but they were the soundtrack to my freshman year in high school. They were the group that crossed over from folk to Top 40. Who doesn't remember "Tom Dooley" or "MTA" or "Tijuana Jail" (and the calm baritone response to Nick's frenzied Spanish yipping in that introduction: "No more drinks for the dwarf.")? But I always liked the tongue-in cheek songs that you found on their albums or in their concerts and not on the radio...Zombie Jamboree, Merry Minuet, Ballad of the Shape of Things....

As much as the music, the Kingston Trio brings back times and people. My introduction to them was via Tom Magrogan, president of our CYO, and an avid fan who had all the albums--and was murdered in his early 20s before his life began. They bring back the years BEFORE the Beatles, the years of Joan Baez and her copper kettle, of The New Christy Minstrels, of Peter, Paul and Mary...and the Kennedy years, when joining the Peace Corps was a valid ambition, and the world's problems seemed to be solvable.

We were all much younger then. Goodbye Nick.

Learning Curve

One of the greatest advantages of being the poet laureate is that I am often given the impetus I need to take time to read and think about what poetry is and what it does. I had agreed to talk this week to a group of people at the Hollin Hall Senior Center. I was given pretty free rein to talk, read, or lead a writing exercise within my hour and a half timeframe--and in my usual fashion, didn't get around to really planning things out until the days immediately leading up to the event.

The day before, I had picked up Billy Collins' new book, Ballistics, and had happened upon a great little (four lines!) poem called Divorce. This came on top of the completion of a poem-to-order for the Alex Awards, and also a reading of my son-in-law's notes on how a particular sculpture of his came to be. This confluence of circumstance led me to think about exploring the concept of creativity, and how ideas are harnessed and brought into some sort of concrete form. Indeed, this is one of the most frequently asked questions I get: how do you write something to order? where do you get ideas? what makes you choose a particular metaphor? My pre-laureate answers pretty much would have amounted to "I dunno", but I now feel like I owe people more than that.

So. How do you get ideas and convert them to poems? That's a question that is akin to asking someone how their mind works. Assuming that mine does, all I can really say is what I know about my own process. When I have a subject that I have to write about, I start to write things down: thoughts, phrases, sentences, words--anything that has any association with the topic. I may write paragraphs, I may write lists, but eventually, there will be a word or phrase or sentence that sounds right, or that appeals to me in some way. It's that something that is the seed for whatever I end up writing. Sometimes I don't find it the first time. Sometimes it just jumps up and skims across the page, playing with all sorts of other thoughts that I race to write down. That's how my "Audrey" poem went: one phrase and I was off and running. Other times (last year's Alex Awards poem springs to mind) the process drags on and on and is tinged with a note of panic as the deadline approaches.

For me, the writing process is a continuous game of free association. A poem for a grief counseling newsletter starts out with lists of how you feel in the wake of a loss, how you are shaken and battered by events, but eventually come out the other end..and the metaphor that pops out of the lists is a pinball machine. That works, and I have my poem.

Then comes the inevitable question about editing. I used to say I didn't edit. But when I actually look at what I do...well, I guess I do. Usually I edit on the fly and rearrange lines and phrases and words as I type. Or look at the printed product and start juggling things around. Hardly ever do I sit and cross out words on a handwritten copy. I type my first draft and save it to disk, then mess with it some more over the period of time I have before it's due. And sometimes even after that. Sometimes I find a better word. Sometimes I realize I could make more sense if I moved things around. Sometimes I just look at it and say "What a piece of crap" and start over. But I never throw things away. There's always the possibility that I can cannibalize old pieces of stuff and come up with something new. In fact, when I'm really stuck, I will often go back and read everything I've written--finished or unfinished, good or bad--and I can usually come up with something that incorporates one good phrase that was enmeshed in a pile of bad or trite (same thing, really) verbiage (is it just coincidence that that word SOUNDS like 'garbage'?) I am an avid recycler in that respect.

And thus I meander through my explanation--sort of. It's far easier to point to people who do it well: Billy Collins for instance, who polishes his little nugget of insight down to four trenchant lines that say everything there is to say about divorce. Or the poem Hardware, where the poet talks about nuts and bolts and wingnuts for two stanzas and somehow tells you without speaking it aloud that he is grieving for his father. Or Joseph Awad, whose poem Generations speaks so eloquently of a father's love for his son that it makes me cry every time I read it. Or the poem whose name and author I can't remember (God, how I wish I could find it again!) about a woman who berates her husband for coming home from the supermarket with the wrong brand of just about everything--then turns that into a grateful acknowledgment that that was how he picked her to marry. (I guess you have to read the poem, but it is a great one, I assure you.)

I guess all I can say is that I'm thankful that I have this position that makes me consider things that are more important than my usual fare, and discuss them with other people. Ideas are what keep us going, after all.

In honor of the Norman Conquest--anniversary this week!

Speaking of language and derivations that resulted from the incorporation of French (and all its interesting derivations) into the English language.....Poet, for example, we got from the Old French word poete, which entered French from Greek via Latin. In Greek, there's poiein, a verb meaning "to create." And in Greek there is poetes, "maker, poet." In Middle English, "poetry" at first referred to creative literature as a whole.

Weekend in New York

Having just returned from a weekend in New York that was full of fine food, good theater, and good friends--and also a full measure of walking--I am catching up on everything from laundry to email. I'm grateful to be home, in spite of the great time we had, because New York is just too much for me. Too many people, too much traffic, too much noise, too much stimulation...Alexandria is more my speed. Close enough to theater and museums and restaurants, but far enough that they aren't shoved down your throat with a heaping helping of humanity.

We took in MoMA's member preview of the Van Gogh exhibit on Saturday morning, then had lunch at Sardi's (JC loves their Floating Island dessert.) Theater-wise, this was a revival weekend; we saw South Pacific, Gypsy, and A Man for All Seasons--none of which I had seen in their original stage versions, though I had seen the movies. All were fantastic, but my once-Catholic heart was particularly touched by the last of those three.

What a shame that every young person in America cannot see that play...What a role model to emulate. ..a man who obeys his conscience without becoming a screaming ideologue, or inflicting his beliefs on anyone else; a man who holds to his moral compass wisely and wittily and earns respect, even as his friends despair of him. Frank Langella brings this totally human scholar and statesman to the stage, and makes us love him and his family--and even more, makes us admire the steel in the man that makes him sacrifice so much that he holds dear for something he holds even dearer: his character.

1787: We the people

Two hundred and twenty-one years ago today in Philadelphia, the Constitution was signed, giving birth to an experiment in government that has been more successful than the signers ever dreamed. Today is a good day to step back from the current political fray and look at what this document, this idea, this dream has produced.

We have, for over two hundred years, experienced peaceful (for the most part) elections of our leaders. We have seen the civilized transfer of power from one party to another. We have seen slavery abolished, and the right to vote extended to all citizens, regardless of their race or gender. We have seen inflammatory legal issues decided by our courts system, and the results debated and sometimes changed via prescribed procedures.

It hasn't been perfect. We have made mistakes. There have been violent disagreements and protests of unpopular policies, but we have been faithful to that initial statement of our founding fathers: "We, the people..." are the deciders for our country. We, the people, will vote in November and select our leaders once again. We, the people of the United States of America, have been making history for over two hundred years, and this election is another chapter, another illustration of how that happens. Whether we choose a black man or a white man, a woman or a man, a soldier or a statesman, we know that the Constitution is strong enough to withstand whatever storms we may encounter. Times may get rougher, challenges harder to meet; prestige may fade, economics may falter, but we planted our flag over 200 years ago in Philadelphia. It will stand.

Happy birthday, Roald Dahl!

Is there a child alive who has not heard, read, or watched a story by Roald Dahl? If such a child exists, I must condemn his/her parents/family/teachers to one of the lower circles of hell for depriving him/her of some of the best stories available for kids. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Twits, James and the Giant Peach, The Witches...all the wonder and horrors and dreams and fears that populate kids' imaginations, orchestrated and presented in a way that captivates not only kids, but their parents as well. Go back and read them again as a birthday tribute.

Farm to Fork

If last night's Farm to Fork dinner at Del Ray's Evening Star was any indicator of the value of freshness, maybe I need to start growing food crops in my tiny garden. Somehow I doubt if my efforts--in the garden or my kitchen--could produce the results that we enjoyed last night from the kitchen of Chef Will Artley. An ambrosial gazpacho was succeeded by a series of plates (shrimp fritter, scallops, salads, wonderfully crunchy little chips of garlic, beef tenderloin, ratatouille napoleon) that kept topping each other in flavor, innovation and just plain deliciousness. The previous list was from memory--and I'm a person who sometimes has trouble remembering what I ate for lunch!

I also have to say I am pretty much a dessert purist, and the listed dessert that incorporated tomatoes as well as a basil ice cream had me casting a fairly skeptical eye at the menu. However...like everything else on the table, it vastly exceeded expectations and I would have cheerfully pocketed two or three to take home. The wines were ignored in the discussions, but certainly did not deserve to be. When did they say the next dinner in this series will be?

The trouble with blogs

It's so easy to START a blog..it's keeping it going that is difficult. I don't always have something to say. Though my family might differ with that, I am certain they'd agree that not everything I prattle on about is worth listening to. I've opened this screen at least three times today in the hope that a bolt of lightning will illuminate the room and I will suddenly have an idea worthy of a paragraph or two. Nope. I've pretty much decided that I MUST do an entry at least once a week--which gives me absolution for a little more than 80% of my time. I can live with that.

That resolved, I have been attempting to corral my poetry oeuvre into some sort of orderly topic-oriented progression, so that I might enter a few contests, submit to a few journals, and perhaps, just perhaps, achieve (in that suddenly-free 80% of my time) that devoutly-to-be-wished goal: publication.

It isn't easy. Despite my exalted title (ahem) I am still as uncertain about the quality and value of what I write as I ever was. It's so easy to brush off a compliment or a kind word as simple good manners. (Perhaps that is because of the books I've read and readings that I've walked away from with a contemptuous "I could do better than that!")

In any event, sending my work off to a journal or other publication feels like putting a brand-new kindergartner on the bus--or perhaps, more accurately, flinging them under the wheels of the bus. I read a poem, then I start (figuratively) to comb its hair or tweak its shirt, or lick my handkerchief and scrub away at an imagined spot. It's impossible to believe that it is ready to be dispatched into the real world to be judged and (possibly) found wanting. Far easier to keep it safe at home.

But then, how will I ever know whether it measures up or not? Maybe this is why so many artists (and I include poets among them) aren't recognized until they are dead. They can't let go.

After the conventions

I'm beginning to think that the best method for evaluating our national circus (otherwise known as the presidential election) might be the same process used in rating other competitive enterprises: collect the scores, throw out the highest and the lowest, then average the middle ones. That way, we could just ignore all the over-the-top shenanigans (Sarah Palin's speech, for one), throw out all the low blows (but who's counting?), and whittle things down to reality-level.

Accept the fact that (thank God) our system of checks and balances won't permit the fulfillment of the more outrageous promises/consequences and believe that the American public won't fall totally for the exaggerations, misrepresentations, and downright lies that people tell (and the media reports) while under the influence of the convention spotlights. No candidate is a savior, and no candidate is the devil incarnate. Lord knows, we've had some bad actors in government, and politics can generate some pretty reprehensible behavior--but, somehow, we've managed to hold things together for a couple centuries with this system of ours. No matter who is elected, life will go on; perhaps not in the way we want it to, perhaps not without some serious bumps in the road, but on, nevertheless.

I'd like to believe that when I go into the voting booth in November, there will be millions of others like me (and certainly millions of others NOT like me) who will be listening to their own consciences, their own values (if the Republicans haven't damaged that word for all time), and their own beliefs, and will be voting for the people who are most closely aligned with their own views. I'd like to think that when the voting is done, all those millions of people will accept the results and continue to work and be involved in the governmental processes that allow even the minority to have a voice in how this country operates. That is, after all, the way this is all supposed to work.

Sarah Palin: Gloria says it better.

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-oe-steinem4-2008sep04,0,1290251.story

Summer's End

Only yesterday the sunshined schoolbus
ceased its daily orbit round the neighborhood.
We shrieked across the schoolyard,
books and teachers in our wake.
Freed from the solitary confinement of our desks
we wrote our names instead in jet trails
across the vast blue board of sky,
multiplied our hours by each blade of grass,
perfected the physics of skipping stones
and measured the depth and flow of creek and pond.
From grassy beds, we studied pinprick stars
in the planetarium of night
and wrapped ourselves in lush damp air
that sparkled with fireflies and magic.

Yet here we stand in August, three months gone--
with our barefoot mornings and lemonade afternoons,
days of watermelon on the porch
and thorny blackberry expeditions behind us,
learning once more the sweet alchemy of a peach
while the juice of summer
trickles through our fingers...

September???

Wait a minute. What happened to summer? Seems like it was Memorial Day only last week, and now, Labor Day? I think it has something to do with my absence from the school scene. When you are going to school--as a student or a parent or a teacher--your life is defined by the quarter system and punctuated by vacations. Leave that system and you're like an eecummings poem--except even those have some internal structure. You can't even rely on the retail establishment to keep you on an even keel: the aisles are full of Halloween merchandise the day after the 4th of July, and I imagine Christmas stuff will arrive next week on the heels of the back-to-school clearances. The seasons have even disappeared from the grocery store. At this point we should be winding down from peaches and corn and tomatoes and moving into apple season, but, thanks to the wonders of modern technology and transportation, I can still buy strawberries and cantaloupes that should have disappeared in June.

I need to be grounded a little more in the real world. Establish more of a routine. Pay more attention. Slow things down enough that I can see the changes and not have the seasons zing by me like they've been fired from a slingshot. Maybe it's true what they say--that once you're over the hill, you pick up speed.

Complexity

In the past 72 hours, I have popped like a kernel of Orville Redenbacher's finest all over the frying pan of my life. From the Democratic convention--Mark Warner and Hillary!! And the governor of Montana (what a guy!)-- to a marathon trip to Pennsylvania, joining my 88-year old mother in her monthly lunch reunion with her high school graduating class, fully 2/3 of whom are cousins. From lunch with my writing group to dinner at Acadiana, to the grocery store, to poet laureate stuff, to church committee, to a friend's birthday party plans, to where-can-I-get steamed-crabs in Baltimore (a question from a Californian friend)....pop, pop, pop. Nothing is related, nothing leads into the next event, and my entire life seems to be a monster non sequitur, a tale told by an idiot, signifying nothing. At least on the bad days.

And then I think of Georges Seurat and all his little dots. Maybe there's a picture in here somewhere and I just have to step back a little to see what's going on.

Library of Congress

All right. Raise your hands. How many of you have never visited the Library of Congress? (Seeing the Nicholas Cage "National Treasure" movie doesn't count.) We took a tour this weekend, and though I'd briefly visited when the great hall was finally restored, and also to get a reader's card this past year, I had not spent any serious time looking at the building or seeing what it had to offer till then. Wow.

Perhaps it was just that we'd spent two weeks photographing every building, statue, and scenic view in Italy this summer, but I wished throughout this tour that I'd had the brains to bring along my camera. The interior is simply gorgeous, and full of quotations (a weakness of mine) and symbolism, statues and mosaics and interesting details. And this is before you even get to the books. And the reading rooms. And the exhibits. (Did you know they have Bob Hope's complete joke file? Arranged by topic.) It is indeed a 'palace of books'--a temple of books-- and it speaks seductively to the booklover. Books of all shapes and sizes and subjects and provenance, arrayed in every direction. A place to stand in awe, overwhelmed by the power of words, worthy of devout pilgrimage.

"City of Songs" in City Hall

Update: my poem "City of Songs" has been hung in City Hall. I visited it this morning, and it is hanging right where the line starts for parking permits (on the left side of the back lobby, as you face the information desk.) In any case, none of my visiting friends or relations will be allowed to walk down King Street without being dragged across Market Square to see my piece of immortality. Consider yourselves warned.

Looking for Superman

It's dawned upon me in this election year--and also with the Olympics and the somewhat baffling love/hate relationship China has with its athletes--that what we have here is a Superman problem. When mild-mannered Clark Kent decided to go public with his superpowers, his mom stitched him up a blue and red costume that he donned whenever he launched himself at the world's crises. Likewise, billionaire Bruce Wayne had a signal that he was changing into his alter ego. When problems arose, he got out the flashy car and costume that showed he was stronger, smarter, faster than mortal men, not to mention morally superior.

It seems to me that we want a reverse process in politics. We seem to want a superhero, a card-carrying, costume-wearing, genuinely super-powered individual to adopt a mild-mannered persona, complete with business suit, red tie and flag lapel pin..someone who will then use his superpowers to solve all our thorny issues in a blast of super-speed. Likewise, in the Olympics, we seem to want our human athletes to be superheroes, redeeming all our failings (as individuals and as nations) in their triumphs. What we require is someone who looks like us, but can transcend all our faults and be all that we wish we were. A very different kind of superhero--perhaps even a savior.

The fact is, it ain't gonna happen. We may have candidates who dodge questions faster than a speeding bullet; politicians who think themselves more powerful than a locomotive, and others who can leap tall questions with a single bound. But, the bottom line is, they are only human, no matter what they wear or what they promise. It all comes down to the kind of human they are and the values they uphold. Rather than looking for supermen, we should be looking for people like us who hold the same values precious and who will work in their own human way to have those values inform our decisions as a nation. They should be humble enough--and smart enough--to know their own limits, and to surround themselves with advisers who are the best and brightest in their fields, rather than cronies and those to whom they are indebted politically or financially. They should represent not a bird, not a plane, not Superman--but our own high hopes and expectations. I'm looking for that in my candidates, be they running for national, state, or local office.

November is nearly here. Up, up, and away!

Growing old

This has been a summer of change. My 88-year-old mom had a bad episode (heat stroke, heart attack, hospitalization) and her recovery has been slow and fraught with difficult decisions. Suddenly it is blatantly apparent that she has grown old when I wasn't looking. It seems as if it happened overnight, but I know that's not true. I just didn't see the gradual slowdown, the hesitation in her step, the uncertainty...

Who is this cranky person who sits in my mother's chair, who lives in her apartment, who claims not to like vegetables (after doing everything but cram them down my throat when I was a child), who stubbornly insists that she will continue to drive when she feels a little stronger, who pleads utter boredom one minute, followed by a claim of exhaustion in the next? What happened to the energy she had for everything from washing her windows to ironing altar linens to her decorative painting and her unrelenting letters to friends and family? A load of laundry saps her strength, and a trip to the grocery store leaves her breathing hard and ready for a nap.

Gone. Lost, stolen, or strayed, but nevertheless, gone. Her step falters, her hand shakes, her memory fails her. Betrayed by the hard-working body she took for granted for so long, she is left with only her will to accomplish simple goals: to live independently, not to be a burden, to take care of her needs with a minimum of assistance, to spend time with friends and family, to be-- in whatever way-- a productive, contributing person. It's not that much to ask, but we can all see that she is deathly afraid that she won't be able to continue on her own. I don't think I've ever seen my mom afraid until now. And that fear takes the form of stubbornness and contrariness and complaint that no amount of rational discussion can diminish.

Scarier even than facing this sort of mortality in her is the knowledge that we're next. Sixty is not that far from eighty.

Back to Inspiration Point

I did visit the Pen Show yesterday, and came home with all sorts of advice on pen care (and a couple new pens, of course..more on that later) and so, I started the morning unearthing my pens and cleaning the fountain pens, as they truly suffer when they are allowed to dry out (which I inevitably allow them to do.) About an hour (and several ink-stained fingers and towels) later, I had several spanking-clean fountain pens ready to fill and use. One of my favorites--the retractable Namiki fountain pen--actually had a few spare cartridges in the pen box, so I loaded it up and proceeded to write inanities repeatedly on a piece of paper until the ink started flowing freely and all the water had been purged from the mechanism.

It is only a matter of time, believe me, before anyone of a certain age, writing repetitious phrases, lapses into the tried and true "Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country." Or "party", if you prefer that version. Just take a look at all the test writing pages at the pen show. If you're trying out a pen, and lack the ego to write your name repeatedly, the old typewriter exercise is one of the first things that comes to mind. I saw a lot of it yesterday. Obviously, I am no exception, as that is what I started writing to exercise my rediscovered pen. "Now is the time...now is the time..."

One school of writing says that, if you are stumped for how to start, or don't know what to write about, the best thing is to just sit down and start writing anything; that if you do this free writing every day, you WILL come up with something. I have never believed it. It always seemed to me to put an awful lot of faith in your subconscious, and even smacked a little of 'automatic writing' and a sort of spiritualistic belief.

However, this morning as I wrote and rewrote the old saw, completely as well as in bits and pieces, the rhythm of the words started battering on my brain. Before too long, I had the beginnings of a poem (see below) and have now determined that I can keep my pens in working order, be inspired, and impose some much-needed discipline on my writing efforts by simply sitting down each morning and copying bromides (or quotations) by hand for a half hour. It's at least a start. Who knows? Maybe even my handwriting will improve...

BTW--I found an 'antique pen'--an old blue marbleized Esterbrook fountain pen, identical to the one with which I learned to write in cursive in third grade. I also spoke with the designer of another pen, called Fat Boy (which I identified with for another, this time unfortunate, reason) and I bought a red Fat Boy Comet limited edition rollerball, which I love. It has such a serious heft to it that I can't help but write more seriously and more weightily with it. And besides, did I mention that it's red? (pictured, top to bottom: the Esterbrook, the Comet, and my Namiki)

Typewriter Exercise

Now is the time.
We have waited so long, too long
in this wilderness of scandal,
of war, of intrigue, of the sly and sleazy,
Now is the time
For all good men
(All of us, good men
and women, young and old,
black and white and in between)
to come together, to come forward,
to stand in the light
of our own good conscience,
To come to the aid
of those in need, who have no defense, no hope but us,
who trust in the strong and capable hands
Of our people, our dreamers, our do-ers,
Who trust in the hope, the faith, the courage
Of our country:

one country, under God, indivisible,

with liberty and justice for all.

Now is the time.

Pen Woman

It's that time of year again. About this time each year, the Pen Show comes to town, and I'm compelled to visit. Carrie Bradshaw has shoes. I have pens and paper. If one were to go through my house with a fine-toothed comb and remove all writing implements ...I'd probably have room for everything else and could retire my storage facility debt. But, like books, you can never have too many writing utensils or things to write on or in. At least in my estimation.

The idiocy of this is that most of my writing is done on my laptop. Hardly ever do I sit in my garret with pen in hand, consigning my deepest thoughts and insights to a leather-bound journal. Not that I don't HAVE that leather-bound journal (or its handmade paper-bound, or spiral-bound, or on-sale-at-Borders, or isn't-that-cute, or I-really-like-that-paper equivalents) or any number of fountain, roller-ball, ball-point, miniature, silver, resin, celluloid, or retractable pens to use. Open a drawer or purse or cabinet and they are there, ready and waiting.

BUT...the lure of the pen is there. I will no doubt make my way to Tysons Corner this weekend, park blocks away from the Sheraton Premiere, pay my admission and wander in awe past the thousand-dollar collector's pens, the works of art that one could barely imagine using. I will check out the latest and greatest in pen technology, ooh and ahh over the pretty colors and slim (or chunky) profiles. I will pick pens up and enjoy the weight and the feel of them--and imagine the deathless prose and poetry inside them, just waiting for my hand, my brain to release it.

Pens are souvenirs of my romance with words. They are a remembered first kiss, the pressed flower from a prom corsage, a fond recollection of a favorite dress. Long ago, I fell in love with the mystery and the texture and the magic of pen and paper, and I am still lost. I've embraced technology, but there is a corner of my heart that cherishes that first love and refuses to abandon it. The tactile pleasure of a special paper, the smooth luxuriant flow of ink, the sensory recognition of thought made tangible: these are the melody of my love song. And pens provide the words.

Jake the Flake strikes again

We were going away for the weekend and made the serious error of not checking on Jake's whereabouts before we left. Since it was only a brief trip, we'd just put out plenty of food, water and kitty litter and counted on Jake's resourcefulness. Wrong.

When we arrived home Sunday afternoon, there was no Jake-in-the-window, watching for squirrels. When we opened the door, there was no Jake rolling over on command, just to show us how much he missed us. In fact, there was no Jake at all--which was pretty alarming. Then we heard the faint meow of Jake-trapped-somewhere--a sound I'd heard before that had signified the total destruction of my leather jacket that had the misfortune of being trapped WITH Jake in the hall closet.

This time it was the bedroom closet-- fortunately the closet that holds all the things on hangers we don't use much, along with spare sheets and towels and blankets. Needless to say, it was a wreck. All hanging clothes had been separated from their hangers. All shelved items had been de-shelved. All hangers were bent and broken. And Jake was perched on the shelf, hoarsely meowing for all he was worth. Two days without food, drink, or kitty litter fortunately had had little effect on him, or at least, so it appeared.

On the other hand, we had the unwelcome task of removing all items from the closet, disentangling them from fallen hangers and shredded shoeboxes, and always, always, being on the lookout for anything that had been used as a litter substitute. Fortunately, this was not too difficult. The old blanket that had landed on top of the fallen clothing had borne the brunt of Jake's 'accidents', sparing JC's tux and my silk jacket (among other things) from everything but a heavy layer of cat hair and a lot of wrinkles. To be on the safe side, everything washable got washed; everything dry-cleanable went to the drycleaners. The closet was wiped clean and Febreze-d to a fare-thee-well. We're back to normal.

I'd like to say that Jake learned his lesson and now avoids closets like the plague. Not so. Within hours of our return, he had once again strolled into the same closet and had the door shut upon him by mistake. Mea culpa.

Now on the checklist for departures: say 'goodbye' to Jake--face-to-face!

The play's the thing...

Just got back from our marathon play weekend in West Virginia. I have often said (in other venues) that the main thing one has to pack for the Contemporary American Theater Festival is a full complement of anti-depressants. Seldom does one spend an entire weekend with successively more depressing accounts of American dysfunctional families. Four plays, four mood-crushing exercises in futility. The chief reasons we go are the friends we go with, the dinners we share, the milkshakes at Betty's (OMG!)...and the feeling that we are getting a sneak peek at what's ahead in American theater.

Good news. Last year we came home not wishing to slit our wrists, but we figured that might be a one-year fluke. This year, the trend is confirmed. While not exactly cheery, this year's offerings provided a little more balanced view. Dysfunction is still the malady du jour, but the overall attitude is lighter. The endings are still not happy, but one doesn't exit the theater calculating the closest route to oblivion. Entertaining, thought-provoking, sobering, well-acted...these are the words for this year's crop of new plays as presented in Shepherdstown.

I'd like to think we're emerging from the dark night of Sam Shepard's soul that has seemed to dominate all new plays and playwrights. I'm not a Pollyanna exactly, and I'd hate to emerge from every theater performance humming the equivalent of "Oh What a Beautiful Morning"...but I do occasionally enjoy seeing a play where blood and wreckage and betrayal are not prominent plot features. There's room for sunshine in my theater pantheon. I don't expect Shepherdstown to fill that void necessarily, but they are making progress in that direction.

Meanwhile, there ARE the milkshakes at Betty's.

New Socks

I have a tendency (okay, a compulsion) to browse when I'm anywhere that has shops, and the more unusual, the better. Today I was at Tyson's Corner--an unlikely place for an epiphany, and as I browsed through the shops, I realized that I was wallowing in, if not the slough of despond, at least the slough of ennui.

I've discovered that I'm prone to that sort of thing. I had been getting less and less enthusiastic about cooking over the past year and was of late seizing any excuse not to, no matter how tenuous the pretext. On our return from our visit to Tucson, however--where my job had been to prepare meals every day for a week --I found that I'd experienced a renaissance of interest--purely from doing that. All at once, it wasn't a chore anymore. I started looking for new recipes, shopping for ingredients, figuring out how things fit together...It was fun again.

The same thing applies to writing. It's really easy to fall off the wagon and not write one day. Unfortunately, that 'one day' starts multiplying, until the writing becomes a distant chore that you don't enjoy anymore. My brain bogs down in an empty hole; I'm not thinking anything new and it shows in my work.

Now you may be wondering where all this circumlocution is leading, and how it connects to Tyson's Corner. My epiphany was that I found a book in my browsing. It was a children's book, called "New Socks", and it's a writing manual. Not really, but it is as much of a writing how-to as any other book in Barnes & Noble's labyrinthine stacks. It relates the experience and excitement of a little chick (maybe a duck--it was yellow and had a beak) who has a new pair of socks. Hardly "War and Peace"-- or even Strunk & White.

However, as I paged through the book (I DO like children's books, particularly if I can put an adult spin on them) I started thinking again of Billy Collins and his Looney Tunes inspiration. If we're going to write, we need to foster that same kind of excitement, that same kind of wide-eyed "Wow!" with which children (and chicks) view their world. We've got to let our worldview be upended and enhanced by things as simple as a pair of new socks, or as complex as a presidential election. Sitting in front of my laptop doesn't make me a writer--at least not a writer with anything to say. Getting out in the world and tasting it, seeing new things and embracing them, thinking about something in a new way and writing about it: that's what gives me a reason--and a responsibility--to put my work out there for others to see.

All I needed was a pair of new socks. Read the book.

Reading jag

When I was young and fancy-free (read "living at home with my mom doing the laundry and the cooking and cleaning) I used to read incessantly. We lived a mile from one of the best libraries in America: the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore--Branch 26--and I took full advantage of its proximity. I always had a stack of books at the ready, waiting for me to dip into them. I also had a deadline, as the borrowing period was about two weeks, as I recall. Ten books in two weeks translated to about a day and a half per book..pretty tough when I had to fit in things like school and stuff as well. But, somehow, there were very few books that didn't get read before I trucked them back to the library. (My mother would probably chime in that there were quite a few OTHER things that fell by the wayside, however.)



Anyway, it seems that the older I got (and the more complex life became) the more my reading declined, being relegated now to the never-never land between washing the dinner dishes and falling asleep. This period seems to be getting shorter every year, and I'm not sure if we're eating later or falling asleep earlier. In any event, the books are piling up, along with the newspapers and magazines and recipe clippings and email and other electronic subscriptions.



Now, with retirement either knocking at the door or amazingly, inside already, I find that I'm reading more, and moreover, reading differently. You have to understand that--all my life--I have been an indiscriminate reader. Books, newspapers, metro ads, cereal boxes, comic books, labels, those little tray liners at McDonalds...all were fair game. If it had words on it, I would read it. I read the way gluttons ate--because it was there, whether or not it had any nutritive value. I read for amusement, information, to pass the time, to hide from other people (I was a shy person, down to my very bones), to have something to talk about, to know something other people didn't...



Now, while some residue of that lack of discrimination remains (for example, reading on plane trips to avoid thinking about that strange thumping noise in the wing or the turbulence that has me wondering if my will is up to date) I read less often, but with greater attention. Is this poem in the New Yorker worth copying for my files? What should we not miss on our trip to Italy? What does a new grandmother need to know? And of course, the endless email-blog-google parade of addictive information, without which I might have a life away from my laptop...There is so much I have yet to learn that I go on great galloping reading jags when I do have the time, and plow through book after book until I can read no more...

So, in the midst of all this sturm und drang, I read a review of a book by and about an author--an author, mind you!--who had a minor stroke that robbed him of his ability to read. Now, I have thought, on occasion, what it might be like if I lost my sight, or hearing (maybe I already have, to some degree), mobility, and any number of things. But reading has always been a constant, a sine qua non of my existence. What would I do if suddenly words were just random squiggles, beyond comprehension? How could I function, understanding that there was meaning there, but just out of my reach? Can you write if you can't read? And if you (understandably) can't do either, how do you absorb, remember, make sense of the world and its information?

If I can draw any conclusion from this morass, it might be that my life as a reading junkie has served me well thus far, and further, that reading deprivation might well be one of the deeper circles of hell for someone like me. There are a lot worse things than having stacks of books and magazines in every corner. They are a tangible sign that my brain is alive and well and functioning; what more could I ask of my life?

New babies

Unfortunately I was unable to attend last Saturday's Alexandria Birthday celebration due to the arrival of our first grandchild. That event trumped just about everything else on our summer agenda. After a week or so of baby-holding and transfers, preparing meals and doing laundry, it is clear why caring for babies is for the young--or at least those more fit than I. Multi-tasking is the name of the game, and my admiration abounds for young mothers who manage to do so much so well.

Needless to say, Audrey is a beautiful baby--growing daily in wisdom, age and grace (3/4 of an inch in height as well!) I will not be a typical grandmother and extol her virtues ad infinitum, but rest assured that she has a plentitude of them, and will no doubt have a few poems from her grandmother to paper her nursery walls. Who knew how fascinating it would be to watch someone sleep? Or do almost anything...

Poetic Inspiration

This weekend I read one of the more true-to-life (at least true to MY life) commentaries on poetic inspiration I've ever read. In the weekend edition of The Wall Street Journal, Billy Collins (former U.S. Poet Laureate and down-to-earth poet extraordinaire) attacked the question of inspiration and, after acknowledging the knee-jerk reaction answers given by most writers, attempted to provide a more truthful alternative: one that rang especially true for me. By all means, find the article and read it if you can--or email me for the copy I made of it.

The fact is that inspiration doesn't necessarily come in wispy packages of cloud, or in the works of great poets or art. For anyone seeking their muse, it might prove more useful to get out in the world and pay attention to what's going on there than to closet yourself in your low-rent garret and wait for inspiration to find you. Anything that serves to take you out of yourself, beyond the box of everyday living, everyday possibility, is a source of inspiration. Whether that vehicle is the Looney Tunes cartoons of Billy Collins' youth or a wild idea that hits you upside the head while you're driving to work...don't question the source. Just make the most of it. The real road to inspiration lies in paying attention.

Mind the gaps...

I seem to have lost not just a weekend, a la Ray Milland, but a full week or so. The truth of the matter is that life has intruded on the internet--or something like that. Inject a little reality--like some unexpected travel, a party to give, and a major automotive breakdown--and the most faithful blogger can fall down on the job. Mea culpa.

My trusty vehicle had just passed the 100,000 mile mark and I was congratulating myself on its stellar performance for lo, these eight years, when it decided to go out with a (literal) bang--in the middle of beltway traffic Monday morning. One minute, I was sailing along at 60 mph--and the next, was coasting on my remaining momentum across two lanes of traffic toward an inglorious stop, trailing a cloud of black smoke and what looked like a river of oil. With the invaluable aid of my cellphone and a AAA rep who was able to determine my location from what meager information I could supply ("Uh, just past an exit somewhere between Route 50 and Andrews Air Force Base ..") we managed to get the car towed back home to Alexandria. I am happy to report that the car has received an engine transplant and is again back on the road, though I wouldn't have expected that happy ending last Monday.

More to come...like, what is this Bathroom Poetry Project I read about in the Post this morning?

Donkey's years?

A posted comment on yesterday's post inquired as to the length of a donkey year. Hmmm. Yet another of those verbal leaps that I tend to make. I know what it means--a long time--but how in the world did that phrase come about? The answer to all things is obviously to google it. I did, and the explanation involves EARS, not YEARS--or maybe a little of both. My source traces it to cockney rhyming slang..."years and years" is translated to a rhyming phrase "donkey's ears". Over the years, "donkey's ears" was corrupted to "donkey's years". Who knew?

As long as I'm on origins of useful phrases, commonly used or not, there was another that surfaced this weekend. My husband and I took a letterpress printing class on Saturday, and were thrilled with the experience. We learned how to set type and convert our efforts to a hand-printed card. For bookish types like us, what a great chance to expand our knowledge base-- and particularly satisfying for me to write, choose a font, set type, choose paper and print my own poem. For those of us who are control freaks, being able to work through the whole process from start to finish was nothing short of nirvana. And JC was so taken that he is trying to figure out how we could possibly find space for a press of our own. Anyway, the individual pieces of type--i.e. the letters--are called "sorts". Thus, when a printer was setting type for a print job, and found himself short of certain letters toward the end, he was said to be "out of sorts". As I could well imagine when I nearly ran out of "w"s for my effort. We both had a great time. For avid readers like us, it truly gave us a new appreciation for the printed word that we have relied on all our lives for information, relaxation, and entertainment.

I guess this is not the right time to say that we just bought a Kindle electronic reader, huh? But that's a different story.

A blog, a newspaper, and a poem.

I've come to the conclusion that a blog is like a pet: it needs regular feeding and exercise. Even if it's out of sight, it's never really out of mind, and generates its own variety of guilt. As you drop off to sleep, this vague uneasy thought burrows under your consciousness--"I should have written something today.."

My usual mental response is: better to write something of interest than to write for the sake of writing. Which is all well and good, BUT..it doesn't really stop that little mole from digging up a pile of guilt anyway.

I was on the Metro last week and was absolutely riveted by one of my fellow passengers. At the time, it was just curiosity, but I'm beginning to think that he is the beginning of a poem. I took my seat and started reading my paperback, and noticed that the gentleman in question was reading his newspaper--but in the most orderly fashion I've ever observed. With almost military precision, he picked up each section from his lap, folded the section vertically, then horizontally--read the top sheet, flipped to the quadrant below, then turned the section, refolded, and read top and bottom quarters. He repeated this for each page: northwest quadrant, followed by southwest, northeast, southeast. By this time, I was watching him more than I was reading. How neat! How tidy! How considerate of other riders! And how beyond my capabilities...The man qualifies as a true wonder of nature.

When I open a newspaper--or a map!--anywhere, it immediately expands to fill the space available. I could, I believe, fill an entire Metro car with one of my exploding newspapers. In the car, I wrestle prodigiously with your standard gas station map--so much so that I have been reduced to buying ADC maps because they are bound with that little black plastic spiral that keeps them leashed and confined and incapable of crawling into the already-crowded backseat of my car.

I wondered where he had learned his method. I wondered if I could learn it. I imagined him in a crowded elevator, elbows in, rectangle of news held in front of his face. Stepping off the elevator, he would tuck his neat package of information under his arm and proceed to his office to organize nothing short of the D-Day invasion. He made me think of Roman soldiers, running in such tight formation that one misstep could topple the century. (I was reading about Rome in my paperback.) This is a man, who in one of our society's rapidly-shrinking theater or airline seats, could manage to be comfortable, yet not spill over into someone else's personal space. He is self-contained, respects boundaries, is informed and efficient. Everything I wish I were, and so obviously, am not.

And so, the poem. What better metaphor for poetry than my friend, the subway rider? Perhaps he started off as messy and (pardon the expression) all over the map as I. Perhaps he has worked to refine his behavior, his actions, his newspaper reading, much as a poet refines and polishes the great lump of words he initially produces, taking away the superfluous, amping up the things that work, grinding away at the rough spots until the words flow smoothly and effortlessly describe, picture, and pin down the intended meaning. Perhaps what I saw was the zillionth reading of his newspaper-reading poem, performed every day for donkey's years on the Metro. And the finished product was awe-inspiring.

May I someday be as accomplished a poet as he was a reader.

City Council Meeting

For those of you who may have missed tonight's City Council meeting, Councilman Ludwig Gaines kindly presented a proclamation noting my first anniversary as poet laureate, and added more than a few kind words. In addition, Kirk Kincannon and CherylAnne Colton were introduced, and brought with them the beautifully framed calligraphy version of "City of Songs" that will be hung in City Hall.

As I said this evening, the one thing that the proclamation did NOT mention was how much fun I have had this past year, talking about and writing poetry with groups ranging from toddlers to senior citizens. There always seems to be something new on the horizon, and I am constantly gratified by the amount of interest shown in reading and poetry and the arts.

(I would be remiss if I did not note that once again, there was a mascot at the meeting: this time, Tony the Titan, representing T.C.Williams High School for their all-night grad party...)

First Anniversary

Tomorrow, Tuesday, June 10, is a sort of anniversary for me. Tomorrow marks my second appearance before the Alexandria City Council--my first since my official appointment as the City of Alexandria's Poet Laureate at a meeting last year. At that first meeting, I was competing for attention with the Recycling Squirrel from the local elementary school. This time, I've hesitated to look up who else shares the agenda. All I know is that I am #7, and there is a proclamation marking the first anniversary of my appointment.

Some might ask what I have done in the intervening months. In fact, if I were to tabulate the questions I've received since becoming the Poet Laureate, that question would top the list: what does a poet laureate do?

Initially, the office received a lot of attention. I was interviewed (TWICE!!) by the Washington Post, and also by local newspapers like The Gazette-Packet, and the local cable TV show, Maturity. I've appeared occasionally in articles and letters to the editor, with subscribers and/or reporters urging other communities to initiate similar positions. We are currently a small and select group, we poets laureate. Only about ten cities actually have us on their books.

But, setting fame aside, what I have been doing mostly is writing and reading poetry. There are apparently many groups out there who espouse the writing of poetry as a pastime. Of course, there are the schools, where that encouragement comes from the curriculum, but despite the usual wet blanket effect of classroom assignments, there is enthusiasm for poetry and surprise that an ordinary person (i.e. not someone in a classroom) might want to write it.

What it boils down to is that, in my thirteen-month tenure, I have (in no particular order) participated in, by means of either reading or writing poetry-- or both-- the following activities:

• the rededication of the Freedmen's Cemetery (original poem)
  
• the annual Alexandria Birthday Celebration


• a Writers' Walking Workshop


• a poetry workshop for developmentally disabled kids


• poetry reading at a local nursing home


• the rededication of T.C.Williams High School (original poem)


• a poetry cafe at a Fairfax County high school


• a poetry slam for an Alexandria elementary school


• an elementary school 'opera' about the city's role in the Revolution, the Civil War, and Reconstruction


• Stories in the Park--a library program for toddlers and their parents during the summer


• two poetry workshops for the Hollin Hall Senior Center


• The Alex Awards (original poem)


• the Alexandria Library's Alexandria Authors evening


• Poetry Month speaker at an Alexandria elementary school assembly


• a poetry workshop with 2nd graders


• an event at the German Embassy initiating a program of poetry cards in the Metro


• a reading by the former poet laureate of Pennsylvania at a local university


• a reading by our Virginia poet laureate, Carolyn Foronda, at GMU


• the City's PTA Reflections contest, as judge and speaker at the awards ceremony


• the City's elementary school poet laureate contest


• an event sponsored by the Del Ray Artisans celebrating the arts


• a panel discussion on Gerard Manley Hopkins and his work sponsored by a local church


• an appearance at the National Convention of the League of American Penwomen, held here in Alexandria


• Read Across America program at Hammond Middle School


• the Yockadot Poetics Festival


• a painting class at the Torpedo Factory...

Well, you get the idea. People call with all sorts of requests, and, if at all possible, I try to oblige them, and work toward my goal of promoting poetry within the city, as well as promoting the city through poetry. I write poetry for occasions, when asked--and read my work, sometimes whether or not I'm asked. All in all, it's been a fairly busy year. I have certainly not been bored, and I most certainly have been amazed at the interest exhibited by Alexandria's citizens, and have learned a great deal about my own community. I am constantly relating stories to my family and friends about inquiries I receive, and saying about the groups and people and events I've discovered, "Who knew?"

Obviously, the City of Alexandria did--or else they would not have gone to the trouble of seeking out a Poet Laureate for the city.