Thursday, June 30, 2011
Oh, Proust...
You are stealing my heart...how you make me long to return to the delicious boredom of childhood!
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Home Again: an appreciation
Back from Vermont. So good to see the family and sleep in my bed. Lovely to just swap roles and be given the opportunity not to think too much. It's been a whirlwind residency -- so much to listen to and think about, and many moments of inspiration and epiphany. Really getting to know a good handful of friends. On my last day, a wonderful bike ride through the Vermont hills, beauty all around. Hard t believe next time I go, it will all be covered in snow.
Strangest thing, when I woke up after getting home late Sunday night, my four-year-old daughter came in and started talking, and seemed as if she'd aged by months -- a great leap in verbal and physical, and it seemed psychic maturity -- perhaps because I went away and she had to adjust? Amazing. Thrilling. I get, in this way, to see my children from a distance, without having to go too far away for too long. I wonder if they perceive a change in me?
Strangest thing, when I woke up after getting home late Sunday night, my four-year-old daughter came in and started talking, and seemed as if she'd aged by months -- a great leap in verbal and physical, and it seemed psychic maturity -- perhaps because I went away and she had to adjust? Amazing. Thrilling. I get, in this way, to see my children from a distance, without having to go too far away for too long. I wonder if they perceive a change in me?
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
With Who Else Would I Give Up My Sweet Hours?
Glorious cool, cool rain today.
Sitting talking with my 'class' -- my writing buddies, missing my children so much with a pain that actually does seem to come from the heart, I look around and think, 'These are some of the only people in the world for whom I would give up my sweet hours.' We all are learning from this separation, from the anxieties and putting down of the anxieties, from the way we stretch our wings when we are without the support of the mother, or the lover or the child...
Their little voices on the phone, their bodies whose heat and worries I can't feel...thank goodness it is only ten days. And then we will all be changed.
Sitting talking with my 'class' -- my writing buddies, missing my children so much with a pain that actually does seem to come from the heart, I look around and think, 'These are some of the only people in the world for whom I would give up my sweet hours.' We all are learning from this separation, from the anxieties and putting down of the anxieties, from the way we stretch our wings when we are without the support of the mother, or the lover or the child...
Their little voices on the phone, their bodies whose heat and worries I can't feel...thank goodness it is only ten days. And then we will all be changed.
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Poetry, Stories, Workshop, Karaoke
A pretty full day. Still feeling kind of tenuously linked to myself here. Longing for true entry...and wishing it were cooler at home so my family could play outside at least.
Friday, June 17, 2011
My heart is like a singing bird...
... but her song's a little weary today. Feel a bit like I've flown to the moon, though the moon creatures are beginning to show themselves and populate this strange landscape. I got books from the library and carried them back to my room like friends. There was mist over Mt Anthony this morning as the rain abated -- a bath for the soul.
I keep thinking of my children in the 100 degree heat and their sun hats, and wanting to protect them. It already feels like I've been away from them for a lifetime. When they go off to college or off on their own lives, I must remember you do not just forget your past, the place and people you came from, but carry them with you, a pile of beloved books under your arm, a choir of lovely voices in the heart.
Walking back from a faculty Q and A through the rain-soaked meadow tonight, these words accompany me:
Smell of sweet wet grass
and clover and daisy and buttercup,
Smell of sweet wet grass
and clover and daisy and buttercup,
Smell of sweet wet grass
and clover and daisy and buttercup...
The music of a summer evening in Vermont. Feels like home!
I keep thinking of my children in the 100 degree heat and their sun hats, and wanting to protect them. It already feels like I've been away from them for a lifetime. When they go off to college or off on their own lives, I must remember you do not just forget your past, the place and people you came from, but carry them with you, a pile of beloved books under your arm, a choir of lovely voices in the heart.
Walking back from a faculty Q and A through the rain-soaked meadow tonight, these words accompany me:
Smell of sweet wet grass
and clover and daisy and buttercup,
Smell of sweet wet grass
and clover and daisy and buttercup,
Smell of sweet wet grass
and clover and daisy and buttercup...
The music of a summer evening in Vermont. Feels like home!
Thursday, June 16, 2011
I am Here
Tired and discombobulated; more anxious than excited this time around. Why do I feel so different?
When I left this morning, my son and daughter both said, "I don't want you to go," because this time, I realize, they remember what that feels like. I want to protect them and cannot do it from here...
When I left this morning, my son and daughter both said, "I don't want you to go," because this time, I realize, they remember what that feels like. I want to protect them and cannot do it from here...
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
I'm Off to See the Wizard!
Leaving at 7.45am tomorrow. Equal parts excitement and anxiety/sorrow about leaving the kids. For some reason, I'm more nervous about it than last time. I'm usually all packed by now but I can't seem to bring myself to do it today...
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Two Days to Go
Equal parts anxiety and excitement beginning to creep in. The children look more lovely every day, and I am able to be increasingly patient knowing I won't see them for 10 days. If only it were always the case. They seem okay about my going, as long as I bring back candy!
Working on my July packet as I don't know how I'm going to write much with the kids at home next month. Proust is proving wonderful, but I wish I had the time to read it in French.
Working on my July packet as I don't know how I'm going to write much with the kids at home next month. Proust is proving wonderful, but I wish I had the time to read it in French.
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Four Days to Go...
And we shall have...rain by the looks of it. Four days to pack, spend time with my family & try to get through the Combray section of Proust's "A la Recherche du Temps Perdu" What a wonderful treat it is -- so much delicious, vivid detail.
Took the kids to a splash park this morning -- such unbridled joy. If they can just run in water everyday, they won't even know I'm gone!
Took the kids to a splash park this morning -- such unbridled joy. If they can just run in water everyday, they won't even know I'm gone!
Thursday, June 9, 2011
I Can Still Do It
Ah, yes, back into memoir mode -- but it's a lot harder without feedback. It will be nice to have a teacher again. Not long to go!
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Further Avoidance of Masters Work produces Poem
So I cleaned my office and wrote a poem instead of diving back into memoir, as soon I must:
On Rediscovering My Old Ink Pens
It’s been years since I held them, the sleek silver one,
the fat Mississippi one, lazy in its flow,
the Oxford silver, the cheap pink whore from Woolworth’s,
but when I open them, each of their strong, curved heads
looks ready for action, old lovers, steady, true,
happy to meet my demands: “Yes, that. Like that. There. And there.”
Once, my words flowed from them like a stream,
water on pulp, my looped a’s and b’s
riding the wave of the triple-ruled page, rolling
between the sweet grey covers of a book
I marked, at seven, with my whole name.
No one writes like this now.
The author drags black chains across the screen,
sends words marching and retreating like ants:
no way to write the wrong thing these days,
to bury a mistake in an angry storm, kill it; keep it.
There are five pens – five! -- like the lost fingers of
a hand. I carry them to the kitchen, the Union wounded.
My two palms upward, I bear them to the sink
where I separate them, head from body,
unscrew their separate parts and lay them out
on a sheet of kitchen paper. There. There. There.
With my right hand, I hold them: with my left,
I run the water, a cold stream, then give them
one by one to the cool flood till they weep their colors,
purple and brown and blue, away down the sink,
then weep some more.
I watch their jeweled effluent chase down
the remnants of my lunch: tuna and noodle and bean.
It colors them. It swirls through the dark pipes,
down to meet the earth, to wet it.
I flush out the last pen, the stubborn one,
sending water through and through its vein, and
setting free, as happens sometimes, a sudden clot,
which gushes out, quick, astonishing, like the moment
a woman looks down into the water between her legs
and sees her blood, dropped there like Chinese ink.
When all the barrels run clear and the nibs lie shining,
I wrap the pens in their sheet of paper, marbled now,
and bring them to the table. Then I push each pen’s
sharp secret beak into the hard plastic of the cartridges
I’ve kept, without remembering, for this day.
The pens receive the ink, unsure at first,
then quickly, like thirst: like that same woman
drinking from a man’s body after long years without.
One at a time, I press the nibs, gold and silver,
to the best sheet of paper I can find.
When I move my hand, they bleed,
and I write, as I did the very first time, at seven, my name:
over and over, my name, my name, my name.
On Rediscovering My Old Ink Pens
It’s been years since I held them, the sleek silver one,
the fat Mississippi one, lazy in its flow,
the Oxford silver, the cheap pink whore from Woolworth’s,
but when I open them, each of their strong, curved heads
looks ready for action, old lovers, steady, true,
happy to meet my demands: “Yes, that. Like that. There. And there.”
Once, my words flowed from them like a stream,
water on pulp, my looped a’s and b’s
riding the wave of the triple-ruled page, rolling
between the sweet grey covers of a book
I marked, at seven, with my whole name.
No one writes like this now.
The author drags black chains across the screen,
sends words marching and retreating like ants:
no way to write the wrong thing these days,
to bury a mistake in an angry storm, kill it; keep it.
There are five pens – five! -- like the lost fingers of
a hand. I carry them to the kitchen, the Union wounded.
My two palms upward, I bear them to the sink
where I separate them, head from body,
unscrew their separate parts and lay them out
on a sheet of kitchen paper. There. There. There.
With my right hand, I hold them: with my left,
I run the water, a cold stream, then give them
one by one to the cool flood till they weep their colors,
purple and brown and blue, away down the sink,
then weep some more.
I watch their jeweled effluent chase down
the remnants of my lunch: tuna and noodle and bean.
It colors them. It swirls through the dark pipes,
down to meet the earth, to wet it.
I flush out the last pen, the stubborn one,
sending water through and through its vein, and
setting free, as happens sometimes, a sudden clot,
which gushes out, quick, astonishing, like the moment
a woman looks down into the water between her legs
and sees her blood, dropped there like Chinese ink.
When all the barrels run clear and the nibs lie shining,
I wrap the pens in their sheet of paper, marbled now,
and bring them to the table. Then I push each pen’s
sharp secret beak into the hard plastic of the cartridges
I’ve kept, without remembering, for this day.
The pens receive the ink, unsure at first,
then quickly, like thirst: like that same woman
drinking from a man’s body after long years without.
One at a time, I press the nibs, gold and silver,
to the best sheet of paper I can find.
When I move my hand, they bleed,
and I write, as I did the very first time, at seven, my name:
over and over, my name, my name, my name.
Friday, June 3, 2011
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
End of First Semester
I am losing count of the days, so semesters and weeks will have to suffice for now...
Am taking a little break at last -- my mother here with us, forcing me to put aside all the books and give my brain a rest. A very good thing. Thanks, Mum! Days in the mountains standing in streams and clambering over rocks -- a wonderful antidote to too many hours on my butt, staring at this screen.
Got my last packet back from teacher Honor Moore. She is so generous -- helps me believe I am doing the right thing here, which is worth all the money the program's costing! VT minus 2 weeks and counting now. Can't wait for the lush meadows and company and a different kind of mental and social stimulation. Then onto a new teacher, the wonderful Dinah Lenney, and six more months of being booted into creative nirvana. ONWARD!
Am taking a little break at last -- my mother here with us, forcing me to put aside all the books and give my brain a rest. A very good thing. Thanks, Mum! Days in the mountains standing in streams and clambering over rocks -- a wonderful antidote to too many hours on my butt, staring at this screen.
Got my last packet back from teacher Honor Moore. She is so generous -- helps me believe I am doing the right thing here, which is worth all the money the program's costing! VT minus 2 weeks and counting now. Can't wait for the lush meadows and company and a different kind of mental and social stimulation. Then onto a new teacher, the wonderful Dinah Lenney, and six more months of being booted into creative nirvana. ONWARD!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)