Heart Chakra, Five-Carat Soul

Today, Day 4 of the meditation-stones experiment (and day 2 of "naked meditation"), was the Heart Chakra, with its mantra, "I love the world and myself effortlessly." Closing my eyes, I smiled big at loving the world effortlessly, letting myself acknowledge that it sometimes takes a little effort to love myself, right after I've been cranky, for instance, or impatient. Also, how will I love my neighbor who just put a Trump sign in her front yard? Oh, but James McBride (and Jesus) already gave me an answer, in Five-Carat Soul, a book of short stories, some of them linked. 

Here is what helped me. (I won't tell you which story, nor give the full context for the quotation, so you can be surprised when you're reading this book!) A character is revealing what someone else said: "He loves the evil in all people. Because in loving their evil, he loves the evil in himself enough to surrender it to God, who washes it clean. He's loving what God made, is what he said." Now, this might be seen as a rationalization by some, or evangelism by others, but it sounds pretty wise and compassionate to me, a way to love thy neighbor as thyself, whether or not within a faith tradition, and a way to love the world and the self...effortlessly.

Yesterday, a Sunday without church because my church space was being used for commerce, a big annual sale, we were sent on a field trip to a church of our own choosing. I chose my usual church of my own backyard, also Emily Dickinson's choice, but, at first, it was raining, so I kept reading Five-Carat Soul indoors and did naked meditation. Then it cleared up, into a wonderful breezy day.

Likewise, this morning there was no swimming--thunderstorm--but I felt a beautiful breeze coming in the window at my back, like an Irish blessing, during naked meditation. It was so easy to love the world!

Okay, Fine!

OK, fine. The book that was making me laugh out loud made me burst into tears in the final chapter. Yes, I sort of knew it was coming, because she's a good writer, and I'm alive in the real world, and this is what happens. Then I got to laugh while crying, thanks to the phrase, "Stupid useless calimari heart valve*," which makes perfect sense in context. 

*But I will definitely be asking the heart valve doctor some important questions, thanks to this book, Sandwich, by Catherine Newman. My first question will be "Plastic or pig?" (or "Artificial or organic?," referring to what the replacement heart valve that my father might be considering will be made of. I will try not to ask, "Or calimari?" I believe in real life the calimari was being replaced with pig in a restaurant, not a hospital...But the heart valve might belong to the magical animal known as the pig.**)

**Simpson's reference

Meanwhile, it's still super hot here, and, evidently, in Portland, OR, where Lola has been given pink sunglasses and looks cool but  also dubious and hot. The pink octopus pal is good if you are teething, both head and tentacles.

Also, read this book if you have ever eaten a sandwich at the beach. Or been scared of sharks.

Also meanwhile, I celebrated the solstice last night in my friend Kim's back yard! My friend Devon recommended a ritual involving 9 flowers, which I found in my own yard afterwards, and a wish...or vision...?  (I had been drinking sugar-free gin & tonics...) 

Based on my wish, all shall be well! Happy still full Strawberry Moon!

Poetry Month

It turns out I'll be celebrating National Poetry Month by catching up on my reviewing for Escape Into Life. The first review up in April is of Karen Weyant's book Avoiding the Rapture, which I loved from the start, thanks to its title and cover...and reading her work over many years!! I will probably be avoiding the Rapture for as long as I can.

Today it's been snowing on my yellow tulips, my white bleeding heart (tiny but already blooming!), and the various blossoming trees outside my workplace and on my route to and from. I might be a little grumpy about this, making it another Cranky Doodle Day in the blog, as well as the Hump of the Week. It's only Wednesday, but it feels like a Friday, and I'm doing laundry, so it feels like a Monday. Clearly, it's April, the cruelest month.

I am, almost an afterthought, writing a poem a day. It's something I do every year, providing the prompts at an internet site I participate in. This year, I almost forgot, distracted by too many personal things. Now, it is its usual absolute joy, and I am grateful.

Did I mention that clematis leaves have appeared on a trellis?! That daffodils I forgot I planted continue to surprise me by blooming, lately in the snow? That soon, possibly, my backyard will be overtaken by white anemone, coneflower, and oregano. It just keeps happening. Again, I am grateful. Maybe this year, in August, I will again read a book of poems a day outside on the glider. I don't know what will happen next. But I am grateful to have a baby in my life. She has found her foot!

Frog Music

My dad turns 92 on the 30th! Wow! He's already had a little celebration where he lives, and I was hoping we'd celebrate his actual birthday and Easter this weekend, but I had a surprise visit from Covid this week, so I am staying in. Already feeling better, and should be able to return to work, masked, next week. I guess I'll also play my first adult-league volleyball game masked, as well. Gosh, I did not expect this at all, having gotten all the available vaccinations whenever I was eligible. Was just about to line up the next! Sigh..so it came in this form instead. So it's a rare Cranky Doodle Day in the blog.

A couple more postcards arrived from the ongoing international postcard-writing/sending project. Here's my latest array.  I had also written ekphrastic poems for a special collaborative event--library & gallery--that I wasn't able to attend on Thursday, but they read and displayed the poems for me, and it went well, I hear! That cheers me in my crankiness! And I am grateful to have been able to work from home this week, and glad to be able to attend a meeting via Zoom tonight. Sigh...

My reading lately has been books from the ongoing library sale: Frog Music, by Emma Donoghue, and Homer & Langley, by E. L. Doctorow. They both hit the spot, good reading while resting on the couch! Both based on real people and real history, both fictionalized appropriately, both lucky finds! Learned lovely tidbits about folk music in Frog Music glossary, and had wanted to read the Doctorow book for a long time. 

The library sold out its used books in a few hours last weekend, preparing for a closure for renovation. I'm glad I had picked these up the week before and also that I got to see my desk moved down the hall, to lessen my disorientation on Monday when I return! Some of us will work at satellite sites, but my department stays put, based on the nature of our work. Meanwhile, I have 20 tulips about to bloom, tufts of bleeding heart, tufts of columbine coming, sprinkles of vinca and violet! Spring is aching to be truly here.

Mother Tree

I guess this is what I am doing in the way of poetry lately: a Mother Tree. Visual, 3D poetry--a small branch anchored in a vase with glass pebbles, hung with ornaments from her life: earrings, baby bracelets, a nostalgic love pin nestling in the tree as if K-I-S-S-I-N-G. There are two tiny skulls to represent her parents, who lived with my parents for a time in their old age. So did my dad's grandfather, at one point. My folks were very generous people, also taking in a high school student, whose parents moved his senior year, and a young man from Mali. They are living now in a retirement community, in independent living but with lots of home health care, and I am slowly but surely clearing out the family home while it is for sale. Lots of laundering, donating, recycling, redistributing, and rearranging. I feel like my mom! 

There is a silver chain with an apple on it, from when my mom retired from teaching, and a silver gavel, probably from her years with the local teachers' union. My brother's blue baby bracelet hangs near the latter.

My sister and I have pink baby bracelets, and near them I have hung one of my own earrings, a favorite, the mate lost, pink stones, one in the shape of a heart.

There is a found earring (like a found poem!), a sort of mask, chosen for the Mother Tree because of her work in the theatre. Her mother's hospital bracelet, or her own (?), hangs around the vase itself.

I loved making my Mother Tree. I did it instead of church last Sunday morning. It was a way to relieve stress, honor my mom, and felt spiritual, to be sure. It was a way to rest, after all the cleaning. It was a way to take things from tiny boxes and let them live again. I thank Connie Shannon for the inspiration. She made a "tiny beautiful things" tree this past spring when Heartland Theatre was doing the play Tiny Beautiful Things, based on the Cheryl Strayed book. It became part of a library display for the production, and then library workers loved it so much it became part of ongoing displays all through the summer!

Here is my Mother Tree where it lives now, on a stand at the top of the stairs, with a stack of books, under a painting by my husband. He knocked it over this morning, coming out of the bedroom, but I was able to restore it (and slightly reposition it, to avoid this in the future!). It's fragile but able to be rehung or added to, as needed. There might be more mateless earrings to come....

Everything's Coming up Barbie

The new Barbie movie looks like so much fun. Weird fun. Here are some other weird things lately. I was driving home and got to the railroad tracks with the red lights flashing. It was a short wait, no train went by, etc., but when I looked in my side view mirror the driver of the car two cars behind me was down on the road doing push-ups! On the road. Doing push-ups! 

Here is my classic Barbie, a brunette from the 1960s. I also have Midge. And this fabulous red velvet coat. Fond memories, lots of wear and tear on the wardrobe and the case. I don't think I will become a millionaire from this vintage Barbie. I do love her clothes. There's also a red one-piece swimsuit.

Walking to work today, I was not, thank goodness, killed, but a car turned left very close to me. I could feel and hear the whoosh. Grateful he didn't run over my foot. I was crossing in the crosswalk with the walk light, and he was turning left facing east into the blinding sun. He might not even have seen me. It made me a little cranky, making it a Cranky Doodle Day in the blog, but I have fun stuff happening later: wine, dinner on the grounds of Ewing Castle, and The Tempest at the Illinois Shakespeare Festival! I have already seen Comedy of Errors and The Book of Will. Lucky me! 

And in the good news department, a short play of mine, "Shakespeare's Ladies at Tea (or I Thought You'd Never Asp)" will be performed in August in New York City by First Flight Theatre Company in Under St. Mark's as part of the Little Shakespeare Festival. It is a little play! a tragicomedy! And was great fun to do many years ago in Chicago, so I hope it is great fun again!

Real ID

Speaking of cars, my Real ID arrived in the (damp) mail today, shortly before the rain turned to icy snow. It was raining when I went to renew my license before it expired on my birthday, and I eagerly awaited the safe arrival of the Real ID, signed by a new Secretary of State, recently elected. But it still has Abraham Lincoln's face on it, as well as my own. I look OK in this picture! I am smiling. And it's all thanks to the DMV women; they took my picture twice, as in the first some hair had fallen into my eye, and the one woman knew there might be trouble if both my blue eyes were not evident. Ironically, 1) I am not wearing glasses in the photo; they don't let you--glare, eye color, etc. even though 2) the license requires me to wear glasses. So, in a way, it's not the Real ME!

Chalkboard poems continue. Reading continues. I read a sort of magical realism short novel, The Crane Husband, by Kelly Barnhill because the description reminded me of a poem I had written a couple years back where a woman marries a sandhill crane. This was darker than that, though the poem is also about a cryptid, the Mothman, who might actually be a sandhill crane. I love my life, but it is sometimes hard to explain to people who are not me. Let's just say I used to live in Kearney, Nebraska, and also passed through there on a trip west during sandhill crane nesting season.

I think there was more I meant to tell you, but it's Friday, it's snowing, and I am already drinking wine (in hopes of a nap...have I mentioned my weird sleeping patterns during the pandemic?)

The Yoga of Laundry

I was getting along fine with my new year's routines of morning yoga, coffee, reading & writing, work, random housework, and various meetings and commitments, when I became mindful of my underwear drawer. It was looking pretty sparse! Hadn't I just laundered the bedsheets? Um, yes, but then days/weeks went by. So how mindful am I, anyway?

But you know what? I have already sent out two poetry submissions, and it's still the middle of January. I don't think I got going on poetry submissions until February of last year. So, poetry or clean underwear, which will it be? Happy to say, both, thank goodness! And one of these submissions contained three poems written this January!! In the new Poems 2023 folder! So that's how on top of it I am at this particular moment, which is the only moment I've got. And in responsible recycling mode, I am re-using my Submissions 2020 folder, which still had room on it for notes, for 2023 submissions. Because I am still tied to paper and pen, in addition to electronic recordkeeping, or my brain will explode/atrophy.

Speaking of mindfulness, I know I am probably not very mindful of the present moment when I start writing this blog entry in my head while Rodney Yee is guiding me through two minutes of meditation as I sit cross-legged on the floor. In clean undies. And aqua flannel jammies that match my yoga mat.

Pink Donut

In my last blog post, Champagne Poetry, I spoke of the fabulous patisserie we visited in Portland, Oregon, and here is the pastry case, featuring the Pink Donut--a perfect Simpsons donut, also reflected in Christmas ornaments I gave the wedding couple in May, which we saw on their tree in December, and which I ate for breakfast in its Champagne Poetry form. As you see, this was a $7.99 donut, and it was good. And look at those mangos! Here at home, it has been a tough day, lots going on. It's exhausting, but it's all working out, thanks to love and family wamily. It's not really a Cranky Doodle Day, despite the eight-days-a-week blog post label, but I so am glad it's Friday. Happy Epiphany.

Ladder of Years

As if to balance the recent rejection, I had a recent acceptance! Of 4 out of the 5 poems I sent to a magazine I had been meaning to send to for a long time, missing its deadline again and again. Because time keeps getting away from me. This batch was a sad one, but it had a ladder in it, leaning on a peach tree, and that makes it a Random Coinciday in the blog. Because I just read--or possibly re-read?--Ladder of Years, by Anne Tyler, a sort of sweet, sad novel about a woman who walks away from her family one day... I could picture myself doing it as she did it, much as I love and would never leave my family, other than that time in Chicago when I walked out the back door and down to the streetlight while my toddler crawled around on the dining room floor at the feet of my husband and father, who were talking about politics and real estate. Really, this was not meant to be a Cranky Doodle Day in the blog. That was years ago. My kids are grown. I'm still married to the same man, and today, early in the morning, I looked all through the house for him and then saw the ladder on the patio, leaning against the house, and found him on the roof, sitting cross-legged at the edge, scooping leaves from the gutter into a plastic bag, during a Wind Advisory. It was a little like the time I was down in the church basement during a tornado, and the rain was horizontal, and the neighbor from across the street had come out to tell my husband, scooping leaves on the roof, that he should go inside. But not as windy, and I was there smiling and talking to him, waiting till he was done before going back inside...

I may have read it before...but I didn't know what was going to happen. Books are often different the second time you read them, especially if a lot of life has happened in between. I have walked along many a beach since then, but not at the ocean for a long time now, and the annual summer lake vacation is done... Yes, time keeps getting away from me. But this version of the cover, the one I read, a copy I picked up at the ongoing library sale, is warmer, sort of peachy in a way, and has a hat with a brim, which I need to protect my eyes.

A Glass of Blessings

Well, it's the title of a Barbara Pym book, a phrase from a George Herbert poem, and, for me, a fancy way of saying TGIF! I am glad that it's Friday! I'm exhausted and, indeed, grateful. Grateful, in part, that I will raise a glass (of blessings) at book group tonight, discussing Notes from a Young Black Chef, by Kwame Onwuachi. Grateful that 1) both parents are getting better, little by little and 2) my dad will have a follow-up appointment tomorrow, to relieve (I hope) some ongoing discomforts. Grateful for the support of hubby and siblings during this trying time.

Grateful that I had dessert first--if not ice cream for dinner--earlier this week at the history museum, a thank-you celebration for those of us who worked on the annual cemetery walk. It was an ice cream social, with excellent ice cream, mix-ins, and both caramel and chocolate syrups! We got to color--with markers--little wooden Halloween pins. Our table had ghosts saying, "Boo!" Other tables had pumpkins and bats. Grateful that my little pin turned up, which I thought I had (immediately) lost!

Grateful that I got to see a Halloween parade of little ones in costume at the library! I hope I remember to wear my lacy white witch's hat with a white owl on top to the library on Monday! Grateful to have seen Batman walking down the sidewalk as I emerged from the parking garage today in beautiful Uptown Normal! 

Batman!!

OK, I did label this post a Cranky Doodle Day in the blog, but I am not now cranky, not at all. There was a lingering crankiness earlier this week, from various things, but it has lifted! I am even grateful for the latest poetry rejection because it was a nice no, wanting to see more, from a major publication! I have gotten their standard rejection before, so I know they mean it. Wooee! Yes to no!

Grateful that I finally got to train our new Artist Watch editor at EIL via phone call and simultaneous work at the site. Both of us have already busy lives with extra stuff going on right now. Grateful that I made further progress on a book review before the next interruption. Grateful that I can run errands for my parents! Grateful (and amazed) that both my kids bought houses this month! That a local friend found her dream house. That another friend is slowly getting better after a fall.... That blogger friends who were sad are beginning to come back to joy.

Did I mention that I saw Batman?!

Some Tame Gazelle

...in which Barbara Pym anticipates Marie Kondo! 

I recently re-read Some Tame Gazelle, by Barbara Pym, after I read a new biography of Pym, The Adventures of Miss Barbara Pym, by Paula Byrne. It was fun to re-encounter the sisters Belinda and Harriet (middle-aged "spinsters") knowing that Pym as a young woman had imagined a life similar to the one she later lived, roommates with her own middle-aged sister!

And imagine my delight, after having read the Marie Kondo book on tidying up (as both a physical and spiritual activity), on finding this passage in Some Tame Gazelle:

"'It's no use being sentimental about things,' said Harriet. 'You shouldn't keep a clutter of clothes you never wear just because you once liked them.'

"Belinda made no comment on this, for she was thinking that Harriet's words might be applied to more serious things than clothes. If only one could clear out one's mind and heart as ruthlessly as one did one's wardrobe..."

I'm glad I got rid of clothes and books this summer, but not my goofy little Pym paperbacks! With weirder covers than anything shown here. And I'm working hard, but I hope generously not ruthlessly, on clearing out my mind and heart!

It's been an exhausting couple of weeks. Partly because of the annual cemetery walk last week, a lovely community event, for which we had excellent weather, and partly because this week my mom had a fall. She is fine now, amazingly healthy overall, but it was stressful and scary for everyone, especially her. She is so glad to be home. 

Me, too, and so glad it's Friday. Chilly. It will be the coldest year ever for the Sugar Creek Arts Festival, moved from July to October to avoid the heat...but now folks had better be bundled up in layers! Art in the streets!! And maybe funnel cakes and elephant ears! And kettle corn! Hoping my mom stays home this year. But we have found her cane! And maybe I could find a few more at the arts festival! To leave here and there around the house...

Hey, there are actually gazelles on this last sample book cover! Wait! Is it possible that Marie Kondo used Barbara Pym as an epigraph to her own book, and I had already encountered this random coincidence?! I don't know! I gave the book away! Twice!!

Shoes I Forgot

Recently, while tidying up and moving summer clothes into drawer and closet, I came across a shoebox of  navy blue Keds. Yay! But wha--?! Where had these come from? I did not remember buying them in a shoestore, ordering them on Amazon, or receiving them from a friend, so it was time for 1) a memory check and 2) that Marie Kondo book, which conveniently turned up on the free cart at the library, because it was a fad a while back when I found the fad a little annoying. I was wrong.

The memory check uncovered a feeling that I did have some navy blue shoes beyond the slip-ons that are fraying because I wore them so much and have now become the shoes I wear to the pool for Early Bird Lap Swim weekday mornings. It also uncovered a moment with my mom, finding them in her closet (but when?) and saying, "These are nice!" and her saying, "Do you want them?" and me wondering why she didn't...but respecting her offer of the gift. (Shoestrings? A tightness?) They fit me fine, and I like them, and now wear them with blue outfits to walk to work.

But the life-changing magic of tidying up, as a title and an activity, is delightful. I read it to the end, doing little bits (which Marie Kondo might shake her head at, advocating a big bunch of work all at once) as I went, and the sort-of spiritual aspect of it, at the end, rang true. I do feel lighter and freer any time I truly get my house in order, and will do the whole thing now, though at my own pace, this summer. Her order of discarding is clothes (done!), books, papers, and miscellany.

Yesterday was books. As you can imagine, 1) I have a lot 2) I am exhausted. But now 1) rested and 2) lighter! I finally discarded many literature textbooks that I can't donate anywhere (no one wants textbooks, especially outdated ones) that I had been saving for sentimental reasons (notes inside + I taught from them) and because I wanted to be able to locate again a particular short story or essay. Surely, I can find most things somewhere, yes?! Internet, library. I recycled many paperbacks and created a bag of library-worthy donations. I put some things in the Little Free Library in front of my house. I now have room on my shelves for other books! Wait, that might not be the Marie Kondo goal! Fear not. These other books are already here, in various stacks, and will go onto the shelves when I have finished reading them and/or sorting them by type. It was fun to rearrange by size and type, and to re-alphabetize where needed. And to dust.

Today, by contrast, will be a Slattern Day--a walk to church, some time in the garden (or reading outdoors), a card game with my folks, and a cookout today because it might rain tomorrow. Happy 4th of July! I feel free!--though not in all ways...but I found support and comfort with that (the recent Supreme Court ruling/s) yesterday, thanks to a Zoom workshop with women, hosted by poet cin salach, Our Hearts Cannot Be Overturned.

And putting my house in order also meant checking my poetry submissions, to find that my February 2021 submission to the New Yorker is now "In Progress" at Submittable. Maybe they are putting their house in order, too. Shall I expect a rejection soon? Meanwhile, my dad wants the Kondo book next, and so does my friend, Kim. They know each other; they can fight over share it.

Wedding Ring

My wedding ring is really a vintage anniversary ring we found in a resale shop decades ago, back when we were getting married. For three weeks here in Febrary, including, alas, Valentine's Day, I am not wearing it. Nothing is wrong with my marriage! I just play an unmarried woman in Life Sucks and don't want to lose it in the dressing room, so it's safe in my (costume*) jewelry box at home for now. Here, you see it posed on a beautiful mosaic plant table (created by my friend Kim of Got Bliss?!) under the newly-blooming again Christmas cactus, now apparently a Valentine cactus!

*I say costume jewelry to ward off thieves. I am not a fancy lady and do not have real jewels. Those are in the movies. The jewel thief movies!

The play continues to be fun, with warm, receptive, lively, laughing audiences. I love this play, and the people in it and who worked on it in all kinds of ways, and it's clear that the audiences are delighted and moved by it. I'm glad we got the all the obstacles--Covid, masks, snow--to get it out there in the world.

For Valentine's Day, I will be getting the required weekly Covid test and going to the dentist. My husband will be coaching sixth-grade volleyball. I hope you all have fun plans, too!

Lying to Myself

I haven’t been doing too much poetry writing lately, but one morning this week I drafted a poem called “Lying to Myself,” that sort of veered off topic as if to demonstrate the title. Furthermore, when I flipped the pages of the poem-drafting notebook, I saw that I had been drafting poems all along, just not doing much further with them. Sometimes I typed them into my computer, revising a bit, et cetera, but some just sat there languishing… 

Then a friend sent me a text with a link to a New York Times article on languishing as a state of unfocused mind during Covid, not depression but also not flourishing. Yes, it clicked. Thanks, Chris! It was an article from April 2021, revisited in December 2021, and I couldn’t read it on my phone, and I hope can see it via this link, but I could read it on my computer, thanks to an electronic subscription given to me by a friend. Thanks, Scott!

It was comforting to learn that I’d intuitively found ways over the past year and a half to both comfort and focus myself, and that I didn’t have to see all my tactics as escape or avoidance but rather as real strategies to fend off too much languishing. I could create temporary “flow”—that state of time both suspended and flashing by during intense focus on a creative project or sports—when drafting even the poems I forgot (or didn’t revise or submit later). I could get steady satisfaction from small daily tasks and goals. I could, as I did, immerse myself in other stories than my own, every time I read a book or watched a movie, and I did a lot of that. 

Right now, despite high Covid positivity and with plenty of safety protocols in place, I am rehearsing a play—an excellent form of distraction from the current reality that immerses me deeper in the ongoing human reality, and an excellent form of intense focus. Even if we never get to perform the play, if there’s another shutdown, this is a good thing to do. And if others get to see it, the immersion in the other human story—hilarious and sad—that will be good, too. As long as we are all vaccinated and wearing masks! 

I love that the play is called Life Sucks. And that life doesn’t suck.

White Noise

Here's another book I'd been wanting to read and happened to read at exactly the right time for me: White Noise, by Don DeLillo. I read this paperback edition, and will also show the cover provided by Wikipedia, presumably the hard cover edition. It was published in 1985, which shows how behind I am! And yet it fits our times re: consumerism, incessant "waves and radiation," and ongoing dangers from pollutants of various kinds. There is even some mask wearing, re: a "toxic airborne event."

There's also this exchange about a guy seeking danger, which frustrates the guy wishing to avoid death:

     "He's asking for it."

     "That's right. Most of us spend our lives avoiding danger. Who do these people think they are."

     "They ask for it. Let them get it."

This is dangerously close to my own frustration re: the adamantly unvaccinated, and I have definitely heard this attitude voiced around me! "Let them get it," indeed. Alas, they infect others also or instead. I know some who resist the vaccine have legit reasons, and some have been misled but are true believers in what they've been told by non-legit sources. Sigh... But still.

What a gorgeous holiday weekend! I did my reading outside, and today is the Labor Day Parade. The blue sky is mostly lifting my personal blues, despite the simmering frustration and ongoing communal grief. I surprised myself by submitting some poems yesterday. Others are coming out this fall. But everything still feels suspended and slightly unreal to me. It helps to prick my fingers on coneflower seeds, sprinkling some on the earth for next year while tidying the flowerbeds. I leave some up all year for the birds. Next year, it's possible the blackberry lilies and coneflowers and wild violets will take over the universe of my back yard, while lilies of the valley march down into the shared valley between houses. In the meantime, I do hope walking and gardening will undo my crankiness. For now, it's a rare Cranky Doodle Day in the blog and an actually glorious day outdoors!

Sunshine, Lollipops...Sigh

I had a Cranky Doodle Day this week, which is pretty rare for me (Buddhism, yoga, deep breathing), connected to an awkward Zoom meeting and (mostly*) undone by a pleasant Zoom meeting the next day, with a wise and charming person, plus steady, productive work, which cures a lot of things for me. Along with reading.

*I say “mostly” because evidently I am writing about it here in connection to crankiness, so its effects may be lingering still. 

In the meantime, I was so happy with myself for starting the year off right, and getting three submissions out in January, the last right on January 31. That submission was rejected two days letter with a cheerful suggestion that I subscribe via discount. There was a brief moment then, too, of laugh-out-loud-crankiness-slash-recognition, as I said to myself, “Oh, yeah! That’s why I stopped submitting to that journal!” 

Auugghh. I actually write notes to myself in my non-Excel recordkeeping system, “Do not submit here again” or “NEVER submit here again,” and, sadly, I don’t always heed my own advice, or I forget, after I have moved those notes to the archived recordkeeping files. Anyhoo…! 

But, on February 1, I doggedly resumed my chalkboard poem a day on Facebook. Oops, I just realized I forgot the Instagram simulcast….OK, done. Double sigh… 

Today’s poem was drafted yesterday evening, as it happened, and revised this morning, before posting: 

February 3, 2021 

Yesterday evening   

briefly, in the shift of light,
      I was gone,
nameless, part of the night
     now fallen. 

I’ve been reading Russian short stories in the book by George Saunders, A Swim in the Pond in the Rain. The stories and his commentary make me want to stop everything and write fiction again. (I did a little of that, longhand in a journal.) As it says in the poem above, I did feel nameless, gone, at one with the universe, at dusk, and I sense that at times in the Russians. My husband feels at-one-ment much of the time. In a comic version of all this, I forgot who I was in an email, when someone referred to “Kathy,” and I thought she meant me, but, to her, I am only “Kathleen.” We got it sorted out. 

It’s been very sunny here lately, but a deep, deep cold is coming soon. Thanks, Groundhog.

Friday the 13th

I'm a person who gets a lot done, partly by putting off some of what needs to be done. That is, if something I have to do makes me nervous, I will do a bunch of other stuff first while procrastinating. In that way, everything...and even more...actually gets done! Today, to avoid starting one of these things, I put up my sweet turquoise-colored wooden Christmas tree decorations atop the piano to make myself happy. 

Superstitiously, I also put off posting a poem on my chalkboard by writing a mock-superstitious mock-haiku. No joke, though, I really didn't want to jinx anything by posting the real poem I'd been working on...and I have learned to listen to my gut.

What things make me nervous? Sometimes it's communicating about technology via technology! I'm big on communication but aware that a lot of people don't like to read emails or communicate promptly. So, mixed fear and annoyance about lack of response. Sometimes it's dread of certain people who find fault with anything I do. I know this is probably from their own fears and insecurities, but it still gets to me, hurts my feelings. Sometimes it's because if I say something like that, someone is bound to jump on me and say I'm the one in control of my own responses to other's people's negativity, et cetera, blah blah blah. I'm laughing as I type this but also annoyed!--with them as much as me, BECAUSE, to quote from the musical Company, "I'm a living thing, too, you shithead." Wow, I didn't know that was coming. I guess it's a Cranky Doodle Day in the blog!

Anyhoo, the sun is shining, and it's pretty outside, though still below freezing. I'm staying in today to do all the stuff I am currently putting off. Happy Friday the 13th! As the Internet memes keep saying, "What could go wrong?" I love you, Captain Picard.

Monsters

I loved this graphic novel by Emil Ferris: My Favorite Thing is Monsters! It's set in 1960s Chicago and, via memory/tape, World War II. Since I lived in Chicago for 20 years as a grownup and was alive in the 1960s as a kid, I recognized a lot of places and major events, including the terrible and heartbreaking assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Chicago's devastating response to it.

The story is "told" by a young girl, Karen, who is drawing it as she goes. She's got a tough, interesting life, that's for sure, full of mystery and, yes, monsters. The girl and author see something wonderful in some monsters. "The bad monsters want the world to look the way they want it to. They need people to be afraid... Bad monsters are all about control... They want the whole world to be scared so that bad monsters can call the shots..." Yep. Good monsters are dealing with what's happened to them in ways that can include kindness, love, smarts, vulnerability, and resourcefulness.

It was great to see the Aragon Ballroom, Graceland Cemetery, and paintings from the Art Institute in this book. I think I did a poetry reading once in one of the old buildings. And my path has crossed with the fellow in the story seen as a genius by Karen's brother. The art is fantastic. It recreates the girl's notebook, down to the lines and metal spiral binding.

This is book one, and I can't wait for book two, but I'll have to; it's been delayed, as was book one. The first delays had to do with West Nile virus, a change in publishers, and a freight company going bankrupt, leaving 100,000 copies of the book stalled in a ship at the Panama Canal. I think book two is now delayed till the fall of 2021. But so is everything else!

Random reading coincidences: References to Greek myths + a character named Sonja in both The Untelling and My Favorite Thing is Monsters, along with the death of MLK, Jr. A cat in a cemetery scene in both Monsters and Empire Falls (another Richard Russo book.) It's like everything I read is fitting together. And today's random coincidence was another cool graphic novel, this one a noir story, also connected to other books, by Jules Feiffer, who I always thought of as a playwright and cartoonist. Now he's doing this, too: Cousin Joseph, a prequel to Kill My Mother (need to read), to be followed by The Ghost Script (still to come).

Last Days

My tiny chalkboard poems continue and, apparently, are appreciated by many who read them on social media, as these readers are telling me. I am glad. In addition to sudden chalkboard revisions as I write, I experience ongoing changes in interpretation. I wrote “Last Days” in my back yard, on the patio, gazing in wonder at the beauty of everything around me, and feeling eternity somehow. Inside me was the scary realization that I/we might be living our last days on earth…but, if so, at least they would be remarkably beautiful. And the world could go on without us.

Last Days

Yes, it might be

one of the last days

so breezy and bright,

so beautiful and clear.

The first version ended with two sentence fragments and had three periods. It felt breezier and brighter, therefore, but lacked eternity. Now it is one long sentence, like life. Eternity remains only in the title and at a line break. These may simply be the last days of sheer beauty before rain (needed!) or terrible heat (coming today). Or…these may indeed be my/our last days on earth.

I suspect I’m under the influence of Station Eleven, by Emily St. John Mandel, published in 2014 but terribly pertinent to now, as it’s about the world after a flu pandemic has drastically reduced population and wiped out civilization as we knew it. No grocery stores now, gasoline has expired, no electricity, no phones, no computers. People are making do in settlements here and there. And there’s a Traveling Symphony for entertainment, because, and this is a quotation from Star Trek: Voyager, “survival is insufficient.” This book was gripping and oddly hopeful! And it led me to her new one, The Glass Hotel, which I have to read in a hurry and return as it’s a “7-Day” new book, but time is askew at the library (as elsewhere) due to quarantining of books and materials for seven days upon their return.

I’m also reading Seed to Harvest, a collection of four short novels by Octavia E. Butler. She was a science fiction writer who died young, and people had been telling me about her work, so I read Fledgling, her vampire novel, which turned out to be her last. When Seed to Harvest came in to the library, I happened to be the one who “processed” it for library use, realizing I would now wait and let our regular patrons read it while it was a “new” book, and I’d get it later. Later is now!

Today is Juneteenth (which cannot be descecrated by a president who had never heard of it till he made it “famous.” Oh, my God. See why it feels like our last days?) Last year, Juneteenth was the theme of a script I wrote for an annual event sponsored by the local history museum. I knew it would be as soon as I learned the date of the event, June 19. You can’t hold an event on Juneteenth and not honor it. This year’s event, with its own theme, is not happening, due to the virus, and is postponed till 2021. Its title and theme will still be “Hindsight is 20/20,” which sort of breaks my heart.

I’m glad I happen to be reading a black author as well as a white author on June 19. But, you know, I’m not sure I like white people telling me what books on racism or anti-racism I should be reading. Yes, I want to learn, and, yes, I like book recommendations, but I want to learn about black experience by listening to black people, and reading their words. Is this an example of “white fragility”? I don’t know yet, as I haven’t read White Fragility, which is written by a white woman. Eventually, probably, I will.

For now, I’m reading (and writing) what comes to hand and what comes to heart in these precious, ongoing, even sometimes interminable last days, where every day is a Random Coinciday, and some days are Cranky Doodle Days.