While I Was Gone

While I was gone (to the beach, with family wamily, in Michigan), stuff happened:

1) At Escape Into Life, the new poetry feature--Molly Spencer--was posted for me by Teia, who solves all problems.  (I did not have Internet access where I was.) So check it out, poets!--and poetry readers!

2) My avocado sprouted up into a little tree! It exactly resembles this one. It does not, in any way, resemble my other avocado sprout, which resembles a begonia. And, of course, probably is a begonia. I don't know how the begonia sprout got inside the avocado pit. You will have to ask the squirrels about that.

3) Normal, Illinois had a double rainbow, followed by resumed drought.

4) Michigan had plenty of rain--almost every night and parts of every day! But every day also brought some beach time, sunny time, and changes in the lake and tide pools.

5) My sister got lost. And I found her. By going down to the beach to think about her. My being there then assured her she was found when she returned from "a three-hour tour." (Gilligan Island theme.)

6) Jonathan Koch did a new painting, Strawberries and Cream.

7) Escape Into Life posted this tribute to its founder, Chris Al-Aswad, and a poem by him. When I got back, I attended the party in his honor.

Courage

One of Emily Dickinson’s poems begins

A great Hope fell

You heard no noise

The Ruin was within

Oh cunning wreck that told no tale

And let no Witness in

but in my case you do hear noise:

 1. I go over to my parents’ house and tell them about it, so

2. I let a Witness in

3. (this afternoon by reading them a different Emily Dickinson poem, and my commentary on it*)

4.  and then I go home and put on the Paula Cole CD Courage

Then (or during) I laugh and drink wine. And fix dinner. (Which cannot be fixed without music and wine. But that’s another story.)

So, yes, a great hope fell, recently, but one I will survive, as I have survived many others, and I will laugh, drink wine, and be glad I have parents, friends, a husband, kids, and other fine Witnesses! (Though I am telling no tales!)

I’ve mentioned Paula Cole here before, and the wonderful Courage album, picked up, used, at a sidewalk sale, for $5 at exactly the right moment. Hm, why does that moment keep recurring?!

Really, this album always consoles me and keeps me going, restores my courage. I love her honesty and vulnerability:

And I’ve forgotten who I used to be.

And I’ve forgotten the woman in red, living her dream.

And I’ve forgotten the courage I used to be.

Then there’s a refrain of repetition that is best heard sung:  “I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know, And I try, and I try, and I try, and I try, and I try….”

I love, love, love her courage and conviction, in the first song on the album, “Comin’ Down,” saying, “I’ll shoulder the weight,

Of feeling emotions in a deeper shade

I’ll be the one who puts them to song

And liberate the heartache comin’ down.

So, I was reading to my parents about “trembling on the brink of the abyss without falling in” while trembling on the brink of the abyss without falling in.

Which, you know, ultimately, is funny!

Or, as Paula Cole would (and did) say,

So please forgive me all my seriousness,

My so-called spirituality,

I’m just a mess.

I’m tears and anxiety,

But I’m unafraid to See.

And I did not fall off the brink, either.  And was able to comfort a few poets, later, on Facebook.  (Sigh…)  And was given, earlier today, by a dear heart, Ginny, The Book of Men, by Dorianne Laux, because I told her I was lusting after it, and she completely understood! (It has a hilarious cover, and beautiful interior!)

*as, wooee, one of “today’s finest poets,” wooee (did I say, “Wooee!”?), according to Richard Jones in Poetry East, #74 & 75, Spring 2012: Great Poems

Please forgive me my moments of self-congratulation. It helps me not fall off the brink. Into a pool of wine. (Or into a pool of whine.)

Fresh Out of the Oven

As I told poet Carol Berg, who is Fresh Out of the Oven this morning at The Bakery, I had her poem "The Wife's Mid-Life Crisis with Dreams of Sacrificing Feet" for breakfast instead of some other kind of pastry. Yesterday I had "The Wife's Mid-Life Crisis with Danger" instead of a donut.

Excellent way to lose weight! Wait! Unless I drink a lot of this Poet beer, actually an oatmeal stout.

And I appear to have plenty of it. In fact, it appears to be growing on trees around here.

This is my homemade bottle tree. (Formerly a burning bush. But it died.) I was inspired to make it, with various beer bottles, including Wingwalker pale ale and Leinenkugel's Summer Shandy, after seeing pix of other, more beautiful, less alcoholic bottle trees online. (And as a monument to the burning bush.)

Thanks to my daughter for the pix, and to James, a participant in my poetry workshop, for the Poet stout.

Note to self: Do not drink Poet stout for breakfast* or you will become a stout poet. And for other reasons.

Note to all: Do read (and/or listen to!) Carol Berg's mid-life crisis poems at The Bakery, and it looks like a yummy place to visit frequently! Also, try not to have a mid-life crisis, but, if you do, handling it with poetry is probably better than handling it with beer.

Have I mentioned that it is Fat Tuesday in the blog? And also, clearly, a Poetry Someday. And, as usual, a Random Coinciday!

*even though it is made out of oatmeal

Marigold Hotel

Everybody told me I would love the movie Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, and everybody was right. I went last night, to the packed Normal Theatre, and walked through beautiful Uptown Normal afterwards with my mom, visiting the new train station just after a train had arrived (excellent restrooms!), and having ice cream cones on the patio at Emack and Bolio's under a fabulous exploding-with-music metal and light sculpture by Herb Eaton.

I am still and again singing the praises of my hometown.

Thanks to Normal for the new Marriott, and thanks to Beyond Normal Films for the Best Exotic Marigold.

The movie was funny, beautiful, and profound and full of actors I love--Judy Dench and Maggie Smith, of course, and Tom Wilkinson, but also the fabulous Bill Nighy of The Girl in the Cafe, a sweet movie about social justice that I recommend to all.

My kids like Bill Nighy because of Shaun of the Dead, a zombie movie, and his wife in that is Penelope Wilton, also his wife in this. So it's a Random Coinciday in the blog!

And also a Blue Monday, as the forget-me-nots keep blooming and the blue spiderwort have come back, revived by a spot of rain.

And it's even a Poetry Someday, as I got a good draft of a poem this morning, one that had been hanging around in the air like humidity, and then let loose.

Hometown Blues

Yesterday I was praising my hometown and its new transportation center, and today in church Jesus was having the hometown blues. “People who tell the truth are honored, except when they’re in their hometown," he said, according to the pastor and the Scarlet Letter Bible.

The Scarlet translation continues, saying he was "exasperated" with his hometown residents, "couldn't do anything significant with them," and sent his apostles off in pairs to do good works for those who were open to them. “'Whenever you go somewhere,' he told them, 'stay in one house until you leave. If you and your message are unwelcome somewhere, just shake it off.'”

I love that advice: "just shake it off." If only it were that easy. But, as Pastor Susan reminded us, the contemporary "shake it off" advice captures the image of "shaking the dust off your feet" when you are out healing the sick in your sandals.

Yep, Jesus sent them off with "[No] food, no bags, no money in their pockets. He had them wear sandals, and let them take only one shirt." This reminded me of how I travel, and the reflection was titled "Traveling Light" and was about the burden of possessions in addition to the hometown blues.

I do travel light. I take my purse--which, it's true, has a brush and comb in it, a toothbrush, and a tube of toothpaste (yes, a whole tube...until it's less than a whole tube...which takes a while)--and a cloth bag that usually has my rolled-up jammies and a change of underwear and socks and, yes, one (extra) shirt.

And, a natural Blanche DuBois, I often depend on the kindness of strangers. Or old friends.

(I'm sure, by the way, that you can find a picture online of Stanley Kowalski in a ripped t-shirt.) Anyhoo...

I reflected on a lot of stuff today: how we can be appreciated by strangers and unappreciated in our hometowns, how we can shake it off, and how we can travel light. And now I wish you well on your own journey. (And if you need a shirt to wear and a shirt to roll up and carry with you, the Escape Into Life shirt is here, and the Ginger Ninja = Ginja shirt is here! But don't let these new possessions be a burden.)