Snow Angels

The Pope is making snow angels on the cover of the current issue of The New Yorker, and Heather Horton's Central Park Angel graces the snowy top of the essay "Winged or Shriven," still up at Escape Into Life. No snow angels here! Sunny, blue sky, currently 37 degrees. Off I go soon on errands and then to more family wamily gathering! Maybe I can actually burn the trash out at my parents' place today. Last night it was too windy, but, oh, the starry sky!! May you escape any woe or trouble in 2013 into a Happy New Year. And please wish the same for me, as there's been some! Yeesh. But already it feels/is lighter in the morning!

No Zumba For You

Remember this guy? He is yelling at me. On Slattern Day in the blog. With a sheet of ice out there on the roads. We heard a prediction of “five inches of ice.” How could that even happen? (Don’t tell me! There are things I don’t want to know.) Well, the less-than-five-inch sheet of ice caused me to go around the block and come home this morning, instead of continuing on to my last zumba class of the season. I was glad I could stop at the stop sign and turn into the proper lane, and my own driveway.

On my way around the block, part of my introverted mind (the neocortex, or “new brain”) was firmly attentive to the road and the brakes. But part of it was also spinning titles for this blog entry. The first, before I realized just how slick it was, was “ReZumbaed” (meaning “zumba, resumed.") Yes, I know. Not very funny. And strangely convoluted, also probably due to my essential introversion. I am reading Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a WorldThat Can’t Stop Talking, by Susan Cain. I feel so externally validated! So comforted, so relieved. Anyhoo, that was when I thought I was resuming zumba this morning.

This quickly changed to “Re:Zumba,” as in “regarding the matter of zumba,” just as quickly discarded.  “Zumba: Epic Fail” skated by, but I didn’t want to imply the failure of zumba itself, only my personal epic fail. And then “No Zumba For You” reared its ugly head behind a deli counter in my mind, via the “Soup Nazi” from Seinfeld.

So, yes, I did not make it to zumba class this morning. Nor did I make it to the special, extra, holiday zumba class offered to Saturday participants this past Thursday, which would have allowed me to make up one of the other classes I failed (or forgot) to attend. But I forgot.

Instead, I was making a dreaded Christmas shopping trip to Target, a store I haven’t visited in over a year, I’d guess. So, of course, I go there when Target shoppers have had their credit cards hacked. Fortunately, I just missed the hacking period. I hope. It is the season of hope, right?

Little did I know, when I wrote of my “Slow Waltz” yesterday that I would be going so slowly down the literal road this morning.  Not, thank goodness, figuratively waltzing on my half-new tires. So, I will “Rezumba Quiet” (heh heh) this morning, on my couch, maybe, wrapped in a cuddly sherpa (blanket, not a guy from Nepal). 

It’s the shortest day of the year, so I might be there all day. I can write Christmas cards from inside a sherpa, right? And it's the longest night of the year. Here is some more to read, Re: Winter Solstice, at Escape Into Life, excerpts from the journals of Chris Al-Aswad, founding editor, and from a book he was reading, The Happiness Hypothesis. More stuff about how the brain works.

I mention snow angels. Around here it might be mud angels, as it’s been raining. Or sheet of ice angels. Or Sherpa angels.

Slow Waltz

I'm slowing down here, moving into Christmas week. Also slowed down by the fog but glad the temps are warm! I proofed galleys for Interior Sculpture: poems in the voice of Camille Claudel, forthcoming in January from dancing girl press. I think the cover will play with this famous sculpture of hers, The Waltz. This is a chapbook of poems written for the dance collaboration, Claudel, 20 poems, of which Columbus Dance Theatre will enact 15. Many thanks to Kristy Bowen for choosing the manuscript, designing the cover, and living with the crazy timing! She also took 3 of the Claudel poems for Wicked Alice, an elegant thing. My connectivity issue continues, a further slowing down...of the Internet sort. Hmm, does fog impede the Internet? Off to waltz in bronze. Slowly.

Speaking of Sculpture

Speaking of Sakuntala, as I was yesterday, specifically Camille Claudel's sculpture of her reunion with her lover Dushyanta, here is the poster for Claudel, with dancers taking the pose. And here again is the poem, that retells the legend in the voice of Sakuntala but also in the voice of Claudel, whose lover made her a promise he could not keep.

This and other poems will be spoken by my sister, an actress in Columbus, and performed by Columbus Dance Theatre, with new music by Korine Fujiwara of the Carpe Diem String Quartet in January. You can imagine what a thrill this is for me! Here's the Claudel sculpture, and Wes Kroninger took the photo of the CDT dancers!

And here, at Escape Into Life, is another sculpture, a stone bride, her visions captured in songs by Nicolette Wong, in her chapbook Stone Bride Madrigals. I reviewed it in the form of a cento taken from bits of all eleven poems in the book. That was also a thrill. David Heg took the photo for the book cover.

Fickle Connectivity

I'm delighted to have 2 poems up in Fickle Muses, an online journal of myth and legend. Both are based on the life and work of sculptor Camille Claudel. "Red Umbrella" incorporates a sort of legend about herself, based on local gossip that she escaped her room at night by way of a red umbrella. "Sakuntala" is the story of Sakuntala, spelled various ways, rejected by and reunited with her lover, from Hindu culture. Claudel created a beautiful, tender sculpture of Sakuntala, the recognition scene.

It's been difficult to blog lately--due to fun things, like being busy with kids home for the weekend, but also because of limited connectivity issues with the fickle Internet. (Probably the modem. Sigh...) So, if you don't hear from me, 1) I've been kicked off the Internet 2) I'm stuck in a snowdrift 3) I threw my back out shoveling snow 4) I am lost in the freezing fog... 5) I am out (or at the window) gazing at the glorious full moon!

But, surely, I'll be back.