Little Oblivion

Not group-think, but different.

I’ve been thinking about the poems in this new manuscript, and how they fit into “sets,” not quite like a set list that I would prepare for a reading, but more like a playlist from my ipod. Poems that echo about each other even after you’ve gone past them, and some that are “signature”–sounding sort of the same as another one that came pages before.  It’s easy to want to write more that fit this to try to fill in the holes that seem apparent in the manuscript, but I don’t think that’s the right thing to do.  It’s like writing a commission poem… mechanically it would work fine, but it wouldn’t do what the book, or the poems around it, need it to do. Or what I need the poems to do.

I think this is sort of the problem I faced (and hope I’ve resolved) with Little Oblivion.  And the problem I want to resolve in the third, so far useless except for having given me a very good time when I needed one in my life, manuscript.  With that one–and I don’t even have a working title for it–I wrote poems all circulating around two primary male characters. Some would say caricatures of male characters. But what I was trying to get to is how complex these two people could be (both fictitious, by the way) in their relationship with each other and those around them–and how that complexity translated into things like airports, house porches during autumn, camping trips, tampon machines, family holidays, etc. The everyday.  I haven’t given up on this manuscript, but it needs a drastic makeover. Maybe I should just let it go for what it was–which was amazingly fun to write.  I wrote it mostly ten years ago during my year in and out of Antarctica.  It was the distraction I needed from my life and its complexities at the time, and from Antarctica, which was being a bitch about letting me write about it.

But first thing’s first… this new one is hot for me, and I can’t stop thinking about it. Or carrying it with me every day. With all that’s going on right now–spending time with my father in law and the family as much as possible, dog with a tumor that has to be removed, new work and work schedule, and attempting to get the house ready for the market–it’s hard to find time to sit with it.  It’s not screaming at me yet, so I’m still good thinking about it in the ways I am right now. Soon, I won’t be able to do that.

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I wrote my first query letter to send my manuscript out.

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Apparently, today we’ll be attempting to:

1.  bake an apple-and-strawberry-and-creme (translated from “milk”) pie
2. bake a macaroni-and-cheese-and-hot-dog pie
3. decorate the ‘plain’ shirts I bought for Claire, because she doesn’t like shirts without pictures on them.

All while up at the in-laws’ house.  I think we will need a bit of luck for this endeavor. And maybe some Pepto-Bismol.

February 6th, 2010 | Tags: poetry | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

No, not the show.  Although I do feel a bit like my cousin Issac, in that I feel like I’m watching it, not because it’s entertaining anymore, but because I’ve made an investment in it, and have to see it through to the end.  Sort of like forcing myself to finish a meal that I paid a lot of money for, even if it doesn’t taste so good.  Or staying in a bad relationship through the holidays.

No.  I’m not quite lost at the new job, but I feel like I’ve walked into a wood with a barely discernible path–but a path nonetheless.  I’m getting closer to doing stuff that I haven’t done in the past, which is always scary, a little, even though I know the theory of it.

And I’ve allowed myself to get lost from my writing goals.  I put a lot of effort into putting together the next manuscript (it’s too hard for me to call it the fourth when none of the other three have been published yet), and am looking at it.  Literally staring at a stack of papers. I physically carry it with me every day, intending to take a break and read it, look at it, revise some poems, feel out the organization–but I don’t.  It’s a brick I carry with me.  I also started getting geared up to send Little Oblivion back out into the world.  Sent it one place, and stalled.

Sure, I might have excuses (new job, just back from the Ice, family obligations), but they’re just that.  In the immortal words of Yoda, do or do not.  There is no try.

February 3rd, 2010 | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

So… for the first time since 2002, neither Marc nor I are involved in the USAP in an official capacity.  The last time we weren’t either involved, we got married.  And then we were drawn back.  So here’s a brief history of time:

I became obsessed with Antarctica after I became obsessed with a certain someone who was there in 1996.  After 3 years of long weekend trips, summer trips together, and a lot of IRC chat sessions (thanks, CJ!), I graduated from ASU with my MFA and went to work on the NBP (see-I am a true Antarctican with all my acronyms) for a winter cruise with Marc.  I wrote 7 manuals in 6 weeks, and 13 poems.  Antarctica was good and horrible for me.  McMurdo was good and horrible for me and Marc.  I was in McMurdo 1999-2000, and returned for contracts on board the NBP in 2000 and 2001.  I taught a course called “Antarctic Literature” in 2001 and 2002.  Marc and I went back to CO and to the USAP in 2003.  I had 4 positions in total, made it to Palmer Station, South Pole Station, McMurdo Station, and both ice breakers.  I worked on, farmed out, and begged about Little Oblivion, my manuscript of poems about this whole place/experience, even until now.

I love and hate the ice in a way only those who have gone time and again can appreciate.  Some think of it as just another place and just another job; some think it’s the adventure of their lives; some think it’s the manifestation of hell on earth.  I recognize it as a reflection of a geography inside of me, and leaving the program means leaving that part of me, at least for a while.  I’ve had significant change happen to me each time I’ve gone south, and each time, I’ve come back a little bit different.  After this last trip, when I came to some terms with the ice and its hold on me, and its ability to break me, easily, I knew it was time to step back from it.  I will not write more about it, although I know the Ice will seep into my poetry from time to time.  The ice gave me many gifts, not the least of which is a man who knows me as well as he knows the ice, who understands it even better than I do; and a plethora of people and places to write about.

Today, when I walked out the door, it was walking out the door of a job that has been more than challenging, pushy, ignorant, and downright despicable. But I also left some of the best friends I’ve had in my life, and I know I’ll stay in touch with them, but it will be harder now.

I start a new job on Monday. I hope it goes well. I’ve already started the new manuscript, so I’m ahead of the game.

January 29th, 2010 | Tags: job change, poetry | Category: Uncategorized | Comments (1)

A friend told me today that she has a real hard time with other people’s feelings–that there are times she feels too empathetic with other people’s feelings, that they overwhelm her. What a wonderful and terrible burden, to understand what others are going through, so much so that it imposes itself on your feelings, your days. What of those who understand what others may be feeling, but ignore it for their own selfish reasons, though? Are they truly selfish, or are they self-preservationists?  In the end, I’ve got to trust that the goodness of others will eventually come out, and that sympathy, empathy, sorrow, and regret will wake up and loosen the holds of selfishness. My friend has an amazing gift to see the utmost goodness in others. Lately, I can learn a little bit from her in my world of cynicism.

I’m writing a new series of poems that I wish I could post, but can’t. They are reaching, in the same way, into other people’s feelings, and need focus and distance.  I’m glad the poems are coming–I was worried that it would take more time after leaving the ice.  But I feel this book (the fourth manuscript, if you can believe it) is coming together in a massive way, faster than I anticipated.  I have a lot of work ahead of me, but since I’m drawn to it, I make the time.

January 21st, 2010 | Category: poetry | Leave a comment

So, after a great trip to the Ice, ten years in a relationship with the Ice (oftentimes tenuous at best), I’ve decided to take a job that doesn’t involve things like Big Red, chicken time, Ob Hill, crossing ceremonies, CTDs, bunny boots, 204, 208, helo flights, happy camper school, and a myriad of other beautiful language teasers.  I’m very sad to leave the USAP, even though I know the Ice will never leave my blood.  Like my husband Marc, I think I’ve been forever touched by something magical, spiritual, disastrous and beautiful, chaotic and peaceful south of 60 degrees latitude.  I know we both will return there someday, by some means.  And while I know that I will always be connected to the program in some way, it is important and good for me to be moving on.

My new job is similar in scope–still Information Security, still auditing, but for another contractor for another government agency. It’s a great opportunity to get some more experience, to get dirty with technology, and to really expand what I already know.  I’m of course anxious; no one moves jobs without a little bit of anxiety.  I worked for six years full time–that’s longer than I’ve been at one place since elementary school.  I think it’s a generational thing.

I am sad to be moving one more step away from teaching writing again, but I also know that for my life and my family right now, this is the right move for me.  Plus, there’s so much interesting stuff happening in Infosec on a daily basis, I’m never short on excitement.

The only thing that I would love to add to my changes this year is acceptance of the Antarctic manuscript for publication.  I’ve made some good changes to it since my last deployment, I think, and from some good advice.  That is at the forefront of my mind lately, along with everything else.  I’m also finally ready to move into the next manuscript, which I have been writing for without realizing it for the last five years or so.  How does that happen?

So as they say, change is good.  Now to live it.

January 18th, 2010 | Tags: job change | Category: home life | Leave a comment

Last night, I dreamed I was on the South Pole Traverse with an old friend. It was huge.  People were jogging alongside the tracked vehicles, and we pulled into a place where there was a permanent structure–a huge log cabin that had tables, facilities, even a little store to buy chips at.  I was jogging next to a tracked vehicle, with my big red open, breathing the world hard, pounding my boots on the snow that I know is not the way it appeared in my dream.  It felt good. I was out there, with a cold breath and the ice. It was about me, being strong for myself.

At the structure, which I’ve made as a halfway point stop, I realized there were two children on the traverse with us–two small boys, about 8 or 9 years old.  The other people on the traverse were trying to help the boys get happy, but couldn’t somehow. I sat down with them, and started talking to them, and they were talking to me, and I was helping them get happy.  It felt good. I was being a mom–doing a great job at being a mom.  Outside the door, I saw a twin otter land, and pointed, and told the boys that their ride was here to take them home, and they were happy.

In the structure, I was sitting with my old friend, looking for a snack. Nothing looked appealing, though… chips, cookies, cheese puffs… nothing.  I looked at coins in a cup on the counter, and listened to my old friend tell stories. It felt good. I was being a friend, a good listener; but it also felt lonely.  I was not me there—my self was lost.  I was unable to make a decision, or fix something, or offer advice, or feel strong within my own skin.

Interesting, how we have our lives, and we have the fictitious truth of our dreams.

January 15th, 2010 | Tags: dreams | Category: home life | Leave a comment

I realized, after cutting of more than 10 inches of hair off of my head for the fifth time in my life, that somehow this always happens as either a reaction to or a harbinger of major changes in my life:

1.  Freshman year of college, 1990: A high-end salon did a charity hair cut thing in a dorm on campus. $10 hair cuts. I was still sporting the 80’s female mullet (how it pains me to write that), and it was time for a change. I was in college now, for crying out loud.  My friend Elizabeth and I ventured down campus to the upperclassman dorm. There were like 7 stylists, and chairs–no mirrors or anything.  Chop.  I think somewhere I still have a piece of that haircut.  That was around 7 inches.
2.  First year of graduate school, Arizona, 1996: a month at 100+ degrees convinced me this time.  I was in TA training, living in a studio apartment, getting ready to teach for the first time. My friend Deborah had found a salon she liked in downtown Phoenix.  She took me, and the stylists were awed by my choice to cut it all off.  I kept it short the whole time I was in graduate school, partly because it was hot (well, mostly because it was hot), and partly because I was holding onto an identity.
3.  After I got married. I got married in 2002, but cut the hair in 2003 when I knew we were moving to Colorado and I was going to be unemployed. One of my students who was a hair dresser at a local salon did it.  This was my first donation to Locks of Love. 
4.  After I had Claire.  I had been in bed for 7 weeks on strict bedrest, and my hair was one of the biggest hassles. I was only allowed a shower every other day, and since I was laying down, it got knotted, matted, and just downright unruly.  Cutting it and donating it after she was born was really a catharsis of that whole bad experience.
5.  This time.  I kept my hair long for my deployment to the Ice for practical purposes, but I was glad to have it from a comfort perspective. It sort of symbolized a lot of “old growth” that I needed to get away from,a nd I feel better for it. 

And now, I’ll probably grow it out again.  I feel like I’ve started a nice change in motion, starting with my trip to the Ice.  This is the year.

January 12th, 2010 | Category: Uncategorized, home life | Leave a comment

I’ve been having a lot of conversations with people in different areas of my life about sound:  hearing people, listening to people, what white noise helps and hurts, and in general what we do with aural input.  It’s an interesting conundrum that we don’t have very much opportunity to be surrounded by silence: our houses have heaters, refridgerators, other electronic things that kick on. Out in our yards, we hear traffic, dogs, wind, rain, snow.  At work we hear a multitude of other sounds (some of which we wish we couildn’t).

So it was pretty amazing that when I went to South Pole, it was even more difficult to get away from sound.  The plane ride down is noisy enough to require ear plugs, which allows you to have a constant din and no other sounds. At the Pole, there’s always noise–heavy machinery, the power plant, the water plant, or the constant wind in your ears if you’re outside.  Inside, it’s damn near impossible to get away from people, even in your own single room–for the most part, each room has a modular wall that can be removed for couples, but I could hear every snort and sniffle from the guy in the room next to me, which makes me wonder what he heard from my room when I wasn’t paying attention to being totally silent.  The sound of the snow, however, was unique, and one that I feel like one poem just isn’t enough about.

So, a first draft posted up for a day. I’m still working on the end.

The Sound of Snow at the Pole

(poof!)

January 8th, 2010 | Tags: poetry | Category: poetry | Leave a comment

I had the best of intentions to make a poetry contest deadline on December 31.  But I ended up having to work a half day, pick the kids up early from daycare, and prepare for a party. I’m angry at myself for missing the deadline, but there are more, and I’m very much into wanting to work more out of this manuscript after my recent deployment.  I let a few “strangers” read my book while I was on the Ice, both of them not poets, not primary poetry readers.  They both had a few interesting things to say, however, which may end up helping me shape how it changes in the future.  So I’m not feeling too horribly about missing my own arbitrary deadline, but need to figure out how to fit in the revising I know I need to do in an ever-increasing time crunch in my life.

The ice is still sorting itself out for me, and while I know that there will always be a part of me there, and there will always be the ice in me, and not just in my memory, I think this trip did give a sort of closure. Or if not a closure, a departure, a way to say “see you later.”  I need to do that with this book, and move on to the next one.

January is going to be *very* interesting, for a number of reasons.  More on that later.

January 2nd, 2010 | Tags: antarctica, poetry | Category: antarctica, poetry | Leave a comment