Little Oblivion

One of the best parts of Colorado in the summer is the weather. Today was one of those picture-perfect days: it was not too hot, puffy clouds that kids see pictures in, a slight breeze, but warm sun on your shoulders.  Then, on the drive home, dark gray clouds that promise rain. Rinse, repeat for tomorrow.  And the next day. And the next.  This is the first year I heard Coloradoans refer to this as “monsoon season.”  It’s so dry here, even when it rains, that calling this “monsoon” would never occur to me.

I first experienced monsoon in Arizona. Every year I was there it amazed me–the almost unbearable heat of the day, then, depending on the day, the sky turned dark, almost green, and one of two things started: either the thunder rolled in, and the lightning show started, or the rain would start in silence, and thunder would follow.  The rain always came in huge drops, and came in a tumult. The temperature dropped into the 90’s, and combined with the wet, felt almost cool.  I remember the best lightning storm I’ve ever seen–I think I’d gone to a poetry slam, the summer before I started graduate school, and I was standing outside waiting for it to start.  I talked to a young man (even at the time I think he was younger than me) about poetry and about the folks who were there and regulars.  He had a stud in his tongue. I was distracted  not only by the stud (in his tongue) but by the lightning storm happening in the thunderhead above us. There was no rain, and barely any thunder, but the lightning lit up this cloud like a subatomic reaction, or what I imagine a subatomic reaction to look like.  I remember wondering if maybe he wasn’t in a risky situation with that stud and a lightning storm in monsoon.  I also remember being fixated on that stud, but this is a family show, and I was young(er).

Every year after that, though, monsoon was my favorite part of the year in Arizona. It was a shift in the world, a way for people to change the way they look at things, and the way they feel about the world.  It was an open door.  It could wash the world to be a cleaner slate, or it could give you just the excuse to stay indoors. I’m still attracted to monsoon for just these reasons, and am happy to have found that in another dry desert. Change is something that is sometimes a simple, small thing, but we make it out to be this huge mountain, like all of a sudden I need to be called Fred and live a crazy life and go sailing on a boat.  Change can be like that, but typically isn’t.  So we need a little nudge sometimes–like monsoon season–to give us an excuse to make one positive change, or see something a little differently in the world. So now the two robins hopping in my backyard under the trampoline are different. I may be a little more patient when Claire wants to eat her Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup before finishing her dinner. I may find another way to tell Marc love.

And some monsoon days, I may disappear into my room, and hide under the covers, as far away from the world as I can get.

And, in the immortal words of Olivia and John, “Summer days, driftin’ away to oh-oh, those summer nights…”

July 30th, 2010 | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

My son has hives. Again.  The first time he got them he was 3 months old, and while I kept calm on the outside, I was freaking out on the inside. I am now freaking out again. Moms do this—and Dads let them as a method of self-preservation.  Thing is, with all we went through with Claire’s prematurity and her health issues, I didn’t freak out nearly as much. This hits home for me as an allergy sufferer.  I only remember getting what I think of as hives once in my life.

So now we’re methodically trying to figure out why they keep reoccurring. I thought I nailed it, and then today he got a bout when we had totally avoided what I thought (feared) it was.  So now we’re avoiding cheese, which is a natural histamine provider anyway and could be an allergen or a way to exacerbate the histamine levels in his body.  I am itchy just when I look at his torso, and I look at his torso, about every five minutes, to see if there’s any change.  Tonight Claire said, before bed, “Mommy, I want to kiss all his little bumps in the morning to make them better.”  I told her that’s really nice, but we hope the bumps are all gone in the morning.

In true parental fashion, I don’t want my kids to suffer what I’ve had to suffer in life—in this case, allergies. I’ve never been allergic to food—that’s my brother’s job—but I got the short end of the stick with the allergy-induced asthma. There are a few things in this world that have scared the daylights out of me, and not being able to breathe is one of them.  I remember the scariest night, waking up in my navy blue nightgown with the anchor on it (as if I were pretend Navy), feeling like I was trying to fill my lungs through a straw.  I went to my aunt, woke her up, and did what she told me: I opened the windows to let in all the cold air, and sat in the rocking chair. I was freezing, and freaking out. She told me to calm down and breathe as best I could until the albuterol started working.  After a while, when it didn’t work that well, we went to the hospital, where they gave me a nebulizer treatment. I threw up a lot. They finally admitted me and said I had “asthmatic bronchitis.”  The city I grew up in was pretty small but had a small-ish hospital, and they ended up opening the pediatric ward for me and this other little girl. I forget what was wrong with her.  I remember feeling special that they did that just for us.  I think maybe they wanted to keep us away from the rest of the hospital population, which was full of old people.  I was 13; it was the last week of October, and I was missing the last possible Halloween for me to get away with trick or treating.  I got nebbed 3 times a day, and after each time, a woman came in to bang on my back to loosen all that stuff in my lungs.  I ate a lot of grilled cheese sandwiches.  My friends came to visit me, and I watched a lot of “Inspector Gadget.”  The hospital stay was nothing—but that night, sitting in the big rocking chair, trying to breathe through a straw—that was terrifying.

So I ask Sam if his throat itches, and I listen to him breathe.

*******
I’m also trying to gear up for August Poem-A-Day.  In past years I’ve done September instead, because Augusts have just been too busy.  This year, August doesn’t seem so bad.  So I’m going to give it a whirl.  There are more poets doing it in August, so maybe I’ll have a sense of camaraderie in an otherwise isolating activity.  I just downloaded the Poetry Foundation app and the Poetry Daily app for my iPhone.

*******
Work…. is.  I’ll leave it at that.  Of course, there’s always a silver lining.

July 27th, 2010 | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

I am very glad for being back to my old job.  It’s like putting your old shoes on–you like your new shoes, even though they hurt your feet a lot (shiny and new is cool, but in the end how you feel is what’s more important). But the old shoes elicit a feeling of comfort, but also of stasis.  It truly is like I never left–just took an extended leave.  Which has its plus sides, and also its minuses.

Today was a slow day–I have enough work to do, but no meetings to break it up, no real email distractions, as I’m not really integrated yet into what’s going on.  I think it will increase as the weeks go on. So today was slow. Achingly slow at times. I put my headphones on, and listened to the entire original Broadway recording of the musical Rent, which has been one of my favorite pieces of music for a long time. The down side is it always affects me in some emotional way.

My good friend Laurie Ann worked in the theater district at the time it came out on Broadway, and she sent me the soundtrack during my first year of graduate school. It was the first time I lived alone in my life, truly alone, in a small studio apartment. I had cinderblock bookshelves (what else is a hallmark of graduate school?), a murphy bed (I still miss that), and a mini stereo. I listened to that soundtrack over and over–listened to it while I wrote scary emails to a guy in Antarctica, while I wrote poems, while I graded freshman composition papers.  I knew it by heart.  When I went home for Christmas that first year, I convinced my friend Artie, another theatrical person, to go to the show in Boston with me.  We got orchestra seats, and sat in the last row in the orchestra.  I knew the whole show by heart.  I sang it to myself.  When the show was over, I was crying as if I had seen the end of the world and a glorious resurrection.  Artie did what all good guy friends do–he hugged me and suggested we go get a drink.  We went across the street to the Brew Moon, and as I sat at the bar and Artie went to the bathroom, the bartender asked me, “Just got out of the show?” I nodded in between sobs and dabs of Kleenex.  Clearly he had seen this behavior before.  I got it together before Artie got back (another thing good guy friends do), and we had a glass of wine before heading home.  I saw the show one more time, two summers later, in New York, on Broadway. Fourth row, right aisle. I saw the sweat on Mark’s brow as he sang. I was with my own Marc, and it was amazing, but not like that first time.  But the soundtrack continues to remind me of the frailty of our lives, and the importance of Rule #32: Enjoy the little things. I have a lot of dead people in my life, and sometimes, they are louder than the live ones.

So I closed my eyes a number of times, and worked the poem I’ve got going, but really, I was thinking about Rex, and was glad my back was to my two office mates.  The end result, I’m afraid, is this poem (posted for a day).

The Ancestor

*poof*

The best humor to the day, though, came when Claire asked me to come into the bathroom for her, because she thought there was a mummy in my room.  I told her, “There is a mummy. I’m the mummy.”  She said, “No, mom.  Not the kind of mummy–mommy that takes care of kids, the kind of mommy covered with dirt and toilet paper.”

July 22nd, 2010 | Tags: poem | Category: home life, kids say the darndest things, poetry | Leave a comment

As you may know, my friend Oliver is teaching forms again, and is writing the forms with his class.  I got on a forms kick in April when I was doing poem a day, and had already written a villanelle and 2 sestinas. I think I may even have posted them briefly.  I think the villanelle I wrote is more successful than any I’ve ever written—which doesn’t mean it’s successful, but it’s still ok in my book.  This week Oliver’s teaching sestina, but I’m totally sestina’d out.

Last weekend we went to see the King Tutankhamen exhibit at the Denver Art Museum. There were some impressive pieces there, but no actual mummies or even coffins.  Lots of statues, statue heads, one canopic jar lid, and a canopic coffin (that held a liver). Also a gold mask, which was impressive to me.  I liked seeing the movie that showed the mummies themselves, and wondered at the way that the Egyptians figured out to preserve the bodies for the afterlife.  I’m into the science of it.  But, like all museum visits, even this one spurred in me the imagery for a new poem.  So I’m writing that poem now.

In the meantime, I’ll repost the villanelle and sestina from April. Also, I saw on a blog on my RSS feed this poem by Billy Collins, which I really do love for a lot of reasons, and it’s definitely worth reposting.

*poof*

Purity, by Billy Collins
My favorite time to write is in the late afternoon,
weekdays, particularly Wednesdays.
This is how I go about it:
I take a fresh pot of tea into my study and close the door.
Then I remove my clothes and leave them in a pile
as if I had melted to death and my legacy consisted of only
a white shirt, a pair of pants, and a pot of cold tea.
Then I remove my flesh and hang it over a chair.
I slide it off my bones like a silken garment.
I do this so that what I write will be pure,
Completely rinsed of the carnal,
uncontaminated by the preoccupations of the body.
Finally I remove each of my organs and arrange them
on a small table near the window.
I do not want to hear their ancient rhythms
when I am trying to tap out my own drumbeat.
Now I sit down at the desk, ready to begin.
I am entirely pure: nothing but a skeleton at a typewriter.
I should mention that sometimes I leave my penis on.
I find it difficult to ignore the temptation.
Then I am a skeleton with a penis at a typewriter.
In this condition I write extraordinary love poems,
most of them exploiting the connection between sex
and death.
I am concentration itself: I exist in a universe
where there is nothing but sex, death and typewriting.
After a spell of this I remove my penis too.
Then I am all skull and bones typing into the afternoon.
Just the absolute essentials, no flounces.
Now I write only about death, most classical of themes
in language light as the air between my ribs.
Afterward, I reward myself by going for a drive at sunset.
I replace my organs and slip back into my flesh
And clothes. Then I back the car out of the garage
And speed through woods on winding country roads,
Passing stone walls, farmhouses, and frozen ponds,
All perfectly arranged like words in a famous sonnet.

July 21st, 2010 | Tags: poetry, sestina, villanelle | Category: poetry | Leave a comment

Yesterday was exhausting.

First: my last day at my “new” job.
I was torn about this. I don’t like leaving a job after such a short period of time (165 days to be exact), and I really liked the people I worked with.  But for quite a few reasons, and perhaps a bit of karma, I chose to apply for my old job back at RPSC when it opened up again.  I’ll let Erma Bombeck tell it like it is. Because of the overtime I had worked, I only had to work a whopping 4 hours today, so I cleaned out my desk, sent off a final email to my team, filled out some paperwork, and called it a day.  Now my meager work things are packed in Target bags waiting to be unveiled again at my old job on Monday.  I’m not sure what fits me more—the zebra mug I have my tea in every morning, or my red Swingline stapler.

Second: I went on a bike ride.
For those of you who know me, you know I have not been an avid bike rider.  I got my first bike when I was 9, and it was the perfect 9-year-old bike—a huffy with the big huge pink seat.  After trying and failing to learn to ride without training wheels (yes, I was 9), I almost gave up. Auntie Gail came out of the house, and told me to just “pedal.” She grabbed the back of the bike seat, and pushed, and then said, “keep pedaling,” and shoved me off down the street.  That was it.  My second bike came a few years later, and was a 10-speed (I believe).  I remember Terri walking it out from behind the house as my surprise birthday present.  I remember this one, because I think it was this bike I was riding home from organ lessons on Ferry Street when I almost got hit by a car. Read: almost.  But it was enough to give me an asthma attack, and to ensure I never rode my bike on the street again… until graduate school.  Again, Gail came through and bought me a bike so that I could ride to and from school. It was about a 2-mile ride one way, and I’d say the grade only went up about 6 inches over the entire ride.  Easy, right?  I totally stressed out about it, but ended up riding pretty regularly.  I rode a little bit in Seattle, to and from school (too bad it was all downhill to school), but gave my bike to the church auction and didn’t get another one.

So when a new friend suggested I go biking with her, I was scared, but excited.  I want to find an exercise that doesn’t require a gym but that I can enjoy without being stressed, and can actually write in my head while I do it.  I contemplated running, but another friend recommended biking over running, because of the bad knee thing.  Of course, he’s like the Superman of outdoor activities, and rides miles.  I mean Miles.  I was scared because I have not been on a bike in a long time, and my new friend is like Wonder Woman—she regularly tows her little boy in a trailer behind her, adding about 50 lbs to the ride.  I, however, am like Po from Kung Fu Panda—Level 0.  The plan: ride about 4 ¼ miles on bike trails to this park where her son could play, then back.  Pretty simple, right?  8.5 miles. Again, totally stressed out about it.

Here’s how it went: I rode in back. It was a warm day, 90’s. When we went down the big hill (and yes, “big” is relative) I realized I’d have to, eventually, go back up it.  We rode under three or four bridges, through a field of prairie dogs, through fields of switchgrass and thistle, past 3 or 4 other parks, and along a creek. We passed 2 people on bikes. I thought this meant I was doing great until I realized they were like 80.  When we got to the park, my butt didn’t hurt.  On the ride back I saw an older couple, off to the side of this nicely groomed park area. She was laying on the grass in the shade, on her belly with her chin in her hands. She had a white floppy hat, and sunglasses on. He was taking pictures of her. I would have liked to see how those pictures came out. As we passed the prairie dogs again, and they scattered from the sound of our bikes, I realized I was writing a poem in my head. Or pieces of poems. The rest of the ride was uneventful, except for the uphill thing. But I did not have to get off the bike; I did, however have it in the lowest gear possible, which my friend kindly stopped herself from referring to it as “granny gear.”  But that’s ok.  If I live to be 80, and still ride a bike with my man, I will not regret going up that hill in “1.” When we got back, my butt didn’t hurt.  I think this was a big victory.

It was a good ride. A good day.

July 16th, 2010 | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

My friend Oliver is teaching a forms class this summer, and he’s been posting about the forms he’s teaching.  So I’m reaching in and as any good former Catholic, picking and choosing the ones I want to try.  Writing in form is like doing calisthenics–it’s not always fun, but it involves counting and is good for you to exercise certain muscles that you don’t always exercise.  So I think it was yesterday he did a pantoum.

The first pantoum I wrote was in Boston College in 1993.  I love the form because it reminds me of palindromes, but it’s so hard to do well. Even harder than sestinas, in my book.  I’ve seen a few very successful pantoums, and envy them.  The first pantoum I wrote, though, actually ended up being performed as part of the first AIDS benefit called The Dead Are Dancing.  It was the first (and last) time I ever performed on Robsham Theater’s Main Stage.  The benefit meant a lot to me, but so did the director who asked me to participate, and for my poem to be performed. It was sort of an interpretive dance set to music and poetry, and many of us in it were not actors.  It was such an important thing to participate in, and I have very fond memories of it.  Thanks, Rob.  The pantoum itself wasn’t exactly successful, but the music and the dance that went with it, I think, made it successful.

Which brings me to this: sometimes, a poem is better performed than read.  I have a lot more to say about that, as a child of Slam, but in the meantime, here’s the new pantoum, for a day:

Gravity’s Problem

*poof*

And for kickers, the pantoum from The Dead are Dancing, originally published in Stylus, Spring, 1994 (I can’t believe I found it)…
Keeping Time

The metronome ticks faster now.
Snow begins to fall in rhythms;
I’ve heard that the dead are dancing,
and winter creeps in black and white measures.

Snow begins to fall in rhythms.
Coughs rattle in too many throats,
and winter creeps in black and white measures,
a million melting drops to quilt the world.

Coughs rattle in too many throats,
breathing meters gasp as they measure the days.
A million melting drops to quilt the world,
a blanket of bald heads reflect the gray.

Breathing meters gasp as they measure the days;
discoveries are slow but steady now.
A blanket of bald heads reflect the gray,
as small red ribbons shine on lapels.

Discoveries are slow but steady now–
Families sit and watch, waiting for a sign.
Small red ribbons shine on lapels,
as icy waters flow with melting winter.

Families sit and watch, waiting for a sign,
as funerals are more frequent now.
Icy waters flow with melting winter;
the band played on in slow Marches.

Funerals are more frequent now–
Over two hundred thousand served.
As the band plays on in slow marches,
tired eyes watch the drifts of white.

Over two hundred thousand served.
Another day begins.  Again.
Tired eyes watch the drifts of white,
but the season’s songs end in quiet.

Another day begins again,
and I see the dead are dancing.
The season’s songs end in silence
as the metronome ticks faster now.

July 13th, 2010 | Tags: forms, poetry | Category: poetry | Leave a comment

I’ve gotten to a place where I can look at the poems I wrote earlier this year with fresh eyes. I  realized it was time when I read the poems and didn’t immediately think they were awesome, or poignant, or find myself skimming to the end.  When I get to the point where I look at the poem and say,  “hmmm, no one will get that,” and “ew, that’s too abstract,” and “this poem doesn’t match with that one,” I know that it’s time to dig my heels in and revise.

At different points in my writing life, I’ve had a very different revision process. And I’ve never really  chosen my process, or defined it as a “strategy,” but just let it happen. I used to do a lot of journaling, raw lines with no line breaks, lots of extra crap, and then would carefully craft the poem from the pieces, with little consideration for revision after they were typed; I finished them while typing them.  Then there are times I get to, like now, when I write poems in line breaks, often typing directly in the computer, but then have to spend a lot more time later on revision, which seems harder when I see those lines already a certain length, already in stanzas, already with a certain voice. It takes a lot of effort, and a lot longer, to break out of that established voice. I often have to read other poets to see the spaces between the language in my own poems. In this way, I’m a thief, even if I never use an image I read or a convention I see.

But that’s where I am now, especially with this series of poems I wrote earlier this year. They are too “inside” and too abstract, and inconsistent in direction. So now I tear them down to build them back up, if I can bear it. I was in a pretty intense space when I wrote them, and I can’t totally rewrite them since I’m not in that space anymore.  I’m not typically so attached that I can’t tear down a poem, but it usually takes time to get distant enough after writing it for the voice to feel new and strange again. I think it’s finally happened, so out comes the pen (no, not red). It took years (maybe three) for me to get to that point with my first manuscript, Giving Back the Girl. Someday soon I may revisit that one, since it echoes, in a naive way, this new manuscript.

In other news, I found out I was a finalist for one of the “first and second book” contests I entered this spring.  This makes me very happy, even if it’s like being nominated but not winning.  There’s hope to find a home for this book!

July 12th, 2010 | Tags: poetry, revision | Category: poetry | Leave a comment

Last night we watched The Legend of 1900. It was a very moving film about a boy born on a boat, abandoned as a baby on a boat, raised on a boat, lives on a boat, and dies on a boat.  But it’s about more than that.  It’s about perspective, how we get used to seeing the world one way only, and think that’s the way it has to be.  The folks who come and go on the ship don’t think twice about what they see when they get off—just another city, with streets and buildings and people. But when 1900 sees it, he sees too much to handle.  But conversely, one of the greatest scenes of the film is when Max is having a very hard time getting his sea legs, and 1900 sits down at the piano and takes the brakes off. He takes Max on a ride with his music all around the ballroom, and down the hallway. For him, the music, the swell, is a normal part of life, not some extraordinary adventure. He was a simple man who was amazingly attuned to the people around him, and more able to express himself through his music than through his face or words.

There were two things that I thought of during this movie: How much I miss the ocean and being at sea, and how emotional it is to be connected to place.  I was bawling like a baby at the end of this movie. When we’re not distracted by so much day-to-day in our lives, we can be given a glimpse into the future, into the reality of our relationships, and our place in it.

Hollywood, you’re bad for me.  Amazingly, greatly, desperately bad for me.

July 8th, 2010 | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Back when I worked for an investment firm in downtown Boston, I loved shoes. I loved them because I could buy them and put them in a drawer in my desk, and wear them for 8 hours a day. They were 2 inches, 3 inches, and these wonderful white ones that were almost 4 inches.  I loved wearing my Keds on the subway with socks over my nylons, power-walking to Bruegger’s Bagels (sesame bagel plain), power-walking through Downtown Crossing to the Financial District, past the Spare Change guy, and into the building to the 13th floor.  I loved feeling like Mr. Rogers (only in a skirt and nylons) and changing my shoes while my computer booted. Then my happy time stopped while I microwaved my bagel and got my soda for breakfast.  Time to face the music: work.  It wasn’t until we could receive “outside email” that work seemed somewhat interesting, mainly because I could be distracted with outside communication.  It felt clandestine to get email from people outside the company at that point, and I was all for clandestine, especially when I put the Keds back on, put the headphones in my ears, walked up to Park Street Station, got my corner seat, pulled out my notebook, and got lost on the ride back home in a thousand poems a day.

My aunt and mother liked to tell stories about their mother, my grandmother (Nana), who would not hesitate if they put their shoes on the bed. Aunt Gail told the story about how Nana whipped her shoes at her head once for it.

I’m not into shoes these days. Practical mom says practical shoes are a must.  So I have sneakers. I have work boots for Antarctica and wintertime—the construction yellow kind. Soft toes, though; I’m not hard core enough to need steel toes.  I loved wearing those boots to work on the icebreakers—out on deck, working cargo. Out on deck, putting together the MOCNESS.  And walking around in McMurdo, volcanic pebbles getting caught in the treads—while there were treads.  I felt like good work in those boots.

So I’m dropping the other shoe, and going back to work at USAP. It was both a very easy and difficult decision to make.  My current work situation just wasn’t conducive from a work-life balance. Read as much into that as you want; if you know me, you know more of that story.  The difficulty in the decision came from feeling like this was a chapter I closed in my life, even though Marc and I have always said Antarctica will always be a part of our lives.  It made us; and at the same time, we survived it.  Antarctica, though, is more than a place with mud and ice and cold. It’s full of people, who become family. Even when you work in the office where you go home to your “normal” life, and not just back to a dorm room to see the same people at the bar or at yoga class, and then again at breakfast, the people are like family.  But like any good book, really good book, Antarctica is one you read over and over. So I’m opening the book again.  Even if I’m done (for now) writing about it.  Still looking for that home for the book, though.

And maybe, I’ll buy a new pair of high-heeled slingbacks. Just to change it up some.

July 7th, 2010 | Category: antarctica, home life | Leave a comment