Stream of Consciousness

My Word for 2011

 

I've spent some time -- inspired by Elizabeth Gilbert in Eat, Pray, Love I suppose -- trying to come up with my word for 2011. I meant to do this last year, and the year before, and never got around to it. Then today, this appeared in my e-mail as my Daily Peace Quote—words from a favorite poet no less.

                                                                                
Our deepest fears are like dragons guarding our deepest treasure.
                                                               - Rainier Maria Rilke

 

So I knew the time had come and I (of course) instantly knew my word: fearless.

And even though its definition is simply lacking fear and a number of its synonyms veer into the language of battle and war -- bold, brave, courageous, intrepid, valiant, valorous, gallant, plucky, lionhearted, heroic, daring, audacious, indomitable, doughty; unafraid, undaunted, unflinching; informal gutsy, spunky, ballsy, feisty -- I've decided I still want to keep it, for now, to try it on for size as I venture in the creative and West Coast Fitness waters of this my 56th year on earth.

Maybe it will inspire me (or at the very least remind me) to reclaim some of the derringdo and pluckiness I once exhibited (in spades) when I was younger, more optimistic, and, of course, thinner. Maybe it will simply help me have more confidence and know that there is nothing to fear even as my right knee shows signs of arthritis and my hands turn psoriasis-prone. Maybe it will give me the perspective I so often lack -- and truly need and want -- to be able to use my writing to tell my truths.

 

 

 

 

Desperately Seeking...a Partridge in a Pear Tree?

 

 

I've decided to spent the twelve days of leading up to Christmas reading a book of poetry each day. And then writing what I learn, observe, feel after reading the volume here on my blog. And seeing if I can find any of the objects in this famous holiday song in the poems I read, too. I may also try and write a poem a day that somehow uses these famous true-love gifts:

The twelfth day of Christmas, | My true love sent to me | Twelve lords a-leaping, | Eleven ladies dancing, | Ten pipers piping, | Nine drummers drumming, | Eight maids a-milking, | Seven swans a-swimming, | Six geese a-laying, | Five gold rings, | Four calling birds, | Three French hens, | Two turtle doves, and | A partridge in a pear tree.

I know, I know -- it's technically December 25 through Epiphany in January that count for the real twelve days but I know I'll be way too busy then to do all that reading so I'm starting now instead...first up, Drift and Pulse by Kathleen Halme.

Read, Revise, Read, Repeat

Take a measly little pone of a poem written, oh, seven or eight months back. One that's been sitting, gathering moss, and that you're certain is nothing not something. When you wake up, fresh, read it over again, and maybe again. Seek the buzz, the energy, where the phrases seem to be the way your poetic voice speaks, in dreams, in dialogue, in double entendre. Pare, sculpt, hone, edit, shape. Float the latest and greatest by a few trusted reading friends. Ask them not to spare your feelings when they critique. And they do. Thumbs up, thumbs down, lose a "to" here, lose a "the" there.

And slowly, slowly, you start to recognize which ones are the keepers and which ones have to sit on the grill, frying a bit longer.

Not a bad process. An assembly line of words, marinating to their perfection.

Read, revise, read, repeat.

 

Photograph:

Potato pancakes on Yogi's Grill at the Plymouth, Pennsylvania Kielbasa Festival, August 2009.

 

 

Where Do the Days Go?

Summer one second, Halloween the next. I have been revising like a fiend but promise I'll be back to bloggy reflections and ruminations one day soon. Maybe I'll do a NaBloWriMo and do a blog a day while the rest of the Western world works on novels no one will ever read...

 

Back at the Keyboard?

 

It's been a while. I was roaming around the world, a Tour de France of sorts by car with detours into the Haut-Pyrenees and the Pyrenees Orientales. Feet dipped into the Mediterranean Sea, the Calabrian Sea, the Atlantic Ocean, and the English Channel. Writerly graves visited in the Parisian cemeteries of Pere-Lachaise and Montparnasse. Many bonjours, bonsoirs, and au revoirs later, it's home again to the edge of autumn in the Pacific Northwest, watching the maples drift to the flagstones in the garden, harvesting bucketloads of pole beans from our behind-schedule alley garden, trying to remember—what was it I said I wanted to be writing again?

Back from Poetry Camp

I am just back from a week at the Port Townsend Writers' Conference at Fort Worden, a Washington State Park and yes, where they filmed parts of "An Officer and a Gentleman" way back when...

Started in 1974—and attended by many writing rock stars, beginners who became writing rock stars, and humble beginners— this conference is one of the oldie but goodies, before the MFA low-residency frenzy began its ascendancy and made it more than challenging to separate the creative writing wheat from the chaff.

What a week, what a whirl! Cafeteria trays, single beds in our dorm rooms (more like a monk's cell) but I got lucky and my room #66 had a deluxe view of Whidbey Island across Admiralty Bay and, by Thursday, snow-capped Cascades. Workshop each morning where we dissected and re-assembled the nerdy art and craft of writing poetry. Then afternoons, more special topics and a craft lecture at 4 p.m. Nights were mostly readings—which I mostly skipped because I have discovered I really do not get that much out of them so why not read a book instead?

Had a great, beyond great, poetry teacher, Dana Levin. More luck because I had no idea what to expect when I signed up for her "Poetry and the Unconscious" back in November 2009, the first day of registration. I picked her class mostly because she had a thorough description already available on the site, unlike some of the other teachers...turns out that was a good omen as she is a thorough and thoroughly prepared teaching professional. Which, in my view, does make a difference.

I'll have more to share about the experience once I unpacked, get the mountains of laundry done, sort through the piles...

Dog Days Summer

 

Back from a second trip to NE Pa in a month, this time for a funeral. Then a whirlwind theatre weekend in Ashland. Soon to the ferry dock at Port Angeles, Washington and a ferry to Victoria, British Columbia. Then back and to Fort Worden in Port Townsend and Centrum 2010. Now, my pre-trip errand to-do list calls. I will be glad to be back home with the geraniums, the shadows, the late afternoon garden sun...

Summer in a City

This one, Portland, Oregon, where we had two days of perfection—sun, blue sky, warmth before returning to cloud cover today. Nothing like sitting out in our garden past sunset, candles, a rising, near-full moon. I have been far too possessed with the writing of poetry this week. Friday, hooray, and the need to shake out my legs, take a break from the tyranny of words. Right about now, the orange, yellow, red, pink, and white tuberous begonias are starting to call...

Photo of Ryman on his red Thunderbird chair throne, June 23, 2010.

Hail, Mary!

February tomorrow. Longer days. Bulbs up. Sun shining. Air rushing. Trees rustling. The Wire spinning. Cats yawning. Birds flitting. Books open, poetry scribbled.

Photo: The shop window of Hail Mary, a great art gallery in our neck of the Portland woods. Mary Topagna is all about things shimmery and mosaic.

The Wind in the Trees

 

It's nearly the end of this windy Monday. I'm listening to the wind pitch the camellia and rhododendron trees out front into the leaded glass window. This is not a trivial storm, the rain and eddies of wind are definitely mixing it up out there, like we are the bowl of eggs, waiting to be stirred, to be beat. Every now and then, too, the obligatory window-rattling sounds.

I'm listening to "Poker Face," first sung by Cartman of South Park and now, the original by Lady GaGa, a little techno disco—whatever the hell this music is—never hurt anyone. This music seems balm after slogging through someone else's slog through the idiocy that is the Awful S. Palin's alleged memoir. Why the fascination? Got to the Poker Face link, read more on the Daily Dish and you'll find out. It matters.

It has been more than a day. An episode of Mad Men that surprises with a run amok John Deere mower in the agency office resulting in  a cut-off foot presages my literary debut at Powell's reading about my own cut-off fingers.

Supposedly something not nothing this reading of my story/memoir/story published, along with one of my poems, in the VoiceCatcher 4 anthology. Up there behind the podium in my mega-dollar electric blue and embroidered Johnny Was shirt, the brown deerskin cowboy boots Gordon bought me way back in 1991? 1992? but yes, they are still hot and thus confidence-building. And even though I've done this plenty before, now, somehow, in this middle-aged era of my life it's scarier, more a risk, and I turn dry-mouthed, desperately needing water but none was available at this venue yet somehow I got through it. I read about events from my life from way back when, 1976 the year of the Bicentennial through fall of 1977 when Elvis was indeed already dead. According to a few listeners, I sounded better than OK. Whew, relieved. Encouraged. They even clapped. Now, as ever, onward and soon sleep. But first a little trashy music never hurt anyone...maybe it even keeps the blood, like this wind, pumping.