Stream of Consciousness

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.

September 11, Friday Morning

                                                   
Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.    —Carl Jung

To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.    —Mary Oliver

I am just getting back to this after weeks away doing travel and family obligation stuff. I have logged many miles in the air, read many books, hiked many cracked and heaved sidewalks in my dying home town. I have felt adrift and afloat, just barely. It's good to be rediscovering my quiet, simple life again today...

Art, Sun, Gardening

Alberta Art Hop Day. The Al Forno Feruzza bus had its completed paint job on display (this is the in-progress version) as we wandered by, up and down the closed thirty or so blocks of Alberta Street, our neighborhood, our neck of the Portland woods. The parade seemed down-sized this year but still fun thanks to Rose City Vaudeville and the March Fourth Marching Band with their stilt-walking musicians and clowns. Who are these people? Extroverts, I suspect.

All this springtime jubilation after more than a few days of mega-gardening to the point where I'm forced to be prone to recover from the backache. Digging, weeding, rooting out, and planting—three hosta, ferns, two coleus, three clematis, a dozen nasturtium, cosmos along the driveway fence, and today even geraniums in window boxes as the birds flit and nest and sing.

Let's not forget about rock hauling as well. Well, pea gravel in a sesame tahini bucket I got a few years ago at the co-op in Corvallis but now, lo and behold, both paths in our backyard garden are replenished with a new layer of tiny stones. And the excess? Truck driven into the alley and it was shoveled into a reserve pile next to the Vicolo Giardino. Raking, too, thanks to my new, made-in-California shrub rake found at Garden Fever last week. And watering. The beat goes on.

Good days, though. Much fresh air. Barely inside the house at all. Cats lazy in the sun-drenched dirt or open windows. This too shall pass but for now, keep on rocking and digging in the free world.

City Days, City Scenes

I really feel (finally) like I live in a city this past week. This in spite of just coming in from digging out spreading day lilies from the clayey mud that our side garden turned into after yesterday's rain. This in spite of working in a garden that is more like being in the woods what with its abundance of ferns and shade and the canopy of three giant big leaf maple trees. No, it's more from a sense of ease with which we've been able to be out and about doing this and that of late. Breakfast and dinner with friends who were in the city for a few nights. Easy to get to the hospital for a quick visit with a friend who had surgery this week. Easy to get to coffee dates, lunch out, and a new Sunday farmer's market barely one mile from our house. Civilization meets the civilized, urban life. We can walk to most everything we need and want. The New York Times travel section raved about the frugal ethic—and the fabulous food carts—of Portland last week. Great to have landed here. Life is good.

This weekend is the Alberta Art Hop. I'm a volunteer doing something to help get the various marchers ready to be in the afternoon parade. Then likely clean-up afterwards when it's time to open up Alberta Street to cars again. It was fun last year and I expect it to be fun again. We're actually supposed to have...heat and sun for the weekend. A rare event in these parts. The photo above is one John took on Last Thursday, utility pole shadow on one of the many corrugated metal structures that line Alberta.

I Bake Bread, Bread, Bread...

John just walked to the market. It's cold and clammy and wet—and I just didn't feel up to it. I did weed today and plant two red Mona Lisa anemones almost past their prime and clean the garage gutter and deal with this and that around the yard.  So I took a nap and then read/skimmed another book of poetry, this one by a prof at UC Riverside, a Nigerian who was persecuted and imprisoned for his work before coming somehow to have asylum in the US. I'm slowly going through books on my shelves. 

It was good to stay home, regroup. But I do find when I read poetry I often feel dumb. Like I don't get why something is considered a poem, and considered good, and why (in this guy's case) the prestigious press Copper Canyon publishes him. Maybe because of his history/backstory. They are all the time looking for a hook into some story to tell about the author. It's all about the marketing, stupid.

Today's big excitement really was stumbling on the bread factory. Conveyor belts assembly lines, who knew? All I can hear is Nicolas Cage in "Moonstruck" in my head...What is life? They say bread is life...

It’s Been a While...

I've been busy keeping up with publishing a "real" blog over at www.writersdojo.org. That has been much more like homework than this blog ever was for me. That, and the general busyness of days when you try to keep the household functioning, walk 10,000 steps, keep the bird ecosystem stocked with black oiled sunflower seeds (and thus chirping) and, let's not forget, homework for my recently concluded Attic poetry class. The days chug along, spring arrives, the garden's plants come back to life, blossom, start to break into bud. Cycle of the seasons and all that. Some days I am daunted by the speed that is time—and life—passing.

Shiny Happy People

Actually, we have shiny happy 70-year old linoleum after today. Yes, indeedy, our antique kitchen floor got its first beauty makeover since we bought our house just over nine months ago. First vacuum up the Doug fir needles and cooking schmutz, then mop with Sal Suds, then rinse with clear water. Wait until dry. Then, by hand, apply a thin layer of some yuppie Marmoleum polish which may or may not be the same thing as Mop 'N Glo but because we are totally freaked out about keeping this elderly (two years younger than McCain) floor alive and kicking we took no chances. So now, tonight, it's freaking shiny and fabulous. Maybe even more so than back on that day in January when we first toured what would soon be our new home. The label on the bottle of floor shine goop said you might only have to do the application once a year if you followed the instructions and did everything right Fingers crossed we fall into that category. The hardest part was keeping the cats away from the kitchen during the requisite drying period. Meanwhile, it's reflective as a mirror tonight on our antique linoleum floor...

The Feel of Autumn...

Today, it's finally here. We had some delays. Gorgeous days of sun and dryness. Annuals and vegetables going on long, long, longer. Exuberant weekends brilliant with blue skies and the temptation to walk the city streets. But now, today, the sky clouds, the leaves fall, the trees bare, the rain starts. In two hours, a Day of the Dead parade starts up at 14th and Alberta. Will I venture up? Hard to predict. I've been in my yellow-walled cocoon today. Editing. Figuring out my two-page spread in an art journal. Listening to The Jayhawks. Obsessing over the election. Tidying the basement. Sorting through a bit of chaos and recycling a good bit of paper I no longer need. Sweeping floors. Re-filling the bird feeder. The endless taking out of the recycling. All leading to evening of another day when I didn't feel much like writing other than a few e-mails and now these words. I don't understand why words seem to be less than interesting to me of late. Maybe it's the constant drip of too much information too much everywhere 24/7. Maybe I'm finally seeing it's OK to admit that what bores me I no longer have to pursue?

Another Day in Which No Mysteries of the Universe Were Solved...

I pretty much did what I wanted to do today. That included going to Fred Meyer to buy myself a gorgeous wild bi-colored dahlia (on sale), making a set of haiku-inspired set of artist trading cards, talking to our neighbor (back from a month-long trip to Texas), eating leftovers, and doing all the dirty dishes throughout the day by hand. I read the entire newly-arrived issue of The Sun. Painted the stoop off the side door  I also mopped the bathroom floor, hauled garbage to the curb, and planted the too-tall fennel from a pot (where it was having trouble staying upright) into the garden alley plot. And cleaned all the back yard bird baths and splashed fresh water in every one. I didn't study poetry, write poetry, write anything beyond a few e-mails and some drivel in my morning journal. I read a bit of news but not enough to make me crazy or depressed. I also didn't feel very guilty. Why always be judging myself by foolish, fictional standards of what constitutes a successful day? 

It's now evening. I dined early because John is gone and I'm still on the soft food regimen because of last week's dental work. So I'm now outside enjoying a gorgeous, windy night, watching planes come in for a landing (guess we're on this week's altered flight path) and listening to the singsong of another neighborhood ice cream truck -- this one is playing My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean. Which starts me thinking about Stephen Foster and all his songs I remember from my childhood. Remembering how much fun it used to be to sing, how much I enjoyed being in the Michael Coolen's community chorus in Corvallis when we first moved there. Why don't I let myself pursue what I love up here? It's now nearly six months since we moved...

One haiku by Buson that I put on one of the ATCs has been on my mind tonight:

Autumn evening—

there’s joy also

in loneliness.

It doesn't have to be a negative thing that I enjoy spending so much time in my sanctuary, my haven, my home alone. There's another ice cream truck. I don't remember the title of this one's singsong, only that it's a cowboy song about the lone prairie: that much bubbles up from my memory. Another plane, Horizon this time, passes barely a few houses up the street. I'm sure passengers looking out the windows can see the brown of our roof, maybe even the big leaf maple canopy of these three giant trees. The crows arrive to roost in the branches above my head, including Sheryl, the one whose life we saved, the one who surely has some mental deficiencies the way she carries on, bleating and pewling non-stop. Bugs swarm, squirrels cavort, birds hop, the blue hydrangea droops, the miniature clematis entangled with a rose bush blooms. Summer evening and there can be joy in staying put, waiting for the arrival of nightfall, and words. 

Anticipation

That's been the soundtrack of my life the past few days. First, it was the poetry reading down in Stayton, Oregon on Sunday. Now, today, it's the tooth extraction on Tuesday and the planting? sewing? what? of some freaky cow bone into my gum so I can begin the long process required for an implant next January. Ick. So, as a result, I feel like I've got anxiety bookends on my Monday. 

I wrote a couple of thank you notes for this and that. And worked on some writing, sent a few poems off to a contest, got depressed (as usual) about the state of the world, the news. Decided that the allegedly controversial New Yorker cover this week is actually good satire. Hung laundry out on the retractable clotheslines. Hauled the recycling and trash to the curb. Watered the herb garden and the flowers. Ate lunch at 10:30 a.m. Mostly, I feel slightly off focus and at loose ends. And not wanting to be out in the world. Is there really anything wrong with that?