Stream of Consciousness

Too Much Information?

I continue to be overwhelmed by the written word. It is simply everywhere and, of course, everyone seems to be increasingly pecking away on tiny keypads, the text message revolution that keeps us all in contact 24/7.  When does everyone find time to do all this reading of these words? Even as the online presence of the creative explodes, my truth these days seems to be that less is more. How can we find the poetry, find the words that will speak and sing, if we don't have moments of stillness, if we don't spend time quiet in unfolding time, if we don't first keep some of our thoughts to our private selves? Sitting, staring, observing, reflecting— like the branches of this spectacular madrone over on Willamette Boulevard. I remain a great believer in the need for us to take time out to simply remember to breathe, a faithful follower of the power we all unleash when we actually think our own quirky, highly individual, idiosyncratic and wonderfully present thoughts.

Good Day Sunshine!

There may be another inch or so of snowy slush on the ground but I am seeing blue skies and high white clouds so already it's a better day than it's been in a long, long while. I have been feeling so light-deprived, a winter mushroom trapped in an inch of pine bark and peat. That, coupled with fighting off a cold or living with forced air heat-induced allergies has been less than fun. The weather this past two weeks really made we wonder if I can live at this latitude with its low-light winters long-term.

Oh well, it's 2009 now and I have nothing much new to say. I feel talked out, written out, worded out for a host of reasons that I can't blame on much of anything except me not having enough of interest beyond words and writing to occupy myself in my daily life. Maybe that should be on the top of my personal agenda for change in the new year? That and working to stop so much fretting.

Freaky Friday

What a week.  Political feed frenzies, sleazy campaign mudslinging, the entire money system in meltdown (predictable and predicted by many) and my own lackluster, lackadaisical lack of energy to do just about anything except putter about and mostly unproductively at that. 

Today that has resulted in two sets of steps wiped and dusted, a mopped kitchen floor, a dry mopped living room parquet floor and a chicken to roast for dinner already stuffed with two lemons and waiting until it's time to turn the oven on. I can't seem to get my head interested in writing. Maybe it's been the distraction of the interesting and tres arty, Mad Men, this past week. I've watched six episodes so far—damn good! I did leaf through a book about Jenny Holzer's art again today. I really like the fact that she works with words. I'm thinking of using her Truisms series as prompts and/or inspiration for my upcoming October Collage workshop at Collage on Alberta Street. 

Not much else to report. The installation of a new and blue roof on the house next door began today. More leaves have fallen from the big leaf maples into the garden, the driveway and yards. It was darker when I finally crawled out of bed this morning—another sign of the waning light, vernal equinox times. One week back from Yosemite and southern California and I'm still feeling disrupted by the trip. Sigh. 

What Constitutes a Good Day...

Today I made a conscious effort to change some of how I do things rather than fixate on what I do and be all crabby about not doing enough, being disciplined, etc. (my usual state). I tried to focus my morning journal pages rather than letting them descend into the negative and pointless. I wrote several post cards and even a few letters to friends. I sorted a pile on my desk which included an unopened letter from which I learned that a friend's mother had died back in March. Which led to another letter to that friend to offer condolences and explain my belated response to her news. I ate protein for a late breakfast (broccoli and leek quiche that I threw together last night—love those whole wheat frozen crusts at New Seasons) which meant I was then able to easily do the power walk to/from the grocery, the pharmacy (needed my Vitamin D supplements after learning about my deficiency on Wednesday) and Winston's to check in on their remodeling project.   

Then back to find two boxes tucked into the privet underneath the mailbox. Bamboo and a money tree -- feng shui housewarming/good luck gifts from L., one of my oldest friends from back in Plymouth, Pennsylvania days. What a delight. I unpacked them both. The bamboo looks super on the oak sideboard in the living room and the money tree in its funky vase found a perfect home in the teal-and-yellow bathroom. This led to writing another note of thanks to L. and her husband and daughter for this unexpected, thoughtful gift. Then I called a friend and gabbed with her while I weeded and scraped moss from the bricks that line the pathways in the garden that's our back yard. After that? Some newspaper skimming and Portland's 89.1 jazz station tuned in on the radio. 

I didn't write today, above and beyond those journal pages and letters. 

I didn't read much (yet) above and beyond the newspaper.

I ate two healthy meals (so far), exercised, and got through another annual mammogram exam. 

I unloaded and loaded a dishwasher. 

I stopped at the dry cleaner on MLK and the PO on Killingsworth. 

I watched a YouTube video of a guy popping on So You Think You Can Dance, sent by a friend along with a schtick about aging by George Carlin.

I read an article in the New York Times about our neighborhood here in Portland, and the attempts of the Restorative Listening Project to get folks to talk about race relations, gentrification, among other things. 

I ordered a yard sign from Obama '08 after I learned from the guy selling Obama stuff outside of the PO that yard signs are in short supply and people are even having them stolen from their yards! 

I'm not up at Last Thursday on Alberta Street this evening because I find I weary of the social, chitchat energy as the sun starts to set. Added to the fact that I am weary of venturing out into the world solo and alone. 

Part of me wishes I had more pep to make the scene, whatever that means these days. "When I was younger..." that's what I start to think. But that's not me anymore. I'm now this person who prefers solitude, and quiet, and lots of uninterrupted, peaceful stretches in my day. This slow-settling evening quiet time here alone with cats, inside this lovely home, after watering the New Guinea impatiens and dumping the weeds into the yard waste container in the garage. The person contemplating ordering a pizza from Hot Lips because I now live in the city and they deliver, wonder of wonders. 

Happy to share photos of our wonderful garden and home with a few friends. Glad to have landed, to be able to feather our nest. 

An Addled Brain

I'm not sure if I can attribute it to being too fond of books, as the Lainie's Lady sent to me from Brisbane, Australia, by a friend says, quoting Louisa May Alcott, but today my brain has been addled by sickness and general aching malaise.

It's nearly dusk. The clouds above our stretch of houses here on this quiet NE 22nd Avenue hillock up from Lombard toward Alberta Park are a soft mauve and gray. This is peace, you know, this sitting here with Billie Holliday on the iPod, watching the light leach from the day, the blue-gray of Roy's house next door become flatter and purely gray. Even as I flail about, questioning and wondering, feeling another day gone, slipped away, out of my hands because of a body not cooperating, not allowing me to feel well enough to attend an event I said two months back I'd go to. Lots of issues with that, my feeling less-than-perfect, a party pooper, a lackluster disappointment. Planes circle, pass overhead, prepare to land.

There are pink buds on fruit trees in back yards and on the median between the sidewalk and the street. Our own garden bursts with pollen, ripeness from the giant maples. We're here barely two months in this home, this place I continue to unpack, sort, organize, and arrange.

Bricking Ourselves In

We're closing in on our house closing. Friday morning we sign papers. The papers go somewhere Friday afternoon and the deed gets recorded on Monday and then we get the keys at the close of business, 5 p.m. Meanwhile, the first floor of this place is filling up with boxes, bins, piles of this and that ready to make their way 1.5 blocks in the back seat of our car, the bed of the pickup, or a small U-Haul if it's raining. I'm ready to start already! How to not have ants-in-the pants all weekend? I've seen nearly all the movies I wanted to see. No options for entertaining here now as even the dining room area has started to fill up. I guess the idea is to keep moving, to keep getting ready and then when we get the keys on Monday night, we can at least take a few items down to the house. Rugs might be a good first place to start.

Looking around at the piles today, knowing what is left to take out of cupboards, pack up, hustle down the street, and, eventually, unpack on that end and is it any wonder I feel a bit overwhelmed? I mean, we just moved in here...This is one of those situations where the idea of it—a new house, a home, one that we will own and be in for a while—is way, way better than the daunting physical reality between where we are now (boxes, piles) and where we want to be (settled, cozy, home at last.) One day at a time, right?

More Boxes, Bins, and Piles

I think it's hitting me tonight—after a spate of days spent socializing and the Arctic air and sun along with the piles steadily growing, day after day, on the edges of the rooms on the first floor of the house—here we go again! I am so longing to be settled, to be home; I know the desire for that will spur me on with the energy, the drive to keep going. To carry hat boxes and tins of rubber stamps and boxes of books to the back seat and trunk of the car. To lift then slide Rubbermaid bins filled with newspaper-wrapped kitchen crockery, plates and bowls and sifters, even a wooden cannibal fork into the back of the pickup for the short—and I mean short!—drive down the street to the new house. To make everything do double-duty: luggage filled with summer clothes, suitcases of art objects, backpacks filled with videos and DVDs, trash cans of cleaning supplies and extra bottles of Paul Newman's Italian, even the cooking pots have something (pot holders, dish towels?) inside.

I can already imagine that pristine, emptied-out basement filled, like a department store, with my carefully, categorically-organized stuff. But right now, it's just the weariness of anticipation that I can feel. Instead of the wonder that is my beautiful, oh-so-easy life with its wealth of good fortune and the sun shining bright. After a comfort-food sunchoke soup and a panini at Park Kitchen lunch with a friend, I come home to haul dresser drawers out of the car's back seat, empty liquor boxes from the trunk. The cookbooks are now packed and stacked; I start in on some of the poetry until I run out of empty boxes once again.

The cats sleep in front of the gas fireplace, unknowing, unsuspecting. The warehouse of our life, our possessions, our stuff stacks up around me.

Crisp and Clear

Arctic chill has blanketed our corner of Oregon. Winds are stirring the firs and sequoias, up from the Columbia River which isn't that far from our house. Even around the summit of Mt. Hood, it's so clear you can see the snow swirl. Bright blue sky by day, bright white full moon at night. The kind of brisk that makes you feel achingly good and tired after a walk. Chill that makes you glad to be able to stay in a warm inside.

A woman behind the deli counter at New Seasons is wearing a skirt made of knotted scarves, all different colors and lengths, tied to a belt or waistband and this get-up over tights or a pair of pants. A white truck spent a good part of the afternoon in the driveway of our new house. When I headed out to walk earlier, it was rumbling down the street past here. Rhododendrons are starting to bud, as well as other shrubs that I don't yet recognize along a few houses on my walk. How can it be the 3rd week of January and hinting at spring? That's what I love about living out here. The overall temperateness. Even with a few days, or a week, of temperatures that barely climb above freezing, a purple primrose and a red rosebud bloom.

Desperately Seeking Words...

...to convey the utter gray blear of this Monday afternoon. Here's all I've been able to come up with so far. Rain that's a steady drone on the roof, and every now and then the wind will blow the rain across the roof shingles and it will sound almost musical, but not quite. Another gust will slam it into the screen and glass of the window and that will be a familiar childhood sound—rain so torrential being trapped indoors was the best it was going to get. Every few minutes for the past several hours, there's been the sound of a plane taking off from the airport, the flight pattern changed because of today's weather to go pretty much directly over the house. It's hard not to want to draw an analogy to what it must sound like in a war zone.

It's a hard day to shake the blues, to feel perky and upbeat and optimistic and into creative writing. Tonight there will be music, a cappella for the holiday season from the Tallis Scholars. In an hour, I'll make a strong cup of coffee. I'd walk to get one at Extracto over on Killingsworth but I'm not sure I would survive the deluge in any way intact.

Stronger, more disciplined, more ambitious souls than me would use all this to their advantages. I wallow instead. Days like these feel like waiting, waiting, waiting for no one quite knows what.

Cold Wind Whipping Down the Alley...

It's not dawn but it's a cold wind out there. The emperor gong hanging off our bedroom above the deck is getting a workout today.

I walked to and from the grocery store where certifiable madness is in progress: too many people with too-full carts, everybody in a frenzied rush around to get too many things and all at the last minute so the place is aisle after aisle of traffic jams and rudeness run amok. People are buying entire Thanksgiving feasts at the deli counter holding up others who simply want some Black Forest ham for sandwiches for tonight. People with out-of-control children who ride push carts into the way of other people simply trying to shop and get in and out. Don't get me started on those stupid carts that are plastic toys that the little crysters (to quote our friend Richard) are allowed to pretend to drive.

A highlight of the visit to New Seasons was being able to buy 58 cents worth of fresh dill. Love the bulk herbs. I shopped quickly then loaded my old red backpack with as much as can fit—I eyeballed my purchases and luckily didn't run out of room. Weight lifted onto my back and then off into the wind again, another 2.2 kilometers back home. The rest of the afternoon is now mine to veg, listen to the Bob, wait for J. to get home.

The galleys of The Hours of Us arrived with the mail today and I've already gone through the manuscript and sent the changes back to the editors at Finishing Line Press. Funny, reading those poems for the umpteenth time and they don't even seem like mine. And I don't seem like the same person now who wrote them what? a few little more than a year ago? Still a book—however humble, however tiny—is something, no small achievement and I am excited and proud. A big year for me, this 2007.

And this unusual late November sun is glorious even if the air has a chill. Even if the truck's battery is dead and I've left it sitting until after the holiday to deal with it. Even if our far-flung families are staying far and flung for the holiday. Something about the mania that has grown to surround this time from Thanksgiving to Xmas seems so spoiled and decidedly American to me—must get, go, see, travel, be there, be home, do it big, do it right, overdo it, then pack it all up and turn around and go back home again. Maybe it's a frenzy because many people have so little of quality in their day-to-day, too busy lives. So this time of year has become symbolic of the old-fashioned, the way life used to be and the way things used to be better. I don't know. Seems to me it is all a choice. To avoid the shopping crowds on Friday. To stay put and save family reunions for times of the year when travel is less frenetic and subject to delays, and the weather is better, too. To accept where you are and what you have and scale way, way back. Maybe I'm the crazy one. Maybe I'm the one missing out.