Poetry Thursday, the journey

Rise up nimbly and
go on your strange journey
to the ocean of meanings....
Leave and don’t look away
from the sun as you go,
in whose light
you’re sometimes crescent,
sometimes full.
~Rumi.

Poetry Thursday, on gratitude

At times our own light goes out 

and is rekindled by a spark 

from another person. 

Each of us has cause to think 

with deep gratitude of those 

who have lighted the flame 

within us.

~ Albert Schweitzer

not a news round up, just one piece

I have been struggling at my new job with princess, that's what I call her now [first she was the cheerleader, but it became clear that her real identity was princess, mean princess].

She alternates between mean girl and injured bird.

It can be annoying. Sometimes it is entertaining. But when it interferes with my work, it is just frustrating.

I had a knock down drag out with her the other day. I was the only one participating as she did a full body shut down. The look of emptiness in her eyes and closed up shop in her stance were remarkable. I have never known anyone who could shut down all emotion like that. It's almost admirable. Almost.

My final salvo to her (my boss who was supposed to be mediating had barely shown up in person, so I was now ignoring her) was this, stern voice, piercing look, all raw strength: "You need to decide if you want me to be on this team. Let me know because I am happy to start looking for another job."

It was an instinctual response to the complete helplessness I was feeling. In true form, I felt helpless and showed all power and control. No wonder people are baffled by me ...

Afterwards, I worried that it had not been the right move to throw the power in her court. But it turns out, so far, that it was just the right move. With the power, she has no idea how to scheme. She was trying to scheme from the position of aggrieved (no one knows, probably not even her) what she has to be aggrieved about, but there you have it.

Hand her the power and she is both delighted and confused.

She came to work the next day as the perfect coworker and team mate. She invited me to lunch. I decline, but nicely, because I had work to do. Who knows how long it will last.

For now, I am going to bask in this piece because this one made me feel again like it was my fault. And hope someday I will find *more of* those people who are not afraid.

Here you go, to all my strong women friends and family... be yourself:

"You’re not too much. You probably haven’t shown the world nearly enough. We need you to be your strong, imperfect, direct, funny, brash, hilarious, sometimes intimidating self. We need you to surround yourself with people who don’t need to diminish you in order to feel more secure. We need your ideas, your vision, your leadership, your presence… all of it, 120 proof. If we need a chaser after being around you, that’s up to us to figure that out."

not Poetry Thursday, extra, for the trees

Epistemology
 ~Catherine Barnett
 
Mostly I’d like to feel a little less, know a little more.
Knots are on the top of my list of what I want to know.
Who was it who taught me to burn the end of the cord
to keep it from fraying?
Not the man who called my life a debacle,
a word whose sound I love.
In a debacle things are unleashed.
Roots of words are like knots I think when I read the dictionary.
I read other books, sure. Recently I learned how trees communicate,
the way they send sugar through their roots to the trees that are ailing.
They don’t use words, but they can be said to love.
They might lean in one direction to leave a little extra light for another
          tree.
And I admire the way they grow right through fences, nothing
stops them, it’s called inosculation: to unite by openings, to connect
or join so as to become or make continuous, from osculare,
to provide with a mouth, from osculum, little mouth.
Sometimes when I’m alone I go outside with my big little mouth
and speak to the trees as if I were a birch among birches.

I have been watching the trees turn for the past few months. Every once in a while, I don't just admire from a far, but I collect. Sometimes I pick up perfect specimens and other times I pick by color or variation. Mostly I have been capturing in photo rather than collecting. But I had the idea that I would put them in my thanksgiving cards.

Some of them have now gotten so brittle, but I think I will include them anyway.

Why should leaves be perfect or retain their color or not get brittle?

I feel like there has a been a war against the leaves raging for the last week. Aggressive leaf collecting, herding, blowing. They don't rake. They ride lawn blowers. Leaf blowers. Leaf. Blowers. Seriously? 


I am lazy about yard work, it is true. But I also think if nature decided to blow the leaves off the trees that there might be a secret plan. I think the leaves should stay on the ground like a blanket. As the cold settles in, the leaves huddle together, covering the roots, keeping their trees safe.

That's what I think.

And, yes, I do name everything. Every. Thing. Every. Thing. 

Poetry Thursday

Saudade

~John Freeman

means nostalgia, I’m told, but also
nostalgia for what never was. Isn’t it
the same thing? At a café
in Rio flies wreathe my glass.

How you would have loved this: the waiter
sweating his knit shirt dark. Children
loping, in tiny suits or long shorts, dragging
toys and towels to the beach. We talk,

or I talk, and imagine your answer, the heat clouding our view.
Here, again, grief fashioned in its cruelest translation:
my imagined you is all I have left of you.

Nano update

I thought there might be more time to update the blog while I was working on this nanowrimo. WHY? Why did I think that?

I also tried to start a gym routine while doing nanowrimo. And working FULL TIME. Working full time for the first time in over eight years.

Yes, I am delusional.

I have not yet made a three day week to the gym.
I have not yet made two days walking to work.

I HAVE added words to my count EVERY DAY.

It's a victory of sorts.

I am still on track to get to 25,000 words by Thursday... mostly.

It turns out sometimes I have to stop to do research.

Keep thinking good thoughts for my verbosity. Rewriting and revising is going to be much harder than free writing, and free writing is not always as easy as it was in the first few days.

Poetry Thursday, fall

October-November
~Hart Crane

Indian-summer-sun
With crimson feathers whips away the mists,—
Dives through the filter of trellises
And gilds the silver on the blotched arbor-seats.
Now gold and purple scintillate
On trees that seem dancing
In delirium;
Then the moon
In a mad orange flare
Floods the grape-hung night

Poetry Thursday

While Loveliness Goes By

~Anna Hempstead Branch

Sometimes when all the world seems gray and dun

And nothing beautiful, a voice will cry,

“Look out, look out! Angels are drawing nigh!”

Then my slow burdens leave me, one by one,

And swiftly does my heart arise and run

Even like a child, while loveliness goes by—

And common folk seem children of the sky,

And common things seem shapèd of the sun.

Oh, pitiful! that I who love them, must

So soon perceive their shining garments fade!

And slowly, slowly, from my eyes of trust

Their flaming banners sink into a shade!

While this earth’s sunshine seems the golden dust

Slow settling from that radiant cavalcade.

Nanawrimo, commitment

Doing this!

If you don't know what it is, look here.

I am committed.

I may continue to be here only for poetry. Or I might get inspired to share more.

I may share some here.

I am more than excited.

I kept saying, quietly to myself, I will start writing any day.
I said, quietly to myself, I will start by writing on the blog.  Anyone still coming here knows this not true.

Then, one day, the catalog for adult school fall courses came in the mail.

I flipped through it, not thinking of anything in particular to take.  Just the idea of having something else besides the new job to occupy my time.

Then, I saw it ... a writing course, then another, and another.

It took a long time to decide which course to take.  I will admit the deciding finally came down to Thursday night instead of Tuesday night because Tuesday is trivia night.

Yes, priorities.

In any case, I rationalized that I needed to start somewhere. As I have been trouble deciding what it is that I want to write - is it fiction, historical fiction or a memoir.

I have shied away from memoir this entire time. But the memoir class is on Thursdays.  Tomorrow will be the last class in fact.

The cons first: it's 2 1/2 hours long. I admit I am sometimes (read possibly always) a bad student because I am a teacher. I am critical of others' teaching styles, particularly when said styles are not very effective.  I am the kind of teacher who likes to think, at least, that I am listening to the wants and needs of my students and making some attempt to meet those needs.

So long class with terrible or even mediocre teacher: bad news.

On the plus side: not on trivia night!

Other pros: only four classes which end just as nanowrimo starts!

Also a pro - I needed a reason to write beyond myself because I was not self motivating.

So, after class one, I wrote the first chapter, or at least the first part of the chapter! After class two, I wrote an outline for the book!

After class three, I was riding a little magic carpet (I got to read my tiny little first part of the chapter, and it didn't suck).

After class four: skies the limit. Writing every day.  Getting at least 1600 words in per day; or maybe more like 1000 words per day M-F and more on the weekends.

The point is, bad class still helped me because it got me writing, got me thinking about the outline of the chapters and helped me to figure out what kind of a feedback group I would like to form.

There are treasures everywhere, even in the field of gopher holes.  Ok, that might not make sense, but someday I will write about that, too.

Happy writing to all those participating.