Things that go bump in my head.

2011-11-11T07:27:00.003-07:00

As is probably apparent, I am still not writing. But I am reading and reading and reading. There are few things as gratifying as discovering a kindred soul on a page (not that kindred souls in flesh and blood aren't worth their weight in Prosac.) Sometimes we read to connect with other hearts and minds, across the globe and across the centuries, and sometimes we read to connect with ourselves. On occasion we find someone has so precisely articulated a thing that it feels we've only just then learned something about ourselves that has been true forever. I've uncovered bits of myself in Dosteovsky's fiction, Adam Zagajewski's poetry, Frederick Buechner's prose, Borges' dreams, Brian Greene's theories, Over the Rhine's lyrics, Thomas Merton's meditations, Rebecca Solnit's essays and even Philip Glass's textless compositions. To come across these slices of recognition is to be, for a moment, known and understood. And to realize there are companions on the journey, your journey, who "get it," whatever your "it" might be. For whatever thankless struggles, sacrifices and dark nights it took for those individuals to get those works accomplished so I would not be alone, so that I could push on, so that I could rejoice, I here say Thank You.

And for those of you who will understand this bit, you know who you are (and I do, too):
Some people even seem to have been born with it. They grow up trying to adjust themselves to the values and strivings that surround them, but somehow their hearts are never in it. They have a deep awareness that fulfillment cannot be found through acquisition and achievement. They often feel like misfits because of the different, deeper, ungraspable love they feel inside them. For them, the journey is not so much toward realization of their desire as toward being able to claim the desire they already have in a culture that neither understands nor supports it.
~Gerald May, The Dark Night of the Soul

The gift

2010-12-24T14:13:00.005-07:00

This morning, Christmas eve, we woke to find the world outside our frosted windows miraculously adorned in sparkling white, or at least it felt miraculous: the sudden transformation of even the ugliest edges, roads and ruts, wires, poles and structures into objects of wonder in a magical landscape. The lofty and low, the prized and despised, the precious and neglected, subjected to the beneficent equity of snowfall. Everything made new. A clean slate. Racket and commotion absorbed into its calm purity. Stillness, awe, goodwill. Peace on earth. And though snowfall in Bethlehem remains a rare event, a White Christmas somehow feels like a "real" Christmas as we celebrate the birth of Immanuel: "God with us." All of us.
Let it snow.

The Long Surrender

2010-11-19T22:03:00.006-07:00

It's been a long, long, wordless season. In those times when language remains for me stifled and inadequate, I grope for what is unsayable from whom I can, those souls, friends and strangers, who have weathered their own hazardous and lonely journeys and somehow mined their dark days to forge art imbued with the weight of struggle, hard times oh so human and oh so inevitable. Art speaks to and for those of us still mired and mute until we finally find our way back to our own voices.

How timely this album from Over the Rhine, The Long Surrender, chuck full of lyrics voicing what I cannot not articulate. The arrangements are as gorgeous as Karin's voice. "All of my friends are part saint and part sinner," she sings on one of my favorite tracks, "All my favorite people are broken" and "The poet says, 'You must praise the mutilated world,'" the poet being my beloved former teacher, Adam Zagajewski. "Rave On" inspired by Pete Fairchild's poem, is another favorite track (and great poem.) "The Laugh of Recognition" when "you laugh but you feel like dying." You saints and sinners, artists and poets. For your gifts of broken beauty to those of us sojourning in the valley of relinquishment: thank you.

Look

2010-05-12T08:26:00.002-06:00

Every now and again take a good look at something not made with hands--a mountain, a star, the turn of a stream. There will come to you wisdom and patience and solace and, above all, the assurance that you are not alone in the world.
--Sidney Lovett

Go geek

2010-04-12T20:25:00.007-06:00

When I consider the vast array of discoveries that have been made in the history of mankind I marvel at what we humans have figured out. If I had access to the very same information that Galileo or Newton or Einstein or Pasteur or Curie or Brahms had I'd still lack, even granted 1000 undisturbed years and a computer, the slightest inkling of the mechanics of quarks, germs, genes, plate tectonics, nuclear fusion, photo synthesis or how to compose a symphony. But I'm oh so grateful that each of them, and countless others, one day smacked their forehead and yelped, "Aha!" Because I just can't get over how cool this world is. How all the bits and pieces work together to produce such fabulous results. And while I don't have to understand the color spectrum to appreciate a rainbow, it's all the more intriguing to understand what engineers such precise splendor. There is beauty in knowledge, in the culmination of century upon century of wonder and wondering by people in every corner of our planet whose investigations in big and small ways connect in a brilliant web that both illuminates and mystifies as it grows, like gravity which contracts our universe even as, paradoxically, dark matter expands it. In 10,000 more years of brainpower we'll have discovered only how much more there is yet to uncover. And I still will not have figured out Algebra I.

13 Ways of Looking at a Blessing

2010-03-06T08:22:00.006-07:00

"Celebration when you're calling the shots? Easy. Celebration when your plan is working? Anyone can do that. But when you realize that the story of your life could be told a thousand different ways, that you could tell it over and over as a tragedy, but you choose to call it an epic, that's when you start to learn what celebration is. When what you see in front of you is so far outside what you dreamed, but you have the belief, the boldness, the courage to call it beautiful instead of calling it wrong, that's celebration.

When you can invest yourself deeply and unremittingly in the life that surrounds you instead of declaring yourself out of the game once and for all, because what's happened to you is too bad, too deep, too ugly for anyone to expect you to move on from, that's the good, rich place. That's the place where the things that looked for all intents and purposes like curses start to stand up and shimmer and dance, and you realize with a gasp that they may have been blessings all along. Or maybe not. Maybe they were curses, in fact, but the force of your belief and your hope and your desperate love for life as it actually unfolding, has brought a blessing from a curse, like water from a stone, like life from a tomb, like the actual story of God over and over." (Another excerpt from "Cold Tangerines" from the chapter called "Blessings and Curses.")

Sometimes it takes a day, or a year, or maybe even ten years to recognize a curse as a hard won blessing. And if find yourself still on the left side of that bell curve, struggling to believe something like the above could be true, then it might help to grab the coattails of someone who's walked out of darkness ahead of you and hold on for dear life. Throughout my life, from earliest childhood, I've clung to the words of strangers I've found in the pages of myriad books for solace, inspiration and enlightenment. Things I've read have challenged my assumptions, spurred action and wrought untold changes of heart. I've found kindred spirits scattered across centuries and continents and therein drawn courage, conviction and the occasional belly laugh. Words on pages have saved me, time and again.

Whatever circumstances a writer chooses to narrate can be cast in an infinite number of ways, on a continuum of hopeless tragedy on one end to triumphing epic on the other, depending on what they choose to believe about their own story. Anyone can look back over their life and count the failures, losses, betrayals and heartbreaks we all inevitably endure as proof their lives are out of control, meaningless and ridiculous and thereby justify a life of despair, blame and regret. Others, usually after a sufficient amount of time has bestowed the gift of perspective, can interpret those very difficult and sometimes unbearable experiences as part of, and even necessary to, the larger arc of the narrative which is creating the unique individual with whom they gift the world.

Last night at my book club, our planned Lenten discussion of Rosemary Mahoney's "The Singular Pilgrim: Walks on Sacred Ground," in which she recounts her travels to ancient pilgrimage sites in service to her own yearnings, digressed to each of us recounting our own spiritual journey, thus far, to the other women around the table. I realized, depending on how I told the story of my life, I could sound like a fruitcake or heroic quester. Fruitcake on one end, hero on the other. On any given day I can slide the weight toward one or the other, depending on how I choose to perceive and portray events. And this is how all of us, even those who will never pick up a pen, are writers, casting the story of our lives according to what we choose to believe about them. Whether we ever travel to an actual pilgrimage site or not, we are all pilgrims, with no choice but to walk on and into the bright and bewildering adventure which is our own life.

Our long suffered winter is beginning to recede, slow as a developing Polaroid, and people emerge blinking from their houses to rake leaves, tidy hedges and clean windows in the sudden surprise of sun. Riffs of birdsong has tickled the air these last few mornings and vees of birds sweep across the sky--their flight another departure and return. Which this leg of their journey? Depends on where you are standing when you look up.

Extreme Shalom

2010-02-22T19:54:00.004-07:00

My mother and sister were up from sunnier climes recently, for a visit to our stripped down, frozen tundra. This winter, which has produced agonizingly long months of bitter, gray days with only the briefest glimpses of sunshine, joie de vivre in frigid lockdown, was cheered for me, temporarily, by the warmth of their brief stay. My mother had in tow a book she was just finishing, passed on to her by her sister who lives in Maryland, a state which has seen more than its fair share of snow dumps and harsh weather this winter. The book's entitled Cold Tangerines, written by Shauna Niequist, and if the endurance of this season has pressed long and hard against your bones perhaps it's also chipped away a space for a bit of contemplation. I offer you as solace and inspiration these excerpts from the chapter, "Shalom:"

"I have glimpses every once in a while of this achingly beautiful way of living that comes when the plates stop spinning and the masks fall off and the apologies come from the deepest places and so do the prayers, and I am fighting, elbowing to make more of my life that life. I want that spirit or force of happiness that is so much deeper than happy--peace that comes from your toes, that makes you want to live forever, that makes you gulp back sobs because you remember so many moments of so much un-peace....The word I use for it is shalom. It is the physical, sense-oriented, relational, communal, personal, ideological posture that arches God-ward....

To get there, I'm finding, is the hardest work and the most worthwhile fight. Shalom requires so much, so much more than I thought I would have to sacrifice, and it scrapes so deeply through the lowest parts of me, divulging and demonstrating so many dark corners. It's something you can't fake, so you have to lay yourself open to it, wide open and vulnerable to what it might ask of you, what it might require you give up, get over, get outside of, get free from....Shalom is about God, and about the voice and spirit of God blowing through and permeating all the dark corners that we've chopped off, locked down. It's about believing, and letting belief move you to forgive. It's about grace, and letting grace propel you into action....It's about living in a world of movie theaters and shoes and highways and websites, and finding those things to be shot through with the same spirit and divinity and possibility that we see in ourselves. It's living with purpose and sacrifice and intention, willing to be held to the highest, narrowest possible standard of goodness, and in the same breath, finding goodness where other people see nothing but dirt."

Or slush. Or endless days of winter.

The brightness of a new page (or letter)

2010-02-05T16:18:00.003-07:00

Recently, an unexpected hand written note from a friend arrived in my mailbox. That in itself has become an all too rare pleasure, if not lost art. It was written on cardstock upon which a small original painting had been affixed. Included was part of a poem by Rilke. And handwriting in ink which illustrates something of the character of the writer. If a picture is worth a thousand words, a letter is worth a thousand emails.
The poem is worth sharing:

I'm living just as the century ends.

A great leaf, that God and you and I
Have covered with writing
Turns now, overhead, in strange hands.
We feel the sweep of it like a wind.

We see the brightness of a new page
Where everything yet can happen.

Unmoved by us, the fates take its measure
And look at one another, saying nothing.

2010: the road ahead

2010-01-01T15:21:00.003-07:00

Have you ever considered all the gazillions of events that have conspired to bring you to exactly where you are today? Starting with events that occurred way before you were born, such as the precise strength of gravity which allowed the universe to coalesce but not collapse and including every action taken or not taken by a countless multitude of people beside and including yourself, your parents, their parents and so on? "Go back just eight generations to about the time that Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln were born, and already there are over 250 people on whose timely couplings your existence depends."1 How many times have you been conscious of the fact that one seemingly tiny action changed the course of your life (and how many times not)? All that to say that your life is a unique story, miraculous really, a story still being written that even you, the star of the show, cannot really control or even accurately predict very much about. Which is equal parts unsettling and exhilarating. You're still reading your own novel, a page turner, with its highs and lows, its terrors and joys, its inexhaustible surprises. Captivated by this most gripping of books, sharing the pages with all sorts of outrageous characters, we try to anticipate what will happen next. Who knows?
Not us. Not yet. But on this New Year's Day I remain grateful for the cast of characters that enrich my story and another day I get to turn the page.

1 Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything

If it be your will

2009-11-08T18:29:00.005-07:00

I don't know when I last heard anything this gorgeous. The Webb Sister's arrangement of Leonard Cohen's "If it be your will" Saturday night at the Fox Theater in St. Louis after Cohen recited the opening lines. Oh my. Click here and play song number 5. If you log in you can hear the entire song (it's worth it.) The photos are from the Cathedral Basilica Saint Louis, taken this morning.

"If It Be Your Will"
Lyrics by Leonard Cohen

If it be your will
That I speak no more
And my voice be still
As it was before
I will speak no more
I shall abide until
I am spoken for
If it be your will

If it be your will
That a voice be true
From this broken hill
I will sing to you
From this broken hill
All your praises they shall ring
If it be your will
To let me sing

If it be your will
If there is a choice
Let the rivers fill
Let the hills rejoice
Let your mercy spill
On all these burning hearts in hell
If it be your will
To make us well

And draw us near
Oh bide us tight
All your children here
In their rags of light
In our rags of light
All dressed to kill
And end this night
If it be your will

That's my bro

2009-11-05T07:45:00.003-07:00

Not the photo, the photographer. Nice work, Peter. The mayor of Ft. Worth thinks so, too:
Thank you, Peter, for reaching out to us and sharing your amazing photographs of our neighbors in need. Simply put, your images have helped to change hearts and minds. Take pride in knowing that your art has helped to make a difference. Much remains to be done, but we are clearly on the right track. God bless you, and God bless this important work.
~A note from Fort Worth mayor, Mike Moncrief
To see more of his street portraits click here.

The Inner Landscape of Beauty

2009-10-29T20:07:00.006-06:00

"Your identity is not equivalent to your biography. There is a place in you where you have never been wounded, where there's a seamlessness in you, and where there is a confidence and tranquility in you, and I think the intention of prayer and spirituality and love is now and again to visit that inner kind of sanctuary."
~ Irish poet and philosopher John O'Donohue

One of the things I like to do at work when occupied, as I was today, in tediously cutting and pasting 37 pages of Spanish text, charts and legalese into an English version of my layouts is to tune in to a podcast of Fresh Air or Diane Rehm or lately, Krista Tippett, which induces the impression I'm not working, I'm actually sitting in a living room after a dinner party listening to the conversation of stimulating guests while knitting or playing Scrabble. And the virtue of the podcast is that when you find your mind has wandered off for a moment, to the aluminum foil you need to pickup on the way home or what word you can make with e, e, l, m, i, z, and r or the tab settings in your document, you can just slide the little timer thingy back and replay whatever you just missed. Or you can repeat and repeat and repeat something that, you realize suddenly, has left your mouth ajar. Such as this from The Inner Landscape of Beauty:

"In the Celtic tradition, there is a beautiful understanding of love and friendship. One of the fascinating ideas here is the idea of soul-love; the old Gaelic term for this is anam ċara. Anam is the Gaelic word for soul and ċara is the word for friend. … In the early Celtic church, a person who acted as a teacher, companion, or spiritual guide was called an anam ċara. It originally referred to someone to whom you confessed revealing the hidden intimacies of your life. With the anam ċara you could share your innermost self, your mind, and your heart. This friendship was an act of recognition and belonging. … In everyone's life there is great need for an anam ċara, a soul friend, in this love you are understood as you are without mask or pretension. Where you are understood, you are at home."
From his book Anam Cara (on its way from Amazon as I type.)

It's even better heard in an Irish accent. Or this:

"And the question is when is the last time that you had a great conversation, a conversation which wasn't just two intersecting monologues, which is what passes for conversation a lot in this culture. But when had you last a great conversation, in which you over heard yourself saying things that you never knew you knew. That you heard yourself receiving from somebody words that absolutely found places within you that you thought you had lost and a sense of an event of a conversation that brought the two of you on to a different plane. And then fourthly, a conversation that continued to sing in your mind for weeks afterwards, you know? And I've — I've had some of them recently, and it's just absolutely amazing, like, as we would say at home, they are food and drink for the soul, you know?"

Sounds like the Scrabble game might have been pre-empted there.

This was from an interview Krista Tippett conducted with John O'Donohue who died in his sleep on January 3rd, 2008, at the age of 52. This was one of the last interviews he gave. His final work, which was published posthumously, is called, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings.

Though I'm late to the party I hope somehow Mr. O'Donohue knows he has a new fan. What space between us?

Birds on Wires

2009-10-19T18:43:00.003-06:00

Some years ago I was driving down Westheimer in Houston and while idling at a red light noticed birds perched on wires directly over Cafe Brasil reminded me of the bars and notes on a musical score. I grabbed the camera from my bag, stuck my arm out the window and aimed overhead as the light changed. When I was invited to guest design a cover for the Houston Symphony some months later I knew what to do with my photo. As is stated in the text accompanying the video below I didn't imagine I was the only one this image had ever occurred to. Although my grandparents were professional musicians, to my everlasting regret, the only instrument I ever learned to play was the radio so I had no idea if the "notes" really made music. Now someone else has used a shot of birds on wires and derived a meldody from the actual positions of the birds. Click below and you can hear what you see.

Birds on the Wires from Jarbas Agnelli on Vimeo.

Let's just say I feel his pain

2009-09-17T12:29:00.014-06:00

"Good Night and Tough Luck" Click to see the story from Christoph Neimann in the NY Times.
POST DELETED

New work up at Umbrella Journal

2009-09-01T10:44:00.005-06:00

click the headline

So let us eat cake

2009-08-25T18:50:00.009-06:00

Time. For mountains and for hummingbirds, it passes. You can't stop it and, in spite of a proliferation of expensive products claiming otherwise, you can't even slow it down. Not for a moment. For each moment that passes, something is added and something is taken away. Summer has now ended; our kids, in clothes a size bigger than last year's, have carted their new backpacks, their notebooks and sharpened pencils, back to school. Someone else sits at the desk they sat in just months ago.

The end of summer/start of school year rituals have always coincided with my birthday which may be why, no matter how far past the years of my own school days, the end of August is more deeply embedded with the passage of time than the end of the calendar year or any other recurring event.

This year's birthday will be the first I've ever celebrated without my grandfather, on whose birthday I was born. He died in March. He would be 104 tomorrow. Even if I'm as fortunate as he was in longevity, I'm already halfway through my little bit of time on this planet. Aging doesn't really bother me. Running out of time does. Whether you measure it in minutes or moons, you only get one slice of it. Tomorrow I burn up one more candle. Make my slice coconut.

Inertia Magazine

2009-07-22T19:40:00.002-06:00

I'm in Texas for a few days, before my annual trip to the Glen in Santa Fe. This just in (or up): Inertia Magazine. One day soon I'll do a real post.

2009-07-15T09:30:00.001-06:00

When in Rome

2009-07-10T20:35:00.002-06:00

Just back from travels to England and Italy on which I'll be posting soon. Still jetlagged and catching up. While I was away The Other Journal posted a poem of mine entitled "The Novelist Sets to Work" and it's still up, sandwiched nicely between interviews with my illustrious friends Greg Wolfe and Scott Cairns, now to the right under "Imagination."
And tomorrow night Wayne's new series opens at PS Gallery along with work from our good friend Chris Teeter, Joel Sager and others. It looks to be a really strong show. Come if you are in the area.

from the age of genius

2009-06-19T07:07:00.006-06:00

I don't normally read the New Yorker with pen in hand, but last week's issue contained a piece by David Grossman entitled "The Age of Genius" on Bruno Schulz, a Polish Jewish writer who was shot by an S.S. officer in the streets of the Drohobycz ghetto in 1942, that required note taking. Some of Grossman's passages describing Schulz's writing are so poignant and profound I'm determined to read both writers. Last week our dear neighbor's and friends were harshly yanked from their idyllic dreams of summer with the news their ten year old daughter has an advanced brain tumor. We are all standing vigil in love and prayer as we approach surgery next Tuesday. It doesn't take such circumstances for the excerpts below to ring loud and ring true. In fact, I hope it doesn't.

"Reading his works made me realize that, in our day-to-day routines, we feel our lives most when they are running out: as we age, as we lose our physical abilities, our health, and, of course, family members and friends who are important to us. Then we pause for a moment, sink into ourselves, and feel: here was something, and now it is gone. It will not return. And it may be that we understand it, truly and deeply, only when it is lost."

"The Age of Genius was for Schultz an age driven by the faith that life could be created over and over again through the power of the imagination and passion and love, the faith that despair had not yet overruled any of these forces, that we had not yet been eaten away by our own cynicism and nihilism. The Age of Genius was for Schultz a period of perfect childhood, feral and filled with light, which even if it lasted for only a brief moment in a person's life would be missed for the rest of his years."

"In "See Under: Love," I struggled to bring to life, if only for a few pages, the Age of Genius, as Schulz had suggested it in his writings. I wrote about an age in which every person is an artist, and each human life is unique and treasured. An age in which we adults feel unbearable pain over our fossilized childhoods, and a sudden urge to dissolve the crust that has congealed around us. An age in which everyone understands that killing a person destroys a singular work of art, which can never be replicated."

Can't get there from here

2009-06-11T16:19:00.002-06:00

During the years I lived in Boston I occasionally wandered up the coast from Massachusetts to Maine, stopping at picturesque villages, artist colonies and fishing towns along the way, finally reaching the rugged coast near Bar Harbor which remains, after many years and many vistas, just about my favorite spot on earth. Atop Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park, I had a 360 degree view of surrounding hills and numerous inlets, lit pink and silver at sunset, and a prime seat from which to watch the first rays of the sun kiss the shores of North America each morning. Once in awhile I managed to hear snatches of an unadulterated Maine accent and learned what every local knows: "You cahn't get theyah from heeah."
That phrase has stuck with me for the last two decades, popping up like a cartoon bubble in circumstances ranging from getting lost in a city to offering relationship advice to a friend. Currently, it's taunting me as I ponder the divide between the two halves of my brain. I've been exiled in the left brain for so long I've been granted permanent resident status and my right brain no longer recognizes my passport. Tabula rasa, blinking [?] screen, a shaken etch-a-sketch. I am swept of ideas.
Recently, I heard Terry Gross interview Jill Bolte Taylor, a brain scientist, who after a stroke was marooned in the right side of her brain. She describes in her new book, A Stroke of Insight, the euphoria and connectedness she experienced while her left brain was defunct. She didn't know where she ended and the wall began. She had no edges. She was totally in the moment. Because the experience was so blissful, she almost couldn't tear herself away from the experience long enough to dial 911. After 8 years of effort she retrained her left brain and regained its capabilities. Had her stroke happened in a different part of the brain, as it has with other people, she might have been stuck on the left side with no right brain function where compositions are reduced to their parts such that one cannot hear a song but only the noises of each separate instrument. One can recognize details but not see the big picture.
Taylor has learned to remain in that state of connectedness despite the fact her left brain is back on board, aware she can navigate a path of synthesis between brain hemispheres and retain her euphoria.
Which, it appears, I cannot. If you have some Evel Kneivel type solution for getting to the other side, please forward. It's really boring over here.

Click to watch the TV spots!

2009-06-03T12:14:00.002-06:00

Within 24 hrs. Samantha "graduated" from elementary school (complete with gowns and surprise guest Carl Edwards making a few remarks at the ceremony!), turned 11 and had her first commercial go on air. Her little sister finished third grade and stars with her in the spots for Big Surf. Click the link above to see my stars.

Our Big Surf Shoot

2009-05-21T18:25:00.003-06:00

Despite the fact that my most repeated utterance regarding TV is "Turn that thing off!" I can't help but be proud that my two daughters are starring in the new Big Surf Waterpark TV and radio campaign, due to begin airing June 1. At least it's for a worthy cause. Last year my older daughter chose to celebrate her birthday there and I, thinking of no less than 10,000 other things I'd rather do, sucked it up in honor of her first decade and ended up pleasantly surprised by how much fun I had there. We brought our friends who were in from Texas and I think they, too, have quite fond memories of the day.

View some outtakes posted by Alex George, the alter ego of Gill the Shark, on the
Big Surf blog:

Just so you know

2009-05-14T07:07:00.002-06:00

Yesterday I was trying to navigate to a podcast on the NPR homepage when a click on an intriguing image took me to a page that said, "Just about everyone knows about The Big Picture by now. Boston.com's blog featuring enormous photos won the Webby award for best use of photography last week." Well, everyone but me, and possibly you. So now we all know. Enjoy.

Blame it on Bisquit

2009-05-11T20:36:00.002-06:00

How did I not know that caring for an 8 week old puppy would not be unlike those long forgotten sleep deprived nights of a decade ago, only this time around three people manage to sleep soundly through the late night howls instead of one? And just when I was making so much progress on my commitment to more sleep and less barking (that would be mine.) So on that note, I am linking to a poem I wrote on another day, on another quest for a quiet moment, sabotaged by someone else's control of the playlist and decibel level and their apparent devotion to Creedance Clearwater Revival. Growl on.

No, we are NOT getting a puppy!

2009-05-03T15:58:00.003-06:00

Oops.

A Family Affair

2009-04-26T13:24:00.004-06:00

Yesterday I received my long awaited copy of the inaugural issue of the Packingtown Review. A poem of mine was accepted there almost two years ago for the original release date of November 2008. Meanwhile, Wayne decided to act on my suggestion he try submitting his art to some of the literary journals that feature the work of visual artists. He submitted to Packingtown Review without telling me he'd done so. They not only chose his work for the first issue, and the cover at that, they decided to feature ONLY his work is this issue. His piece "Circle Cycle XI" graces the cover and inside features
"Cardboard Quail Eggs," "Lala," and a detail "Winged Instrument," a piece he collaborated with Chris Teeter on for the Missouri Theater. When the editors later learned we were married, they placed my poem "Memory of Water" opposite "Cardboard Quail Eggs." Another nice touch: Wayne made that piece for me.

How Poems Work

2009-04-13T18:20:00.004-06:00

When I was at AWP in February, I met the folks from Arc Poetry Magazine out of Canada. Their book table had a lone issue of several of their handsome journals--customs had confiscated the bulk of their books at the border, allowing them to carry in a single copy of each issue. Since I could not buy a journal, Pauline, the managing editor, promised to mail me one. And then she did. Each journal features impressive artwork as well as poetry, essays on poetics and reviews. While perusing their site, I found the feature, "How Poems Work" which you, too, may enjoy. Thank you, Pauline!

Postscript

2009-04-10T08:08:00.002-06:00

If you read the comments made to the previous post about my grandfather (I'm referring to the the last two) you'll know why a conversation I had yesterday gave me goosebumps. I ran into a friend who knew about my grandfather's passing. When I told her about my discovery of my granddad's last two words she asked me if I'd read Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. I had, but many years ago. She reminded me of something Dillard had written and later emailed me this passage:

"I think that the dying pray at the last not “please,” but “thank you,” as a guest thanks his host at the door. Falling from airplanes the people are crying thank you, thank you, all down the air, and the cold carriages draw up for them on the rocks. Divinity is not playful. The universe was not made in jest but in solemn incomprehensible earnest."

Bon Voyage, Grandad

2009-03-29T13:34:00.003-06:00

He left us a week ago today. I say he left us because, after a lovely communion service with family gathered in his hospice room in which one of the hymns he requested was one he'd heard as a boy at a Billy Sunday service, he resolved a few lingering questions in his mind ranging from what the Bible speaks of heaven, to the pain he could expect ahead, to had his newspaper delivery been terminated, he closed his eyes and drifted off, sailing away into sleep from which he would not wake. And though I keenly feel the absence of this man, my last grandparent and the only grandfather I ever knew, whose birthday I shared, I can only hope for such a gracious end (and middle bit) to my days.

Up until he entered the hospital three weeks ago with a stomach complaint, he still lived independently at the age of 103. He'd renewed his drivers license after his last birthday, good for another six years. Though he preferred finagaling his own technology than pay for it (rigging up a cruise control for his car with a stainless steel rod and a rubber band or fashioning a sail for his motorized canoe from plastic contractor bags, for example) he was astounded by my father's GPS on a recent visit to Florida. Long a land locked sailor making due with a camper instead of a cabin, GPS offered new freedom to navigate Florida's roads hands-free and thus he took himself immediately to a store whereupon he made that extravagent purchase. He was not unlike Mr. Magoo when driving, not because he couldn't see (he read the newspaper, and everything else, without glasses) but because he was rather freewheeling in his interpretation of traffic laws and signage, and no doubt the beneficiary of the honed skills of defensive drivers long schooled to Florida's geriatric driving class.

A young cowboy told me once, "It's not the years, it's the mileage" but Grandad had more than his fair share of both. Though there is no obvious answer to "What's the secret to your longevity?" in the way of healthy living, in fact, quite the opposite, he logged many miles over land and especially sea, collecting friends wherever he went. His sketchbooks are filled with the faces and places he encountered, capturing nuances a shutter can't speak of. Born in 1905, he witnessed all but the first couple of years of the 20th century. He was a walking documentary.

After surgery two weeks ago he woke surprised, "Am I alive?" and did not yet know a tumor due to advanced pancreatic cancer had squeezed shut his bile duct, turning his skin florescent yellow with jaundice. When he was told his time was short he still had to reckon with facing life's end, a task I guess none of us complete till we're forced to. He'd wanted to make a last trip back to Maryland where he'd lived most of his life. I think he thought he'd go on forever, and at 103, after a couple of decades of thinking each goodbye might be the last, so did we. He was pensive for a day and then as more and more family began to arrive throughout the week, buoyed by love. He had time to visit with almost all his kids, grandkids and greatgrands, time for speaking last things, for repairing and resolving, for prayer, for making peace with the life he'd lived. For encountering his Maker.

For sharing the mystery of departure. He described himself as walking along a fence he could at any time step over. As he had so often in the past, he said he would be leaving on a long journey. His room overflowed with loved ones who'd come to see him off and let him go. Last Sunday evening, after all that needed to be said and done had been, it was time to pull up the anchor. He closed his eyes in sleep. And then he stepped over.

Journey well.

Captain Everett Belote James (August 26, 1905 - March 22, 2009)

To see without eyes

2009-03-10T15:54:00.004-06:00

Last Friday morning at Orr we had the impromptu pleasure of having John Bramblitt in our midst, following his appearance the night before at the University of Missouri. John is a visual artist who lost his sight in 2001 and then learned to re-vision the world without the benefit of eyesight in order to continue creating his art. Obviously his methods changed but the compulsion to create, visually and specifically two dimensionally, did not. After working through great anger at his loss, John has not only reclaimed his vocation as an artist, but has also achieved and maintain a calmed and centered existence he never experienced while sighted. He described his early attempts to paint as requiring such strenuous focus that he literally broke into sweats at his canvas.

John has developed a method of painting in which he draws his image with fabric paint on canvas, leaving a slightly raised surface he can later feel after he's primed the canvas with white paint. He then adds paint by feel--each oil color having a different texture and consistency so he can distinguish and even mix colors. He displayed an example of a painting he did of his son, shown here. Here also is a link to an article the New York Timesrecently wrote on John.

In a serendipitous seque, two nights ago we opened our Netflix envelope and popped in Blindsight,which turned out to be a documentary about Erik Weihenmayer, the first blind man to scale Everest, and his attempt to guide six blind Tibetan teens to climb the 23,000-foot Lhakpa Ri on the north side of Mount Everest. As a visual artist since childhood, I've often imagined how diminished my life would be without eyesight. John and Eric do an astounding job of refuting that notion.

A Box of Wind: Nature writing, spirituality, and science

2009-02-20T18:29:00.003-07:00

I sat in on this panel at AWP which Kathleen Dean Moore closed out with a bang. We were given a chance to ask questions afterward so I raised my hand and asked if we get a copy of Kathleen's talk. She graciously posted it in full on her website.

Though I might argue the idea of "secular sacred" only gets you halfway to paradise, creation does a spectacular job of inducing awe.

An excerpt, but please take in the whole thing:

"So I get the analogy between spirituality and love. The ‘spiritual values of wild places’ are whatever it is in the world that speaks powerfully to the imagining and feeling part of the human mind, what lifts and enlivens the human spirit. Spirituality in a person is (as Scott Russell Sanders said) the impulse in ourselves that rises to meet the energy and glory in creation.

If this is so, then you don’t have to be religious to be spiritual. And you don’t have to believe in God to believe that the world is sacred. In my work, I call the world the “secular sacred.” I believe that the most reverent thing you can say is “Look, just look.” And the most reverent stance is not on your knees or prostrate on the ground, or kneeling at the edge of your bed with your eyes closed, but standing outside with your head thrown back, looking into the night. Look, look at the darkness, this moonlight on the water, this wash of stars, as if you were seeing them for the very first time. Then the astonishing fact of the world is revealed to us, that there is something rather than nothing, and that it is so beautiful.

That said, my husband is a scientist, a self-described hard scientist. You should see us try to paddle a canoe. Philosopher in the bow, scientist in the stern. I’m rejoicing in the sounds of the night and Frank? Frank is explaining the biomechanics of frog song."

Read the whole article here.

Somewhere to send your sadness

2009-02-17T19:37:00.006-07:00

"Because of its association with the grandparent who died or the lover who left or the puppy that never came home, we have been too quick to dismiss this thing we call “Sadness.” But to limit Sadness to the above would be like limiting the definition of America to baseball, hotdogs, apple pie and Chevrolet. Sadness is Nostalgia, Sadness is Reflection, Sadness is what Yeat’s called Tragic Joy. Sadness is what makes Joy so enjoyable, and Wonder so wonderful."
From "Sadness" at Buckbee, A Writer, Museum of Sadness

One of the more memorable things I encountered at AWP in Chicago last week was the Sadness Museum. Amidst a sea of tables laden with books, journals and promotional items ranging from cool to kitschy to cool kitschy (my favorite was Alison Stine's mini handcuff keychain promoting her book of poetry titled Ohio Violence) rose a small tent housing the little museum from which I snapped the photo above. It's a traveling exhibit of items that have sparked sadness, such as the action figure found on the floor of a Motel Six after some little boy's departure. This type of loss--the inadvertent leaving behind of the treasured thing-- has always deeply saddened my husband and he for one would certainly appreciate the impulse to rescue and herald the abandoned toy. Whether putting the sadness provoking thing on exhibit and sharing its woeful tale mitigates or compounds sadness is a question one might ask before daring entry into a world of others' sorrows.

The museum is taking submissions but so far I haven't figured out how to package and ship that which makes me, um, sad: an old, bent figure shuffling alone down a street, even if she's smiling and happier than I am; a "For sale" sign in front of a home, any home, even if the move is to greener pastures; a phone booth without a phone; florescent lights; the remnants of a chimney or a foundation; a sagging barn; a single earring. Ok, I guess I could send an earring.

Gimme a piece of that pie

2009-02-04T16:02:00.008-07:00

I got my first job at age 15, at McDonald's, after fudging my age by a year on the application form. And I have worked every year of my life since then except for one summer when, after having fled one city and its complications for another and then realized on arrival I had no idea what to do with the rest of my life, I quit my dismal job, hauled my meager belongings into storage and took off for the wild west, accompanied at the last minute by a very good friend from college who had recently moved to NY and was going through some big transitions of her own.

We set out in my new, used Acura Integra, the back of which became our chuckwagon as we traveled from place to place, blissfully agenda-free, throwing our tent up wherever it struck us to do so from White Sands to Yosemite. A month and a half later, funds running low, we found ourselves headed back, ALL the way back, right back to exactly where we started. I returned, however, with some valuable direction: I went back to school, started freelancing to be my own boss and left some well worn baggage behind in the desert. That summer still ranks up there with the best times of my life. We were a year ahead of Thelma and Louise and a summer behind Dances with Wolves, the two films bookend that summer in my romanticized memory of it.

I don't when or if I'll ever get to take off on a wild chase like that again so it's been a vicarious pleasure over the last couple of weeks to watch The Long Way Round and The Long Way Down: the adventures of Ewan McGregor and his pal Charlie Boorham as they take 5 months to ride their motorbikes (that's Scottish for "motorcycle") around the world from London to NYC. Why do THEY get to do this? Because Ewan is a movie star and everything conceivable for such an undertaking: their BMW motorbikes, extensive and expensive tools, camping gear, office space, training, clothing, food, vehicles, crew including a medic, etc. was given to them for free on the premise they'd shoot the trip as a documentary. Night after night we have watched them wrestle their bikes through deep mud, sand, and floodwaters on every kind of road and off road as they continued their journey across border after border, seeing fantastic vistas and meeting every kind of folk along the way. They enjoyed their trip so much they decided to take 4 more months and do another: from Scotland to Cape Town (hence "Long Way Down." Now we are out of episodes and I feel almost as bad as I did, now going on 20 years ago, when we hit the coast of California and knew every mile from then on was one mile closer to home.

What has that got to do with Kevin Costner? I hadn't yet forgiven Ewan his trips: he's already had all the fun that comes with being a famous movie star and on top of that he gets to take these kick-ass trips of a lifetime! And then Monday night, up on stage at the Blue Note, is Dances with Wolves himself, playing Guitar Hero with a full band. Why? Because he's a movie star! It's starting to get to me.

I think we should seriously consider the redistribution of fun. When I grow up, I'm going to be a movie star. A male movie star. I'm going to have cake AND eat it! While my wife is at home with our kids.

This is a famous earlobe

2009-02-03T22:43:00.002-07:00

Any guesses? Story coming soon...

The Best of Wiman

2009-01-22T09:26:00.007-07:00

First I read Christian Wiman's "Love Bade Me Welcome," (reprinted from American Scholar in Best American Spiritual Essays), wherein Wiman (poet as well as editor of the preeminent journal Poetry) discovers, on the heels of finding true love and a subsequent journey to faith, that he has incurable cancer in his blood. It was perhaps this crisis that informed the next essay I read which appears in the 20th Anniversary Issue of Image Journal. It's one of those pieces of writing which causes you to pause and take stock of what you are doing, to evaluate your motives and expectations, particularly if you are an artist. I suggest you buy the journal and read the entire essay which alone is worth the price of admission (although the entire journal is packed with great stuff including perennial personal faves: Scott Cairns, Robert Cording and Franz Wright.) These are excerpts that made their way into my journal:

"All ambition has the reek of disease about it, the relentless smell of the self....
So long as your ambition is to stamp your existence upon existence, your nature on nature, then your ambition is corrupt and you are pursuing a ghost.

Still, there is something that any artist is in pursuit of, and is answerable to, some nexus of one's being, one's material, and Being itself. The work that emerges from this crisis of consciousness may be judged a failure or a success by the world, and that judgement will still sting or flatter your vanity. But it cannot speak to this crisis in which, for which, and of which the work was made. For any artist alert to his own soul, this crisis is the only call that matters. I know no other name for it besides God, but people have other names, or no names.
....
An artist who loses this internal arbiter is an artist who can no longer hear the call that first came to him. Better to be silent then. Better to go into the world and do good work, rather than to lick and cosset a canker of resentment or bask your vanity in hollow acclaim.
....
We come closer to the truth of the artist's relation to divinity if we think not of being made subject to God but of being subjected to God -- our individual subjectivity being lost and rediscovered within the reality of God. Human imagination is not simply our means of reaching out to God but God's means of manifesting himself to us. It follows that any notion of God that is static is not simply sterile but, since it asserts singular knowledge of God and seeks to limit his being to that knowledge, blasphemous."

Hot dogs and mad cats

2009-01-18T10:40:00.002-07:00

My daughter found this. Although perhaps only slightly less staged than professional wrestling, I dare you not to laugh.

-3 Tonight

2009-01-14T15:22:00.004-07:00

which should really keep me in the right frame of mind (and a thick sweater) as I continue reading Barry Lopez's Arctic Dreams. It dawns on me now that far above the tree line, the tundra of the Artic Circle is the inversion of my beloved desert, the frigid version of vast, vacant and severely inhospitable terrain. Would you rather fend off heatstroke or frostbite? Rattle snakes or polar bears? Thirst or canyons of ice? Intense sunlight or no sunlight?

Lopez's vivid descriptions of the Arctic expanse with its "lamellation of snow," and its "irenic northern summers," is giving my avocabulary a workout as well as providing instruction in biology, ecology, history, anthropology, geography and the persuasive reminder that, "the world is oddly hinged."

Lopez questions what, today, provides us a sense of wealth:
"Is it to retain a capacity for awe and astonishment in our lives, to continue to hunger after what is genuine and worthy? Is it to live at moral peace with the universe?
It is impossible to know, clearly, the answer to this question; but by coming to know a place where the common elements of life are understood differently one has the advantage of an altered perspective. With that shift, it is possible to imagine afresh the way to a lasting security of the soul and heart, and toward an accommodation in the flow of time we call history, ours and the world's."

When even a few days of temperatures so low hitting zero seems luxurious, when fierce winds threaten to rattle the shingles from the roof and we are reminded of how small and vulnerable we really are, when we're forced to bundle up against the common elements of life, the behavior of which cannot be taken for granted, fresh perspective can blow in alongside blinding lamellations of snow.

"The Closest to Love We Ever Get"

2009-01-06T16:16:00.006-07:00

My British Santa was good to me again this Christmas, filling my stocking with the several of the "Best American Series 2008." (Do they have a Best British series?) One of the gems of this year's Best Spiritual Writing is Heather King's short essay "The Closest to Love We Ever Get." After reading her piece, I googled her name and found from her bio that we both spent the 80's in Boston, but on opposite sides of the barstool. My loss. I'd like to get my eyes on some more of her work (she is also a commentator for NPR's All Things Considered.) On why she who loves quiet and solitude has lived in crowded, noisy Koreatown for 11 years King writes:

"Wending my way home with my books, my vision temporarily transformed, I'm not seeing the refrigerators abandoned on the sidewalk, the triple-parked ice cream trucks, the overflowing trash cans. I'm seeing flashes of colorful Mexican tile, the 98-cent-store mural of waltzing Ajax cans and jitterbugging mops, my favorite flowers: the heliotrope on Ardmore, the wisteria near Harvard the lemon on Mariposa. Or maybe it's not that I'm seeing one group of things instead of another but, for one fleeting moment, all simultaneously: the opposites held in balance a paradigm for the terrible tension and ambiguity of the human condition; the dreadful reality that we can never quite be sure which things we have done and which things we have failed to do, the difference between how we long for the world to be and how it must be a kind of crucifixion in the darkest, most excruciating depths of which we discover--the rear windows of the parked cars I'm walking by now covered with jacaranda blossoms--it's not that there's not enough beauty; it's that there's so much it can hardly be borne."

[This essay is reprinted from Portland Magazine, out of the University of Portland, edited by Brian Doyle. His picks litter the "Best of"s every year and are always among my favorite pieces. The above detail is Georges Rouault.]

My own little Pixie Chick

2009-01-03T11:11:00.003-07:00

Here's a link to Hayley's radio debut:
Click the above title then Archive & Podcast/Farm & Fiddle/12-17-08 Pixie Chicks and Fiddlesticks

The end of 08

2009-01-03T10:14:00.008-07:00

was not much different than the end of 07 or most other years. The frantic lead up to Christmas in this house begins at Thanksgiving which involves guests or travel, leading into a birthday and bonfire, an anniversary celebration and the mad scramble to secure the right gifts for friends and family as well as making sure Santa is on top of things. There are gingerbread houses to be made, cookies to be sprinkled and winter villages to erect. It's all quite wonderful and quite exhausting. This year we played with our shiny new toys for one day and then left them under the tree, unplugged the colored lights and headed to Texas.

We pulled onto I-70 and joined the thousands of others making their way to or from home, cars loaded with kids or 18 wheelers loaded with who knows what and settled in for a long day of driving. I discovered an app for my iphone which allowed us to tune into any NPR show we wanted. We listened to 3 months worth of Fresh Air on the drive down. Did you know there is a big difference between ultra pasteurized and batch pasteurized milk? That an African Gray parrot can do calculations? That Kit Kittredge, An American Girl was one of the top 10 movies of the year?

I love a good, long ride, this route in particular. We left Missouri in a downpour, traveled through snow, sleet and 28 degrees in Kansas and emerged back into bright sun and 50 degrees in Dallas. Between Emporia (where we religiously exit for JavaCat) and Wichita, we savor the Flint Hills in all their seasonal variations. This time the skies were leaden, the landscape sheathed in ice, the grass frozen sideways. But always the hills radiating their rich hues.

Our time in Texas was Christmas all over again: the Nasher Sculpture Museum, the discovery of the Bishop Arts District in Oak Cliff where we'd driven to find a book restorer (my mother recently unearthed my great 3x grandmother's 1859 family Bible rotting in my grandfather's garage in Florida) and discovered delectable pumpkin pancakes at Cafe Brazil, rendevouz with many of our closest friends, short but sweet time with my parents and brother's family.

We're back home. The tree is petrified, gifts are scattered around the house, my clothes are tighter. I'm reading cards that arrived in our absence, fending off another bout of Christmas card guilt (another year of good intentions and empty mailboxes.) I'm making my way through backed up email, catching up on friends' blogs and making note of who I need to write. Good intentions all around. Happy New Year, everyone.

Open before Christmas

2008-12-22T09:21:00.004-07:00

I'm regifting here. Wayne sent me a link to The Moth and you, too, might want to check it out before your Christmas travels. Listen to writers such as Susan Orlean, Frank McCourt, Andrew Solomon and Adam Gopnick read their stories. There are also a number of celebrity writers such as Janeane Garofalo, Ethan Hawke, Moby and Lili Taylor reading I'm not sure what. Remember those most enchanting words from childhood: "Once upon a time" and as you travel this holiday, travel far.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

2008-12-13T13:04:00.002-07:00

Now we too are ORReos

2008-12-11T13:14:00.004-07:00

No offense to the deer, coyote, rabbits and fox that remind us we're not the only living creatures inhabiting the end of our lane but they're not much for sharing a cup of coffee or vapid chitchat. I miss vapid chitchat. I miss the sound and stimulus of human endeavor in all its glorious diversity. Thomas Merton I am not. So as we embark on our third Midwest winter and in anticipation of the area's hunker down hibernation that's provoked acute cabin fever in me for the last two years, we've pulled up stakes and rewired our working selves into the heart of Columbia's emerging art district.

Now the house at the end of the lane is a cozy haven against the elements instead of a fortress of solitary confinement. And I look forward to going to work: unlocking the door, flipping on the lights, turning on the music and the coffee as the morning sun slants in, warming our south side. I hear workmen's hammers and drills outside, renovating the old warehouse across the street into new loft space. We can walk to restaurants and coffee shops, stores and businesses, sticking our heads in to say hello to friends working in the area.

These are photos of our studio. We're set of windows on the end. Come on by, coffee's on.

Big giant large

2008-11-24T13:09:00.001-07:00

Little tiny small

2008-11-24T13:08:00.003-07:00

See you next year

2008-11-16T17:46:00.003-07:00

There is symbolic as well as actual beauty in the migration of the birds...There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature--the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter. ~ Rachel Carson

From the Little Big Book of Birds which arrived in the mail this week, a lovely gift from a lovely friend. The seasons come and go, as do the birds, but friendship is constant, in season and out.

Hearing Voices at Orr Street

2008-11-13T09:52:00.003-07:00

Today's Vox features the Orr St. reading series. If you haven't yet attended a reading there I hope this persuades you to join us! Click the headline for the whole story.

Who does she think she is? Part 2

2008-11-02T13:56:00.001-07:00

Click the headline. :)

Who does she think she is?

2008-10-29T17:05:00.003-06:00

A friend of mine sent me a link to what sounds like a great film you'll enjoy if you are an artist or a woman and especially if you're both: Who does she think she is? It feels particularly pertinent as this past weekend my older daughter made her stage debut in Pace Production's "The Giver" at the newly renovated Missouri Theater and my younger daughter made her stage debut in her girlband "The Pixie Chicks" at the grand opening of the Columbia Art League's new space which just happens to adjoin the Missouri Theater. In really cool synchronicity, the girls were playing simultaneously on Sunday, a stone's throw away from each other (if you could throw a stone through a wall).

Byrning Down the House

2008-10-20T12:25:00.004-06:00

Heaven is a place where nothing ever happens. Talking Heads

A whirlwind weekend of conspicuous cultural consumption. Yum. The only downside to the assorted adventures was the fact my camera is at the doctor's so all I had with me was my iphone camera which is almost useless in low light. So although I'm lacking the photos which would add the thousand words I'm leaving out, I highly recommend any and all of the following:

The Citizen Jane Film Fest, Stephens College's inaugural film festival devoted to showcasing women film makers. Friday night's opening feature was "Trouble the Water," a documentary that utilized the home footage of 9th ward aspiring rap artist, Kim Roberts, who was trapped with her husband in the floodwaters of Katrina. She films until, stuck in the attic with water rising, her battery dies, in the belief the footage might be all that survives her. It's a powerful exposure of shameful race issues still embedded in America.

A blue skied, warm sunned Autumn roadtrip through the gold and green hills of Missouri

A weekend in St. Louis's Central West end which included:

The park view from the Historical Landmark Chase Park Plaza Hotel

Dinner at Niche

A show at the historic Fox Theater which happened to be hosting

David Byrne on his current tour which included songs from his new collaboration with Eno and songs from 30 years ago.

Sunday brunch at Duffs

An armful of books from Left Bank Books including Marilyn Robinson's Home, The Man Who Turned Into Himself by David Ambrose, Here, Bullet by Brian Turner and The Implacable Order of Things by Jose Luis Peixoto.

And the store that sells tiny jeans.

Add good friends and the one you love for a fabulous, (non) heavenly weekend.

ArtRageous Fridays IV

2008-10-15T09:04:00.002-06:00

This is the last in the series of posters I designed for Columbia's quarterly artcrawl. The first poster appears here. The second poster appears here.The third here.

6,702,868,300

2008-10-06T10:56:00.003-06:00

As of 11:56 am today, that is the number of people sharing the planet with you. 6.7 billion people waking--some to hunger, some to light rain, some to the call of birds, some to sounds of heavy artillery; the ones nearest me to a mild autumn breeze and the hum of a lawn mower. Think of all the people you know, have known, all their big and little dramas. Every minute, 6.7 billion narratives are sending their small rippled through history. For every story we hear told, look at how many we're missing. And now, moments later, 6,702,869,334: one thousand thirty-four more have their tale to tell.

Columbia Festival of the Arts

2008-09-26T15:47:00.003-06:00

I'm reading on the Literary Stage in Courthouse Square tomorrow at 1 pm. You locals, come on out! Click the link above for the schedule of events. No tomatoes, please.

With Bees in our Bonnets

2008-09-22T11:19:00.006-06:00

I don't know what pioneer women would have thought of the results but they certainly would have sanctioned the impulse:

The quilting bee was an imporant means of socializing for colonial and pioneer women (and man). Through the winter months, the women would piece their quilt tops. Since there was no central heating in these homes, there was usually only one main heated room that was too crowded during the winter months for a quilt frame to be assembled. When the weather became warmer, an invitation was sent to the surrounding neighbors for the quilting bee.

On the day of the quilting bee, the quilters would arrive early and begin marking the quilt top which had been put into the quilt frame by the hostess. The quilters would then being to quilt the top while exchanging conversation. The quilt had to finished before the husbands and beaus showed up in the late afternoon when dinner was served to all, the hostess being given a chance to show off her cooking skills. After dinner, there was very often a square dance or country dance with fiddles accompanying the dancers. The quilting bee was an important part of the social life of these people surpassed only by religious gatherings. (from quilt.com)

On Saturday, a room full of multi-talented women gathered at Orr Street Studios for Lisa Bartlett's "Spare Parts" mixed media bee. We arrived at 10 am and began rifling through acres of fabulous ephemera she'd generously set out for us to ransack. Lisa had us draw numbers to pick from large pieces such as old wooden boxes, clock casings, and such for use as bases for our pieces. I drew #1 and got a plum prize: an old telephone box.

After serving ourselves coffee and snacks Lisa had laid out, we got busy with paint, papers, glues, drills, scissors, screws and wire on long tables arranged in a rectangle so we could all see each other, chat and pass the gel medium. I was surprised at the absence of sustained chatter. As each person immersed deeper into her project she grew quieter with concentration. But we yakked away at the lunch break, over organic salad, fruit and hummus. Because we were at our places working, we did not really see much of what each other had been up to until the end when we laid our stuff out in the gallery area. I was amazed at what emerged from the day, including and especially from those who had never even dabbled in this before. We were all euphoric by this time: high on the atmosphere, the joy of making and messy hands, and the all day proximity to very special friends. Friends and family showed up at 4:30 to view the art, have a glass of wine and pick out their own gems from the still substantial leftovers. The only thing missing was the square dance after.

Shown above is the before and after of my piece. Thanks, Lisa!

Riders of the Storm

2008-09-17T15:35:00.004-06:00

You've seen the footage. I have been in contact with lots of the friends and clients sweating and slogging through the wreckage of Houston. Though everyone I know personally sustained minor damage (blown down trees and fences, lost shingles from roofs, etc.) power is still out for most, few grocery stores are open (running on generators and limiting customers to entering 25 at a time) and even fewer gas stations (the gas is there but the power to pump it is not). They don't know when schools will be able to reopen. I've felt helpless in not being able to help. Then I got word that Chris Seay, the pastor of ecclesisa, the church we attended in Houston before we moved, is coordinating relief efforts through the church at Taft Street which is located centrally in the heart of Montrose.

I have copied from his letter the specific ways you may help if you are so inclined:

1)Relief Support - any donations to relief support will go to purchase chainsaws, tools, food, van rentals, water, generators, temporary employment for relief coordinators, and necessary items to support relief teams. We are estimating the immediate need for relief support to be more than 25,000 dollars. If you are able to purchase any of these items in your area and have them delivered to Houston, this would be preferred over local purchasing. However both can be accommodated.

2)Financial Relief – for those suffering financially because of loss of property and income, we would like to offer a short term assistance package. For countless families and individuals struggling to make it financially before the storm (hourly wage employees, immigrants, and single mothers), the last week has often been devastating. We hope that the federal government will improve in their response time, but the church is able and willing to fill this gap. If you would like to give specifically to this package we will distribute the following on your behalf. In the case of single mothers we intend to double the assistance.
$150 Mortgage/Rental Assistance
$100 Grocery Card
$50 Gas Card
$20 Basic Toiletries
Gospel of John (VOX)
We will attempt to continue or begin a long-term relationship with all assisted families and will offer this assistance to as many as possible.

3) Taft Street Coffee as a House of Hospitality - You may know that Taft Street Coffee (the coffee shop owned and run by Ecclesia) is rated each year as one of the top 3 coffee shops in the entire city. This morning we had our power restored and would like to re-open the shop as a site for those still without power. We estimate that over the next three weeks many would benefit from a centrally located house of hospitality that offers air conditioning, a free lunch, coffee drinks, Wi-Fi, phone service, children’s play space, and spiritual support. If you would like to sponsor the food and operational costs to run Taft Street Coffee as a gift to the community, we estimate that cost to be $850 per day.

If you have any questions you can contact me (Chris@ecclesiahouston.org / cell 713 539-9201) or our Mission Pastor John Starr (john@ecclesiahouston.org / cell 832 630-4267).

State of Evacuation

2008-09-12T11:50:00.004-06:00

We are glued to the TV as if we're watching a slow motion car wreck, Anderson Cooper reporting the National Weather Service's threat that those who remain in Galveston in one or two story homes will face "CERTAIN DEATH!" Smiling in spite of ourselves because when we called our friend Ben to warn him of the latest escalation of doom his response was raucous laughter and because I can't hear threats of "CERTAIN DEATH" in any voice other than Eddie Izzard's.

Three years ago we were among the guinea pigs, 5 million of us in Houston feeling our way through the inaugural run of what's become a new summer ritual: evacuating a major American city. Like most of our friends then, and at latest tally, now, we had no intention of doing anything other than riding out the huge storm heading our way despite dire predictions of destruction and doom. We filled the bathtub with water, bought batteries and taped windows. As the hurricane barreled toward us and the radio continued to bleat its threats, I looked again at our two young girls and thought, "But if... " and I knew I'd never forgive myself if due to my hubris the expected winds and flooding brought harm came their way. So the day before the predicted arrival of Rita found me frantically packing suitcases and photo albums after all and Wayne lugging computer equipment and paper files to higher ground. We left our home not knowing if we'd return to anything resembling it and joined the already-in-progress mass exodus.

Fortunately, we picked our way along every path other than I-45, which by then resembled a parking lot at Woodstock, and made our way to Dallas on the back roads. We drove all night, through dark countryside and the occasional Quick-mart at some rural crossroads, one of which we stopped at and braved long lines to the filthy, overflowing restroom (my kids refuse to use a tree) and topped off our tank. The lot was full of other folks who'd also avoided the highway and there was a cheery comraderie among the refugees. I think we made it to my parents' home at something like 3 am, after a mere 8 or so hours of driving. Our next door neighbors, who'd also jumped ship at the last moment but were new to Texas and its highways, called us by cellphone, stranded on the glutted highway somewhere north of Houston and running low on gas. She was 5 mos. pregnant. They'd been on the road for I can't remember how many hours and had travelled only about 80 miles. We pulled out the atlas we'd snagged at a convenience store at the start (a brilliant move!) of our trek and navigated them off the highway, to the blue roads, and then to roads tinier than that. They arrived at my folks sometime the following morning after something like 22 hrs. on the road, give or take, or so I recall.

We all camped out at my folks' house, an impromptu holiday, and other friends who'd sought refuge in the DFW area came and joined us. My dad cooked out on the grill. We traded war stories. 10 hrs, 18 hrs, 36 hrs on the road. Reports from other friends' misadventures, evacuating Houston only to drive straight into the storm in Louisiana. Driving all the way to Arkansas to find a hotel room. Watching footage of Houston's highways: clogged on the outbound lanes and vacant as nuclear winter on the inbound. A huge city barren as a desert.

A few days later we were among the first to return home. To avoid the same gridlock on return, we'd left ahead of the rest and driven through the night. Across the street the power had gone out so one set of neighbors that had stayed behind bunked in our house. Our a/c worked and the food in the freezer had stayed frozen. I remember riding my bike a few blocks to Mission Burrito on our first night back. The guy making my burrito embraced me, he was so happy to see a person back in town. He described what it was like to be there when no one else was--how eerie and creepy.

And that was how it was when we got back. Everyone was in love with each other and the city. We'd been spared the direct hit, we were okay, but it felt like we'd made it through something. A wild ride with a happy ending. That ordeal has grown into a fond memory and I hope to God that post-Ike my friends can say the same.

It was a Joyride

2008-09-07T16:16:00.003-06:00

I came across this on my friend Frank Hart's facebook page. I hadn't seen it in years. Atomic Opera recorded "Joyride" on their debut album entitled "For Madmen Only" in the early 90's and I had a teeny part in the music video. Can you figure out which character I am (a no-brainer for those who've known me awhile)? Those were days of smoky clubs, ringing eardrums and 3 am breakfasts at Denny's. Road trips, guest lists and wild hopes. And devoted friendship, despite the years, the mileage and the sometimes radical realignment of our various universes. Here's to the endurance of sand castles. Now I'm all verklempt.

He never mentioned this!

2008-08-31T14:21:00.003-06:00

Click the link above for startling late breaking news!

Sushi in the sky with diamonds

2008-08-26T20:44:00.003-06:00

What a great day. My younger daughter woke me this morning with a cup of coffee and I wandered out to the living room to cries of "Happy Birthday" and just enough time to open a couple of the gifts my girls had wrapped (I got my very own Ugli doll) before they had to run to catch the bus. Tickets to Coldplay from Wayne. Greetings from friends, new, old and long lost, streamed in through the day.

After work, I spoke to my grandad who shares my birthday, or should I say, whose 103 birthdays I've enjoyed a large share of, as he stood on a beach in Florida in view of the Gulf which has been a fair companion to him in his later years but comes nowhere close to displacing the great love and loss of his life: the Atlantic. I think it must be from him that I've inherited my incessant wanderlust, the same tides that course his veins run through mine, tugging us toward distant and empty horizons, wet and dry. Happy Birthday, Grandad. You're a wonder.

And after that, more gifts, dinner at a Japanese restaurant, birthday cake with a dear friend, a movie with my favorite guy. He bought me a clown. How wonderful is that.

You do the math

2008-08-21T19:22:00.003-06:00

Average people, studies have shown, believe that they will enjoy longer lives, healthier lives, and longer marriages than the "average" person....According to a recent poll, 3 out of 4 baby boomers (those born between 1946 and 1964) think they look younger than their peers, and 4 out of 5 say they have fewer wrinkles than other people their age..."
from "The Universe and the Teacup" by K. C. Holmes

Re-Entry

2008-08-14T22:27:00.004-06:00

Tonight's sunset in Columbia. I got home the night before last and as expected, met a mountain of backlogged work. I'm still wallowing in the afterglow of my time in New Mexico, followed by a week in Texas with my parents which included a side trip to the Hill Country where we stayed in a cabin at Canyon of the Eagles Lodge on Lake Buchanan and though the eagles are not due back until November we did get to see four moons of Jupiter at their observatory.

Along the way there and back we stopped in several little towns, where SUVs are pulled up in front of storefronts where horses once were tethered. Towns like Hico, Llano, Burnet and Marble Falls where we ate Mexican food, browsed antique shops and ordered iced lattes to combat the intense, dry heat. It's true: Texas is a whole nother country.

But here, tomorrow night, Eva Ellingsworth, a woman I met at the Glen, is performing in town before her return to Holland. And though airport security seized the one dangerous jar of Branston Pickle I had been able to locate in a year and was chuffed about bringing back to my husband, I do have a stack of great books I brought back with me, including Christine Casson's new book of poetry, "After the First World," another volume of B.H. Fairchild's poetry, "The Art of the Lathe," two of the three K. C. Cole books I discovered at the Atomic Museum in Albuquerque, and "The Forgotten Desert Mothers" by Laura Swan which I picked up at Christ of the Desert Monastery among others that I can't wait to dig into. So I'll stretch the glow out a bit as summer in Missouri takes a bow, the skies around here giving Santa Fe a wee bit of competition.

End of the Glen

2008-08-07T21:28:00.013-06:00

So the Glen has ended and I've reluctantly said goodbye to friends of the last couple of years and this one, sad to pull my plug from the charge that a gathering of 200 artists, writers, musicians, thinkers and sojourners engenders. But I think my batteries are loaded as, tired as I am, I can't find sleep, my mind still whirring and buzzing with the stimulation of the stark and ravishing desert, with soulful conversations and explorations, and with the overabundance of beauty, created and uncreated, that fusion of art and religion and landscape that truly marks New Mexico as enchanted. As much as I'm done in by the wash of lush desert hues which shift by the hour, I'm struck wordless again and again at the eloquence of the humble, rough hewn art I stumble upon around every corner and bend in the road.

Look at the face of this figure I saw in a large, dusty, art yard, carved into a tree trunk by Max, an 85 yr. old local artist. See how he's incorporated the tree's natural lines and eddies to bring forth a face so human, so broken, so honest, I get weak in the knees.

New Mexico is where superlatives fail me, where I spend the week blithering like an idiot, trying and failing to articulate the reasons for all that so moves me here. I should know by now just to shut up.

Scenes from a week well lived:

This is the church that Georgia O'Keefe would have seen from her home across the street in the village of Abiquiu. She moved to this village from Ghost Ranch.

On the way to Christ of the Desert Monastery, after leaving the village of Abiquiu and then the highway, snaking slowly down a 13 mile rutted dirt road. The day was brutally hot and after we parked and hiked down the dusty road and around a bend, we looked up to see this humbly majestic monastery seemingly jutting from rockface, just as the bells began to toll. We entered the chapel and took our seats moments before the monks filed in and began chanting. We'd inadvertantly arrived just in time for their midday worship which was gorgeous beyond words. Huge windows above us exposed the rock formations behind the church and lit the sanctuary. It would be hard to find another 15 mins. more lovely than those.

These from the Santuario de Chimayo. We were not permitted to photograph inside the church this time. This is the gate to the courtyard and a sculpture hanging between restrooms.

The Tee House where I occasionally escaped to absorb the input and calm down.

The Hacienda Antigua, my after Glen oasis in Albuquerque. I'd planned a two day solitary stay to rest and regroup after the intensity of the week. After settling in and checking in with my family spread from England to Dallas, I headed to my car to find some dinner and was startled by a handsome man in the parking lot. Fortunately, that man was my husband. Which was the icing on the cake of a very sweet week.

Flipflop joy

2008-07-29T23:01:00.008-06:00

I bought these flipflops 18 years ago, before tenting my way around the Southwest for most of a summer, rightly predicting I'd encounter every manner of showers except a clean ones. I've brought them with me to Santa Fe for the third time now as I attend the Glen Workshop, held on the lovely campus of St. John's College. You got it: dorm showers. But the trip here is in its way like that glorious summer of wanderlust--a sustained dose of wild beauty, although in more ways than open road and dramatic landscapes. In this gathering, I'm saturated daily with the beauty and fire of art and words and music and ideas and community, as well as a landscape that particularly ignites my soul. Had I belief in previous incarnations, I am certain I must have been a desert rat. I am, again, so happy to be here.

The Big Dipper is hanging outside my balcony of my dorm room and down below, the lights of Santa Fe flicker against a backdrop of rolling mountains. Cricket chirps and distant bursts of laughter float up from somewhere on campus. Tomorrow morning, after trying to wrestle sleep from an overstimulated brain and lumpy pillow, I'll return to my drawing workshop with renowned artist, Barry Moser, and trace the human form, miraculous in its form and functionality, and be grateful I was granted an opposable thumb. It would be much less appealing to have to draw with claws. And I don't think my flipflops would fit.

OMG!

2008-07-27T22:41:00.008-06:00

The days leading up to my annual trek to the Glen Workshop in Santa Fe delivered an extra portion of OMG! moments: Monday’s all nighter in the E/R coincided with fearsomely violent storms, heralded by lightning bolts so bright and close it seemed our tiny car ferried the roving bullseye of an electrified cosmic dartboard. Though the flashes ushered us the entire way to the hospital in the wee hours of the night, the flood engendering downpour did not ensue until I’d deposited my husband with bleeding foot and our two daughters at the E/R entrance and gone to park the car. I was held hostage there by an irrational fear of death by barbeque until the knowledge that I had our insurance card in my bag and necessary stitching would likely be withheld until I coughed up proof of coverage finally propelled me, through vast sheets of water and death voltages, wet as unspun laundry, inside, where we spent a chilled and sleepless night. When we arrived home at 4:30 in the morning, after stops for meds and an Egg McMuffin for the hapless victim of the jagged stone left on the deck stairs while trying to rescue our kitten from prowling raccoons, none of us could sleep due to the crashing cacaphony that raged outside till late morning.

Fearing the lawn seats I’d secured weeks ago for the Jonas Brothers rain or shine concert in St. Louis would be rained out, I got online and found some same day seats available under cover, for twice what I’d paid for lawn seating, but who’s going to tell a 10 year old, who’d been dreaming intensely of this event for months, that mom did not care to sit in a downpour for 3 hours (the forecast that morning predicted a 50% chance of more rain at 6 pm) watching a tween band through waterspotted binoculars. I wouldn’t have done that for the Monkees. So we left at 4 pm, making one quick detour to St. Charles in hopes of grabbing some Branston Pickle and Twigletts from the British Store which had closed 30 mins. before we got there, and by foregoing dinner, arrived at the Verizon Theater promptly at 6 when the gates opened. And thus began a night I’ll never forget, not that I could anyway, what with the hearing loss I sustained.

Have you ever been in a car with five or six excited little girls? Have you ever noticed how shrill their little shrieks and shouts become? Multiply that by 10,000 and turn up the amps full blast, then sit back and try to relax for the next three hours. Bliss.
My daughter owes me dearly.

At one point I truly feared for our lives, this before the line-up began and after a mass sustained shriek erupted from the sea of preteens. Apparently, the JBs were signing autographs. We rushed with everyone else (my daughter in full fan mode, not to be deprived) to see and were caught in such a shove and crush of frenzied, mouth foaming girls that I thought we suffocate or our brains would forced out our ears. Fortunately, most of the aggressors were under 100 lbs.; had this been a soccer game in Europe, we’d have surely lost our lives.

You’ve heard of soccer dads? Meet JB moms...fascist women patrolling the crowds issuing threats of ticket confiscation to small un-armbanded girls should they dare to crash the “meet and greet.” How were we to know about armbands? Those moms were worse than the yellow shirted security detail who stood idly by the barricade fence watching the bone crushing, lung collapsing, sweat running spectacle. How were we to exit the horde when we could not move our feet? Those moms somehow yanked us out. I guess I should excuse their disdain and be grateful.

We arrived home in the wee hours, again, ears ringing and heads throbbing, one happy 10 yr. old’s dream come true.
That behind us, the rest of the week was its own crush of getting work finished, packing, shopping, etc. Anything but the chance to catch up on sleep. Running back to the St. Louis airport and dispersing family members to England, Louisana and New Mexico. Then reading the local paper at my parents’ home in Texas on Friday that the Jonas Brothers have reportedly bought a home in the neighborhood adjoining the one where my parents’ live. OMG!

Looks like it's going to be a good day

2008-07-18T11:07:00.002-06:00

"British are asked to save their leftovers"

2008-07-16T21:41:00.005-06:00

Full English, originally uploaded by staple diet.

"Evoking an era of World War II austerity, British families are being urged to cut food waste and use leftovers in a nationwide effort to fight sharply rising global food prices," reports the St Louis Dispatch.

Did they really have to ask?

Um, yes.

Eleven years ago I married a Brit and seeing as I was marrying someone from the Motherland, I took for granted we'd have no significant cultural clashes to overcome. Calling an elevator a "lift," the TV a "telly," saying TO-MAH-TOES instead of TO-MAY-TOS and deeming something stupid "schtoopid when we checked our "shedule" struck me as charming. Going to "Hospital" instead of the hospital. Putting on your "swimming costume" instead of your bathing suit, etc. etc. Finding the same exact breakfast placed before you every day wherever you are in England. Realizing my husband was not necessarily rude, he was English. Whew.

I've since come to love Branston pickle, Jaffa cakes, Yorkshire pudding and Twigletts but still don't get the Marmite, Spaghettios or baked beans topped with fried eggs on toast thing. When he first arrived on our shores, my husband blissfully consumed his first serving of ribs at a summer picnic, chasing it down with an entire bucket of coleslaw, though he still can barely tolerate Mexican food (and what could be more American than that!)

However, for the last twelve years, I have endured duress, persecution, derision and harassment at the end of every meal we've eaten out at a restaurant. The source of contention? Doggie bags. I bring home the two or three extra meals left on my plate.
Brits don't DO doggie bags and look askance at those who do. They throw away the heaps of food left on their plates at American restaurants without a single twinge for the children starving in the third world country of your conscience.

Once, when Wayne and I had traveled to England and were staying with his aunt who had prepared us a full on English roast dinner (all that time! all that effort! all those pounds of the monetary sort!) my eyes bugged out when, after clearing the dishes, I watched the roast, the peas, the cooked carrots, all the doings, slide in gravy trails down plates tipped toward the bin. When Wayne's uncle arrived home from his hospital shift a couple of hours later he had to make himself a lousy sandwich while the lovely roast cooled amidst the potato peels. I was beyond speechless, I was sputtering. This did not compute. My English in-laws were equally apalled by my riffraff insistence on carting home every last crust of bread.

But now the British government itself is urging its citizens to use leftovers! You can eat the roast beef for lunch tomorrow. Think of the time you'll save, the effort, the Euros! The next thing you know we'll see parliament throw off those powered wigs and lug stacks of smelly stryofoam boxes home from the chip shop.

"Nothing Occurs Here That Is Worthy of Remark"

2008-07-13T19:15:00.005-06:00

In less than two weeks I'll be making my annual trek to The Glen Workshop in Santa Fe where, instead of taking my usual writing workshop, I'll be taking a drawing workshop with Barry Moser, hoping for some creative cross pollination. I've met some great folks in workshops over the last two summers, including poet Ned Balbo, whose work you can read online in the current issue of Unsplendid, including the poem "Nothing Occurs Here That Is Worthy of Remark" which is paired with the painting shown above. Ned shared work from this series of ekphrastics (poems that respond to works of art) last summer and I am pleased to see the fine job the journal did in featuring his Marco Polo series of poems generated from the enigmatic art of Nora Sturges. (I also highly recommend Ned's book Lives of the Sleepers, winner of the Ernest Sandeen Prize in Poetry.)

Will work for music

2008-07-07T13:48:00.006-06:00

I have to thank Jenni for this tip (and some good music.) NoiseTrade will let you sample the music on any album they feature and then download the album for free if you'll do them the favor of forwarding the recommendation to three friends. Hopefully, you'll forward the music you think the three people you choose will enjoy so in the end it's a win win win situation. I'm enjoying Katie Herzig at the moment. Pass it on!

ArtRageous Fridays III

2008-07-07T13:43:00.002-06:00

This is the third of the series of posters I designed for Columbia's quarterly artcrawl. The first poster appears here. The second poster appears here.One more in October will complete the set.

Wouldn't it be nice?

2008-06-26T22:24:00.001-06:00

Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

Home is not always where you come from.

2008-06-09T14:06:00.006-06:00

Home is where you arrive.
....
And maybe you have to surrender something to find your way home; there is a world of other places you might be, including the place where you were born. You may need to lose a home to find one. Maybe it doesn't have to be a whole country you lose, but if it is, imagine how much deeper into you your sense of home, your newfound place, will sink. And part of what home feels like will always be the ache--that never goes--of exile from wherever it is that you are not and cannot now be again.
Home is a choice. But it's not you who makes it. You'll know you're home because it'll feel like you're the one who's been chosen.

~ an excerpt from "A Faster Kind of Sandstone" by Mark Tredinnick in Isotope

This past week marks the start of our third year in Missouri. Being here still feels new and strange, lacking the unconscious comfort of deep familiarity, the settling back with your feet up on the coffee table. The move here after 17 years in Texas served to make Texas feel like home though it never did as long as I lived there. So I've become convinced that as a product of a truly mobile society, the concept of home has become a fluid, elusive concept, perhaps determined only in hindsight, in the wake of pondering what one has left behind. And what one has taken with.

Folding 1000 Cranes

2008-05-29T17:08:00.002-06:00

The Vox features an article about my friend Sonya Nicholson. She's an origami artist here in Columbia but her origami cranes fly everywhere. Click on the video link to hear Sonya explain the lovely idea behind folding 1000 cranes.

Unaccustomed Earth

2008-05-21T21:01:00.003-06:00

I've just finished reading Jhumpa Lahiri's Unaccustomed Earth and I'm majorly bummed. It's been 8 long years since the day I reluctantly turned the final page of Interpreter of Maladies, Lahiri's first book, utterly smitten with a collection of stories from someone I'd never heard of. I was convinced I'd discovered a great new voice from an unknown writer, having picked the volume up at random from a book table at Oxford University's bookstore while traveling in England. Turns out I was in a cast of thousands--that book, her first (!), won the Pulitzer Prize in 2000. Her next effort, a novel called The Namesake, was recently made into a film. The Namesake was okay but had that been all I'd known of Lahiri's writing I'm not sure I would have become an avid fan. With Unaccustomed Earth, however, Lahiri has returned to the short story form and she does not disappoint. It's even better than Interpreter of Maladies--and I can only groan to think how long it might be till I can get my hands on another volume of her stories.

Lahiri's stories deal with contemporary Indian-American families' challenges with assimilation and its resistance, which may sound less than compelling to those who deem this subject matter irrelevant to their own experience, except that Lahiri is such a deft and incisive navigator of cultural and familial nuance, her characters so vividly drawn, her psychological insights so cutting, you are swept away into a world so fully fleshed you feel you've become one of the characters walking around in her pages. Now that I've finished the book I feel like I've been sent home, the party over, and I want to knock on the door and ask if I can stay just a little bit longer, until the other guests have said goodnight.

At least someone is feeling creative

2008-05-16T22:06:00.003-06:00

My brother forwarded me this:

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

and check out this:

I think I'll become an accountant.

Things that go bust in my head

2008-05-13T22:19:00.006-06:00

I have a massive technology headache. From my laptop to my dryer, I've been consigned to the third rung of technology hell. That's the rung where you race in infinite circles and get nowhere, one rung above emptying the ocean with a bucket. A leaky bucket. The loaner dryer (the only stackable set we can order here that fits our space is not in the country) that was finally delivered today does not work. Nor does the clothesline that broke from the outside wall last night. But who needs a clothesline when it rains EVERY day? If there was a smidgeon of room left in my head beyond completing urgent tasks which, now that I think of it, rival that ocean emptying manuever, something might go bump in there. As it is, a nickel couldn't drop.

Whew!

2008-04-30T19:37:00.010-06:00

We moved from a city of 5 million to a town of 200, actually to outside of a town of 200, hoping to slow it down a bit. How is it then that I still find myself running around at 90 mph, trying desperately to capture and savor the present moments and hours ever retreating in my wake? Oh, but spring has come, or is coming. And I squeezed in a lovely visit from my parents over the weekend. These are some of the moments that went whirling by...

I bought some flats of flowers and herbs, forgetting it's not safe to plant before Mother's Day. Last year, I lost a whole heartbreaking round of beautiful blooms I'd planted and resolved to wait this year. Oops.

A trip to the St. Louis airport is a great excuse to stop in St. Charles for lunch and a trip to the luscious Rock, Paper, Scissors shop. Last December, Wayne wrapped my anniversary gifts in handmade paper from this shop and I've been dying to go there ever since. I can report it's the best paper shop I've seen and now I'm fantasizing about opening a paper shop of my own. How about a books/paper/coffee shop? I'd call it entry to heaven without requiring last rites.

When I heard that Jeremy Casella was going to perform in Columbia I knew the name rang a bell--I'd read about Jeremy on Jenni Simmons blog. We really enjoyed hearing/meeting him and now his songs have edged out Justin Timberlake on my ipod. Yes, I confess I bought a JT song I'd gotten hooked on in Jazzercise before I knew who sang it, proving I can still surprise my kids (and myself.)

On Sunday, we drove to Hannibal, Missouri, home of Mark Twain, in case you didn't know. Here is one of the only items, signs or otherwise, that wasn't named after Mark Twain, Samuel Clements, Tom, Becky, Huck or one of the other myriad places or peoples that populate his stories. I tried reading the first chapter of Tom Sawyer to the girls last night. I might as well have been speaking Scottish.

We had lunch at the Mark Twain Diner (I can safely recommend the strawberry shortcake, but thats about it) just a stone's throw from Tom Sawyer's House (and white picket fence) and around the corner from the Mark Twain Museum which housed a number of original Norman Rockwell illustrations of Tom Sawyer. Even if you are not a fan of Norman Rockwell's images, these paintings, exhibited beside their black and white studies, were stunning.

Back home Monday night after the return trip to STL, the dryer broke and my plants, still awaiting new homes, had frostbite. But the azaleas are in full bloom, the clothes on the line are infused with the scents of spring and tonight I attempted to resusitate any plants still semi conscious. We might have rescued the geraniums, rosemary and mint, but I think the tomatoes are goners.

Mug shot of the day

2008-04-24T21:50:00.002-06:00

This old soul was spied crossing our lane today. It was clear who had been in the neighborhood longer and thus who had the right-of-way.

ArtRageous Fridays II

2008-04-20T21:33:00.004-06:00

This is the second of the series of posters I designed for Columbia's quarterly artcrawl. The first poster appears here.

horses

2008-04-11T18:24:00.002-06:00

horse dreams, originally uploaded by wizmo.

A few years ago I stumbled upon a poem that stopped me in my tracks. I found it online in the Missouri Review archive, though I cannot now remember how I ended up there. Tomorrow Jude Nutter will read here as the poetry winner of the MR's Jeffrey E. Smith Editors' Prize. And here is the poem that made me a fan:

Horses

Still, the horses are beautiful and their grace keeps me occupied.
—Linda Hogan

We pass them being wheedled
and cajoled around small corrals, a confetti
of spit across each wide breast and the sweat
between their legs worried up into foam.
Their hooves flash in the dirt like polished bells.
We pass them as they sleep, standing up,
among the dandelions and tasseled grasses
gone to seed. They enter our lives
like fragments of Eden: the place that's always been
our most difficult, elaborate dream; and once seen—
even from a freeway when you're doing sixty,
aware of your own peril—it's an effort of will
to take your eyes from a horse
in a field. Grace is like that. No other animal

occupies its skin so precisely, or walks forward
so carefully, as if pushing through great hauls
of dark water, chest deep in a stiff current.
I don't believe we are meant to think about death,

even on those evenings
when a thin mist rides on the fields and their hooves
waver beneath them like votive flames. A horse

becomes its own myth and religion: out from the dark
machinery of its body something better,
and more beautiful, is always about to begin;
and if you ever need proof that it's good
to have a physical body, touching
a horse in this life is the closest you will get to it.
To catch grace off guard: a lone horse
dozing in a field with the long reach of its neck
presented to the world, its thick
bottom lip fallen away from the fence of its teeth
and there, beguiling as god's empty pocket,
pale skin of the inner mouth. Before you die look
into the eyes of a horse at least once
and discover how each is an immense, empty room
lit by a single candle. The emptiness of waiting.
Because if the gods ever come down to walk among us,
this is where they'll live. And so when a horse,
seeing nothing about us it can recognize, lowers
its soft, deep mouth to the grass, and when that grass,
appearing wet in the sunlight, rises to greet it,
as if the lips of the dead were puckered skyward
for its kiss, it should be no surprise. How can we not
love an animal that spends so much of its life
with its mouth so close to the dirt. That they take,
with such tenderness, the mints
and the carrots we offer—as if the world

were ours to give—is the miracle; that they let us
slip on the sky-blue halter and lead them
through the cool of the evening.

When it rains

2008-04-03T20:40:00.002-06:00

This morning brought yet another wet, cold, not-spring-yet day in Columbia. After my jazzercise class I met Wayne at the coffee shop where he jumped in the car out of the rain and presented me with an exquisite white rose. What a way to perk up a day. Later I found a small gift wrapped on my desk...a tin of bird stamps by Cavelli. I think he's gotten me every bird item they make (and that is not a few) but this item had just come out, at least where we are. So tonight I couldn't resist trying out a few stamps and ended up making a new batch of cards.

Eureka!

2008-03-31T18:43:00.008-06:00

As in Springs. As in spring break, half of which we spent in Arkansas. My 9 year old wondered why we don't pronounce the "s" at the end. Hence she called it "Arkansauce" all weekend.
We peeled off layer after layer as we got closer to the sound of my complaint that although I'd checked in with weather.com that very morning I still managed to pack all the wrong things. The car thermometer read 82 degrees. However, the next day the temps had dropped to the 30s - 40's and the day was cold and wet. Again I complained I packed all the wrong things as we donned layer after layer of clothing in efforts to get warm. Not to worry: we were staying in a cozy little cottage made all the cozier by the inclement weather. We had fresh coffee, thick comforters, a stack of DVDs we replenished daily and, best of all, no agenda.

Eureka Springs in its heyday was home to something like 30,000 people and is now down to just above 2000. Nestled between green hills, the charming and historic little town is dotted with gingerbread houses, B&Bs, shops and quite an entertaining cast of characters.

A few miles down the road is a 450 acre refuge for rescued exotic animals--it's amazing how many people have procured baby tigers, lions, cougars and bears and attempted to raise them in basements, bedrooms and backyards before becoming confounded by how big and uncontrollable these animals inevitably grew. Many of these majestic animals became permanently handicapped due to owners who had no idea how to take care of them before they eventually offloaded them at the refuge.

One afternoon while carting some heavy ceramics we'd purchased up the very long hill to our cottage we were offered a ride by a car we'd spotted earlier with delight. Covered with fishing paraphernalia, it reminded us of Houston's art car parade which we loved to attend each spring. Turns out that not only did the woman driving the car know of the Art Car Parade, she'd participated in it for the last two years. It's an artsy little place.

And, to top it off, the largest sculpture in North America, Christ of the Ozarks.

Night on Cherry

2008-03-26T22:26:00.004-06:00

Be ahead of all parting, as though it already were
behind you, like the winter that has just gone by.
For among these winters there is one so endlessly winter
that only by wintering through it all will your heart survive.

Rainer Maria Rilke from "The Sonnets of Orpheus XIII"

Happy Easter!

2008-03-23T20:37:00.003-06:00

I've just finished a so-so novel called "Best Friends," having been drawn to the book by its title which is significantly better than the book turned out to be. The top cover blurb said, "A valentine to the staying power of women's friendships." That's all it took for me to part with my fourteen bucks. And spend 483 pages waiting for my Valentine. Thank you Cleveland Plain Dealer.

Anyhoo, Clare, the main character, an AIDS doctor, argues a couple of times in the book against Sister Mary Klein's belief that things always turn out okay, that things work for the greater good. Claire doesn't "have that kind of faith," believing herself a "realist" and that tragedy is worthless. I wouldn't argue that things always work out okay OR that tragedy is worthless. Things don't always work out okay. People get sick, people die. Terrible, ugly, wicked things happen. The story (as far as we can see) does not always have a happy, or even bearable, ending.
BUT.
But Easter. The redemption story, God reconciling the world to himself. It doesn't matter if you believe it, it's truth is neither propelled nor hindered by our acceptance, denial or even awareness of it. Without Easter, tragedy IS worthless. Pain and suffering, evil and death are not illusions, they are material realities, but realities that are subject to redemption. And therein lies hope. Easter is how God threw his arms around the world and promised, "It is going to be alright."

Girls noticing boys

2008-03-17T18:30:00.006-06:00

"Mommy, why does it seem like boys are more special in this world than girls are?"
As we drove to her after school guitar lesson, my eight year old daughter (my mud princess) who is generously endowed with astute observations expressed frustration with this one.
"What makes you say that?" I tentatively inquired.
"Why do they talk about the 'first woman doctor'? Why did it take so long for a woman to be a doctor? Why is that a big deal? Why are there men's faces on all the money, except for maybe the queen or something? Why does everything seem to be about boys?"
Those simple questions were a reality check for me as I began to try to explain the "whys." She sees both a woman and an African-American male running for president and has no idea that that is the least bit extraordinary. I had to explain to her why it is. She has no idea how many "firsts" preceded this first or that she'll probably be paid significantly less for doing the same work as a boy. But that she should thank her lucky stars because she's still light-years ahead, rights-wise, of every woman who preceded her generation and most of the rest of the women around the world at this moment. Which is good news. Which is bad news. Which is hard to explain to my daughter.

The Tide of March

2008-03-17T07:01:00.003-06:00

Melancholy Part 2

2008-03-12T19:08:00.007-06:00

Not to obsess or anything, but these unyieldingly leaden, cold, introverted weeks on end have taken their toll. I'm not the only one clawing at the walls and jonesing for spring. A lot of people I know are hanging on by their fingernails.
Today we had temps of over 70 with clear skies and bright sun. I felt like superwoman. On the way back from a meeting today, knowing tomorrow promises rain and falling temps, I hijacked my sweetie and took the very long road home. We had the windows down and music up, winding around the backroads till we ran across Ray's BBQ where we stopped for a late lunch. Need I say "bliss?" However, winter is not finished with us yet so here is another take (see Jan. 22 for "In Praise of Melancholy") on melancholy to cheer us all up as we endure its last hurrah: The Miracle of Melancholia

Post Aftershock

2008-03-09T13:39:00.006-06:00

Over eggs and toast at Ernie's diner today, Hayley asked if Libbles was going to have any more kittens. "No, we think she's done." Three kittens, one already spoken for. Famous last words. We got home and discovered kitten #4, 39 hours after her big brother introduced himself. Are we finished NOW?

New Mama

2008-03-08T16:40:00.002-07:00

Last night we had a surprise. Only hours after learning our cat's sister who lives down the street had been confirmed pregnant by the vet (as opposed to having a bad case of worms) and therefore surmised our thick around the middle feline probably was too, she dropped two kittens. I now understand the "ow" of "meow" as that was our signal another kitty was about to appear. Libbles had two within an hour. She delivered the placenta and cleaned them up as we got used to the idea our cat ownership had just tripled. Then, today at noon, 12 hrs. after the first kitten emerged, another series of loud, sharp meOWS and another one popped out. Hayley named it "Aftershock."
Anyone want a kitten?

State of Mind

2008-03-03T18:47:00.004-07:00

I don't know if this explains it or if I've merely lost mine. But I hope to post again before spring. Of '08.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

2008-02-22T22:01:00.004-07:00

I meant to post earlier about this film which I'd greatly anticipated for months. Wayne took me for a pre-Valentines Day night out which proved fortuitous since I was so sick on the actual holiday I didn't even know it was Valentines Day. The chocolate covered strawberries I'd saved for the day went to sludge in the fridge and the gifts I'd bought the week prior were weakly handed to my valentine in plastic shopping bags. He hates plastic shopping bags.
Suffice it to say that after almost a full week on the rack (was that really a mattress?), a second week that kept the girls home from school with two snow days and one holiday, and nasty weather that has trapped us indoors I've gotten a little stir crazy. In comparison to Jean-Dominique Bauby's "locked-in syndrome," my life is a rose garden, if currently a frozen one. And as much as I feel I could go mad with cabin fever, I can't imagine being locked inside my own body with only my left eye still functioning. But that's not true: I did imagine it, so convincing was Julian Schnabel's portrayal of Bauby's plight. You can't leave after seeing the movie without feeling tremendous gratitude for your life, your limbs, the physical freedom you take for granted. The ability to kiss your kids' cheeks, to feel your love's hand in your hair.
The film, based on the memoir Bauby tapped out with his one working eyelid in gorgeous prose is visually and philosophically stunning. There seems to be no level of human diminishment from which some measure of beauty and redemption cannot be wrung. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is a beautiful film--go see it, especially if you too dwell in a land of long winter and feel the walls are closing in. You can sometimes see the heavens reflected in the pupil of an eye. But only in the eye that's open.

Down with Flu

2008-02-15T08:44:00.001-07:00

Four days captive at the Bone Crusher Inn. Will return once I make an escape.

Nature vs. Nurture (or Moses and Your DNA)

2008-02-06T18:24:00.000-07:00

And he hewed two tables of stone like unto the first; and Moses rose up early in the morning, and went up unto mount Sinai, as the LORD had commanded him, and took in his hand the two tables of stone. And the LORD descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD. And the LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed, The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation. (Exodus 34: 4-7)

If it wasn't bad enough to have bestowed on you the 10 commandments chiseled in stone (the origin of the phrase "you do the math") it must have been daunting to find out that failure to perfectly comply would impact not only your own sorry ass, but also your children's and your children's children and your children's children's children (the origin of multiplication tables.) Having been expelled from the garden before we passed GO and in the knowledge of subsequent generations' ingenious variations on a theme (death,) this information could conceivably have struck one, in the moment, as redundant.

A few millenium later we were rescued by the notion of tabula rasa, that we arrive as blank slates and have perfect freedom to chisel whatever we want to upon them. We author our own souls. This idea endured until the rise of the nature (innate qualities/DNA) vs. nurture (environment) debate where it was finally determined that these two influences work together to form us and that both contribute to the state of our health, abilities, dispositions and talents. While our genes ("genes as fate") determine such things as eye color, personality and whether or not we'll ever excel at the tango, we know our DNA can be altered by such things as exposure to radiation and alterations in the environment of the womb.

What we are now finding, as Ethan Watters writes in "DNA Is Not Destiny":

"a growing body of evidence suggesting that the epigenic [chemical switches and markers that help switch on or off the expression of particular genes] changes wrought by one's diet, behavior, or surroundings can work their way into the germ line and echo far into the future. Put simply, and as bizarre as it may sound, what you eat or smoke today could affect the health an behavior of your great-grandchildren."

He then quotes Randy Jirtle of Duke University (whose experiments in 2000 with agouti mice lead to this discovery,) "Epigenics is proving we have some responsibility for the integrity of our genome. Before, genes predetermined outcomes. Now everything we do...can effect our gene expression and that of future generations. Epigenics introduces the concept of free will into our idea of genetics."

It appears now that although our slates do not come blank, we do, indeed, write on them. And what we write will not only make a difference in our own lives, but for generations to come. We will bless our offspring or curse them. Perhaps if we could find the exact spot on Mt. Sinai where Moses stood we might find someone had traced a double helix in the sand.

Reprieve

2008-02-02T11:08:00.000-07:00

Brain Freeze

2008-02-01T08:37:00.000-07:00

Sometimes the idea of putting something new on paper seems as impossible as suddenly speaking fluent Mandarin. How do I write? I look at something I've written in the past and wonder where did that come from? Nothing inspires. Perhaps it's because I'm in the thick of hibernation season and my thoughts, rather than being coaxed out by the luxury of weather enforced seclusion, are on strike for a warm ray of sun. That, and the raging sore throat that has had me working in my pjs for the last two days, my throat feeling like it's been raked by the claws of a mad cat. It seems the whole world has contracted to the point it could fit on the head of a pin. I'm even bored of reading (that is a VERY bad sign) and it's only the first day of February. Note to self: next trip in for provisions, buy travel mags!

For those headed to AWP

2008-01-26T19:58:00.000-07:00

Stop by the Packingtown Review table at the AWP Bookfair in NYC (January 30 – February 2). They are assigned table # 513 in “Americas Hall II” at the Hilton, which you can access from the third floor. The inaugural issue is due out in November and since they do not yet have a journal to distribute they are going to display my poem, "Memory of Water" at their table as well as hand out copies of it. So if you are going to AWP, please go by and pick up a copy (and tell the editors, Tasha Fouts & Snezana Zabic, hello for me!)

In Praise of Melancholy

2008-01-22T18:44:00.000-07:00

If you've been subjected to the same interminable run of dreary, lead sky days as we have here in Missouri, read this and relish your seasonally enhanced gloom. Who says we have to be happy?

Eric G. Wilson writes,"American happiness is a temptation, one to which I've succumbed on several occasions. More than once I've grown weary of the pervasive gloom of my soul. Like millions of other Americans, I have tried to flee the sadness, attempted to escape, by any means possible, the weight, the fatigue, the fret. Let's be serious: Life, in any form, is terribly and irredeemably hard. Why shouldn't we all scurry from the heartache in the most superficial ways possible, through BlackBerrys and Lexapro and liposuction? Why shouldn't we bask in the gaudy glow of the pervasive American dream? What's lost in this collective stupor? What's wrong, finally, with wanting nothing but bliss?

At the behest of well-meaning friends, I have purchased books on how to be happy. I have tried to turn my chronic scowl into a bright smile. I have attempted to become more active, to get out of my dark house and away from my somber books and participate in the world of meaningful action. I have taken up jogging, the Latin language, and the chair of a university English department. I have fostered the drive to succeed in my career. I have bought an insurance policy, a PalmPilot, and a cellphone. I have taken an interest in Thanksgiving and Christmas, in keeping my hair trimmed short, and in meticulously ironing my clothes. I have viewed Doris Day and Frank Capra movies. I have feigned interest in the health of others. I have dropped into the habit of saying "great" and "wonderful" as much as possible. I have pretended to take seriously certain good causes designed to make the world a better place. I have contemplated getting a dog. I have started eating salads. I have tried to discipline myself in nodding knowingly. I have tried to be mindful of others but ended up pissed as hell. I have written a book on the hard-earned optimism of Ralph Waldo Emerson. I have undertaken yoga. I have stopped yoga and gone into tai chi. I have thought of going to psychiatrists and getting some drugs. I have quit all of this and then started again and then once more quit. Now I plan to stay quit. The road to hell is paved with happy plans.

My basic instinct is toward melancholia — a state I must nourish. In fostering my essential nature, I'm trying to live according to what I see as my deep calling. Granted, it's difficult at times to hold hard to this vocation, this labor in the fields of sadness. But I realize somewhere in the core of my bones that I was born to the blues."

Read an except from his book Against Happiness: In Praise of Melancholy, being published this month by Farrar, Straus and Giroux here.

Artrageous Fridays

2008-01-19T11:48:00.000-07:00

This is the poster I designed for Columbia's quarterly art crawl. Our cool little town boasts an event that:
"blends a classic gallery crawl with a quirky downtown festival" wherein "local galleries and downtown businesses merge to highlight artists’ talents and the city’s quirky, growing visual arts center. It's more than just a crawl, it's an experience."
If you happen to be in the Columbia area, join us next week for some serious fun!

the lion weeps tonight

2008-01-15T14:36:00.001-07:00

Some bird had quite an aim.

Do Something Beautiful

2008-01-09T09:57:00.001-07:00

This Sentence

(does not seem to contain a main clause)

As though it interrupted the rain, this arabesque
kick of silver. Spun sand-veil, in the storm.
Its broken bodies
disjointed.
Light. As though the small across the dimstopped
the road. Or as if shyness surrendered its torture, in order
to laugh. As though a war heard its name, and listened
to prayer. As
though last light would wait for my own entrance,
skirt hem dirty but so utterly available.

If light, used, as an old idea, fractured shard plunged in
as a murder undeserved and terrible. And told as often as
the death of Christ, this is how it is, this is how it was.

If light crashed and Iwalked in it, insistent,
if I entered and if it hurt.
And if the dark were no heroine with a tragic flaw,
not strange.
As though a simple stop. Mere veil, to save it. Light,
I mean, broken, as a spine. Light, at the borders of
our sentence, living on the train of the gown
as we do, available for lifting.
Here is what it has led to.

I don't know where I first stumbled upon a poem by Margo Berdeshevsky but once I did I was smitten. I googled her name and found no books but discovered she was a Chelsea award winner so I ordered that volume which featured 5 more of her poems. They were so stunning I located an email address and wrote to let her know what her poems had meant to me and to ask where I could find more. This was several years ago. We've been in touch ever since and I have eagerly awaited the arrival of her first book of poems "But a Passage in Wilderness" which finally came out from Sheep Meadow Press and arrived last week. The cover features one of her photo montages as she is not only a poet but a photographer (as well as an accomplished actress.)

Her broken sentences and syntax encase beauty, grief and rage at the spoiled world, the violence and brutality woven into lavish and wondrous creation. She bemoans our impotence, physically and spiritually, in thwarting the bewildering havoc and destruction imposed on innocents by man as well as nature. And yet in her furious complaint is a pleading, for light, hope, praise, reconciliation, love and the implication we can achieve such. From "Who Were Those Pretty:"

Five billion nights of fixing. The repaired sky hangs loose
as old men's flesh. How being a human invokes ritual, grief

for spiritual breakage, do I mean breakthrough? Nothing will help you
brace for the broken mind, the fall of the fair jester, the too sad man
in a Paris chair, wailing. Nothing will help you sew solace into the skin.

Our hope is torn from the scrape of God's womb.
Bless the broken, scars, all over this sky.

Berdeshevsky's frustration lies in the interstices between what is and what should be. Although the world simmers with beauty and offers solace, it whispers loudly of another world, a kinder rendition of the one we know. Reading these poems is like wading through the wreckage of a storm after its receded, seeing what you loved floating in ruin, each remnant a reminder of a of past love, a meal, a child, a face, a place, and as you fill your arms with as many salvaged pieces as you can carry away to start anew, you feel the sun's warmth on your face and look up, once again, into that now familiar and washed blue sky and in spite of yourself can't keep your heart handing over the keys.

Lastly, from one of my favorites:

But a Passage in Wilderness

i

But a woman prepares to cross the perfumed
river, little crying.

She has left candles placed like birds with folded wings.
When they are lit, she will watch their heartbeats burn.

Sings,
night-sphinx of rivers, am I eye to eye with your light,
or closer to your claw, tell me this.

Sings the thousand prayers like ponies vying with winners, how
they know the course, but cannot stretch their white-downed spines
to gallop, can't span the fathoms with kicked light.

Broken-eyed roses, colts, don't fall!
Dark matter of the daily heart, do something beautiful. Do this.