It's Happening Again

The stack on my nightstand is in a vertiginous climb. I do actually wonder if it could topple over and hit me in the head in the middle of the night. Every time this happens I think to myself I should really find a better way to store the books I'm reading; but in keeping with my strategy for Organizing On a Budget--which is: Don't Do It-- I never do find a better way. I just let the pile grow, and when it gets too tall I move it to the floor next to my bed. Sorry, no photo of that. But please do note the lovely pumpkin and tissue paper decoration put on my bedpost by AJ -- "So your bed can be Fancy, Mom!" Just what I wanted...... a Fancy bed..... complete with jack-o-lanterns and tissue paper.....but, I digress.

My purpose here today is to fill you in on what I've been reading lately. So here goes:

1. The Shtetl, Joachim Neugroschel, ed. This is a book of Jewish legends, folktales, and other stories that came out of Jewish shtetl life and traditions of Eastern Europe. The shtetl way of life is all but gone because of the Holocaust, but the literature remains. Many are tales from the Tsene Rene, or women's bible, an adaptation of the Pentateuch written in Yiddish. There are tales of the prophet Elijah, scriptural interpretations of the Creation, and short stories centered on various elements of Jewish life. The stories are interesting, wise, and often funny. I'm enjoying them so far.

2. The Odyssey by Homer. This is the classic tale of Odysseus' epic return journey from the Trojan wars to his homeland of Ithaca. I had the good fortune of taking an entire class devoted to The Odyssey as a sophomore in college. Sadly, I remember almost nothing of what I learned in that class (I could kick myself now), but I still enjoying reading and re-reading this tale. Full disclosure: I harbor a strong suspicion that Odysseus could've made it home a lot more quickly if he'd made it a priority. But then again, I'm always trying to convince Husband to come home from the office in time for dinner, too.

3. Open Ground: Selected Poems 1966-1996 by Seamus Heaney. Seamus Heaney is one of those rock-star poets whose name is familiar to at least a few people outside the poetry world. A native of Ireland, he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1995. There's a very strong connection to the Northern Irish landscape in his work, and the political struggles (referred to in Ireland as "The Troubles") and Irish history are a strong themes for him. But he also writes beautifully, hauntingly, of love; here's one of my favorites:

Wedding Day

I am afraid.
Sound has stopped in the day
And the images reel over
And over. Why all those tears,

The wild grief on his face
Outside the taxi? The sap
Of mourning rises
In our waving guests.

You sing behind the tall cake
Like a deserted bride
Who persists, demented
And goes through the ritual.

When I went to the Gents
There was a skewered heart
And a legend of love. Let me
Sleep on your breast to the airport.


4. The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver. This is the story of a Mexican-American boy who begins to write his life story after a visit to an underwater cave shows him the wonders of hidden things. His story is an epic one, like our friend Odysseus', and he survives a difficult childhood, then becomes involved in the lives of famous artists and revolutionaries. The jacket text says: "Through darkening years, political winds continue to toss him between north and south in a plot that turns many times on the unspeakable breach --the lacuna-- between truth and public presumption." A lacuna, by the way, is "a gap or missing portion" (OED). I started The Lacuna a couple weeks ago when my friend, The Poet A.O.D., offered to lend it to me (the waiting list at the library was hundreds long), and I'm enjoying it. But not so much that I couldn't put it down to read a couple of other books I'd been waiting for, also at the library. I am looking forward to getting back to it, because I trust Barbara Kingsolver to tell a really good story. Her book The Poisonwood Bible is one of my all-time favorites.

5. Two Journals - one meant to record family happenings, which is mostly empty; and one given to me by AJ for Christmas, which is completely empty. For AJ, everything is imbued with meaning. This journal he gave me has to be really special in order to live up to his expectations for it. I feel all this pressure to do something really special with it. So far, no great ideas, although I am considering keeping a reading journal in it, with a list of titles, passages I particularly liked, and maybe a short reflection on each book.

6. Willow Room, Green Door: Selected Poems by Deborah Keenan. Deborah Keenan is a local poet here in the South of the River metro area. She has been writing and teaching around here for many years, and I am taking a class from her starting in March. "This class is for poets who wish to work seriously together at their craft," says the course description. Sounds kinda.... well, serious. So, I thought it would be wise to read some of her work before taking a class from her. Truth: I haven't started it yet, but it's there waiting for me. It will be read by the Ides of March.

7. Moment by Moment by Jerry Braza. A book sent to me by my good friend Susan, which discusses the concept of mindfulness and strategies for living mindfully (e.g., breathing techniques). I'm glad to have this book. Living mindfully -- that is, living in the moment you are in, now -- doesn't come easily to me, and here's why: I'm constantly thinking about what I have to pull out of the freezer for tomorrow's dinner. Or about the check I have to send to school for the after-school clubs this month. Or how I can't forget to text my favorite high-schooler to come and clear the driveway. Or how I also can't forget to wash AJ's green and gold shirt so he can wear it to school of Friday for the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics. You know, the little details of life. They get in the way of my Mindfulness. Which, of course, is exactly the point of this book: learning to live mindfully amidst the many demands of real life. Gonna keep this one nearby for a while.

8. Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl. I find it hard to believe that I have never read this book, at least not that I can remember (And yes, I have had the experience of reading an entire book and then realizing in the last chapter that I'd already read that book. There was a time in my life when I would not have been able to conceive of forgetting that I had read a book. That time is past.). Most of you probably know that this book is an excerpted diary of a young Dutch and Jewish girl who, with her family and some others, hid from the Nazis in an annex of the building where her father ran their family business. They were eventually discovered, and none survived but Otto Frank (the father), who eventually published his daughter's diary. The Dutch title of the book is Het Achterhuis, meaning "the house behind." An interesting metaphor for the life they all lived in a house hidden behind a bookcase. At any rate, I checked this out of the library in order to read it before the PBS screening of The Diary of Anne Frank in April.

9. Persuasion by Jane Austen. Speaking of PBS, I am also reading Persuasion in advance of the Masterpiece version of this Jane Austen story, which airs on February 14 (gonna have to hurry and finish this one). So far, I'm through the part where Louisa falls and injures herself in Lyme, and Capt. Wentworth and Anne rush back to Uppercross to deliver the news to Louisa's parents. Oh, the suspense! What will bring Capt. Wentworth and Anne together again after all these years? "You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope." Thus writes Capt. Wentworth to Anne in Chapter 20. I confess, I'm a sucker for romance.

10. My little blue book for catching snatches of poems that drift into my consciousness in the middle of the night. The latest entry: "holoalphabetic sents - like the quick brown fox." My cryptic scrawl for exploring the idea of a poem made up of pangrams or holoalphabetic sentences, which are phrases or sentences that employ all the letters in the English alphabet. Not sure I could ever really come up with a poem of pangrams, but hey, those middle of the night ideas can be kind of crazy.

11. Selected Poems by Denise Levertov. I confess, I have a hard time buying just one book at a time, especially when Amazon keeps going on and on about FREE Super Saver Shipping! So, when I bought the Deborah Keenan book, I also bought Denise Levertov because of these beautiful Denise Levertov words my friend, Ms. W-K, sent to me last week:

"Let me walk through the fields of paper
touching with my wand
dry stems and stunted
butterflies...."

I have also recently read Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese, and Too Much Happiness, a collection of short stories by Alice Munro. They were both great reads. Happy reading, everyone, and let me know what's on your nightstand (and what's decorating your bedpost) these days.

Pride and Prejudice and Chocolate

Reader, it's February.

And it is a truth universally acknowledged that a married mother of three in possession of no fortune whatsoever must still be in want of a getaway.

Some people go to Mexico. Some people go to Bermuda. Some people go to the spa. I go to my front room with a cup of hot tea and a bar of dark--and I mean really dark--chocolate to watch Pride and Prejudice the movie (BTW, I only have eyes for the 1996 A&E version with Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle; don't even talk to me about other versions. Two words: Colin.Firth.). I've found that a little cinematic trip to Regency England can be just the cure for winter. And I also love the book, which will be cracked open for its annual re-reading after I've finished the full six hours of the movie.

I'm trying to formulate the reasons why I *love* this story so much. I can't say why other than:

1. Who would not love to have a Hill around? (She's the housekeeper, and do you know: she helps them take their jackets off and everything!).
2. I want to wear those beautiful but functional dresses, including the pinafores for around the house.
3. The English have such a wonderful way of telling each other off while sounding extremely polite.
4. I want to be able to say "I am all astonishment!" in real life.
5. The letters, the letters, the letters. So many letters written, sealed, delivered, received, read, re-read, crumpled, straightened, re-read again, and treasured.
6. Mister Darcy. Sigh.
7. All the singing and dancing and reading and playing instruments and rambling around the estates. (In short: no TV. And yes, I do realize the irony in that).
8. Did I mention Mr. Darcy?
9. All the beautiful, colorful, dripping-with-roses-and-other-gorgeous-flowers English gardens. (Which reminds me of another annual ritual I have embraced in order to get through winter: watching the Masters. Oh, the azaleas! when all we have is snow.)
10. Just this one line: "In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you." (This is, of course, Mr. Darcy to Elizabeth Bennet).
11. Who doesn't love a story about, amongst other things, the transformative power of love?
12. Bonus: it's chock-full of good laughs.

If you, too, are in need of a cure for winter and your situation requires that you get your cure on the cheap, I invite you to join my February ritual: Pride and Prejudice and chocolate (which ought not to be confused with Pride and Prejudice and Zombies).

Happy viewing, happy reading, happy, happy February.

Pulling Together a Manuscript, and Other Cautionary Tales

This morning Papa Bear took the Cubs to the dentist, and I am trying to pull together a manuscript for a little poetry competition that's coming up in April. This post is my study break. So far my impressions of the process of pulling together a ms. are:

1. This is hard, and I'm just a Baby Poet.
2. Every poem I've ever written is twice as long as it needs to be.
3. How am I supposed to know what these poems mean? I only wrote them down!
4. Ummmm........ maybe I should try to write a few happy poems from time to time.

And here's what putting together a manuscript looks like in my little world (imagine me sleepwalking through the rows of poems, laying them down, arranging, rearranging, picking back up, moving three to the left, pushing one over with my toes to make room for the one I'm holding between my teeth, wondering what the hell I'm doing. Also, please ignore my ugly, hand-me-down coffee table in the background.):







Anyway, I am plodding forward despite the opinion of the Inner Critic that I should just go back to bed for the day. But the process has me thinking of the last meeting of the Monday Poets, a cheerful yet committed group of poets that I meet with on Monday nights, led by the gentle and fearless Tom Ruud. We gather to study other poets, and to discuss and critique our own work. It's a fun group. I always think our slogan should be: "Monday Poets: We'll Critique Your Poems and Make You Laugh About It."

Last Monday I brought a poem that I had come up with earlier that afternoon. I pulled a random writing prompt from my stash of writing prompts and it said, "Write about a shadow." I thought immediately of Peter Pan and his shadow, and went with it. I ended up with a draft entitled "To Reattach a Shadow."

When we begin the workshopping process at Monday Poets, usually a few people will pipe up with a few things they like or that "work" in the poem. Maybe there will be a few questions about the poet's goals and/or thought process. Then some suggestions for what might make the poem stronger.

Well, not this time, my friends.

Something in the poem triggered immediate and strong reactions. Right away, the opinion was expressed that "bone-white needle held soft in her hand doesn't work at all." One person felt my (admittedly loose) reinterpretation tampered too much with her understanding of the character Peter Pan, and therefore, was unbelievable (as in not believable). Another viewed the poem from a Jungian perspective and felt, therefore, that the idea of the shadow in the poem was just plain false. All thought the poem was definitely about First Sex, which I really didn't intend. There were what felt like vigorous debates happening all around me. I think one person kind of liked it. Maybe. By the end of the workshopping session, I was laughing and all I could say was, "Thanks. I think."

I've had plenty of poems fall flat with the Mondays before, but I don't remember a poem that has brought such strong reactions. It has caused me to ponder the difficult task of parsing criticism in a way that identifies what doesn't work in a poem and roots it out, but that stays true to what the poem/poet is trying to do. And also to consider the issue of how to manage the biases we all bring to our encounters with any piece of art, and how much to take those biases into account. For example: how true to a literary character, an existing myth, an accepted report of history must artists be? And does reading something from a Jungian (or Marxist, or feminist) perspective really tell us anything about a work of literature or art? Or does it, like Harold Bloom would argue, tell us only something about Jungian psychology, Marxist political theory, or feminism? How does a writer discern for herself the difference between someone simply not liking her work, and the work being poorly written or technically inept? These are all things I'm still struggling with and learning as a writer.

(By the way, the strength of reaction intrigued me and made me think there must be something in the poem worth working on -- there's something in it that people are responding to).

The whole episode made me think of a chapter in In The Palm Of Your Hand by Steve Kowit, one of my favorite books on the craft of poetry. In Chapter 28 The Pleasures and Pitfalls of Poetry Workshops, there is a poem that has been workshopped half to death. There are circles, strikethroughs, ???s, !!!s, and arrows. Numbers line up in the margin for a suggested reordering of stanzas. Comments cry out from the white space: "Why plural? And why all the caps? --And dashes??" and "Rhyme scheme breaks down here - this isn't even slant." The final remarks are: "Nice language here, but I end this poem feeling confused... You seem to be alluding to some anger here, but the cause is never explored or revealed to the reader. Is there another poem behind this one that still needs to be written?"

Ends up the poem is by one Emily Dickinson, number 754, My Life Has Stood-a Loaded Gun- (read the whole poem here).

Which is not to say that my poem is of the same caliber as Miss Dickinson's; it surely is not. But which is to say that it is the task of every artist to wade through the criticism and take what's valuable, while also staying true to one's own voice and work. I confess, I haven't mastered this balancing act yet, but I keep on trying my best to do both.

By the way, here's a current draft of the poem, (which I thought was about not being able to escape some darkness in ourselves, our lives, but finding it to be more bearable when shared and tended to lovingly -- goes to show you what I know):

To Reattach a Shadow

He pulls his shadow from the drawer
and lets it fall down, like a rivulet
of breath, to the floor.
His skin jumps, as if to claim it.
He smells the bitter tang
of sweat and years, sees
where deepest wounds
have stained it.
Thinks for a moment
of rolling it up again,
closing the drawer and flying on
without the shadow or the girl,
the mess of it all. But once
she offers to stitch it back on, once
she begins at his heel,
he knows he's lost his chance
to refuse the pinprick
of bone-white needle held soft
in her hand. He tries to sit still.
The piercing of skin, the thin
brush of her warmth on his
as she pulls the soul-thread taut.
Deep like a root. The kiss
of lost shadow on found skin.
Rich like a plum.
Her light and dark now
mingling with his. Shadows:
always telling truth
but slant-wise.
He decides to stay.
It somehow feels like home.

Breaking News: Mom Trying to Write Sighted Near South of the River

Sources in and around South of the River are reporting several possible sightings of the Mom Trying to Write. The earliest sighting is reported to be Tuesday morning, where an unconfirmed report places her at her writing desk around 5:00 a.m. The Poet A.O.D., a close friend and colleague of the Mom Trying to Write, confirms sporadic e-mail exchanges regarding a poem inspired by the story of the Prodigal Son, but cannot confirm when the poem actually was written. The local elementary school reports that the Mom Trying to Write cancelled a scheduled visit to Mrs. Nelson's room during which she was to have discussed, well, writing, with the second grade. The cancellation was believed to be due to the illness of one of her cubs. Indeed, a neighborhood observer said she saw evidence of nocturnal activity most of the night last night. Sources close to the Mom Trying to Write say, "She is busy this week, but a happy busy, not an occupied busy." Authorities are warning residents of South of the River to be alert but not alarmed if they encounter the Mom Trying to Write, who is known to circulate in public while staring into the middle distance, muttering things like, "If they rise up. If they rise up. If they rise up straight as prayer," and, "Couplets? Maybe couplets. No, no -- not couplets. Tercets. Definitely tercets." If you encounter the Mom Trying to Write, authorities ask that you please gently guide her toward her home, where her family is waiting for her and wondering what's for dinner.

Just What Do You Mean By 'Busy'?

Oh, Reader.

One of the fires went out last week. There was no Mom Trying to Write. There was no Writer Raising Kids. There was Just a Mom (Which reminds me of how much I dislike the phrase "just a mom" that, so often, full-time moms--myself included--use to describe themselves. As in: you're at a party of some sort. Someone you don't know asks, "So, what do you do?" You say, "I'm just a mom." Never did three words fail so abjectly to describe a job. Just for fun, I've started saying "I'm a writer," which also usually stops the conversation dead in its tracks. But I digress.).

Anyway, this post is not about motherhood. (I cannot at this moment resist the urge to write, as a parenthetical remark to Motherhood itself, "So there!!!!!!!!"). This post is about being busy.

Last week I was way too busy. This is what I kept telling myself and anyone else who dared inquire. I was too, too busy. Busy, busy, busy. Doctor appointments, meetings, scouts, errands, busy, busy, busy. I kept asking myself, "How did I let this week get so busy?" Driving here, there and everywhere, scrambling to pick up Kid 1, Kid 2, and Kid 3, rushing to pull together dinner, digging through piles of fresh-smelling laundry for clean socks and underwear. "Why am I so busy?" I kept wondering. I hate being busy.

And, spiritual lightweight that I sometimes am, I was starting to let it get me down a little, this whole Being Too Busy thing (Which, I confess, in light of what the people of Haiti were living through last week, is not a big problem to get hung up on, but..... I did anyway. Forgive me.). So, I turned to my usual source of comfort: Words.

I decided I had better find out what I really meant when I said I was busy. And guess what I learned: I wasn't really busy.

I was occupied.

**

Do me a little favor: say "busy" out loud. Now say it again. And again, three times. Just do it!

Busy is a happy little word, isn't it? It's fresh. It is somewhat onomotopoeic, in that the word busy almost sounds busy itself. Busy is a bee, a two-year old, a cheerful servant in a Regency-period British novel. Busy is, according to the Concise OED, "having a great deal to do." Which, my friends, is life: nobody's getting out of here without having done a great deal.

But occupied, now that's a different story. Occupy: "to fill or take up (a space or time)." Occupied is from the Latin ocupare: to take over, to seize, to possess. Note that we use this term in discussing war, as in "German-occupied territories" during WWII.

**

Last week, I was not busy, although I did have a great deal to do. Last week, I was occupied. I let the great-deal-to-do take over, seize, possess, and set up camp in my peaceful interior territories. This week, my goal is to be just plain busy. Wish me luck!

And I hope you have a just plain busy week, too.

Confession Saturday

I confess:

--It has been two-and-a-half months since my last confession, and it has been at least five years since my last Confession and maybe longer (I can't quite remember who was born, what I was wearing, or how I had sinned -- all pieces of data that would help me figure out when it was). I confess, I am not looking forward to going back to Confession, but I know I have to do it because The Bean is receiving the Sacrament of Reconciliation this winter. I have mixed feelings about the sacrament: on the one hand, there is something healing about admitting one's shortcomings and receiving forgiveness; on the other hand, I confess, I think the world would be a better place if we confessed our sins to the people we actually hurt by our actions or omissions, and received forgiveness from them.

--The last time I bought new pajamas for myself, the year started with "19--." I am quite glad to have a new pair (pictured at right), which I found on sale at Garnet Hill. I confess, you know it's bad when the Spouse and Budget Monitor says, "Um, you really need to get some new pajamas."

--I have the best of intentions and the worst follow through on pretty much everything except cooking meals, doing laundry, and managing whatever parenting task is before me in a given moment. We had family photos taken in August and I still haven't ordered any; there are people I've been wanting to have over to our "new" house for over a year now; and I haven't sent out my Christmas cards yet. I confess, even though my kids aren't babies anymore, it sometimes seems like just doing the Musts (to wit, cooking meals, doing laundry, and parenting) takes up most of my time and all of my energy. My friend M. assures me this will change in a few more years; I'm holding her to it.

--I made plans with Ben's teacher to visit his class once a month to talk about writing/being a writer, and I'm nervous about it. I confess, I'm kind of shy in large groups, and I don't feel confident about planning talks and lessons for second graders. But I do think it's important to give children lots of ideas for Possible Selves (let me just say that a writer never visited one of my classrooms during my school years), so I am going to swallow my fear and do it.

--I confess, I trick my kids into reading classic stories by buying comic/graphic novel versions of them. My strategy is this: to hook them on the stories young so that when they have to read them later in life they'll already be comfortable with the story and will have the capacity to actually fall in love with the text. I confess, this makes me think of my long-standing suspicion that much of child-rearing is just brainwashing.

--I confess, January has seemed like a long slog to me so far, and I've been a little off my game: the poems are coming slowly or not at all; the snow is deep and covered with muddy slush around the edges; the boys' felts from their boots smell like a deep, dark swamp; and everyone around here still seems to want to eat three meals every single day! Then I read this post over at Coolclan, and felt more settled. Do what you're doing.

I confess, that sounds doable to me.

Yes I Said Yes I Will Yes

I have been a little low on words lately. It happens sometimes. I try to think of it as Composting Time, during which things -- words, ideas, images -- are sifting down in the pile, decaying into their elements, being recycled by worms and other creepy-crawlies, getting ready to fertilize new poems and stories and posts.

At any rate, being low on words, I will only share with you a moment from my day yesterday, when the little girl above (known on this blog as Sister) looked deep, deep into my eyes and asked,

"Will you marry me?"

Reader, she was muy-muy earnest. And I know there were other things I was supposed to say, like: Oh, sweetie, we love each other so much but I'm already married to your dad, so I can't marry you. Or: I know you want to marry me now, and I'm so flattered, but someday you'll grow up and you'll find someone else you want to marry.

In the end, all I could do was return her fervent gaze and say,

"Yes."



P.S. If the title of this post sounds familiar, it's because these words are the final words of James Joyce's Ulysses.