Reading and Retrospective

First, Reading.
Those of you who have been reading here for a while may remember that I always post a list of books read in each year. Although I have lower than usual confidence in my record-keeping for the wild and crazy 2011, here's the list (and please forgive me for not properly formatting titles):

At Home: A Brief History of Private Life by Bill Bryson
Adam and Eve a novel by Sena Jeter Naslund
A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson
Blood Almanac poems by Sandy Longhorn
Threshold poems by Jennifer Richter
Rookery poems by Traci Brimhall
The First Four Books poems by Louise Gluck
Gilead a novel by Marilynne Robinson
Housekeeping a novel by Marilynne Robinson
The Forgotten Garden a novel by Kate Morton
Wuthering Heights a novel by Emily Bronte
A Room with a View a novel by E.M. Forster
Pearl of China a novel by Anchee Min
Rebecca a novel by Daphne duMaurier
The House at Riverton a novel by Kate Morton
Sacred Hearts a novel by Sarah Dunant
A Gate at the Stair a novel by Lorrie Moore
Private Life a novel by Jane Smiley
Queen Bee Moms and King Pin Dads by Rosalind Wiseman
Heart's West: True Stories of Mail-Order Brides on the Frontier by Chris Enss
The Beekeeper's Apprentice a novel by Laurie King
Today's Special Dish poems by Nina Lindsay
A Reliable Wife a novel by Robert Goolrick
The Price of Privilege by Madeline Levine
WAIT poems by Alison Stine
The Everything Tween Book by Linda Sonna
Selected Poems by H.D.
Colosseum poems by Katie Ford
When Will There Be Good News? a novel by Kate Atkinson
The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields

up next:

No Eden poems by Sally Rosen Kindred, and
Death Comes to Pemberley a novel by P.D. James

And now, Retrospective.
Reader, Both Fires is almost three years old. My how time flies.

In those three years of my life as mother, we've gone from little ones, to big-ish ones; from the bird theater to exclamations of "Epic fail!" and "Whatever." (Oh, how I detest 'whatever.').

In those three years of my life as writer, we've gone from the fledgling poet just trying to connect to the world of poetry a bit, to the still-fledgling poet who is now sending out her work on a regular basis and sometimes even getting acceptances; from the mom who felt guilty taking time off to write, to the writer who knows her children will be better and stronger because she pursues her own creative life without apology.

In those three years of my life as person, we've gone from the teeny tiny woman (who, I'm glad to tell you, doesn't live here anymore) to a gal who, yes, has a chronic illness but who now has the right meds and a clearer diagnosis, and who can see her illness more as a sculpting life force than an invisible box.

I've enjoyed writing here, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart for reading.

Starting tomorrow, I invite you to join me at the stanza, where the story of mother, of writer, of person, poet and pilgrim, will continue. I hope to see you there.

Reader, I wish you peace, joy, and everything wonderful in 2012 and beyond.

Takin' This Show on the Road

at our friendly neighborhood CalTrain station

I'm considering a new tag line for my life: "have poems, will travel" (other contenders: "all times approximate" and "warning: introvert - approach at your own risk." This last one is my favorite for Kinder pick-up time).

Lately, I've been putting some feelers out into the Bay Area poetry scene, hoping to find other poets and make some connections. Because I'm naturally shy, and thanks to the librarian voice in my head that keeps saying, 'but you're not a REAL poet,' I have had to put on my brave heart in order to enter these waters.

But, gladly, my efforts have panned out.

The first connection I made was with Laura E. Davis who blogs at Dear Outer Space. I first crossed paths (virtually speaking) with Laura when I came across Weave Magazine, the literary journal she founded (how cool is that, by the way!? She started her own journal!). I bought an issue or two of Weave, and really liked what I read there. Then, last summer, I was reading through Adanna where one of my poems had landed, and came across another poem I really liked, noted that the author's name sounded familiar, but I wasn't sure why. Enter the rabbit hole of poetry blogs..... a month later, I came across a link to Laura's blog on another poetry blog, and finally put the puzzle together: this was the Laura E. Davis of Weave, and she had just moved to the Bay Area, too! Coincidence? I'd like to think not. Anyway, long story longer, Laura and I exchanged e-mails and decided to work together, exchanging poems and information, etc. Our first meeting was last month; our second will be this Sunday. We meet at The Creamery near the CalTrain station in San Francisco. I'm thrilled to have found a poetry pal, and excited to work with Laura, whose writing is beautiful and exciting, and whose journal you should read.

Another connection came to me through a class I'm taking from Molly Fisk (the class, by the way, is called "Getting Your Work Out" and it has really helped me to commit to a more regular practice of submitting my work to journals). Molly forwarded me an e-mail that had been circulating through poetry circles about a group in Berkeley that was looking for a new member. I decided to send my work to the group to see if I might have a shot at joining them. Last week, they invited me to come to the next meeting to see if we're a good fit (me for them and them for me). Berkeley is a bit of a hike from our little peninsula town, but I'm hoping it will all work out, and if not, at least I've made a tentative connection with a few more Bay Area poets.

And speaking of taking the show on the road, I wanted to let you in on a little secret: For the past few months I've been working on building a new blog -- one that's a bit more dedicated to poetry, out of respect for my kids' growing sense of self and privacy. I'll be making the transition in the next few weeks, and will definitely let you know when my new blog is live. Meanwhile, the Mom Trying to Write still has a few things to say about motherhood, so I'll be blogging here for at least a little while longer. I hope that you'll follow me over to the stanza: a little room for poetry & the writing life when I make the switch. Feel free to take a sneak peek now, if you like (not that there's much to peek at).

And now, I must take another show on the road. There is a "Cultural Heritage Luncheon" for Sister's Kinder class today (gripemumblemumblegripemumblemumble). When I asked her what kind of food she wanted me to bring, I was filled with fear. We are Scottish and Irish. Would I have to learn how to cook haggis or mutton stew? You just have to love a little girl whose answer was, "Hot dogs and beans, Mama! Hot dogs and beans!" That, I can handle. In less than an hour, I'll be pulling the hot dogs and beans down the block in our little red wagon.

Happy trails to you today, Reader.

On Sabbatical

sabbatical  n.  a break or change from a normal routine (as of employment); from the Hebrew shabath "he rested"

A little voice inside, known in these parts as intuition, has been whispering sabbatical to me. My right brain -- librarian that she is -- has scoffed at the voice: "Absolutely not! You must keep writing poems!" My left brain -- creative wild child -- is giving the voice a double thumbs-up and saying "Groovy, man." I'm going with my left brain, and with intuition.

In the Catholic church, and in many other religious traditions, we are amidst a time of joyful waiting called Advent. I love Advent, except for the reality that most years it's more a time of stressful hurrying -- not joyful waiting -- as I attempt to cram a bazillion extra tasks into days and weeks that are already full. As I've learned over and over again in this life, if something isn't working well there's usually something one can do to change it. Enter: the little voice.

So I've decided (or intuited) to take a wee sabbatical from drafting poems for the rest of this month. I plan to keep reading and learning from good poetry, submitting at least once a week, and revising the Mail Order Bride series. I'll still be here blogging. But I'm giving myself a break on generating new work.

That breezy, rushing sound you hear is me exhaling. Until I came to the idea of a sabbatical, I didn't realize how much pressure the Librarian puts on the Wild Child to produce!produce!produce! I'm a little nervous that I'll lose my momentum, and the Librarian would like me to believe that if I take a break now I'll never get back into a good drafting groove again. She's a little hyperbolic.

Dear Librarian, I appreciate your role in my life, but I want to make cookies with my children, make my house fair as I am able, trim the hearth, and set the table. I want to take walks in the morning, sit down in the afternoon to put my feet up, and click a few things off my holiday to-do list every day. I want to avoid another Speechless Wednesday.

Let the joyful waiting begin... 

Wordless Wednesday: Corner Office

Rollin' With It

One thing that's fun and kind of freeing about moving across the country is that you no longer know what to expect, so you don't necessarily expect anything (well, it's kind of freeing unless the thing you didn't know to expect was a big something-or-another at school that you missed. But I digress.). The last two mornings we've climbed out of bed into a sea of fog, or cloud, or ocean mist, or whatever it is. The whole world was a ghost, and light came late to the morning. When it was time to walk to school, the fog or cloud or ocean mist or whatever it is clung to our fleeces and hair. A brand new weather experience, and we don't know if it's usual for this time of year or not.

Leaves are turning and falling now that it's almost December. The color is striking against the blue-green backdrop of the foothills, which seem softer in the late autumn light -- gentler shadows under a gentler sun. But wait -- is it late autumn? Or, Reader, do you think it's winter here yet? I don't know, but I'm rollin' with it.

Same goes for the writing life lately. Holiday and virus-related schedule interruptions threaten at every turn. I'm rollin' with it. Teeny tiny fever? Tummyache? No problem, I'll write some other day. I'm fitting in a few submissions every week while I kill time waiting for the library to open (sidebar: if I were in charge of the world the library would open at 8 a.m. Vote for me!) -- not as much as I'd like, but some every week is better than none. I've been revising the six Mail Order Bride poems, and this time, rather than just tinkering, I'm doing some re-vision, trying a few different versions of each poem. It'll be fun to see what happens behind door number 1, 2 and 3 inside the room of each poem.

And I've been reading a collection of poems that has me rollin' with it, too: Blue Hour by Carolyn Forche (that e has a little thing-y (technical term) above it but I don't know how to insert it here). I've had to work hard to stay with the book, not because it's not good -- it's full of beautiful and scathing and inventive images; war and peace; death and life; present and past (and maybe even future?); certainty and memory. But the poems have very little narrative and connective tissue holding the images together, so I'm never 100% sure what's going on in the poem or the collection, except to sense that, in this book, the world is both disturbing and beautiful, unknowable and yet deeply known, full of suffering that can blunt or hone us, or both. Seems about right to me. So I've been rollin' with the feeling-ness (technical term) of the poems, resting in the white space, and persisting.

Whatever's coming your way these days, I hope you're rollin' with it, too. Happy winter (maybe).

The End of an Era

Well..... okay..... there I go being hyperbolic again. But I just filled up another writing notebook and filling up a writing notebook makes me sentimental and triumphant and hyperbolic.

Dog-eared, beaten up, and fally-aparty

I have kind of a tight relationship with my writing notebooks. They mean a lot to me. We've been through a lot together, my notebooks and me. When I finish one, which usually takes about a year or 18 months, I tend to look back through the earlier pages, and memories pour out. Oh, yes, there's my agonizing spiritual poetry phase. There's my Kay Ryan look-alike phase (think short-ish, vertical poems). Someday I will look back at this one and say, Oh, that's right! I was possessed by the Mail Order Bride back then.

I look back and remember what transpired in my non-writing life through the lens of each notebook. That one clearly pre-babies. Oh, yes, this one during sleep deprivation after child #2. Then this other one, the one that took me four years to fill (third child, what can I say?). Notebook Number 9 above took me from very ugly attempts at poems about illness in South-of-the River, to the Mail Order Bride, and other poems around the issue of what makes a home, here on the peninsula. Who woulda thunk it?

I used to use this notebook by Levenger (side note to fellow notebook snobs in the readership: The notebook snob in me (solemn bow) greets the notebook snob in you). But then they changed the notebook's dimensions so that the pages weren't as wide, which really interrupted the flow of my drafting process. I was surprised at how important the width of a page could be. Alas, I dumped the Notabilia without a backward glance and went to Clairefontaines. My fave color is green, but I can live with black when that's all that's available at my verymostfavorite stationers. To wit:

This poor sucker has no idea what awaits

I begin each new notebook by writing this message on the inside cover: "Please return to Molly @ cel-lph-one#." Every time, I have to resist the urge to write something more desperate like: "I will die if I ever lose this. Please don't go through the rest of your life with blood on your hands. My children will seek to avenge my death. So call me."

And then I scrawl, in large print, a quote from rock-star poet Robert Hass:

"Take the time to write. You can do your life's work in half an hour a day."

Dear Robert Hass, I'm not sure I believe you, but you inspire me anyway.

This new notebook is Notebook Number 10. Today I will paginate it (every other page) and create a table of contents so things don't get lost. Tomorrow morning at five bells I will get up and pour a cup of coffee, then sit down at my desk with the blankest of blank pages. I can't wait.

(P.S. If you have notebook stories, or other stories about the artifacts of creativity -- skeins of yarn, the blank canvas, a lump of clay, your quilting shears, a brand new saucier -- I would love to hear about them in the comments).

Sunday Words: On Commitment and Blessing

"It's not a matter of what you deserve, and -- more to the point -- certainly not a matter of what you think you deserve. All that matters is what you're committed to,and how you honor that commitment, and -- sometimes -- what you are blessed by."

--M. Allen Cunningham in his article "In the Absence of Yes," Poets&Writers Nov/Dec 2011

Wordless Wednesday: Meet the Latest Addition to My (air quotes) Writing Studio (end air quotes)

Submismash

My combo coffee table/workspace and our goofy pumpkin, Lester

To that, I say, "Yes!"

(P.S. non-writers: Submishmash is an online submissions manager that many journals use as a portal for writers submitting work).

By which I mean submitting is always a mish-mash for me.

First it is a mish-mash of voices that say things like:
--You thought this poem was interesting, but it's boring.
--It seemed decent when you were working on it, but it's not.
--This journal will never publish your work.

And so on down the line. I have recently learned a strategy for shushing those voices. Here's what you do:

Step 1 - Acknowledge the kernel of truth in the statement: "It's true, this journal only accepts 2% of submissions."
Step 2 - Tell what is not true in the statement: "You never know when your poem is going to strike someone's fancy, so it's worth a shot."
Step 3 - Say what is also true: "It's also true that they'll never publish my work if I never send it to them."

This nifty process helps a lot (btw, I'm teaching it to my kids as a strategy for managing negative self-talk, too!).

But then there is a mish-mash of poems: which to submit to what journals, trying to match poem to aesthetic, creating little mini-manuscripts of poems that play well together. Can the Mail Order Bride go with Isis? Does the spider belong with the East Foothills?

And then there is a mish-mash of submissions guidelines, which are all slightly different: contact info on the poem, contact info not on the poem, contact info in an e-mail, attachments only, poems in the text of the e-mail only, paper submissions only please no paperclips. I read them all out loud in an effort to make sure I'm not missing anything, but I'm sure I've missed something once in a while. And how about the snarky guidelines like (real examples): "Don't send us your first drafts." "Don't send your work on a used napkin." "You're not Ginsberg." "Five means five. Five is not the new six." I get that editors probably see everything, but my guess is that most writers are submitting their best work in a professional manner, and the snark feels patronizing to me. My approach is not to submit to journals with snarky guidelines (even though I probably can't afford to be that selective).

And then there is the mish-mash of technical glitches. We've all had e-mails that completely disappear into the ether. We've all had the formatting of something go wrong because of tags inserted in an e-mail program. This doesn't bother me in my regular life, but it worries me in my writing life. Just this month I had an e-mail that I sent to an editor of a journal go missing. When I followed up with her, she said she had never received it. Yet there it was in my sent-mail folder. I re-sent. I know this can happen with snail mail, too, but frankly that's no comfort!

And then there is the mish-mash of trying to submit poems in a house where children live. "DON'T STEP ON THAT PILE OF PAPERS!!!!!!!!!!" (Which reminds me, they will be home any minute. Today is the weekly "minimum day" -- a half-day of school every Thursday. I kid you not. My dad asked this morning if mothers ever get minimum days and I cackled just a little too loud and maniacally).

But then there is the moment of calm when the deal is done. The 'send' button has been hit. You've kissed the stamp and put it in the mail box, the kind you can't reach back into to take something out. Your poems are out there on a journey. You hope they do okay, and you go back inside to file, to neaten up the mish-mash until next time.

I confess, I would almost always rather write and create than submit and file. But I know submitting is part of the job. I've been trying to do more and more of it.

And even though it's a mish-mash, there are sometimes the sweet rewards. I'm happy to say I'll have a poem in the next volume of CALYX.

Whatever mish-mash you encounter today, Reader, may it have its own sweet reward.

'One must sustain oneself!'

Have you read any Winnie-the-Pooh lately? Well, I've been reading it fairly regularly for the last, oh, ten years or so, and let me tell you: there are lots of little gems you might find useful in your everyday life.

One of the best is the line I rely on when I've been caught sneaking a wee morsel of something: "One must sustain oneself!" No one can argue with that.

Another is the word "organdized." In Chapter 3 of the original Pooh stories, a search is organdized and Piglet nearly meets a Heffalump. At our house, "organize" is used for run-of-the-mill organizing jobs: "I'm just organizing the towels." "I need to organize the school paperwork." Those types of things.

We pull out "organdize" for grander projects and loftier intentions, like: "I am going to organdize this tupperware cupboard for once and for all!" and "We need to get organdized for vacation!" The basic connotation of organdize is that you mean it, by god!

Today I organdized my writing files. 

not organdized

As you can see here it was long overdue. I might rather have spent the time reading and drafting and revising, but I have learned that one must sustain oneself with a process for keeping track of such things as new drafts, current work, resting poems, poems that are close to done, those out for critique, poems to submit, and, my thinnest but loveliest file of all, placed poems.

It was time well-spent. The best part was at the end when I could survey the fruits of my labor and proclaim to the universe: "I am ORGANDIZED!" 

ORGANDIZED!

Try it sometime. I think you'll like it.

Mid-week Missive Full of Nothing Much

*photo attribution below

We live near a fire station (amongst other things) and many, many dogs. Right now the sirens are wailing and the neighborhood dogs have begun their empathetic opera of howls. It cracks me up every time it happens. It feels like we're living inside the movie 101 Dalmations when the dogs of the countryside raise their snouts and call to the dogs of London to pass along the location of the puppies.

At any rate, my pups are all at school today. This seems to be the exception rather than the rule. One pup after another has had one virus after another. As there is no back-up for the mother, I have not written as much lately as I might have. But by my count I have seven new drafts since school started, which feels good. Last week was a good week for revision. This week I have grabbed hold of kronos whenever possible, and "played" in my notebook. This has freed me in some way that I can't quite articulate. I have felt freer to write several different drafts of the same poem, rather than feeling attached to a particular, hard won (in terms of time) draft.

I am starting to put some feelers out into the Bay Area literary community. This has taken the form of sending e-mails to people I don't know at all. While I know some people who do this easily, it has required me to screw my courage to the sticking-place. I'm shy. But I've had encouraging responses, and I'm hopeful that they'll lead to some sort of writing community over the long haul.

Many folks have been asking how we're doing in California. I never know quite what to say, but here are some of the responses that go through my head:

1. Same routine, different place. It can be very comforting to have kids because their needs keep you focused and busy. In many way our family life is very similar to what it was in South-of-the-River.
2. What's not to love? -- great weather, no mortgage, and we don't have to mow the lawn.
3. Pass your millage election or levy referendum or whatever the school funding election is called where you live. I have seen the future and it's not fair. Also, while you're at it, fall on your knees and give thanks for the School Bus (no bussing in California!).
4. I miss my friends.
5. I miss my mom and dad (not that they lived in South-of-the-River, but they were able to visit often because the distance was drive-able).
6. I've pulled a few successful u-turns.
7. I don't know.... I feel like we're some of the luckiest people alive no matter where we are: enough to eat, a roof over our heads, access to education and health care.

So, we are doing fine. It's not without its challenges and it's sometimes a bit lonely (probably mostly for me) but we're doing fine. Thanks to all who have wondered and sent good wishes.

And now, I'm off to dash across town to pick up Sister from school, and then dash back across town to get home in time for the boys' dismissal (O, school bus, O yellow magic carpet ride, how I miss you!).


*Photo by Firefighter Dayna Hilton (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

Waiting for Kairos

Clock image is public domain from Wikimedia Commons

I've been thinking about time.

time (n.)  the indefinite continued progress of existence and events in the past, present, and future, regarded as a whole (definition from OED).

When I looked up time in my Barnhart's, I read "originally, a drum, probably through Medieval greek *timbanon, from Greek tympanon kettledrum." That made perfect sense to me. Time marches on! Then I realized I was reading the etymological roots of 'timbre' not 'time.' The word 'time' is a long lost descendent of the Old English word for 'tide.'

I get that, too, but the drum seems a closer likeness these days.

The ancient Greeks, those philosophical fellows, had two words for time. One was kronos which referred to the kind of time we keep, quantifiable time, the seconds and minutes and hours, the 'indefinite continued progress,' the drumbeat, drumbeat, drumbeat. The other was kairos, which referred to a quality of time during which a particular thing was appointed or "right." So when we say something like, "It's time for a change," we are speaking of kairos. (Gak, now I'm going to have Little River Band going through my head all day. Nothing against the Little River Band, or anything).

At any rate, the reason I've been thinking about time is that my excellent friend, The Poet A.O.D., sent me the most interesting information about writing time and its relationship to productivity. The information comes from a study on academic writers, and found that "writers fare best when they begin before feeling fully ready." It also found that writers who wrote daily were far more productive than those who waited for large chunks of time to write (average of 64 pages/year vs. 17 pages/year). Those who wrote daily and had a buddy to check in with once a week were more productive yet (average of 157 pages/year).  Here's a link to more information on this study.

Those writers who waited for big chunks of time to write were writing in kairos time. Waiting for the appointed time. Waiting until the time was right. Those who wrote every day / wrote ever day and checked in with someone were writing in kronos time. They were not waiting for the right time; they just grabbed the seconds, minutes, hours that were floating by and put that kronos to use.

I am guilty! Guilty as charged! for waiting for kairos to write. My preference is to have several lovely, empty hours lying down in front of me, just waiting to be filled with words and poetry. I wait for kairos to write here on this blog, too. I've begun a hundred posts in my head, but I've been waiting for the right time to sit down and write them up. Meanwhile, me no bloggy.

In the spirit of making friends with kronos, I wrote a draft yesterday morning in about two minutes. No reading beforehand, no spinning through wordbanks or random number generation, no set constraints. It's a draft I'll keep and work on. I think it can grow up into a poem. I have no plans to abandon my usual process when I do have kairos time for writing. And the rack 'em and stack 'em approach to setting time aside for writing vs. family responsibilities helps me feel more relaxed about both parts of my life. But I'm also going to try to be freer inside of kronos time, to put the pen to paper each day if only for five minutes, to let whatever flows be something or nothing, to write.right.now a little more often.

And as often happens for me, the things I learn in my writing life bleed over into my everyday mom/wife/person/civilian life. There are many things I put off while waiting around for kairos. As if kairos will get off the 51 bus at 9:37 and announce himself. Meanwhile, his underachiever little brother kronos is right there waiting for me. This reminds me of something my uber-wise mother has said many times: "You have all the time there is."

Dear kronos, too often I've seen you as a nag, a bother, a drumbeat. I shall endeavor to see you more as an ally, a dance, a partner-in-crime. Let's hold hands and get some stuff done! If kairos wants to come along, so be it. But, meanwhile, what are we waiting for?

Rack 'Em and Stack 'Em!

Way long time ago (in my life, this means "before the kids were born"), Husband and I were watching a home decorating show. Don't ask me why. We obviously had time to kill. At any rate, this show was interesting because it was devoted to resolving differences of opinion between spouses/partners on how to decorate their home. This episode featured a couple who couldn't agree on how to configure their guest room. They wanted to have room for their four grandchildren to sleep over; they also wanted to be able to use the room for other purposes (perhaps as a den or office? I can't remember) when it was just the two of them.

The husband wanted to "rack 'em and stack 'em!" -- in other words, he thought bunk beds were the obvious answer. The wife preferred the day-bed-with-trundle-plus-Murphy-bed approach. The husband must've said "rack 'em and stack 'em!" fifty times in the half-hour segment.

Later in life, when Husband and I had a several things, not the least of which were children, to rack and stack, we took to calling out to each other "rack 'em and stack em!" Yes, we find humor wherever we can.

At any rate, I'm thinking of rechristening our little house the  Rack 'Em and Stack 'Em House. Because of the shortage of space here, there are many, many things which are put away on top of other things, which are put away upon other things, which are in turn put away on top... well, you get the idea. If Anyone (I won't name names) decides to, say, rearrange the fragile system of racking and stacking, we end up without a place for certain crucial objects. Such as the coffee mugs. Or the T.P.

I decided last week I need to take a similar, rack 'em and stack 'em approach to my writing life. In other words, I need to find a stack of hours for writing, and a stack of hours for other stuff like being a mom and running a household. If I don't keep the stacks separate, if I don't arrange them just right, then something loses its spot. And, of course, writing is always the thing that gets muscled out of the stacks of time.

So, starting this week, I started racking and stacking. I started three dinners on Sunday, so I wouldn't need to spend as much time in the kitchen during the week. I set aside a stack of mornings as work days. Yes, work days. I have actually spoken these words: "I can't do it on Tuesday because I work that day." I've stacked up my errands and household duties for attention on other days, at other times. This probably seems like no big deal to many of you who have been balancing work and home responsibilities for years, but since I have just recently entered the phase when parenthood doesn't require my constant attention, I am learning it anew.

In keeping with the rack 'em and stack 'em approach to life, today I took a good look at all my recent work, everything in my "Active" file. The poems I feel excited and hopeful about, I left in the "Active" stack; other poems, ones I don't really feel much energy for, I put into the "On Hold" stack; a few poems went in the "Submit" stack; several had the chance to meet the shit-can (sorry, Mom! but sometimes only the right word will do).

I've been walking around my house today proclaiming, "Rack 'em and stack em! Rack 'em and stack 'em." It feels good.

(P.S. For a beautiful reflection on the integration of writing life and family life, read Sage Cohen's post today.)

(P.S. Again: !!!WARNING!!! In case anyone in the readership (all 3 of you) is considering the wisdom of the rack 'em and stack 'em approach to sleeping arrangements, let me say this: DON'T DO IT. In another small house of mine, I was persuaded by Someone (I won't name names) to bring into our home a loft bed, which is the bunk bed's poor country cousin. Said Someone, "Rack 'em and stack 'em!" The loft bed was very annoying but minimally workable until I got sick, after which there was no earthly way for me to change the sheets when Someone was traveling for work. I pause here to remember the spectacle of my friend, the big shot lawyer, changing the loft bed while wearing a three-piece suit. Let me tell you, it wasn't pretty. Keep the beds low to the ground, Reader, low to the ground).

Words for Sunday: Attention Writers and Everyone Else: "We Must Be Willing to Risk"

"Much as we may wish it otherwise, reality seldom comes to us simple, logical, all of a piece. (A human being) is an animal, we must say if we are honest, but (we are) also more than animal. In honesty we must say that too. If we are determined to speak the plain sense of our experience, we must be willing to risk the charge of speaking what often sounds like nonsense."

--from Frederick Buechner's spiritual writings, collected in Listening to Your Life, compiled and edited by George Connor


(NB: parentheses mine to make the quote gender inclusive; forgive me, I couldn't not)

Gratitude Journal: 'The Isn't-it-nice-to-be-home-again' Edition

What poet wouldn't feel at home in a city that embeds poetry in its transit stops?

"Late last night so far away... I dreamed myself a dream... "


After what felt like 40 years -- but really was only a few months -- of wandering in the proverbial desert, I'm starting to feel at home again.

I am so grateful for that like-none-other feeling, and for:

~Six hours of quiet in the house today. The Introvert in me got her batteries way charged up.

~My bookshelves, arranged(!).

~The time I spent sorting and organizing notes from old classes and my fabulous former writing groups. It was a sweet walk down memory lane to remember the faces, voices, and stories that surrounded so many of the poems we studied together.

~The 3-inch stack of prompts, jumping-off points, ideas, and other similar poem-seeds that I now have in the second drawer on the left in my writing desk (the Resting Drawer's wise old grandmother...... I'll have to think of a name for it).

~The drafts I had forgotten about, some of which probably have a future.

~The city up the peninsula, San Francisco, and the chance to get to know it like the back of my hand in the coming months and years. The sense of coming home to a city I've only visited once before. Frisco, you were waiting for me the whole time, weren't you? (And yes, I'm a nerd, I just said 'Frisco').

~One word: Kepler's. Okay, more than one word: it's a friendly neighborhood independent bookseller where I would gladly live out the rest of my days (yes, I would miss Husband and the children, but..... the books! the books!). Although it's not in my neighborhood, it's only 20 minutes away and worth the drive. They had me at: "Kepler's presents: Jane Hirshfield, Monday September 12, 7:00 p.m."

~All these things combining to remind me that I'm a poet. Not just a mom. Not just a packer and a mover and an unpacker. Not just a phone caller, school form filler-outer, grocery shopper, bathroom sink wiper-downer. A poet.

Hey, Whoever You Are that's in charge of this crazy life, thanks for the reminder.

(And now for those of you who have James Taylor on the brain):

Baby Steps

Not the greatest photo, but a photo.

Reader (are you still out there??), I find the only way I can operate these days is in baby steps.

The desk is unearthed (or is that un-boxed?). Have I sat down to write at it? No.

The wall of boxes that once filled half the living room is gone. Are all the boxes unpacked? No.

I have a small table/cabinet to house the printer and my writing files. Have I put my writing files into their new home? No.

Do I unpack one box a day? No. Maybe more like a half a box a day.

Are the bookshelves all arranged? No. But they're part way arranged.

Do I have a new writing schedule in place? No. But last night I wrote writing day on every Tuesday and every Saturday in my calendar.

Do I have a new poetry collection to study this fall? No. But I ordered it today from my friendly neighborhood independent bookseller. It's Nina Lindsay's Today's Special Dish. Please go read this lovely poem by her right now.

Sometimes I wish I could take some giant steps. Like have all the boxes and the detritus of moving cross-country gone from my sight. Like have all the laundry folded all at the same time for even just five minutes. Like sit down at my desk for three hours to read and write and create something new. But right now, baby steps are working for me so I'm just gonna go with it for a while.

I think there are some poems tip-toeing up behind me... I can't wait to get to know them soon.

I hope you are baby-stepping when you need to, too.

Dispatch from Northern California

Well, here we are.

After almost two weeks of hotel living and several days of utter unpacking chaos, here we are in our little (and I mean little) rented house in the golden state.

Here I am, sitting in the near-dark with the windows open, listening to the crickets chirp, watching out the window for the moon, knowing not where to begin.

I believe my first txt msg that went from California to South-of-the-River said: "Freakishly large geraniums."

It's true. They're like shrubs.

And I really don't know where to begin -- everything is so new and different, I'm just taking it all in. What I can tell you is this:

~Yes, it's true what they say about the weather. It really is lovely. In the midwest, we'd call it "good sleeping weather" -- you know, warm days then cool nights perfect for sleeping with the windows open. In a stunning departure from expected midwestern behavior, I have stopped checking the weather forecast every morning. Every day is the same: overcast morning, clouds giving way to bright sun and blue sky by 10 a.m., temps 70-75, steady light breezes, nights cool enough for fleeces, no rain. The midwesterner in me keeps looking over her shoulder, like it really can't last.

~Yes, it's true what they say about the produce. Also very lovely. Delicious, fresh, and cheap. Still not quite reaching the perfection of the Michigan sweet cherry, and yet the avocados nearly make up for it. I have already found my favorite produce market and it has become my second home. When I first entered, I had to pause for a moment of awestruck silence to say to my fellow shoppers: The produce snob in me (insert solemn bow here) greets the produce snob in you.

~California driving requires lots of u-turns. I have not, uh, mastered the u-turn. It's not pretty. Instead of embarrassing myself, I've figured out how to go about a half-mile out of my way on any given errand to avoid having to attempt a u-turn.

~California requires lots of documentation. So far, my dossier is not complete enough to get a library card, or to sign the kids up for little league. Note to self: must get one utility in my name.

~We have people here! We have relished spending time with my brother and his family, my uncle and his family, and an old college friend of mine and her family. It makes a huge difference to have these ready-made circles of love and laughter as we settle into our new home.

~The kids are happy. Our street is quiet and they are forever on their bikes. There's a lovely playground right around the corner. See above re: weather. They are brown as berries, and every night they come in with absolutely filthy feet. Every mother knows that absolutely filthy feet are an indication that all is well in the world.

~My desk is here somewhere. I know it's true because I saw it come in. Husband promises it's in the corner by the window with a view of the lovely fuchsia-flowering tree whose name I don't know. My own view of the alleged desk is obstructed by boxes that, alas, are too heavy for me to move. But never fear, my bookshelves are confirmed to be present and are slowly filling with all my best, dust-jacketed compadres.

~Speaking of compadres, I'm missing mine. Leaving my circle of friends in South-of-the-River was, of course, gut-wrenching. It involved lots of tears and hugs and the shocked silence of at least one casual observer as one dear friend and I wept into each others bosoms outside my house. Which isn't my house anymore. Leaving the house wasn't easy, either. I feel strangely untethered, a bit suspended between the ending of one chapter of life and the beginning of another. Dear compadres, nota bene: "I miss you" doesn't begin to say it.


Thank you to everyone who has sent, or even thought, good wishes and words of support. It makes all the difference to know that the people we love are wishing us well. And thank you, as always, for reading even as I haven't been writing much. I hope to be back here more regularly very soon.

Today's Draft: I Can See Clearly Now

Reader, it has been a good long stretch since I had any real writing time. By 'real' I mean more than a half-hour or so. This morning, Husband came to me and said, "Maybe we should go to the mall this morning." I just about went back to bed. I hate the mall. But he had a return to make, and we needed to look for Easter clothes for the three bears. So instead of going back to bed, I bargained: Ok, we can go to the mall this morning, but when we get home I want some writing time.

The deal was done.

And so, I made my way to my desk this afternoon. I confess, I held no great hope for drafting today. Lately I've been feeling the weight of the writing life: the uphill battle of it, the constant struggle to find little slices of writing time around the edges of my life as mother, the long haul persistence that good writing requires. I confess, I sometimes think it would be easier to be "just a mom." And yet, I know what happens if I don't write: I start disappearing around the edges. I know I don't really have a choice in the matter. I must write. So I sat down with my bad attitude and read some really good poems in the current issue of Cave Wall, then picked up my pen.

The leader of my writing group often talks about objects and how they can spark poems for us. Just everyday things: a basket, an egg, a button, a key. With those thoughts circling, and a note from a po-friend that she had tried an object poem, I soon found my focus for the day.

First I chose three objects that, for me, feel important and interesting: roof, window, key. Then I made lists of the functions of each object, aiming for 10 functions minimum. It's funny, I started out in the active voice -- "keeps the rain off," "creaks under snow" -- but quickly found that I could be more imaginative and symbolic if I worked in the infinitive: "to be made of layers, to be nailed down, to groan in the wind, to slip between them and the stars." I love little mysterious moments like this, when just changing voice unlocks new doors. Yay, words!

After I made my lists of functions for each object, I chose the object to draft with: window. I then looked back at an old poem I'd written about cranberries and noticed the poem began with how a cranberry forms, then moved the cranberry into the human realm. I decided to do the same with my window draft, so did a little research about how glass and windows are made (fascinating, by the way). That paid off, as I was able to open the poem with: To begin as sand / and salt (BTW, hooray for my primal landscape --the beach-- making it into a window poem!). Throughout the process, I tried to find good verbs and descriptors, ones that might not normally be associated with glass and windows. The poem ends with the window holding the face / of the one who stands / waiting.

The thing about this draft is that it was really fun to write. I came to my desk glum, and ended up remembering why I love writing: the energy and joy of creative play turning into something that didn't exist before. Plus, free materials. Dear Poetry, thank you for the reminder. I can, um, see clearly now.

In Which Grumpiness Has Its Rewards

Warning: mild profanity may ensue.

I don't know many immutable truths about parenthood, but I do know this:  If you find yourself wearing the Parent hat in this lifetime, you will at some point experience a weekend with your children that will make you think you must be doing everything wrong.  Even as the more reasonable voice of your intellect (I call this my Librarian Voice) says, "Well you know, dear, children will have their bad days and it's not all about what you've done or not done," you will believe in your heart that you have done everything wrong.

That was my weekend.

And between that, and a long winter, and the germ of the week, by yesterday afternoon I was Grumpy.

My natural response to Grumpiness seems to be to clean things out.  I'm talking about closets and drawers and boxes and bathrooms.  With the Grump-factor on overload, I am happy to tell you that I threw away or set out for recycling the following items, and more:

1.  All the clothes I bought lo these many years ago to wear post-baby.  I'm talking about Lands End t-shirts and yoga pants.  Reader, they are all GONE.  Do I hear a woot, woot!?
2.  All expired medicines, including a package of Benadryl that had never been opened and expired in the year 2000.
3.  All broken barrettes, and all barrettes that included any form of cute animal such as bunny, duckling, teddy bear, butterfly, just because I hate that kind.  Sister has not discovered this yet.
4.  All hole-y socks and undergarments.
5.  All sample packages from DHC, all having to do with anti-wrinkle something or another.  Goodbye.
6.  Any toothbrush or tube of toothpaste or bar of soap that even hinted of 'nasty.'
7.  The last half-package of Pampers pull-ups.  Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.

I then moved on to my writing files, and here is where I must express my deep admiration for the verb "to shit-can."  Reader, there is throwing something away, and then there is shit-canning something.  Do you agree with me that to shit-can something is much more satisfying than to simply throw it away, or in this case, to delete it?  Delete does not begin to express it.

I went through my writing files and shit-canned all the poems I hate, all the poems I'm not interested in anymore, and all the poems that are boring, or stunted and destined to go nowhere, or otherwise undesirable.  Dear poems, it was fun while it lasted, but now let me introduce to my friend the Shit-Can.

I kept a few oldies for sentiment's sake. I kept a few that might have been better off shit-canned but that I still had hope for.  And I kept the best of my more recent work.  I still have plenty of poems to wade through, work on, and shit-can eventually if need be.

I feel unburdened, freer, and decidedly less grumpy.  And I'm never buying a Lands' End t-shirt again.  Amen.

Unexpected Drafts and Good Mail Days

My mailbox runneth over

I know this might come as a shocker, but we had another enormous snowstorm this week. I will spare you the photos.  I have way too many photos of enormous snowstorms this year.

But on the bright side of the enormous snowstorm was the unexpected writing time it gave me on Monday.  Our company had gone, Husband took the children for long overdue hair cuts, and my writing group was cancelled due to the weather (You might ask here whether or not it was prudent for Husband to be taking the children for hair cuts in that weather.  It's his department, and that's all I'm sayin'.)

I had a short-ish window of time and two titles that had been circling in my head.  One was "Household Tales."  It just seems to me I should have a poem called this, both because many of my poems are household tales, and because I think a lot about the stories families tell, and (perhaps more importantly) the stories families don't tell.  It's an evocative title for me because it's the latter half of the Grimm's brothers' title: Children's and Household Tales.  The second title came from an e-mail I sent a po-friend, subject line: revision and aubade.  I dunno, the phrase kept swimming back to me and I liked the idea of writing revision into a poem.  So, two titles, a short window, I went for it.

But skipped an all-important step: reading good poetry first.  I always read good poetry before I write, but feeling crunched for time, I went straight to writing.  Is this the reason the drafts came so hard, or am I just suspicious?

Yes, the drafts came hard.  "Household Tales" is a collection of family stories -- some real and some imagined -- and has several stanzas beginning with a variation of "The one where... ."  After I drafted the poem and looked at it on paper I knew it had to be a poem in sections, and needs more vivid images and lyric moments, and probably less "the one where."  I am already working on chunking it up and re-imagining.

"Revision and Aubade" was fun to write, though not easy.  The fun part was the circling back to revise what was said before:  "What I meant to say is" and "I've forgotten everything" then "I remember when you..." then, "Or was it me, yes... ."  The not-easy part is stringing together the images and connective tissue in a way that the circling back works for a purpose.

And now you know what I've been up nights thinking about this week.

Anyway, both of these drafts feel important to me, but neither flew down the page in a rapturous burst of creativity.  If these drafts are to become poems, the I will have to revise my way into them.  There was a time in my writing life when I would have hidden from such drafts.  They would go to the Resting Drawer for their eternal rest.  I am determined not to hide from these two drafts.  I am determined to plod through revisions, to make these drafts into poems.  Do you hear me Universe!?

And I am determined to always read good poetry before I write.  I am determined not to skip this step ever again.  Amen.

As for the good mail, waiting for me are three volumes I'm very much looking forward to, mostly.  Poets&Writers is a magazine for, um, poets and writers.  It comes out every two months, and at the end of each two-month window I find myself wondering what happened to my P&W?  Did I let my subscription lapse?  Did it come, but I missed it in the jumble that is family life?  I do my P&W freak out routine, and then it comes in the next days' mail.  (BTW, I also did this with sleep deprivation: held out for many, many, many months, broke down completely one night crying and sobbing on Husband's shoulder about how I couldn't take it anymore, baby -- toddler actually-- started sleeping through the night the very next night.)  I love P&W because it makes me feel connected to the writing world, has really good pieces on writing craft and the writing life, and is a source for calls-for-submissions and new books to read.  Sometimes when I read it I feel ensconced in a world I belong in; other times I feel like there is this great big writing world out there and I understand about one 1-zillionth of it.  Hopefully it's the most important 1-zillionth: put the time in reading, writing and revising.

Next is a book I've seen reviewed on a few po-blogs, The Working Poet: 75 Writing Exercises and a Poetry Anthology edited by Scott Minar.  Those of you who have been reading a while know that I've been working my way through Thirteen Ways of Looking for a Poem by Wendy Bishop.  I was ready for a little change, so I tracked down a used copy of this book to try.  Wouldn't you know in the introduction Scott Minar writes, "I tell my students not to begin drafting a poem unless they have read some great poetry first."  Right on.  Also, on page 15: The Nest Poem, an exercise for assembling "a poem of many shorter pieces associated through a larger theme."  Just in time, thanks.

And last, a book arrived from points west from a new po-friend, a complete surprise: Jennifer Richter's Threshold.  The po-friend wrote that she had been reading it and kept thinking of me.  I peeked inside to see why.  Motherhood, illness, sweet-and-sharp intermingling of joy and pain.  I am both excited and afraid to read it.  Excited because the sneak-peek poems were really good, and I think I can learn from this book.  Afraid because I sometimes read a poem or a book that makes me think, Well, I'll never top that so I might as well hang it up now.  Rilke, for example, has this effect on me.  Of course, I know I won't hang it up and can't, so I might as well read and learn, and then go write my poems which nobody has written yet.