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 |  Just play: don't look at your hands! |
What a dumb title for a person who never got a single star  on her piano lessons!Daily practice is the thing though: the practice of noticing as well as of writing.  However, I'd much rather play duets than solos, so hop right in! You can do the melody or the base part, I don't care.  Just play along--we'll make up the tune as we go. I'll try to write regularly and deliberately. Sometimes I will do it poorly, tritely, stiltedly, obscurely. I will try to persevere regardless. It seems to be where my heart wants to go, and that means to me that God wants me there too. See you tomorrow. ![Merit Badge in Journaling
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| Weren't the Olympics wonderful! Not just the athletes but the crowds, the entertainers, everybody! I absolutely love to watch it, and this year was better than ever. Can't wait to see what Brazil does after their fabulous show at the closing. The queen 'parachuting' in for the opener was a kick, and the mayor of London on a real zip line, stuck above the crowds was great too. There may have been heartbreak during the games, but there were no losers. Britain, and all the world, you did it right! |
| Hooray, we've had green beans, onions, lettuce and our first two zucchinis from the garden for supper! I decided it was time to plant a few more rows of beans, as soon as I weed out a place for them, so I had them in my jeans pocket. They went through the wash, and are now the equivalent of soaked and ready to get out there. I'm not quite as ready. The thunder and lightening drove me inside twice tonight. Maybe tomorrow morning will be okay. I've been reading more poets now. The teacher has established a traveling library of Northwest poets for us to check out. I'm really enjoying it. I'm wanting to make my work more something, I don't even have a word for it. When she gave us prompts last week, I noticed for the many-eth time how difficult it is for me to go from the concrete to poetry. It's the same with painting. I keep trying to make the picture like the photo instead of making it a creation of my own. Here's my quick poem expressing my dilemma. Climb Aboard? It’s a difficult feat for one so clumsy to manage the task of boarding a boat. One foot on the dock (beware of splinters), the other extended to a surface in motion with uneven wake. Such is the journey to the abstract from concrete, to metaphor from circumstance, to poetry from life. Frequently I fail to make the transfer successfully. More often, although I know it’s out there, I fail to even see the boat. |
| This is the time of the year when I: a,) regret having not been more diligent about weeding; b.) wish I'd planted such-and-such closer together, or, alternately, farther apart ; c.) wishing I'd planted something else in addition to or besides what I planted; d.) having better plans for next year. The spring was cold, the garden was slow. I manicured every weed and grass blade faithfully. However, I used grass clippings for mulch last year, and this year, well, you can guess. Now that it's hot, the grass has overtaken my efforts. I was just out there, and I'm dripping with sweat and have only a small area free from the unwanted stalks. It's the front, of course, the part you see easiest. I used a great garden web site that allowed me to design my garden, put the plants in at the right spacing, etc. Fun to do but easier on the screen than on my knees out there in the dirt. I had many yards of surplus tarp we'd cut from the edge of the winter pool cover, and it made great walking paths. I do need to go punch holes in them tomorrow, to keep the sprinkler water from making puddles and to let the rain through, if we ever get any more this summer. We may have had our share, albeit all at once it felt like. So, next year my beans will be planted farther apart, regardless of what the seed package and web site suggested. I can't see into them to know if there are any beans yet, but there are lots of blossoms, some white, some pink. That's odd, isn't it? And I absolutely WILL stake my tomato plants when I plant them. It's terrible trying to get their long arms up into their cages while not knocking off any blossoms. And maybe I'll even be better about pulling up the volunteer tomatoes. I have far too many this year, in addition to the six plants I bought. I suspect all the upstarts are sweet 100's, and my friends will all be happy to have them grow. This is the first year I've been ruthless with sunflowers, not letting them just come up wherever they please. Hmmm. At least I intended to be, but, in truth, I don't think I saw any this year at all. I did plant a row across the back of the garden though, and they're looking proud. I saw some mulch advertised but too expensive, made of rubber tire chips. I bet that would work to keep the weeds down. I have three other free solutions though that are working in micro areas. Maybe I can expand. One is the husks off sunflower seeds that the birds leave. Did you ever notice that the weeds don't grow there? Another is newspaper. I never knew how to keep it from blowing away before, but this year have folded sections into thirds, making long strips that are thick enough to stay in place once they get wet. And the third one is those box bottoms that the store gives you to put your plants in. I've turned them upside down in bare spaces, and if they don't discourage/kill the weeds, at least they hide them. Darn. There's a big windstorm. I've heard the thunder for awhile but now the wind. The pool cover is off because the water is so hot already, but the linden trees are putting out bushels and bushels of spent blossoms/seeds/chaff. Guess it's too late to change my mind now and cover it back up since I'm by myself. I could do it if the wind wasn't blowing, but maybe being out there in the lightening isn't so good either. It will tick Bill off to have to clean that up tomorrow before we can leave for Spokane, but he'll probably insist on it. We'll see. Maybe I'll call up there now and see if we can move our reservation back a day. |
| Bill decided, Thursday when the housekeeper was due to be here any minute, that he'd start cleaning out his office. He bought a large set of shelves and put them in there, then has been pulling other stuff out and putting it on any convenient flat surface, even some inconvenient ones. What he's trying to do is get a desk in there for his old computer. That could be nice. I could use it. I tried this morning, but being in the same room with him gets old fast. First, he has to tell me everything he's looking at, mainly space and airplane stuff. I don't always listen to him very carefully when he's talking about that anyway, but it's harder in the same room. He has no sense at all about me needing my own brain to do my own thinking, not always lending him my ear. But that is tolerable. The part that isn't is his constant vitriol against Obama. I'm not a Democrat, but I'm liking the man more and more as Bill continues to disrespect him. I guess that isn't entirely true, but I am certainly not deadset against him. I'm tired of hearing it. Bill doesn't seem to realize that healthcare is important and so far this is the only way it's being addressed. Sure, maybe there's a better way, but nobody is doing much about it. Everything is so negative and I just hate it! |
| I did renew my membership, just downgraded it. I think I'll only lose my photo album, and if I want you to see pictures I can always direct you to FB. It's so easy to put pictures there. Good news. Despite the cool and rainy weather, we've had a few nice days and THE POOL is open. (Say, maybe I can remember later how to put a picture here. I'm good for another two weeks with pictures.) It's just a 4' deep above ground pool, but it's very pleasant, and good for low impact exercise. More good news. Bill hadn't heard from the FAA about his pilot's license. He's called several times, and each time they want more information about his medical situation. He lost his medical when he had prostate cancer last year. Well finally they said IT"S IN THE MAIL! We're waiting, but doing a happy dance while we wait. |
| Our small poetry group, derivative of the old one, has been known to us as the Quartet., and we intended to keep the membership to invitation only. We asked one man who had been part of the original group but had quit when we did, and he was delighted to be included. Today someone new showed up, completely unknown to us. We did not want just anyone who called himself a poet, knowing that there's a lot of really awful poetry out there. I was the first to arrive, and Stranger was the second, with New Guy coming soon after. Our one member, M, who had been so adamant about keeping control of the makeup of the group, was not there and will be gone for 3 weeks. I told Stranger about the situation, that the group was not open to everyone necessarily, and he understood. When all arrived and we began our writing and reading, it became clear that he is indeed a poet and a good one. Also personable and knowledgeable. We had a very lively interaction with good, constructive comments. This evening I got a phone call from P, the teacher of the original group. She liked Stranger too, and she wanted to talk about an idea she had expressed in the group. She suggested a poetry collective, and she will make up a web site for us to share our poetry on. She is very talented at that, and I think it's a dandy idea. A previous site she directed is still available on line but nothing new is happening on it. It is a wonderful learning site for poets which used many different teachers and encouraged great interaction among writers. You can see it at: readwritepoem.org. One interesting thing about our group: none has a spouse who is the slightest bit interested in what we write. We all rolled our eyes and laughed. |
Word Parade Huge words guided by some unknown intention reared up in the crowd, out of control bearing down upon a woman and a child. A man known as the town drunk leaped from the wagon leading the parade and grabbed the reins, showing for the first time in his life, his worth; I sat and watched it happen. If you ever hear someone begin: “I probably shouldn’t say this,” STOP THEM. Still, the words with deadly force are the ones we tell ourselves. I wrote this about yesterday's entry, using this actual example of a parade accident as a metaphor. Probably won't be a good idea to workshop this one in my poetry group. What do you all think about it? Should the title be different? I'm not happy with this one, but wanted to use the word parade in it so you'd understand the setting. |
| Good Intentions The Spirit’s being borne across the land dismantling the barriers of color, class and creed by sweeping out the labels that divide us. That sounds fine except, in practice, where we draw the line. (Those who have been chastised for potentially offending call it, in derisive tones, “political correctness.” I think I will call it Homo Sapiens Respectus.) But here’s the problem, one of them at least: Inclusion doesn’t work for everyone. In fact, some railed against it, wanting to protest it, proudly wore their labels as if they’d been discounted, not included. Those who’d first extended what they’d thought was God’s own charity found themselves rejected and that didn’t sit so well. How do we promote equality for everyone when people on both sides are justly proud of who they are? Those who’ve had the luxury of favored position Want to be magnanimous, don’t want to be one-downed. They want to offer “just as good”, Not have it offered to them. Only God’s own love can help bring this around. |
| Transitioning into Retirement Like a short sit with a cold glass of tea after working hard, my mind and body are fallow, muscles slack, mind adrift and headed nowhere. No seeds planted in my imagination, No pull from work undone to motivate my feet. Aware of the breeze, even the stronger wind that builds, With nothing to protect me from erosion, Maybe I should be concerned. But I will only be fallow for a season, resting the earth To prepare for whatever comes. |
| I've been inside most of the day today, and since it decided to get up to 80 degrees today, I didn't mind a bit. Summer swimming sessions at the YMCA will be shortened by children's swimming classes. I do mind that, but I'll get used to getting there earlier, I guess. Then I had a pastoral call to make, a 54 yr old woman newly widowed, feeling lost and scared. I had just enough time between that call and my poetry group to make a raid on the grocery store and a stop at Dutch Brothers for coffee. Here is one of the poems I shared. Barking A shower of insight fell on me as I wakened from a rapturous dream to the angry sound of your voice yelling at the barking dog. Doing her canine best, she joined the morning Bark-along, passing the news from house to house. And you? You’re being your own self as well, growling when your pleasure is disrupted, unaware the consequences of your strident tone. (Relax your jaw, your neck, I tell myself. Be calm. ) It would be easier, my dear, to teach the dog restraint than you. Two members made similar comments about it, and I'm running it past you to see what you have to say as well. |
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