Today, April 30, 2010 I am so grateful for…..

I am grateful for the scent of lavender and vanilla, combined

I am grateful for Passion Activator Friday

I am grateful for Emma’s perseverance

I am grateful for Jolie for always surprising me with different looks for myself

I am grateful for the people who get me (and perhaps, today, a bit more for those who don’t)

I am grateful for NaPoWriMo and all the words that have been birthed because of April

I am grateful for longing

See more progress on: Daily: Reflect on at least 5 things for which I'm grateful (Happiness Manifesto #2)

Free Within - A Memoir - Cento of NaPoWriMo 2010

I learned a lot during NaPoWriMo 2010. I learned I overused the word “fester”, for example, and I learned I could write poetry while traveling. I was across the countyfrom my home, in Massachusetts in the beginning of the month. I spent April 1 at Emily Dickinson’s home in Amherst, Massachusetts. Two weeks later my daughters and I went on an overnight adventure to San Francisco: I wrote there, too.

Today’s grand finale is an amalgam of each poem I wrote this month. It is longer than thirty lines because I wrote more than thirty poems. The lines were chosen at random: I only plugged one line into a different spot after it was pulled.

I edited in a few words simply so the reader would not be distracted, too much, even though Centos are not always the smoothest conglomerations of thought, I wanted this to make sense if at all possible and I believe I accomplished that goal.

Infinite thanks to my fellow poets. Especially to the readers from ReadWritePoem, and my tears and sadness is surprising me, your presence in one spot will be missed. I plan to be a part of the new website so I may continue growing alongside those of you who show up there. Your presence has helped me to evolve as a poet.

Keep moving your pencils, everyone. Love, Love, Love.

Free Within: A Memoir – Cento of NaPoWriMo 2010

Free to write here now in the
Juniper: the home of the (or is it his?)
Body – a lust emporium – which
In the midst of blue, I reflect…

Lowest totem pole playmates or simply
Remembering “You are here!” YAY

An unexpected perk,
She heaved into
The veins on either side
Wiping her mouth, feeling
There – like that – that’s much better

The page is my alarm
My call to write
From three dimensional color to one
I hover at the end of the question

Would your specialness have been vacuumed?

Stow the memory of the
Chickadee song from the
Pink floral grove –
I can’t believe its not Monday

Stare back from the page
Stretch arms

Stigma, stirring the air
Homage to what is real
In the woman, quietly opening
Her after vacation email box
A mackinaw blanket across
The rotten stench of her departing
Fat cat pinot noir

Abundance taps her shoulder
In the shadow of the black mirado warrior
Adolescent’s grating laughter waves farewell
It has met feng shui with contours

And leaves me/her alone
I snooze, I dream, I hear – awaken – speak
Our babies who live
Boil over, effervescence within

See more progress on: Do NaPoWriMo 2010 (A Poem a day in April)

One Word Journal for April 29, 2010

Space

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April 29, 2010 - One Sentence Journal

I discover repeatedly how much I enjoy contributing to the accomplishment of others.

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I am so grateful on Thursday, April 29, 2010

Today I am so grateful for…

our interesting weather (so unBakersfield-like!);

art experimentation;

howling at the moon last night and all the full moon exploration (which will continue, I am sure!);

Camp Product and the fantabulous Campers;

belly laughs with my Trotsky people;

Samuel’s ability to keep it together (and/or) get it back together so quickly now;

my clothes;

happy-happy-happy hugs from friends when bumping into them unexpectedly…

See more progress on: Daily: Reflect on at least 5 things for which I'm grateful (Happiness Manifesto #2)

April 29 Morning Pages -

Six months. It has been six months. A part of me is in shock, the other part of me is proud, the other part of me says, “I want to look him in the eye, smile at him and celebrate over ‘just lunch’” but perhaps that is the part of me that enjoys fire play.

I used to say, “Talk to me in six months” and I sort of meant it but at the time I couldn’t imagine it. Sometimes I wonder if I could have gotten through the six months if it hadn’t been for other, equally or even more satisfying distractions (who happens to have a job possibility in Kansas which I am encouraging, loud and strongly.)

I want to explore on-my-own-ness, well, as much as I can in my situation, with children depending upon me and sometimes it feels like the world depending upon me.

So – here I am, talking about endings.

When Railroad Man got angry because I took my children on an adventure I had been waiting to have for years (a cross country road trip) his anger turned into skirt chasing. By the time I got back, he was in a different relationship and unwilling to admit it to me. So, our six months has been longer than six months, but add about two months of me trying to figure out if he would ever come clean and not being willing or ready to let go. You know how that goes, sometimes.

When I finally let go, I let go. We have talked on occasion, like on Christmas when he randomly called. He is a man who has a hard time closing chapters and because of his unique gifts and talents, many women bring him back for limited engagements and encores. I told him when it was over, it would be different with me. I think I have held to that claim quite well.

Lately I have thought similarly in a different situation: that an ending is in order. It feels, sometimes, like a helluva lot of responsibility which I don’t want to take on, energetically anyway. I asked him a question the other night, “If you suddenly had 25 million dollars, how would our relationship change, what would you do?” The hopeless romantic in me was waiting for a specific response which didn’t come. This is rare for me to have ONE specific desired response. I have to say, he surprised me. But he probably had no clue I was waiting for one specific thing.

Beginnings, on the other hand, are a piece of cake for me to fall into. I begin and begin and begin. It is the ending I am so bad at. Actually, when I look over my last endings, I wasn’t so awful once the coffin lid came down. It was like, OVER. Mark it OVER. I saw these friends again, intermittently, but never sparked anything again although in times of loneliness, I wanted to. Loneliness is such a barrier.

There are times I think my forties have been about things I missed in my teens, only from a somewhat wiser perspective. I didn’t date much in my teens, at least not. (That is weird, it is like 750 words burped. THEY got distracted. I was writing along about angst and heartbreak and two sided angst and heartbreak when they told me my words had up and left me.

Giggle. What a perfect use of the space, eh?

Endings. Endings. Endings.

I am not great at quitting jobs, either. I am not great at saying “I can’t” or “I didn’t” or “Just won’t right now…” isn’t that intriguing? It is to me, anyway.

43things helps me with some of this.

Theater helps me with some of this.

Theater helps me with endings because there are always timelines for show and time chugs along whether or not I agree to it or want it or think it should be different, time chugs. And I love people intensely while shows are going on and then, poof, our regular relationships end – just like that.

Some people I never see again and sometimes, our relationships are so different.

People say I am overly dramatic when I talk about this, but it is very true, ultra true actually. Finishing shows has taught me more about grief than you might ever imagine. Endings. Beginnings.

Audition – read through begin. Final curtain call, strike. The End.

See more progress on: Complete the May Challenge offered at 750Words.com

One word journal for April 28, 2010

tweak

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One Sentence Journal for April 28, 2010

Julia doesn’t know when to stop texting so Tim and I had matching vibrating phones toward the end of rehearsal – argh!

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Peanut Butter and Jelly on White Bread - Daily Poem on April 29, 2010

Inspiration for your next to the last NaPoWriMo poem is at your fingertips! D.S. Apfelbaum recalls what William Carlos Williams once wrote, “It is difficult/ to get the news from poems,” but asks, “Who says you can’t get poems from the news?”
For this prompt, choose your favorite newspaper or online news provider.
The headline I borrowed from (with its facts and figures intact) was “Enrollment in school lunch assistance programs reaches record highs” by JORGE BARRIENTOS of the Bakersfield Californian, our local daily newspaper

Peanut Butter and Jelly on White Bread

It is as simple as
Spaghetti and
Pizza and chicken nuggets
With fries

It is as simple as
90 percent of Samuel’s classmates
68 percent of Kern Kids
51 percent of California Kids
Eating free or cheap

There was a time
Her girls ate for free
Few questions asked,
Downcast eyes said,
“I have a need”

Before peanut butter
And jelly munching became
Fodder for reporters
Teens turn away

It is as simple as
Stigma stirring the air
(High schoolers would
Rather be hungry than
Embarassed even knowing)

It is as simple as
60 percent chewing
In 2000, the sandwich fest
cost $6.1 billion
In 2008 it cost $9.3 billion

It is as simple as hunger
It is as simple as joblessness
It is as simple as homelessness
It is as simple as compassion

See more progress on: Do NaPoWriMo 2010 (A Poem a day in April)

One Sentence Journal for April 27, 2010

Before I went to bed, I hung my full moon dream board on my purple room wall and put just enough gas in my car.

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April 28, 2010 Morning Pages

Dare I begin? I put my fingers to the keyboard and there is no turning back, there is only writing forward for the next 750 words without stopping although today, I am working to be conscious – to neither rush nor push, to simply write. Consciously.

Love. Consciously.

I need to settle into intuition (if that is possible) steep in the awarenesses that have happened to and with me. I thought, first and second, of the intuition on steroids, those moments when there wasn’t a soft light bulb moment, there was clanging gongs and a chorus line of angelic type forces shouting, cavorting and pushing my hunched shoulders up and weaving my thoughts toward a bunch of “YES!” bouquets. There push was so predominant, my ego had no space to roam so… it didn’t feel driven by choice as much as divine force, life-force which is, perhaps something of Intuition’s army.

I remember when I was on a phone call, a conference call, about becoming a life coach. It took me three tries to get there because I was going through such a difficult time emotionally, psychically and spiritually. I remember one conference call I missed at the height of my depression. It was one of the times when my depression was so bad I couldn’t speak because I thought God would find my voice offensive. It was that time in my depression when it was so bad, I contemplated suicide but didn’t believe I was worthy of it.

Perhaps that time intuition’s army knew they had to intervene to give me an activity to match my reason – something outside of my children or my community. Sometime outside of the obvious, the guilt-laden purgatory I was strapped inside. (I meant to say something not sometime.)

I listened, I remember, and the chorus-girls were high kicking and shaking their collective boas and shimmying and I was waffling in the “I don’t know if I want to train to be a life coach, I mean…. I am on stress leave from work, remember… I can’t focus at work so I don’t see how I can focus on training… or anything” and then… kablooey, the damn opened up in a chant of “Do it!” “Say Yes!” and “This is it, Julie! Don’t be stupid!” so I said YES and my life changed forever.

A few weeks later I went to see a shrink who was basically a county hired prostitute whose job it was to determine it wasn’t my job that made me crazy, it was something else. I drove to Santa Monica on my own to do this appointment which was supposed to last all afternoon long. I didn’t believe it would last that long, but I was willing to do whatever it took. Somehow, on that day, it no longer mattered to me what anyone thought about my depression or my situation or anything, I knew then I wouldn’t want to go back to work for the county and I couldn’t go back to work for the county. I loved my clients but it was the bureaucracy that was threatening my life. They never saw me and never would see me. They would never value me, they would never come in my corner, they would never appreciate the hours I worked or the dedication to my craft. I sat on the park, the one overlooking the ocean in Santa Monica – the one you see in movies where people roller skate and skateboard and occasionally they show art stuff there and I read Gregg Levoy’s book, “Callings”... I talked to a homeless woman and “Now Begin” downloaded itself onto the page.

I still need to write that book. My project? My project that keeps coming back.

The other time the Intuition army landed in my yard was with acting. I was taking an acting class as a default because singing wasn’t available but I think my appointment to sing came from my desire to act, in musicals and beyond. I think, now, it was my desire to be truthful and to know truth because I have known truth more purely on stage than anywhere else. Transcendence happens on stage for me. It happens during performance of my own work through poetry or the words of others. It happened even the other night when Gabe got “murdered” in his blood curdling scream and my involuntary reaching toward him. Surreal and wonderful.

But when Hal gave me that assignment, that “Your job is to say no” improv, I leaped into the void and never looked back, the army was too busy kicking me over the side, leaping on streams of rope. Nudging, budging, shushing my fear.

Intuition is like that, always.

Nudging, budging, shushing my fear and making it impossible for me to do anything except the exactly right thing.

See more progress on: Complete the May Challenge offered at 750Words.com

On Wednesday, April 28 I am so grateful....

for the sunflower I discovered this morning – definitely being written about later (started, just need to finish!)

the scent of laundry

time at Sarah’s last night, laughing with friends and Emma

being able to be the one to drive to Sarah’s so Jennie didn’t have to drive. I feel like she is finding friendship with other women easier lately which makes me happy

the trees trimmers and the way the trees look, trimmed

the new windows in the front of my house

breaking through

perhaps the most abundant April on record for me. It has been phenomenal… starting at Emily Dickinson’s home… coming to an end with surprising sunflowers and invitations to so many parties I have lost count and so much in between. I am so blessed.

and naturally, I am grateful for You

See more progress on: Daily: Reflect on at least 5 things for which I'm grateful (Happiness Manifesto #2)

April 27, 2010 Morning Pages

I am really rising to the challenge as offered at 750Words.com. I have missed a couple days (by accident!) and am looking forward to beginning May when I will be ultra intentional with this goal.

So today is Paying it Forward Day or Opposite Day according to Samuel. Emma waited for him to leave and then asked, “Can we return to normal?” whatever normal means to us. I have workmen in my house installing new windows. Everything is feeling new. I am getting my trees trimmed today – four of them, including my beloved teen-aged palm tree. Things are expanding and opening and the full moon isn’t even here yet, officially… I don’t think? Or maybe it is. I am going to stay here at 750 words even though my mind is wandering into the wanting to know category. Maybe a blessing of 750 words is not going off course into the abyss of google, google, google – verb and noun and verb and noun and I wonder if it is ever an adjective.

Abundant prosperity increase. Prosperity: increase abundance. Add, add, add to the increase. My marketing today will be about abundance, prosperity, simplicity and ofcourse will start with Gratitude (doesn’t everything?) I type away while they work. I hear tape tearing. Abundance. Prosperity. Adding to the increase. Soon my wall will hold my full moon dream board, which is something of a dream itself. Something to gaze at. My vision, my artistic vision.

My world is a glorious web of creativity with and including my babies who are my greatest creative achievements of all. How I love them! I am abundant in art. I am abundant in creativity. I am prosperous and grateful for my children, my art, my words.

Words are my anchor art. I continue to grow, expand, delight in specific skills. I will never know too much artfully, and what I know right now is perfect. I keep staying present to the artistic course in front of me, I move in the direction of the flow. I pray, thank you, as I breathe.

Thank you thank you thank you. Today in scripture. Oh no the door.

Now it will look like I got distracted, but I didn’t. I was polite. Ken didn’t call back which disappoints me but, well, these things happen and I am on the path of forgiveness, right?

I was talking about abundance and the bible and in my full moon dream board I am completely into abundance. I was looking at my collection and seeing I had not addressed abundance and recognized that I need to. So. Here I am, abundance.

:-) There you are, abundance. In everything.

These words came: May God give you of heaven’s dew and of earth’s richness— an abundance of grain and new wine.

They feast on the abundance of your house; you give them drink from your river of delights.

You let men ride over our heads; we went through fire and water, but you brought us to a place of abundance.
Grace and peace be yours in abundance through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.

Mercy, peace and love be yours in abundance.

I don’t think it is illegal to copy and paste quotes into my 750 words, although it may make my word speed a bit weird. I pray it catches up. I love that one, “You let men ride over our heads, we went through fire and water, but you brought us into a place of abundance.”

Random, buy my dracena has a bunch of water sitting at its ridge. Its rim. I watered it and air bubbles rose. I want to get one of those watering things that Samuel likes so much, one of those infomercial things.

Mercy, peace, love, grace is mine in abundance. Artful abundance. Paint abundance.

“The only dream is no dream.” There is so much richness in that. The only dream is now. My hopes and dreams are now. Poem of HOPE.

What brand of hope do I sell?

Hope to return to creativity.

Hope to trust that I am a writer, I am an artist, I have a voice that is worthy to be heard, that people indeed want to hear. This is for YOU and for me, and for her and for him. Hope to believe in yourself. Hope to know, hope to trust, hope to engage, hope to love.

Tony and I texted and voice mailed this morning. He had a tough night. I haven’t seen him in six months and it is strange, I am grateful to him for the truth within, miles deep sometimes in him. I remember those moments with loss hovering and the tears and then – the loss not hovering but standing amidst and among, like that huge Indian guy at Ethel’s. That Michelin Man turned random statue.

And now, I am grateful for the lessons, the time, the being-ness.

Abundance of gratitude.

My windows are being installed. I am grateful.

Grateful. Abundant. Increase. Prosperity. I finished!

See more progress on: Complete the May Challenge offered at 750Words.com

Today, April 27, I am so grateful for....

750words.com: a very cool place for freewriting that is different than my norm… which is grand.

My Full Moon Dream Board: I didn’t realize how much I would enjoy the process!

NaPoWriMo – currently on Day 27 but I am thinking I will just continue, like the ever inspirational and glorious Tiisi…

Completion

My computer

The network here at home so several of us can be online simultaneously… it is so simple but so helpful

The new windows which are being installed as I type. YAY!! many times over

I am grateful. So grateful!

See more progress on: Daily: Reflect on at least 5 things for which I'm grateful (Happiness Manifesto #2)

One Word Journal: April 26, 2010

Completion

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April 26, 2010 One Sentence Journal

Today I officially dropped out of Jukebox Legends, which felt weird but was important to do for my family, who needs to always come first.

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NaPoWriMo Day 27: Julie's Response to Retrograde

ReadWritePoem called today to write an acrostic, which is a grand (and fairly easy) model to write. I chose to use “Julie’s next increase” simply because of the personal process I have been engaging in recently, a sort of beginning again phase for me – it feels good and I have to remember to remember feeling good again is what is supposed to happen. J

The opening sentence is the perfect preface and adds to the acrostic a sort of moment of promulgation… like the trumpeter at the top of the stairs announcing my return…

Julie’s Response to Retrograde

I snooze, I dream, I hear – awaken – speak:

Jubilance may be the word to
Use to describe the way she moves,
Loves, lives, negotiates every
Inch of this world she inhabits
Engaging, she is
Sustaining, she is

Not long ago and then it feels like
Eons ago when life crashed at her feet
X’ed out her liveliness, became coated in
The big three of death, cancer, atypicalness

It’s time to integrate, break free of meaninglessness
New life now with lessons from those days deep
Congruent, carefully constructed and crafted
Richness found in what remains
Energy has returned, restored, rebalanced
Abundance taps her shoulder, accepting again
Satisfaction opens the curtain, sighs felt in cells
Excellent awareness: exact, enroll, enlighten

See more progress on: Do NaPoWriMo 2010 (A Poem a day in April)

April 26 Morning Pages

I missed yesterday and didn’t even realize it. Good thing it isn’t the challenge month or I would have been dust in the wind. I was so distracted by Samuel at my heels but no excuse is no excuse! I have managed to get a poem written each and every day this month though right now it seems unfathomable that on April 1, less than a month ago, I was at Emily Dickinson’s home and in this same month I have visited both Morro Bay and also…. San Francisco and Castro Street. This morning I found out about the LARGEST poetry festival in the country which is being held in Newark in October. What is up with the East Coast calling me the way it is doing? It feels (almost) surreal.

I sometimes wish, no, I always wish – I had the freedom to up-and-move.

Rather than the necessity to stay stay stay.

I am writing about wind today, zephyrs, Sallys and new ideas, taken from a 2002 poem that doesn’t exactly fit anymore. There are some poems from that era that delight me but primarily, they settle in right where my knees bend in the territory that gets achy if not well supported. Speaking of which, Katherine wants to start doing aerobics which could be very very very fun! I want to get out of all these commitments (which mean TIME!) so that I can do this fun stuff with her (aohnsh, I don’t like meaningless words like FUN! What could I say instead of FUN. Encouraging, captivating, ice cream cones, confetti, karaoke, chocolate cake, a game of charades, swimming, settling into a warm bed with a nice comforter.

I love comforters, I love soft beds. I love that I am getting another key so that when Cam is away I can house sit and enjoy the lushness of his comforters and pillows. Strange the things I enjoy.

We talked about memorable meals last night.

What were my most memorable meals?

Simple ones. Picnics on mountaintops. Calvin crest meals. Meals with great conversation. Dinners with David at what was that restaurant in the Ice House? And the place downtown where Julia likes to go for her birthday and New Years (I wish I could remember!) These are the meals I remember.

Today I sketched a gorgeous woman, dancing. She looks like she is dancing, a modified “receiving dance” which is something of a whirling dervish and reminded me of me when I did “Reclaiming C…T” in VDay this year. When I look over this past year, theater wise, I see me doing roles I don’t really want to do and I do them because it is what shows up. I am excited and intimidated as hell by Robin Tyler but otherwise, not so much and I am not sure what to do about it other than directly go ask people what I can do to get a great role or even what great roles are out there. This is part of the problem, I feel like I am not educated enough to ask for what I want because I literally don’t know what I want. Many people have dream roles, I don’t know what roles to dream about because I don’t know what exists (sorta no more than sorta frustrating.) I think of “I wait for sleep” and I want to work on that some more but then I get tangled in the “don’t knows” when I do know, I think – or I certainly have access to what is known yet still unknown by me.

GAWD! I need to write.

Not just this kind of writing, but writing for DPA, writing to publish, writing to share not just writing to blurt. Don’t be insulted, morning pages, I just need substance as well as fluff… more than dump and stream of consciousness rambling. I need to go through you with a marker and find the highlights, find the richness in what is here.

I need to work on my lines for DEAR HARVEY. I need to get on the ball for so many things I don’t feel very ball like at all and I need to find out how to do the BELL for TROTSKY, too. Oh! So much to do, never feels like time stretches out but when I am working on my art it isn’t like I really care, I just create more art.

I love photographing my paintings, my art work, more than fetching other people’s stuff for my collages or photos, I want to use mine. Ok, claim this baby done

See more progress on: Complete the May Challenge offered at 750Words.com

Gratitude on April 26, 2010

Today I am grateful for….

ancient sketch books, reborn into really cool drawings

NaPoWriMo

Awarenesses that come from long-ago projects nestling with the me-who-I-continue-to-become

the full moon is on her way and I am preparing!!

The fabulous Camp Product Campers

The Art of Living Questions (and Rainer Rilke, for that matter…)

The Artistic Mother: Shona Cole and Group Leader, Trudy

Emma

See more progress on: Daily: Reflect on at least 5 things for which I'm grateful (Happiness Manifesto #2)

NaPoWriMo Poem Day 26: The Birth of a New Idea

Ironic synchronicity rules the prompting at ReadWritePoem. I don’t understand how you all are walking around so quietly in my brain, yet you do.

Yesterday I cleaned out a cabinet and found a collection of poems I compiled back in 2002. Today, I took one of those poems and gave new life to it. It was called “A New Idea”. Back then, most of my poetry was very life-coachy oriented which makes sense: that was my life. Being a life coach, specifically a creative life coach. Since then, I have continued to be a life coach but more than that, I have been an artist who coaches occasionally so my writing is more art first, personal development and coaching insights second instead of the other way around.

Maybe I am being called to balance now – I am not sure, but I am open to continuing a-ha’s…. perhaps that is what this poem is actually about…

As has been my habit, I started today’s poem with the end of yesterday’s poem. I am giggling because the tone between the two poems could not be more different.

The Birth of a New Idea

“Another tale or fester another drink, instead?”
Sally asks, surveying the horizon for
Accessible rampart nests
Bells, jingling the auditory scripture
Guide her floating foot path
Toward protection, alight align appear

Long curls of gold rust catch
Dawn as she opens and breathes free baby Zephyr
“Do this,” her gentle command
“Cause re-think and new thought, conception
and birth, novel assemblage…. Feed
entrepreneurs and artists, teachers, parents
and students, create – act – blow….”

Infant Zeph blinks, knowing and unknowing
Part pixie part warrior Adonis, part Xena Buddha
Somersaults and unknowing lands in my mouth
As I sit in my desk on an April morning in Bakersfield
Babe says, “Take me, allow me to be consumed
By you, swallow me, chew if you must, I suppose,
Receive me…..”

I testify of a project beginning, the flickers of
Passion’s flames licking from the inside – knowing
Only rightness of this idea-pregnancy
Allowing the slow unfolding
As I come to know Sally and Zephyr
I climb into the rampart and softly
I snooze, I dream, I hear – awaken – speak

See more progress on: Do NaPoWriMo 2010 (A Poem a day in April)

By the Models, Hank? (April 25 X 2)

This poem came from the prompt from Joseph Harker at ReadWritePoem.org. We were to write from the first words we heard after reading the prompt.

Samuel, my almost nine-year-old son contributed the first words: “Think he’s going to find a place to lie down?” as he watched our Lhasa Apso, Hank, find a place to rest. Hank became a person in the poem… it is actually the second time a HANK has appeared in my poetry in NaPoWriMo.

I also used “sausage smell” to open the poem as it was the closing of yesterday’s poem.

Enjoy this journey to… well, you can discern the place for yourself.

Sausage smell is usually
welcome this early in the day
but not here, and not a fermented,
once fresh now not sausage smell
Another round of blistering bile
Boils over, effervesces within

Man in tattered beige turned
brown stained hat asks, “Think he’s
going to find a place to lie down?”
Drawling squint in his aged eyes,
“by the models, Hank?”
Shoulders meet the stained floor

Belches echo through rumbling bellies
Distended from lack of substance
Bundled with an abundance of sour brew
“None of us expected to be here,” he
explained, wondering if he should concoct
another tale or fester another drink, instead

See more progress on: Do NaPoWriMo 2010 (A Poem a day in April)

I am grateful on April 25, 2010

I am grateful to have a teensy slice of a break

I am grateful for restfulness

I am grateful for the ability to put my hair into pin curls

I am grateful for silliness

I am grateful for the simplest of goals: shared and fulfilled

I am grateful for reminders

I am grateful for Flickr

I am grateful to be taken places I don’t really want to go but once I am there, I am glad I went…even briefly

I am grateful for Samuel

I am grateful to have friends who I can text and say, “I am on my way home, may I drop by for a hug?” so I do and it is exactly what I need.

I am grateful….

See more progress on: Daily: Reflect on at least 5 things for which I'm grateful (Happiness Manifesto #2)

One Word Journal, April 24, 2010

decision

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April 24, 2010 One Sentence Journal

I attended a party after R and G are dead, the first time I have been to a party in a while.

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April 25 Poem #1 - Lantern Poem X 3

There is a young poet in the blogosphere named Marinela. It was at her blog that I learned about the “Lantern Poem” which she describes as a short poetry form where the words taken on the form of a Japanese lantern.

Being one who adores new forms, I took the Sunday Scribbling prompt “Dinner” and laced it into this new-to-me form of the Lantern Poem.

Not sure how well I did, but I enjoyed the process and will write more. (My more came so quickly I wrote a Suite-of-lanterns featuring a character named Clyde who apparently enjoys tormenting people who may be hungry.)

FIRST LANTERN – (and we’ll go backward through three meals and three poems.)

“Eat
dinner!”
Clyde bellows
“I can’t eat this!”
Dooonnnnn’t

SECOND LANTERN

“Lunch!”
Hooray!
Clyde suggests
Fermented stew?
NO!

THIRD LANTERN

Dawn
Stretch arms
Breakfast time?
Clyde brings sausage
Ewwww

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One Word Journal April 23, 2010

Claustrophobia

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One Sentence Journal for April 23, 2010

I survived opening night of R & G are Dead, but was disappointed and excited the most potentially humiliating yet hilarious part for me was skipped because my cast mate dropped his cue: damn and hooray?!

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Grateful on April 24, 2010

I am grateful….

for a a wide-open-Summer-on-the-horizon

couchsurfing

ladybugs

Samuel’s enthusiasm

art-projects-in-the-works

my old dictionary

down pillows and comforters

the abundance of supportive friends in my life

Samuel’s unexpected shoulder massage. I am blessed!

See more progress on: Daily: Reflect on at least 5 things for which I'm grateful (Happiness Manifesto #2)

April 24 NaPoWriMo Poem: Freedom, Last Night

Freedom last night meant
leaving the cramped space
which held me captive
albeit I agreed to the
shackles but at the end
all I could see was the
darkness outside, calling me
Hand over fist I climbed out
calling me, calling freedom
I chatter tumbled away, away

This morning my hair holds
the curls still bouncing
I don’t know where some of
my stuff ended up
my eyes are rimmed with
black, reflect the gold in
the midst of the blue
in the center of my
forehead there is an inexplicable
ache pounding through the
sausage smell

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Daily Photos 112/365

This is of Julia, Tim and Jeremy, sharing cupcakes to celebrate Tim’s birthday while we are at rehearsal for Variations on the Death of Trotsky.

My self portrait: I was riding the GET Bus. I loved squeezing in my co-passenger there, in the lower corner.

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One Word Journal April 22, 2010

Double

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One Sentence Journal April 22, 2010

The final day of double rehearsals left me exceptionally exhausted.

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April 23 Gratitudes

I am grateful for my Camp Product program, which is going great today. It feels so… can’t even describe it when people get so much from my work.

I am grateful for NaPoWriMo.

I am grateful for Samuel.

I am grateful for my camera.

I am grateful it is opening night for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead. Thank God!

I am grateful Trotsky is going well.

I am grateful.

See more progress on: Daily: Reflect on at least 5 things for which I'm grateful (Happiness Manifesto #2)

April 23, 2010 Morning Pages

There is a big part of me that doesn’t want to write today, that wants to shirk my streak and say screw it. Why am I writing? Why don’t I just go along with my day like normal people and pitch writing aside? Why do I feel compelled to sit here and watch the word count mount when other people just go about their business complacently, without rhyme or reason, asleep, lonely, bored, dissatisfied when here it is, 8:45 and I feel like it is 3 in the afternoon already. Is that grouchy? I don’t know, I can’t say, fourth campfire, are we making an impact? Are we getting our products off the ground? Am I giving them what they need so that they can go where they want to go?

Stay grounded. Stay in the space of bringing stuff to form instead of getting lost in the web of idea generation. Bring it. Into. Form.

Going to give the dog a food frisbee. He is so blah blah blah with the barking today.

They have their food frisbees, some sausage. I have my time at the typewriter. In the next hour – movement. Movement, movement. Movement and product development. Movement and product development. Movement and product development, movement and product development. STRETCH and develop. Move and develop, feel the product’s call in your body. Ground your body into the earth.

I don’t know how my work works, but I know it works.

Embellish. Don’t worry about strengths. Modge podge things. Let the flaws speak. Let the flaws speak. Let the flaws speak. What is yesterday’s final line? Something about crying and tears. I could make that into today’s poem. Let me go look.

Salt fills her eyes
as she watches the comic
she spent more than $50 to see
spew expletives and insult
carnage across the stage
no one else was crying
unless their laughter was
so great, the tears flowed
in response.
Her tears flowed, in response,
to the ugliness that festered
the hatred others bought into
the jeers at weaknesses no
one created on purpose
her son filled her mind
and pushed the salt over
her eye lids
she stood up and left
laughter filling her belly
as she heaved into the
toilet, sour, wretched
free
Wow. That wasn’t what I thought
I would write yet I did. Ok. so I wrote today’s poem of the day fairly easily, didn’t I? Yes, I did. I could write yes, I did yes i did yes she did yes he did yes emma did yes samuel did yes siobhan did
I don’t know which American Idol contestant was sent home.
I have weakened.
I have lost my connection
I have forgotten
I have fallen asleep and oddly? I don’t care because there isn’t an Adam Lambert this year. There isn’t anyone who has wooed me vocally or energetically or spiritually or psychically. I need to let go of judgment. I need to step into joy. I need to open and reach out and step into and above and beyond what I might have thought to be true and just know its true. How do I concretize that. How do I match up with that to love it, to honor it, to nurture it, to cradle it to water it to love it to know that I only have two hundred words more but in four minutes, I need to be on my call so I will have to show distractions unless I get much much much much much faster. One of my dogs stinks or just pooped. I can smell it or maybe it is my poem I can smell.

“That isn’t funny!” I argued. Practically jokes are never funny, they just aren’t. They sit and fester at the hearts of those on the receiving end perhaps for years. They sit in the column marked NOT funny, really really really really not funny at all so just f#$^ the bleep up. Stop it start it stop it start it love it grow it nurture it hold it start it start it start it birth it grow it expand it nourish it don’t judge it be open to it steal it store it pack it borrow it give it back receive it hold it love it grow it mighty it might it be grateful for it I am going to reach my goal I am going to reach my goal I am going to reach my goal I am goirng to reeach my goal I am going to reach my goal I am going to reach my goal. I reached my goal. I reached my goal. I reached my goal. I reached my goal I reached my goal I reached my goal I reached my goal, I REACHED MY GOAL!

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April 22, 2010 Morning Pages

Julia Cameron said “The blood remembers what the mind forgets” but I wonder, does the blood forgive? I think the blood forgives faster than the mind, actually. It lets go, it cycles in and out and in and out and merges with the breath. The mind merges with the breath, too, but it doesn’t circulate as powerfully as the heart. The heart. The heart moves the blood, moves the breath – or rather, allows the breath to move. Intriguing concept, the blood remembers what the mind forgets.

I shop at thrift stores regularly: the most recent time was looking for books to use in my multi-media projects. There is a goodwill clearance center close to my home that has books for twenty-five cents each. I go specifically looking for text books, dictionaries, etc that are OLD! The last time I went I hit paydirt. I got a copy of Gardner’s Art History Book in its Third Edition, used in the Kern Union High School… there were stickers inside from students in the late 60’s and early 70’s. I love that. I also got a dictionary, college edition of Merriem Webster’s from 1961, full of now-fallacies or at least political incorrectness. I especially felt a tug around the definition of autism. I am grateful we aren’t there any more, but then I think “Has it changed much?” I don’t think it has, perhaps.

I used squall in my poem today for NaPoWriMo, used the last line in yesterday’s Flaw Poem to create a sort of poem sequence not unlike a song set. I love doing stuff like that, and I used my dictionary page from that old dictionary, to create art which moved the poetry right along. I want to use more printed pages from my art. I also watered down acrylic paint to use in the work and I like how it looks, too. So, it is an old flawed watercolor I painted when I couldn’t find words (it occurs to me I wrote a poem about that topic as well) and a dictionary page with “flaw” in it, a hand written copy of yesterday’s poem and acrylic paint. I like it. I want to make more like it. I wish now, though, that I could create another version with a very washed out photo of me as the foundation rather than plain white paper. Since, in the first part of the poem it talks about my picture (or a line drawing of me, rather) as the foundation or the personification of “Flaw”.... I wish I had more confidence in the blessings that I am!

Cherylanne was so masterful at putting my costume together for me. I don’t think I will do so much thrift store shopping for costumes with so many people around who really know how to put costumes together and whose clothes I fit. I appreciate that Kristina could share my costume from Hamlet Machine, too – I appreciate the fact my costume is on stage even if I am not wearing it (Well, I am wearing the bottom.)

I watch the word count here at 750 Words, much like I watch the pages as I write them in my blue lined notebook. I count pages, lines, words stacked or laced around the edges. Now, I look at the bottom corner to see “Where am I” and try to forget my shoulders hurt. They hurt, right now. My eyes are droopy and salty and tired and I would rather forget my quest to write to write to write to write?

How can I ever forget that, after all.

Random stuff:

I love my Amherst coffee mug. I love Amherst, period.

My life is changing, drastically. I have been feeling it in my bloodstream.

My spirit is reclaiming itself and the wishcasting is helping, tremendously, as is the art. I need to work on my art vision statement, its rough draft, and use some of the cardboard boxes I have collected to make more statue type thingees, shadow box cut outs. I want my artistic vision to be about tangible soul, taking what is intangible or conceptual and making it specific, concretized. Take love and making it into form…. that’s what I do and that’s what I want to do more of, consistently.

Some sound just stopped. Rainer is barking. He wants to be held but I have less than twenty five words to go so I keep typing. I keep typing. I keep typing.

Artistic vision is giving and receiving love, tangible soul – making concepts, unreachable into something people can see, smell, touch, taste and feel with their fingers and their spirits. No fissure between soul and space and form.

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Gratitude on Thursday, April 22, 2010

Samuel’s willingness this morning,

Cherylanne’s creativity in coming up with fantastic costume options for R and G for me

continued “interesting” weather

Coffee and cool mugs

Wishcasting

snuggles under warm comforters

Emma’s laughter

NaPoWriMo

See more progress on: Daily: Reflect on at least 5 things for which I'm grateful (Happiness Manifesto #2)

April 21: Morning Pages

What do I dare to wish? What good are flaws? Ebb negotiate random. I begin writing and I feel distraction nipping at my ankles. It has been something of a way of life this week as the blahdom has pointed its long, ugly finger into my chest
Self-doubts are such a plague upon me. Don’t know what else to say. Seriously. Plaguing. Me. So, Samuel was in a pickle of a mood this morning, left the house almost in tears because he couldn’t play on the computer because Emma put up a password. Poor guy. I hope he does decently this morning. I wish sometimes I had a direct line to his teachers so I could warn them to be extra gentle. Testing wreaks havoc on his nervous system and mine, too. I feel like something so oh, wordify it. How do or how can I wordify it? I am so programmed to think and write only the positive, only the gratuitious only that which appears brightly colored and pleasingly textured. No word grenades or destructive rocks thrown from the tower, only gentle wafts of feminine kindness smelling like lilac perfume. Jamie’s web question, “What do you dare to wish” brings me back to “What are the questions you have avoided asking? Risk them.” This morning my entire kitchen table and all the crap I left piled there (I know, I shouldn’t have) had been swept onto the floor. This is where Samuel’s crankiness started, “Where is last week’s homework?” The answer is simple, I don’t know and it may be in that messy pile… it wasn’t there when I started picking through it this morning. I wrote a terse note to Ms. Cortez, who knows what will come of it though. 291 words. I feel myself wanting to stop. And flaws, that is what shows up on RWP today for NaPoWriMo. Maybe I will write a one word poem. Flaws. Me. LOL. Oh, that sounds like a positive thinker, alright! ME! Giggles. People do expect sunshiney people to always be sunshiney. I am home now for I am not sure how long, probably the majority of the day. Emma was asleep early last night, perhaps she will come with me when I go to do the costume thing which I don’t even want to do. “Tragedians do your thing”. Oh, sheesh. I wish, oh how I wish it was different. I don’t want to audition anymore, yet on Saturday I am auditioning because there is something I actually WANT to do but probably won’t get cast for so perhaps I won’t even try. Maybe that is what I need to dare. “If only I would lead a conventional life, like everyone else does,” I said to him. I am unwilling to do that. Completely unwilling. Where does that unwillingness live? Does it live in fear or does it live in empowerment? That is an interesting place to wrestle about for a while. I had interrupted sleep last night. I was afraid. I am afraid. Vestiges of childhood plague my thinking, still. That chasm that happened that continues to rock me, deep inside. How do I get it out. How do I bridge it? How do I live with that split? I am thinking of those small cracks in the ground, the ones that turn into a canyon over time. Not so easy to step through and across anymore. Not at all. I feel stuck on this side. I feel like I put on a costume and read from a script to hang out on that other side. Maybe I need to go to therapy again. Last time when I found a good therapist, she ended up going almost part time, available only once a month or so. That isn’t feeling like enough yet better than this nothing. I wonder what wait. Productivity and action is usually the best cure. Like last night, feeling like crap and then along came Trotsky rehearsal and I was laughing and joking and enjoying the creative process and all of a sudden, I felt better. I am tired of being teased. I don’t like it. I wonder why these same bloody themes won’t stop bumping into me, headlong, ugly. Morose. Covered with spider webs. Self indulgent. Forgetful of the vision. Forgetful of what I stand for. Forgetful of the gifts I carry in my being, those that want to be used, dusted off and taken out for a growing group of souls. No longer held so tight, so hoarded, so bent upon not being broken that they are in a glass box, separate and untainted but never used. Only looked at, on display of what was or could have been, maybe, if she had only…...

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Morning Haiku: April 21, NaPoWriMo #21

coffee scent woos me
morning sounds fill the crisp air
socks across wood floor

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What She Saw - NaPoWriMo Daily Poem, April 20

The prompt today at ReadWritePoem reminded me of my Mother and Miss Foley. Seeing it is my Mother’s birthday, I felt compelled to write a poem about her…and yes, the heroism from the mother-within-both of us. Let me know what you think.

Here is the prompt:

As a child, Jessica GC says she had two heroes: Wonder Woman and her mother. “To me, they were one and the same,” says Jessica. “Both had long dark hair. Both were strikingly beautiful, and both had incredible strength.”

Write a poem in which you to pay tribute to your hero, past or present. So – here is my poem:

What She Saw

I remember sitting on stairs
Alongside Mom as she
Watched, so still, so quiet, so reflective

No need to talk
No need to whine away her focus
So it would land on my face

Her hand moved, with care and skill
As she sketched, as she made the
Home across the street take perfect

Form, on the paper turning
From three dimensional color to one
Dimensional pencil on paper

In October she said, “I can’t believe
You remember that…”
The little girl, watching

Was unknowingly looking at her future
Her mother’s grandson, hand on
The little girl’s shoulder
Silently saying “I am here”

The little girl’s knowing watched
forty years forward and forty
years, back – -

Love was what she saw

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April 20, 2010 - Morning Pages a la 750 Words

This took a while to post because my internet got blown off… we had a wild rain/wind storm here and bu-bye went my connection… thankfully only briefly)...

Today is Mom’s birthday. I will call her. Will this be her last birthday? Strange and sad I think about that, but I do. Samuel smells not so great, I hear, I read, I hadn’t noticed. My stomach hurst. It hurts. I’ll give Samuel a shower before school today, be sure he feels confident. I worry so much about him.

Mom. Love. Receive. I woke up thinking those two words. Receive. Love. If this was my last day, how would I communicate that, love – to those I love – to those all around me? To those people I experience like the woman in the store this morning as I bought mundane stuff like eggs and tomatoes and sausage and frozen pizza? How would I share love with her beyond what I naturally do? For Sam, right now – the way I communicate love to him is sitting next to him as he does his work. I do my work, he does his and it helps him. He volunteered to do his homework this morning. So this is progress. I am certainly not complaining. Love. Receive. Mom,. Love. He is learning about remainders and he does his division in his head. I showed him how to show it to me and to his teacher: his work? But he doesn’t have to show his work to figure it out. That is something I have to do. I could have suggested he was wrong for not showing it but that didn’t feel right at all. I process the work through seeing it. Maybe this is why I want to be taught Math in person. “Every work of art is a form, a living structure possessed of an organic oneness that sets apart from the other objects and makes it a work of art.” This is from Mrs. Gardner from Gardner’s History of Art, think the third edition I bought used. I love what she says and given I am way off time on getting my art vision done, I need to pick up the pace a bit. I need to see my Art Vision as a work of art itself. I created art this morning, just like that “snappity snap” when I couldn’t find my new dictionary. Someone absconded with it. It is raining. I am fearful it is out in the rain. I will check when I am done writing. Oh, those smooth pages, lost – would be a tragedy, wouldn’t it? Mrs. Gardner also says, “A work of art is the objectification of a human experience.” that is TRUTH. I feel the truth in that. TRUTH for whatever it is, actuially. That intangible quality that is evidenced, for me, in the slowing of breath, a confident, slow, unworried breath – in fact, all of truth is confident. It makes no excuses. It is present.

I pulled myself out of my malaise long enough to rehearse last night. That was good. My big mouth was not so good. My less than, hanger-on demeanor. Tonight, last night, they ran we ran the show. It is improving, some don’t think fast enough perhaps. Each director runs the ship, you know. Communicates, holds space for the art. Open the space. time for me to finish with Samuel and I did. Love, Mom, Receive, Love, Mom.

Samuel left clean and covered with… what is that manly soap? I can’t remember its name but he wanted to use it. Everything freshly scrubbed. I show love that way, scrubbing and loving and laughing and drying. We sat side by side and did his homework and he loved that. He is almost done. Half a page left and then some reading. I looked at his comprehension work and some of those words I don’t even know. Yikes. Sheila tells me Hunter College is a good space for training teachers to teach children on the spectrum. And one other. I need to look them up and perhaps ask the experts. I know educators don’t normally like being “told what to do” but perhaps if I offered up a resource, it would be ok.

It is how I show love. How I give love.

How do I receive love. Oh, man. Upset this morning. I hope he lets it go. Works away and forgets being afraid or being hurt or being worried. Tonight I need to get from rehearsal to rehearsal and I am not sure how I am going to do that. I need to review the Trotsky scrip. I need to get focused on my actors and the intention behind each scene before we just leap into it. Pre-work. I won’t worry about annoying. I will be focused AND I will work on receiving. Giving. Receiving. Giving. Receiving. Giving. Love. Love. Love. Love. Love. I went beyond 750 and that is just right. Ahhhhhhh.

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April 19, 2010

blech

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April 19 Poem : Emily Dickinson's Tree

Shadow paints the grass, darker
Locks itself inside the grey
which whispers insistently “stay small”

I wonder, sometimes, what would have happened
If you had let yourself out more?
Would your specialness have been vacuumed

from your words or would it have been
magnified? We’ll never know, ofcourse.
But I sit beside this tree, one of

your trees and I stare into the
shadow it leaves and I think
about you

See more progress on: Do NaPoWriMo 2010 (A Poem a day in April)

April 19: Morning Pages (a la 750 Words.com.)

I missed a couple days. I was out of town, away – a bonus for the old fashioned way, you know. Old school notebooks, blue lined conversation with my subconscious mind in a stream of consciousness waterfall of images, words, perplexing combinations and tangents yet not as manically fast as typing, like this, onto the keyboard.

Writing with my hand gives my breath a chance to catch up.

Is it typing rather than writing that has caused society to speed up so much we forget to breathe? Interesting hypothesis. Keyboarding (can’t even call it writing anymore) has caused society to forget to breathe. Yes. That could be it.

“Keep breathing” is a quote I found today from Sophie Tucker which I had to take to my brand new dictionary. “Keep breathing” and I took three consecutive three minutes of silence. Samuel lost one of his shoes in my absence and he left this morning in silence, still. Oversleeping in more ways than one? He is angry because I have been gone so much. Hell, I am angry that I have been gone so much. I don’t want to leave without him again. Damn, I love that little boy. So much.

Shauna is pregnant – my special needs neighbor who goes to special ed programs after high school now. Multiplying more special needs children, probably and perhaps and then I feel badly because I created a special needs child. I am multiplying them. Should I have opted not to have children and why is it in my family and not my siblings’
families. Maybe Jeff and Jim got it right. Maybe I was foolish and selfish though I bet Samuel is grateful for life, most of the time.

Breathing.Pause for utterance. Air in gentle motion. Breathing. In and out, easily. Fits. Not pressured or concerned with where it will go or how it will serve the body, just in and out. In and out. In and out. LIke I wrote the other day “Sit and write”... I laugh, remembering and reflecting.

Keep breathing.

The photo at Golden Gate Bridge made me sad, poignant it is.

People actually climb aboard the bridge in order to jump off. A beautiful, landmark place. I wonder if people, on the way down, regret it. Do they pass out? Do they pray? Do they wish they hadn’t? I remember one of my friends who had an abortion told me that as they put her under, she changed her mind but she couldn’t communicate her changing mind, she woke up and her choice had been completed. Poor thing. Once you leap from that bridge, there is no mind changing, either.

I wonder how often that phone is used. I poke it with my curious mind. I wanted to pick it up and use it, but that would be like violating the rules of being a good citizen, like putting graffitti on the golden gate bridge. I can’t imagine a time when the bridge isn’t covered with people, how could a person prep themselves and then jump? Maybe that’s the point, they look normal until the moment they leap.

Just the average tourist/cyclist/mom of three one moment and the next, “Where did she go?” Over the edge.

We thought this might happen.

Keep breathing.

Keep breathing.

A mark to indicate aspiration or its absence.

I always thought aspiration was a not-so-great thing. Again, adding meaning where there isn’t any necessary. I feel the sun against my eye lids and I breathe, more deeply. I feel breath and I feel light and I feel presence all in the sun, hitting my eye lids. I keep them closed. I am so tired.

Today I have rehearsals – two, but I need to cancel the first. I need to be with Samuel when he is done with VAC. I can’t mess around with this anymore. I need to be there, with him. For him, let him see my face. I love that little boy so much. I miss him when I am not here. I need him to know his breathing is very important to me. Keep breathing, Samuel, keep breathing. Call Dian today. Get people involved. Engage people: “Here is what is happening. Here is what he needs educationally. I am not afraid of failure, I am afraid of repetition of what happened before and I don’t trust the system that failed him before…” I think these worries rumble underneath everything else, playing in the background. No wonder my eye twitches and my stomach is upset.

Emma sleeps. She had a good weekend. Full. The girls and I all had a good weekend.

Me? I need to keep breathing. Keep breathing. Keep breathing.

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Grateful on April 19, 2010

I am grateful for a weekend stuffed with memories

I am grateful for firsts: walking on the Golden Gate Bridge, Riding a Streetcar, wow, many more I wrote down but can’t pull off the top of my head.

I am grateful for my daughters.

I am grateful I am able to get away for weekends like this.

I am grateful my schedule will slow down after this week.

I am grateful for creativity.

I am grateful for coffee.

I am grateful.

See more progress on: Daily: Reflect on at least 5 things for which I'm grateful (Happiness Manifesto #2)

April 18, 2010 -0ne Sentence Journal

It was a splendid day albeit like a banquet where I ate too much and got home feeling slightly more than mildly ill, emotionally and physically, and prayed it (or is it I?) would feel better quickly.

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April 18, 2010

Granny

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Day 105/6

I am ahead with self portraits meaning the one I am sharing is from early this morning, during my writing time.

The daily photo is from my reflections upon “beauty everywhere” since it was taken as I was out paying bills yesterday.

The daily photo is from my reflections upon “beauty everywhere” since it was taken as I was out paying bills yesterday.

The cynical side of me could say “They can afford these gorgeous flower beds, they bilk me out of so much money every month!” but instead, I am dwelling on the sheer beauty. I wish you could smell how great they smell!

See more progress on: 2010: Participate in Flickr 365 Projects: A Self Portrait and Daily Photo

Hartshorn Volatility - NaPoWriMo Daily Poem, April 16

A prompt I wrote was the foundation for the NaPoWriMo challenge at ReadWritePoem.Org. This is what it said.

Read Write Poem member Julie Jordan Scott launches her NaPoWriMo prompt with a quote from Diane Ackerman: “Smells detonate softly in our memory like poignant land mines hidden under the weedy mass of years.” Julie reports having discovered in her own notes 17 pages on the subject! Here’s the prompt she culled from material she’s collected:

Practicing the art of writing from the sense of smell will open language in a different way than writing from a more “language friendly” sense, like the sense of sight or sound. Because of this, writing that uses a scent prompt evokes visceral, richly experienced poetry.

Scientific fact: Salmon smell their stream of birth from hundreds of miles away. The scent of this particular stream weaves its way to the salmon like a love-call. It rises and falls with the water, its essence calling the ancient connection. The salmon respond to this invitation and make their way back to their spawning ground.

Humans have primitive connections to the sense of smell, as well. It is our most primal sense, especially since the connections between the language centers and smell sensory centers are so few. Our sense of smell is tied to our most ancient selves. Another intriguing fact? Smell is connected closely to our memory centers even though it is distant from our language centers.

Somewhere near where you are sitting is something with a specific smell that will conjure a memory rich with images. Take a moment to find any such object and breathe the scent of it, deeply. It may be as simple as a strand of your hair, a ketchup bottle from the refrigerator, a potholder or a bottle of lotion.

Add to your breath the simple phrase, “I remember” and breathe the scent in again. “I remember.” Free write from “I remember” for at least five minutes, repeating the prompt “I remember” if your writing slows.

Use the seeds from your free writing to write today’s poem.

And here is my poem – Hartshorn Volatility

The page is my alarm, a call to write.
it bursts through my skin and
]nto my blood – “HEAR ME!” its command
Slightly dense, the shout of it but not
too much to overtake my energy with its
bossy demeanor which will cause me to quit
every time It is the peal of a bell
the page, a peal of laughter

the moment of bliss, finding that word and
allowing that word’s perfume to envelop you
its effluence ~ a poem, a seduction, a mortar
board slightly off kilter and then, you know.
You know what happens.

I read those same words, that same poem,
that same quilt, that same symphony of sound
at Borders later along with “Ode to the Morning
Page Police” – writers like these ditties of self
effacement, gently gracing the pages. Do I? Do I?

I stay silent, I turn my head away from my suitor.
his old book smelled of mentholatum, disinfectant,
hospital wards with the humanity left out. His eyes,
wanting me to be delighted, my mouth, curled up in
a smile attempting to look authentic. Don’t know
if I hit the mark but I tried, oh, how I tried.

This old book, this one – thin pages, description rich
Decades of oil from fingers, turning the pages,
beyond middle age print just slightly decomposing,
giving itself up to the air, the page itself,
yellowing from want and yellowing, like teeth,
large and wanting just one more cup of coffee,
just one more cigarette.

Hartshorn Volatility, gaseous and invisible change
agent. Catalyst, it moves into the nose but irresistably
transcribes sleepy, inconsequential words into thundering
insights in the snap of a finger. What is that about?

See more progress on: Do NaPoWriMo 2010 (A Poem a day in April)

April 16: Morning Pages

A leftover question from yesterday starts my writing. What do I need to change about me? I need to change my fear, my unabated worry which morphs into shackles of not-doing. These shackles sometimes look like soft quilts to refresh myself upon, sometimes, and I need to learn to distinguish between what works and what isn’t quite salvageable.

Effluence: I see it in the dictionary. Outflow, emanation, issue. I remember the Italian man, passionate – at the poetry reading. He loved “The Old Book” and my words, the experience I created, splashed there on the page in bunches and out across the room in my voice and my inflections. “You got it, you captured it – so well, the moment of bliss, finding that word and allowing that word’s perfume to envelop you, its effluence ~ a poem, a seduction, a mortar board slightly off kilter and then, you know. You know what happens. I read those same words, that same poem, that same quilt, that same symphony of sound at Borders later along with “Ode to the Morning Page Police” – writers like these ditties of self effacement, gently gracing the pages. Do I? Do I?

Yes, I do, too.

The page is my alarm, a call to write. The aroma of it bursts through my skin and into my blood, “HEAR ME!” is its command. Slightly dense, the shout of it but not too much to overtake my energy with its bossy demeanor which will cause me to quit, every time. It is the peal of a bell, the page. A peal of laughter.

I think my family won’t approve of my poetry, I stay silent, I turn my head away from my suitor. Decades of oil from fingers, turning the pages, beyond middle age print just slightly decomposing, giving itself up to the air, the page itself, yellowing from want and yellowing, like teeth, large and wanting just one more cup of coffee, just one more cigarette.

I remember that man who longed for connection and wanted so to connect with me, specifically but he ironically refused Dagny’s where he would be swept away, he thought by other ardent admirers surrounding me and my focus. We met at Borders, instead, where I was swept away by so many books nearby and the inadvertently solid to the ground his old book smelled of mentholatum, disinfectant, hospital wards with the humanity left out. His eyes, wanting me to be delighted, my mouth, curled up in a smile attempting to look authentic. Don’t know if I hit the mark but I tried, oh, how I tried.

White wall tires, trug chug blub tic toc squared. How many pages of this dictionary have remained untouched for all these years? This light, it is too good to pass up. I feel itchy to take a photo.

What do I wish to change?

What? What is uncaught?

I need to rebuild. I need to allow the me I am to shine forth. I need to be proud of my gifts/my talents/my offerings and return to how I was using them back, oh, ten years ago or so. I need to forgive, myself – primarily

I need to stop asking new questions and live well the ones which stand before me. I need to check in and remember to not let my love go unspent.

What form of hartshorn lives in these pages?

Volatility, gaseous and invisible change agent. Catalyst, it moves into the nose but irresistably transcribes sleepy, inconsequential words into thundering insights in the snap of a finger. What is that about?

Bellows of Shakespearean voices send high velocity substance out of orbit.

It is 8:21. My written morning pages ended here, but in the 750 Words word, I am still about 150 short.
Grace/Forgiveness/Receiving. My watch words, along with tangible soul. I want to make my soul tangible, so people can understand it more than ethereal rants which no one understands. Forgiveness, of myself – of the need to be attached to things. I don’t need to be attached to things. I don’t need to worry.

I can choose to be open, to receive, to accept love, whole-heartedly.

I need to be with whether or not I want to continue to do theater. I am not committed and need to see when/if I am coming from a lack space and when/if I am coming from “I want to do this as a way to grow artistically.” What I am doing right now does not fit my goals. I can’t throw away my time if projects don’t fit my goals.

See more progress on: Complete the May Challenge offered at 750Words.com

Grateful on April 16, 2010

I am grateful for 25 Cent books, especially old art books, text books and dictionaries I use in art.

I am grateful for NaPoWriMo and especially love that my prompt is being used at ReadWritePoem.Org today.

I am grateful for the reality of words wooing me. Words like “effluence” reach from the ethers and kiss my neck. It is rather remarkable, actually.

I am grateful for questions without worrying about “the” answers.

I am grateful for Coffee with Coryn at Dagny’s.

I am grateful for 750 Words.Com

I am grateful.

See more progress on: Daily: Reflect on at least 5 things for which I'm grateful (Happiness Manifesto #2)

April 15, 2010 - One Sentence Journal

Truth-telling always seems to show up when I look at Coryn over a cup of Zambien Zing at Dagny’s.

See more progress on: reflect daily in a 'one sentence' journal

April 15, 2010 - One Word Journal

Dictionary

See more progress on: reflect daily in a 'one word' journal

My Dailies Started with Morning Pages

Julia Cameron's "The Artist's Way" (can't figure out how to underline here on Blogger, sorry, Julia and MLA purists) changed my life. I have stacks of notebooks to prove it.

In starting "The Dailies" today, I only felt it was right to include daily stream of consciousness writing, which I normally do in a notebook outside, away from anything electrical or mechanical or "connected" though today's entry comes in response to a website called "750 Words" and takes morning pages to a slightly different - not better, just different - level.

Here is what I wrote on 750 Words and which I will continue to do, daily:

So, I don't really know what to do here, perhaps this place captures how many words I have written and I am subjected to just writing - just writing... 750 words. I find myself correcting myself here, which I don't do when I write in my notebook. I always get the feeling Julia will come hit me over the head with the morning page police posse she keeps in her oversized handbag.

That makes for an unusual picture, doesn't it?

I am supposed to be working on receiving today and grace, spiritual topics. The day is ticking away and I feel completely unaccomplished. I should be marketing. I should be promoting and creating instead of sitting here, bloggety not blogging, the 750 words people told me. Oh, now I see where they are counting. I am up to 138 words so far. Wow. Like moving to the edge of the third page. Continue, it tells me, continue.

I do. Blindly, blithely, continue.

My niece used the word "blithe" in a facebook entry today. It isn't a word one hears often so I was delighted to see the future tiny marine use it. I drag my phone from its hiding place. I see Kathie has texted me. I see my words are racking up. I think this would work for me if it had a timer. I don't necessarily sit and write and sit and write and sit and write and sit and write. Ohmigawsh I could type in sit and write and sit and write and sit and write and look at those numbers add up.

Sit and write and sit and write and sit and write and fix that typo and sit and write and sit and write and sit and write and sit and write and sit and write and fix and wow my hands are starting to hurt from typing sit and write and sit and write and sit and write and the space bar makes more noise than the fingers tapping the keyboard and sit and write and look at the smoke rising from my Smith College Mom coffeee mug. How intriguing. I misspelled coffee and I don't care.

Sit and write and sit and write and sit and write and sit and write and look at the lamp and sit and write and sit and write and sit and write and sit and write and sit and write and sit and write and sit and write and sit and write and sit and write and today I have numerous things to take care of. Mostly Emma and education are on my mind. Preparing for the assessment in Math. Yay me. I am laughing when I think about it and bragging that I have a 4.0 GPA. I have never had such a thing before, actually so I SHOULD be proud. LOL. VERY proud.

The majority of the world can't say the same thing, after all.

Sit and write and sita dn write and sit and write and sit and write and sit and write and sit and write and sit and write and sit and write and sit and write and fix and write and sit and write and sit and write and this reminds me of why I can't have a factory job or maybe I could, like stuffing envelopes for Dad. I created a way to do it and became the fastest envelope stuffer and licker he ever might have wanted. I loved to get faster and more efficient and created a game out of it, kind of like this - 750 words, stream of consciousness write and sit and write and sit and write and sit and write and sit and write and sit and write and sit and write and sit and write and sit and write and only 200 more words to go.

Make them valuable, says the Puritan little woman inside me. Don't waste these last 200 words with lines and lines and lines of sit and write because no one wants to read that but isn't that the primary point of morning pages in the first place? Just writing, just letting the words fly out of the hands and onto the page?

While I prefer pencil and paper (or pen, in a pinch) this will do. Sitting and writing, anything, will always do better than sitting and not writing or sitting and groaning "I'm bored" or sitting and complaining or sitting and forgetting to be grateful. Sit, Write.

Morning pages, offered daily.

Grateful on April 15, 2010

I am grateful for karaoke with my children… well, video games for Samuel who is so thrilled he got to level 11!! WOW!

I am grateful for the time at BC yesterday… and the humor that I will be using a calculator in a test for the first time with the assessment. Gasp This just wasn’t DONE the last time I took a math class!

I am grateful to have finally checked my grade in my long-ago-now history class. I got an A. Not a surprise, exactly but you just never know.

I am grateful for my tenacity with NaPoWriMo, even if the prompts are doing nothing for me lately.

I am grateful for thoughtful, introspective text messaging.

I am grateful to have started a new blog today that integrates my posts here on 43things and may have an impact and meaning for many.

I am grateful.

See more progress on: Daily: Reflect on at least 5 things for which I'm grateful (Happiness Manifesto #2)

Day 104/365 - Daily Photos

I looked up at the sky and my breath was swept away. The thought/message came to me, “Look up and pray!” So, I did, and I did, and I clicked and I captured.

So many imperfections in my face, I have lost count here. Wrinkles, large pores, grey roots, but look – please – at the intensity of my eyes.

They look so prayerful, which is what they were.

Almost makes the imperfections not matter so much.

There is passion and power here. Can you feel it?

See more progress on: 2010: Participate in Flickr 365 Projects: A Self Portrait and Daily Photo

One Sentence Journal: April 14, 2010

I wore tiredness around me like a fleece hoody, comfortable, stretched out, cradling my head as my midafternoon nap said it all.

See more progress on: reflect daily in a 'one sentence' journal