Month: October 2009

I think the reason her words speak so eloquently to so many is because of her plain language. As she said, she likes plain language. Poetry’s no fun when it’s so lofty and literary that you can’t understand it. I think it’s similar to why Shakespeare spoke to so many in his day and still does. (“Brevity is the wit of reason”).

When listening to Mary Oliver read her poems the other night, it was like listening to a warm conversation, both wild and deep — full of meaning in its blessedly simple language. (And her sense of humor was totally unexpected and totally cool).

Reading poetry and hearing it spoken are two different experiences. Having heard her read them, her poems spoke to me more clearly. I’ve read them, of course, but I’m lazy. I’d rather listen to her say the words. Straight, real and to the heart. Unpretentious.

I believe poetry is language meant to be spoken. Perhaps that’s why the expression “poets and troubadours” moves frequently through my consciousness lately.

** photo from Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts

where my writing’s been all these years — buried in the works of others who spark my soul… and in my life’s journey, er, journals (yes, there too)…it’s time to let the words out and howl the eternal yes…i am a writer (with a capital “I”)….I am a writer! Yes!

…been catching up on Jen Lee’s archives (the creator) as well as Blue Poppy’s (the curator)…

(Andrea’s MB assignment for today was to say yes to something scary — my something scary is putting it out to you, World).

After reading Stef’s post on her weekend with her girls, I thought I’d share a couple harvest weekend shots of my girl — before she carved her pumpkin…and after…I swear I can see in that pumpkin’s face the joy she felt carving it. Something primeval about this time of year…when the kids were little we picked apples, took hayrides into the pumpkin patch to pick pumpkins and so on. I feel rich with these beautiful memories that I can share.

This past spring I found a couple of Polaroid cameras, one at the swap shop and one at Morgy’s (Goodwill, for 5 bucks). No film but what the hey, I found a source for film too. At my parent’s house I found another Polaroid camera, this one with film, including black and white. I love the haunting, otherworldly quality of polaroids.

I walk regularly at an old cemetery near us, lots of old Cape Cod names there — Nickerson, Hallet, Huckins, Bassett, Crocker, Phinneys, Hinckleys and so on.

There’s a beech tree there, probably over a hundred years old. It’s gigantic for these parts. Majestic, mysterious, with carvings in its elderly trunk — I bet it could tell lots of stories.
I’ve been photographing it occasionally, different times of the day, different times of the year. Have to do my fall shots soon.

No one really plants beech trees anymore. They grow very slowly and everyone wants fast growth these days, myself included. I planted all fast growing trees at my house in Vermont — I wanted big fast.

I love trees, and this old beech tree speaks to me of history, of a slower time, of someone who wasn’t thinking about fast and about their lifetime, but perhaps future generations, of eternity, of eternal connection to others. Or not. But still…

When I look at the beech tree, it reminds me of my dreams and I ask myself questions. Questions like, if we don’t plant species or dreams that take a long time to grow, what might the world miss?

(photo was taken 5/25/09 at 2:20PM on a sunny day (I still don’t know how to put a little blurb under my images here in blogspot).

Give a big hug to the dark knight of your soul.

Jen Lee is an inspiration to me and turns out she is also the oldest of four (girls, too?). I love this video she did and Brene Brown shared on her blog. At squam, her spiral book spoke to me and more of her stories have snuck up on me. I’d like to take a class with her. I wish for a wild writing group in my neighborhood similar to Laurie Wagner’s or perhaps something with Jen Lee. My mondo beyondo starts today.

There are two kinds of art: art that takes place in time (dance, live music, theatre) and art that takes place in space (painting, sculpture, photography.) Books and CDs are an amalgam. There is the “time” effect of reading or listening, and there is the “space” effect of the artifact itself. I consider myself a good “time” artist. I love to perform and it’s easy for me. I like the spontaneity of a performance. I am not quite as confident as a “space” artist, though I would like to be. I want the book we are writing now to be a beloved experience as it is read and played with today, and a beloved artifact, a treasure that a kid born in 2007 might love when he is five and that he packs away and finds again when he is thirty in 2037 to bring out and share with his small daughter.

This morning was the first I woke up to in a long time and remembered to say “rabbit, rabbit” before anything else…Wrote in my journal that I love October, it’s the month of my firstborn’s birthday — then my daughter text messaged me before 8 am with…”Rabbit Rabbit!” Those are the moments that make life sweet.

I know I have to move on with my life as my children move on with theirs but it is a slow process for me. I can only do it in my own time. I had my children young and tend to gravitate towards women with children still.

I delight when I find someone who’s childless by choice, or who has older children though. It gives me hope that there is life beyond motherhood. I know that, but still I think some of us women so loved our children, their childhoods, the magic, the wonder, the luck at getting to experience childhood all over again through our child’s eyes (because how many of us truly remember the giddiness of our first tumbling steps?), that it’s very hard to let go.

So the trick for me is continuing to capture that wonder through my own eyes, hope that my children will never lose the capacity to experience it in their eyes, and continue sharing the wonder with whomever understands what it is I’m talking about.