Standing at the Trailhead of Winter

I'm right at the edge today, fearing I might step off if the just-right reason shows up. What the just-right reason is, I don't know, but I guess if I end up dissolving into the tears that seem to be threatening, I'll know then. I'm trying to be analytical about the feeling pressing against the back of my eyes and through my nasal passages, hoping that analysis will help the feeling go away. It's not really working. Sleep eluded me most of the night. Once or twice a month I have a night sleep just won't come. I go to bed tired, but after an hour or two of sleep, I'm wide awake. Tossing, mostly onto my back and my left side. I don't sleep on my right side since my vertigo incident. I actually prefer my right but I'm afraid I'll trigger another bout of dizziness. Sleep laughed at me and slithered off to bathe someone else in dreamland. I'm pretty sure lack of sleep is part of today's slipping into sadness. That and thoughts of Ado. I miss h...

Like usual, Ado and I set off for our morning walk. A bit later than usual since I slept right up until 7:45. Then I snuggled for another half hour against Ado. He's the best cuddle buddy ever. So when we finally started off, the sun was shining, warming the morning so nicely. While we walked I thought I'd cycle up to the farm to return the egg cartons that I'd been collecting over the last couple of months. I wasn't about to let this beautiful fall day get away from me without a cycling trip of some kind. Once Ado was settled in after we returned to the apartment and after I aired up the tires on Sweetness, I started out. Only to realize the wind had come up during the time I fixed Ado's breakfast, geared up, packed the egg cartons in the pannier, and stepped back outside. Not just a little wind, either. No. This wind, though I didn't know it until after I checked the weather once I got home, was blowing over 23 miles per hour, gusting up to 40 mph. There was...

Each day this week the heat has closed in around 90 degrees. I have a stack of paperback books on my desk, and the humidity curls back the cover of the top book. I shift it to go underneath the second book so the cover will flatten out. I end up shifting each top book every so often throughout the day. They all end up taking a turn at having their cover curl. I finished reading The Road  by Cormac McCarthy and The Last Coyote  by Michael Connelly this week. The first is quite a fast read, and I'm not sure why I've not read it before now. I've seen the movie, but I just never thought about reading the book until a colleague brought it up recently. I truly enjoyed it -- well, not the subject matter so much, or the ending -- but rather the way McCarthy fashions phrases, offers an objective viewpoint. I found myself rereading paragraphs, sentences, phrases as I was taken by the image, the metaphor, the feel created through the words. The second book is a Harry Bosch crime n...

Now is crunch time for finishing grading and submitting final grade reports. I don't mind this time of the semester as I know I have to get grades in by a certain date, which means once I click the Submit button I'll be free. No more papers to read. No more slogging through essays that make me wonder what these students were doing during high school English classes. No more having to break the news to Susie that just because Mom thinks Susie's writing is awesome, this doesn't mean it actually is. The downside here is I'll only be free for about two weeks. Then summer session begins. I'm not looking forward to it, but I've decided since I have to teach I'm going to take the opportunity to try out some new ideas. This will entail taking a bit of a different approach, an approach that gets me excited when I think about the possibilities. It could be really, really fantastic. It could also end up being a crash and burn summer I'll want to forget as soo...

So I'm still waiting for a critique on my haiku. Three days. The contest closes May 31st, so several weeks remain for someone to take pity on me and offer up some feedback. I wonder what will happen if my haiku go the rest of the month without being critiqued. All it says in the rules is the entry must be submitted publicly for the duration of the contest. It doesn't say the submission must receive critiques. Honestly, though, I really don't know why of the 25 different entries, mine is the only one without any critique or comment. The snarky side of me is saying, they're just that good! What could possibly be said about them to make them better than they already are? The paranoid critic side of me is saying, they're so bad no one wants to be the first one to say so.  This has been the back and forth in my head for the last three days, and this exchange has been particularly bad today. I finally copied off the haiku and gave them to a poet friend to read and giv...

Instead of grading the last of the papers I have waiting for me, I've been tinkering with some haiku. Writing my own and critiquing that of others. A contest opened up on the site where I submit my work for critique, so I thought, humph, I might as well give it a whirl. During March and April I turned my attention away from the poetry to work on another project, so the contest seemed like an opportunity to churn something out and practice a particular form. I've found many ideas hit me quite hard during my long walks with Ado, so I snapped the leash onto his collar and we set off. During that walk, three ideas for haiku took shape. As soon as I got home, I started working on them. By the time I finished later that evening, I had six haiku I was happy with. I submitted them to the site for critique, which is required for the contest, and went back to my other project. Usually it takes all of a couple hours to get multiple critiques on the work submitted to the site. With the...

Just like that, a month has gotten away from me and the blogging was pushed to the side. I knew it was going to happen sooner or later after returning to work, but an entire month? The upside is we're on the downhill slide to the end of the semester. Just seven weeks to go, and if they keep slipping by like they have to this point, I'll find myself writing my next blog post with just a week left in the semester. Work is work. I've now been teaching for 27 years, 18 of those where I currently spend my days. I've climbed the promotion ladder, reaching the top rung with nothing else to work towards. This is a dangerous spot to be in. I feel like I can just roll along, develop my classes, grade papers, and stay the course, not offering to do much more. I can arguably justify settling into simply teaching and not doing anything more for awhile since I've been involved in several special projects or said yes to doing assignments others didn't want over the last eigh...

Back to work today. To be honest, I was totally ready to get back to the routine of designing the curriculum, teaching, figuring out how to get the writing center moving forward, and seeing all my friends. I've missed all of them very much. I saw them a couple of times during my leave, and we texted at times, but not seeing them on a daily basis created a hole in my life. They're wonderful people I am so glad are my friends. I did run into a problem first thing. I turned on my computer and began working on a document only to have Word crash on me every single time I opened the document. I tried other documents. I tried creating new documents, but each time, Word closed out on me after about five seconds of being up on the monitor. This is really weird to me since my computer was off the entire time I was gone. What could possibly have happened to the program while the computer was off for seven months? Thankfully, I can work from home tomorrow, doing all my Word doc work from...

I've been working on a poem the last four days, and while I'm making progress, that progress has been excruciatingly slow. I decided to take on this particular subject in response to a poem I read on the site I submit my work for critique. Yeah, probably not the best reason to write a poem, but seriously, that poem made me want to stab my eyes out with one of the many black ink pens I have scattered across my desk. Sometimes I just don't understand what motivates people to write what they do. I take that back. I do know what motivates them: love or sex or both at the same time. It's like there aren't any other subjects worth writing about. So this poem I'm working on, in addition to it being brought about in response to the poem that made me want to stab my eyes out, is also for a contest sponsored by the site where my work is posted for feedback. The general idea is to "graphically feature the preparation and/or eating of delicious food," specifical...

I am so in love with Michael Kiwanuka. His music, for whatever reason, strikes a chord in me. I can listen to his songs over and over and over. Not many singer/songwriters do this to me. My love affair with Kiwanuka's music started a couple of weeks ago when I had a mix streaming on YouTube. His song "Cold Little Heart" came on while I was in the kitchen doing dishes. When his voice started, I had to stop and go watch the video and listen to the song. I must have been in a fragile place that day -- the tears started slipping down my cheeks as I listened. Maybe it was the lyrics. Maybe the style took me back to my childhood. Maybe the young man dancing in the video made me feel the despair that comes from trying but not making headway. Could have been all of this that struck me that day. Ever since, I've been listening to Kiwanuka and really enjoying his work. I didn't realize at the time that this song is from Big Little Lies , which I watched earlier this yea...

As I was writing this morning, I used the word melancholy . I've always loved this word. Not only does it get at a deeper sense of sadness, but the sound of the word lends itself to the sensuous nature, the depth of which this kind of sadness can be felt. All the sudden, I realized the word holy is part of melancholy. Not in the etymological sense. Just in letters spelling the word inside another word sense. And now I'm all excited, finding myself working up a piece that hopefully will hint at the connection between being holy and feeling a profound sadness. Along with being really excited about seeing a word inside another word, I'm also totally in love with the idea of duende, a concept Federico Garcia Lorca explored in depth. I've been reading whatever I can find that addresses duende and Lorca's thoughts about it. His lecture "Theory and Play of the Duende " offers many examples to help shed light on what duende is and how it plays a role in wri...

I wrote a poem the other day from an idea that I've been batting around for about two months. Whenever an idea occurs to me, I jot it down in one of my far too many journals scattered around the desk, or I open a Word doc and write down the basic idea. I returned to the idea a few days ago, set to work, and after several hours of what felt like slogging through ankle-deep mud, I had a draft in place. I tinkered with it, got up to take Ado for a walk, came back to tinker a bit more, then closed out the file. I felt like the poem was taking shape, but could feel something more needed to be done. Today I returned to the poem and the something more appeared to me as if it had been right in front of me all along. I slashed about six lines. I changed a word that made me stop every single time I read the poem. It's amazing to me how one little word can have such a huge impact on reading. At that point, I decided to post the work to the online site for feedback. After typing in the t...

Today I moved between writing, reading, vet, landlord, more writing, and sitting in front of the fire just watching the flame while listening to the rain patter against the roof, accompanied by a favorite jazz album playing softly. It was truly the kind of day to stay inside, snuggle into comfy clothes, and sip on hot chocolate. Although, to be honest, my choice of beverage this evening was a very delicious warm and fuzzy apple cider. Just lovely to sip on. The toughest part of the day definitely had to be the writing. I have three new pieces going at the same time while trying to revise two pieces that are closer to being "finished." I had one of the pieces workshopped by members of the online site I recently joined, and the critiques have been mixed. Several readers weren't able to make the connection to the time element working, which I thought might be problematic. That being said, the last person to critique did pick up on the lapse in time. A couple of other issue...

So I signed up to be a member of a writer's group online. One where I can read others' works and offer feedback. I can also put myself in the hot seat by uploading my work for feedback. I've become totally consumed by reading others' poems and offering critiques. Seriously, I could spend my entire day just sitting here reading not only the poems but also the critiques others are offering. Even though the critiques are not in response to anything I've submitted, I still find them extremely helpful when looking at my own writing. With this site, I have had to gain karma points before I can submit anything for a critique (since I'm tight with a nickel as Angel Baby is fond of saying, and went with the free version of this site). The karma points come from reading and critiquing poems submitted by other members. They also come from the writers of those poems responding to the feedback in a positive way. I earned enough karma points today to submit one of my more...

Just a week remains before I head off to Seattle to begin the sabbatical adventure. The whole project is becoming real, not that it wasn't after being told I was granted sabbatical, but now that the bike is boxed up and shipped off, now that all my gear is boxed up and shipped off, the idea I wrote down in my proposal is beginning to take shape. Actually, the idea began taking shape at the start of summer, right after the kids and I settled into the house we now call home. A friend suggested he and I ride and write together this summer. So we did. We committed to writing new pieces to share then discuss. Because of him, his support, his encouragement, his knowledge of poetry/writing/creating, I've been able to get a jump-start on my sabbatical project. I currently have 13 poems, and I have several more poem ideas percolating. Each time I have a draft of a poem in place I'm emotionally exhausted. Immersing myself into the years of Mom's failing health brings out sadn...

Summer is steadily creeping by. Thankfully, the last three weeks have been quiet after several months of lots going on. Now that the kids, Ado, and I are settled into the house, we've all found time to relax and just breathe. We have evenings of cooking together, watching movies together, and sitting on the deck to talk about our days. We have days where we each go our own way, but we find time to catch up sooner or later. I've been cycling with a friend a couple mornings each week, and this same friend and I have been writing then sharing our writing with each other once a week. He's holding me accountable for producing new work, and while it's been a challenge, I'm so happy to have someone push me to create. Most of what I've written has been poetry that will be a part of my sabbatical project, giving me several pieces of the puzzle before I leave for the Pacific Coast ride. I feel like I have a head start, and I actually like what I'm seeing coming ou...

It always seems like the closer I get to the end of the semester, the more I put off doing what I should be doing--grading final papers--to write poetry or short fiction. More recently, I've been focusing on the poetry. The space between blood and bone She sits beside me, relaxed,  though a layer of weariness cloaks her like a worn, familiar sweater she can’t let go to Goodwill. A small smile is the switch bringing light to her dark brown eyes, and she looks at me, whispers  she is done with soul prostitution. One hand rests on the place that beneath,  past skin loosened from sacred creation, past flesh protecting the space of possibilities, is blood-warmed hope she planted,  guards now like Cerberus to keep safely inside where it roots, can take hold, nurtured until like ivy entwines with bone, with sinew, swaddling her heart, then spreading  into her limbs unchecked until orange ribbons exit  through her fin...

Though my sabbatical doesn't officially begin until August, I've already been jotting down notes when an idea occurs to me, and writing poems and short essays--very rough first drafts of both--to not lose the germ when it strikes. For the first time in my life, I'm taking the desire to be a writer seriously. I'm being protective of my writing time. I write. This is the most recent poem. It came about after an intense, overpowering need to sketch what was swirling in my head. That sketch has been right in front of me on my desk for weeks, helping me get to this: I dreamed of you during the night, again, the fourth night in a row,   and you were walking, again, as if you’d never not walked. I remember awakening in the darkness, smiling at the notion of you showing me where you are now, your legs working fine, no MS keeping you prisoner on the burgundy leather love seat, where you sat through your days then through your nights, as if roots had somehow spr...

For awhile now, I've felt the pull to write some poetry. I don't consider myself a poet by any stretch of the imagination, but I do enjoy dabbling in it every now and then. The last couple of weeks, one idea in particular kept nudging me, so after writing down the thoughts that kept pestering me, this is what I came up with while enjoying a beer and after some rearranging and revision. Untitled The green tape wrapping the handlebars is stained, black chain grease smears have worked themselves deep and no amount of soapy water can loosen their grip. I worry over the smudges marring the once pristine color, wanting what was before the miles of gray road that sometimes stretched long into the distance, with no clear markings to ease my anxious need to know what lie ahead at the horizon, and other times ascended until the thin air brewed protesting wheezes within my aching lungs. Before has vanished, Lachesis' whim turning the crank, grinding away my minutes, hou...