doctoral candidate in rhetoric and scientific and technical communication
Archive for January, 2006
to play pianissimo
06 years ago
American Life in Poetry: Column 043
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE
Lola Haskins, who lives in Florida, has written a number of poems about musical terms, entitled “Adagio,” “Allegrissimo,” “Staccato,” and so on. Here is just one of those, presenting the gentleness of pianissimo playing through a series of comparisons.
To Play Pianissimo
Does not mean silence.
The absence of moon in the day sky
for example.Does not mean barely to speak,
the way a child’s whisper
makes only warm air
on his mother’s right ear.To play pianissimo
is to carry sweet words
to the old woman in the last dark row
who cannot hear anything else,
and to lay them across her lap like a shawl.
From “Desire Lines: New and Selected Poems,” BOA Editions, Rochester, NY. Copyright (c) 2004 by Lola Haskins and reprinted by permission of the author and the publisher. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. This column does not accept unsolicited poetry.
purge
0
I think I write one of those notorious “mommy” blogs without even being a “mommy.” I write about my beloved Dakota, my nieces and nephews, my work, my school, and my love life. I’m way too normal. I need to shake it up.
Today will NOT be that day, though. I have to share a few things from yesterday that were great.
First, Dakota did not pee in the house. YAY!!! He was such a good boy. And he wasn’t as crazy as he’s been the past few days when I got in to let him out. I am still going to take him to the vet, though, to make sure he’s okay and not ill.
My friend, Simon, began his application to go back to university for some graduate work. He didn’t seem to think it was a big deal. It is, though. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard someone say that they’d like to go back to school – but they don’t make it happen. 6 months, a year, 3 years, 5 years go by and they never go back. Simon, after 10 years, is going back to achieve a goal he has set for himself. And to that, I say, congratulations!
And my weeo…my girl…she…ohhh. Last night I call up to ask her Dad something and she says she needs to talk to me. She tells me that she’s reading the books that I bought her for Solstice. I tell her that I’m excited to hear all about them. She tells me that she loves chapter books and I bought her the best gift ever. But, she says, my brain is very full and I’m not sure I’ll be able to remember the stories to be able to tell them to you.
Ahhh. Your brain is full. I understand, I tell her. Mine gets that way, too. She says that school makes her brain full. When she gets home to read, it’s hard to remember. Again, I tell her that I understand. I told her that sometimes I even have trouble sleeping because my brain is so full of the things I’m learning in school.
So then she tells me, “Dawn, that’s why I talk. I empty my brain so I can fill it some more.”
I didn’t laugh but I wanted to. THAT’S the reason she talks so much?
Shadow gets on the phone and I relay this conversation to him. He says to me, “Her brain must be VERY full. She doesn’t quit talking.”
I love that girl.
And to empty my brain, I do the equivalent. I come here and share with you, gentle readers, longtime companions of this writing world.
heartbeat
0
“My little dog – a heartbeat at my feet.”
~ Edith Wharton ~
Dakota and I are working through some issues right now.
In recent months, he has become unmanageable. He has started getting into the garbage when I’m gone. He has never done this before. He tears the entire trash apart and drags it all over the house.
He has begun peeing and pooping in the house, as well. In the same place over and over again.
He drinks and drinks and drinks until he makes himself sick and he throws up.
I have spent hours scrubbing floors, picking up garbage, soaking up vomited water, vacuuming, and going around to find where his mess is.
I’m not sure if he is upset with me being gone so much or if he’s just getting old or what.
So, I have made him a nice little hovel in the laundry room. He has soft bedding, toys, bones, food, and water. I even set up a radio.
He refuses to go in. Yesterday I had to physically put him in there and he howled like I was killing him. It was breaking my heart. I had trouble not crying over it.
This morning, I took his pig’s ear in with me and sat down on his bedding. He came in and crawled into my lap. I talked to him and loved on him and told him that it was a good place for him. I closed the door and stayed in there with him for a few minutes so he could see it wasn’t such a bad place to be.
He curled up on the bedding with his pig’s ear.
Let’s hope it’s a good day for him.
We both need that.
guardian angels
06 years ago
I think I have guardian angels. And if they aren’t guardian angels, they are surrogate parents. I wonder if I exude the need for someone to care for me, to take care of me.
That’s an odd notion considering that I’ve lived on my own for so long.
However, I think that between the cancer, getting sick all of the time, and discernible signs of stress, people see this need to watch out for me because I don’t seem to do a good job of it myself.
My brother, Todd, is watching out for my health. He calls me with lists of food that I should eat – foods that are high in anti-oxidants and low in fat. He has prescribed a good workout routine for me (that I do enjoy each day before I go in to work).
My brother, Shadow, my boss, and my grad advisor are all watching out for my mental health. Shadow and my boss are concerned that I may be taking too heavy of a load this semester. They worry that I want to go forward so badly that I may hurt myself now. My advisor warns me not to volunteer for too many things (even for her) and doesn’t want me diving in to too many projects at the expense of my sanity.
My co-workers make me laugh on a daily basis and remind me that there is not much that is so serious that I can’t laugh at life and myself throughout the day.
Weeo, weeo…my little doppelganger, miss Willow, makes me laugh at EVERYTHING. How can you not enjoy life when an almost 7-year-old gangly girl is draping herself over you and saying the funniest things you’ve ever heard?
And speaking of kids – my nieces and nephews watch out for my heart. They make sure it is supplied with a lot of sweet smiles, big hugs, wet kisses, and heart-stopping love.
Dakota lets me cry. He lets me curl up on the floor and sob when I need to get those emotions out. And then he comes right into that curl and plops his furry body into it and nuzzles me until I can’t help but smile and, eventually, even laugh. When a dog has so much empathy that your pain is his pain, you can’t stay sad for too long.
My friend, Simon, listens to my everyday tales of silliness – and with his dry sense of humor, he cracks me up daily. Then he makes me think and makes my brain work.
I have guardian angels.
And, I think, if we all look into our lives, we all have them. We just don’t always recognize them as such.
what calls us
06 years ago
American Life in Poetry: Column 042
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE
Here is a poem by David Bengtson, a Minnesotan, about the simple pleasure of walking through deep snow to the mailbox to see what’s arrived. But, of course, the pleasure is not only in picking up the mail with its surprises, but in the complete experience–being fully alive to the clean cold air and the sound of the wind around the mailbox door.
What Calls Us
In winter, it is what calls us
from seclusion, through endless snow
to the end of a long driveway
where, we hope, it waits–
this letter, this package, this
singing of wind around an opened door.
Reprinted from “What Calls Us,” a Dacotah Territory Chapbook, 2003, by permission of the author, whose most recent book is “Broken Lines: Prose Poems,” from Juniper Press, St. Paul, MN, 2003. Poem copyright (c) 2003 by David Bengtson. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. This column does not accept unsolicited poetry.
shadows
0
Excuses excuses. Yeah, work has been busy. Yeah, my laptop took a dive and I don’t have access to my software. Yeah, I’m gearing up for another semester. And yeah, I’ve been busy with some other things in my life. Those are my excuses for not writing lately. Or posting images. Or flickring. Or commenting on other peoples’ blogs. Or writing e-mail.
Sheesh. I disappeared from the face of the earth practically.
–
The new semester starts Tuesday. To say I’m excited is putting it mildly. I mean, really. I’m taking some phenomenal classes. One of them I’m almost ready to do cartwheels for – Intro to Multimedia Design. We will be looking at multimedia design from a rhetorical point of view with an emphasis on “peace.”
From my professor’s webpage:
“If the concept of peace is a simple one, then why do we need to choose between economic gain and the physical environment? Why do we dismiss peace during a time of war? Must we wage war to gain peace? Is war inevitable? Is peace inevitable? Is peace guaranteed during a time when there is no war? What language do we use to define peace? Which images? If the internet makes the world a smaller place, then university students ought to be the most aware, the most inquisitive, and the most able to construct possible solutions for local, regional, statewide, national, and global problems. One of your challenges in this course is to think about other people’s thinking (theory), how thoughts are constructed (language), presented (context), and visualized. Another challenge is to take your own thoughts and to apply them to various projects, papers, and presentations individually, in pairs, and in groups.”
And yeah, I’m very excited. One of our projects is to submit a group digital project to the World Peace Forum which will take place in June in Vancouver, B.C.
Oh…and I haven’t mentioned, have I, that I’ll be back in Vancouver, that beautiful city, in March. Yahoo! I’m going to visit a friend up there. Yay! More photographs, more fun, more joy! I can’t wait!
Ahhh, it’s good to be back! ;-)