Archive for December, 2006
home fire
Dec 31st
american life in poetry: column 092
by ted kooser, u.s. poet laureate, 2004-2006
Home is where the heart. . . Well, surely we all know that old saying. But it’s the particulars of a home that make it ours. Here the poet Linda Parsons Marion, who lives in Knoxville, Tennessee, celebrates familiarity, in its detail and its richness.
Home Fire
Whether on the boulevard or gravel backroad,
I do not easily raise my hand to those who toss
up theirs in anonymous hello, merely to say
“I’m passing this way.” Once out of shyness, now
reluctance to tip my hand, I admire the shrubbery
instead. I’ve learned where the lines are drawn
and keep the privet well trimmed. I left one house
with toys on the floor for another with quiet rugs
and a bed where the moon comes in. I’ve thrown
myself at men in black turtlenecks only to find
that home is best after all. Home where I sit
in the glider, knowing it needs oil, like my own
rusty joints. Where I coax blackberry to dogwood
and winter to harvest, where my table is clothed
in light. Home where I walk out on the thin page
of night, without waving or giving myself away,
and return with my words burning like fire in the grate.
Reprinted from “Home Fires: Poems,” Sow’s Ear Press, 1997, by permission of the author. Copyright © 1997 by Linda Parsons. 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.
self portrait, week #11
Dec 30th
I didn’t write yesterday because I was too nervous. Too nervous because fireguy was coming in to town to meet me.
And he did — come in to town and met me. We had a lovely dinner actually. We had good conversation. It ended rather early because we had plans to go to the Grand Canyon in the morning.
Morning came around. He came over. He smelled like smoke and I asked him about it.
He smokes.
One of the things that I’ve said is a limit for who I’ll date/be involved with is smoking. I have a hard time breathing when someone smokes around me.
So, I asked him how much he smokes. Instead of answering, he said that he had a feeling this was going to be an issue between us and we should end it here. He said he smokes when he’s not working and his mother (who lives with him) smokes heavily.
He’s a really nice guy. He has a great personality. He is a generous person.
But it just wasn’t meant to be. And I feel bad about that for some reason. Not necessarily for me. I really hate that he came all this way, bought me dinner, and it didn’t work out. That’s an expensive first/only date.
So, instead of heading up to the Canyon (which I could do by myself, I know), I’m doing homework. I have some things to catch up on and I want them done before the new semester starts.
Maybe I should bow out of the dating game until I’m done with school anyway. I mean…there are only a few places I want to go for my doctorate and they aren’t here — so I’d have to move anyway. I don’t think most men are going to be up to moving with me when I go.
And, you know, being single isn’t so bad. It does have its perks.
a letter: willow
Dec 27th
Dear Willow,
You were right. You asked if this photo would go up on my blog and I laughed and said yes. Then I reconsidered and said if not my blog, at least my flickr family account. Well, I couldn’t resist. It’s on both.
Let me backtrack.
First, I love you. You are one of the few people who can make me laugh so hard that my stomach hurts and I’m almost crying. You are also one of the few who can say something that will make me cry at the drop of a hat. I love you that much.
We had planned to go out to take pictures with your new camera that you got from Santa Claus. Santa is one smart guy. He knew how much you’d enjoy that gift and he was right. Little did we know, though, that today would be stormy and full of snow flurries and high winds that cut through us. Still, we pressed on.
We went to the place you had been asking to visit: Elden Pueblo. It was interesting and we took a lot of photographs for that little place. But then you got cold. That wind was biting, wasn’t it?
We headed toward Walnut Canyon with a stop for some hot chai.
You almost forgot to use your camera in the excitement to become a Junior Ranger at one more national monument. I love it when you get that excited. It makes me smile and get excited with you. I feed off of your energy.
We headed down those long steps to the promontory. You were so excited to see what was going to be down there (it was your first time but I had been there dozens of times, if not more). There was a moment on our trip down where you made me say that you were a little me — mostly because we both love taking photographs and we both have red hair and blue eyes and we talk the same way when we’re together and we laugh over things that others would think are so incredibly silly (remember the “I hate you/I love you” thing?).
You’re not, though. You’re not a little me. You are so much your own person. You are confident and beautiful. You are intelligent and talented. You are so much fun. You are so incredible.
“Thank you so much,” you said, over and over, when I bought you the national park passport. You were so excited over it — and almost more than earning your Junior Ranger badge. You couldn’t quit looking at it. You kept talking about all of the places you want to visit to get more stamps in your passport.
We went to lunch and played the games on the children’s menu as we always do. Tic-tac-toe over and over again (and I wondered how many times we have played this over the years). You had just said something about never having won. Then you did. And it wasn’t intentional. You got me. I totally missed that move because I wasn’t thinking. And the way you did your little victory dance made me laugh all over again.
Willow, you are one of my favorite people in the world. I am fortunate to know you. I grow and learn by being around you. I feel more alive just by spending time with you. You are my beautiful girl, my photo girl.
I love you with all of my heart,
dawn
remembrance: christmas
Dec 26th
When I was a kid, living in Montana, there were times where we were barely holding things together. The economy was severely depressed because the lumber industry was taking a drastic turn. Concepts in how the lumber industry should be run were changing and more attention was being paid to the environment and how to forge partnerships between conservation and business.
My parents didn’t work in the lumber industry but that didn’t matter in western Montana. Everything was tied to lumber and it trickled down. If people were losing jobs, it meant they couldn’t buy other goods, which meant that people like my parents weren’t going to be selling their services or making money either.
And along comes Christmas in the midsts of a severe economic depression.
We had been raised as fairly humble children. Much of the time our gifts were handmade and those were things we cherished (I can still remember the awesome toybox our dad made for us that had a stove painted on it so I could play with that). We didn’t ask for much because we knew that we wouldn’t get it anyway and it wasn’t as important as other things.
This Christmas was even worse though. There was no money. There was hardly any food. We were living off of whatever had come out of the garden and had been canned by my mom.
The skirting beneath the Christmas tree was bare. The stockings hung with nothing in them.
But there were two letters addressed to my parents.
As a kid, letters meant nothing. And sure, it was a disappointment but we had lived a hard life for much of our lives so this wasn’t much different.
On Christmas day, our parents opened the letters. In those, our grandparents had sent gift certificates to grocery stores. They knew exactly what we needed: food. Those gift certificates meant the difference between eating next to nothing and filling our hungry stomachs.
There aren’t many Christmas gifts that I remember 30 years later. That one, though, I do. It was the most valuable Christmas gift that I can remember receiving. It meant everything.
season’s greetings
Dec 25th
I think I have the best readers in the world.
Seriously.
Several of you sent emails wishing me happy holidays (and because I’ve been busy, I haven’t gotten back to you).
Several of you have wished me happy holidays in other ways (on flickr, in my photographs, through blog posts, etc.).
That you took the time to do so really means a lot.
I just want to take this time to say thank you. Thank you for returning, time and again, for reading, commenting, sharing your own lives with me. Thank you for becoming a part of my life.
I wish for you the happiest of holidays. More than that, I hope that the new year is full of promise and hope, good health and a lot of love. I hope for you the very best.
Thank you and season’s greetings to all of you.
driving through
Dec 24th
american life in poetry: column 091
by ted kooser, u.s. poet laureate, 2004-2006
How many of us, when passing through some small town, have felt that it seemed familiar though we’ve never been there before. And of course it seems familiar because much of the course of life is pretty much the same wherever we go, right down to the up-and-down fortunes of the football team and the unanswered love letters. Here’s a poem by Mark Vinz.
Driving Through
This could be the town you’re from,
marked only by what it’s near.
The gas station man speaks of weather
and the high school football team
just as you knew he would–
kind to strangers, happy to live here.Tell yourself it doesn’t matter now,
you’re only driving through.
Past the sagging, empty porches
locked up tight to travelers’ stares,
toward the great dark of the fields,
your headlights startle a flock of
old love letters–still undelivered,
enroute for years.
Reprinted from “Red River Blues,” published by College of the Mainland, Texas City, TX, 1977, by permission of the author. Copyright (c) 1977 by Mark Vinz, whose most recent book is “Long Distance,” Midwestern Writers Publishing House, 2005. 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.
self-portrait, week #10
Dec 23rd
I hate this time of the year and I love this time of the year. It’s a quandary for me, an unexplained phenomenon.
I think a lot during this time of the year, assessing everything that has happened over the past year and what I will look forward to doing in the next year. I think about my reactions to events and if I can adjust my reactions to become a better person. I contemplate the people in my life, whether they are good for me, bad for me, or just don’t matter (overall, I’m fortunate enough to have mostly good people in my life). I think about what I’m doing — with school, with work, with life in general — and if that is healthy, needs work, or requires some more thought.
This hasn’t been a bad year.
I’ve been cancer-free all year. I’ve met some amazing people and started some friendship that I think are going to last a long time (and I really, truly hope they do). I’ve become respected in a field that I really enjoy and want to share with others. I’ve learned that I can love people on so many different levels and be loved back and not be stressed about any of it. I’ve realized that my support system is bigger than I could have ever imagined and that people I didn’t know last year are a part of my life this year and I can’t imagine life without them.
Yeah, I feel lonely. And yeah, I get upset. And yeah, this is also the hardest time of the year for me because being alone is even more pronounced when everyone is talking about family, exchanging gifts, visiting people they love, and talking about all of the things they’ll be doing with family. It’s hard to hear all of that when I know I’ll be alone on most of those days because the people I want to be with are elsewhere with others or doing their own thing.
But that’s okay. It’s okay to feel lonely and sad and a bit down. I always bounce back and it’s never so overwhelming that I can’t function. And I never feel completely alone — because I know those people would rush to my side if I truly needed them and asked them to do so.
I don’t need them to do that, though. Sometimes it’s enough to hear them say they love me, that they care, that they miss me, and want to see me more in the coming year, and are making plans to do so. That’s often enough. And lately, it’s been spectacular. The people I care about the most are making plans with me in the new year. From dinners for birthdays to monthly visits to a grand trip, I will be seeing people I love and care about more than anything and I know that these events will make all the difference.
So I am thankful for this year. I’ve grown in ways I never knew I had in me. I love and am loved.
And I know that I won’t die, my corpse eaten by my dog, and no one will notice (this is a joke my brother and I laugh about).
Someone would notice. More than one person would notice.
And that’s enough for me.
what to do
Dec 22nd
On Wednesday, my brother, Todd, came to town with his wife, Cathy. He has to work his holiday celebrations around his schedule at the fire department so we celebrate when he’s available.
It worked out well enough, actually. My other brother, Shadow, and his family (Jennifer, Willow, and Justice) celebrate Solstice. While Wednesday wasn’t Solstice, it was Solstice eve so it made sense to celebrate on that night.
Solstice Claus visited the house early because he knew (amazing, isn’t he?) that Justice was going in to the hospital for surgery on Solstice. His presents showed up at dinner (because he visited while everyone was out of the house) and Willow got a beautiful digital camera. We decided that we need to go out and shoot some photos very soon. Yay!
Todd and Cathy actually celebrate Christmas and will be going to southern California to celebrate Christmas with her family.
Willow crawled in to my lap at one point during dinner (she needed some extra attention, I think, since her brother was getting a lot of it due to his impending hospital visit). She looks at me and says, “Dawn, what do you celebrate?”
“Saturnalia,” I reply.
“Riggght.” She’s wise. She knows exactly what it is without ever having heard the word. “I think you celebrate Kwanzaa. Happy Kwanzaa!”
She giggles.
My brother wishes me a happy Hanukkah.
What do I celebrate? I don’t really know. I tend to go where invited and celebrate whatever that family is celebrating. Really, though, these days are all just like any other day. They don’t hold any special excitement for me.
I’m not exactly sure what to say when I’m asked what I celebrate. Because I don’t really know.
ahem
Dec 21st
Okay. So, it turns out that fire guy isn’t such a bad guy after all.
Yeah, yeah. Bryan and sage, you were right. Color me embarrassed.
He had some family issues going on and didn’t want to call me when he was upset about them. He said he was pretty angry about this situation and didn’t want to bring it into the conversation. Which is pretty considerate, actually. But I’m not sure why he couldn’t just send an email to say so. That’s me thinking, though, and I know I can’t expect everyone to do exactly what I’d like them to do.
Darn it.
He called last night, though, and we had a good conversation. He either wants to come over during New Year’s weekend or wants me to visit his city during that weekend. I think that I’d like to meet him here first. This is where I feel safest. And while I know his city fairly well, it’s just not the same as being at home.
Oh…and he doesn’t know about my blog. But, as a friend keeps telling me, it’s not exactly hard to find me on the internets. I’m out there. Plain as day if you’re looking for me.
So, this multiple dating thing does not come without it’s problems. Tea guy can’t meet me for lunch tomorrow. Now he wants to reschedule for the same day that fire guy may be coming in to town.
Oy.
I’m not a good juggler. Not of people anyway. I juggle my things just fine but I don’t like juggling people. It just smacks of something seedy to me. And this isn’t an earthy, good seedy. It’s that rank, scary seedy. All right. Fine. Not necessarily scary. But still. Icky.
This is why I’m a monogamist. I hate this. If I didn’t, I’d be out playing the field all of the time.
Anyway, fire guy still wants to visit (is pretty excited about it, actually). Tea guy still wants to have lunch. And I haven’t even begun to discuss MBA guy. Oh, yes…there is MBA guy…and photography guy, too.
Yup. I’m just so dang popular.
*snort*
kindness
Dec 19th
I was visiting daisies’ blog (as I try to do each day) and I noticed a few links on her site.
The first was Indie Bloggers, which I promptly joined. It seems like it will become an interesting community of bloggers. And I’m always up for a good social networking site. The founder of the site writes:
We’re writers not necessarily by profession but by passion. We love the act of writing and that is why we write every day, no matter how many visitors or comments we get. We write because it’s impossible for us not to.
We don’t fit into a neat little category. We write about life, not about one topic. Because we’re “un-nicheable,” we can’t network as easily. We can’t find each other on our own – though we may have our core readers, we don’t want to limit our communities. And because we can’t network as easily, we tend to feel a little lost.
I started Indie Bloggers because I am a “personal” blogger and I’m sick of feeling like my writing is frivolous, that I’m “just a personal blogger.” If you don’t write in a niche people tend to write you off, scoffing that “it’s just a blog.” It’s not just a blog. We’re not “just” bloggers. We write and we want to keep writing, keep growing, keep learning. We’ll probably never get published. And yet we still write.
Indie Bloggers is dedicated to us. It’s not about exclusion, it’s about including those who feel excluded. It’s for networking, meeting fellow non-professional writers. Communicating. Gathering ideas. Growing. It may sound cheesy, but I want to change the way people view “personal” blogs, how they view us and lump us into a category of “I had cereal today and am wearing blue socks!” bloggers. WE. ARE. MORE THAN THAT.
We’re not “personal” bloggers. We’re Independent Bloggers. Indies.
The second was kind blog. It is a pledge:
By posting this badge, I’m declaring that in addition to humour, intelligence, wit, sadness, snarkiness, passion, exuberance, peace, stillness, excitability, anger or any other emotion you may witness on my site:
1) I will never intentionally hurt other people, whether I know them or not, whether they blog or not, whether they’re celebrities or not, either through my words or my images. It’s just not my style; and
2) I hope that by the time you’ve clicked away from my site, I’ve helped in some way to make your day just a little bit better.
So this all got me to thinking. I wonder if I intentionally hurt people.
When I write about dating and my lack of success in doing so, am I being mean to the men that I’ve gone out with or will potentially go out with?
Was my discussion of the firefighter not calling, not visiting, not emailing unkind or was it just a sharing of things that are going on in my life right now? Would he like to read that post or would it embarrass or hurt him?
I don’t know.
I try not to be mean even when I’m hurt or disappointed or irritated or frustrated. But I don’t know if I succeed.
I think that sometimes (okay, most of the time) I wear my emotions on my sleeve and when I’m feeling disrupted (happily or not so happily) that maybe it comes out in a snarky, almost mean way — even if that’s not how I mean it.
I want to be considered kind. I want to consider myself kind.
I’m just not sure if I’ve evolved that much yet — no matter how much I want it.
