Peace On Our Little Piece of Earth

Over at (Lefthanded Trees), Delia (my new from Bloglandia friend) wrote a piece about autumn and the energized feeling she gets as summer gives way to Fall. The moment I read this, I realized that I too felt more energized with the approach of Fall.

I love the passing of the hot times to the cooler.
I love the rise again of a light breeze against my skin.
I love the cooler early morning air as it fills my lungs,
sometimes touched with the smoky tang of
an early morning fireplace.

I love the unpredictable weather. The forecast may say rain in the northern valley, but, where you are in the northern valley more often than not controls the amount of rain we actually get.

I love rain and I am always hopeful that the storm coming in from the coast will actually make it through the delta and move south to my part of the northern valley. Rain comes up from the south and down from the north with geography playing a big role in whether or not we get much rain. We often seem to be on the outer edge of whatever front is passing our way. Of course, this doesn't mean we don't get a lot of rain. We have had some memorable seasons.

I'll never forget a January a few years ago. It rained non-stop for 30 days. Eleven more and we would have broken the Biblical record. It got pretty soggy that month and even for a rain person like myself, it got to be a bit much.

We lost a lot of trees around campus that month. When I say trees, I'm speaking of mature cedars, pines, and redwoods. That was the January I was in my office and jumped out of my skin as an almighty CRACK!! exploded through the building. I ran out the back door to find five trees down. One went and then took four more with it on its way down.

We were very lucky that day. Classes were already in session for that hour so there were no students on an otherwise busy walkway. A little earlier or a bit later and it could have been a very different story. It took a week to clear the debris.

But, where way I? Oh yes, Fall and feeling energized. Come Fall, I feel like taking walks, sitting on my front porch, delving back into long-term projects. I even feel a bit of interest in cooking and baking. God knows, I have no great culinary gifts but once in a while I feel the big push to follow a recipe, to face off with myself on a creative food challenge, so to speak. I'm sure it has something to do with holidays, birthdays, and all the visual stimulation of the season.

Yesterday was busy for a while. I had to tackle the garage. I'm a hoarder and DH's special escape place was overrun with my stuff. This wasn't so bad when he was working but now he is retired and he wants his shop back. I am forced to at last sort, store and toss. This will bring peace to our little piece of earth and we both get what we both most need - he gets his space back and I get more decluttered and get the remainder out of sight. Along the way I found old comic books that I discovered I had no attachment to anymore. eBay may bring me a windfall. I'll keep my fingers crossed about that.

Clearing out this stuff was good on so many levels.

1. Don's shop is now his space again;
2. A cabinet has been emptied (and refilled);
3. I have less stuff;
4. I have room now to box up loose stuff;
5. And best of all - I have the rest of Fall to concentrate on studying T. S. Elliot, Samuel Coleridge and poetic forms.
6. I don't feel so defeated by the work still ahead of me - yes, DH, I acknowledge that there is more work to be done;
7. I may get more painting accomplished in the kitchen, and;
8. The on-going photo project will get started up again.

Fall is like a season of rebirth for me. Of course that is no doubt directly related to my birthday being in mid-November. Fall is the only time of the year when I like the color orange in all of its varied hues, not just apricot or melon.

I like Fall/Winter gardens. They require so little work, not that I do lots of heavy gardening to begin with. But, in Fall/Winter I don't feel any guilt about neglecting the garden. The garden goes to sleep just as I am waking up from an energy-sapping summer. And this wake-up call is a siren call for me to go to winter beaches - cold, quiet, uninhabited. But that is another story.

Something Sweet

Something sweet happened today; something sweet and life affirming.

Today was a first for me in all of my 18 years of working here in the Music Department. Every week, the students meet for a once-a-week recital hour meeting. On a pre-scheduled date, students perform once per semester before the faculty and the other music students. Today was no different except for one very special thing - there was a proposal.

Cameron S. (percussion) finished his piece. He asked everyone to wait just an extra couple of minutes and then he left the stage. He walked up to her girlfriend of two years, Elicia M. (flute), went down on bended knee and offer up an engagement ring. The recital hall exploded into hoots, whistles, stomping, cheering, and tears. Elicia said YES. There was much happiness all around. I, who did not cry at my own son's wedding, even teared up a little bit. Many blessings, Cameron and Elicia.

Bloglandia Ball - September Full Moon

Today...this Full September moon, is the Bloglandia Ball...hosted by Elizabeth Bunsen, of Be...Dream...Play... After much thinking, a push from Lady Lea, and a bit of inspiration over coffee and knitting needles, . . .

I decided to
play
whirl
spin
and dance.

I decided to
lay in a bed of flowers
wear my pretty red shoes
visit and share secrets with girlfriends
and let Summer chase me into Fall.

I decided to

try something new
sip nettle tea
nibble herbal cookies laced with
lavender, lemon, and mint.

I decided to

laugh at the party
laugh most hearty
no sitting in corners for me.

I decided to

howl at the moon
fall into a swoon
and then wake again
to a now waning moon.

Something a Little Different for Me

I picked up my knitting needles recently as a change of pace from all the crocheting I've been doing. The purse I planned to make here evolved into a wallhanging instead. Every once in a while, it's fun to do something different, to shake it up, so to speak.

FRONT DOORS

I took a walk through your neightborhood today
and discovered that we had something in common.
We both live on quiet streets, mine public, yours private.
Similarities ended there.


My front door opens to the world welcoming friends and family in.
I strolled by houses on your street and could not see a front door,
so well-hidden were they.

Casual landscape of brilliant flowers, shading trees, and cobbled walk
set out a welcome mat that lead to our front door.
The intricate and formal arrangement of trees and shrubs formed
impenetrable walls that kept your front doors out of sight.

Basketball hoops and tetherball poles sit in the church parking lot -
unused throughout the week, explode with activity on weekends -
a moving picture across from my ordinary home.
I stopped for a moment staring in the direction of where
I can glimpse the roof of what must be an imposing building.
Is that a stand of tall fieldlights I see?
Do they illuminate a private court?
What games are played there?

Basketball?
Tetherball?
Tennis anyone?

I am a visible invitation to take a moment to rest
on my front porch, to any who pass by.
But looking at the entrance of the road that leads
to the roof of the hidden house,
I wonder how long that driveway is;
and is there a gatekeeper, a final wall to penetrate,
near the front door?

I have church bells, a school, a parking lot;
all signs of life in motion.
I see none of that near your front door.

But we do share that one thing in common - the quiet.
My quiet is the gentle buzz of life.
Your quiet is the quiet of protective walls.

Perhaps we both have what each of us needs most of all,
after all.

I am not compelled . . .

I realized something today. I have not posted since Monday and I have not fretted about it one little bit. There has been a small voice inside my head, for a long time, driving me to write and post for the sake of posting. It didn't matter if I had anything to say or not, just write. I suppose this could be considered a good thing, but not in this case. It felt compulsive, unsatisfying, and I had let other creative activities suffer while I fretted about not writing.


Then I started the poetry workshop. Finally and at last I had made a choice to do something to push myself forward in my creative development; something that was formal and structured, not just me, on my own, working independently. Somewhere along the way I've discovered the value of going to the mountain and kneeling at the feet of a master. I had no idea that the formal structure of a class would not only improve my skills but it would relax me and release me from feeling uncertain about my own skills.

It has been sneaking up on me that I need to acknowledge my gifts and not hold any false modesty; not be embarrassed by compliments. Self-confidence is a vital ingredient for creative growth and maturity and I've stymied myself for too long, not believing in myself.

So, here I am, five days later, posting again and feeling good about it, not compelled. And the week has been a good one. I've been working on poetry exercises and I picked up my knitting needles. I had no idea what I was making when I started out but eventually I found myself making a wall hanging. It's not finished yet but stay tuned.

THE GIFT OF FAITHFULNESS

I love the taste of your skin – warm, a bit salty and always the sweetness of pulled taffy.
I smell the warm taffy and I want to take a cooking class with you.
A candied dessert would be perfect.

I love the way your hair curls at the nape of your neck
drawing me to the smell that I love of you fresh from a shower
before you splash yourself with aftershave.

The world doesn’t exist when we tuck into the corners
of our sofa - talking, sharing silences,
lingering over our coffee and tea.

I love it when you surprise me with a tender, unexpected touch;
your voice whispering like some 19C woodsman -
slow, thoughtful, slightly nasal;
your eyes the memory of some ancestral Welchman come to life.

I curl into you,
folding my hand into yours and I go to sleep
lulled by the sound of your breath.

You make me feel safe;
I finally believe that you will never disappoint me,
never betray me.

Writer's Island theme this week - The Gift

THE NOTE

Unprepared girl without armour
hugs roses and a note like a shield
sits cradled in the corner of a lonely sofa
on an empty stage.


Tears wet the victory of an unknown battle
waged over three nights of applause.
High expectations dashed.
Low expectations fulfilled.

Sad girl! Didn't you know you were always a winner?
Hot lipstick hate messages slashed on dressing room mirrors
can't change that.

Words of greeting from an absent father drying her tears
from a backstage far away.
Four brief word, "Knock 'em dead, baby".

Dropping in but just for a moment

Marcel Proust said The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.

Proust's statement fits my feelings for this week. I've had to take a break from blogging again because too much seemed to be going on within me. I have been feeling so cluttered that exterior clutter-fixing had come to a standstill. So for a bit, I needed to step back and look at the world around me with new eyes. I need to catch up on my poetry class; work at it with more depth; get back on my Jenny Craig program. Not gaining and not losing simply keeps me in neutral, not a comfortable place to be.

I am disturbed by a project at work that is coming due at a time when major planning for 08-09 is starting up. I'm sitting here at House of Java reading the binder content for this project feeling overwhelmed by the task at hand, however, I'm not alone, there is a lot of inter-departmental support and I think we actually have a starting point with our Five Year Review document. So I feel like I have actually accomplished two tasks this morning. I have Lessons 7 and 8 posts ready to go and I have a starting point on Monday when I get back to work.

Being stalled with my weight . . .

for three weeks has been disheartening. Neither gaining nor losing, creating my own meals is not the answer right now. I have to ask myself what was the reason I started Jenny Craig I the first place? Writing this, I realize my early entries in my private weight-loss blog were exhilarating and hopeful but joining Contours and then not going more than 1 - 2 times a week has contributed to feelings of failure. The rapid writing of this portion of my journal tells me that I have hit the heart of the matter.

Failure and feelings of unworthiness have haunted and hunted me my entire life. I wrote the poem today, THE NOTE, and posted it to my poetry workshop site. I will probably post it here eventually. Once it was written I realized that the feelings though deeply buried, never really go away. Can we really ever purge ourselves of our most private, darkest feelings about ourselves? Perhaps not but with recognition can't we turn them into foundations of strength?

Today I visited Jenny Craig and later came home filled with new resolve. I purchased a weeks worth of Jenny food and then dove into my journal. Other things had been bothering me, minor things. But many small things together can feel like one big thing and that is what had happened to me

I don't want feelings of failure and unworthiness to haunt me, so what do I do about it? Everyone says discovering and acknowledging your weaknesses is the biggest step. I'm inclined to disagree with that sentiment. The healing and overcoming often takes the rest of one's life (if I'm any example). My twin fears are always there waiting to step forward in my moments of weaknesses, unguardedness, or weariness. Then I'm busy back-filling and working all over again to focus on all of my hard-won strengths to defeat these demons. Once I started doing this I found that I could focus again on why I am here and I could write again with focus and discipline.

So, on this six hour anniversary of resurrecting my strength and resolve, I forge forward in the hopes of seeing a substantial loss next week and writing with greater purpose. Being stalled is not a good thing.

Going Quiet

I'm going quiet for just a little while. Need to do some regrouping. I'll be visiting all of you though.

Revising

I posted this poem last year and this week's lesson is on revisions. I tore into it and updated it twice more before posting it again. I will miss this workshop when it ends.

CONVERSATIONS I HAVE OVERHEARD

I - Emergency room

One room, two beds
A curtain in between.

Conversations overheard, unwhispered,
The curtain is too thin.

Children shriek in fear and protest,
The curtain is too thin.

Deafening sounds, beeps and pings,
The curtain is too thin.

Smells assail, sharp and astringent,
The curtain is too thin.

Quietly my daughter sobs,
Pressed against my heart.

Thin curtains do not matter

Simplicity - One Deep Breath

I've been away from One Deep Breath for a while and am very glad to be back. Here is my offering for the week on the theme of Simplicity.

Sim' pli' ci' ty's goal

To make life easily lived

Ah! Blessed relief.

Autumn Memories - from poetry workshop

The poem is structured on the sestina form. 39 lines, 6 stanzas of 6 lines each line ending in one of six repeating words. The final three lines close the poem. Two of each word is used in one line each to summarize the story the poem is attempting to convey.

November arrives, welcome relief from heat, now cool,
Misty morning sunlight with its companion, smoke.
Stepping out onto the porch, lungs expand, air is crisp.
I inhale the tang of harvest burns.
Rocking in my chair, my thoughts recall annual visits to the hills
and friendships bound together with cornhusk rope and cider apples.

Twenty-six years past, trees planted, our children like young apples.
Now a time for jackets, gloves and socks to combat the autumn cool.
I smile as I recall and anticipate the annual trek to the hills.
Bright sunlight faintly shadowed with harvest smoke
Within - my soul burns
For banks of leaves - dry, brown, crisp.

"Peach cobbler time has ended", Barbara proclaims, preparing a sweet fruit crisp
made with love and filled with cinnamin, sugar, flour and apples.
Her backyard houses a growing debris pile for the yearly burn.
My porch to hers, I breathe in the morning cool
and the repeating tang of harvest burns.
I relax knowing that for a short time I am in the hills.

Our friendship has been a gently rolling hill,
A soft series of never-ending swells punctuated with moments of crispness
or the smothering pall of vampyric smoke
heavy with the loss of one of OUR apples.
Inner life sags and cools
but then slowly rebuilds and explodes in a life affirming burn.

Back on my porch, I lose myself in the burning
desire to run to the hills,
to surrender to the autumn coolness,
to splash through leafy mounds of golden brown crackle and crisp,
to learn the secret of squeezing cider from apples
and pumping bellows on sausage, making rings of smoke.

Autumn is smoking.
Orchard caretakers fire up the burners.
Smells waft, roasting green apples.
Friends tramp through golden rainbow hills,
have fun in the kitchen baking a sweet crisp
and breathe in the evening coolness.

Rocking on my porch, I dream of days at Apple Hill
wrapped in memories of drifting smoke and tears that burned,
binding friendship over fruit-filled crisps and cool evenings.

Tea For Two - An Interlude from Writing

My found birdsnest is a work in progress. I have one more egg (which, unfortunately, has gone missing) to add to the nest. Once that is completed, it won't be Tea for Two anymore; it will be more like Tea for Me and Thee. The dome I planned to use as a cover does not fit right so I'm now looking around for a new glass cover.

The Poetry Thursday traveling roadshow

This poem is a first draft effort that grew from a free writing assignment in my poetry workshop. Thoughtful critiques are welcomed.

Second draft now appears below

Bordertown

Welcome to my border town world.
Dusty and dry, dark music and crazed taxis,
Narrow alleyways packed with piñatas,
Colors invite and entice.
Hanging sombreros, marble chess sets, BARGAINS
everywhere.
Donkey carts - “Hey! Peekchurs, CHEAP!”

My weekly visit leads me to panaderias, mercados, and carnicerias
I am known by the locals AS
a local. I am untouchable.
Helping hands, not groping hands
keep me safe.
Smells follow me and lead me on,
Sour, sweet, spicy and foul.

Hovels and mansions living side by side
Barrios and Jai Alai – homes of
Poverty and MONEY.
Smoke hangs like a pall
Over frenzied, sun-battered streets.

Sailors on leave. college boys prowling.
Men ogling, women distaining.
Turistas abound.
Midwest visitors wide-eyed in a foreign land.
Sex-seeking visitors score
“Hey! Pretty girls. VIRGINS!”
As orphanages spring up housing the offspring
of $5.00 for 15 minutes hotels.

Oakdale Roadtrip

Life is full of firsts. No need to list them. We all have them - the usual and the uniquely our own. Yesterday I had one of those "uniquely my own" firsts. I went riding, top DOWN, in an SL 500 Mercedes Benz. By the end of the day, I was feeling like Thelma and Louise before it all went bad for them.


The road to Oakdale is strictly agrarian. There are barns, cows, horses, fields of wheat, hay, alfalfa, chicken farms, eggs production facilities, tomato trucks, and roadside crosses marking losses of lives. The Toulumne River winds around back and forth under Geer Rd. which becomes Albers Rd., which becomes Yosemite Rd. depending on what rural part of changing zipcodes you are passing through.

The reason for the roadtrip was a simple one - my Tuesday night crocheting buddy, Elaine and I were on the great yarn hunt. Anyone who knits or crochets understands the necessity of looking beyond Michael's and Walmart for yarn. These, alas, are the two options available to us in Turlock. HOWEVER, Oakdale, just 25 minutes up the backroad from us has a hobby store AND a yarn shop. The yarn shop was closed on Labor Day but we lucked out at the hobby store. And, OH, what a selection. I felt like Alice falling down into the rabbit hole and arriving in wonderland. We found

THIS

And THIS

and THIS

AND THIS

We ended our day at Starbucks, OF COURSE. Star$s is such a fun people watching place. Only in California are you going to find old surfers in the middle of the Central Valley farming community.

Surf's UP!!

Ticked Off At Carl's Jr.

I don't want to turn this into a long rant so I won't. HOWEVER, that being said, I do not understand an advertising industry that goes postal over Don Imus and his inexcusable disrespect towards female basketball players and then turns around and promotes a Carl's Jr. commercial that is offensive on so many levels, that I finally caved in and fired an email off to a company in protest.

How many have you seen it? If you have not, picture a high school classroom full of adult actors pretending to be rappin', dancin' students fulfilling the classic male school fantasy of the sexy teacher with all the attention of teach's round butt and what she needs to do to flatten it.

I'm sitting in my livingroom trying to figure out what happened to my channel. By the time I figured out it was a commercial, the Carl's Jr. logo popped up promoting their flat bun burgers. Yep, the same folks promoting that favored chicken part a few years ago - the plump breast. Oh, and let's not forget Paris Hilton washing a car, while we're at it.

Here's the link if you want to put in your 2 cents. Oh, and the Carl's Jr. home page has the ad up as well.

I had the misfortune of seeing your flat buns commercial last night on TV. Yes, misfortune. I don't want there to be any doubt about how I viewed this commercial. I've talked to women from their early 20's to late 50's today and they all object.

What are you thinking pandering to dirty little boy jr. high school mentality? Who do you think brings the kids to Carl's Jr. for a quick meal? Mothers do, that's who, because clearly you have forgotten who is paying at the drive thru for the kids in the backseat.

We saw this commercial last night and were baffled by it right from the start. Then the Carl's Jr. logo pops up and we were appalled. Not only will we not be going to Carl's Jr. until your advertising reps figure out that it's not good to objectify women, the kids will also understand why they aren't going. Thanks for becoming an object lesson in teaching respectfulness.

The Breaking Window

Outward from my bedroom window the
drying field shriveled before my eyes
in the noonday heat.

Lofty tuffs of grass wave golden brown.
Sunflowers reach for the mid-day sun.
Small creatures shelter in burrows.

I gaze at my bed,
the burrow I created for myself, a small
creature huddled and hidden from the
coldness of a broken heart.

Called again to the view outside my window
tall, shadowy figure winds up, pitches and falls forward -
arms windmilling helplessly for balance.

Shadowy figures converge on the fallen one.
A burrow hole.
A broken ankle.
A pitch gone wild.

My window shatters, the glass
a rainstorm in my lap.