Distance and Treasure

Last week I shared a poem in class called "Threshold" by Tony Hoagland. It is an older poem, from the book Sweet Ruin. It begins with a detailed description of an old woman in a grocery store--providing the reader with two easily relatable images. When the poem moves to mortality and a consciousness of time, it becomes a celebration as well as an awareness. I love the idea that reminders tap me on the shoulder, brush up against me in the subway, send me letters in shaky handwriting. How many days and hours pass blindly? When I have time, I realize that life can move at a slower pace. Within that slowdown is the necessary awareness for creativity. I don't relish returning to the pace I have created for myself. Sometimes I marvel at people who seem overwhelmed doing more than one thing in one day. While I appreciate being able to multi-task, it comes at a price. Staying with an idea until its nuance and potential emerges takes patience. The rewards are many--a fully realized perception or piece of art, the satisfaction of following through, the wonder. All around me, colors merge into a giant panorama. I hear water trickling over rocks, see the play of light changing. It's all there. Today I am here watching.

It's Beginning To Look a Lot Like....

Today's dusting of snow breathes new life into the landscape. Everything shimmmers and catches the scant sunlight. Grateful, I look outside at trees standing resolutely on the edge of something. Every day is a little longer, adding minutes in that march toward a growing season. I don't know which window to look out of--the one that overlooks the ordinary asphalt and dead grass or the one that only reflects what can't be easily seen. I am interested in what is behind the ring of hills, over the stone wall. I have seen wild turkeys, deer, fox, chipmunks, squirrels, and raccoons. What have I missed?

Sadnesses and Celebrations

The dried flowers in the vase on the linen tablecloth promise nothing. On this short day, I gather in. Late fall mornings are proclamations; startling in their chill and barren beauty. Hills of sharp trees and matted grass slide by me. I cannot change the pain of others which persists even as the time ahead for all of us grows shorter. Language amazes me in its intricacies, always providing a way to render even the tragic, bearable.

My collaborative book of poetry with Geraldine Mills, The Other Side of Longing, is out in Ireland and soon to distributed by Syracuse University Press in the United States. It is a beautiful book, graced by Russ' photograph of seaweed colors underwater at Tullen Strand in County Donegal. The collaboration is now a permanent work of art and I feel lucky in many ways. I'm humbled by the opportunity to read, to travel, to continue to grow as an artist.

My resolve is strengthened to make writing central to my life. It is all I can do--observe and render those observations vivid. In this way, I begin to make sense of the resolute screen that breaks my view into tiny squares that are the fragments of a world I cannot control.

A Sense of Completion

The final edits for my collaborative collection of poetry needed to be finished the same weekend I was responsible for a large fundraiser to benefit a friend who lost her husband. It occurred to me (as it has before in other collections) that this was it--any changes I missed would not be in the book. I stayed up most of the night on Saturday night after the fundraiser to get it done, hoping that it was the best work I could muster for a book that is something entirely new for me. That's how my life is--teaching at night, teaching during the day, running a poetry project for second graders... It's a restlessness that leads me to continually invite new challenges. Still I take periods of solitude where I just write. I look forward to my next getaway to beautiful Enders Island in January.

Our upcoming collection, The Other Side of Longing is a collaboration with Geraldine Mills and we will launch it both in the United States and in Ireland. We each have twenty poems in the collection, speaking to folklore, culture, and the natural environment of our respective countries. Working with another writer has been a joy. Geraldine has brought her special humor, insight, and attention to detail to our work and our friendship. It is not possible to take on something different and remain the same. I think often of the directions I can go in with my work and the risks that one needs to take to continually create at a high level. I will spend time on fiction this winter, taking my story and my life to another level.

The Waning Season

Today was a late fall day dressed up as a summer day. The temperature was unseasonably warm. As I was conducting a poetry lesson, the children looked longingly outside. Finally we escaped and made the trek to a wooded nature trail, complete with two wooden bridges and a stream--something the city children found remarkable. Returning to the classroom, they ran up the big grassy hill, suddenly happy to be children on a rare moment of freedom on a day that felt like June. This, too, is poetry. They listed what they saw on their ride to the school--cows, pumpkins, farms, fields. This, too, is poetry. A soft-spoken girl read the poems in Spanish after I read them in English. Everyone was so quiet, we could hear the murmur of the wind outside. This, too, is poetry.

There are choices--how to find the hours it takes to be a writer, whether or not teaching is worth the incredible amount of time it takes, if any of this makes a difference. Watching the faces of students as they are lulled by words is what every poet wishes for. It is the balance--how much to give and how much to save for my own work. I believe this is important work--writing, teaching. I want to unnumb students and give them back words that express humanity, empathy, observation.

What the Seasons Teach Us

In this past week, my mother turned eighty-six, a friend's father-in-law died at sixty-three , and now the husband of a good friend died this morning--in his fifties. We were hopeful because our friend's husband was so tenacious, defying the odds of finding a donor, passing all the pre-transplant tests. So fickle life and death. Walking this morning after a windy weekend, I noticed the leaves that held on, their gold and burgundy showcased against the chilly spectacle of a late October morning. How many days pass without consciousness of surroundings? The river was moving, sun flickering on the water. I wore gloves for the first time this season. My mother says she is lonesome for my father, doesn't understand why she is living so long. There is so much of life that is out of our control. Like autumn giving way to the bitter pull of winter, we accept the inevitable. We will be the leaves underfoot and we will be the leaves hanging on. We have been buds and we have been full blossoms. I don't pretend to understand any of this. When I see the sorrow of loved ones, I feel the unfairness but life was not designed to be fair. I remind myself of fragility, and hold loved ones close. All I can do is find hidden beauty and tell about it. Life is a season--stunning and cruel. I resolve to do better each day at living, writing, making a difference.

Rainy Morning and A Beginning

The rain awakened me last night with its persistent tapping. Acorns hit the roof and the wooden stairs leading up the hill to my house. It sounded like heel clicks and I envisioned a posse of women in black stilettos arriving at my door. What did they want? Perhaps they were the harbinger of a changing season and they soon will be trading their heels for insultated boots.

One manuscript has found a home and another was a finalist in a contest. Although being a finalist does not get me publication, it feels like a tiny validation from the outside world. I will go back to it, reorder the poems, perhaps delete some and add others. I may retitle it.

As the days grow shorter, my narrative grows longer and I wake up with stories perched on the nightstand. First lines haunt my dreams. Today's first line: "I am not a stalker." Go ahead--you write the story. Make her an unreliable narrator. Perhaps she has an addiction to texting and is compulsively texting someone who has made it clear that he isn't interested. Throw in a few other habits, a complicated family dynamic--and there you have it. A beginning.

Settling In

The nights are getting cooler and there's a fire-tip on top of the oak tree down the road. It's quieter and darker. I find myself gathering in, dreaming of winter nights with a persistent wind knocking at the window. My life is tightly scheduled again with decisions to be made almost daily. When will I see friends? How many hours can I devote to my caretaking role and still balance all my teaching? How will I find the time to finish two manuscripts and submit my work to journals? When I am discussing poetry or writing, the world drops away and I find myself immersed in words. I know that magic captures some of my students--I can see it because they get very quiet. I remind myself that the younger students will someday remember this. There is a synergy that happens in a classroom. When I leave, I take that energy with me, remembering that teaching is like learning which is like observing which is a vital part of writing. I try to stay in the moment, honoring all the voices in my many classrooms. I am lucky enough to work with all ages which keeps me from getting tainted or too fixed in a genre or attitude. Like life, my interactions continually change. There is always something growing, even in winter.

Cape Breton, Nova Scotia

In our quest to get out of our busy life and into the wilderness, we decided on Cape North, the northernmost point of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. This is a place of sea, moose, bear, and mountains. There was hardly a car on the road and the beaches were mostly abandoned. In a little bed and breakfast, we hunkered down to what really matters--long hikes up winding trails that spiraled around vistas of crashing waves and mountains dotted with fir trees. The air was briny and pine-filled--a total sensory experience. Our B & B was rustic--no frills. Mid-week, we met a lovely photographer and poet couple that might have been us some years ago. They were from Quebec. We shared wine, photographs but alas no poetry since my French is not what it used to be (though I'm working on it) and she doesn't write in English. Still the sensibility of poets and photographers is a universal language (as is wine and fruit...) I return to my work at hand--two collections that I am polishing at the moment--one is my collaboration with Geraldine Mills and one is my own collection. I hope the end of summer will bring completion to both so I can begin my teaching poised to create new work.

All the Difference

I like to push the edges when I write. It's easy to self-censor--the little voice inside that tells you what you are writing doesn't make sense or perhaps goes too far. Too far where? Pushing to uncomfortable places when you write is usually a sign that you are getting to what matters. We all want to feel something when we read. It's not always possible for me to get to the place where I can access my unconscious mind. Often I'm too controlled in my writing. It's when I really let go that I'm amazed at the way the words tumble out. I'm not sure I understand the process but I am humbled by it. All artists know what it feels like to be an instrument for your art. It's liberating and intoxicating.

Illusion and Reality

My horoscope says, "If you can create the illusion of success in public, it could become reality." I'm not sure what the illusion of success is. I think success means different things to different people. To some, success is a new car, a vacation abroad, a healthy bank balance. To artists, success may mean public recognition--such a fickle thing. I've done poetry readings with over 100 people and I've read for 3 people. I like to think that I read with the same expression and enthusiasm for 3 as I did for 100. I measure my life's success by loving others and making a difference. I advocate for my students as I advocated for my clients when I was in the counseling profession. It's hard for some people to find a voice and I remember when it was hard for me to speak out and say what I thought was true. Sometimes I still hesitate.

A man came into the office a couple of weeks ago. He was lost, looking for work and hungry. I gave him money but first I ran the same dialogue in my mind we all run--is he just going to use it to buy drugs or alcohol? Is he a con artist? His story was convincing to me and I'm a person who attends to stories. It sometimes feels right to reach out just as an American couple reached out to my daughter and her friend hiking in the Alps. They took them out for a good dinner when they had been subsisting on hostel breakfasts and whatever else they could scrounge on a meager college student budget. I guess I don't care so much about financial success or even national recognition (though I wouldn't turn either down). I care about art, family, friends, and being honest in the world and in my life. Living with integrity is important. I am ever aware that I am lucky to have these choices. There are many people who must do work they don't believe in because they have to feed their families. It is a reason I advocate for education--though education alone can't always free a person from those difficult decisions.

I am working on a manuscript--a humbling task. Lately I am also working on paying attention to myself as well as the outside world. What are my illusions? What is my reality? There are no easy answers as I continue to write the story of my life.

Little Explosions / Poetry

Returning from an intensive three day conference in the Berkshires, I am looking at my work anew. Never one to adhere to "poetry trends", I need to reconcile what I know about the current publishing climate with my own aesthetic. Having so many astute readers of my manuscript was a privilege. It was also wonderful to hear the great work of fellow poets. That said, I remind myself of why I do this--and it isn't for money or fame. Ellen Dore Watson (one of the faculty at this conference) asked what we would do if we knew we would never get published. That's easy, I thought. I would write anyway. It's a process--a way in which I interact with the world and myself. I pursue publishing because I do believe that literature should be in the world, not in a drawer (or on one's personal computer). It's exhausting to face the months of revision but exciting to reinvent poems I thought were finished. Re-imagining is what we do as writers---turn it sideways, upside down; view it through the window or from the air. Poems can be improved to evoke feeling, communicate senses. I remember hearing Galway Kinnell read once at the Geraldine Dodge Festival and he was changing words as he walked to the podium. A poem is never finished, only abandoned, said French critic and poet Paul Valery. I am back on the journey to find the perfect pairing of words to make the little explosion that is a finished poem.

Heat Wave

I used to love that song sung by Martha and the Vandellas. Just thinking of it brings back long hair, granny dresses, halter tops, and Jimi Hendrix. The temperature climbed into the 90s today, making it feel like August instead of late May. Not acclimated to the heat, I found myself longing for January and the silence of falling snow instead of the bird calls and insect noises I hear these days in early morning. And that's how it is. No matter what we find around us, there is always something else to yearn for--the unreachable moment,place, relationship. The school year is winding down and I can actually think about long writing days stretching in front of me. I will continue work on my collaborative collection of poetry as well as another collection and fiction and nonfiction in process. It's all a part of the rhythm of my life--this change with the seasons. When the heat finally breaks and spring returns, I will carry the warmth within--a reminder of AM radio, ragtop cars, long days, and the thrill of two months of relative freedom from the structure of the rest of my year.

Rain and Change

The rain is a constant drumming on the tiny patch of pavement by my front door. Hummingbirds don't care, bustle by my feeder with their vibrating bee-like wings. How lush the trees are, filling all eight panes of my window with tear-drop, ovoid and lace-edged leaves. I've been reading student responses to the poems of Tony Hoagland, Natasha Tretheway, Mary Oliver. I always hope that embedded in the stress of being a student, a little glimmer happens--a particular poem touches a student who never before interacted with poetry in that way. From their responses, it seems as if this does occur. It's why I teach. A few great teachers changed my life and my perceptions though a few did the opposite. It is my goal to value every student. I cringe when I see students humiliated or told they are incapable. We are all imperfect and learning is a process that never ends. How each of us approaches a task is highly individual. I strive to make classes meaningful for students who have no desire to be writers as well as those who do. It's not an easy task to teach, competing with text messaging and email--I understand the frustration of teachers. Even in a college class, many students have outside pressures. In the years I've been teaching, I have had a number of college students who are raising children, caring for sick parents, working full-time, or coping with their own medical challenges. I worked full-time when I was both an undergraduate and a graduate student and it was not easy. I would have gotten more out of my classes and probably put more into them as well if I didn't have to make a living. People have complicated lives. I like to think of a classroom as a place for a student to relax into learning and get excited about something outside him or herself. It's good to focus outside oneself--it's how we finally grow up. It is also good for writers to look around and see what isn't easily seen; the rabbit under the hedge, a honeybee hovering over the iris, seed pods blowing in the May breezes.

Dreams and Realities

A small interlude in Provincetown last week gave me both peace and perspective. There were abundant whale sightings and cool breezes. The ocean was gorgeous and wild one day, serene the next. There is something primal about being by the sea. I felt small and my stress was diminished by the great expanse. In daily life, it's easy to be overly focused on minutia---correcting papers, driving in traffic, paying bills. How short a time we have in this beautiful and flawed world. How much conflict is created by misunderstanding. I resolve to do better at detaching from issues over which I have no control. In writing, I strive for emotional truth. In the relationships that carry me, I aspire to honesty and appreciation. My dream is to keep writing and life separate, though life informs writing. Writing is an observation, an interaction with the world that is completely realized on the page. Life is ragged and complicated yet always worth it for the perfect moments--- a surprising synchronicity, loving attention, laughter, shared dreams. This week was the fifth anniversary of my father's death. He loved the ocean, as do I. There's a lot I will never know about his life but I did learn a love of language from him. Tonight when I teach my poetry class, I will think of the poetry read to me-Hardy and T.S. Eliot, Robert Louis Stevenson and Ogden Nash. I will think of the late April morning when we scattered his ashes in the Atlantic Ocean and how memories float like dreams do--in and out of the conscious mind--never disappearing completely from sight.

Distraction and Discovery

I've always been distractable--known to drive eight miles out of my way to see a waterfall or spend fifteen minutes I don't have to spare talking to a stranger in a coffeeshop. As a teenager, I would scribble in notebooks in the back of classrooms, looking studious but dreaming about the intersection of branch and trunk or the lip of shore that awaits the tide. If called upon, I would come up with something that sounded vaguely like our assignment because luckily I can take in while I'm distracted. Today it is called multi-tasking and I don't know how to live any other way. A friend told me that she believes I'll continue this in retirement, if I ever retire. One can't retire from writing; it dogs you. And why would I? Ideas find me and I promise to send them out into the world. I'm not good at networking or marketing but writing is like breathing to me. I accept the fact that I may never enter the legendary "mid-career" stage of being a writer. I was a late bloomer. At the recent AWP conference in Denver, I saw writers in all stages of their careers---graduate students, famous writers, new favorites. The writing is everything. I don't care who is popular or touted by a famous author. I know what speaks to me. I strive to instill this same message in my students. Be true to the emotion. Lie about the details if it serves your writing but stay unfalteringly honest to the feelings. I enjoyed the workshops and most especially a reading from a new anthology edited by Kevin Young called "The Art of Losing: Poems of Grief and Loss," after the Elizabeth Bishop poem. The panelists who are also in the anthology were Elizabeth Alexander, Natasha Tretheway, Kevin Young, Nick Flynn, and Campbell MacGrath. Powerful poems, necessary topic. What a short time we have in this world and how much of it is wasted on disagreement, commerce, noise. On this cool day, I look at soft hum of green out my window. I can see. I can hear. I can love. I can taste (wonderful Moroccan stew I made last night). I can feel. One need not be a writer to use one's senses.

Long days, bright sun

I'm getting this in under the wire since I have no other entries for March. March is the cruelest month, a time of weather extremes--from blustery winds and snow to the monsoon style rains we've had in recent days. But that will be over tomorrow as April ushers in bright sunshine and mild temperatures.

Tonight was a writer's coffeehouse at the school where I teach. The young writers displayed poise, and impressive range in their pieces. I am proud of them for putting their work out there. It takes a lot for a young adult to get up on a stage and read a poem or work of fiction. I see growth in how they encourage each other, even coaching each other to breathe and slow down.

Outside the magnolia and forsythia are budding. I have the beginnings of daffodils in my garden. Nothing can remain the same. My students evolve as writers and the world around them opens up. Suddenly they see what they missed before--a homeless man standing outside the post office, a father teaching his young daughter to swim, changing skies. It's all there--the dark and the light, the necessary and the ignored. Sometimes I am a guide pointing the way. Other times I'm just looking out the window.

Signs of Life

The past two days have hinted at the thaw; a time New Englanders sense by the smell of mud and grass, skies speckled with returning birds. Though more snow is predicted this week, it feels as if we're headed solidly toward the season of growing. Today mild breezes and sun were dominant forces and it's hard to think of mounds of snow and shivering mornings. By the end of February, I tire of gray, dream of small buds pushing through the intractable earth. I remember the bulbs that sit just below the surface, how tenacious they are in the whimsy of late March and early April. I've seen crocuses crowned with ice crystals and daffodils blooming in a snow-filled garden. Nature is filled with opposing forces. Much as I try to find something to love about a colorless sky, I welcome change. It is an advantage of living here--the variability of the seasons. The full spectrum of color awaits. I pull on my jacket and boots and head outside to watch and wait.

Beauty

I've been thinking about the transcient nature of beauty. I'm in awe of certain works of art--music, painting, literature. I take too much for granted--the swaying trees I see outside my window, the pine-studded hill across the street. I'm in the process of redefining. Although I teach beauty, I often miss it in my own life--the weathered face of my mechanic, the trickle and rush of the river. Sometimes a moment happens in my writing group--a kind of synergy where we are quiet with delight at what one of us has created. I feel pride that I'm a part of this--that I have the ability to translate what I see and feel into words. Whether I gain any more recognition for this is less important than why I write. I write to understand. I write to honor myself and the world around me. I used to think it was narcisstic to be a writer. Now I feel much the opposite. Tapping into emotion is what artists do, and listeners, readers all receive--an introspective moment, comfort, the feeling that there is a common humanity. I want beauty to be abundant, not limited to fleeting images of dark eyes, perfect skin, curved petals. How stingy our culture can be in its definition of beauty. How can I broaden my own world to embrace imperfection? Can I see the height and depth of loneliness, the width of a promise?

Shy Animals

How lucky to see a fox with a lustrous golden coat napping under a tree. When he awakened, he looked at me without fear, only curiousity. It occurs to me that there is always life, seen or unseen. In the winter landscape, life is evasive. Morning walks yield the bare knuckles of brush and tree branches. The occasional pine seems overshadowed by bare and reaching oak and ash. I strayed from the path, finding bridges, stone walls, and sometimes just the sign of an animal who has a kind of comfort with the woods that I will never have. Instead I look for ways to describe the stillness and the hidden pulse of life just ahead of me.

Vermont in late December

Shadows and Promises

The snow covered everything. Tiny bushes were adorned. It was too icy to ski and so we walked in a state park in Vermont. A promised Nature Center never appeared though we walked up and up a path with a steep incline that narrowed and then disappeared. We imagined that perhaps the trail itself was a nature center or that an overzealous park ranger created the signs to inspire the less ambitious hikers to stretch and log more miles. It was the warmest day of the week. When the biting cold moved in, recreation became an indoor adventure. Still I strive to understand what I might learn from the shadows of sunlight on snow and the promises of a vista that never appears. The Green Mountains rose all around us and the air was cold and clear. I felt a sense of unrest; almost like foreboding. I know the upcoming year will bring many changes. I can feel it in my bones. When the restlessness settles over me, I must put one foot in front of the other and keep walking. I know there will be a clearing and whatever is supposed to happen will present itself, perhaps up a steep incline or maybe around the corner.