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.