i dare you

I stole this most excellent graphic from my friend Sarah Hope's new blog, in which she dares herself and all the rest of you humans to do things that might make you see/feel/experience life a little differently.  A few weeks ago, she dared us to put our feet in the mud. For some, I know this is crossing a boundary of sorts, but for me, that's just another day in the woods. I didn't think it was that big of a deal, really.

But I decided to do it anyway.  Not knowing where, exactly to find mud in the middle of July, I decided that there must be some down by Cheyenne Creek, a short walk out my back door.

After a bit of searching, I found the perfect creekside rock, set my composition book down, removed my Chaco sandals, and sank my feet into the water. Ooooohhh. Already, I was thanking Sarah in my mind.

At the bottom, about nine inches down, my feet touched not mud, but coarse granite sand, a natural foot massager if ever there was one.  My gratitude for Sarah's dare grew bigger.  It felt so good I decided to take a walk upstream.  I probably ventured only about 30 yards before turning around, but taking steps barefoot in creeks is such a calculated, mindful experience, it felt like an epic journey.  Plus - it was a whole new world in there! There was a hiking path on one side of me, and a road on the other, but under the canopy of the trees and with the rippling sounds of the water, they disappeared. Then I remembered creek hiking at Camp Kilowan every summer!  Then I started singing:  "Kilowan, Kilowan, your maidens have gathered...."! Then I remembered fairy boats! Then I wanted to bring everyone I knew on a creek hike! I still do!  I have no idea how if it would work (the creek's pretty narrow), but if anyone wants to come with me, I dare you.

(Unfortunately, my phone died just as I was taking it out to get some photos.  I was angry for about two seconds, and then figured it was actually kind of a gift.  No one knew where I was, and there was no way for them to reach me.  I found this to be an extremely pleasing circumstance. Anyway, here's a photo of Cheyenne Creek from the internets)










I finally returned to my rock and grabbed my composition book.  Here is what I wrote:

The water 
will almost always flow 
faster than your stride --  
get used to it.

Pine cone canoes 
navigate the rapids
by not navigating. 
submerge
resurface
flounder
snag

Will you will recognize 
in yourself 
the false prophet 
if you stay too long 
in one place?

The key is to connect 
and disconnect 
in a cycle prescribed by 
the cottonwood leaf

Thank you, Sarah.  For the memories, new and old.

Where Were You?

I spent my morning at Mountain Fold Books with Dave Reynolds, creative writing teacher at the Fountain Valley School.  We debated line breaks. He talked about the allure of azure and other Latinates, while encouraging us to stick to the direct and honest Anglo-Saxon for imagery.  Then we read a poem called Where I Was by Dan Brown (not that Dan Brown), in which the author recalls where he was the day Kennedy was shot.  After that came a poem written by one of his high school students, which was modeled after Where I Was.  Her poem was, appropriately titled:  Where I Was, only it told the story of where she was on 9-11.  Then we wrote poems about where we were, on some significant date in history.  There is something about being given a form, a structure, and fitting your story into it, that is not cheating, but rather it is liberating within a constraint.  I think we have forgotten what it means to learn by imitation of the masters.  Anyway, here is mine.  It is titled, of course:

Where I Was

I was sitting in the front row of all

Places.  My eighth grade algebra class

Was solving for x in silence: the

Way Mr. Gunther liked it.   We feared his

Citizenship grade.  Every

Time you talked, he made a red x by

Your name in his always-open

grade-book. 5 x’s equalled 1 grade

deduction, 10 x’s equalled 2, and so on

in predictable function form.

The equation I don’t remember much

About:  your basic exercise

In keeping everything

Balanced.  How whatever you

Do to one side, you have to do

To the other. Algebra is nothing

If not just. The memorable thing

Was that the PA came on.  How our

Secretary began, “Attention, students”-

But not the announcement I expected.  Not

How the after-school dance was

Canceled. Not lunch menu changes.  Not

that the volleyball players

were to be dismissed after 5th period -

None of that. What the words amounted to

Wasn’t the worst thing: not

"President Reagan has been shot."

But rather that I had cheered.  Half the

Class erupted into applause.

Mr. Gunther, for the first and

Only time that year, closed his

Gradebook, stepped out from behind

His desk, and talked to us-angrily but with 
Conviction-about something other

Than solving equations in two variables.

That day,  I learned that compassion

Should always come before

Politics, and that citizenship means more

Than keeping silent and avoiding red x’s.

Ten Books

Ten Books.  Thanks, Marie Newell Walden.  I think.

I have to admit that this scares me.  But I'm glad she tagged me, because that means she cares about what I think.  I think.

According to the most recent FB sharing-thingy, you're supposed to:  "list 10 books that have stayed with you in some way. Don't take more than a few minutes and don't think too hard--they don't have to be "right" or "great" works, just ones that have touched you."

I know they don't have to be "right" or "great" works, and that part doesn't bother me so much.(although I do retain a slight envy for some of my friends from seriously-literate homes)

The real problem is that I can't even seem to wrap my head around where to start.  It's that "Don't take more than a few minutes and don't think too hard" part that is troubling me. Because summoning those book titles.......  I know that if I do this right, it will take me back to a chair or a season or a heartbreak or an epiphany.  Good books, the really good ones, are like that.

There really is only one place to start:  6th grade.

1.  A Wrinkle in Time, Madeliene L'Engle:  the first time I realized that there was somewhere more than this world and somewhen more than this time.  See, I can't stop using the word "time!  What the hell IS time anyway?!  Mind=blown.  My absent father's Ethan Allen black leather chair.  Spring Break. Age 12.

2.  The Grey King, Susan Cooper:  Responsible for the fact that I still always spell "grey" the English way.  Lessons Learned:  Honourable Good Wins.  Setting Matters.  Fate.

3.  Flowers in the Attic, V.C. Andrews:   Seriously, if you were in high school in the early 80's, and DON'T include this book, I'll call you a liar.  Evil is Real.  Horrible things Happen.  Is it ok to enjoy this book so much?
And shit, that author has the SAME LAST NAME AS ME!

4.  The Chosen, Chaim Potok:   Easily one of the first real grown-up literature books I read ON MY OWN.  A book I chose (from a selected list of books, however).  Haha!  You see now the power of choosing!  Understanding the idea that within one religion, there are many.

5.  Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte:  Lying on my tiny single bed at the University of Lancaster, age 22.  The moors of northern England were my backyard.  It was early spring.  I was in love with everything.  I was the only one I knew who hadn't read it.  The language carried me away.  I had no idea that a novel could be all this.

6.  The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger:  This kid's life makes absolutely no sense to me, and yet I understand exactly how he feels.  How is that even possible?

7.  Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte:  These characters' lives make absolutely no sense to me, and yet I understand exactly how they feel. Another one of the books I "chose" to read from Ms. Six's list (AP English, Senior Year)  Sometimes wish I hadn't read this one on my own, but had had some guidance.  It truly is, as Dante proclaimed, a "fiend of a book — an incredible monster."   Heeeeaaattthhhhhcliffffff!!!!!!!

8.  The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien:  I didn't read The Hobbit until I was in my early 40's and had two school-age boys.  I was blown away.  I couldn't figure out how in the world I had come through my childhood without this.  I cursed my family.  I cursed my teachers.
I could read it a hundred times.  I want to read it again.  My husband and boys are watching part II of the movie at this very moment. I have no desire ever to see it.  Part I was the sorriest excuse for a movie made from a book EVER.

9.  Jitterbug Perfume, Tom Robbins:  Philosophy can be funny.  Everything is connected.
“The rich are the most discriminated-against minority in the world. Openly or covertly, everybody hates the rich because, openly or covertly, everybody envies the rich. Me, I love the rich. Somebody has to love them. Sure, a lot o’ rich people are assholes, but believe me, a lot o’ poor people are assholes, too, and an asshole with money can at least pay for his own drinks.” 
My husband does not like Tom Robbins.  Sometimes I wonder how I can be married to him!

10.  Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov:  Duh.

These books found their way to me through people, mainly teachers and friends, and sometimes, yes, even family.

Not a single one of them was formally "taught", however.

Please share with me one of your ten in the comments, if you feel the desire.  I would love to learn more about the readerly you....

an aching kind of growing

When a child first catches adults out — when it first walks into his grave little head that adults do not have divine intelligence, that their judgments are not always wise, their thinking true, their sentences just — his world falls into panic desolation. The gods are fallen and all safety gone. And there is one sure thing about the fall of gods: they do not fall a little; they crash and shatter or sink deeply into green muck. It is a tedious job to build them up again; they never quite shine. And the child’s world is never quite whole again. It is an aching kind of growing.

John Steinbeck

unsolicited advice from a woman with no daughters

a poem for Audrey, Meme, Ruby, Finn, and Sophia


they'll say
"Just Be Yourself"
as if that were THE ANSWER
but
i say
"Be your Many Selves"
keep your closet full of the different
yous and change as often as you like
accept and love them all
your girl friends will be
your source
for everything
this never changes.