a certain slant of light.

moving on.

2008-06-06T11:00:00.024-05:00

This is my last post here. From now on, you can find me at field | work. I hope you join me there.

Saying good-bye to this space seems stranger than I expected it would. I know it is the symbolic move from being a high school English teacher to a graduate student (second time grad student), but I almost feel as if I am saying farewell to more of myself than that.

What has happened since I arrived in the blogosphere:

I student taught, then became a high school English teacher. We expanded our family to include Penelope and Zephyr. We bought a house, got engaged, got married. So did Kelly, who also got pregnant. I went to: Boston, the Carolinas, Alaska, Florida, New Orleans. Camping for the first with my husband. Started a garden. Tortured through two high school musicals. Applied to graduate school for an MFA and got in. Hemed and hawed over completing an M.Ed. Knit, tried new recipes. Learned what budget cuts can mean, gained a job, was appreciated. Brewed beer. Faced a breast lump. Lost a grandfather. Fell in love with photography again. Mandy had a daughter, Jen had a son. Jesse came back from his time in Iraq, Danno lost a foot there. Met Carolyn Forche and Sharon Olds. The Urtels' moved to the Twin Cities, Kristin got married, my husband presented his graduate thesis. I was scolded into charging my cell phone and leaving it on; you never know when the call for the hospital trip will come.

Ten years ago, I was graduating from high school with many people I still call good friends. Ten years ago, I wore green, I tottered up to the podium and gave the graduation speech in the arena on the west side of town. I could barely see over the stand and into the faces of my peers, which is probably good. Because I was petrified.

Ten years later, and here I am, leaving high school for a second time. This is what is truly a sad thing for me--not that I'm moving blogs, because my voice will remain the same, so little might change, just a slight aesthetic shift, but mainly that unseemly "theteacher" will fade, I will make a clean break.

A clean break.

Truth is, I need it, but that's something I can say at the end of every school year. There's a certain exhaustion that settles in during those last few weeks, a certain feeling that you will never see the other end of the grading pile, that every kid is in a panic about the final grade and expects you to turn over his or her leaf for (him or her), and that all you want is to book a massage appointment and slowly recede into the calm.

So I suppose we'll leave it at that. I do hope you will join me, though I can't always promise it will be calm. I can promise this though: I will always be me, will always keep seeking out that self that makes sense, that feels comfortable. I don't know what will happen around June 27th, how our lives will change; I don't know what will come after three years of graduate school or what will happen during; I don't know when our own family will start. But I can tell you this: it will all be revealed in field | work...

I wonder what will happen next.

xo.

10 things

2008-06-06T10:21:00.003-05:00

Ten things I love about teaching:

1. The summer
2. That lightbulb look when they get it
3. Passionate students
4. Teaching until the bell, not clockwatching
5. Students who want to share their accomplishments, no matter what they are, with you
6. Experiencing and exploring language and literature with a group of people
7. Learning myself
8. Forcing myself to become a more patient person
9. Control and freedom, brain exercise, whatnot.
10. My colleagues

Seven minutes until I can check out. The car is packed, and I am printing the gradebook out. Soon, I will unload the car, load it back up, drive into the summer.

xo

PS: One more post is a'comin', then it's off the the new place! Hope to see you there!

and then there were none

2008-06-05T13:16:00.004-05:00

I write to you from an empty classroom. It's quiet, finally, little balls of paper strewn about the floor, broken crayons and pencil nubs, abandoned books stacked precariously, post-its come unstuck from my computer monitor, half in and half out, half ready to go. A stack of exams on the desk is all that's left to grade. Tonight, my eyes will cross slightly, irritated at the cramped handwriting, relieved at the end.

It's sort of like Christmas Eve, one of those rare moments when you are giddy again. I was giddy when I got married, giddy for our honeymoon. I am giddy for Iago, though I don't feel it yet, not fully anyway. And I'm giddy when the last students empty from the classroom, not because I am overjoyed at good-bye, but overjoyed at the potential and the peace and the wide expanse of summer, at rest. It's that trembly feeling that huh-huh-huh's in your chest. Something between a shriek and laughter, not sure which, just happy.

I'm glad the momentum of the end of the school year propels into this weekend. I'm grateful for that. The quiet of an ordinary weekend would not seem right; it would feel a let down. And this weekend: great thunderstorms, roiling ones. That's what the weatherman predicts, so we are scurrying for tarps and cribbage boards, thinking of the slush beneath puppy feet. I can photograph rain too.

So this is it. Or almost it. Two hours to work this afternoon, four hours tomorrow morning. But the true part, the everyday part. It's over now. I think I'll just sit quietly for a little bit first.

2008-06-04T14:38:00.007-05:00

Sometimes it feels as if no one realizes it's time to say goodbye. The drifting out of the classroom makes complete sense to them; the passing through the door is part of everyday. They won't turn back; it should be that way. I won't turn back either.

( I always do. )

Exams bring: furrowed brows, broken pencil tips, creased paper, shuffling feet.

Later: Paper strewn in the hallways.

Later still: Caps and gowns.

It's been an interesting year. I think I'm ready for the wind-down. Last night, I stayed up late, staring at the computer screen, wondering at this last exam I'll write (for a while?), hoping they'd do well, crossing my fingers for those borderline cases.

I wish I had something brilliant to say in these last few days here. I'm simply looking forward. I'm not just thinking about the MFA but about the summer: Kelly's baby, our CSA membership, camping, this mysterious cross country trip we have only vaguely discussed.

I am ready for my life to continue, ready for the next step. Teaching high school has been good, actually, and despite a few strange occurances and surprises, teaching this past year hasn't been terribly shabby. I've grown fond of the little buggers and I'll miss them. There's so much I won't miss, but I ought not focus on that, unless it's in celebration of moving on.

photoshop diptych

2008-06-03T20:26:00.003-05:00

A tutorial from Lisa Solomon, one of my favorite artists (she has now created a monster): her tutorial

And me? Still procrastinating. Still thinking of brilliant multiple choice questions for clever students--don't want to insult them with too much ease--and discovering the beauty of a new year in a new garden.

honestly.

2008-06-03T13:16:00.009-05:00

I used to love going to coffee shops and sitting for hours and just conversing and wondering about the world.

I feel as if I've stagnated a bit these past few years, as if my brain simply stopped and I regressed. I've never felt less smart, less clever, less as if I were learning, and I know a great deal of that is my fault, and even more, I blame my ability to not say no. I'm hoping going back to graduate school will kick start my brain and I'll start thinking, start relishing in ideas.

But for now, I'm going to relish in these little moments that sprout up in the classroom, even if I come home thoroughly exhausted, brain dead, tantruming about the exam I don't want to write.

June list

2008-06-03T11:19:00.001-05:00

Hello June, month of papers strewn about the school's hallways, gleeful shouts, water sprinklers, stubbly garden growth, early flowering, sweet tea, and sleeping in. This month, I look forward to:

- Oh, I must start with the lilacs. I am smitten.
- The dramatics of thunderstorms. I have a thing for pressing my nose against the window.
- Thinking about making this cap.
- Loving the colors in the kitchen.
- Hiking up bluffs.
- Hoyas.
- June favorites...

1. clafoutis, 2. A Handful of Black Cherries, 3. afternoon snack, 4. hello

- ... which apparently include cherries. Thanks for introducing us, Ang. Glad the maraschino variety didn't ruin me permanently from the fresh variety.
- Getting dirty in our backyard. Reseeding, planning new plants, adding flowers to our repertoire.
- Ending the exhaustion that is afternoons after a long school day.
- Camping at Jay Cooke.
- I know a certain someone who is going to have a baby!
- Emily + Pat = one year of wedded bliss
- James and James sharing a birthday (today!)
- Also born in June: Mandy!
- Planet Earth
- The sixth. So much depends...

packing up

2008-06-02T11:57:00.006-05:00

The last week:

- I think, with this blog, I'll go ahead and end the 365 one as well. The purpose was to have daily practice with my camera, and I think my Flickr account as well as my near-daily blog posts are enough for that. I'm ready for a new challenge, and I've given myself two: from the field and in the kitchen. This won't end the mudanities: on Flickr, I've added a set for 2007 and 2008, so I can indeed look back on the year and see how I captured in from behind my lens. I started 365 before I had Flickr, before I posted pictures here, before I was overly addicted to blogging. It doesn't make sense for me to continue with that one as well. Besides, I am getting pickier about continuity, about the details; I'm more interested in theme and challenge.

- I took a nap yesterday, which meant I didn't fall asleep until past midnight, which leaves me a little bobbled headed today. In my first hour, I think my thought process was three seconds behind everything. I feel as if I am a bit underwater. No naps today, no matter how painful this is for me: I need to be bright eyed tomorrow. It's the last official school day before we enter exams.

- I have several students leaving during exam days for golf. This means I'll have my exams written tonight. Kind of nice to have that forced off my plate.

- I think I'm a bit in denial about this ending. Not in an upset, grumpy way; not in a I'm-about-to-throw-a-tantrum way. I just seem to be in a fog. Really, I'm not teaching next week? Really, my things need to be out by Friday before noon? Part of me feels like it all just started. The ending feels abrupt. I'm tired--there's no doubt about that--so ending is good. Sleeping in will be good. Finishing my M.Ed will be excellent. But really. It's all over in a few days. I feel as if I need to do some sort of ritualistic cleansing or something. No tears on this good-bye.

- Not related, but I must point it out: flossy-p, the artist who made Kelly's baby shower gift, wrote a post and included a scan of the image, if you are interested in a closer look. Stop by and leave a comment! I noticed that Bonnie, Kelly's mom, did--I think she'd love to hear from others. It's really amazing work that she does, and I think it's one of the best presents I've ever given--probably the best--though Ryan's Martin was an awfully fun present to give too.

- Happy Monday, all! The last Monday as a high school teacher. (Maybe forever? Or just for now? Who knows!)

grading.

2008-06-01T21:34:00.003-05:00

Apparently, I'd rather take photographs of my cats (who are so good at disrupting me--Libby is saying, "Stop grading!"--I think he might have used an explicative, but I can't be sure) than grade the essays piled up on our dining room table. Almost done. Almost. Then: quiz, quiz, quiz, test. Sixty copies of each set. And next week: last week. Almost. Almost.

weekend

2008-06-01T10:52:00.006-05:00

This weekend I had a surprise for my husband: a boys' weekend. A month ago, he headed to Green Bay with hopes of spending some time with his family but also seeing some of his guy friends--I was not allowed to come along, as he intended to wander out to the bars with Jeff and Danno, play pool, drink beer, tell stories. It didn't work out--something about going to Milwaukee for a baseball game that he didn't go along on--so I immediately emailed his nearby guy friends and proposed a surprise boys' weekend. They tell me what they want to do, and I would arrange it. So last night, they went on a tour of Schell's brewery and camped at a nearby state park.

I let him know by writing a cryptic card (of port2port's card society) and giving him a bag of camping groceries. I had the night to myself, thunderstorm and all.

(Note: those strawberries were rotten, though they look a bit fresh in the photograph!)

Last weekend I started my first small compost heap. I've grown frustrated from all the food waste; this is essentially why I stopped being a vegetarian. Love him as I might, my husband does not eat leftovers, which means there is a great deal of wasted food in our house. I have since stopped eating red meat again, a part of this strange health plan I'm implementing (each week I take on a new healthy habit: week one is no alcohol until I lose 10% of my body weight, week two is subtracting red meat, and week three, which started today, is to rid myself of fried food for a while--I'll also gradually add things with movement and adding healthier foods, etc.--I'm figuring by doing it one bit at a time, I have a better chance of sticking with it). I won't compost meat just yet, since it's a bit trickier, but I've learned about mixing greens and browns and water balance. What throws me, though, is just how much we waste food--not taking leftovers home, the weight loss trick of not finishing everything on our plate--when there is simultaneously this push for more environmental awareness and an economic clinch. I plan to begin bringing tupperware with me when I go out to eat; thus far, I've been pretty good about only eating at local restaurants too (it's so easy in a small town--I'm so glad we're not in the suburbs).

Today has been fairly quiet: the return of a sleepy Ryan from his weekend, grading weeks old essays (next week is the last week--I cannot procrastinate any longer), taking an afternoon nap, reading books I plan to purge from the bookshelves, writing letters to girl friends. I love quiet weekends, especially in stressful times (end of school year).

Oddities:
- Recent finds on Etsy: Yesterday. Forest Necklace.
- I'm Not There is a fun, quirky film. Seen it yet? Cate Blanchett is my hero.

And I must point out: less than a week before I move to the new blog.

rain + happy dogs

2008-05-30T12:38:00.003-05:00

It's that time of year: rain and happy dogs. These photographs are actually from the week before Ryan and I got married, but the tone is just right; there's a kind of contented anticipation in them too.

This afternoon I had my first massage in a while; there were moments when I held my breath, clenched my teeth. I'm thinking that wasn't supposed to happen, but I also don't think I'm supposed to have dreams of knives boring into my lower back. I'm giving it another go in a little over a month, so we shall see if I've submitted myself to torture or relaxation.

I do adore facials. I feel compelled to point that out.

We have a houseguest coming tonight, so I'm furiously scrubbing, always at the last minute. It's good because I'm in a purging mood as of recent. I keep procrastinating.

film

2008-05-29T16:11:00.004-05:00

I wish I knew what it was. Maybe it's the resurgence and exploration of Polaroid, in celebration of its extinction as we knew it in childhood, all these photographs cropping up in Flickr with the tell tale white border. Maybe it's the label "Film" on photographs in the same pools, the ethereal feel you get from these grainier images, the way you want to blow the dust away from the memory, let it rise up to the surface.

Part of me wants to go out with my Nikon and document the world this way, give it its own wispy hue, but part of me also wants to resurrect the treasures from years past. Above, all pictures hovering around 2003: apple picking and sheep petting at a Rochester farm, canoing and kayaking at my grandparents' lake, with my father, with my best friend. It seems strange to think of waiting to see how it all comes out, uncertain of how well the shot was framed, was focused, wondering if you should have taken five more, from other angles. If I put my Nikon to my eye, would I waste it, would I turn through a dozen images at a time, run up my credit card bill in one hour photo processing?

In my distraction, my full throttle love, I picked up a stack of Polaroid instant film. Never mind that I don't actually own a 600 camera, but I figured I could get my tentacles on one, could begin to document my life in that magical way. My sister has assured me she'd mail one up to me, and you will soon see images such as these in my Flickr photostream.

For now, I've begun to sift through old photos, sporadically sharing them. You can visit my past on film here.

Frontenac State Park :: Memorial Day

2008-05-28T06:33:00.006-05:00

See more images from Frontenac here.

Jack Souvignier, one month

2008-05-27T11:53:00.007-05:00

Ten years ago, we were high school seniors.

Another one of my high school friends is a mama. These are her photographs, so I can't take credit for capturing these moments, but I hope to meet him in the near future.

Jack arrived one month ago today: 1:21 am, 8 lbs 2.5 oz, 20.5 inches, labor nearly 24 hours.

One month from today, Kelly's baby is due.

Several years ago, wedding invitations flooded our mailbox. Now, it is baby shower invitations and birth announcements.

Congratulations, Jen.

summer garden

2008-05-26T16:53:00.005-05:00

In the garden this year: sunflowers, asparagus, carrots, green peppers, mild red pepper, iceberg lettuce, romaine lettuce, onions, eggplant, brussel sprouts, zucchini, squash, pumpkin, tomatoes. I'm sure I'm forgetting something; I always seem to. Old successful standbys, a few new tries.

I've also started a small compost pot. In it, cantaloupe and organic strawberry bits from our barbeque night, dried leaves from the yard, basil.

See more gardening pictures here.

more on hay creek

2008-05-26T09:58:00.005-05:00

I don't know what it is about this place that draws us--perhaps the closeness, how easy it is to let the dogs off the leash, the ease of ambling about, but here we are again. I didn't get much sleep the night before, so we kept ourselves active: walked downtown for breakfast, gardened, went to Hay Creek--to keep me from the temptation of the nap. Zephyr returned with a serious slice to his paw (we would have taken him to the vet had they been open, but it is, after all, Memorial Day weekend)--he'll go in tomorrow, I hope.

See more Hay Creek adventures here.

considering our environment

2008-05-25T08:03:00.000-05:00

This is a page from a book called America At Home, a collection of photographs of people in their own environment. This page caught my attention--and though I couldn't read the details, I could get an idea of this Thoreau-like existence. It called to mind Angie's excitement over moving into a smaller home in the Twin Cities this past winter; the idea to live a contained life, one that doesn't sprawl to not only clutter up, but also absorb too many resources, appeals to me.

After going to the garden shop, Ryan took me up the bluffs to look at these brand new, absolutely huge houses. I marveled at the view, at the yards with towering trees, at the wrap around porches, but it wasn't the size of the houses (or that sterile, plastic-y feel new houses seem to have). I love the idea of living in the woods with a sprawling yard. A yard to sprawl, not the contained walls. The pit-in-my-stomach jealousy was over the greenery, the mature trees, not the brick and mortar.

I always wondered why my paternal grandparents didn't live somewhere larger. They had the money, and they built a house on a lake, but the house was normal--three bedroom, two bath sort of affair. But that's all they needed--enough for them, for our family to come and stay too. A peaceful life on a lake overlooking the woods. I can see the reason in that.

Also interesting: One Local Summer. This lines up with the CSA we recently joined and the 100 mile diet (and, similarly, the 100 foot diet) also recently discovered.

PS: Two weekend mornings, up before 8am.

up barn bluff

2008-05-24T20:04:00.020-05:00

I am grateful for:

- Living in a place that has this beauty so nearby.
- Learning more about the landscape of here, now.
- Girl friends who are held close in your heart.
- Clever students who make good company.
- (The patience these two had while I took endless photographs.)
- Six hours in the fresh air.
- Juice and roughage at a local coffee shop after.

You can see more photographs from our trips up Barn Buff here.

Also, in anticipation of the blog move, I've created a new photo blog as accompaniment: from the field. The goal is to take a photograph of the natural world on a regular basis, perhaps even once a day, but with a more critical eye than something like today's collection (though this is winnowing even from the entire collection I uploaded onto Flickr!), perhaps limited to no more than three images per post. I don't intend, as of yet, to end my standard photo a day project, as I've really loved the way it documents my life in a simplistic manner.

identifying minnesota trees, orzo-less feta chicken, anniversary trip ideas (more whatnot)

2008-05-23T11:17:00.000-05:00

Above: Elm, I believe, American (ulmus americana) from the Urtels' backyard

More often than not, I need help, but I'm learning how to identify things I find in the field. Perhaps this is emblematic of the impending blog move, though I must admit, I have long loved collecting scientific and natural factoids (and using them in poetry). I found this really neat site on identifying Minnesota trees; a bit of an after-the-fact exploration. I have a pocket guide too, which may have driven Ryan a little batty on our excursion to Afton.

Ryan brought up our one year wedding anniversary this summer, how we might celebrate. It seems strange to celebrate a first year anything when we are actually hitting nine years of being together, but I won't deny I'd love to take advantage and go on a trip! Because we are facing three years of nearly-single salary when I return to graduate school (the TAship covers tuition and a small stipend), his suggestion was to pack up the car and camp cross-country. Or rather, half cross-country, since we happen to be planted dead center. Oregon or Maine as end-destination? I've already been to Oregon once, but I would absolutely love to return. And truth be told, I have fantasized about meandering to Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine. Or Canada. Or we could go south, return to the land of my childhood. I haven't yet had the opportunity to show Ryan Chattanooga. But I'd love to drive to Missoula again, see the Idaho forests. Or the Tetons! Oh, but the coast. Cape Cod would be wonderful.

The ping pong again, this time, not as hard as deciding between MFA programs. So I ask, dear reader, if you had the opportunity to do a little camping adventure with this geography restricting you, where would you go? Maybe a week's time?

Last night we tried a new recipe: Bell Pepper Chicken with Feta Orzo. I couldn't find anything labeled orzo at our grocery store, so I substituted with another grain sized pasta and omitted feta from Ryan's portion.

the sense of smell brings strongest memories

2008-05-22T11:43:00.000-05:00

Last night, as I was falling asleep I rolled over and smelled something--I'm not sure what--and I was instantly transported to my childhood in Chattanooga, was rapid-fire recalling bits and pieces of that place I loved so much--memories of Yvonne and the mountains, of the drawl and honeysuckle.

I recently learned that without smell, your taste buds diminish in power significantly (Max 82-93). I also have heard that when you are smelling something, you are tasting it as well, which always simultaneously repulsed me and thrilled me when I was a vegetarian.

I love that there are certain smells that tell me, really, that the snow is over: the metallic smell of water from the hose being sprayed out onto bare patches of lawn, the smell of grass clippings, the way fresh air, circulating air smells in the bedroom at night. Winter and gray are so long here in Minnesota; it's so easy to forget what it means to be out in the world, to see everything so blue and so green. (Did you see that sky in the pictures below from camping? Wow.)

Our countdown is at nine student contact days (after this final hour coming up) and a half day for teachers. That's it, all on my fingers now. I was just writing a letter to my sister and though I am thrilled to close the door on teaching high school, I know I have some responsibilities waiting for me on the other side before I can feel free to completely focus on my MFA. I have the pesky issue of the M.Ed, a British Literature distance learning course with an incomplete that needs completion, and I'll have the regular responsibility of being a Wings mentor (oh, and the guilt there, some of the mentors have already met once or twice!). I need to be methodical as I work through these hefty tasks. I need to be responsible and kick the procrastination habit. (I need to do a little jig--today I finally returned the Humanities tests, which many had forgotten even existed--that's how long I've had them.) Methodical, goal oriented. Those are words I don't normally attribute to summer.

Work Cited:
Max, D. T. "A Man of Taste: A Chef With Cancer Fights to Save His Tongue." New Yorker 12 May 2008: 82-93.

afton state park, camping

2008-05-21T18:01:00.000-05:00

\

We went camping this past weekend. You can see the rest of our photos from the trip here.

the dream of the serrated knife

2008-05-20T14:31:00.000-05:00

More of the random:

- After today, eleven student contact days, two of which are exams. I feel steam rolled. Grading is beginning to reach an even clip, and I might actually get everything back by the end of the week, though this is incredibly wishful thinking. I am plowing though, determined to close out this school year without great stress. Just great exhaustion, as it always goes. ("Seriously, are you going to offer more extra credit?") ("Um, is there any way I can pass?")

- Last night I dreamt a serrated knife had burrowed into my skin, grinding against the small of my back. In the dream, Ryan was telling me the only way was to pull it out, that we couldn't remove it any other way but to press it through my skin, my muscle, that it would be narrow enough and would hurt, but at least it would stop cutting my lower back like a steak. I woke up, pained, sleeping on my stomach. I can move about a bit faster today; the soreness has dissipated. But yesterday, every time I stood up, I had an invisible line reclining me back down, bits of me crying out in protest.

- I will not miss lockdown drills. We had one this afternoon during my prep hour, and it was phrased something like, "Attention staff, there is a situation in the cafeteria. Please lock all doors." Of course, my imagination began to bat about, forgetting that it is the beginning of the hour, prime time for a drill, and late spring (competing with early autumn as the best time for drills--tomorrow, fire). I listened intently, huddled on the floor, Humanities tests in my lap, listening to booming sounds, trying to determine if it was the special ed class down the hall or truly a lockdown situation. We're fine, of course; just when I forget and feel safe in the classroom, I am reminded of random calamities and how dangerous a school can be.

- New York Times: Someone else must find a house to fit the book collection and how to get the most out of your vegetables.

just here to say:

2008-05-19T12:56:00.000-05:00

- We went camping this past weekend. I am still uploading pictures on the dinosaur slow program, but you'll get a glimpse of it all maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow, depending. Mostly depending on if I can go up and down those stairs; I am s-o-r-e. We went to Afton, which is a hike in site (no flushing toilets, no showers, that sort of thing) and beautiful. We also walked the entire time we were there (even when I was sleeping, it's true--OK, just kidding), and we were walking up most of the time; or rather, I was being pulled up by the dogs. They are tired too, though I am certainly the least spry of the four of us today. I had to unfold myself like a stowable table this morning.

- I only had one tick. Found it in my hair; it felt like a dried leaf bit. Found it while at Lane and Angie's housewarming party, no less. I bring guests, unwelcome, to parties. I think Penelope had one too. I am not certain why I have such a deep rooted fear of ticks, except maybe what my mother instilled in me on Girl Scouts camping trips, but I kept jerking around as I fell asleep on Saturday night at any sign of motion. Oh, and it was cold. So I forgave my dogs their ticky selves and begged them to snuggle with me. Didn't work--they preferred Ryan. Maybe because I stank so much from the hoofing camping gear up a bluff. That felt like Mount Everest after the nineteenth time going up it.

- After this day is over, I have twelve student contact days left. And a half day of teacher work time. I cannot believe it; I can almost count those days on my hands. Which is good, because I think my feet still might smell from the weekend, so we'll stick to the digits in the northern half, thankyouverymuch.

- I learned how to start a fire and keep it going. Putting it out, however...

- This weekend is the Thoreau educational hike up Barn Bluff. Ryan can't come, so I'm bringing a student of mine. I hope I am not still so pained, so out of shape. I don't need to shame myself in front of a student. Well, not any more than is ordinary anyway. I tend to trip over overhead cords (even though I don't have an overhead this year).

- Tonight is the first RW Photography Club meeting I might be able to attend, if I can manage to finish grading those pesky Humanities tests. Which is what I really ought to be doing right now. It's just... oh, it's just... I've procrastinated for weeks now, and I can't come up with another excuse. Um, I graded five sets of quizzes already? No, twelve days left. Go, go, go.

the way the light comes in

2008-05-16T11:01:00.000-05:00

Each day gets a little longer. I wake up and the light fills the room; sometimes I am afraid I have woken too late, have missed my alarm. In the mornings, sometimes I still check my fingers too, afraid I've lost my wedding or engagement ring in my sleep--maybe a dream had taken them away, or I had imagined it all, that day.

After today, three weeks of school. Exam week the last week, two days of testing, and that Friday, packing up the classroom, posting grades. Two solid weeks of lessons. So little left. So much to (grade) do before then.

Good things:
- film recommendations: Juno and Lars and the Real Girl, both stories that tug
- seeing Ryan amidst his furious work week for more than just briefly, fleetingly (the night before I didn't see him at all as I was asleep when he came in)

optimism

2008-05-15T11:51:00.000-05:00

(Note: The above is a Yellow Warbler; I took this picture at Hay Creek.)

I think I lean toward the-glass-is-half-empty, not because I bask in negativity, but because I always fall hard when disappointed. I feel like pessimism protects me sometimes, a kind of protective pillow when the answer is no.

But what about risk? What about opening up your arms and letting the world in? Optimism needs to become more a part of my life. And hope. Things have been working out lately, after all.

I read this, a post by my dear friend Eireann, and it spoke to post-event optimism. It speaks to how I've been reflecting on events in my own life. My mother-in-law and my paternal grandmother are experts at this kind of positive energy--when life approaches with difficulty, there is no flurry or tantrum of frustration, but instead, a what can you do / roll up your sleeves and fix it kind of attitude. No simpering or pots thrown about the kitchen. Just a repair with a silver lining. A story to tell later.

And I suppose this is the attitude I've mutated toward, have shifted. When Ryan and I first met, I was quick to melodrama, prepared to cry my way out of a situation, but he clearly had no patience for that, this tactic I used in the last big relationship which went over well (this, which included the kind of violence that slammed doors can bring, can destroy glass panels, can involve high rates of speed and so much shouting). Instead, he waited as I unclenched myself, embraced me, and we went about the act of repair. Myself, my heart, which had broken along with the stained glass, and my own attitude toward difficult situations. (He is the person who has eased me into so many better things for myself; he is a truly good, good person. Have I mentioned that? How lucky I am?)

I am currently seeking alternatives to pessimism. For instance, during the MFA hunt, I did not want to believe it would work out for me, just in case it didn't. For so many days, weeks, I ran home, my stomach knotty, my bowels turning to liquid as I'd rush to the answering machine, the mail slot, in hope, hope, hope. Disappointment slams me down. Perhaps instead of optimism, I need to learn more how to not crumble at no. Find out where yes takes me instead. What doors are opened, that sort of thing.

20 of 24 seats

2008-05-14T11:55:00.000-05:00

Click here. Scroll down a little and you'll see my name. I've officially gotten my schedule for next year, including the class I will be teaching. No, really. This is happening. Pinch. (And the classroom number... oh, how many classes I've had in that room! I'll be on the other side of the, um, circle.)

hay creek

2008-05-12T18:58:00.000-05:00

We spent Sunday at the creek, a very magical place. More images from our trips to Hay Creek here.

como conservatory

2008-05-10T17:49:00.000-05:00

(I fell in love with that sloth, whose name is apparently Chloe.) For a complete view of Chris and my trip to the Como Conservatory, check out this photo set on Flickr.

mosaic of thoughts

2008-05-08T09:01:00.000-05:00

My brain has lately been feeling like a tin can, all sorts of strange objects rattling around. I haven't held fast to anything; this week has been a bit lonely with Ryan working late and a panic settling in as the semester stumbles toward a closing (and the way I feel I could begin every sentence with "I should be doing.... but...").

Thinking about: how words are so mutable. The shift. Thinking about the phrase "for the last time." How false that is, in terms of reunion tours. How permanent that is at a hospital bedside. Looking back at a classroom door.

Last night was the breastfeeding class with Kelly; I kept closing my eyes as I fell asleep last night, seeing slobbery baby mouths wide open, little parasites to their mother's breasts. And I thought about the instinct that is my body enclosing around an infant, the way it feels so natural to want to hold one for prolonged amounts of time. Our bodies are coded in such different ways; my own thumps a bit when it sees the wide eyed innocence of a little one. In time.

Of course, that's how our bodies are, whispering on either side of us, in each ear: I want, I want, I want... It's a little tug of war battering about on the surface of your skin and patience becomes this awful commodity dumped on the side of the road.

For now, I am stuck in this place, four walls, three windows, one door, locked. Three light switches, the back I always keep off. A row of reading women blanketing the clock. The clock, which has been the metronome of my existence, punctuated by the bell, sporadic, well timed. I can look at the clock at night and see: 11:02, which means fourth hour will be done in three minutes. And twelve hours. It doesn't matter how my body tugs now, for want of education or a child, because neither will be happening in the next four and some weeks. No, I will need to strap myself to my cheap office chair and grade, no matter what the distraction.

Oh but...

Yesterday after school, I spent my time in a kind of YouTube enhanced debate with one of my students. It was a game of "Have you heard of..." and then we would sit back and listen: Victor Wooten, Kaki King, Robert Randolph and the Family Band. Oh, and he showed me this one, completely unrelated to music.

Good things:
- two photographs published in Blue Print Review: Dandelion and Hay Creek
- a random surprise present for Ryan: the finger drum mousepad (since he's always so twitchy and all)
- the slap of a New Yorker back issue against the window--first hornet killed of the season

the vagueness of family

2008-05-07T12:47:00.000-05:00

I imagine people bonded, a ropey strand connecting them over an interactive map, the tumbleweed thunderstorm not strong enough to wear down those fibers. I imagine the ropes thicker in some places, from here to my husband, and in others, the people we are always leaving behind, those that were close once but are fading in memory, a sinew, a bit of floss.

With Kelly, it is everything. It is the center of my heart.

The memories: thirteen years old and calling boys on the phone, listening in on the extension; writing notes in circles, plotting out our weekends; destroying batches of macaroni and cheese and cookie dough, mussing up the kitchen. Years later, sitting across from each other over coffee, confessing what I didn't want confessed, testing the waters, knowing her heart would always support my own. The fear of the confessional relieved: she will always be my sounding board.

The ways in which fate intervenes. Would we have remained this close, or turned to wispy cotton had the college I chose not chosen me? Our geography follows one another; I hadn't imagined Minnesota as my future. (Or Ryan, but that is another story, and I have probably told it before. The strange arm of coincidence and how perfectly happy it can be.) It doesn't matter now, mortgages and husbands root us here. We can drive in the middle of the night, and it is nothing, only an hour and a half. But at first, those heady and frightening first days of college, it was only six blocks. I could walk in a thunderstorm to see her.

The ways we grow older: the worry over engagement, the stress over checking accounts, the first job interview jitters. The way all of that seems like nothing when you reach your hand across the distance. You don't have to worry when you have a true sounding board.

Tonight, I spend my half-birthday in the flickering light of a childbirth class. I will learn how to support my partner in breastfeeding. It's the one class her husband has an aversion to, and I've stepped in, the pinch hitter in this pregnancy.

And I buried this in a response to the last post, but Kelly mentioned something about being family. And I will say she is my sister over and over again, but there are times when a certain something doesn't click over in my brain, which drives me batty. Something as simple as: If I am his aunt, that means I am family. I am not just spending great swaths of the summer with Kelly; I am spending it with him too. (Iago, bless him.) I am not just doing this for her, but for him. I have realized that life changes when your family expands--there is one more human being in this world that you would, well, walk through fire for, move mountains, all those other cliches. In a month and a half, a baby will be born, one that I will write poems for, will change the map, will find another bond stretching from me across the universe.

PS: Oh yes, and sixteen inches were lopped off last week. My third donation to Locks of Love.

this, i gave to her

2008-05-06T10:12:00.000-05:00

My best friend's baby shower was this weekend, as you well know. It is with great joy that I finally reveal the "big" present I gave her, the one that happily brought her to tears, the one that comes from my heart, and from the heart of someone an ocean away, an artist I found via Full Instrumental: Flossy-p.

Here, bits to honor: the family, the river, the bluffs, the long haul truck. The sounds that come from within, the ways in which we hold each other captive, captivate. The details of our lives: tattoo, nose ring, wedding flowers. The way we can list our lives like this and notice how much each moment means, what is symbolic. The paper boats remind us of a thousand paper cranes, a wedding wish. The color turquoise. The figures in shadow. The slope of a dog's muzzle. The way art can take your breath away, no matter what the circumstance.

Stand back. Drink it all in. This is a moment in our lives we want to hold close to our hearts. In a month and a half, Kelly will be a mother. I will be an aunt. We will witness the shifting of lives, the way birth is a miracle, know why people say it over and over. We will be forever changed.

dogs at play

2008-05-05T11:38:00.000-05:00

One of my favorite things to do at my in-laws' place in the country: take photographs of the dogs whipping around the yard, anxious to capture the slobbery tennis ball. I'm by no means any good at this, but I do love to see what comes out, what contortions the dogs might make, which dog comes in focus (who knew, black Zephyr would be the one above?), how truly remarkable it is that a beast like that can leap so high.

The last time I did this, the snow was shin deep, the sun was out, and the world was a puff of frost. I love the flashes of green. The trees are still slumbering, slowly waking, the buds vague in parts. I'm looking forward to the long walks in and around Hay Creek, up Barn Bluff, camping.

we went on a trip this weekend

2008-05-04T19:45:00.000-05:00

This weekend we went to Green Bay, Wisconsin, place of our high school experience, home of our parents, and location of Kelly's baby shower. The drive is always so long, but it's good to get away once in a while. I used to return to Wisconsin once a month, when Ryan and I were working through the long distance period of our relationship, but now that we are older, married, with a house, with two dogs, we have become more homebound.

It was a rainy drive in, and I loved sitting quietly, watching the different sorts of rain crash against the window panes--on our sun roof, there was a kind of therapeutic sliding rain, which hypnotized me with its slow racing; there was the bashing rain on the windshield, slowing cars down, waking the dogs; the rivulets, the patterns that made rivers and tributaries, reflected on the dash. The only thing is the mud (and puppy paws). I love this weather, the angry storms, the peaceful rain. I love the spring and how everything has begun to wake.

Note...

2008-05-02T13:15:00.000-05:00

As of June 6th at 11am (very precise, you see), I will officially be moving my blog to:

field | work

The pattern of my daily life is going to change significantly that day when I cease being a high school English teacher, something that defined me and was the reason for starting this blog, and began facing an MFA. Consequently, I also plan on re-posting the lost posts from when I was simply "Molly Teaching" which had been taken down when a student found my blog. (I saved them as a Word document, so it might take a while, and I'll post them here as opposed to that old blogger account because I haven't the foggiest what the password is any more, and I don't need that many blogs trailing behind me.) I had been a bit more open about teaching, and though I had kept things anonymous, my musings on becoming a teacher were more raw and made me more vulnerable than I wanted my students to see me.

Obviously, I won't delete these archives, and I hope anyone who is bookmarked this blog will make the move with me. I will actually link to this blog from the new one, though I can't promise that will always be so as my goal for this new blog is to allow myself this change, to celebrate the shift of focus, but to also continue this path of cleansing and simplifying.

I'm not moving just yet as I have over a month to go here at Local High School, and I want to celebrate those days too. I'm ready for summer, and I cannot seem to stop letting everyone know the count down (five weeks), but I know that this is a good job and these three years, though trying, have been good, particularly this last one, reaffirming that being an educator is not all bad.

I don't know if I'll return to high school teaching when this MFA business is all over. Three years is a very long time.

I think it's important that I move, if only because the blog's url name "sylviatheteacher" doesn't relate to me any more. The "Sylvia" was an homage to Plath, but also a lame attempt at anonymity when I wasn't using my own name (or Ryan's, for that matter, who mutated from K to Husband to his own name) and "the teacher," while still true from a TA standpoint, won't be the main thrust of my life soon.

I hope this makes sense. And while I'm starting to do housekeeping, move little bits of myself over, so to speak, I am still lingering here. I find it hard to say good-bye sometimes.

May's list

2008-05-02T11:38:00.000-05:00

1. moss, 2. roots, 3. one dock, two directions, 4. Untitled, 5. Waiting for Spring, 6. paper-thin meyer slices, 7. Untitled, 8. film.168, 9. IMG_8755lrz, 10. Untitled, 11. Thesis, 12. helicopters

May, where flowers finally rise up from the loam and green. Things settling into my heart as I look into the month of May:

- officially becoming a Wings mentor
- going through that bookcase of poetry, book by book
- hard raspberry iced tea
- watching the tulips bloom
- humanities: The Awakening
- english-9: The Whale Rider
- carrying out those last units with five weeks until summer
- the lives of others
- replacing those plastic venetian blinds in the living room with roman blinds
- daffodils
- blue. green. always.
- camping: this month, afton
- celebrating our young planted trees wintering over: the dogwood, the apple, the maple
- getting a kick out of netflix for books: bookswim
- finding places to pick your own berries
- in the beginning, watching the buds bloom on the trees; at the end of the month, the true unfurling
- finishing oz and now moving on to alias
- baby showers
- pomegranate blueberry juice
- thunderstorms!

happy may day!

2008-05-01T10:24:00.000-05:00

These all come from last year, last spring and summer, most from my yard or nearby. I am giddy with the idea that the trees will stop looking so skeletal from a distance and break into green. Nearby, there are a few trees in white blossom; I want to sneak up and take a few close up shots, but I don't want to frighten our neighbors. It has felt so long, this past winter, especially with snow coming down late in April. I am still wearing sweaters, fleece, but I have long abandoned my winter coat.

I look forward to so much this month.

Also: I've changed the princes on some of my prints in the shop, so if you are interested in photos or postcards, drop by!

trim, personal day two

2008-04-30T18:35:00.000-05:00

We have two of them and can take them at any time, for any reason. I took mine back-to-back, a weekend in the middle of the week.

Tonight, Ryan and I took a walk with the dogs as the sun came down. The bats are returning; I remember how surprised I was the first time one flitted across the night sky, catching the corner of my eye. Now they are a natural part of outdoors in the gloaming.

I worked a bit on the front yard; it was difficult to trim the bushes in front when they were blooming, but the tulips were completely overshadowed. I am one to let things run wild and face the regretful consequences later.

Things are renewing around here. Fresh, shorter, boxed up, donated.

walking, personal day one

2008-04-29T15:17:00.000-05:00

Walking today: the sky is blue, which is a blessing, and the trees are breaking from buds into little spurts of leaves, little bits of green fuzz. The lawns--some are of the buzz cut sort; ours is balding in parts, tufty in others. As I was walking, I thought I heard a tuning--that A-note shift on a violin, an orchestra getting ready. The traffic whispered by, and when I caught a still moment, I spotted a weed whacker, its higher range catching. Then lower, the symphony of summer starting. A lawn mower joined the chorus.

two months, minus a day

2008-04-28T20:41:00.001-05:00

Check out all these gorgeous original photographs by some really talented photographers on Flickr: 1. cuddle, 2. napping, 3. Marisa, 4. Sophia, 5. 12 weeks old, 6. Hayley Three, 7. sleepy., 8. "my new hat rocks! yeah baby!!": ZED 69.365, 9. Room With a View, 10. Untitled, 11. painter, 12. hello big ocean

My best friend is due in two months, minus one day. Her life is going to shift so strangely--another person demanding so much more, tugging so much at the heart. And I will be able to be witness to so much of it, a fact to which I believe makes me blessed.

finding beauty in the everyday

2008-04-27T12:29:00.000-05:00

finding color

2008-04-26T17:19:00.000-05:00

It's another gray Minnesota day. This morning, I woke up (the dogs woke me up) to a snow dusting--our garage roof covered, my car covered, the patio table covered. It's nearly May and we've had a freeze, the plants I moved to our porch frustrated with my too-early decision.

It's quiet here. I've been re-watching episodes of Six Feet Under and harassing the dogs. Relaxing, a great contrast to the school days that have been draining me. I don't know if I would mind these spring days teaching, looking out the window as the world blooms and warms, if the kids weren't quite so wriggly. Now my body feels as if I am physically trying to reel them back in, sing and dance in celebration of literature. Tonight is prom, and we all brace ourselves that it goes well, that bad choices are not made, and even if we do not wake up to the news we dread (it always comes on non-prom days it seems), we know there are secreted bits of sorrow. And joy; my own prom was pretty content, pretty even keel. I hope it was a magical night for them.

friday

2008-04-25T13:18:00.000-05:00

Good things:

- Today, dozens of adorable elementary students came in to learn about conservation during Earth Week festivities. In our pod, there were erosion displays hosted by a few of my own students--water runoff and wind erosion complete with dirt and grass and trees and leaves, all blowing about in the pod, reconstructed between each migrating group.

- Finding a website where you can search for berry picking farms. In just a month, we'll be able to take advantage of our first CSA (half share) membership. I am thrilled at the idea of eating something crisp and true. Freshness. Ryan just finished In Defense of Food, and last time we went grocery shopping, and he told me about how we ought to shop from the outer rim of the grocery store as everything else as you draw to the center becomes more and more processed. I think we do a fairly good job, though I have the naughty habit of letting some things rot (asparagus, strawberries) before I think to eat them. Bananas are eaten immediately; they are readily available. Blueberries get shuffled to the back. Both are glorious when fresh.

- It is Friday, and I am grateful. The weeks are jumbled lately. Six weeks left to the school year (not that I'm counting), and every day closer to the weekend is a favorite. I look forward to sleeping in a little tomorrow, but not too much: I have plans for that rascally yard of ours.

- Finding Beth on Flickr. She's a friend from high school (of the herd variety I've mentioned before), and is talented on many levels, including artistic; I have a few bits and pieces of hers tucked away, actually. I especially love this photo and this one.

- Other simple beauties found on Flickr:

1. aging, 2. seedlings, 3. 2, 4. wednesday evening, 5. Hayley Three, 6. Knit, 7. sink, 8. new loaf, 9. Untitled, 10. bulbs, 11. day 11 of 17 (catching up), 12. uprooted

- Molly Peacock's Cornucopia. Donald Hall's Without. Cate Marvin's Fragment on the Head of a Queen. Elizabeth Alexander's American Sublime.

- Listening to the sounds of an empty classroom and writing poetry. Actually seeing the end of the grading tunnel. Actually feeling motivated to grade--this, my friends, is a gift. I shunned grading for so long, would do it oh so grudgingly and while I must admit, I am still not enamored of the piles of essays I must plod through, I will say I do so without wanting to gouge my eyeballs out with a plastic spoon. Indeed, this is how much I hated grading last week. And the week before. And the... well, you know.

- The weather. The crashing thunderstorms, the foggy mist. I heard on the radio we might get up to six inches of snow in northern Minnesota. How can that be? Our grass is green here and in the same state, snow is possibly landing on the ground.

- Two camping trips coming up: Afton with my husband in May, and Jay Cooke with our friends Lane and Angie and Chad in June. Possibly July with Emily and her husband Pat? I am thinking I might add something to that life list (so I must hurry to get one off): camping in every state park in Minnesota at least once.

What about you? What are some of the good things surrounding you this wet weekend?

in the yard

2008-04-24T17:25:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, in the yard, reaching out into the woolly patches left dead from dog's leavings and tramplings. A thunderstorm settled in this morning, beating down the bare areas. I wish I knew a trick for untucking the rest.

A few nights ago we had a fierce thunderstorm, the sort that rattles the entire house, shakes you awake in your bed. It was gorgeous and I absolutely forgive those nature gods for waking me up for that very reason. The crack of thunder matching pace with the brilliant flashes of lightning--it reminds me so much of my childhood in Chattanooga, the sound of crickets and cicadas giving warning.

We've booked our June weekend at Jay Cooke State Park, but Ryan and I are attempting to find a way to have a two-some camping trip (with dogs, of course) this May. He wants to prove that we can go it alone, be of more use to Lane and Angie and Chad, not rely quite so much on their expertise. I'm happy to just have another opportunity to force myself out in that wet earth, another opportunity to put my eye to the lens.

And here is something quotidian but frustrating me: I cannot seem to clean the flecks of dirt off my lens. Is it somewhere else in my camera? Look at how they appear again and again. Out, damn'd spot!

the stir

2008-04-23T13:13:00.000-05:00

I can feel the stir of daily poems again. I had become dormant, perhaps exhausted, after writing about my grandfather for so many days. Winter came, settled in on our little town, refused to budge. Every day we'd get another inch of sludge, of that brown-wet muck, nothing magical as spring revealed layers of dog mess left behind. I had felt drawn into myself and opted for reading instead--marathon reading sessions snuggled deep into my bed, the thread count so soft, the down blanket caving me in. And I wasn't reading anything wonderful; instead, pulling out volumes from my shelves that wouldn't return to their dusty place, pushing them out (an entire box, gone, after bringing it in to school--just four lonely books left, but most donated to the school library and kids ferreted away the rest--a dozen more such boxes still waiting, warming in the car).

But now, I feel drawn to the page. I have abandoned my pursuit of an empty bookcase, for now, as the urgency from the taker has diminished, and our own house's cleaning focus is shifting from the inside to the out. Instead, I am reading as many books of poetry as I can before I leave this place, in hopes I will have a small anthology, a collection of favorite poems, or very teachable poems to bring in to the college classrooms I will occupy these next three years. (How definitive that is: three years. My poor parents as they watched me hem and haw my way through two hundred or so undergraduate credits when I only needed one hundred twenty.) I know I want to get this down while I can, the immediacy of what it is to be a high school teacher, what it is to look out on them from the other side of things. I no longer feel as if I were fresh-out-of-high-school myself. For a while, it was such a great confusion to me to look at my freshmen and think, "But I was just you..." I thought it was moments ago, not over a decade gone.

I suppose so much of it is about perspective. Over on the poetry blog that I keep with some dear poet-friends, the topic of geography, of place has been raised. I've been thinking a lot about that, about being rooted to the surface of Minnesota. I used to think I could only write about places long after I'd been there--my childhood in Chattanooga, for instance. I think more of that has to do with simply being young; I can write about the life around me now as it is happening because I have the perspective to step back, reflect, create.

I keep thinking of the six and a half weeks I have left here. It's not that long; it seems to grind on forever. I feel a bit plodding, desperate for an escape, a day free of obligation (this past weekend we cleared out the entire garage, moving my classroom's worth of binders and whatnot into the basement and replaced our front storm door--now it has twelve smallish windows, glass removable, and we can let in the spring breeze). My friend Emily pointed this out: Come August, they will be reporting back, and come August, I will be free. That thought lifted something in my chest. It felt good. It felt right.

a mighty life

2008-04-21T14:36:00.000-05:00

inspired by my topography who was inspired by mighty girl...

in no particular order, forty things from my life list:

1. Rent out the Round Barn B&B&B for an anniversary party.
2. Publish a full length book of poetry.
3. Complete an MFA program.
4. Become a mother.
5. Travel to Ireland.
6. Spend a summer away somewhere (alone) to write.
7. Stay in the Ice Hotel.
8. Camp and canoe in the Boundary Waters.
9. Own a home with slanting ceilings (note: not sloping, but the attic-slant).
10. Be able to go for a hike and identify bird calls, wildlife, etc.
11. Form some kind of artist organization or collective (or become a vital part of one already in existence).
12. Zip line (again) and this time, be brave about it.
13. Declutter our house to a point where I don't groan and think, "Ugh, I have to clean..."
14. Read all of the books on Vermont College's poetry reading list.
15. Live somewhere surrounded by woods with a sprawling yard.
16. Earn a Ph.D.
17. Complete the chapbook manuscript (and get it published!) in honor of my grandfather.
18. Go on an adventure in Africa.
19. Drive (well, and ride too--that first) a motorcycle.
20. Be featured on the daily click.
21. Slim back down to pre-grad school weight (and stay there).
22. Learn how to make broadsides on a letterpress.
23. Learn to wrestle with that sewing machine upstairs and win. (Or just stop hating bobbins.)
24. Take a digital photography class.
25. Take in more performing arts.
26. Start a scholarship fund.
27. Impact one of my students and not just stop when they are on my class list.
28. Cook outside the box more often (more energy please).
29. Learn French again to the point where I wouldn't fall flat on my face if I visited.
30. Along with a successful vegetable garden, cultivate a flower garden.
31. Be content with daily life. Not quite so exhausted all the time. Not so overwhelmed.
32. Start yoga classes.
33. Beachcomb.
34. Meet Toni Morrison. Because I've already met Margaret Atwood and Sharon Olds.
35. Learn how to manage money. And invest for a safety net.
36. Bake bread from scratch.
37. Spend a morning meditating in the outdoors.
38. Own a canoe.
39. Travel somewhere new every year.
40. Start new traditions and keep them going.

Traditions that have only just begun and I hope will continue:

1. Wine tasting party (usually doubles as another celebration--two years ago, it was a house owning anniversary, this last year it was also my birthday). It's a nice excuse to have friends come for a visit. I wish we could have a wedding every summer just so we could know we'd see everyone at least once a year.
2. Camping every summer at the end of the school year. Last year, it was Frontenac. Jay Cooke is it for this year, it appears. I love the idea of that full throttle into the end of the school year, the slam of the last day, posting grades, locking the classroom for the last time, the intensity of camping, being outdoors, and then the open endedness of summer facing me Sunday night, ready to wash away the grime of a school year completed and a weekend in the dirt.
3. A girlfriend road trip. Last year, I flew to the Carolinas to visit Nikki with Chris; this past spring break I went to New Orleans with Kelly; there has been chatter again with Nikki and Chris about another summer trip.
4. I try to write letters to my paternal grandmother and to Kelly every day. Sometimes it's just a postcard, but I try to put something in the mail to them each day.

What about you? What's on your life list?

Matthea Harvey + Mary Jo Bang + Fanny Howe

2008-04-18T06:51:00.000-05:00

Webpage :: I would describe Matthea Harvey as charming and clever, and I would say that I fell in love with her poetry tonight. Her world is vivid and quippy-quick.

Six Poems in Jacket Magazine :: She read from Elegy, which is what I hoped for as I work through my own small manuscript of poems regarding my grandfather. How to make a poem poignant, beautiful, and meaningful to the reader when it it is about something so personal.

On Poets.org :: Her images were something I wanted to hold in the palm of my hand. She sent me into my own notebook, digging for images, and in there, I began what I believe with be my new series of poems. I will keep quiet about this, for now.

tonight.

2008-04-17T11:49:00.000-05:00

Tonight, Ryan gives his graduate presentation. Defends his thesis, those pages of which we tore to bits over the weekend. He climbed into bed at 3:30; a few short hours later, and we were awake again.

In poetry news: Today is poem in your pocket day. I am carrying CK Williams' "Risk" with me. What poem do you carry with you? Also: Anna Akmatova's life has become a play. Keep up with poetry news here.

And in Penelope news: She is happy spring is in the struggling process of arriving. We are enjoying long walks outside, not fighting slick sidewalks or troublesome cold. I haven't wished for spring so much as now, and maybe that is because this year, I am finally unfettered from the musical. This time last year, I was celebrating tulips and thinking of a trip to Boston. This year, I am touching tree buds and thinking of a baby blooming.

the outside world

2008-04-16T19:33:00.000-05:00

I always learned it was our scent that gave us away. When we looked in on baby birds in the low bushes by our house in Tennessee, we wore gardening gloves so we didn't frighten away the mama. The idea of abandonment frightened me, and I never wanted to be the cause. I tried to leave no evidence.

I am quick to fantasize about the natural world, but I am the first to admit I don't spend nearly enough time in the dirt and loam, which is ridiculous because my soul floats when I return from long walks, from hiking the bluffs.

Last year, we went camping at Frontenac the day I finished packing up my classroom. I'm hoping a repeat of this adventure, this escape, this release from the sorrow that is saying good-bye to a whole year's worth of work, of the four walls that held you for so long. Instead, a celebration of what is to come, leaping into the unknown. I'm hoping to sleep on the ground the night after my classroom is mutating itself back into the previous teacher's, and I hope this ground is a new place for me too. Frontenac was gorgeous; Minnesota is full of gorgeous parks.

But for now, as the seven and a half weeks slowly slip away, the sound of chickadees on our afternoon walks.

** Edited to add: These videos aren't mine; they're ones I found on YouTube. I haven't uploaded anything on YouTube... not a video kind of gal just yet.

premonition

2008-04-15T13:32:00.001-05:00

Last night I had a dream I was washing my hair (I could feel it too, my hands moving through the thick pile of hair, my fingers raking my scalp) outside the shower. This morning, my husband woke me in a bemused tone, "Um, this may sound strange, but I can't take a shower because it's too hot." I moaned, pointed at the alarm, eight minutes left, seriously, and said I'd be down, just wait, and no, I didn't touch the water heater (nor do I entirely know which chunk of metal it is in that frightening part of our basement our friend Jay dubbed the Vortex of Hell--and when have I ever ventured there alone?).

He came back and told me our water heater was leaking; today he remains home, working, waiting for a repairman to come and install a new hunk of metal. This morning, I showered not in the shower, but just next to it, dipping my head under the steaming water, my hands piling hair in sudsy sculptures.

I've dreamt strange premonitions before.

But strangest of all is knowing when something is right. When I met Ryan, I cannot explain it, but I knew that he was it for me. I was only nineteen years old, still not over the torment of my last disastrous relationship, and in another fling with someone else. But there was a spark deep inside myself that lit the world up--and I knew. So many years later, we began house hunting, peering into other people's lives, some acceptable, some I even pushed for, two we returned for a second look. But when we walked into the house we have now, it was as if sparklers were lit in my veins. I knew.

Certain things belong in sequence. Certain things fall together. Sometimes I struggle to find out why it was that I taught high school English for three years. What lesson have I learned here? I could list ideas, but I can just as quickly refute the formula: perhaps it was so I could become a better instructor and prepare me for college teaching, but then why did it have to be these three long years? Or I could say I learned that teaching high school wasn't my cup of tea, though I didn't despise this past year--why was that thrown in? Or why did an opening occur at this high school--why couldn't it have been that neat pattern of one year replacement and a mutual agreement that my departure makes sense?

I do know that the decision I made, the one you are tired about hearing, was the right one. I close my eyes, imagine myself returning to teaching full time and staggering through the low-res MFA; the balance of those two worlds horrifies me. I don't think I could have tamed both beasts properly, without regret. I close my eyes, imagine saying no to the full ride, to the three years of focusing on poetry and the written word, and I cringe. This is right. Perhaps I shouldn't question everything that has come before.

But it's so hard to resist: Maybe teaching high school for three years wasn't about teaching high school for three years. Maybe it was about bringing myself to a more mature, more appreciative, more experienced place as a poet. Maybe I wasn't ready to go straight into an MFA program. Maybe I needed to marry the man who was it the moment I met him and bought the house I knew was it the moment I walked in. I might not have had them if I'd taken a different path.

rest

2008-04-14T13:09:00.000-05:00

This early spring, I cannot seem to turn over my internal clock, break the cycle of napping and staying up late in the evening. I have been lazy lately--reading on the sofa, distractedly patting the wriggling dogs, and falling asleep in the afternoons brings me this delicious pleasure that isn't quite the same as the dread (new morning, new day, new plodding through lessons and grading, ultimately that routine that needs a break) at night.

I have officially made the decision to not return next year at the high school, even at part time. I know some of my more financially worrisome loved ones squirm at the idea of this disconnect, especially when the security of teaching high school also comes with a retirement plan, but my advisers have recommended against other stresses (full time studenting, half time TAing). So with Ryan's suggestion, I am taking the first semester as it is served: what they recommend with no adornments. I have to prevent myself from browsing external class offerings--an intro to bio class, a lit theory course, an exploration of art. I've always been one to overdo: several semesters I requested permission to push beyond the twenty credit limit (and it was granted, and I think, if not an exact 4.0 those semesters, I know I landed on the dean's list each time, driven more and more). My first full semester of the M.Ed program, I added two classes to the standard schedule and audited two others. It's difficult for me to put a barrier up when learning opportunities, particularly fully funded ones, present themselves.

But this MFA is that dream coming to fruition, and I must honor that. I have learned, in the years of teaching, how to find pockets of time, to revise reading lists and to visit the library on those warm afternoons, to fill my desk with education that isn't entirely formal, doesn't require a classroom. I will take long walks and read good books. I will be inspired. I will allow myself to be open to possibility.

mastering

2008-04-13T11:41:00.000-05:00

Two bits of this damp weekend:

1. Yesterday, I took Ryan to a colleague's house where many fleece-wearing men regularly meet to brew a hundred gallons of beer. The garage seemed like a lovely escape--art prints tacked to the walls, a collection of moldy classics in a glass fronted case, a desk with photographs pinned beneath glass. And movement: coolers full of steaming grains, small propane burners with kettles blackening, the smell of brew wafting into the chilly spring air, snow flitting down as background distraction, hoses flushing and purging and, of course, taste testing from batches previous. We brought our wedding mead along as well, were told it's not actually terrible and that mead is even better when aged a few years. In fact, it had mellowed. We're hoping Ryan can join in again this summer when another batch moves through; he's intimidated, but I have a feeling he'll learn a great deal.

2. Ryan's master's defense is coming up this week, which means he truly needs to finalize his thesis. We spent yesterday afternoon together on the sofa; I read his work out loud and we corrected verb tenses, parallel structure issues, and smoothed out his syntax. I had to re-read much of it; I got lost in his phrasing and the strange acronyms and references. Fortunately, he was adorably patient. I tried to explain, "An infinitive..." and he'd give me a lopsided grin, shooting his finger in the air and enthusing, "And beyond!" I would tell him he needed word variety (increases, increases, increased) and he called from his study, "My cinnamon finder isn't working!" I suppose these are all tidbits that are more endearing for me, for a witness, (ah-hem, for someone who loves him unconditionally) but I think, when it comes to a master's thesis, you can exude one of two things: you can stress and be a general fright, or you can be playful, and this is how he chose to be, this is how he brightens my days, this is how the sun was shining, even when the world around us was gray and wet.

Frontenac Station

2008-04-12T16:48:00.001-05:00

Isn't it magical?

The ducks are Buffleheads, a sort I don't believe I've seen before, though they're fairly common and mostly stick to Canada. The one flapping in the top picture is a female and the others are males, along with the ever popular Canada goose.

snow diamonds

2008-04-11T21:14:00.001-05:00

Last night's thunder and sleet brought me into spring. This is my favorite time of year, when I curl up on the floor, my cats nearby, watching the weather warnings tick by on the screen. It was certainly windy, pushing garbage cans over and shaking loose the refuse of winter. Our living room lit up with lightning, windowpanes stuttering in the responding thunder.

Today, snow came down instead of rain, and our crab apple tree sparkled with wet boughs. The snow didn't really stick, but it was a bit magical to watch it fall and vanish among the struggling bits of green. Winter is lingering this year, and I have to think--it will only just make me appreciate spring when it truly comes full force. (Our tulips are peeking though; I can see them, even if they are shy.)

I have been mulling over the next three years, turning over options in my mind. There is so much opportunity in the next three years, and my brain whirls with possibility. At some point, I will have to take a class outside the department that is to feed into my manuscript. Of course, I only have a small body of work at this point, and I am not certain what will reside in the thesis and what will be discarded, but I have begun to think of various opportunities. I know Studio Arts is emphasized, but Julie also mentioned if you are interested in integrating Greek history and culture, you could take a class on Greece, etc.

My own work is mainly human relationship-focused, though I have a growing number of poems reflective on the natural world. I wouldn't mind taking a biology or botany course. Of course, photography is an option as well, though I am more interested in the composition of a photograph and less so on the cropping and trimming and digital manipulation after (which is why my photographs always retain those little dust spots and whatnot).

There is much time for this decision. It's phenomenal to me that I even have this opportunity to delve into a secondary area of study. So many doors to choose from these days.

speaking too soon

2008-04-10T19:22:00.001-05:00

It appears my glorying in the evidence of spring may have been a bit premature. Today, winds press against the house, and when our dogs whine to be let out I ask, Do you really have to go, badly? And they return, dripping with murk from the yard--wet pawprints with globs of mud and bits of dry grass. It is messy outdoors, sleety rain, shifting colder, into the threat of snow. Watching an interactive weather map, I see clouds of rain and snow breathing over the Midwest, colored green and gray and white, shifting, smoothing itself over the landscape. We had no snowstorms of substance in our little river town, but it's been relentless nonetheless; snowfalls frequent and small, covering over the salt studded layer before it.

This week I made the official decision not to teach high school part time while pursuing my MFA at the University of Minnesota. I thought I could do it, especially if it were just one class a day, and I'd even gotten approval from the program director to TA classes later in the day, but she expressed a deep rooted concern that it would eat into my writing time. I sincerely doubted I would rise early enough to write as the school buses filled the world, but I realize it's not about that one hour each morning, the mere five hours a week--and it's not even about the planning or the grading, since so much of that I've learned to steam line, especially if I'm teaching a class I've taught before (variation on a theme). It's about the energy it requires to be a good teacher and the energy it would take to approach college courses--both as an instructor and as a student. I need to dedicate myself to this; it's the only chance I'll have.

Until then, I will enjoy the quiet of my life, marvel at the energy of my high school students, and read books for pleasure in the waning light of the evening. Currently: Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. I wanted to read along with these lovely ladies, and thus far, I am glad. As I've already mentioned, I am reading books I can slide out of my life and into the world without regret or suspicion of re-reading, so much of what I've been reading has been disappointing, in a sense. I'm ready to marvel at a book whose author has a gift for language, for pacing, for character development. How about you: read anything good lately?

spring nearing

2008-04-09T19:59:00.000-05:00

Is it where you are too?

peers

2008-04-08T13:04:00.000-05:00

They say, sometimes, it's not the professors that make the program, but the peer relationships you build. They said this is what you take away from it the most, those relationships, the community (and, of course, that time spent dedicated to writing).

Last night, at my Intermedia manuscript building class, Katie Leo came in to talk about her chapbook, Attempts at Location. From her cohort, four poets have formed a collective, Line 45 poets, and they have a reading approaching at The Loft.

Katie is a second year MFA student at the U of MN; we were talking about community and cohorts and she told me Sun Yung Shin would be in my cohort. (You mean as a student? Yes. Not as an instructor? I know, isn't it amazing?) This is the poet whose book, Skirt Full of Black, I reviewed for CutBank.

You can imagine now, how my jaw dropped, how unutterably unworthy I felt in that moment. (Am I in over my head?)

Of course, I have to remind myself: I am friends with Eireann too. Whose book is nominated for the Minnesota Book Award.

Perhaps there is a spectrum, and I've caught myself at the end, am clinging on. Perhaps in three years, I will look back and see where I began, see where I am now. Perhaps one day, you will find my words in the shape of a book. Until then, I will surround myself with those who have done so already and I will bask in learning opportunities.

Sharon Olds - Self Portrait, Rear View

2008-04-07T09:37:00.000-05:00

taste: as noun, as verb

2008-04-06T13:02:00.001-05:00

Taste: To have the experience of something, no matter how limited or slight.

An installation at the Open Book: The Face of Poetry. We wander the halls, three floors of photographs of poets, names of poets whose words have guided me through my own education, the school of books. Academia too. Li-Young Lee, Czeslaw Milosz, Lyn Hejinian.

A class in the early afternoon: Exploring the Very Short Poem. Finding ways to cleave the adornments, to tell the story without the childish adjectives and adverbs. To grow as a poet, to condense, to hold the poem in the palm of my hand.

I picked up a copy of the book, a catalog of the show. It's what I've always wished a poetry book could do--an image of the poet, an introduction, exploration of the poem, poems themselves. I want to pare down the adornments in my poems, but I love to hear the stories behind the poetry. Footnotes. Peer behind the curtain, so to speak.

Taste: To examine by touch; feel. To test or try.

I love these bits captured beneath the glass--each visit to the Open Book there is a new selection, a new display of the book as art. A quiet museum.

Taste: The ideas of aesthetic excellence or of aesthetically valid forms prevailing in a cultural or personal to an individual.

Ryan accompanied me to a book launch at Bryant Lake Bowl last night. Alex Lemon, his hands subtly trembling, some part overwhelmed by the support in that audience, the expanse of people, the traveling, his voice telling the stories of the places his poetry took him. The atmosphere seemed so fitting--the theatre larger than the bowling alley, the audience wearing those thick black glasses (ah hem), thirtysomething, the squirming of newborns (and he bashfully smiled at being able to swear for the first time in front of them; later he made a reference to House of Pain--Jump Around, showing our age). It was good and I am so pleased.

Teresa, who was also at the reading, has posted on her blog that Milkweed has an open reading period in June. I am not in any way ready to put a manuscript into the world, but it is good to know that reputable publishers sometimes open their doors. Some day, a thick stack of words, mine, will linger there.

Taste: To distinguish the flavor of by taking into the mouth.

After: Greek. Good friends. Oopah! Hands held beneath the table, spanikopita, flaming cheese, potent drinks. Giggling, octopus hanging on a line, the warmth of a full evening, a dinner as it is meant to be spent--not the swift movement through time, but mingling over conversation, lingering over wine and adorable martini glasses. Our palms and hearts full of love and words.

dreaming

2008-04-05T09:48:00.001-05:00

Sometimes I wake from dreams, from nightmares where Ryan has left me for someone else, where he is indifferent to the way my heart has exploded in my chest. When I wake, the dream still lingers, and if I am lucky, he's still there, and I press myself against him, relieved at the untruth of it all. Sometimes he's already gone to work, and I am left wallowing in the dregs of that dream, regretting the visitation.

Sometimes I dream of old boyfriends. My first boyfriend, my Byronic hero, who gave me a birthday kiss on the cheek, whose Converse carried him on the dull linoleum in flight. I wake up guilty, even when it's only the still innocent glimpses we had when we were twelve. Even the phone terrified me then.

Last night I fell asleep thinking of our lost student, of the boy whose death has broken the hearts of my own kids. I thought about the act of suicide and of lost things--fatherhood, college, the unfinished woods project his classmates have taken on.

Next door, our neighbors were having a party, guests spilling onto their patio, their laughter elbowing into my somber thoughts.

Late at night, we lie awake, staring at the dim memory of the ceiling. We are within our own heads for a time.

Read: Lullaby of the Onion. Monologue for an Onion.

passing season

2008-04-04T14:40:00.000-05:00

It seems a part of the passing season, a transition into the world without snow: a world without another student.

Yesterday morning we learned of a student's suicide. I didn't know him, but certainly so many mourn at those they do not know, perhaps not even recognize in the halls. Grief counselors swept in, took residence in an empty classroom, a poem was read over the loudspeaker, a hush fell over the classrooms.

In the spring of last year, one student died when crashing into a tree after a track meet. The other students decorated her locker, wishing her to rise from her coma, but they had to let her go. The student's brother remains behind under the curious gaze of his peers.

In the spring the year before, another student was lost on the road--her family was on the way out of town for Memorial Day weekend and a fluke accident, a trailer popped over the construction barrier. She didn't attend our school, but the sister school, the one to the north, though it was felt in a rocking shudder at our own in the south--we had just split that year, so teachers, students, all raw, mourning in the halls.

And when I student taught, another student was killed when someone punched him at a post-graduation party. I remember seeing my own Journalism student on the news, his face full of tears, the shock and realization that his best friend was gone.

What do you do with this grief, so tender in the classroom? Students sift out, upset again by whispered conversations in the halls. Sadness is worn bare; there is no humbleness in it. We cry in private, but at something like this, at sixteen years old--there is wailing, unexpected.

What do you say to this? You simply reach out an open hand, press palm to chest, speak of grief in terms of sharing. I say: It's so hard to process these kinds of things. Once all the muck is cleared away and the pain a bit less acute, I think in terms of my own life. Who I love the most, and I give that love and I give that love. But I also try to live my life in ways that will honor that person as best I can.

In this life, I think to Grandpa and Yvonne.

It's the time of year where the ground is both familiar with snow and the frustrated insurgence of green. We have hope for the buds on the trees, that they will survive the fluke snowfall, the last shot winter has at startling us.

Last night, Ryan and I walked downtown, my hand in his stuffed into his coat pocket. We notice on Barn Bluff a controlled burn and simultaneously smell someone's fireplace. We wonder ourselves on the shoulders of two seasons, as Mary Oliver put it--how fire erupts--evening grilling, woodsmoke in the fireplace, and the purging of prairie grass for renewal. The line of fire was delicate, gorgeous, curled. The smell of smoke lingers in my hair; it's not the stale smell of bar smoke, but the gorgeous smell of spring approaching.

I am uncertain how to feel on evenings like this. I glory in living, celebrate the sound of foot against wet pavement, the feel of his cool hand against my own. The sun sets the world on fire, the zig zag of orange and red and purple filling the sky. And as it lowers, as the world darkens, I think of this boy, of his parents tonight, of his friends sobbing in the hallway. I wonder at the choices we make, the release of the soul, the balm of healing, the shift of seasons.

the thinly wrapped package

2008-04-03T14:24:00.000-05:00

It's Not You, It's Your Books: Article on New York Times about dating and books.

I used to give boys I dated a copy of The Catcher in the Rye. It was successful, to some extent, though there was one boy who stared at me dumbly and said, "I can't read." (Or was it, I don't read? There was a romantic savior-aspect in the illiterate dating the literature-infatuated. Nonetheless, it didn't last.)

I gave Ryan a copy of The Bell Jar. This was an ultimate sort of test he passed--after all, it's more of a cultish classic with young women as opposed to befuddled young men. But he read it, claimed to like it, though I think the Ani Difranco mix tape won him over much more.

If I were to gaze at my husband's nightstand and judge him solely for its contents (significantly frightening dust bunnies, antiquated alarm clock, and usually an escape novel or two), we would not be together now.

I'm of the opinion that it probably doesn't entirely matter that tastes do not converge. I wish we could discuss a good film after watching it, but I do love his smile, I love the way we linger after dinner at the table and talk about things. I don't mind that he will read a poem and smile blankly afterwards.

He'll come with me to a Shakespeare Festival. On Saturday, he's attending a book release party with me. Good company. What more could a gal want?

April's list

2008-04-02T23:26:00.001-05:00

To see each of the above images by some of my favorite flickr photographers, click on the following links:

1. for bokeh Wednesday :-), 2. scent of grass, 3. Earth and Growth..., 4. Rowan Wool Cotton, 5. Carrots 12.15.07, 6. June in Scotland, 7. ranunculas, 8. 9::366, 9. grass and driftwood logs, 10. IMG_0464, 11. Nature's Candy, 12. Delicacy numero due

April, when the snow and ice and all fade into slushy mud, when the world is reborn, when the landscape gets colored in again. This April, I am in love with:

- The colors and images above (and many others on flickr)
- April is National Poetry Month: How are you celebrating?
- The University of Minnesota (hello again)
- and ten other choices
- Hope for GREEN (the world awakening)
- Loft coursework: The Very Short Poem and Finding Your Poetic Voice
- Midsummer Night's Dream in freshmen English
- Wuthering Heights in Humanities
- the color of stones
- Sherman Alexie's book of poems, First Indian on the Moon
- mental floss: I love this shirt
- new bamboo blinds to replace the lace curtains on our porch
- the way words can move in an echo chamber
- Poetry Daily
- looking closer, every day, again and again
- reading lists, independent reading challenges, trying to eek out just one more...
- book clubs with good girl friends
- plotting out a first baby shower

thrumming

2008-04-01T20:18:00.000-05:00

The auditorium, with its ancient curlicues and busts, with the flopping seats and stuffy professors wandering in, gray hair winging, was thrumming. Thrumming with the noise of academics, of women gathered in herds, wanting to hear about that one wild and precious life, the book club contingents who paint ceramics and wish for their children to call on the weekends. We weren't sore thumbs, just younger versions peppered in.

Sunday night was Mary Oliver's reading at the State Theatre in Minneapolis. Every time I closed my eyes, a white rose floated into view--her hair, the black backdrop. It's like cloud watching, that impression you have when gazing, then eyes closed, the white rose, the angel. It all breaks open, Rorschach tests.

We seek out places to put our words. Pull up the skirt of my bag, search for what I have forgotten--a pen, the envelope back. To fight the voices--hers against my own. The way I want to write when I am here, the way I have dried up so many times, wake again. When I am an audience member, I want to close my eyes, hear the words, be a participant; there is also this bit of me that struggles, wants to write my own poetry. Oh, a beautiful line--"our minds rattle our tongues," "we are on the shoulders of two seasons," etc.

Eyes closed, breathe in the smell. The antiseptic smell of gum, the staleness of breath moldering.

There is an assumption that everyone is the same--that everyone else must write too, that the compulsion is just as human as breathing in that room. Why aren't notebooks propped on every knee? Why are the lights so dim? I cannot read what I scribble, but that is OK; I've had much practice writing in precarious situations--while driving, while taking walks in the woods. I know how to write in rhythm to my body, on the backs of my arms, the stop and stutter by the side of the road.

Mary Oliver, how I wish she could read me to sleep every night. Her voice is so soothing, her images like ripples in a pond. The undulation of noise, the way it moves. A contented sigh.

This was my Sunday evening, sandwiched between two lovely women, my heart pattering to the beat of applause, the standing ovation, the celebration of poetry.

Today: A snow day. April Fools, we are, tucked into our empty classrooms, but there will be no poisson d'avril on my back. I am always a little relieved when this holiday falls on a weekend.

Today: Declining schools, a sorrowful process. There are poets I would have loved to study with, programs that beckoned. But I know this is right: yesterday I accepted the University of Minnesota's offer. I spoke with my principal, spoke with Julie Schumacher, have begun looking at what will be my schedule in the autumn. I tremble when I think of the truth of this: I will immerse myself in poetry, in words. I got in.

#11

2008-03-31T19:05:00.000-05:00

Alaska called and accepted me into their low-res program. Nice to be able to say, "I was accepted into over half the programs I applied to."

And keep that preposition at the end.

Currently reading: Corelli's Mandolin and The First Indian on the Moon. Vermont College has this lovely poetry reading list, and I am ashamed of how few of those books I've read, so I printed it out and am highlighting as I go. I'm in the A's--Ai, Alexie, Ashbery, Atwood.

My tally (because I always forget one):
U of MN, FSU, Emerson, Bennington, Vermont College, Pacific University, Antioch, Stonecoast, New England College, Alaska, Goddard.

sounding

2008-03-31T13:00:00.001-05:00

I wanted to spend today's post ruminating about the gorgeous poetry reading I attended last night, tell you of how Mary Oliver's voice is the most soothing, of how I want to her to read me poems as I fall asleep every night, of how the world can flicker, then vanish when you are somewhere you know you always want to be.

Instead, I will tell you this: Today the University of Minnesota accepted me into their MFA program in poetry for autumn 2008. And I'll remember that I was eating a peanut butter granola bar, that I wanted to squeal, make the sound of a balloon wheezing, but I couldn't for all the dry fiber in my mouth.

Of all the days to not be working with Emily any more... I wanted to run to someone, shout out the news: I got an email from Julie Schumacher! But she's not there, she's dozens of miles to the north, and though I wanted a best friend there to squee with, I am glad the news she was there to listen to was that old news I received a little over a year ago. Happiness, anger, sorrow. It's all been flung about in abundance lately.

Today we were released early--thick, clumpy snow, slushy and cold at our feet. I didn't even bring a jacket; this morning it was drizzling. Now, little balls of snow fall, the last day of March, and we wonder at the tufts of grass that had just been filling in the mud. It keeps coming.

It all keeps coming.

the invisible world

2008-03-30T11:44:00.000-05:00

I was amazed by this little creature--its willowy, translucent legs, its clever hopping, the spindles propelling it forward. Here, you can see proportion: fingernail to praying mantis. I loved these when I was young, growing up in the South. There is a kind of magic in its kinesthetics, in the heart of its face.

use your illusion

2008-03-29T11:39:00.000-05:00

I've recently gone to the eye doctor, reconverted to eyeglasses (Penelope ate my last pair, which made me sad, though my new ones are approximately this, the thickish frame, though smaller). My students had begun to ask me why my eyes were so twitchy (Are your contacts bothering you?), which, to me, was a clear indication my tired eyes needed a change, needed that rest, a resignation from the scratching, the rubbing, the popping out dance.

At the optometrist, I mentioned this strange spot that would drift about in my line of vision--not as a result of the contacts, as it would persist without, as I read, as I drove on a sunny day. It is a floater, something we can apparently all expect by the age of forty, and only when I see hundreds should I worry, as this means a blood vessel has burst. A little gray speck that keeps me company, along with other signs of aging. I discovered it will always be with me, and the only way to be rid of it is to remove the eye jelly (I giggled when he said this as I immediately thought: "Out, vile jelly!").

In New Orleans, Amy had the best eyes. She spotted the rabbit, the squirrel, the frog amongst the bracken. My eyes don't catch these things, the little mysteries of the bayou. I am oblivious to my surroundings sometimes, and I wonder how it is that poetry and photography pull at my heartstrings so much when I cannot simply catch the fleeting forest animals.

My husband and I will watch a film, and he'll point out some clever symbolism, some connection of character, and I will cry out Drat! for allowing it to slip by, for his showing me up without realizing he was conquering my territory.

I could huddle with a spyglass, peer out as only an observer of the larger world. I could forget myself, this body, blend into my surroundings. I could be quiet.

We have a love affair with the untruths of life. We are most interested in knowing what we want as opposed to what is verified. I look the other way with my students every day--we must pick our battles, as the cliche goes.

I wish I could know which self makes the most sense. I have tried on so many masks, been so many selves, alternate evenly.

Thinking of recent films: The Illusionist :: The Prestige

Thinking of magic in our everyday lives, what we sift from the bracken.

on naming

2008-03-29T00:04:00.000-05:00

There is a vignette in Sandra Cisneros' House on Mango Street called "My Name." I use it as a piece to teach denotation and connotation in my freshmen classroom.

Denotation: literal, dictionary definition. A house is a dwelling. Four walls, roof, sometimes a white picket fence.

Connotation: emotional meaning. The way I feel about my house, the first I've ever purchased, the way I think of sleeping next to my husband at night, the little bits of gray fence that have been chipped away by my dogs' eager heaving.

I look up each of my students' names on a baby name website. Molly means bitter. Ryan means little king. I joke about how I don't often feel bitter, but Molly is often taken as a nickname for Mary, and this is what it means, most of the time, depending on the source. I am stuck with "bitter" as an identifying marker.

I ask them to talk to their parents about the story of their name. My own simply appealed to my parents, and I was grateful it wasn't Lacey, which was also on their list. My maiden name is a town in England and a town in Ireland. I tout a "good Irish name," or claim it anyway. My new married last name is German, and means either a type of tree (this from our German exchange student Marie) or a logger, a killer of trees (this from Ryan himself).

I thought I'd named my sister, Chelsea. I had a classmate of the same name, which perhaps explained my encouragement of the name; my parents say they picked the name after a news reporter.

People often tell me they once had dogs named Molly when growing up. I try not to take it personally.

I could tell my students too about the struggle I had in my mosaic of names--what I go by as a teacher (Mrs. K) or when I publish (MSK) or when I sign my name on a document. I could talk about the discussions Ryan and I had sitting across from each other at restaurants, our beer mugs slick, our tempers quiet. How he wanted me to have his last name exclusively, how I wanted him to take mine. (Why must we always be so patriarchal?) We talked of tradition, of family pride, of rejection and acceptance of becoming a part in a new clan. A compromise, though I still don't entirely think it even, fair, but I love him and his family, so I accept, step back. Still, he should be a Sutton too.

There is the fact that I don't often write out my name on this blog, even though I know students have found it. I'd rather avoid a blatant existence.

There is the trickery of names--Nohbdy.

There is the power of names--Rumpelstiltskin.

There is the heritage of names. "Traver" is the family name passed about--my grandfather was Traver Kille (went by Lad, Kille was his mother's maiden name), his father was Traver [something], my uncle is Traver Michael (goes by Mike), and my cousin is a Traver too. His first son--Traver Jacob, goes by Jake. My sister-in-law named her son James, after my father-in-law. Ryan calls his nephew "little James;" he's also called "Jimmy," but never Jamie. My cousin, Traver's brother, was Jamie when he was growing up, but now he is James, though I often forget. His middle name is Brian, the same as my father. James also happens to be the name of my maternal grandfather and an uncle on my mother's side as well.

Do you see how it all loops? How tangled we become in our own naming, how incestuous it can be.

On The Gilmore Girls (a guilty pleasure) the mother, Lorelei has named her daughter after herself (goes by Rory). She continually has to explain this oddity, this fit of drug induced decision making. If Rory were a boy named for a father, strangers would not give that raise of the eyebrow. Rory wouldn't joke about epidural induced narcissism.

There is a list of names I could never foist upon an innocent child--names of students who have frustrated me, names which can only come from my mouth in exasperation. Most are boy names, though there are some girls too. Hopes that my children will never become the painful shapes of indifferent, rude, hyperactive kids in my everyday. The name grows with each new class list.

In contrast, there are names of students that I will always think of fondly, or ways in which "bad" names get canceled out--the frustrating X from student teaching becomes the endearing X from last semester, the one I would say, "If only I could be so lucky as to have a respectful son / daughter like that." Of course, I couldn't name a child for a student; this would seem incredibly strange.

An author or a character from a book. A good Irish name. These are connotations I like the most.

Names have been rolling around in my head since Kelly announced the gender of her growing baby. A boy. I teasingly call it Iago, my favorite Shakespeare villain, while she considers true names--something plain, but something that will fit. Something that will cling to his flesh as he slips into the world, something that makes sense when she looks into his eyes. The denotation and connotation must be essay worthy. He may one day be my student, after all.

finding time inside myself

2008-03-27T22:04:00.000-05:00

Blog 365 was a catchy idea, a little something to give me the push to be on repeat, to open my eyes to the world and let me know what is worth recording, worth keeping.

And I must say this: oftentimes, I am not a quitter. I may have failed in projects, I may have a half finished quilt sitting in my cedar trunk, I may have partly learned to make a baby sweater or cable mittens for my husband. OK, so in truth, I am able to walk away easily.

From some things.

From others, no: my husband, for one. We'll hit nine years of togetherness this summer. I'm so excited. And if I were a quitter, we would have quit each other long ago, when things got dull, or hard, or frustrating, but we didn't. We see each other through. And we hold hands doing it.

And I'm not saying I'm going to outright quit Blog 365, since my tendency seems to perkily retreat into the blogosphere when I feel I have something to say, no matter how mundane it is, but I don't want to face a day where I think, "I must post something before I go to bed." Or groan at the idea of returning from a vacation because I need to play catch up.

My writing has sloughed off too. I know it. I am writing in a funk, I am writing to take up space and time, to exist. I am not doing well and I am hating myself for it. I'm bored with myself here.

But I think there comes a time when we must lay down the gimmicks, the bells and whistles and tacky ad-ons, and become more ourselves for ourselves. I suppose I could go off on a tangent about what the purpose of blogging is, why we turn to these pages, why we read about the lives of strangers, or keep up with our closest friends and think we actually know them better when they are become more like strangers in this disconnect.

I'm not trying to be offensive. Merely trying to convince myself that I need to stop betraying myself, my voice, and my original purpose for keeping a blog. (Wait a minute. I think I've forgotten. What was it again?)

I think what I am blindly puttering away at saying is this: My writing has gotten stale, and I need a scapegoat. I can have several, because this is the world of buffets and juggling fast food on our knees: I can blame the crunch of Blog365, or rather, my own dogged dedication to blogging each day, even when I had nothing useful to say (of course, without the apparatus, I'd still feel compelled), and I can blame this project of emptying my bookcase, of reading the books I'm willing to give away, which has certainly thrown my husband and a few others, the idea of my getting rid of books.

For those of you who write, do you feel you write better when you are surrounded by the voices of the writers you admire the most? I know many writers start in imitation, and it's not such a bad thing. We mimic and preen and hope we can get it right and in the process, we hope to find our own voices. I think reading good work, reading things that shimmer, that's what fuels our own purpose.

I think this is what I need to do: I need to exit that methodical endless loop and return to the voice of the spring. I need to find hope again, to come out of hibernation. It is all mud and muck outside, tracked in by our dogs, and I am ready to fling open the window. I am ready to let in new words, to learn new things.

least favorite

2008-03-27T12:32:00.001-05:00

What kind of reader are you? Are you the sort that will discard a book if you aren't enjoying it? Or do you plow through to the end?

How do you pick your books? The ones you own? Is there a difference between that and the ones you get from the library? Are you picky about how your books must feel in your hands?

I have always been the kind of reader who rarely gives up on a book.

Those I set down partway through: Moby Dick, which I promise myself I will one day start again. The Name of the Rose, which began to cease making sense as my mind drifted so many times while reading it; I gave up halfway through and several months later, gave it another go, making it a much smoother read, though not quite as good as I had hoped (this is what happens when you see your professor-father reading and expect all that he reads is quality). Will in the World, which I started on our honeymoon and will get back to. Also Poetic Closure, from November, but I think my mind needs to be clear, ready to take on more complicated ideas to successfully read this one.

I'm also still reading The Peppered Moth, which I started yesterday.

Current IRP rankings: me, 4883 and student, 5069.

I've been reading The Peppered Moth in fits and starts, but I can't find a hook, can't find a way to get into the book. This doesn't mean it's a bad book, but I absolutely cannot seem to connect to the plot, the characters, the setting, anything. I want to fling it across the room and start something else, but that nagging I-cannot-really-quit-a-book habit of mine is getting in the way.

What are your least favorite books you have seen all the way through? What about the ones you abandoned? Have you picked anything up again that was better the second time around?

reading race

2008-03-26T12:57:00.001-05:00

Do you remember Reading Rainbow? Oh, I loved, loved that show--so magical. And Book It? I had a round purple pin with tiny yellow stars, and I'd get a personal pan pizza for every so-many books. We would writer our names and the number of books we'd read on a slip of paper, tie it to a balloon and release it into the wild. My mother baked me book-shaped cakes to congratulate me on reading a hundred or so books for the project.

I've been keeping a list in a notebook of all the books I've read for many years now. (I can tell you 2003 and 2004 were my best years for reading--about 150--and since I've started full time teaching, it generally is around 80, a number I am trying to break for 2008.) And the notebook list makes its way onto Good Reads, for the most part.

Now, I've received a new challenge. Each quarter, my students read 500 pages (at my old school it was 600) of prose for an independent reading project. I usually keep track of my own pages and put them up on the board. I have been proud of mine thus far (4883), though it makes sense this is the highest they've been since I'm no longer involved in the drama program. I've recently had a student challenge me, and she's at 4666; her name and numbers have gone up on the board too.

Between now and a week from Friday, I'm going to be reading furiously. I told her my goal was 6000 by the end of the quarter; she's agreed to the same.

Currently: The Peppered Moth by Margaret Drabble, a put-down-able book, which isn't making matters easier, especially since I'm trying to read a book a day this week. Whew.

#9

2008-03-25T09:47:00.000-05:00

I returned from New Orleans to a new message on the machine: someone from Bennington had some good news for me. With only two more verdicts out, I think it is time for me to make a decision. I am still on the waiting list at the U of MN, but I've begun to lose hope, begun to be content with the idea of low-res and next year. Perhaps this is the best option for me anyway.

It's so hard to tell. I told Ryan I wished I could make a decision with two other people--me, six years ago, and me, six years in the future. I want to make sure I'm not letting anyone down here, no version of myself.

a confession

2008-03-24T09:42:00.000-05:00

I have a new addiction. I will blame it first on Brain Age, a game to which Ryan's mother introduced me. Little math problems, desiring a quick reaction, watching for speed and flawlessness. And on the flight back from New Orleans, I convinced Kelly to teach me how to play Sudoku. Now I'm fully addicted to these little puzzles; my grandmother loves them too. A few visits ago, she challenged my father to a speed solving of the day's Sudoku, and she managed to beat him, a man I always considered a human calculator.

It is no surprise that I did not do well on the math portion of the GRE. Numbers have become more and more elusive for me. I was relieved that my husband did our taxes this year, saving me the tantrum throwing frustration of all the oddly worded questions and secret investments I couldn't begin to understand.

Give me words, let me celebrate sentence diagramming, line breaks, the use of literary devices. Let me pull volumes from my bookshelf and immerse myself in new worlds. And every once in a while, I'll exercise that long neglected numbers part of my mind.

recounting trips

2008-03-23T12:08:00.000-05:00

I am thinking about flight, about the trips I've been on, the adventures I've had, the locales I've soaked up. I am thinking about preserving them, keeping them close to my heart.

I've created a photoset on flickr that explores some of my favorite images from these trips called crossing state lines.

To revisit:

Boston: thoughts like dandelion fluff.

Carolinas: arrival, hawt, charleston charleston, a day (not) at the beach

Alaska: sitka, ketchican, at sea, take it one day at a time

Palm Beach: where the world becomes surreal, where it all begins, where i am awed by a poetry reading, where my husband joins me, where we visit the beach and i put my feet in the ocean,
where we go to the morikami gardens, i am floored by a poetry panel, and i meet sharon olds, where i come home and my suitcase weighs too much,

New Orleans: Friday and a wee bit of Thursday, Saturday

I am home. It was so fast, but isn't that how it always is, when you are spending time with friends?

New Orleans Trip in Pictures: Saturday

2008-03-22T12:47:00.000-05:00

We spent much of the day on the bayou, at Jean Lafitte Park and Preserve.

Above ground cemetery:

We spent the evening watching Interview with a Vampire, after seeing the house where the piano teacher is killed.

New Orleans Trip in Pictures: Friday (+ a wee bit of Thursday)

2008-03-22T01:10:00.000-05:00

Baby's first flight:

New Orleans:

The French Quarter:

On the levy, where the Mississippi's water level is higher than the town:

Back through the French Quarter, on Decatur and Bourbon Street:

At the voodoo museum:

New Orleans architecture:

Live music and begniets:

The Ninth Ward, two and a half years after Katrina:

And Mardi Gras beads:

Week 2: Friday Favorites

2008-03-21T11:48:00.000-05:00

To see the originals, click on the links:
1. thank you alyson!, 2. come lets sail away in orange boats..., 3. Red flowers, 4. *, 5. Untitled, 6. poppies, 7. 57/366: Inner beauty..., 8. office light, 9. Untitled, 10. Bunched, 11. thank you alyson!, 12. upside-down

Book: Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison. I can cite several living authors I am absolutely in awe of, and Toni Morrison competes with Sharon Olds and Margaret Atwood for that top spot. I read this book in high school; this is one that I promise you is well worth your time, and it's one of those magical books that slides together in the end. A satisfying read.

Film: Sex and Lucia. I thought, originally, that it would be a terribly naughty movie, but it's essentially a character study in a beautiful setting. The images are absolutely gorgeous. I fantasize about escaping with a typewriter to a sun soaked location, isolated, but a quiet part of everything around me.

Music: Tori Amos is another one of my earlier loves. Hers is also the first concert I attended (with Kelly, at the Weidner Center), and most recently, with Becky and Eireann at the U of MN (years ago now, and strange, because both have gone on to become successful poets). She was before Ani Difranco even, as far as music loves goes, and I love "Take to the Sky" especially.

Eco: Eco Choices. Another shopping site, but this one was particularly of interest to me because of its biodegradable cat pan liners (and pooper scooper bags). I've stocked up!

Get Involved: Eco Libris: plant a tree for every book you read. Ryan is always looking around the house, laughing at me and how I hug trees but have so many books. Here's an idea on how to make up for it.

Blog: 3191 Immerse yourself in wonderful photo images. After a year of mornings (which has been picked up by a publisher), we are on to enjoy a year of evenings. Much quiet simplicity here, something I adore.

Etsy: Yes Press. Poetry, letterpress, postcards, broadsides. Never a better combination.

over spring break

2008-03-20T10:27:00.000-05:00

I will immerse myself in poetry: Poets of the Late T'ang, How to Read Chinese Poetry, and a gift from Ryan when he came home: a guide to New Orleans and The Anchor Book of Chinese Poetry.

Malena Morling suggested I immerse myself in Chinese poetry for a period of time, which might help pare down my language. Carolyn Forche recently told me I ought to be careful with adjectives and adverbs, something I think weakens a poem and can be a beginner's mistake. Trust in the action of the poem, the muscularity of its words trimmed down.

I am grateful for this kind of advice; I drink it up. We can edit line-by-line, but I know overall, there is much work to do in my writing. I am ready for that metaphorical rolling of sleeves, to get my fingers into the dirt. My skin has toughened in the sun and dirt.

This is what I bring with me on the plane. I am having a quiet period in my writing, which happens--a natural ebb and flow. I wrote furiously when my grandfather was unwell, and I think that exhausted me somehow, though Palm Beach certainly revived my voice. I am bringing my writing notebook too, something I bring everywhere I go, regardless. It makes sense, though, to take advantage of these quiet periods--to read furiously. I find that I read constantly regardless, but when I am in writing mode, I read more books of poetry, and when I am in relapse, it is fiction I turn to. And with my goal of reducing the house by one bookcase (oh, if only we could have a house big enough for a library--then it wouldn't matter a bit), I am trying to read books I wouldn't mind passing along, letting go.

Currently reading: High Fidelity by Nick Hornsby. A nice, clever, clipped voice.

and still it goes

2008-03-19T17:29:00.000-05:00

#8 today: Antioch University, a low-res program in Los Angeles.

And Annie Finch has called twice and emailed in hopes I will attend Stonecoast. (Nothing like feeling wanted!)

This isn't to mention Vermont College, Pacific University, Goddard, and New England College.

And FSU and Emerson. (Still on the wait list at the U of MN, but first in line, which is nice.)

So, I am leaving for New Orleans with Kelly tomorrow morning, and I would love it if someone would make a decision for me while I'm gone.

Seriously?

2008-03-18T08:10:00.001-05:00

Tomorrow is the start of spring break. There is a morning of staff development, but essentially spring break begins with jeans and a sweatshirt, at eleven o'clock tomorrow.

Except it snowed this morning. Fat fluffy flakes, the kind that are so magical.

And the two hour late start transmuted into a closing. A closing, the day before spring break, with deep fog, and assignments due at that very last minute (now, clearly, postponed).

I suppose I had wanted a snow day, and here I am, sitting at school, my contacts floating around, a snow day coming down around us. Somehow it's not as magical when you are not at home with your husband, stinking of the snow plow and chasing the dogs in the muck.

Happy Birthday, Love of My Life

2008-03-17T12:40:00.001-05:00

Twenty nine things about the birthday boy:

He gets green beer on his birthday. He has a great Irish first name, but won't tell you his middle. He is incredibly strong, but you'd never know it by looking at him. He's also incredibly good at packing, especially when it comes to moving vans, which makes things a bit easier on those miserable moving days. He's a GIS analyst, which means he's involved with map-making and computers, and if you asked me anything more about it, I'd probably stare at you blankly. Which is essentially what he'd do when you asked him anything about poetry. But he's incredibly good at what he does, his bosses tend to adore him, and he enjoys it, so sometimes I forgive him for being such a workaholic. He homebrews his own beer, but we haven't made a batch since our summer mead. His favorite beer tends to be HoneyWeiss, and he's recently started to enjoy red wine. But his favorite drink is Pepsi, and I think if he had to quit caffeine, he'd be a bit more feisty than when he had to quit smoking. He quit just a month or two after I did (what? six years ago?) and in that in between time, he'd tease me and taunt me "just to make sure you really wanted to quit." Which means, essentially, that he can be a real brat, and I'd attest to that six years after quitting--he still likes to push buttons. I would say he's a dog person, but it's not just that--he's an animal person. Other people's dogs are overjoyed to see him--my parents' dogs, his college friend's dog, his parents' dogs. Sometimes that play Sylvia hits a little too close to home. When I first met him, I was initially attracted to his talent on the guitar. When we bought our house, we really wanted to have two additional rooms to be "ours"--mine is a poetry / writing / guest room, and his is a little den that contains most of his computers and guitars. Before we went on our first date, we used to write each other letters, even though we lived fifteen minutes apart, but he worked the night shift at a gas station--among the gifts we gave each other were an Ani Difranco mix tape, a copy of The Bell Jar, and a CD of his own guitar music. He doesn't like to play covers. Our first date was an overnight trip, which may have seemed strange, but it seems typical of us now--dinner, a walk down by the river, then from Green Bay to Milwaukee where we watched Othello and fell asleep on a friend's sofa. He actually slept in the reclining chair, letting me have the better spot, and he woke up with a little drool. The next morning, he looked at an apartment for the following school year, and the real estate agent asked if we were a couple; we blushed and she said we'd make a cute pair. The next day, I left for Hawaii with my family and missed him furiously. We love to travel together and have been to: Oregon, Lake Tahoe, New Jersey, NYC, Colorado, and Alaska together. I hope our map eventually extends to other countries--he'd most like to go to New Zealand, Ireland, or Iceland. What I love the most about him is his generosity and humble nature. When we have guests over, he tends to overdo his host duties, which means we rarely see him in the evening, as he's always cutting cheeses or doling out drinks. I love his laugh. I love how he makes me laugh. I love how he's always supported me emotionally and encouraged me on my journeys. I love that I get to spend the rest of my life with him, and every day I feel as if I am the absolute most lucky person, as if the fates made a mistake, an accident pairing me up with him, but I'm not going to tell if you don't.

The Ghost Orchid

2008-03-16T11:36:00.000-05:00

Book clubbers: Kelly :: Chris :: Michelle :: Angie

The rules for picking are as follows: we rotate, and the person who picks the book also hosts the gathering.

Our first pick was The Year of Yes, but we all spent so much time between the actual reading and the meeting that we didn't discuss as much as we snacked, exchanged knitting tips, and were fascinated by Chris's yellow and gray bird.

Our second pick was The Ghost Orchid. I'm going to order a set of these and bring them along in hopes of boosting book-related conversation.

I read Goodman's The Lake of Dead Languages after being compelled at the concept, but was miserable reading it--the convoluted plot, the desire to edit the writing. The Ghost Orchid was a bit better, in that I asked myself, "What is this book trying to accomplish?" No, not a literary book by any means, but still one that is a bit more interesting than your average mass market paperback. This story involves a haunted artists' retreat, just the sort of environment I day dream about on these winter afternoons and is a frame tale, but one that ping pongs in narrative by chapter. Goodman does a better job keeping the reader curious about the next venture, the plot a bit thicker, which is good for this sort of book.

Now reading: Absolute Friends by John le Carre. Still working on emptying a bookcase. It is slow going, when you plan to read much of what you are pushing out. I've been able to pass along books to girl friends who've come over recently, and I am thankful for that. I'd rather know the books will be read as opposed to donated in a box that is just as likely to be recycled.

Some websites of interest involving passing along books (beyond the library): bookcrossing, book mooch, and paperback swap.

photos from a birthday weekend

2008-03-15T15:33:00.000-05:00

Ryan's birthday is Monday, St Patrick's Day. We spent this weekend with a full house--so many good friends, old and new.

Week 1: Friday Favorites

2008-03-14T23:28:00.000-05:00

1. 11 of 17 (catching up), 2. have i mentioned..., 3. Untitled, 4. Moss Sprouts , 5. dandy 2, 6. natural, 7. japanese autumn, 8. Bowls, 9. winter scene, 10. Saturday raspberries, 11. Seeding..., 12. seeing stars

A new tradition here, an adaptation of what had already been brewing. I had loved mav's Friday flickr favorite tradition, so I started collecting little crumbs on this addictive site. I loved Abby's film week, Emily's green week, Shari's white week (and previously, her five senses Friday). I love the idea of taking the time to reflect on the other (and when I say this, I don't mean "otherness" in that sense), on the creativity and beauty of the world around us. On the fact that this is a blog, which has readers, and we exist within a community of bloggers.

And I want to call attention to things (ah, the vagueness of things). So Fridays are going to be more than just flickr favorites around here, though I will keep that tradition up. But other "of-the-week" sort of things too. Images with other adornments. Maybe not recent experiences, but little bits of love I want to point out to you, and maybe hope you'll find something you love too.

Of-the-week: First impressions, first inspirations, first favorites. What woke me up to the world.

Book: The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. This, and The Diary of Anne Frank, were two of my main inspirations for focusing my own life on writing. I love her prose; I love that she's a poet too. This is the story of Esther Greenwood, her life as a college student, as someone whose live descends into madness, whose life is based on the author. There is a cultish following to this novel, a kind of frightening worship of Plath, and I'll have to admit this: it's where "sylvia" came from in "the teacher," my long ago attempt at anonymity.
Film: High Art. This was one of the first movies to draw me in that wasn't a blockbuster. This film opened up a world of gorgeous more independentally minded films, films that focused on character development, on the image as art, on setting and scenery. I think the tag line is something like, "A story of ambition, sacrifice, seduction, and other career movies." This is a movie about photographers, and I was really drawn into how the framing of the film shots mimicked the framing of the photographic shots. I loved the conversation. I loved the colors.
Music: Ani Difranco. For the longest time, my friends in high school would nudge me, try to convince me to tell me who my favorite band / singer was, but I'd refuse, saying I loved too much, that I didn't mind any of it. And when I heard Ani for the first time, I'll admit, her angry Dilate was not love at first listen. But now, I don't know what I would do without her--the way I made mixed tapes of her songs for my then-crush, now-husband; the dozen concerts I've been to; the way certain songs were about me, right at that moment.
Eco: Six Energy Saving Tips for the Dishwasher. We were recently in the market for a dishwasher, but in the end, we decided against it because ours still runs okay. Not great, but better than tossing it, the thought of which made me cringe--such a hulk of something to be rid of. I was searching the energy efficient models, and thought: Is it worse to replace or to wait? I don't know the answer, but I can use some of these tips in the meanwhile.
Get Involved: MPIRG. A student-run non-profit focusing mainly on environmental and social justice issues. What makes this one different? The empowerment of the students. Petitioning, lobbying, getting involved in actual issues, making change both on campus and beyond. Ah so long ago, in my undergraduate days, I was heavily involved in this organization. I was task force leader for women's issues, worked on producing The Vagina Monologues for the first four years, helped organize Take Back the Night, was on the local board, then the state board and even was secretary, and I canvassed for them.
Blog: I must feature my topography as my first blog because it is what jump started a new way to use this space. Before, it'd just been about teaching, about little snippets, when I thought about it. Not a way to record the everyday. She writes beautifully, is an artist, a mother, a fallible human being. And I return, again and again for inspiration.
Etsy: pearl + marmalade. Beautiful letterpress cards. I love them so much, I ordered my holiday cards for next year through them.

What about you? Any suggestions for next week? Reflections on what I've included here?

2008-03-14T00:23:00.000-05:00

He said: "You were at the top of my list, way at the top."

He said: "Congratulations on getting in. And congratulations for writing such good work."

Number seven: Stonecoast officially called (and emailed) to accept me.

it begins to melt

2008-03-13T15:06:00.000-05:00

It's that time of year: the snow has really begun to melt in earnest now. The yard is swampy, full of fall revelation (having two dogs is deliriously wonderful at this point--can you hear the sarcasm?--and the regret at not being more diligent in the autumn?), and I don't mind the process, since I know the result: green. I promise to celebrate it, celebrate the grass, celebrate the open air, celebrate the shifting from here to now.

Last year, at the start of March, evidence of true snow: here and here and here. By the end of the month, we were outside, relaxing. (And then, with the point-and-shoot.) I love my photo-a-day for evidence of the change in seasons; I can anticipate when I'll see bloom again.

Yesterday, I spent enough time worrying about next year I physically made myself sick. And today, I realize how ridiculous that was--I am destroying the insides of myself, shredding my organs in worry. I am afraid I won't get off the wait list (so close is so hard); I'm afraid if I leave for Florida or Boston, I'll put my relationship in jeopardy and I'll miss home too much; I'm afraid if I do low-res, I'll regret not going full throttle in the same way.

But today, I am simply going to look forward to some of the delights in my near future:

- This weekend will be a long celebration of my husband. His birthday coincides with St Patrick's Day, and we have guests coming throughout the weekend: Mike and his dog Dallas on Friday, and on Saturday: the Winona gang, only one of whom is still in Winona, along with my girl friends Chris and Kelly (and Kelly's husband). I am also excited about some of his presents--I know he does not read this blog, so I can tell you: I ordered seeds so we can grow our own hops along the tall fence in our backyard and I've commissioned a piece of artwork to celebrate the love and luck we've had together (among other more mundane things).
- In exactly one week, I will be on my way to New Orleans with my best friend. Even though we've been close, sister-like, since we were thirteen years old, we have yet to take any significant trip together. We were very lucky--I had points to redeem on my credit card for airline miles, and she has a friend who is stationed down there. I am in dire need of regular travel (I blame this fully on Nikki and my grandmother, by the way, for inspiring me to seek out life in other corners of the globe). Palm Beach is a distant memory.

I am feeling quiet again, the need to reflect, to unfurl, just as those bits of leaves will, just as the blossoms will, just as the garden will do. I hadn't been as aware before--that hibernation of winter, the rebirth of an emotional self in the spring. I love this time of year; there is so much anticipation.

photo exchange

2008-03-12T21:13:00.000-05:00

In case you've missed it, Jen over on Nectar & Light is hosting a monthly photo exchange. A huge undertaking, but I think we're all incredibly grateful for it.

Last month's theme: morning rituals

Next month's theme: green

Above: my submission (also available on etsy)

Below: From Joetta at Little YellowBird. I love that we both have the remains of the bed, that romantic tousling, that what-is-left-behind.

You can check out other images from this swap (and eventually others) at this flickr photogroup.

more of the same; waiting for spring

2008-03-11T22:01:00.000-05:00

Today: more of the same. Still that brown-edged ice piles that once was winter snow. I am disappointed that we never truly had a snow storm, nothing that felt like freedom, like me leaping in piles with my sneakers. Nothing that kept anyone home for a day, bundled in blankets, shoveling the sidewalk in shifts. And now we're nearing mid-March, and I'm afraid this winter, it just won't happen. We maintained snow from just before the holidays, no bare ground, but we weren't walloped like Wisconsin, our baleful neighbor.

Currently reading: Fanny by Erica Jong. I read Fear of Flying too late, without guidance to appreciate it, and passed it along short thereafter. Groundbreaking then, it wasn't surprising to me, this Women's Studies minor, this girl who loved her GLBT Lit classes, this girl whose favorite poet is the visceral Sharon Olds. But I can appreciate what she's trying to do, can admire the rollicking adventure of her heroine. I can also brace myself as she capitalizes all the nouns in some kind of farce of 18th century Literature, though when she gets to listing, my eyes start to swim a bit.

Currently dreaming: A few nights ago, I dreamed I had my heart removed during surgery. I could get up, walk around, with an empty chest cavity, and though I felt woozy, I knew I had some time before it needed to be replaced. I was in some kind of gray skyscraper, and my principal and my mother were to help me back from the lobby to the operating room, but there was some distraction, and a low level panic began to rise up, flush my cheeks.

My spring soundtrack: Regina Spektor. I don't know why, but last spring, just as the snow melted, just as the world became nubby trees and bulbs pushing up through loam, I would listen to her CD over and over again, hopeful for the future. I also think so much about good educational memories: high school English classes, workshopping in college, that first semester at the U of MN and how good it was and how free I felt, independent of that safe apparatus that is family and childhood friends. There's something about her songs that reminds me of reading. I wish I could explain, but I think of those summer reading lists, of thick Russian novels, of reading belly down in the grass, of the sun shining on the page.

are you listening?

2008-03-10T21:27:00.001-05:00

Capitol Address:
2300 N. Lincoln Blvd. Room 332
Oklahoma City, OK 73105
(405) 557-7348.

District Address:
2713 Sterling Ave.,
Oklahoma City, OK 73127.

Email: sallykern@okhouse.gov

or

srkern@cox.net

Originally spotted on my sister's blog. Infuriated, I clearly had to pass it along.

CSA

2008-03-09T12:47:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, we bought our first (half) share of a CSA, Kindred Spirit Farm, in a neighboring town. If you are interested in finding a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) in your area, click here. Ryan (husband) and I have been trying to refocus our purchasing, to keep it local, to make a move from wasteful to conscious. See, it's one thing to want to declutter your house, to desperately hate your own pack-rat behavior, and yet another to overstuff the garbage cans that head to landfills. I'm happy to throw, to donate, to move things out to live a more simple life, but even more so, using what we have is important. And giving back to the community, appreciating those that dig into the earth and respect it at the same time.

Looking forward to: touring the farm, photographing that part of the world, experiencing community, eating absolutely fresh vegetables, perhaps even picking up some of their roving.

I think, the mind playing gods have settled a bit. I am thinking back to Stephanie's questions, and I think in these, I will find my answer. I will meditate on all of this for a bit, discover what the future is calling, and hope to make those concrete decisions, move on, anticipate the luck of next year. My fingers are fiercely crossed that I rise up from the wait list, that there is a place for me at the U of MN. But this new distraction has kept the ping ponging still--the worry of low res versus FSU. I may need to return to the debate, but for now, just hope.

A few green links:
- Low impact living. Learn how you can change your impact.
- Terra pass. Try to make up for the commute. Restore the balance.

minnesota book awards: reader's choice

2008-03-08T10:17:00.000-06:00

Hello all. As you may or may not know, a dear friend of mine has published a gorgeous book called music for landing planes by. Not only is it receiving great response by readers, but it's also rising in the ranks critically as well. In fact, it's been nominated for a Minnesota Book Award. And there is a Reader's Choice Award as well, which we can vote on all of March. So I encourage you to VOTE for Eireann's book! All you have to do is scroll down on the page and click on her book. Not only is this wonderful for a friend, but if she wins, she would beat out other books as well, showing that poetry does indeed still matter. (A very important concept to me these days.) So go out of your way for poetry this month.

Friday Flickr Favorites: On the Page

2008-03-07T14:49:00.001-06:00

Click the links below to see each photograph individually:

1. unexpectedly, 2. should I or should'nt I ?, 3. Perhaps..., 4. three trees, 5. ACEO- Girl No. 1, 6. puzzle cover, 7. glisten sea, glisten, 8. spring, 9. bear, 10. Untitled, 11. words_under_leaf, 12. notebook

I am feel quiet, drawn inward today. As if this week of high emotions, panicked and tormented attempts at decision making has worn me out flat.

Tomorrow: First meeting for a new Writer-to-Writer session. Did I mention I got in? I did. This one is on bookmaking, manuscript shuffling. After, dinner with friends.

Sunday: Writing from the Visual Arts with Jude Nutter (who was my first Writer to Writer mentor). A relief to be with someone who has confidence in my writing; I can stop this mental ping pong with my own self doubt.

I am looking forward to the calm of the weekend. I hope to read a thick book. Just read I Know This Much is True and have moved on to Wally Lamb's other tome, She's Come Undone. I'm trying to read all the books I don't think I'll give another go, so I can strip down the bookcase, finally be rid of one hulking mammoth in the dining room. Maybe actually clear a path to get around the table.

Happy weekend, all. xox

hope is the thing with feathers

2008-03-06T12:46:00.000-06:00

I learned that I am at the top of the waitlist at the University of Minnesota. My gut roils in hope; I can hardly keep my hands still. It's too much to be so close. It would be such a perfect combination of all the things I want for next year. Please please cross your fingers for me. Hope that someone finds an offer that works better for him or her, just one person. Let me have this, this hope.

Green Week (3)

2008-03-05T10:46:00.000-06:00

This is how my brain looks, I imagine: like the bottom of a pool when the light comes in, that laser circus, that gorgeous flickering, fleeting light. It's strange because I had applied to so many schools so that I could have options, but now I have six (with still many verdicts out), and it torments me. But Kelly told me: just celebrate this very fact for a while. Don't stress too much about making a choice; enjoy the privilege of having those choices.

OK. Will do.

This morning I woke up to light snow. I know it's the beginning of March, quiet March, March of muck and mud and in-like-a-lion, but that fresh layer of snow is always so magical. It's fluffy (and on top of a layer of ice, still slick)--easy to sweep off the windshields, easy to romp about for the pups. (I do wish we'd get a bit more, enough to have a snow day, a quiet day of work for us.)

Green links of the day for green week:

- Have everything? Give the gift of trees. I used to have fifty of these planted every year in honor of my husband's birthday, but haven't done so in a while. Perhaps it's time to renew the tradition.
- Eco mall: the "real" mall gives me shivers, but there seem to be some good things here.
- No impact man: I've linked to this before, but here's a blog of someone trying to live without any kind of negative environmental impact. Yup, he's that guy.

Green Week (2)

2008-03-04T20:14:00.000-06:00

It's the little bits that are a relief to me. Succulents make the winter so much easier, I think. We have three lined up at our sink, and I've just turned them, as they sway toward the sunlight. The biggest celebration for me is when the grass starts to turn. Believe me, I will be out there on my belly with my macro lens, soaking it all up.

Today I was a "guest speaker" in the AP Lit classes--a guest poet, that is. I led them through a lesson on word choice, having them do two exercises, and explicating a few poems of my own. The later hour in the day, 6th, was a bit more lively, a bit goofier. It was a bit strange to talk about myself as a writer without feeling timid, but I think I pulled off the confidence bit. Why yes, I suppose I am a poet.

No closer to any kind of decision, but that is no surprise. Yesterday was surreal, and today I would go from feeling very confident about one path for next year, then, ten minutes later, completely confident about choosing the exact opposite. At this point, I don't need to decide, but I'd like to just put the choices on little slips of paper, wrap a treat around them, and see which Zephyr dives for first. Let fate chose. I'm never been one to make decisions.

It's a quiet night. I'm going to go upstairs early, read myself to sleep. My favorite sort of evening.

Green shopping: Check out Patina's green section. I especially love the bags that shout out, "Shop with a reusable bag, b*tch!"

Links for today's green post: Daily clicks, which includes hunger, breast cancer, child health, literacy, rainforest, and animal rescue. Another easy (and free!) way to donate to causes.

Also: Yesterday, oury caller ID had a mysterious "Maine" phone number that looks close to Stonecoast's phone numbers. Could it have been a third acceptance? Dare I even allow my ego that kind of wandering? No call today, so maybe not.

!!!

2008-03-03T20:34:00.000-06:00

This is where I tell you just how much my brain is buzzing.

Came home today to an acceptance package from Pacific University (another one of those top-five low-res programs), which brought my tally up to five. :)

Then, hopped on the forums (because I'm a masochist) and discovered that Minnesota has (probably) rejected me, which should have flattened me, but it didn't. I took about a year's worth of MFA courses as an undergraduate there, so in a sense, I can say I've sampled Minnesota. Minnesota, an hour away. It would have been so good, so easy.

And, if you know me, you can know how easily I spiral into self-doubt. Despite five (five!) acceptances to excellent universities, and despite a phenomenal post-observation with my principal, I kept thinking... well this, is terrible to say, but sometimes I think I'm a bit wasteful. A no-talent, waste of space kind of person, as if I was unworthy of so much--I kept thinking, Look at me, lying in bed, reading some escape book, not even doing anything important. I thought you wanted to be someone who left your mark on the world somehow? (Sometimes, really, I just hate those voices in my head.)

As I was falling asleep for a nap, which I desperately needed, I was roused by a phone call. From Mark Winegardner. At FSU.

!!!

So now my brain is buzzing, buzzing, buzzing. I have called all of my relatives and nattered on and convinced myself of one thing, then the other, got excited about all else and back again. Chelsea says to sleep on it, Kelly says to call her and cry (cry! seriously, because big decisions like this are hard and with a lot of consequences) and my husband is taking me out to dinner where we'll talk about what life might be like if we lived on opposite ends of the country for three years. Or which of the low-res programs might best suit me and my teaching. Or whether or not we could just become hermits and move to Alaska.

Green Week (1)

2008-03-03T19:16:00.000-06:00

I am joining Emily for a week of celebrating green, partly out of our exasperation with winter, but I also love it because of the season (hello, St Patrick's Day!) and the environmental changes I'm attempting to make in my life and in my home. I have wanted to add more eco-conscious links and tips to my blog, and this is the perfect excuse. I've purchased an eco-friendly home guide (switching over cleaners, using less electricity, etc.), and I thought I would make an effort here.

Going along with my adoration of buying straight-from-the-artist, I thought I'd start off with a few etsy finds: environmentally friendly make up removers :: recycled notebook :: cozy pads :: re-usable food bag :: lettuce crisper :: green way baby wear :: floor cleaning cloths :: tiny hineys :: just the flax napkins :: coffee cozy :: coffee cozy II :: reusable produce bag :: organic bamboo wipes :: dog leash

Green week link of the day: Care2. You can click every day and sponsors donate to different causes. There's also a daily action, where you can pledge to join in on environmentally friendly changes.

those winter sundays

2008-03-02T14:22:00.000-06:00

It is cold, it is winter still, here in Minnesota, and Robert Hayden's title of his poem "Those Winter Sundays" keeps roaming in my mind (just as Emily Dickinson's phrase "a certain slant of light" hopped around in my head, finally settling here).

Here's a little bit of happiness: I may proclaim my absolute love and luck with my husband, and just how much he makes my heart go pitter-pat, but I don't always have evidence of our contentedness by means of witness. Yesterday, we were engaging in the very mundane act of grocery shopping when the woman behind the meat counter made a comment about how much fun we seemed to be having simply being together. And it was true: laughing, holding hands, whatnot. We are nearing nine years together this summer, much beyond that fabled seven year itch, and one might think we'd be bored with one another, but it is not so. I am undoubtedly devoted to this man who has been my cheerleader since day one, and I cannot believe how lucky I am to be with him. I can only hope I bring some fraction of happiness to him as he does to me.

Other lucky things:

There's a certain level of honor when the swap hostess picks you for her swap partner. Blue Yonder, one of my favorite bloggers, and someone living in my sister's hometown, is hosting a book / homemade bookmark swap. I'm intimidated and thrilled. (If you haven't visited her blog, you really ought to... though be prepared to be sucked in!)

In the spirit of luck: Pay it forward...

So long ago, I was one of the first three commenters on another beautiful blog, full instrumental. And the deal was this: first three commenters, receive a little something, with the promise of paying it forward.

With that in mind, the first three commenters will receive a little postcard gift from me, and, of course, much love for reading this darn blog. But even more, after the first three general commenters, the first three lurkers will receive an even bigger postcard gift, so comment away, first timers! (I am always curious as to who might be visiting here without leaving a note!) And it's handy to have an email address, so I can contact you for a regular address, though linking me to your blog works too! The only catch is that you then must "pay it forward" in some way...

(If you don't feel comfortable leaving your email in my comments, just post a hello! in the comments and email me at acertainslantoflight at hotmail dot com.)

Starting tomorrow: green week, hosted by Emily of shining egg.

there is little i can do, except love this world

2008-03-02T11:03:00.000-06:00

Images from hibernation meditation and from yesterday's trip to Hay Creek.

lazy saturdays

2008-03-01T17:37:00.000-06:00

Last week my beloved Emily came to town for the afternoon and she brought these adorable little loaves of bread she had baked that day. There is something about bread like this, the cross between muffin and the standard loaf, that makes me so happy. I think it's all a part of that winter comfort--chowder, hearty bread, warm chai, pancakes.

And I look to summer's comforts: lemonade, so many fruits (my favorites: raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, peaches, apricots, plums, kiwi... I should stop now, yes?), sprouts, squash, zucchini, grilling, fresh asparagus.

Today, my husband and I took the dogs to Hay Creek, our first adventure in the winter months. I'm still up to my ears in yeech, but the sun is out, and I'd been indoors the past two days, blowing my nose and moaning in bed. Blue skies again! Clouds have begun to roll in (thank goodness we went around noontime), but for a while there, all was sunny and blue blue blue. Minnesota is known for those gray winter skies, so any patch of sun is a blessing. A whole afternoon of it is glorious.

I've been inspired recently by Shari's by the water's edge set on flickr. I keep thinking of that color: blue. And the ways in which nature can be gorgeous just before spring. Before it all hatches, sprouts. The lingering of hibernation, quiet contemplation. So I have a little hibernation meditation set up on flickr for my own images, those etheral, fleeting moments.

Good things:
- World's Best Cat Litter (biodegradable!)
- In Like a Lion; Out Like a Lamb: cupcakes and stuffed creatures
- photo handcrafted notebooks: simply photo + mischievous meg
- Kate Nash, "Foundations"
- crochet art
- Abigail Percy's ginkgo prints

Currently:
- Currently reading: I Know This Much is True by Wally Lamb
- Currently watching: Beowulf and my husband play The Simpsons on the Wii
- Currently drinking: Leinenkugel's Honeyweiss (husband claims the new label makes it look like a girlie beer--I told him it kind of was a girlie beer)
- Currently missing: Kelly and her baby-belly
- Currently hoping: being a lamaze partner (I'm selfish, move out the way, Richard)