And Thoreau Must Be Credited For One More Blog Entry

Emily, so glad to know you are also a Thoreau fan. Anyone else out there? What are your favorite quotes?

Oh, and just as a sidenote, I got to meet the amazing Emily in person last week at my friend, Edge's, birthday party. It's such fun when I get to make my pretend-internet friends into my real friends. And she is even nicer in person than online. *Waving* Hi, Emily!

So, I have been reading a lot of poetry lately -- Ted Kooser, William Carlos Williams, Walt Whitman, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Wordsworth, Dickinson...

And I came across this little poem by Thoreau that I had never read:

My life has been the poem I would have writ,
But I could not both live and utter it.

Just perfect, isn't it? I have written bits and pieces in a similar vein -- lines about wanting to live my life with the candor, care and caprice with which a poet chooses each word, lines reminding myself that I will have no poetry to write if I do not choose to truly LIVE my life right now.

But, poetry is a bit of a disease for me. Or a tick. Writing a poem or two each week is almost involuntary. I just can't help myself.

This blog, however, is an entirely different matter. Sometimes I feel like writing here, sometimes I just think I ought to shut it down for good and stop pretending to be a blogger. As for posts about my life and the goings-on of our family (though I know this is what many of you come here to read) I often feel to write a la Thoreau:

My life has been the blog I would have writ,
But I could not both live and publish it.

These days it seems I only come here when I have something to say or something strikes my fancy. I hope you will forgive my lack of cute kid pictures and newsiness. I'll get to it eventually.

Until then, I'm busy trying to live my poems and blog posts and to write poems that will hopefully be good and poems that are just silly and probably will never go anywhere -- like this snippet I wrote at 2am last week in the middle of a VERY long poem that turned out to be positively dreadful when I read it the next morning.

But I think this part's a keeper at least for the fact that it makes me chuckle:

I could believe entirely
each theory of evolution --
almost.

That man descends from ape
cannot cram its way inside my head
though I have witnessed many modern men
who seem intent on proving the claim
by making it clear that the transition
isn’t universally complete.

I hope you are all well. By the way, I have been considering sort of merging this and my (now defunct and even more neglected) poetry blog. Would any of you be interested in having a "Poetry Tuesday" or something like that where I post a poem I am liking each week?

Online Surveys & Market Research

Lalalala

Still writing away on my novel. I've got two or three rough chapters finished.

On another note, I think Coco may now have Thrush. First Herpangina, now this. Poor little guy. I'll be calling Dr. Mumford the Magician in a few minutes.

But look at how cute Coco is. This picture was taken last Friday.



And guess what I found today?

A drive-through market! After my sadness at the loss of my dearest Grocery Guys, I think I may try this market out and see what I think. Anything to avoid the torture that is grocery shopping with four children.

Soap Opera Sunday MIA

I'm terribly sorry, but I am going to have to finish the second installment of last week's Soap Opera Sunday next week.

I am busy working on a novel that I've been wanting to write for years. It's really flowing.

What can I say?

When the muse is in, the muse is in. I'm afraid that if I take a break to tell you more about Nate right now, that she'll go away.

Perhaps if I get done with what I'm doing and find time to finish up Nate's story tonight I'll do it.

If not, please accept my apologies. :)

Working Toward Beautiful

The bleach has not made it out of the closet yet, even though everyone is back to normal now. (Well, Scud's nose may still be broken, but...) As happens often, my poet self has subjected my housecleaning self to her will. If only I could spin the magic of a lovely, clean house in words. Trust me, people would be begging to tour my home at all hours. :) If I could learn to give my full attention and joy to my home the way I give it to my poetry, life would be different around here. But, alas, I must embrace the gifts I have and hope to continue developing other abilities.

The mop bucket really will find its way out of hiding today.

Promise.

For now, I want to share something I wrote today. It is long. It's rough, but it made me feel happy and wriggly and light. I hope it does the same for you.

Working Toward Beautiful

I was never that kind of pageant girl.
My mother didn't cake my face with makeup
or dress me like a Vegas show girl
at five years old.
But I do remember standing in the hall,
playing fives with Daddy
just before I pranced onto the stage
in the ballroom of the Marriott.

And I can still recall
growing up surrounded
by What gorgeous eyes she has.
and What a pretty little girl.
Thank heaven for my mother
who cocooned me in gentle reminders.
What matters it that you're beautiful inside.
What matters is how you treat people.
And my vanity was kept in check.
Until I turned fourteen
and I was very vain.

But soon I knew.

I didn't want to be a vase
beautiful to look at but mostly pointless
if not graced by flowers
of kindness, knowledge,
strength, serenity.

And so I spurn the pages of Glamour,
dismiss the beauty tips in Vogue
and look for a higher paradigm of loveliness.

Like Doris, who once told me
I am grateful for the life I've lived,
words that didn't need to be uttered.
They were written in the stillness of her blue eyes
and in the skin around them
carved through, like clay,
with rivulets of joy and pain.

And gentle Clara, crowned by snow white hair,
her blessed hands bear the spots of age.
Her fingers are bent, spindly,
a testament to tireless hours,
holding fourteen children,
kneading bread dough with love,
wisely canning peaches.
I'm sure those hands have dried a million tears.

And Linda, whose carriage calls out volumes
about loving the moment,
feeling satisfied with what is.
Her deep voice lulls and comforts,
each word singing songs
of compassion and understanding.

These women know secrets
that beauty editors will never tell.

So now I stand,
staring at my reflection in a stolen moment,
making peace
learning to love
a waist gone soft,
and hips spread wide,
stretch marks running over all
like lines of a map
showing the journey I've taken
giving life to four souls,
loving and losing an angel.
Breasts no longer firm and buoyant,
but hanging low and soft
from years of tender service
as babes grew to children.
I smile at the silver
streaking liberally
through waves of mahogany.
Squinting, I search for wrinkles
around my eyes
in my forehead.
What stories they call back to me
of care and concern, love, patience, worry.
I notice for the first time,
my eyelids are more wrinkled, sunken
than they were a decade ago
and gladly embrace the wrinkles
that form canyons on both sides of my mouth.
I love what they tell me.
I've smiled often, and generously,
laughed deep, throaty laughs
and witch-like cackles
every day.

Examining this version of me,
I silence voices of
Where have I gone?
and cocoon myself once more
in gentle reminders of what really matters.

I'm getting there.

Want to Know a Secret?

It's a secret about writers.

They write.

Okay, no big secret, but I'm wondering lately. I consider myself a writer. I'd like to consider myself a serious writer. But, do blogs count? Do they really?

I've certainly developed a strong sense of voice here. But, I really want to spend my time writing marketable things.

And poetry.

Ahhhhhh....... the poetry!

I went to a poetry group last night at our local library and it was heaven.

I came home and whipped out 5 stanzas of a poem I've been struggling with for weeks.

Just had to share.