Category Archives: Writing

Summer Day, Summer Night (1)

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I can hear the crickets through the open windows. Sofia is snoozing in the bathroom sink. (I almost yelped the first time I walked in and saw her there, so unexpected, like finding a tiger in the bathtub.) Sable is asleep at the foot of the bed. My eyes are heavy, but I want to post this tonight. April 8th, a summer night for anywhere normal. I’m not used to the heat yet, so today’s 96 degrees or so felt hot, but the night is gentle, soothing warmth. Long luxurious day but going since early morning. Qi gong class, then celebrating my birthday with Mami and Auntie Gardi, then easy weekly grading and finishing my four daily things. The three of us walked to lunch, my yummy yellow lentil dal. Opened presents under the umbrella here in our courtyard, all bright colors, paper and fabrics, yellow tulips, orange star flowers in the red and orange metal pot. I made iced coffee, and they oohed and ahhhed the garden, enjoyed “my” birds. I think it was a grosbeak who came to the small tray feeder, then hopped into the palo verde before he flew away. I read they were passing through. Sofia played with the ties of Auntie Gardi’s blouse, cheered us all to see it. Mami got teary when they left. I remember crying every time I drove away from her house. I’d forgotten. Now she drives me to the train station. Their visit stretched the hours, no rushing, like summer days as a kid. Now I listen to the crickets in the rich dark, a sleepy, lucky 56-year-old who’s completed the first of her 56 posts.

Seven More to Go (49)

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This is my 49th post since I turned 55. Before I become 56, I have seven more to go. After falling so incredibly behind in my tumultuous year, I didn’t know if I’d be able to catch up. But now I can believe I’ll reach my goal. Forty-nine and seven, all those magical seven numbers. And I’ll become eight sevens soon. I’ve been trying to decide whether or not I want to have a theme for my 56 posts while I’m 56, or if I want to leave it wide open again for a second year in a row. So far I’ve alternated each year, chafing when I “narrow” things to a theme, floundering when I have no theme at all, no scaffolding. I know one year I want to build my year of posts from sleeping dreams, but I’m not sure I’m ready for that yet. I consider returning to my first blog, to nudging myself again to have new experiences and report on them here. Or I could write about the topic that’s grabbing me now, El Camino de Santiago de Compostela. Or pilgrimages as a whole. Or walking and noticing, being present and connected to the world. (These last three are all of a piece in my mind these days.) So I could write this coming year about the walks I take, or the walks I research or the walks I read about. Or maybe I can allow myself to let this next year be one juicy messy mish mash, be all of the above, even flash fiction added to the mix. And mix rhymes with 56, so maybe there’s a fun title alive in there somewhere waiting to emerge. I’m tossing it around now as I write this, cooked dinner in a bowl. No choices made yet, no drizzling of olive oil or sprinkling of cayenne. No nutritional yeast, no curry. Only the bright green of the bell pepper, dark brown of the mushroom, the tofu stark in contrast, resting against the blue sides of the big ceramic bowl.

A Jolt from the Universe (47)

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When I am posting the little flyers I’d made for the drop-in writing circle, I send off little hopes and prayers with them. May it be sweet and safe, I ask. When Laurie tells me she felt safe in our first circle, I hear that echo, send my thanks. And before we begin yesterday, the universe gives me a bit of a jolt I am pretty sure is tied to that same prayer, that same hope: sweet and safe. We’d opened the back doors of the hall, moved the big round table in front of them, sun and air beside us. It is just before eleven. I light a candle in the center of the circle. Laurie and Sharon are sitting at the table, and I’m standing beside it. A woman marches across the long hall, plants herself near Laurie’s elbow.

“Are you coming to join us?” I ask her.

“No,” she says. She stands where she is, a soldier at attention.

“Well, did you think you wanted to watch us?” I ask.

“Maybe,” she says.

“Well,” I say, “I’m not sure I’m comfortable with that.” I’d thought about this earlier. We were not looking for an audience.

I haven’t finished my sentence when she does an abrupt about-face and marches back across the hall. She has her arms at her sides, and she is flapping her hands back toward me as she walks, as though she can swat away my words, keep them from following her.

“Um, what is the flapping of the hands?” I ask. And, “Are you really not going to talk to me?” She keeps walking away, keeps flapping her hands in my direction. “I’d be happy to have a conversation with you about this,” I say.

She reaches the door at the other end. “Maybe,” I think I hear her say as she walks out again.

We are all a little stunned. I have to check. “Was I inappropriate in my response?” I ask. They say I wasn’t. I have to shake it out of me then, a kind of invasion I feel in my body. I wave my arms around in the air above the table. “Whoosh whoosh whoosh,” I say. A different flapping of hands, I think now. As best I can figure, this odd jolt is a message. I take it as encouragement and a reason to trust. Maybe it says we can keep our space safe no matter who comes along. And maybe it says, “Certain beings will be led away.”

Our First Circle (46)

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Our first writing circle was sweet sweet sweet. There were four of us, and we did two eleven-minute writing sessions. I loved what everyone wrote. They were vivid and filled with marvelous details. My critic was up, though, and grumbled in my ear when I was writing. It was hard to keep the pen moving, to resist crossing out words as I wrote. I think I never really “dropped down,” wasn’t able to let it come through me with any sense of ease. Was that because even though I said I didn’t want to be a leader here, even though I want to be only a participant, by virtue of instigating it, of bringing the prompts, of explaining the mechanics, I felt like I needed to “perform” at some acceptable level? Or was it the cup of green tea I couldn’t resist drinking before I arrived? Or could it have been only because I haven’t done this in a long time, because I had hopes, had expectations? I wanted to feel the magic that can happen on the page. It makes me sad I wasn’t able to surrender to it. I used to find my way there more often. It used to be easy, like walking through an open doorway, like being invited in to sip tea by the big window overlooking the lake. I told Laurie later how critical I felt about my own writing, how strong and beautiful I found the pieces they each read. “Beginners luck,” she said. She wrote a prose poem I hope she’ll work with more. She told me she’d felt safe there, and that was a boon for me, balm to disconcerted ears. It made me glad and grateful. I helped make that happen.

Sit—Write with Us (45)

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Thursday we’re going to meet at the community center to write. I’m thinking short, timed freewriting, what Natalie Goldberg calls “writing practice.” She’s known for saying, “Shut up and write,” though maybe more to herself than to others. I don’t like the shut up part, but I like the process. I’ll bring my collection of popsicle sticks, mostly Goldberg writing prompts and a smattering of others. I’ll bring my timer. We’ll write for ten minutes, or maybe eleven. Then we’ll read what we’ve written and go for eleven minutes more. I need to make a flyer, but I don’t worry about it. Laurie and I will begin on Thursday with whoever else hears about it and shows up. A drop-in group, I’ll call it when I write something up. I need this. I’m pretty sure I need this almost as much as I need sleep. So I’m glad we’re just going to begin, the hell with planning. I get to sit in a room with other people writing, our pens making scratching sounds as we scribble across the pages before us. I get to read my unedited words out loud, listen to what others have written, performing together the alchemy I may not have words for but believe in with all of me. Change both visceral and ethereal, the magic of spontaneous writing. I thank you in advance.

Being a Writer (41)

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The other night when I was walking it came to me I really am a teacher first. All these years, I’ve kept trying to reverse the sequence. I put “writer, teacher, artist” in my profile. But I put teaching first. How can I not? Right now I’m in the middle of the second week of a two-week intensive online training I am leading with one of my favorite colleagues. Today I am proud of myself because I manage to get my “morning” chores done only two or three hours later than usual. This is the first time in ten days. I lay the walnuts in the glass pan, put them in the toaster oven. I wash the strawberries, have them drying on a kitchen towel by the window. But I don’t make time to eat. When I finish making my third or forth set of rounds, answering questions online, I plummet. I feel sad and discouraged for no reason. I have the sense to eat my breakfast. It is almost 2pm. I realize I feel trapped inside my obsessive online checking in. I get afraid for going forward. How will I ever be able to be a writer if I let my teaching work gobble all my time? I remind myself in the past I was able to carve out more time for my writing. I tell myself I can do this again. I can. I am. I refuse to believe teaching and writing have to be mutually exclusive. But a voice hisses. “Are you sure?” They are such different modes. Writing asks us to surrender. But I won’t give up my dream. Being a writer is who I am. I’m a writer who’s teaching. Maybe one day I’ll be a writer who teaches less.

To the Waxing Light (35)

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my mini bouquet, sunflower, bougainvillea and marigolds

Have you noticed how far north the sun has already traveled across its annual trajectory? It keeps surprising me. It seems like it’s already more than halfway back toward the spot I watch it disappear behind the mountains in the height of summer, and yet we’re not nearly to the spring equinox which I’m thinking must be the halfway point in its path. One of my favorite holidays is Candlemas, or Imbolc. It falls on February second, Groundhog Day, and marks the midpoint between the winter solstice and the spring equinox. It’s one of the eight main pagan holidays, and it celebrates this growing light. This year for Candlemas I built a small altar with five candles. I don’t tend to follow any rules, but I chose five white tealights for the physical symmetry—I put one in the center—and because five is the human number. I picked flowers from my garden, used a baby food jar for my tiny bouquet. I meant to post to you on the holiday itself, but I went to see a play with my Auntie Christel, A Perfect Ganesh, and the Sunday slipped away from me.

shows the altar, candles, ceramic butterfly, wooden chicken, mini bouquet of sunflower, bougainvillea and marigolds

But I am loving this lengthening of the days. This year more than ever I seem to have trouble getting things done while it’s still light. I end up walking around our neighborhood in the dark wearing my bright pink lighted dog leash like a sash to keep me safe from bike riders. Or doing my qi gong in the courtyard, my dragon’s punch toward the rim of the mountains just visible in the early night. I am not sorry for these, am enjoying each one, even the yoga I did the other night with a lamp beside me on the ground to make sure I could see any bugs who might decide to wander over. But it lifts my heart to feel those extra minutes of light added to every day, to watch the settling of darkness moving back a bit each night. Here is to the waxing light.