Idle/Wise

I am never idle, it seems. Even when I am still, my mind is going over emails and invoices and conversations. Thought requires this time, it feels like sometimes I am even doing this in my sleep.

Busy.

I keep myself busy. I tell myself that the good work we are doing, raising children and growing food for others in our community, is work worth my time. Oh, it is!

Still, the moments, it feels like it was just a moment, I had to myself with my own thoughts last month have stayed with me. It was in this time that I could refocus, polish, and really come to face what my goals and dreams are for my own creative being. This is important. I am an individual in a family unit and not just a collective identity. We are not a hive. Nurturing each child to be their individual person is important, but I do not have to forgo nurturing myself too (not instead of).

So today, I challenge you, what is your core being? What is your dream or goal that has lingered in a dusty box or in a drawer or on shelf in the shadows of work or motherhood? Why not take it out a bit and look at it?

Taking a moment or two for gratitude, pausing to feel the happy or the sad, just breathing....it is a necessary part of being human. Why else are we here, living this life, and given the intellect to reflect and think on it? It is in the quiet moments that poetry is happening, if only I can bridge the neurons to the ink and paper in time before the wisps are gone like warm breath into the cold winter chill.

And with that, I log off and go work on my dreams for 30 minutes. I can do that. I have that much quiet and focus left in me today. Happy is that gift of a solid block of time to work.

Criticism and Nodding Heads

I am used to people cheering what I do. I have a fantastic support system. I have friends, loyal and sweet, that offer encouragement and do nice things for me. My kids think I am beautiful and smart. My husband thinks I am sexy and smart and dangerous. Awesome.

I am used to criticism. Every semester I get a student or two sending me poorly grammared angry emails telling how I am the worst person to ever teach, should be fired, and the fact that they did 8 of the 40 assignments and paid their own tuition is enough for a passing grade! Oh, I get called many colourful though not imaginative names and accused of many trespasses, and I have come to accept it gracefully and respond kindly and firmly.

I have had fall outs with friends and family, so I also know what it is like to have people I care about think poorly of me or what I endeavour to do for my life work (parenting style, is usually the crux here). I am an outlier and I know what observations come with occupying that territory.

No, the criticism I was not prepared for was none of these.

Re-reading the revision notes from the writer's retreat I found a small box with a note suggesting that I work on sentence structure and get a good grammar book.

Ouch.

It hurt deeply because the line drawn from the box to the comment was not to the age old Oxford comma complaint, nor to anything arguable. It was to a long run on sentence with no punctuation at all. That's how I write poetry, most of the time, e.e.cummings style.

The problem with that is that I am not Edward Estlin. My work has been much improved since taking this to heart. Though, many poems are still suited to that, it is more intentional now instead of just free flowing.

My relationship with revision has been tumultuous. My freshman year in college, when asked to revise, I laughed and said that changing what I had written was a betrayal, an adultery to inspiration and muse. I would not so stain her (my muse's) dress with such ink and blood. Oh the dramatic ego of youth! That particular professor got me to agree to at least pay attention to the strength of end words and then let me be.

No one challenged me after that. Until now. That is a blessing.

That is the problem with having a youthful talent though, it is all impressive intuition and no skill. Now, I can laugh at that impish youthful poet, but it is a sad laugh. Sad, because I walked away from something I loved, something I was good at, because I was stuck and could not master the craft.

Now I know that I can never master such a fancy, but that doesn't mean I cannot enjoy it and improve my aim, brush stroke, and swordplay. Feet on the floor, I lunge and tarry daily now. Sure, fencing imaginary windmills is just that, but at the very least I am training.

So now revision is my training ground, an old lover I am getting to know again. Sometimes it is painful and lonely and full of regret, but here I am.

This is my happy. Doesn't really seem like it should be, right? I am happy to be standing in this harsh light, following a dream I thought was lost. No more regrets. Let's do this.

Day Five on the Island, Saying Goodbye

 

Saying goodbye was hard. There was a lot of hugging. Southerners hug a lot. There were tears. It was surreal leaving, loading bags on the boat, perfect weather. I even got a sunburn from the boat ride. The air was sweet and salty, like caramel.

Tucked away in my bag, a pirate's map to unlocking my own sabotages. So grateful for this time and place, like a rift, splitting open my own guts and revealing the landscape of my inner workings.

And so the journey home began.

Ossabaw Island, Day 4 Pictures

Ossabaw Island, Day 4, Sunrise

Today, I jumped out of the bunk beds, barefoot down the ancient wood floors, and quietly headed out to the docks. Every morning before, I was up and out here too late and other folks had already seen the pigs, scared them back into the marshes. Today, I was set.

Quietly, I put my footsteps in the soft part of the sand in the path, avoiding the crinkly fallen Palmetto leaves. I found fresh tracks, steaming pig dung, and I even heard some soft snorting the in grass. Alas, though, I did not lay my eyes on the elusive wild Ossabaw pig. Today is the last day of the workshop, tomorrow morning we load the boats and head back to shore and our families.

I, sad that I nearly caught my glimpse yet failed, sat on the dock and watched the sunrise. Sometimes, even when you do not get what you worked for, God lands another gift in your hands. The sunrise this morning, before the others stirred and the coffee started brewing, before the trade ships start yelling at each other in the passage waters, rumbling like thunder, this moment of peaceful quiet that even the wildlife pauses....this was my moment of prayer for the day. This is Ossabaw's cathedral.

Oh my heart aches for home and my babies. I am torn between this magical place and home, hoping to take a wee bit of the magic here home. That is what I asked for, to leave the regret I have carried in my jeans pocket for nearly two decades and bring home instead seashells and island talisman.

Ossabaw Day 3, More Thoughts

I know I already posted this picture, but I wanted to highlight it. Taking a black and white of trees is so terribly hard. All the greens just melt together! Today though the island was overcast, so I headed out. My computer needs to charge after workshop, so I plug it in and tell everyone I am going to charge me back up in the woods. We have to say where we are going in case we get eaten by alligators or some such.

Taking this picture wasn't hard, it was knowing what kind of lighting I needed and taking the opportunity. Getting out there in the woods, climbing the the forest walls, and taking it.

Poetry is like that too. You have to know the craft, get out there and take risks, and then just when the time is right.....reach out there and grab it. What is it they say? 99% of good fortune is being ready and working hard, the 1% is luck/timing? Yes. That's exactly right.

Today was a good day. I am having a very hard time settling down for sleeping. It is like I am at a summer camp run by immortals, the great writers of our time. I am in awe at the craft sessions, taking notes furiously. This is odd, even in college I doodled instead of notes. This time, this time I have something and I am working to find my way in the woods to happen upon the perfect light.

Pictures of Ossabaw, Day 3

Extra Pictures from Before the Island: Exploring Historic Atlanta With JJ Part One, The Mansion That Hunger Games is Being Filed At

Extra Pictures from Before the Island: Exploring Historic Atlanta With JJ Part One, the Ivy Hall

Conversation Chewing: Day Two at Ossabaw

Today I said something about how I like to be prepared for anything, plan for most things. Of course, life happens and you cannot be prepared for everything.

But I don't mean stockpiling groceries in a basement room, or carrying a years worth of band aids in my glove box.

I mean, if I can prepare myself mentally for the inevitability that unexpected things happen and be mindfully adaptable. I often run though my mind accident scenarios and escape strategies when driving and I used to think that if I could imagine it first, it couldn't happen. Silly, but I was a child. 

What would you do if a bear was in your path? Or an alligator? Or your car broke down in a blizzard? Or your family was 1000 miles away and something happened? What if?

I used to fight this mental exercise and get anxious. Now I use it, flex the muscle, use it for fodder in fiction. So when I say I am preparing for anything, this is what I mean. I am preparing to be mindful and adaptable.

With that thought? Here are the pictures for day two: