breaking news : humility, space, glue, clouds over lakes

humility in space story

finn and i made woods for ellie last week: glue and fabric.

this is our new house, a big solid space-house:

as i mentioned i might do, i started a grateful notebook:
hung things in new rooms:

and i felt the sudden sense that humility was, and always had been, like a wind breaking across your face and especially your mouth as you are trying really hard to breathe in and not lose saliva (and i liked it, if i could only invite it)::

there have been walks around grey's lake, a good walking place, look at those clouds, look at that boy:

double seahorse still life in new bedroom:
owl, curtain:

space! have i mentioned it?i do have a new attic room for to write in and listen to records in and play guitar in and hang up yoko ono posters, in!:::::::;

here is where i was beginning to get the attic studio ready (a before picture):

oh, here are the animals that play in the woods we made for ellie, finn + glue and voila:

space! humility! the acts of teaching and writing and being! all, as usual, on my mind (this is the after):::

iowa state fair/ hopeful august experiment

::::::last week we went to opening day at the state fair, supposedly the best state fair! (i myself did grow up near the illinois state fair grounds.. .)::::::::::;anyway, we saw the sheep getting :judged?: and of course a cow and we ate the fair food, and finn rode  rides, including the motorcycle carousel type thing::::and there was also the miniature electric train museum::::all in all, a fine fair day--

also, it is august, so i, right now have::::::::;

  A Modest Proposal for Myself!

 Be kind to others.
And be in time and space!
Actually really—

  Happiness Maps// ///Half-birthday Ten Day Experiment 
 August 14th through 24th 
(For on August 24th I will be thirty-five and a half) 

Nonetheless here I am in the storm of my brain
 A small hole here that you carve out of a map
 And peer through the map to the other side
 I will do experiments with maps in these ten days
 And remember those poems you assigned me last summer?—
Oh, I will work on those
I will be on a poem vacation, by which I mean,
These ten days are my vacation and my poems are taking me on vacation
I will be influenced by the collected poems of Laura Riding and I will indeed quote from that book in a few minutes here
 I will also be influenced by the book The Way of a Pilgrim and the pilgrim continues his way (which is, I am told by the front cover, “a classic of Russian spirituality”)
Also the book of Mary Ruefle’s collected lectures Madness, Rack, and Honey will undoubtedly be around And what else?
I will hopefully take a one day pilgrimage myself,
walking all day on the hiking-biking-woodsy trails that go all around this city of Des Moines (“some monks”) And really I hope to just keep having some days of exploring this city--
I will write down one thing I am grateful for at least every day perhaps along with my family—a grateful list, a journal—
And in lieu of a real vacation we will spend the day at some point on Saylorville Lake, at the beach—
And I will of course also be readying my syllabi for the teaching I shall be doing starting August 24th. . .
Oh, I hope to sing songs and learn one or two folk songs via tablature on the internets—
And all of this, and to share bits of it with you, on this blog!
 Obviously I am experimenting with happiness and my days and creations
and the thought of this, itself, makes me happy—
And the thought of hanging more things up around this new house,
Snuggling in and painting and drawing
 Trying deliberately to catch my bad thought cycles of anger /fear /shame / blame
—trying to catch them and nip them in the bud, at least re-direct them
Trying to set a daily intent of one small good thing
Each small thing—
Oh, Concentrate
Make my bed
Do nice things for those I love with no expectations
And you should know these thoughts today right here are very influenced and inspired by this list on apartment therapy right here :::::::::::

And influenced also by these ideas from the introduction to The Poems of Laura Riding:

 “Laura Riding understood, and said repeatedly, that there is only one way for the world to change, to become ‘better’, and that is for ourselves to change, individually, and to do so now, not in some tomorrow, our world being a multiple of ourselves, each. This is the principle governing her poetry, her work in its entirety, and her relationship with her fellows.”

 And this next thought from Laura Riding (in which she refers to her own “deliberate stepping out a high window in 1929 in the attempt to end what had become an impossible situation”)—made me think of you Melissa, what you said about how we have it all figured out in our poems, at least so it seems, even if really our lives are chaotic:

 “Standing in that room was a quick result—I left that room, by the window of course, and poems came with me. Or rather I went out with poems. I hope you will understand about poems. They are why I am telling this, because as life it reads all wrong but as poems all right.”

 And, lastly, again from Laura Riding:

 “Poetry bears in itself the message that it is the destiny of human beings to speak the meaning of being. . .”

the way things happen/ halt and crouch and pray and think

home story/ poem story i have moved so many times and i never wish to move again but i know i probably will. i can hardly face that thought. but i don't have to. right now: we are here. in des moines, iowa, living near the des moines river, near downtown and a bookstore called "plain talk" that serves coffee-- that i'm excited to check out but haven't yet, near the amazing union park, with a carousel and a rocketship playground that finn calls "my rocketship"; here, living in this city that has bike trails coming out its ears. seriously, i haven't itched for a bike like this in a long time; one could take daytrips around the city on these trails! and did i mention? finn has turned 4, suddenly, in this very town, the one we just moved to!? and i made him an explorer cape, and a whale, as requested. and this summer has been a blur of the amazing poet friends and readings and giving a lecture and wine on the porch and watching kids and trying not to go crazy and my book coming out and having no money and surviving and worrying and MOVIng, now, like usual, like usual. a blur, a literal blur. i have a home now though,wonderful home, and so grateful i am, and there're good feelings. i want to just halt and crouch and pray and think. that's what i've wanted to do for a while. i hope to post more now, to keep posting; i hope to get in healthy rhythms; i hope to enjoy this life and the moments in it; i hope to write in the attic like a madwoman, a goodwoman, a batwoman. i hope to write letters. be in friendships wholeheartedly. i shall stop eating sugar and walk. all of that talk. i still have it and i can say it and mean it, and, i mean, i can do it. only just in moments. and i will and i shall. new beginning, homes, poems, people, love. love, i mean, love, whirlwind friendship drench, ah, i can hardly take it, "To touch my person to someone else's is about as much as I can stand"--and practicing this: practicing courage (finding grit in me), friendship (finding where love is in me), love (finding out who i am as a friend to me), trust(patience, tenderness,careful care, kindness):: and dreaming/wondering about what time is. and also thinking about autumn, around the bend, after this hellish heat drought summer--i do love you, all the world, the green, the sun, i do. and i love autumn too. we're friends ain't we!?! (and here i rub your head with my head)

scatterfish and enormous normous

tenderness story/ ancient runes introduction i want to post a special post soon, of all finn photos: because he has been taking them. first somehow here is the story, though, of tenderness time, of allowing yourself sacred time. real time. space and time. a few things i have learned in the past six months or so (hopefully i have learned, i mean)and hopefully they will help you too maybe, i mean, i mean: --Drink two glasses of water when you first wake up! --Walking is always good. Doubly so, in woods. Walking by water is good. --Honoring yourself & your own creative impulses is good. making space and time to do that. --It is helpful to think of the spaciousness of your own mind, in order to "make space and time" also: Be tender towards yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees or stars. You are enough. There are peaks and valleys. There is joyfulness at the base of things. Loss is never resolved; there is no such thing as the resolution of loss. Acknowledging that loss and sadness are a deep sacred part of life, just like happiness and peace, will help you. Acceptance of love and death and anger and illness. Nothing will go exactly as planned. Nothing is for sure. Life is worth it. Clarity won't necessarily fix things. Love isn't solveable or conjureable-- love is in the exchange of love, an alchemical thing. "We are what's important" (from Brene Brown's Ted Talk, "The Power of Vulnerability") People, friends, loved ones: We are each other's reasons. The purpose of life is to live with love and connect to each other. It is the purpose of a dream. And love is gold. At times I've wondered where it is. It's here, it's here, it's here. . . the actual tenderness story the boat and the sea open up before us. star, moon, irises. transit of venus is just like us! we are a freckle of love traveling across the sun. we work hard for time, space, and an understanding of happiness. but also, "the value of play is that it frees us from the effort of learning, frees us to learn as children learn. . ." (from the book of runes). we paint watercolors and all is well and joyful. the world shows its abundance, abundantly. finn, of course, gets a haircut in early june. we walk around the neighborhood. the love we build appears to continue on without us, and with us on its back. i draw the rune of joy and light: odin's rune. mother's day is the best mother's day. i walk, feel, write, and paint. we plant a garden and miraculously plants grow. the boy loves his dog.we pick red ripe strawberries and stain our fingers: we make a pie. the boy has wings. we are visited by an amazing uncle bran and eat delicious food. the boy makes a chalk drawing called scatterfish and enormous normous. summer is wading pools, swings, the fountain in downtown iowa city with the wonder twins, and long good days, fireflies at the end. decisions, runes, trying to understand what to do next. reading and writing and crafting resolutions: i always make them in summer. it doesn't matter. the garden grows and i paint and think about moving. when i think about love, it is my friends as children, at the start of themselves, that i think of. that is the actual tenderness i mean: thinking about others not because they're like us but because they are us. i won't eat you. i will paint some more. there will be soil crumbling, i will know your aches and you will know mine. our aches glue us. we are what's important. i know that one can live this way, hopeful and grateful. one can also live negative and doubtful. you have your gifts, which wake up. it has awoken in finn that he sings: makes up songs to himself. it has awoken in his friend ani (whom we spend the majority of our days with, too) that she is funny and tells long ecstatic absurd surreal jokes. have you ever heard the weirdest humor of the three-year-old? the rune of joy and light is the rune in which understanding is transmuted from knowledge. empathy is more interesting than narcissism. what is yours will come to you. i have not failed: the situation is joy and light. persist, said the may calendar, all month long. i'm trying. "I keep trying and I keep failing" (Arielle Greenberg) "Make up stories until you find one you can live with." (Lidia Yuknavitch) there are infinite ways to make a family, a home, a self.