Delerium?

...crying where are we anyway, and who,and what, and why?

--Barbara Hamby "Delerium"

This is how I feel now

end of June 2018

world swirling around me

constant feeling we've lost

something valuable

despair, hopelessness, civil war?

violence

decisions affecting people

unexpected

civility? surrender? statis?

But little grassroot things

are happening, the brown

field may start showing

sprouts of green. Among the

angst there are voices

assuring us we can't give up,

there is a way. There is hope.

I reaffirm my place in this madness.

Start where I am.

Stand tall.

Less Than Six Weeks

Imagine my surprise yesterday when I looked at the calendar and realized I was already a third of the way through my summer break.  Less than six weeks left.

It isn't like I haven't been doing anything (although you can't tell, since I haven't written here much.)  I've been reading a lot, spending time with friends, and had a fabulous trip to Chicago.  I've been doing some serious re-tooling of my reading classroom, and that takes a lot of thinking time I don't have during the school year.

So, all good.

But still, with just six weeks left, I need to make some real effort toward the writing projects I have been dreaming about for months. Writing gets the writing done, not dreaming!

This called for a trip to Bunche Beach on a beautiful Sunday morning. This week I realized that I go to the beach when I need to set directions and be inspired.  I go to the woods and swamps when I need to quiet my mind. The beach was just the ticket!

The tide was in, so the water was gently lapping the shore.  When the water is higher up on the beach, it changes my vision of everything.  I stepped onto the beach and was immediately taken with this tree -- one I probably pass every time I'm there and never spend much time thinking about.

As I walked I thought about my writing projects and how to accomplish some kind of completed drafts by the end of my summer -- less than six weeks.

First, for the novelette, I am going to get what I can down this week. The project has been lagging as I struggled to figure out a certain section. But then I had an a-ha moment about what is going on with the character, and that helped me see that what I was searching for doesn't exist. Not going to explain any more of that here -- suffice to say, it helped me think of a way to move forward.  I am aiming to have a draft ready by July 1st to send to my writing buddies.

One goal down.  One more to go.

With the balance of time, I need to make serious progress on my novel in linked stories.  Part of my stalling on this was that I hadn't settled on a structure. But after working my way through Barbara Hamby's brilliant linked story collection Lester Higato's Twentieth Century, I'm committing to individual stories. Most linked story novels seem to have between 10-13 stories, so I'm going for drafting two-three a week.  By the time I return to work on August 3, I should have plenty of drafted material to revise and refine.

I have lots to do.  And I'm ready!

AWE #2

Air is cool, flowers blooming, trains and the

Windmill house on Gary Street, Wheaton

enticed us with her charms. On to the Big City!

AWE #1

Last year on vacation I wrote a series of REST poems. This week I am focusing on awe. I know no better way to keep my focus than to write.

Here is first entry:

Attached to the teaching life, I release

Windy City, here I come. My

entrance to a new time, a new direction.

Practicing Awe

When we take a fresh look at where we are, all we ever find is this present movement, 

not "in" the past or the future, but alive and happening Now.

-- Jeff Foster "In and Out of the Now?"

I came here today to get a post written before I leave on vacation. I was dismayed to see it has been over a month since I have written, but it was one helluva month.  I battled a cold virus that still has not gone away, got through the entire testing calendar, packed up my classroom, and ended the year collapsed in exhaustion.  I'm finally crawling back.

This morning I read a Twyla M. Hansen poem called "Believing" that helped me see how, despite the last couple tough months, I have been moving in the right direction, and I am ready for this adventure.

Her poem ends:

...next we will lie down, hands facing
up at our sides in shavasana, also known
as corpse pose, breathe,
and lose our selves to process,
same as the act of writing --
which Kafka once said is a form of prayer --
to move that airy life force
through this body and mind
in which I do believe."

This poem ending is my invitation to take a week away from my daily poem.  I will be heading to a place I've longed to return and discover all over again.  I am going as a WRITER -- this I know for sure. I am filling the well. I will practice AWE using my five senses.  Being Present. In the Present MOVEMENT!

I am leaving this lingering illness behind.

I will be rejuvenated and renewed.

Open to all possibilities.

A writer in the big city!