Creating Me

Response to Invite to Write Ch-ch-Changes

Live the Life you Love

By Dana LaLonde

I am in the midst of changing my life in ways I'd only dreamed of. I have had a dream version of myself my whole life. I imagine many of us do.

I've always wanted to be a citizen of the world, stranger to none, lover of my fellow man. I have always wanted to go somewhere unfamiliar and call it home. I've always wanted to immerse myself in a life full of communal joy. I have visions of a house in the woods, jazz streaming through the yard, friends new and old passing through, celebrating the sweet joys that only creating community can bring.

I want to make the world my home and strangers my family.

I want to live in a tiny house in the Andes.

I want to take away all the comforts I cling to see what I really need.

I want to live in harmony with nature and an ancient culture.

I want to create a sustainable life on a small farm, minimizing my ecological footprint.

I need this. I need to be someone I am proud of.

In the end, we live the life we must.

We make the choices we can live with.

My whole life I've devoted to creating a normal, American suburban life. I did. I am a soccer mom, a teacher in my hometown, the proud mom of an American soldier. The problem is, I'm not normal; I'm a writer.

I've realized recently that my need to create new worlds on paper stems from my need to create a new world for myself. My life didn't suit me.

Thanks to various changes this year, another woman has moved seamlessly into my old life, giving me the opportunity to create a new one. I am thankful for this chance, for the opportunity to be unabashedly myself.

I have the opportunity to be the woman I admire. I have the opportunity to show my sons another way of being. I have the opportunity to create myself, on my terms, in my way. I have the opportunity to chase my dreams, giving my decade of former students an object lesson of living.

I can't wait to see who I become.

A Change Will Do You Good

Response to Invitation to Write #2: Ch Ch Changes by Laurie J. Kemp

People don't like change. They're resistant to it. That's what they say, right? Not me. I love change. In fact, without enough of it I feel stagnant and bored. My mother always called me a noodge. That's a Yiddish word for a person who bothers you, but my mom used it more specifically to connote that I had ants in my pants and always had to be busy and moving. "Don't be such a noodge," she'd say.

From my noodgie days as a child all the way through adulthood, few things have remained constant. I have been switching things up for years. I have for example, always enjoyed moving furniture around. Even as a child when my furniture was custom designed and built for my room, I would try to arrange it differently. Once we moved and I was in high school, I had an even bigger room with fewer pieces of furniture. But there was always a different corner or wall or open space in which to try my bed. At one point I remember angling it to jut out right into the center of my room.

Later, when I moved in with my husband, I can recall days when he'd come home from work and wonder what happened to all the furniture. The first time, he was downright amazed I could move all the heavy pieces by myself. Eventually, he caught on that when I got into the mood for a change, if there was a will there was a way. You can imagine what this does to your students when you are a teacher! I was forever looking for a better, more spacious, more effective way to move the furniture around. When things were feeling a little slow or boring in my class, I always knew a change-up in the furniture would make me feel better, usually the students too! These days, it's my office and the changes are less frequent, but I still rearrange where my computer is on my desk, or my bookshelves. When you're bored, or feeling restless, a little change would do you good. At least that's what Sheryl Crow said.

Rearranging furniture isn't the only way I like to change things up. After living in the same house for most of my childhood, and a second one in high school after my parents split up (Mom just sold this house after living there for 28 years- she doesn't dig change as much as I do), I lived in lots of different places. College of course doesn't count, but after graduation my husband and I moved in together and got married the following year. We lived in five different places- 3 apartments, 2 houses in three years. Then we had our son. Think that's change enough? We moved so many times our son didn't know what home meant. I'm just kidding. But our relatives sure did get aggravated with the inch-high stack of address stickers they had to keep placing over our spot in their address books (Thank Apple no one has those anymore).

When my son was four months old, we lived with my mom for a short time while we looked for a house. Then we bought a house, then we sold it (Are you counting? That's two.). After we sold, we moved into an apartment. Next we moved from an apartment to a townhouse in the same development, and then to an apartment somewhere completely different (That's three more.). Finally, our son was starting kindergarten and I got a great new job and we moved to another townhouse (That's one more). It was great until my husband took over a business in a different city, and I got a job relocation next to that city, and we moved again. This time it was the house my husband grew up in. His parents relocated and still had the house. We lived there for over a year (That's another) until we finally decided to buy a house again. We stayed there for two years and then bought a better house (Two more). All that by the time my son was 10. By the time he was 10, my son had lived in nine different homes. We popped a squat for awhile and stayed there for seven years. This year, we sold our house and moved again. I suppose in retrospect, we might seem a bit cuckoo. But really, we're not. We just embrace change.

Several of those moves were based on jobs, another change I like from time to time. In fact, when I left my last job a little over a year ago, I determined I had stayed there longer than any other job I had. Ever. Sure, I had worked different positions within the same place, but never that long in the same place, in the same role. I guess as a fourth grade teacher, there was enough change around me in the students, policies, curriculum, and people that it was enough. But prior to that job, I hadn't stayed in the same job for more than a couple of years. There was a time when career mobility was looked down upon. It was seen as a lack of commitment or loyalty. But for me, moving around a lot was about finding the next experience, the next challenge. As a result, I had already amassed a pretty impressive resume of rich experiences, especially for someone my age. It gave me the comfort and confidence to settle down in the same job for awhile when my son was in elementary/middle school. He was changing enough for the two of us!

A part of me wishes I could slow down and live in the moment more. I really am trying to be more Zen. It's hard when you're always looking ahead to what's next instead of enjoying the now you are in- living in the moment as they say, My friends and family have referred to it as career ADHD. But as I think about the other parts of my personality I think I just like to experience a lot of different things. Once I've gotten what my psyche needs from an experience, I'm ready to be off looking for another one. Part of it is knowing I have given all I can to a job situation, and that it's given all it can back to me. Once I stop growing, I'm moving on. Turn and face the strange, as David Bowie said.

A few things that haven't changed:
My hairstyle- I have had the same few inches below shoulder-length, naturally curly hairstyle for my entire adult life. Except for two brief hiatuses: 1998- I was pregnant and hot and cut too many inches off. You should see the pictures... actually, no you shouldn't. 2008- I cut 9 inches off to donate, leaving it just to my shoulder.

My religion- Born and raised Jewish. Still am.

My husband- High school sweethearts, together for 26 years, married almost 20.

I'm sure there are others, but I can't think of them right now.

Trying to Name That Which Doesn't Change

Ch-Ch-Changes Invite to Write

Trying to Name That Which Doesn’t Change
By Helen Sadler

I feel sorry for my cousin in Asheville. She has been a teacher for over 30 years, mostly in kindergarten, and always in a private, not public school, environments. When she and her husband  moved to Asheville ten years ago, she found employment at the private school, a place that was perfect for her sensibilities and approaches as a teacher. She was so proud showing us the school and telling us about it when we first visited in 2006. Even as a veteran teacher, she was still taking expensive self-paid Waldorf trainings to improve her techniques. Fully committed.

But all that has changed.

In the last couple of years a new principal came with a new vision: sell the brand. The teachers’ jobs became one of standardizing everything they do, and documenting everything so a straight line from A to B in teaching could be established, documented, written as curriculum, and sold. My cousin could not stomach the documentation process, so took herself out of a lead teacher position, and accepted the lower-paying position of assistant. Her love for teaching, her ideas of what it can be sit locked up inside her as she watches the profession she loves sift away in the name of standardization.

Change.

I took the title of this essay from a poem by Naomi Shihab Nye. Her poem is a bit of debate between friends about what doesn’t change. It begins:

Roselva says the only thing that doesn’t change

is train tracks. She’s sure of it.

The train changes, or the weeds that grow up spidery

By the side, but not the tracks.

This line of thinking finds its rebuttal in the second stanza:

Pete isn’t sure. He saw an abandoned track

near Sabinas, Mexico, and says a track without a train

is a changed track. The metal isn’t shiny anymore.

The wood is split and some of the ties are gone.

The conclusion to all of this is that change is always happening, whether we see it or not. It is happening even when we are completely unaware.

When we think of change, we don’t think of the kind of change we don’t see, like stars exploding or railroad tracks losing their shine. We think of changes in our work situation, in our families, in our environment. It is these changes that threaten us and cause us to rebel in angry, controlling, and fearful ways. We resist. We fight. We can’t help it.

Buddhists teach of impermanence – it is one of the key principles in Buddhist philosophy. We are taught to look at everything as mere phenomenon that is ever-changing – since there is no permanence, no reason to get pulled into suffering.

It takes practice to view the world this way. Fortunately, we get a lot of opportunities – like every minute of every day.

Pema Chodron in her book When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times, explains it this way:

Impermanence is the goodness of reality. Just as the four seasons are in a continual flux, winter changing to spring to summer to autumn; just as the day becomes the night, light becoming dark becoming light again – in the same way, everything is constantly evolving. Impermanence is the essence of everything. It is babies becoming children, then teenagers, then adults, then old people, and somewhere along the way dropping dead. Impermanence is meeting and parting. It’s falling in and falling out of love. Impermanence is bittersweet, like buying a new shirt and years later finding it as part of a patchwork quilt (60).

Everything becomes something else. Life does not move in our ways, but in the ways that it is meant to move. The trick is to see this as “the goodness of reality” – but, oh how we fight that thought.  How can it be good if it isn’t the way I want it?

Because we don’t know everything, and God, we hate to admit that!

One of my favorite sayings from the 1990’s was this: Resign your position as Manager of the Universe.

Once done, can be freeing.

I found this sentiment in the article I read and wrote about the other day. Singer Ashley Monroe says she doesn’t understand country radio, but that she has pursued her dreams in the face of it, even as it hurt. She chose to look at the goodness of reality, rather than fight it.

It was a good lesson for me, and spoke to my life. The players in the larger scheme of things – in standardizing education to programming radio play – have an agenda. Losing our mind or our dreams over their decisions doesn’t hurt them one bit. We need to keep on keeping on, even in the face of circumstances we find distasteful or even disgusting.

When I read about Ashley, I found myself curious about my own evolving journey. What did I think I wanted as a teacher? Have my dreams come true?  I immediately knew that many of my dreams have come true. Many of the outward signs anyway.

But inwardly, I’m not there yet.

I pulled out a reflective journal I had to keep for a graduate level class that coincided with my first semester of teaching. The first thing I found was a prompt the professor had given us. We were to write about a teacher that influenced us. Here is my response, unedited from the scratchings in the journal:

Written 8/28/04

In my 8^th grade year, I had a nun for a teacher who was mentally ill. By October they had taken her out of the classroom, and we embarked on a long series of substitutes. I am not exaggerating when I say that by early May we had had 23 different teachers, many of who were no more than warm bodies in the room.

By April, we had to be moved downstairs away from the other 8^th grade classes because they had finally decided to have the principal be our teacher and she needed to be close to the office. This made our class feel even more inferior because we were with the “baby grades” on the first floor.

But in the month of May they found someone to help with the class for a couple of weeks. Her name was Karen Sawchek, a recent college of education graduate whose mother taught at our school. She was young, vibrant, and beautiful. But that is not what I remember most. What she did was connect to us immediately. On the first day, she let us spill our guts about how rough our year had been, how we were looked down on by the other 8^th graders, and how depressed we felt. She LISTENED and not only did she listen, she helped us form a plan to help us out of our rut, and then went to bat for us.

She arranged a time for us to use the auditorium for an afternoon, and we went to work producing a show to showcase our talents. I don’t remember much except that everyone could choose exactly what he or she wanted to do. An example I remember was a boy named Philip reciting “Casey at Bat.”  Those left over (like me) were grouped together to put on a mimed skit. It was performed against the Beatles “Hey Jude,” and showed a class slowly going out of control as the music ascended. At the end of the song, the class settled back down. It was the story of our year, and even though it was pretty abstract and I didn’t really get it at the time, it felt powerful and wonderful to perform for the other 8^th grade classes – something only we got to do.

Of all the teachers I had K-12, she stands out the most. I draw more inspiration from two weeks with Karen Sawchek than I did from all my other teachers combined.  Karen Sawchek is the reason I teach middle school today. Her example showed me that young adolescents need someone to listen and take them seriously. She is the teacher I want to be.

Every single time I read that last paragraph, I get a huge lump in my throat. You see, this was one of the most important lessons of my entire life. It is what I constantly strive for as a teacher. It is what I am once again committing myself to this year.

I don’t think of Karen Sawchek every day, but maybe I should. She is that little piece  living in me and driving me, even when I’m not aware of it. I have no idea what she did for the rest of her life, but I can feel pretty certain she touched a lot of lives.

Finding my story this week was like finding that favorite shirt in a patchwork quilt. It is there – I just have to see it. Remember it. Touch it sometimes.

And here I discover I can name that which doesn’t change: the goodness of reality.

The stained glass panels displayed here were created by my uncle based on quilts our grandmother had made.

It Ain't Easy

Response to invitation to write #2 Ch...Ch...Changes

by Annmarie Ferry

If there was one way to lose weight, one way to grieve, one way to parent, one religion or philosophy to follow, bookstore and library shelves would look pretty bare.  

Likewise, if there was one "right" way to change your life, we would all be able to morph whenever we saw fit. 

Fat chance.

I am in a funky transitional phase right now.  My life, like everyone else's, has been one transition after another, but I've never really stopped to take note and notice how I managed these transitions. I guess I've never felt the need to. 

Or, was I just afraid?

I am thinking it is the latter.  And, I am thinking it is time to change that.  

Change is scary.  It involves digging up old skeletons I've buried so I could move on with my life quickly and quietly. Unearthing old hurts I blocked out; accepting people in my life the way they are; deciding to forgive everyone involved, including myself. 

So, I decided to start by defining change. A quick google search for synonyms yielded these results: alter, adjust, adapt, amend, modify, revise, refine, reshape, refashion, revamp, rework, transform, metamorphose, and evolve.

Whew! Change is loaded. Deep down, I think I already knew that. Hence, the difficulty doing it. But, writing it out is a good step:

I will embrace this constant state of flux, 

  allow the energy around me to reshape my existence,

    revamp my perspective, adapt to my current circumstances.

I will shed the fear that has held me back,

  rework my past experiences into positive catalysts,

    revise my philosophy, open myself to new possibilities. 

I will realize my reality is what I make of it,

  refashion the parts of my mental wardrobe that no longer fit, 

    reshape my negativity and find the positive spin on things. 

I will allow myself to evolve into a person I admire,

  be born again and again to embrace the inevitable changes of life,

     inspire those around me to embrace their own transformations. 

    

I am lifting my proverbial glass to toast change, giving it the kudos it deserves, hoping it will become something I celebrate, not fear.  Cheers!

Invitation to Write #2 - Ch-Ch-Changes

by Annmarie Ferry

July 15, 2015

In the words of David Bowie, it's time to "turn and face the strange ch-ch-changes," like it or not.

The ebb and flow of life isn't always so fluid; it often seems like crashing waves threaten to drown us. Just when we think we won't make it to the surface to gasp another breath, the seas turn into a motionless, glass-like calm that allows us to glide to shore.

"I watch the ripples change their size
  But never leave the stream
  Of warm impermanence and
  So the days float through my eyes."

Think about how you generally respond to or react to changes, big and small.  Does a "strange fascination" take over or is it more like a crippling fear?

This month, write about change. Anything about change. It doesn't have to be yours; it doesn't have to  be a big event. Sometimes, those "minor" changes add up over a stretch of time.  Your response can be in any form -- a personal narrative, fictional short story, poem, song lyrics, artwork.

Word Play

By Laurie J. Kemp

I've never fancied myself an artist. It's not that I don't enjoy doing artistic things it's just, well, my sister is an artist and I'm not. I write. She designs. She got the art gene and I got the writing gene. That's what I've always said. My sister on the other hand, tells me I'm wrong. "It's not that you're not artistic, you just express your art differently, like through writing and cooking." Then she always follows it up with a reminder that I'm the one with the pretty handwriting. Truth? She's right. My handwriting is really nice, and hers is just okay.

But I go through phases with crafty kinds of projects, like the year I was too broke to go holiday shopping and made Christmas ornaments and decorative picture frames for everyone. Then there was the year I stayed home with my son when he was first born and I got mega into scrapbooking. I have a few really great books, and I tried to keep up with it when I went back to work. But by the time he was three, my supplies and my photos were piled up in boxes where they've pretty much remained since. I've hand-painted furniture, made a few pillows, and every now and then I get a creative bug and want to create something. I thought for sure, the writing prompt I presented to the writers in the circle would be the perfect way to appease the bug this time. If I'm to be honest, when I posted the prompt, I had nothing in mind. I had been reading excerpts from books on writing by some of my favorite authors, and I was inspired by the advice to create something. Drop the pen or pencil, step away from the computer, and create something with your hands. I liked that idea... until I had to create something!

At first I waited for inspiration. What do I feel like creating? What am I feeling inspired about? I spent almost forty dollars at the craft store buying supplies to make charm bracelets, a la Alex and Ani. I love those bracelets and I have been wanting to try making some of my own. It was fun for a little while, but I wore my new creation to work the next day waiting on the inspiration, and instead I noticed by the end of the day I had lost most of the charms! Crafty maybe, skilled jeweler, not so much. Next, I thought about cooking something. I have always been good in the kitchen, and when I'm inspired, I can spend all day in there. Some good music and a taste for something special go a long way. But it's been hot, and after working and making dinner, I haven't felt much like cooking. So I waited some more, and here I am less than two weeks away from my deadline to post... to my own prompt, and no matter how much I try to relax and let something come to me on its own, nothing.

It's funny. Thinking back, some of my favorite pieces of "art" were words that I hand painted. Yup, words. I've written about my love of words before. I'm not sure why, but I love typography and words as art. Maybe it's because they hold such concrete meaning. Maybe it's because as an artist, I make a pretty good writer. In the end, I've found the best thing I create with my hands besides food (which wasn't providing inspiration) is writing! I'm most inspired by words. To be honest, I'm not sure this piece of writing is any better than my failed attempts at art. I'm hoping I'll be better inspired by my peers' prompts than my own. But I've produced two pieces. One is a conversational poem (my English teacher friends will have the real name for it) that I'm not sure works, and a silly little piece of writing inspired by one of my favorite clips from M*A*S*H which has to be some of the best comedic writing in the history of any genre, performed by Alan Alda, who I believe played the single best character ever created for television, Hawkeye Pierce.

Word Play

I’d like a word with you.

A dirty word?

the f-word

       the c-word

Eat your words!

A word of caution?

Choose your words carefully

you’re only as good as your word

Don’t mix words.

A word to the wise or words of wisdom? 

Actions speak louder than words

a picture is worth a thousand words

I’m at a loss for words .

I give you my word

words to live by

I’m only as good as my word

Keep your word

You have a way with words

take my word for it

Word

You have my word

May I have a word with you

We exchanged words

spread the word

by word of mouth

What’s the magic word?

the good word

the final word

mum’s the word

Word Play a la Hawkeye Pierce

I’ll put in good word for you, but I’ll never put words in your mouth. I won’t breathe a word to anyone, and I’ll give you my word. We’ll exchange words, and I’ll hang on your every word, word for word. Dirty words, buzz words, the good word, words of wisdom, words of caution, or famous last words. I’ll play on words, but I won’t mince words, I won’t eat my words, and I’ll never go back on my word. In other words, I choose my words carefully because they’re words to live by and I’m only as good as my word. Mark my words, words to live by. What’s the magic word, the key word, the operative word? Word. Spread the word. 

No Visual Horizon

By Helen Sadler

I have got to admit, this was a very challenging Invite to Write. I love the challenge – it just took me a while to define just what “create something by hand” meant for me this month. I spent hours going in different directions. Pulling out old paintings and thinking of creating a new series. Cropping photos into interesting perspectives and vowing to write an intense villanelle to match. Two failed attempts canceled that idea. I even tried to make a music video, but for some reason could never access it, even with having set up a YouTube channel. Epic fail all around.

 

Finding the good stuff and saving in sheet protectors

Then I realized I already had the perfect something I have been creating – that is what has been come to be known as the Big Orange Binder With Significant Fragments. Going through twenty-four years worth of journals is a huge job, but so far enlightening.  I cannot possibly read them all, and I don’t even want to. What I do is look glance through for something significant, something that stands out. This essay is evidence of the creative boost I have received in pursuing this time-consuming, yet rewarding, project. So, thank you, Laurie, for helping me find new insight.

Big Orange Binder With Significant Fragments.

No Visual Horizon

Part One: Deep Revision

Recently a poem by Alex Dimitrov called “The Last Luxury, JFK, Jr.” came across my newsfeed from Poetry Magazine. Whenever I think of young John F. Kennedy, I remember that summer day in 1999 when they were searching for his plane. After reading Dimitrov’s poem, I thought, Hhmmm…I should write about my memories connected to JFK and his plane going down. It is something that stands out to me.

I remember that day, not because of the search, but because I was only keeping slight tabs on the entire affair. I was in my second semester of college, taking a summer College Comp II course, which meant a great deal of work in a short period of time. On this particular Saturday, I was working on a research paper about Allen Ginsberg and how his poem "Howl" marked a change in poetry and in culture. I was spending my time with a man who wrote a book length poem that began:

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,

dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,

angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night..

I was inspired! Delving into Ginsberg and the Beat poets I now know fed my intense need to know American literary and music culture. This was just Step One in understanding many things about myself, my interests, and my writing life.

Yet, this was the first research paper I had written since my junior year in high school, so I was nervous about getting it right. To say those first couple years in college were nerve-wracking is putting it lightly. I was desperate to know if I was good enough.

I walked into my office around 11 a.m. to get started, and I didn't emerge until almost 8:30 that evening. It was the first time I recall being so deeply involved in writing that I did not even notice the passage of time. I wasn't even hungry – and I’m always hungry!  Every once in a while, maybe when I took a bathroom break, I would ask my husband the status of "little" John. I do not even recall the sequence of events. I do know that the work I did on that research paper gave me an understanding of what it takes to write and to write well. The hours I spent closed up in my room that sunny Saturday took me deeply into the revision process, and what joy I found there! That experience is, sadly, also the reason I put off getting into revision unless I have a lot of time. When I revise, I want to be able to sink in and not care about anything else going on around me. I want that joyous feeling and intensity of experience I had that day in July.

I no longer have a copy of this research paper – somehow I never printed off a final copy because the class was taken online. I think it may be on a floppy disc somewhere, but, well, you know.  What I have is the memory and a deep love of Ginsberg and his writing, the cultural shift that was the fifties, and so much more. It is a paper that has stayed with me because of my experience writing it. July 17, 1999 – the day they searched for John Kennedy, Jr. and his wife; and the day I encountered the psychological experience called flow.

Part Two: Refer to the instruments

In Dimitrov’s poem, he seems to be writing about a relationship breaking up and connecting it to the loss of JFK. It isn’t the easiest poem to understand, and I have been through it several times. There are two lines that stand out to me:

“Spatial disorientation occurs when you don’t refer to your instruments” 

and then near the end:

The old photograph of a young salute.

That one send-off to death, family; the beginning of character.

Maybe you know it’s the last year of the century. So come late and leave early.

(Others flying similar routes reported no visual horizon.)

It’s the last luxury. To go early and never come back.

It was the fragment “no visual horizon” that stuck with me for a few days while I pursued other projects, never quite getting around to writing my JFK, Jr. memory. One of those projects was my Big Orange Binder With Significant Fragments. And that is when the circle found completion – the part I had forgotten.

Part Three: Emancipation Vision

When purging my journals, I found the one with the summer of 1999.  Since I had the essay idea in the back of my head, I paid special care to look at July 17.

That day of the revision, as I think of it, I emerged from the room about 8:30. I recall that my husband and I went to a place called Eddy's Creekside for dinner, since they would be open until 10, and it was already quite late. I remember sitting there, reveling in the day I had had, sitting by the creek running, now in the dark, the trees around us, and I'm sure a delicious meal and beverage.

Significant fragment found!

What I don't recall is what I found in my journal.  When I got home from that meal, I didn't just go to bed.  Instead, I stayed up and wrote my own little "Howl."  I have absolutely no recollection of this poem, called "Emancipation Vision."  It begins…

Fireworks tonight

an awakening at last

with rapid fire

it comes

holding me in

holding me out

blasting open my muse again

fireworks

and Gram

and knowing who I am

The music

The words

The words

The WORD

and I am brought face to face

once again

With the word

I do not fully know what it is about, even as I read it again and again. Obviously I was listening to Gram Parsons, and the JFK thing was still a little bit on my mind. It is just there, in the journal, going over several pages, with no introduction. 

What I do know is that I completed it at 11:01 p.m. 

Gram is here

John is gone

Oh John – John – John

into the vast blue ocean

with metal and the blonde

so long John

we hardly knew ye

holding in

holding out

holding the pattern

you cannot control

never could control

never meant to control

was bent on control

The story issues forth

In insecurity and sadness…

no doubt the sorrow never really

goes away

of what cannot be

She is free…

Holding in

holding out

holding the emancipated vision…

fireworks tonight

the great awakening

no plane crashing in my heart tonite

for I am free

no grievous angel to hold my heart

I’ve got it well in hand.

This has been another reminder that writing breeds more writing—it is the only road to fluidity. The precision required for academic writing needs its opposite – freedom of expression without rules. No surprise that Allen Ginsberg had spent many years trying to write “perfect” poetry, in synch with all he was learning from William Carlos Williams; the night came and he spilled, “Howl,” which was a phenomenon then, and still is now. He wrote it with no previous thought, no limited boundary.

Once this all came together, so did the message. We may not have a "visual horizon" for what is to come, and that is okay. We simply have to let the writing be the writing, its own destination. The only visual we need is what is in front of us on the page. Those marks, be they carefully placed or randomly scribbled, are our last luxury: the chance to emancipate what is inside us in that one written moment.

Yellow

Sunset over Estero Bay 6/28/15

Response to invitation to write #1 
by Annmarie Ferry

If you ask my favorite color, yellow never seems to make the cut. I rarely wear it. I don't decorate with it. I don't seek it out.

Living in Southwest Florida, I am surrounded by vibrant colors year round. Yet I never really thought about how those colors can affect, even heal me.

So, I did a little research.  Turns out yellow is the color of communication. It is said to clear the mind, get you talking, and correct forgetfulness.

In chromotherapy, it is used to help strengthen the mind and nerves, soothe shooting nerve pain, lift depression, inspire creativity, and encourage a higher mentality.

All of which, I certainly need some help with these days.

Out of all the pictures of beautiful landscapes and scenery that I snapped over the weekend, this is the one that keeps drawing me in and speaking to me.

Coincidence?  Doubtful. But, if so, it is the happiest accident I've ever encountered.


Yellow

As the sun morphs and melts before my very eyes,
     it shows me a vision:

           A vision of hope.
           A vision of peace.

As the sun's disappearing rays dance playfully on the water,
     they sing me a song:

          A song of joy.
          A song of renewal.

As the sun casts its yellow glow across the evening sky,
     it paints me a picture:

          A picture of glory.
          A picture of optimism.

I will harness its power,
     revel in its healing glow,
knowing that whatever ails me
     is no match for its yellow.