Another Soccer Mom Poem…

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Emma’s team, 2011

And so school begins. Emma is in high school now,  my only kid playing soccer this fall. We’re getting Annie outfitted to leave for WWU on Sept. 19th. I am writing every morning.

Meanwhile, I have 302 postcard addresses, only 31 of which I have sent postcards to. So even though August was postcard poetry month, I’m thinking I will keep the postcards going a while longer. Here’s a recent poem:

Sitting in my car, watching my daughter’s soccer practice,
I eat a plum. When I was a child,
we had three varieties of plum in our orchard–
purple, a reddish orange one, and a yellow, the sweetest.
One fall evening we came home from church,
all of us crammed into the Buick station wagon,
and our headlights caught the eyes of a family of raccoons
perched in the plum tree. Of course the yellow plum,
that sweet tree. The girls run across the soccer field.
Sun slants from the horizon, its rays catching
in my daughter’s curls.

 

usjul2012

Twenty-eight years and counting…

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Twenty-eight years ago, on a Sunday afternoon in a park not far from here, we promised to love, honor, and … I think we left out that “obey” bit. Here’s a poem from Linda Pastan to mark the date.

I Married You

by Linda Pastan

I married you
for all the wrong reasons,
charmed by your 
dangerous family history,
by the innocent muscles, bulging
like hidden weapons 
under your shirt,
by your naive ties, the colors
of painted scraps of sunset.

I was charmed too
by your assumptions
about me: my serenity—
that mirror waiting to be cracked,
my flashy acrobatics with knives
in the kitchen.
How wrong we both were
about each other,
and how happy we have been.

– See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19483#sthash.IvwecMIR.dpuf

 

 

Work

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P1050035I am floundering. For the last few days I have been writing — in longhand — five new pages each day.  I have had a lot going on this week, including an overnight visit to see Mom, in Chehalis. But I did my five pages, no matter what. Today was day four. I managed, but barely, filling in the gaps with questions.

  • What purpose does this scene serve?
  • What does Peter look like?
  • Is there just a house on this old property? Shouldn’t there be ruined outbuildings, a broken fence?
  • Did they have a well?

This morning I have taken numerous breaks. I had breakfast. I brushed my teeth. I changed my clothes. Bruce has been out here three times. Pearl just dropped in to ask if her outfit looked stupid. (It didn’t.)

I thought about posting a big sign on the door: WRITER AT WORK. STAY OUT. YES! THIS MEANS YOU!

But what did they interrupt? Me, checking my email? (Again.) Me, playing yet another game of Spider Solitaire. Me, visiting other blogs and hoping for inspiration.

I’ve been waiting for inspiration to strike.

I remembered, eventually, something I once read about learning how to start. If you’ve ever meditated, then you know this. If your thoughts wander, it is counterproductive to berate yourself, or your wandery brain. Just gently nudge yourself back to the meditation. Return again and again, as often as necessary.

True with writing, too. Learn how to fall into your work easily, effortlessly. Do this 20 times each morning, or 50, however many times it’s necessary.

I looked up the etymology of work for you. This was my favorite, because it includes the word “fornication.”

work (n.) Look up work at Dictionary.comOld English weorc, worc “something done, deed, action, proceeding, business, military fortification,” from Proto-Germanic *werkan (cf. Old Saxon, Old Frisian, Dutch werk, Old Norse verk, Middle Dutch warc, Old High German werah, German Werk, Gothic gawaurki), from PIE root *werg- “to work” (see urge (v.)). In Old English, the noun also had the sense of “fornication.”

And now I think I am going to go in the house and do some laundry.

cabin1