A Poem by Margaret Riordan

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I’m pleased to introduce a poem by my friend Margaret Riordan, Celtic Bard.

Dignity

When your heart is broken in the palace, grab your knapsack and pack lightly.
A blanket, a few pairs of loose trousers, a couple of long tunics,
Something for your head to protect it from the heat
Then join the next caravan leaving town.

Cross the desert in the night with strangers,
See the blanket of diamond stars against the velvet deep
Let them light your tears that fall without shame.
Hold nothing back.

There in the desert, no one can see. You’re alone with strangers
Listening only to the sound of camels’ feet plodding in sand,
The jostling of their packs and murmur of voices passing time.
Let your legs grow strong with traveling

So when you come to the city you will be ready for the physician who knows the secrets
Of herbs and human heart. Sit with him on the dusty street corner and absorb his knowledge,
More precious than any lost love you mourn.
Let him teach you how to heal your own dignity.

Stay gone until you find in that wisdom some places
Belonging only to you and God. Let your soul grow strong from listening
And your freedom grow until your own inviolability is sure enough to
Withstand any windstorm, any drought, any onslaught of pain.

Remember that your solitude is more precious than any palace intrigue.
Find the Truth that is greater than this drama that threatens to destroy you. Become your own person, unshaken by the shifting dunes of fate.
Pack lightly, because on this journey all you need is your courage and your heart.

Bad Habits vs. Good

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During the first week of my Creative Nonfiction class, I spend a lot of time asking students where they might find themselves writing and under what circumstances. In a notebook or on a laptop? Do they listen to music? Do they need a cup of coffee? A glass of scotch? A cigarette? Complete silence? Prefer to write in noisy coffee shops? In the morning? Late at night? I tell them to buy a cool notebook and pen for writing in class. I bully them (a little) to write every day, even if just for this quarter, as an experiment if not as a burgeoning passion. Naturally I start thinking about such things in my own life, too.

I write every day, early in the morning, in my potting shed (as you know). But I think I could get a little more writing done if I could establish a habit of writing in my office at the college — just a little — every afternoon. As Dorothea Brande says, even the meanest employer has to give you a break sometime.

I’m reminded of my days as a waitress when I noticed that the cocktail waitresses always took their 2 10-minute breaks. One before “lunch” (whenever that fell in their shift) and one after. I asked one day, “Why don’t the rest of us take 10-minute breaks?” “Because you don’t smoke,” the cocktail waitress told me.

If you smoke, maybe you can write while you smoke. Maybe you can just tell your supervisor that you need a smoke, and write instead. Maybe you can tell your supervisor that you’re taking a 10-minute writing break.

Writing is a much better habit than any other I can think of.

10 Possibilities

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A pleasant trip this week to Chehalis to see my mom, no student papers to grade (yet), my corrected manuscript of SPARROW to return to Writers & Books (in the mail as of 3:30), a productive morning in the potting shed, and sunshine conspired to make me feel buoyant by this afternoon. Friday, sitting in my EvCC office and almost caught up with my on-line classes, I decided to list 10 things I can do to make that space work better for me and my increasingly twitchy eyes.

  1. move the computer monitor so it isn’t against the bright window
  2. move my desk so when students come to visit we have a writing surface between us
  3. set up a designated “empty” space where I don’t stack papers and books
  4. give away one box of books (now half full)
  5. get a second monitor so I can switch between on-line course windows more easily (I have a colleague who keeps telling me I should do this)
  6. ask for a consultation about posture and chairs (these are available, I understand)
  7. organize my on-line print outs into clearly labeled notebooks
  8. make an appointment with my eye clinic to get a prescription for computer-only glasses (I’m told these really help…I have variegated lenses)
  9. download that freedom app. that locks one out of the internet for a designated time (I’ve read about this…a little afraid to try it)
  10. choose one thing on this list and actually carry through on it

It felt good.

Permission Granted

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This afternoon, in preparation for our first meeting of Writing Lab this quarter, I browsed my bookshelves and found Fingerpainting on the Moon by Peter Levitt. This book contains one of my all time favorite quotations (which I’ve shared more than once, but here it is again):

“This is joy — the kind that comes from expressing the most intimate part of our lives and having it valued and known. Awakening such joy allows us to love.”

(image from http://spaceweather.com/eclipses/gallery_15may03_page3.html)

In his chapter, “Everything Is Permitted in the Imagination,” Levitt tells the story of a woman joining him in a garden at the Sonoma Mountain Zen Center, and telling him, “You know, there’s room for us.” The story continues:

As she said this she gently swept her hand in an arc to include all the various forms of life before us. I watched as she encircled all the vegetables, fruit and flowers, the compost piles, the shape of the distant mountain, and then included the two of us with her gesturing hand. “If there wasn’t room,” she said with a conspiratorial smile, “we couldn’t be here at all.” 

Later in this chapter Levitt recommends making up a sign in big letters spelling: “PERMISSION GRANTED.” So I did. I made up 10 of them and took them to Writing Lab and I handed them out.

Consider this blog post to be your permission.