Fallow Times and Pentecost Periods

I can't remember when I last wrote a poem, although I could easily look it up.  It's probably not as long as I think.

But more importantly, I can't remember when I last felt like a poet.  When did I last make interesting connections of unusual links that would make a good poem?

I've been feeling swamped by many things, all of them good:  a curriculum project that will pay money, trying to think about a different house, visits from family, and some trips.  Like I said, they're all good, but they have pulled me away from creative work, nonetheless.

At these times, it's easy for me to sink into despair.  It's easy for me to slip into self-recriminations.  At times like these, it's important to remember that these fallow times are important.  I may not yet sense the seeds that have been planted, but they have been planted.

Bookgirl has written a great post where she considers the time between Easter and Ascension.  It's the time where Jesus has risen from the dead and reconnects with his followers.  It's a low-key time, in many ways:  "As I thought about the omission [of post-Easter, pre-Ascension stories], I realized how important these resurrection appearances are in my faith. Calling Mary by name in the garden, inviting Thomas to see his hands, offering breakfast on the shore and reinstating Peter, breaking bread with Cleopas and his companion after walking along the road to Emmaus, giving the great commission to the apostles, each of these is personal and specific. They are immediate and urgent and tender. They are all moments that resonate deeply with me, that help me process the rest of it, that guide me in knowing who Jesus is, that are a great part of the substance of my faith."

She uses the word tender.  I would like to be tender with my creative self.

My creative self is feeling a bit scared right now.  She's looking at financial documents and wondering why a bank would agree to loan us so much money so soon after the housing crash.  My creative self is worried that she'll have to work multiple jobs, even though my budgetary self has shown her that it can work out with the current income numbers.

My creative self is wondering if she'll ever write a poem again.  My creative self wants to get back to the memoir.  My creative self worries that the new house won't be as fruitful a space as old houses have been.

I need to cook my creative self a picnic breakfast on the beach.  Metaphorically, I'm saying that I need more poetry to read.  I need to reassure my creative self that after fallow times can come Pentecost times.

What better time than today? 

Today is the feast of Pentecost.  For those of you who have no reference, Pentecost is the day that comes 50 days after Easter and 10 days after Jesus goes back up to Heaven (Ascension Day). We see a group of disciples still at loose ends, still in effect, hiding out, still unsure of what to do.


Then the Holy Spirit fills them with the sound of a great rushing wind, and they speak in languages they have no way of knowing. But others understand the languages--it's one way the disciples argue that they're not drunk. And then they go out to change the world--but that's the subject for an entirely different post.

Today I think about those disciples who had been living in a post-Easter time unsure of what will come next.  They needed time to learn to live in a post-Resurrection time, time to find the signposts in the new world.  They needed time to trust the promises that had been revealed.

 I think of Pentecost, a day that shows that fallow times can burst into fertility very quickly.

I am ready for a Pentecost time when it comes to my creativity.  Heck, I'm ready for a Pentecost time in many areas.  I've been waiting patiently (I have been patient, haven't I?).  I'm ready for fruition!

Photos from the Hemingway House in Key West

My descriptions of Hemingway's house may have left you wishing for pictures.  Wish no more!

Here's Hemingway's writing studio, from the outside:

Here's his writing table with typewriter:

The tropical view as I imagine it would be from the window (I took the shot from the platform where you stand at the top of the stairs to see inside Hemingway's studio):

The porch outside the bedroom:

The front of the house, complete with tourists (none of them me or my family):



We don't see many signs that designate National Historic Landmarks down here in South Florida.  So much has been bulldozed to make room for development.

I'm happy that we live in a country that sees the house of a writer as a site worthy of preservation.  We may not support living artists and writers in ways that I'd like, but I like being able to visit these sites.  I come away feeling inspired in all sorts of ways.

Haunted by Hemingway and His House

Longtime readers of this blog know that Hemingway is not one of my favorite writers, although in this post, I acknowledge the ways in which he changed writing.

On Sunday, we went to the Hemingway house in Key West.  I had been once before, and I remember hearing a lot about life in Key West when Hemingway lived there and hearing a lot about the furniture, but not as much about Hemingway's writing life when he lived in the house.

On Sunday, we heard more about Hemingway the writer.  He lived in the house with his second wife.  I thought of poor Hadley, the first wife, who didn't get much mention on Sunday.  I've written about her in this post after reading The Paris Wife.  Hemingway left her for Pauline, the wife whose fortune made it possible for Hemingway to live in a beautiful Key West location.

While he lived with Pauline, he enjoyed the most prolific writing time of his life.  He had a daily schedule.  He got up and went over to his writing studio which was like a room on top of a detached garage.  He wrote for 3-5 hours a day, and then he went fishing and drinking and amusing himself in all sorts of ways.

His life with Pauline was tempestuous, as she liked to spend money, and he didn't always like what she bought.  As World War II approached, he began an affair with a female journalist he met in a bar.  Because they worked in the same field, and they were competitive, the marriage was rocky and lasted 3 years.

He would have one more marriage and live in Havana.  As he and his wife fled the Castro regime, they left behind art and manuscripts.  I thought of the story in The Paris Wife, about Hadley losing the suitcase that had all of Hemingway's Paris manuscripts.

Our Hemingway house guide claimed that Hemingway would never write as much and as easily as he wrote in Key West, and I suspect that's true.  He was still early in his writing life then, still working to prove himself as a writer of fiction, while getting some acclaim.  As the years went on, he had more obligations and more pressure, even as he had more money.  He also had more health issues, both from the drinking, and the depressions, and the fact that he'd had 9 concussions in his early decades, and I suspect that his brain was suffering from those scars too.

Why does this story haunt me so much?  After all, I think one of the lessons of this time of Hemingway's life is that developing a routine that supports the creative work and sticking to it is perhaps one of the most important things we can do as creative types.  And Hemingway's time in Key West gives weight to this theory.  I've always practiced what I'm preaching in this area, so it's not the issue of developing a routine that nags at me.

I'm struck by the people who supported his writing--but he seems to have been surrounded by those all of his life.  I'm fortunate there too.

I'm also haunted by the house itself.  Was there something about that house that made it possible to write the way that he did?

I know that it's the house that tugs at me most because we've been house hunting.  I worry about what we're setting into motion, what we might gain and what we might lose.  But I've managed to write steadily in every house and apartment I've ever had.  I often look back on situations that seemed shabby at the time and think about how much I miss the tree that was right outside the window or how cozy the space that seemed too small really was.

Maybe I'm also haunted by that house because Hemingway's writing studio would be so perfect for me--well, if we could get it retrofitted with AC it would be.  I'd write, then swim some laps in the pool, then write again, and then spend the afternoon on my sailboat--because if I could afford that house, I could afford a sailboat!

And Then We Came to the End--Or Do We?

I've written before about the world of work as depicted on television.  In this post, I said, "I'm struck by how the shows of my childhood and adolescence show people working in real jobs, jobs that I might grow up to have. Shows these days on network T.V. show people competing to get the kind of jobs most of us will never have (chef at a celebrity restaurant, pop singer, pursuer of supernatural creatures). Even the police procedurals, the CSI shows and the Law and Order shows, depict the kind of law enforcement that is not the ordinary realm of regular police folks."

In many ways, The Office is also one of those shows, and it comes to an end tonight.  The TV critic at The Washington Post, Hank Stuever, has written a great appreciation of the show, even of its last 2 years, when it seemed to go astray:

"My own contrarian streak runs so deep that I might be the only TV critic on the planet who put the first post-Carell season (when James Spader’s Robert California character briefly helmed Dunder Mifflin) on my top 10 list of 2011.


So sue me. The overall narrative epic of the lives of the Scranton branch employees began to drift, and yet I always believed that the show’s writers should have done exactly this, concentrating on the tale of a rudderless ship. That felt precisely like what happens in an office when one idiosyncratic boss leaves and is replaced by a steadily declining parade of micromanaging weirdos. That felt more real."

He concludes this way: 

"My last impression of “The Office” was the miracle suggested all along by its basic plot: that there was a paper company that hadn’t been subsumed by Staples or OfficeMax, and that it had a branch office in which the white-collar division worked alongside the blue-collar warehouse. That the Oscars and the Kevins and the Phyllises and the Merediths and the Creeds — played by a superb comedy troupe that formed the real backbone of the show — all had full-time work in this mythical paper supplier as employees rather than contractors; that they came in at 9 and left at 5, collecting a salary and benefits; that they were never downsized, right-sized or otherwise laid off; and that they toiled in relative peace for nine years and counting.


It’s the sort of American Dream job — and job security — many people stopped believing in eons ago. That’s why we loved “The Office” and hated the office. It was meant to look real, but it was pure escapism all along."

I came late to this show, but I'll miss it.  I want scripted TV, not reality shows with foul-mouthed contestants who have to be bleeped.  I wouldn't spend an hour of my non-TV life with those reality show people, so why should I watch these shows?  The world of scripted TV gets smaller and smaller, especially for those of us who don't want to pay for cable.

I used to say that I couldn't watch The Office because it reminded me too much of life at the office, which I was living, so why would I want to watch it on TV?  But then, somehow, my view changed, and I found it a comfort.

Last night, I spent an hour on the phone with an old friend; we tried to interpret the actions of her department chair.  Is the department chair tormenting my friend with her plans for teaching improvement and such?  Or is the chair just one of those First Year English true believers?  Is my friend's job in trouble?

For the life of me, I had trouble coming up with a word that described the actions I wanted my friend to avoid.  Of course, 10 minutes after I hung up the phone, I came up with it.  I wrote this e-mail:

"Insubordination--that's the word that wouldn't come to me.


Just don't do anything that could be construed as being insubordinate, and you'll be fine. Administrators hate insubordination. Ineptness? Not as bad, and in fact, possibly endearing. Trying hard and not quite getting there? Definitely sweet.

But undercutting and undermining--no, nothing that could be painted as insubordinate.

If I had world enough and time, I'd write a book in this vein. But since I don't . . . just remember, this too shall pass, and some day, we'll look back on it and smile at the things we thought were critical. We'll say, 'Man, back then, I could climb stairs, I never lost control of my bladder, and I had all my teeth--why was I complaining again?'"

My friend periodically consults me, as someone who has gone over to the management side, to help her see from the point of view of the boss and how she should respond.  Could I develop those ideas into a book?

I've written before, in this blog post, about my idea of writing a management book that's partly serious, partly comedic, and most of all, just a recombining of what's come before.  This morning, it occurs to me that I could write the same book from the other side of the management desk.  I've been a boss and I've been an underling.  I could write the same book, just change the perspective!

We're all just looking for our cheese, after all.

Radicals of the Nuclear and Nun Variety

Two weeks ago, as I was driving home from work, I heard a story about 3 people who broke into an Oak Ridge facility that deals with depleted uranium.  It was surprisingly easy--but it shouldn't have been, since the facility was supposed to be one of the most secure in the country.

When I heard the story on the radio, it focused on the 82 year old nun, who, if convicted, is likely to die in prison.  It may not surprise you to find out that she's completely at peace with that possibility.

I thought about the radicals I used to know, and I wondered what makes some of us follow paths that might be called terrorism, while some of us go into academia, while others settle into suburban lives of contentment or quiet desperation or both.

I didn't think about the other people in the story until I read this article in The Washington Post.  Part of the piece focuses on the security guard who has had his life upended.  He should have shot first and asked questions later.  But because he has a long history at nuclear sites and he understands the approach of these kind of protesters, he determined that they weren't dangerous.

He's the only one who has faced such the severe penalty of job loss.  His superiors have been disciplined.  I suspect that various authorities were mortified by how easy it was for a group of 3 ordinary people to break into the facility, and they needed scapegoats.

When I was in undergraduate school in the 1980's, I met more radicals than I do now.  I knew people who would have been willing to do anything--anything--to stop the nuclear-industrial complex.  I wonder what's become of them.  Are they still protesting nuclear weapons?  Have they moved on to something else?

I used to feel the future of the world hung in the balance and was held captive by these weapons and policies.  Now I'm far more worried about global warming and sea level rise.  It's hard for me to imagine the kinds of protest I might once have thought about but been too cowardly to carry out.  What object shall we splash blood (fake blood, of course) upon? 

Once I didn't use the AC during the summer--I didn't want to contribute to global warming.  I was young and principled once.  Now I am older, and I use the AC.  I give money to groups who work in peaceful, non-confrontational ways to bring about a more just world.  I write letters.  I do some networking.

I know that I could do more, and when I hear about nuns breaking into nuclear facilities, I immediately feel inadequate.  It's good to remember that there are other ways to work for justice. 

The group of radicals didn't succeed in their goal of ridding the world of nuclear weapons.   It's not even clear that they built much sympathy for their cause.  And my brain can't move far away from that poor security guard who spared them but then sacrificed so much.

Still, as I move into comfortable middle age, it's also good to be reminded that I could be doing more, even if I don't want to turn off the AC.  I don't have to turn off the AC, but I can take other steps towards a more peaceful future.

Courage, Daunted and Undaunted

On this day in 1804, Lewis and Clark began their voyage west.  In 1998, when we first moved down here, our local PBS station was running the Ken Burns' documentary, Undaunted Courage, based on the book by Stephen Ambrose.  I was hooked.

Longtime readers of this blog will point out that I was just the viewer PBS probably had in mind, what with my love of Laura Ingalls Wilder and my love of stories of people stranded in various landscapes who must make their way out.

I remember being fascinated by all the upsets they faced along the way, and I remember reflecting that we never learned these details in school.  In my elementary school history lessons, the explorers leave, they have success, they return.  I don't remember spending any time on explorers at all in high school.  We zipped from one war to the next to the next.

This morning, I was fascinated again by the false starts that happened before the final trip.  The Writer's Almanac post for today explains:  "Jefferson wanted to send Ledyard to explore out West, and they worked out an intricate plan for him to get to the West Coast via Russia. But the trip was a disaster — Ledyard walked 1,200 miles through Scandinavia and the Artic Circle, and managed to travel through most of Russia before an angry Catherine the Great had him captured and deported, so he took off for Africa, where he soon died."

Jefferson with an unsuccessful plan?  Another item we never learned in history classes.  But he continued to plot and plan for the next time:  it's a lesson for us all.

And how interesting that we call Ledyard's trip a disaster, when he walked 1200 miles!

Finally, Jefferson would find success with Lewis and Clark.  Consider the supplies that they took:  "They had a long supply list, which included 25 hatchets, 10.5 pounds of fishing hooks and fishing lines, 12 pounds of soap, three bushels of salt, 45 flannel shirts, 15 pairs of wool overalls, 176 pounds of gunpowder, 130 rolls of tobacco and 4,600 sewing needles (the tobacco and needles were gifts for Native people they would encounter), a microscope, a telescope, two sextants, 15 .54-caliber rifles, and 50 dozen Dr. Rush's patented 'Rush's Thunderclapper' pills — a laxative whose two main ingredients were mercury and jalapeños. They fit all this and much more into three boats: one was a 55-foot Keelboat, a riverboat that could be sailed, rowed, or poled; and two were pirogues, smaller flat-bottomed boats that were similar to big canoes, one painted red and one white."

I feel like there's a poem lurking in that list.  Or maybe I want to think about my own habit of overpacking.  I noticed that when we packed for our day trip to Key West, which might have turned into an overnight trip, we looked like we were moving in for a season.

Still, even with all those supplies, they likely would have perished without the crucial help that they received along the way from Native Americans.  It is not lost on me that the help they gave led to their ultimate decimation of their tribes.

I remember the episode of Undaunted Courage that talked about the return of the expedition.  Jefferson had assumed that they had died.

This morning, I am also thinking about Dr. Joyce Brothers, who died yesterday.  Her column was one of my favorite aspects of my mother's Good Housekeeping magazine.  I don't much of a memory of her as a TV presence; we weren't allowed to watch much TV during my childhood in the 1970's.  But I loved her columns, which dealt with people's problems with a kindness and a very no-nonsense manner, like Dr. Phil, but with less yelling.

Did I see her as a feminist pioneer?  Was she one of women who convinced me that I could do anything?  I don't remember her that way, but study after study has shown the importance of seeing people who look like oneself in the careers that one is considering.

This morning, as I was considering the poems I've written that have been inspired by Lewis and Clark, I came across this one, written at least 10 years ago, part of my first chapbook, Whistling Past the Graveyard.  It combines history and psychology in interesting ways.



Daunted Courage


Again, I sail into this landlocked sea,
a pool of despair ringed by mountains
of misery. I search for Northwest Passage,
a quicker way to chart my path
through this depressing landscape.

Lewis and Clark forged their way across
a continent. Why can’t I do the same?
Where are my native guides? Why do they hide
in the landscape, an ominous screen of hooded eyes?
Why can’t I lift my hand in a friendly
gesture, simply ask for help?

I am no fearless explorer of my emotional
terrain. Instead, a runaway slave, I feel my way
through unfamiliar territory with no map
and only a rough understanding of the language.
I keep an eye on the North Star
and inch forward under cover of darkness.

Mother's Day in Key West

Yesterday, we got up very early, loaded up the car, and drove down to Key West, 4 hours away.  My brother-in-law really wanted to see Key West.  We took overnight bags, in case we were having so much fun that we wanted to stay.  But it was 3:30 yesterday afternoon, and it was clear that no one had a burning desire to do anything else.  So we came back.

It's not as bad as it sounds.  Even though much of the trip is on a 2 lane highway, it's a gorgeous trip.  They call it the Overseas Highway, after all.  The scenery is so different that my eyes and brain rejoice the whole way down.

I was more aware of the fact that it was Mother's Day in the days leading up to Mother's Day than yesterday.  Of course, we were eating at off times, so maybe I'd have been more aware if we had tried to get a table at noon.

On Friday, I went to lunch with 4 other colleague friends from work.  The server wished us a Happy Mother's Day week-end, and we looked at the only woman with children.  What are the odds of that?

When I was picking up a prescription from CVS, the young female pharmacist asked me, "Do you have children yet?"  My brain went to that word "yet."  I turn 48 this summer.  Children made from an egg of mine are not in my future.  Still, I was thrilled that I looked young enough that she would ask the question.

But back to our Key West trip.  Here are some impressions from our trip.  In the coming week, I may post pictures--and I'll definitely say more about Ernest Hemingway.

--I'm sipping Baby's Coffee.  Baby's Coffee used to be the southernmost coffee roaster.  Now the building is for sale--not the business, the building.  The coffee roasting business was shipped to Louisiana years ago.

--There's lots of property for sale throughout the Keys.  What does it mean?  That the market is finally creeping back up enough that people can envision making a sale?  That people are worried about sea level rise and want to get out now? 

--And it's a wide variety of property:  buildings that need repair, as well as new construction, as well as any kind of house you might want.

--As we walked to Hemingway's house, I spotted an old church.  I could see through the windows that it wasn't being used as a church.  We walked along the side of it.  When we got to the front, I saw the For Sale sign.

--I didn't take down the information.  I'm pretty sure I can't afford an old church in Key West, and it's a long commute from my current job.  We did have fun imagining the kind of businesses we could run from the church:  Monastery Brewery and Bakery was my favorite.

--As you drive across bridges and look at the land, you can envision that the Keys won't be with us long when the planet gets serious about sea level rise. 

--The Hemingway House is at a high point in the Keys:  17 feet about sea level.  Could the guide have been right about that?  I expected him to say 7 inches.

--I would happily move right into the Hemingway house.  What a gorgeous place.

--My spouse has read a lot about Henry Flagler and the railroad, ever since someone gave him Les Standiford's book, Last Train to Paradise for Christmas one year.  It's fun to ride to the Keys with him and get a history lesson. 

--My spouse has the kind of brain that retains the information in the very few books he reads.  I read a lot and retain almost nothing specific.

--My brain and eyes rejoice on the way down.  They rejoice part of the way back.  But by the time we're at the Turnpike, I am so ready for the trip to be done.  But it's still an hour to the house.

--At the end of the day, it's good to collapse in my own bed, dreaming of an old church in Key West.  A retreat center in the heart of Key West--would people pay for a bit of respite in their partying vacations?