Energy of All Sorts

There was a moment earlier today when I got an idea for a poem, and then I thought, wait, it's almost the end of March.  I haven't written any rough drafts, and I haven't polished any rough drafts.  There was a moment during Spring Break when I pulled up three rough drafts intending to work on them, but then I didn't.

I always forget how much energy travel takes:  both the literal kind, like the gas used to make the car move and my own energy, both to get ready to go and the driving and the return and putting it all away.  Travel might give me some inspirations for future poems, but it doesn't do much for poetry writing or revising in the moment.

This March travel time is odder than most because I've gotten back from one trip almost immediately to leave on another.  This week, I've returned just in time for Quilt Camp, a three minute trip up the hill to Lutheridge.

My travel is impacting Quilt Camp too--I don't feel good being away for 2 weeks at a time, so I'm going to teach today and tomorrow.  Thursday morning I need to be here, doing my Lutheran Confessions class.

This morning I go for my yearly mammogram, and I found myself trying to remember if I'm allowed to have breakfast.  I thought about the pre-reqs for bloodwork and for a colonoscopy, both of which might require fasting.  I thought about all the markers that a urine sample can discover.  I wondered if I had the workings of a poem.  

Earlier this morning, I thought I did.  Now I'm not so sure.  But here's the first stanza, as it is right now:

In the hours before my mammogram,
I try to remember the rules
for this particular scan.
Can I eat breakfast?

Wedding Season Begins

It was a beautiful wedding.  I took no pictures because I wanted to travel light, the way I did when I was a girl with just a credit card and a lipstick in my pocket.  I left the credit card behind, but I did take the hotel room key and my driver's license, even though we were riding on chartered vans and wouldn't have to drive.  Before September 11, 2001, I went a lot of places without my license, which I left in the car so I wouldn't be without it when I drove.  But that event was the beginning of the surveillance state in which we find ourselves now.

But that's not a happy turn of paragraph.  That paragraph doesn't do much to support the topic sentence.  I have no pictures to prove the topic sentence, and I don't want to spend too much time on describing in words.  The bride and groom were beautiful, but I don't think I've ever seen a non-beautiful bride and groom.  They pledged their love and support, slipped rings on each other's fingers, and then we celebrated the rest of the evening.

I am intrigued by urban and non-traditional spaces that transform themselves into celebration venues.  My sister's wedding reception was at The Torpedo Factory in Alexandria, which was once a torpedo factory but is now artist spaces and celebration areas.  Last night's event was at an old train depot, right under an interstate highway.  It worked.

The food was sumptuous, the drinks free flowing, the music loud.  I couldn't do this every night, but I was glad to be there last night.

Most years, wedding seasons come and go, and no one I know gets married.  This year, we have two family weddings, just like we did a few decades ago, when my cousin got married in early Spring and my sister in late Spring.  Then, as now, there was a war in the Middle East.  Then, as now, we celebrated love despite a world that seems intent on coming apart faster than we can patch it back together again.

Then, as now, I think that love is the only way we patch this world back together again. 

Atlanta and Me

Atlanta is famous for its horrible traffic, and yesterday's traffic was horrible, just as we expected.  The worst part was some side streets which had cars parked on either side of the street, a 2 way street, which barely left room for one car to drive through.  Yikes!

Happily, we made it through and got to the hotel in Midtown Atlanta.  The car is parked in a garage, and we will not be moving it until we leave.  Last night, we walked down to South City Kitchen for dinner--what amazingly good food, drinks, and service!

As we walked back, I looked at the huge skyscrapers and thought about my connection to this city.  My earliest memories are of Atlanta and theatre.  In 1972 or so, we came to Atlanta to see Godspell, a life changing event even when I was 7--that play shaped my theology and that trip to Atlanta made me see big cities as thrilling, not scary.  In 1978, when I was 13, we came to Atlanta to see A Chorus Line and to shop for some Scandinavian furniture to go with what my mom and dad had bought when they were stationed overseas in France in the 60's.

We lived in Montgomery, Alabama, and when we would drive to see my grandparents in South Carolina, Atlanta was an unmissable landmark with buildings bigger than any in any other Southern city, a statement no longer true.  Later, in my undergraduate years, I would go to Atlanta or drive through Atlanta periodically.  I loved Atlanta and my Georgia Tech friends so much that I thought about going to grad school in Atlanta.  But instead, I went to the University of South Carolina, a choice I don't regret.

I remember coming to Atlanta in 1997 to see an exhibit at the High Museum, the first time I ever saw Pre-Raphaelite paintings, the real ones, not pictures of them in books--amazing.  I left and bought my first set of paints and brushes from Pearl, a local-ish art supply place (only later did I realize it was a chain when I moved to South Florida).

My fondest memories are of Charis Books, a feminist bookstore that is still in business, a happy surprise.  But I will not be going there today--the wedding week-end logistics don't allow for many other activities, but that's O.K.  It's good to see relatives we don't get to see often, and good to have a happy occasion to bring us together.  I am aware that in future years, it will be more likely to be a funeral that draws us near.

But let me not think about that today.  Let me marvel in this city, which 1980's Kristin would not recognize.  That girl could make her way through the city in her 1974 Monte Carlo without breaking a sweat.  I remind myself that she was younger and more foolhardy, and the city wasn't as crowded then as it is now.  Let me enjoy this time out of time, an experience that has always been quintessential Atlanta for me.

When the Next Generation Gets Married

I have lots of thoughts whirling in my brain this morning, but none of them are earth shattering.  Here's a sample:

--My spouse's sister's youngest child is getting married this week-end, and her older child will get married in May.  I think that this wedding will be the first of the next generation that I've attended.  Wait, that's not true.  I went to the weddings of both children of my grad school friends who moved to England, in part because she was from there, in part because medical care was better/easier there.  But I am almost sure this is the first wedding of grown ups whom I held when they were babies.

--Instead of pushing myself, I decided to trust that my school means what it says about work-life balance and take some days off around the wedding.  We have personal leave options, as long as we make sure our students have learning happening.  And if we're too sick to do that kind of work from a distance, we have sick leave.  

--Yesterday I remembered how much work it takes to make sure that students have learning happening when I'm not going to be here.  I'm not complaining, just observing.

--This morning, I went through my journal to remember when I first had my phone interview for an adjunct position at SMC.  It was almost 3 years ago to the day.  I was hired at the end of the phone interview, and I continue to be grateful--SO grateful--at the full-time doors that have opened because I said yes to that adjunct job.

--I am working from home this morning, which means I'll be going to my online Lutheran Foundations class from my home study.  I've written notes to myself so that I remember to log on.  Let me stop writing here and go get ready.

My Offline Journal and All the Other Types of Writing Taking the Place of Poetry Writing

I'm a bit more tired than is normal for me in the morning.  I do feel like I've been pushing myself harder than is normal:  I wanted to get the pastor work for the coming week-end done by last Sunday, which I did, but that meant I was behind with the short paper that is due tomorrow.  So yesterday, I finished that draft, then went and taught, and then came home, doing some grocery shopping along the way.

So, in the past week, in addition to the blog posts that I've written, I've written 2 sermons, 2 shorter meditations for Wednesday night worship, and a short paper (850 words) for my Lutheran Confessions class.  So, in January when I look back and wonder why my poem writing trailed off in mid-March, that's why.

This morning, before writing in my offline journal, I spent some time reading old entries from the past year.  That can leave me tired, since I usually write in my offline journal about non-bloggable stuff, usually heavy stuff, and reading those types of entries can leave me sad and slightly hollowed out.

So why do I do it?  I'm usually looking for information, of the when did that meeting happen or when did I apply for this job kind of information.  That's what took me to my journal this morning, at least.  Often I'm looking through my offline journal for sadder information, like medical details or when someone died.

Today is a heavier teaching day than I had planned, in part because of Monday's tech glitches.  Happily, it was a fairly easy pivot.  Based on yesterday's Poe/horror discussions, I'm looking forward to seeing how my afternoon classes react.  It should be a good teaching day.

But if my weariness persists, perhaps I'll treat myself to a delicious coffee indulgence mid-morning.

Mid-March: Tornadoes and Snow and the Wearing of the Green

Yesterday morning did not go the way I planned.  I thought I would get up, do a bit of work on my Lutheran Foundations class paper that is due on Thursday along with some blogging and head to campus at my normal time of 7:15.  We'd been expecting some stormy weather; in fact, I slept with my cell phone in our bedroom just in case there was an overnight alert.

I got up and looked at the weather websites and the radar.  I could see the cold front headed our way, with a huge line of storms, the kind that show up as yellow and red on the radar.  It was in Knoxville when I first woke up, which is about two hours away.  As I kept an eye on the line of storms, I decided that it was wise to hurry up my preparations and head down the mountain to Spartanburg before the storms arrived.  I left the house just after 6 a.m.

Even though I wasn't traveling in severe weather, it was still a harrowing drive.  It was dark, and I no longer drive in the dark much, so when I do, it's hard.  It had been raining, so the lines on the road weren't as clear, and worse, I could see the lines that existed from the time before the interstate renovations and reshaping.  There was quite a wind, even before the storms arrived.

As I pulled into the campus parking lot, it was daylight enough to see the clouds, which looked threatening.  Sure enough, we had a tornado warning an hour later, just when I would normally be arriving.  Even though we've never had a tornado drill, enough people knew where the safe spot in the building was that we were able to get there relatively easily--and happily, it was a big enough space to hold us all.

I thought of the tornado drills of my youth in Montgomery, Alabama.  We'd go to the hallway of the elementary school and sit facing the wall, with a textbook across the back of our heads and necks.  Our space yesterday was much safer, with a reinforced ceiling, so that the two story building was less likely to fall and crush us.

Happily, we didn't test the building strength.  After 15 minutes, we got the all clear and headed back to what we were doing.  But if I'm being honest, I was a bit discombobulated the whole day.  It was the first day back after Spring Break, and when I got to my classroom at 9, I discovered that the sound wasn't working on the in-classroom electronics.  Happily, the tech person came right away, and I had an activity to do while we waited; still, that, too, was discombobulating.

The drive home was less harrowing but still included rain and wind--and oddly, some sunshine here and there at the same time as the rain and the wind.  By late afternoon, when I was safely home and dressed in comfy clothes, it was snowing, in that beautiful way of snow that won't be sticking around.

And now, here we are at Patrick's Day, a feast day that may mean more to non-Christians than Christians--or perhaps, more accurately, to anyone who needs some festivity in the middle of March, whether that festivity be a parade or special foods (soda bread!  corned beef!  cabbage!) or green beer.  If you came here hoping for a blog post on Saint Patrick's Day, head over to this post on my theology blog.

I don't have special Saint Patrick's Day traditions, aside from wearing green.  Elementary school culture shaped me in that way, with vicious pinching for all who forgot to wear green on March 17; I look back on my elementary school days and marvel at what was allowed.  As with tornado preparedness, we weren't really protected at all.

Early Morning Music and the Writing Tasks of the Day

Once again, my writing time is fragmented by all the writing I'm hoping to get done this week-end:  tomorrow's sermon and a meditation for Wednesday night, next week's sermon and a meditation for the last Wednesday in March, and my short paper for Lutheran Confessions class which is due on Thursday.  I can get it all done, but it doesn't leave much time for other writing, like poetry writing or blogging in depth.

Yesterday I also worked some doctor's appointments into my schedule:  our annual eye exams and my 3 month dermatologist exam.  After my melanoma, I'll be going to the dermatologist every three months for the next few years.  Yesterday I had some spots zapped, along with three spots sent in for a biopsy.  Now that I've had the weird melanoma that didn't look like a melanoma, we're both a bit spooked and erring on the side of more information.

By the end of yesterday, I was a bit overwhelmed, so I unplugged for a bit.  This morning I woke up with "Ophelia" by The Band in my head.  I heard it while I was waiting for my skin exam.  My dermatologist has a great playlist, and she told me that she had it done for her exclusively.  There aren't ads, and it's a great mix of music across all genres.

This morning I did a bit of a deep dive into some music by way of YouTube, which has an algorithm for me that I don't resent.  I wanted to see if I was remembering correctly that it was The Band that did "Ophelia," and then I wanted to hear a few more songs that I remember from that Greatest Hits album.  And then there were others, including a dance-in-my-seat session to "Hold On!  I'm Coming."

It was a great way to start the day.  I should probably do it more often.

Home Again after Weather Bogged Down Travels

I made it safely back home yesterday.  Yesterday was the kind of drive where a good chunk of it was done in driving rain mixed with some sleet, snow, and hail.  Many of the drivers zoomed on by me, which is fine, except that three of those drivers had a wreck further on down the road, which made the drive even longer.

It was the kind of weather day when I was almost grateful when traffic came to a stop, so that we could see the lines on the road and the cars around us.  By the time we got moving again, the rain was mostly over.

I thought I would be driving toward bad weather, but it was actually behind me:  my folks got a dusting of snow in Williamsburg yesterday, just 24 hours after we sat outside enjoying the balmy weather.

Today's post will be a short one.  We have eye doctor appointments, and happily, we are the first two appointments of the day.  It does mean that we need to be there at 8 a.m.  So let me get ready.

Mountain Bound after a Good Visit in Williamsburg

Today I have breakfast with my parents in Williamsburg and then head back to the mountains of North Carolina.  I'm not going through the highest elevations, but I might see some snow mixed with the rain that's expected today.  A big cold front is coming through, so I'm grateful not to be expecting tornadoes, particularly when I see the devastation from storms in the middle of the country yesterday.

I've been in Williamsburg visiting my parents, and it's been a good visit.  I'm lucky, in that my visits are always good visits, even ones like back in August, when I arrived to help when my mom suddenly developed life threatening pneumonia.  I'm grateful that my luck continues to hold.

We've done some shopping, picking up some end of winter bargains on clothes--and hey, I'll still get to wear them for the few weeks of winter temps that are likely ahead.  I picked up a pair of festive sandals for a wedding next week-end, along with a festive finishing garment.

We've had great meals.  One of my favorites was the soup supper at my parents' church, one of my church homes away from home.  We had a choice of three soups (corn chowder, vegetable with beef, and chili) and cornbread and sourdough bread.  I love these kinds of soup suppers, and I was glad to be able to be part.

We were there for soup supper because the church does a Lenten Wednesday evening program.  It was meditative and quiet.  We ended with the option to light a small candle from the Paschal candle and put it in the cross-shaped sandbox on a table in front of the Paschal candle.  I wanted to record it, because I liked how it looked.  Is it worth the extra effort to make a sandbox in a specific shape, instead of a big bowl of sand?  Perhaps.  It was lined with 2 layers of heavy plastic, not to protect the wood frame from the flame, but to keep the sand contained.

I didn't take any pictures because I didn't bring my phone to the church.  There wouldn't have been a good way to take pictures, and I wouldn't have wanted to destroy the meditative mood by taking pictures.

On the way home, we stopped at a soft serve ice cream place, the kind that has a small building with a walk-up window and some picnic tables in the parking lot.  It was wonderful to eat ice cream after church and enjoy the freakishly warm weather.

And now to head back, through unsettled weather--the price for a foretaste of summer.

What Time Is It? What Season Is It?

I'm one of those people who wish that we wouldn't turn clocks forward or back, even though I know that if we did that, we'd lose something in terms of darkness and light.  If we had fewer sunsets that came later or fewer sunrises that came earlier, but I don't think I would care.  For me, it doesn't matter if we spring forward or fall back, it takes me weeks to get back to a regular sleep schedule, as regular as my sleep schedule is.

This week, in addition to a time change, we've had a drastic change in the weather--it's been downright hot.  So my sweaty self thinks it's summer, while my light sensitive eyes read spring in the shift in light, while my body is still back in winter in its desire to go to bed early.

I had thought of this time away as having writing residency possibilities, at least in the morning, since I get up hours before my parents.  But instead, I'm tired.  I pulled up some poem rough drafts that I thought I could finish transforming into final drafts, but no, not this morning.  I need to write Sunday's sermon, and if I was really efficient, I'd also write the one for the following Sunday, when we'll be away at a family wedding.

I want to write something more profound as a blog post.  But it won't be this morning.

Happily, Rabbi Rachel Barenblat has written something more profound.  In this blog post, she writes eloquently about why she won't be using AI when she crafts sermons and other religious writing--or any writing:  "My divrei Torah and sermons are love letters, of a kind: they’re love letters to Torah, to God, to my tradition, to the communities I serve. They’re not just communicating information, they’re conveying heart. This may make me old-fashioned. (The fact that I’m still writing longform blog posts on my own blog may also be a sign that I”m old-fashioned!) But it is still my goal to communicate with others without AI mediation. It matters to me that what I share (here and on the bima) are always the words of my own mouth and the meditations of my own heart."

Today my mouth and heart are tired.  Here's hoping for a better day tomorrow.

Of Cars and Headlights and Petrochemicals and Politics

It was somewhat strange, traveling by car yesterday, hearing news of the latest developments of the war in Iran and beyond, wondering how much gas prices would have risen by the time I stopped to refuel.  Last week on Monday morning, gas was still $2.49, and it's hard for me to believe that gas stations sold all that gas before gas prices rose to $2.99 by the end of the day on Wednesday.  I would complain to someone about price gouging but who would listen, much less do anything?

I shouldn't complain:  I've long thought it odd that a gallon of milk costs more than a gallon of gas, since one is renewable and one is not.

As I drove through foggy parts of the mountain, I turned my headlights on and then tried to remember to turn them off again.  In the past, I wouldn't have bothered.  But on Sunday, we replaced both headlights, after a scary-ish time driving back from a pizza place after dark on Friday and realizing that both headlights weren't working.  

We just replaced them in September, so I was surprised not to have headlights on Friday night.  I drove with my brights on, and since many headlights seem to be on permanent brightness to me, I didn't worry overly much.  But that's not a workable solution.

We thought it might be a fuse, but both fuses looked good.  Since the bright lights were working, it didn't seem like a problem with the switch.  What else could it be but bulbs?  

So I bought two more, and my amazing spouse replaced them, and voila!  Hurrah for easy fixes.

I did see on the packaging the notice that a bulb will last for 200 hours.  It's an LED bulb, so I thought it would outlast the life left in the car, but no.  So, yesterday, I only had the lights on when needed.  In the past, I might have left them on until the next time I turned off the engine.

Even if we have to replace the bulbs every 6 months, that's still cheaper than buying a new car.  Over the week-end, my grad school friend and I talked about the delight of a new car, knowing that one won't have car repairs for the first few years.  But we also talked about the puzzlement of a new car--which one should we buy?  Could we find a simpler car, one that might be cheaper both to buy originally and to repair eventually?  Should we think about having some sort of electric/plug in capability?  A few years ago, I would have assumed yes, but now, who knows?

So yesterday, I drove my 2014 Toyota Prius, the subcompact size, through the mountains, across the Piedmont, on and on across North Carolina and then Virginia.  When I get to the Virginia line, every time I think, Hurrah, I'm almost there!  But I'm still 2 hours away from Williamsburg.

I am here with clothes for every season; I even threw a winter-ish coat in the car, my coat which is really more of a longer jacket, but which I wear more than my parka-ish coat.  I don't expect to wear it, but the delight of traveling by car is that I can take many an item that I might not need.

We ended the day as we often do, by watching the NewsHour show on PBS, watching people trying to explain what might be happening on the world stage.  I thought about my headlights, once burning brightly, then burnt out sooner than expected.  I thought about those brave headlights and the human newscasters, trying to function as headlights, showing us parts of the landscape we might not otherwise see. I thought about technology, how we sometimes feel like we're in control of it, but then we're back in the maw of petrochemicals showing us who is really in control--or not.

Spring Break Travels

My spring break is taking on a familiar shape.  I'm headed to my Mom and Dad's house while my spouse stays home to take care of stuff.  I'll be there for a few days and then head back here for doctor's appointments (eye and dermatologist) on Friday.

I'm not leaving until 9.  I don't like driving in the dark in the mountains, and this morning, it's foggy too. May as well stay home until rush hour dies down. It's not an awful rush hour by DC standards or S. Florida standards, but it can get snarled up.

I thought about walking this morning, but my ankle feels really odd--painful, like I shouldn't put too much pressure on it.  So between my painful ankle, the fog, and the time change, I'll likely just take it easy until 9.  Plus I need to finish packing.

As I always do when I travel by car, I'm bringing too much stuff:  my sewing basket, my art supply bag, my laptop, along with normal stuff, like clothes.  My sewing basket may stay in the car, but I'll be happier if I know that I can do some hand stitching if I want to.

Unlike some of our past spring breaks together, we don't have much planned.  We're not traveling, and we won't explore wineries or breweries.  My mom and I will get our hair done, and we'll do some shopping.

But even though it will be a low-key time together, it will be good to be together.  We are none of us getting younger, and it's good to gather while we can.

A Poem for International Women's Day

Today is International Women's Day.  I realize that I am luckier than many women throughout the world.  I have part-time work that I can do in the wee, small hours of the morning--or any time and place that I can get an Internet connection.  I have a full-time job that pays me a decent salary with decent benefits.  I am safe at both jobs, and my employers deposit my pay without incident.  I also have a part-time preaching job that feeds my soul in a different way.

I have a lovely house in a relatively safe neighborhood.  I have food in my kitchen and a way to keep it safe until I'm ready to cook it.

I have a bit of time here and there to do the activities that nourish me:  reading and a variety of creative work.  I have time to see friends.  My family members are in good shape.

We are bombarded, day after day, with stories of women who have not been so lucky, reminding us that we still have work to do.

I'm thinking of the multitude of poems that I've written about gender and history and all of those intersections.  Here's a poem that I wrote years ago that says a lot about the life of a certain class of women in modern, capitalistic countries.  It's part of my chapbook, Life in the Holocene Extinction.

The Hollow Women


We are the hollow women,
the ones with carved muscles,
the ones run ragged by calendars
and other apps that promised
us mastery of that cruel slavedriver, time.

We are the hollow women
with faces carved like pumpkins,
shapes that ultimately frighten.

We are the hollow women
who paint our faces the colors
of the desert and march
ourselves to work while dreaming
of mad dashes to freedom.

At night, the ancient ones speak
to us in soft, bodily gurgles
and strange dreams from a different homeland.
We surface from senseless landscapes
to wear our slave clothes
and artificial faces, masks
of every sort. We trudge
to our hollow offices to do our work,
that modern drudgery,
filing papers and shredding documents,
the feminine mystique, the modern housework,
while at home, domestics
from a different culture care
for the children.

Spring Weather and Spring Break and Villanelles

I in the Spring Break corridor of my teaching life, so you would think I would feel less harried.  But I also realize that the weeks after Spring Break bring increased activity on the calendar, with retreats and a wedding in Atlanta.  So here I am, feeling more stressed than I want to be, even as I know I will get it all done.

I remind myself that the stresses I have are the good kind--there's not sickness stress or family crisis stress.  And then I feel a bit fretful about other stresses that might be waiting offstage.

So let me chart some positives from the week that might slip away otherwise:

--I've given my English 102 classes time to write their second essay in class.  I've been happy watching them write and consult the textbook and write some more.  I do realize that they may use AI at some point, but they've done a lot of the work of writing without AI.

--Yesterday we went to a neighbor's house.  We are going to help with their garden while they are away, and in return, we get to use 2 of their raised beds.  It was such a beautiful afternoon, and so wonderful to see all that they have managed to cultivate on a very tiny patch of mountain land.

--We are in that part of spring where I can see the trees waiting for their grand debut, with a few making a quicker entrance.  And the daffodils have fully committed to the idea that we can count on spring having arrived.

--Because it's been warmer, I've been walking before I head down the mountain to school.  I don't always get a long walk, the way I did in the summer.  But I get a half hour walk in, and that's better than I've been doing.

--It's also been getting lighter earlier, so this week the sunrise has been an added benefit of an early morning walk.  This week, both sunrises and sunsets have been glorious.  Both of the pictures in this post are of sunrise on Wednesday.

--I got pulled over on Wednesday afternoon.  I have no doubt that I was speeding, but the officer never told me what he clocked me doing.  He gave me a written warning, and I feel lucky.  It's my 3rd written warning.  The first was when I was a student at Newberry College, and the second as I travelled to Mepkin Abbey.  In every case, I was treated kindly, and I do realize how many people are not that lucky.

--I had originally planned to do both sestinas and villanelles in my Advanced Creative Writing class yesterday, but I decided that I was being a bit ambitious.  We did a session on villanelles, which didn't take my students as long as I thought it might.  They probably could have done both sestinas and villanelles.  But I'm not going to worry about it.  It was the Thursday before Spring Break, so only half the class was there.

--I decided to write a villanelle too, and at first, that writing muscle felt so crusty and creaky.  But I quickly got back into the rhyming and repeating groove.

--I want to remember that I'm getting rough drafts written.  I may not always be transforming them into finished drafts, and some of them, like yesterday's villanelle, may not be worth more work.  But I am getting poem composing done more regularly than my finished drafts file will indicate to end of year Kristin.

Generational Milestones

For much of my life, we've been looking for generational milestones, saying, "Is this it?  Is this our Pearl Harbor moment?  The where were you when Kennedy was shot moment?"  Maybe instead of the royal "we," I should speak only for myself.  Is it because I read voraciously as a child?  Is it because I overheard grown ups talking, as bookish children often do?

I knew early on that September 11, 2001 was this kind of milestone, the event that cracks the world into "before" and "after."  Even today, almost 25 years later, I can still recall almost every minute of that day, and I do mean this literally.

This morning I've been listening to various podcasts about Iran.  I am wondering if generations after us will see the 1979 take over of the U.S. Embassy in Iran as a generational marker.  I remember that the television was on in the living room of the house on the Outer Banks where my family was having a week-end get away with another family.  There was a "breaking news" interruption, and my dad moved closer to the T.V.  He recognized the serious nature of events, but I think we all thought it would be settled quickly.

I am thinking about historical regimes, how we see them differently now than their citizens might have seen them.  Of course, it's much more complicated the further back we go.  Citizens of Rome would not have had the kind of daily/hourly news updates that we have now.

I'm not naive--I do realize that the news updates that we get aren't always reliable.  In the days of escalation to the Iraq war, I remember Colin Powell's address to the U.N., and I assumed he was telling the truth.  He might have left out classified information, sure, but of course we could trust the information that we got in that kind of speech.

I do think that people like Colin Powell were telling the truth as they knew it at the time.  We may not see it as true now, with more than 20 years of follow up information.  This time, because I've heard so many different strands of information, some of which seems to contradict each other, I'm less inclined to think I'm hearing the truth.  

What's more accurate probably:  the truth will shift, and right now, no one is sure what is true, with the possible exception of some top level people who have access to some top level classified documents--and even those are subject to interpretation (I'm thinking of satellite data and intelligence reports).

I am looking at the full moon outside of my writing window and reflecting on the fact that the same moon has shown down us throughout all of human history, as we go back and forth, making the same mistakes over and over again, stumbling over milestones that we may not even recognize as milestones until generations later.

Poetry and Current Events

Here we are, day five of the Iran war--or is it year 46, if we date it to the 1979 take-over of the embassy?  Or earlier, given our interactions in that country during the years of the Shaw.  

Yesterday on my way home, I noticed that gas was at $2.99 a gallon, up from $2.49 a gallon in the morning when I left.  On some level, I shouldn't have been surprised.  Long ago, when the Kuwait interaction went from Desert Shield to Desert Storm, I went right to the gas station, but it was much longer before gas prices rose.  That's my memory, although I wasn't commuting at the time, so I might not have been as focused on gas prices.  I was a poor grad student, so I might have noticed.

Back then, my brain was focused on the war.  I wrote poems about people in war zones, a poem that contrasted me washing dishes in solitude to someone trying to keep body and soul together in a bomb shelter.  They weren't good poems, but I mention it because decades later, I'm able to move throughout the day without my brain returning to the drum beat of war.

That's not to say that I've ignored the issue, just that I've gotten more skilled at compartmentalizing it all.  

Part of me also assumes that people in charge have information that I don't.  This Washington Post article by Jim Geraghty argues that most presidents become war hawks as they see top secret briefings during their tenure, and that makes sense to me.  This New York Times article by Brett Stephens makes a case for military action against Iran.

This is not to say that I'm just fine with these military actions.  I'm always wary, because I've had a lifetime of hearing leaders tell us that we can do a limited intervention, and these things almost always spiral out of control and have all sorts of unintended consequences.  I can read, and I know that throughout history, military actions almost always spiral out of control and have all sorts of unintended consequences.

I've been thinking about my undergraduate days, when my favorite Literature professor told us that poems that engaged specific current events were never any good.  I argued fiercely with her; I thought that poetry needed to be involved in the real world.  I still believe that, although right now, I'm not producing any poems, of any quality, that are about this war.  Similarly, I haven't written poems about Gaza or Ukraine (maybe obliquely?) or any other hot spot.

Some part of me thinks that 500 years from now, if humans survive, people will look at us and marvel that we started these wars and refused to focus on the climate disasters bearing down on us--and I have written about that historic event from a variety of angles.

But like so many humans through history, I continue moving through my day, feeling powerless, even if I knew what I thought should happen, and I don't.  I continue moving through my days, feeling fortunate to be far away from the theatre of war and feeling guilty about my good fortune.  I move throughout my days, documenting regular people approaches to current events, even if I'm not writing poems about those current events.

Eclipses and Other Portents

Later this morning, we'll go vote in the primary.  We don't live in Texas, so our primary isn't as interesting.  But it may have an impact on the Senate race in November.  

We'd vote regardless.  In North Carolina, we're registered as independents which means we can vote in either the Democratic primary or the Republican primary, but not both.  Two years ago, I voted in the Republican primary because I wanted Nikki Haley to win.  Today I'm voting in the Democratic primary because I want Roy Cooper, our former governor, to be the candidate in November. 

If we had voted early, we'd have done it at the public library.  Today we'll go to the local Lutheran church, the one where I go on Wednesdays to quilt when I'm not teaching.  I'm glad that the polling place is easy for me, even as I wonder how it came to be the polling place.  My younger self would have done some talking about separation of church and state.  My older self is happy to see church buildings used for the good of the community.

This morning's post will be shorter than usual, not because I'm headed off to vote, but because I'm going on an early morning walk.  I could wait; it's the one weekday where I don't need to be on the road to Spartanburg before 7:30.  But there's an eclipse happening, and although it's cloudy, I'll go out, just on the off chance that the clouds clear.

The moon will look red, and ancient people would have seen the blood moon as a portent.  With a war in the Middle East, we have no shortage of portents.  Still I will vote, and I will look at the sky, and I will hope to be amazed in a good way, not a horror-filled way.

No AWP For Me

Various social platforms (primarily Facebook for me) have begun to fill with writers posting their AWP schedules.  My grad school friend and I briefly thought about going.  After all, it's in Baltimore, within driving distance, which it rarely is.  We both have family in the area, although we would have stayed in the conference hotel.

I decided early that I couldn't do it this year.  Some years, AWP is the same year as spring break, when I'm working at places that have a spring break, and that confluence makes the whole thing easier.  Some years, AWP is nowhere near spring break, and that, too, makes the whole thing easier.

This year, AWP is right before my spring break in a March that is very busy even before adding a big conference.  So I decided not to go.

Some years I feel like I'm missing out, and now, it's been so many years since I attended that if I could get there, it might not feel like a repeat of past years in terms of what I learn/hear.  And now, I'm teaching a lot of creative writing courses, which has not been the case in the past.

Next year, I might see if I can get some travel money from Spartanburg Methodist College.  But this year, I'm glad not to be travelling this week.  The rest of March will have plenty of travel, lots of family reconnecting, and a quilt retreat near the end.  That's almost more than I can handle, so I'm glad not to be adding AWP on top of it all.

Being Born Again: Sermon Revisions in the Midst of News Reports

In later years, I may wonder why I'm not writing more about the events of yesterday:  bombs on Iran and Ayatollah Khamenei dead.  Maybe later readers will wonder why I didn't analyze Trump's decision to go ahead without consulting Congress or maybe they will have knowledge I don't.  I will say that U.S. presidents have been moving forward with war plans, asking for forgiveness rather than permission, for my whole life regardless of political persuasions.  

I didn't pay close attention to the news yesterday.  I was working on both taxes and my sermon.  I didn't even hear about the death of Khamenei until evening.  At the end of the day, I wrote this Facebook post:  "Doing some sermon revisions, thinking about Nicodemus who comes to Jesus, two men who likely see the world very differently but take the time to talk. I'm thinking about how Nicodemus is perplexed in the third chapter of John (tomorrow's reading) but by the end of the Gospel of John, he's buying an astonishing amount of burial spices for Jesus, a public declaration of Jesus' importance. I'm thinking and revising and flipping to news reports and my sermon seems even more relevant, about the necessity of talking and understanding and being born again for new possibilities in this life."

In a week of good time management, I have my sermon written before Saturday, and my spouse offers suggestions.  This week, I got my sermon draft done by Thursday, and I was proud of that.  Yesterday, as we were going over his notes, I realized that I had printed out not the sermon for today, but one for two years ago.

In a way, I was relieved.  The fact that the sermon was so unfamiliar just two days after I had written it had me worried before I checked the date on the sermon.  In a way, no harm done.  I made the discovery while my spouse still had time to read the correct sermon yesterday, and I had time to make the sermon stronger.  My spouse wasn't upset that he read two sermons this week.

And yet, it reminds me that although I may think I have all the parts of my life moving smoothly, there are some indications that it may be more tenuous than I want to think.  I thought of this again in the afternoon, as the phone rang, and I realized that the afternoon was later than I thought, and I hadn't called my parents, as we had arranged on Friday.  Again, no harm done, except . . .   I thought of this idea again as afternoon faded into dusk, as we looked in the recycling bin for the draft of the correct sermon with my spouse's notes on it.

It was a productive day, despite the mishaps.  I got the first draft of our taxes done, and now we have decisions to make about how to pay them.  Happily, we have the resources.  I got the finished draft of my sermon done.  Now let me get ready to preach and preside at Faith Lutheran in Bristol, Tennessee--worship starts at 10 a.m., and all are welcome.

The First Fish Fry of the Season

Yesterday afternoon, I finished teaching, drove from Spartanburg to Arden, where I live, and then, after changing clothes, drove from Arden to Bristol, Tennessee, where I am a part-time minister at Faith Lutheran.  Last night was the first of four spring fish fry events.

People pay $10 for a wonderful plate of food:  fish (fried or baked), mac-and-cheese, pierogies and caramelized onions, cole slaw, green beans, rolls, and an amazing assortment of desserts and drinks.  I use the word amazing because I know how many members we have and how many desserts we offer, and that means people are making a lot of dessert.

All of the money goes to local charities, primarily the local ones that deal with hunger.  But people come for the food.  That's what I thought until last night.

We arrived at 4:45, and the event was supposed to start at 5.  When we got there, people were already there, waiting for food.  Many of the people who came were so excited to be there.  They love the food, but more than that, they love the chance to sit and reconnect with neighbors from across the community (and a few of them are reconnecting with literal neighbors).

We had a steady stream of people coming and going, with almost every place in the smallish fellowship hall occupied for the first 80 minutes of the event.  We ran out of cole slaw, but we didn't run out of desserts.  

I thought about how past Kristin would have viewed this event.  She would have wondered why we were having this event, when so many people who come already have a church home.  She would have looked at the amazing amount of work that it takes to put on this event, and she would have suggested that we donate a chunk of money instead of buying the food and cooking it and selling plates.

But current Kristin has a glimmer of a different way of thinking about this.  People are hungry for community.  They want to have a chance to reconnect with people who live in the same geographical area.  They care less about people's religious or political beliefs.

I realize that what I observed last night may be more true in small towns than in big urban centers.  But I suspect that even in the big cities, people are longing for the kind of connection that a fish fry event can give them.

Of Lab Results and Lectures

I didn't write yesterday because I got good lab results and wanted to process a bit in my offline journal--and then it was time for Lutheran Confessions class.  Let me record some thoughts here:

--My lab results show that almost all of my numbers are in a good range.  It's my vitamin D that is a bit low, which is an easy fix.  The results that make me most happy are my liver numbers, which had been drifting up.  I have been very focused in the last year on reducing alcohol intake, and for the last 8 weeks, since Jan. 2, I have had no alcohol.  And this blood work has my liver numbers back down, back in the healthy range.  I am entering the time of life where it seems that no one is getting good medical news, so let me be happy while I can be.

--My Lutheran Confessions class continues to be great.  I am so impressed with how my professor can talk about the Reformation for hours, making it interesting, apparently without much in the way of notes.  There's a PowerPoint, but he's amazing at using the PowerPoint as it should be, as a scaffolding, not as a document to be read out loud in class.

--As I was talking about my professor's skills with my spouse, we reminded ourselves that we have specialties too.  I could talk at great length about any number of poems or short stories, about several periods of literature, particularly British Literature of the Romantic and early Victorian period, and the Modernist time between the two world wars.

--I was sad about the passing of Jeff Galloway, who was a fierce advocate for less fierce running.  He's most famous for advising runners to take walking breaks.  He was also part of the group of runners in the 70's and 80's who went for Long, Slow Distance.  These are ideas that shaped me, that I return to again and again, the idea of meeting your body where you are right now, and that less hard exercise can actually be better.

--I had an idea for my 102 class, which I'll post below.  It took much less class time than I thought, but I decided I was O.K. with that.  I'll also use the assignment as one of the possibilities for Revised Writing 3--the in-class experience can be useful in several ways, so I'm happy about that.

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Making a Modern Case: The Characters from “Antigone”


In our current day, we have a variety of ways of getting information/viewpoints out to larger groups: a State of the Union address or other speeches, a news program interview, a Tik Tok video or other types of social media, a talk show, a podcast, a trial, a creative work (a song, a book, a television show).


In your small group, think about the characters in the play “Antigone” who have a point of view. If the play happened today, what would be the best way of making a case that each character was right and others were wrong.


Choose one character from the list below and choose one way of making a case for that character’s view. Create something that you will present to the class. We don’t have a lot of time, so it won’t be fully formed. You might decide to tell us what you would have created if you had time.


Antigone

Ismene (her sister)

King Creon

Haemon (Creon’s son and Antigone’s fiancé)

The people ruled by Creon

What We Watched When We Didn't Watch the State of the Union Address

Last night, I wrote this Facebook post:  "In my younger days, I wanted to be a reporter. In my older days, I am so grateful to have a job where I don't need to stay up for the State of the Union address, although when I teach "Antigone" tomorrow, I may wish that I could make more specific references to the speech. Nah, it's probably better to keep that class conversation more general: what do we do when our moral/religious beliefs are in conflict with what our earthly rulers want us to do?"

I didn't need to make a conscious choice.  By 9 p.m., when the pageant started, I was already asleep.  Instead of watching the State of the Union address, we watched A Fish Called Wanda.  We had seen it before, in the theatre when it first came out, and then again, we likely rented it once more on a VHS tape.  I remember it as being hilarious, and a lot of that hilarity is still there.  

However these days, I don't always gravitate to slapstick comedy, the physical kind of comedy.  In my older age, I don't always warm to the hilarity of "Oh my goodness, we were about to have sex, and my wife has come home so I need to explain things while the pretty young thing is hiding in the room" kind of plot twist.  Having one of the criminals have a severe stutter led to moments of meanness that were very cringe-y these days.

But the acting was good, and the timing was superb, and Jamie Lee Curtis is such a delight in everything she does as are the Monty Python folks as is Kevin Kline that it was a pleasant way to spend time after dinner and before bed.  It's strange to think about our viewing habits have changed.  We no longer view network TV at all, in parts because we don't have cable and our antenna reception is so bad.  Once we would have done all of our movie viewing during the week-ends, and it would have required advance planning or having purchased the movie, which we likely wouldn't have done in our impoverished grad school days.

This morning, my brain returned to the State of the Union address and my Facebook post.  I also thought about my department chair asking me if I had ever taught a journalism class.  I wrote about it in this blog post:  "Before she assigned me the Journalism class, my department chair reached out to me by way of e-mail to see if I'd be open to teaching it. Here's what I wrote back: "I am open to that, although I haven't taught it. But long ago, in my Newberry College undergrad days, I was an essential part of the student newspaper. We went looking for hot stories, a la Woodward and Bernstein. We never found them, but we had fun just the same."

This morning, I've been trying to write a poem that combines threads of my Facebook post and threads from my blog post.  I still need a third stanza, so I'll let my subconscious brain keep working on it while I get ready for my working-for-pay day, the teaching of "Antigone."

States of Union, States of Disunion

Soon I leave to go to the doctor's office for my annual physical exam.  Let me record a few thoughts.

--I'm thinking about what has changed since my last doctor's appointment.  I've had my first colonoscopy, which I've been trying to schedule for years, literally years.  Finally, last year, my doctor referred me to another doctor who both does colonoscopies and surgeries.  I've gotten hearing aids.  But the bigger news is my first melanoma.

--Five years ago Russian invaded Ukraine.  It seems important to note this fact.

--The State of the Union speech is tonight.  I wasn't planning to watch it anyway--past my bedtime.  But once the president said that it was going to be "very long," well, that sealed the deal.

--Yesterday as I was driving to work, I was wishing I had made a different schedule for my 101 class, so that we didn't start a new module the week before Spring Break.  When I got to the office, I created that different schedule.  There are times that it is great to be the teacher, wonderful to be the one in charge.

--There are many reasons why I love my teaching job at Spartanburg Methodist College:  schedule flexibility and getting to talk about literature I love being among the top.  But not having to stay up to watch the State of the Union speech is another one.

Finally Seeing "Frankenstein"

Yesterday, after an afternoon of cooking and baking, we settled in to watch the newest version of Frankenstein, the Guillermo del Toro version.  We didn't have Netflix at the time it came out, and we may not have it much longer, because it keeps making us enter information that the platform already has.

I was excited when it first came out.  I thought it would be more faithful to the book.  I was wrong.

I'm not one of those annoying English majors who believes that the movie adaptation must stay faithful to the book.  I realize that decisions must be made for the sake of brevity or art or any number of other reasons.  But I do wish that those decisions made sense.  This movie had decisions that did not make sense to me.

I read about the change of Elizabeth to be less of a love interest.  But frankly, she's such a minor character in the film that I didn't understand the change.  The ending, where Victor apologizes to the creature, was such a different ending, which does such violence to the text.  By then, I was barely able to watch the movie, which would be ending in a few minutes, because of those kinds of changes.

My spouse was more puzzled by the ways the plot parts made no sense, particularly the creature's ability to heal when hurt and the fact that he could not die.

In places, the movie was gorgeous; there is that going for it.  During the first part of the film, I was intrigued by the intellectual part of the movie, but once I saw how Victor treated the creature, and realized it was going to continue, I found it a tough watch.

I'm glad I watched it for many reasons.  I appreciate del Toro's enthusiasm, for one.  And if I do teach the text again, I'll want to have seen it.

I do not feel the same about the current adaptation of Wuthering Heights.  I don't have that kind of time to spend on that movie.

Snow in the Higher Elevations and a Week-end Update

On most Sundays, I'd be on my way to Bristol, Tennessee where I serve as a Synod Appointed Minister at Faith Lutheran.  This morning, I'll be staying home.  There's no snow or dangerous travel conditions here, and there's just a bit of snow in Bristol right now.  But there are winter weather advisories and warnings for the higher elevations which is where I have to travel to get from my house to Bristol, so I decided to take a cautious approach and not attempt the trip.  We could make it safely over, probably, but by the time we came back this afternoon, we might have travel troubles.

Even after making this decision yesterday, I still find myself checking the weather.  My spouse asked why I feel guilty still, and I've been thinking about this as I check the weather.  I finally realized that I don't feel guilty, but if the winter weather holds off or doesn't materialize at all, I'll feel stupid.  Of course, I wouldn't have to feel stupid if I just quit checking the weather on the mountaintop.

I have realized that I am not good at making a decision and being done with it--not for big things, and not for little things.  Even as I realize this truth about myself, I still continue to second guess myself.  I'm trying to use meditation practices:  I don't berate myself for the second guessing, but I recognize the behavior and try to turn my attention back to more important tasks.

Let me remember some of the delightful aspects of the week-end.

--On Friday night, we had dinner with two family members from my mom's generation who traveled through town on their way to Oak Ridge to celebrate another family member's 90th birthday.  These two women have been instrumental in showing me that there are lots of ways to live a happy life.  One of them was the first vegetarian I ever met, and the other one adopted a baby much later in life than is usual.

--We ate at Farm Burger, which I always thought was an upscale McDonalds (Chipotle vs. Taco Bell). Indeed, it was more upscale than McDonald's.  But it sources its meat from local farms and seems to be committed to sustainability.  In addition to beef burgers, the restaurant had a vegetarian burger made from sweet potatoes and several salad options.  We were there at 6:30, and I was so grateful that it wasn't overly crowded.

--After dinner, we came back to our house for dessert.  I had made a lemon loaf cake, and since I didn't know people's current dietary situations, I came up with a lot of separate options that could be combined according to need and taste:  strawberries, blueberries, sorbet, vanilla ice cream, and whipped cream.  It was perfect, and it was great to have a quieter place to continue our conversation.

--I also liked that they liked the house and saw the same possibilities for this small, mountain house that we do.  The cold winter weather has left my spouse in a sea of despair, and it was good to have enthusiasm in the house.

--Yesterday morning I connected with some members of my Florida church by way of Zoom.  We've been meeting regularly for fellowship and Bible study for years, even as many of us moved.  It is SO wonderful that technology allows us to do this.

--Yesterday afternoon I did my volunteer service by staffing the Lutheridge camp store.  It's one of the handbell week-ends, so most people came right after lunch.  There was a bit of a back up at the register, but everyone was gracious and beyond.  They thanked me for being there.

--They may have thanked me because I thanked them for their patience with a woman who was only doing this for the second time.  One woman said, "Didn't they give you any training?"  I said, "Yes, but it was back in November."  I have no shame about reminding them--I didn't want praise for volunteering, but I wanted to be sure that they realized that Lutheridge didn't employ a person who wasn't very good at finding the more obscure items in the system and caused a line at the check out register.

--I took my laptop because I thought there would be down time, and I was right.  I was able to revise my sermon, and because I could get the Lutheridge wi-fi signal, I completed required cybersecurity training for the school where I do my online teaching.  It was one of several to-do tasks hanging over my head.

Since we will be here today, let me head to the grocery store to get some provisions.  We often don't cook much on Sundays, since we usually aren't home for much of Sunday.

Debates and Structured Class Conversations: The "Goblin Market" Edition

We've had a great week in my English 102 classes.  We've been discussing "Goblin Market," but in a slightly different way.  Before we started, I went over a variety of possible interpretations, and then I gave them a chart.  I said that as we went through the poem, they'd fill in the chart with specific information to support an 3 possible interpretations of the poem:  gender relationships (which would include the lesbian interpretation of the poem), spiritual/religious, and economic.

We went through the poem, with me reading parts of it and pointing out which parts would go in the chart.  Often I had to say, "You should be writing this down."  At the end, I had them write a paragraph that told which interpretation was the one that made the most sense to them, and that paragraph needed quotes from the poem.

So far, so good--we've analyzed the poem, we've made notes (and perhaps learned how to take notes), and we've written some analysis that used quotes from the poem to support the analysis.  In the past, I would have stopped here and spent some time wishing that students would talk more, that we could have more of a conversation, less of a lecture.

This time, on the last day, I got to class early and put 8 half pages of paper on the walls around the room.  On each page, I had a possible interpretation of the poem:  male-female relationships/love/sex, lesbian male-female relationships/love/sex, drug addiction, religious/spiritual/good vs. evil, prostitution, economics, it's just a fairy tale, sisterhood (which could be in the feminist sense or the sibling sense).  I had students leave everything on their desks and circulate around the room, standing at the page of paper that had the interpretation that they most supported.

We did some shuffling so that no one was on a one person team.  I gave them 10-15 minutes to prepare an informal presentation about their interpretation, including page numbers.  They could use the chart they created and the daily writings about the poem and any other notes.  We would listen for holes in the argument, but it wouldn't be the kind of intense debate they might have seen in times of elections or by high school debate clubs.

It became clear that the happy ending was going to be a hole in the argument for almost every position, so each team addressed the happy ending in a separate presentation.  I was pleased to hear great conversations as the teams prepared their presentations--and not only great conversations, but lots of flipping back and forth in the book as they looked for ways to support their ideas.  They brought in the kind of information that 19th century readers of the poem wouldn't have had, like addiction and recovery methods, and they used sexual lenses for interpretation that previous generations wouldn't have had, using ideas like hook up culture and closeted relationships.

In one class, two students arrived very late, just when we were getting ready to do the presentations.  So I made them judges.  They took careful notes and gave great feedback (positive and enthusiastic) to each team.

In each class, some students stayed after the end, both to talk to each other and to talk to me.  There was an enthusiasm for the poem that might not have been there had we not been in small groups.

I'm not a small group person overall, but I'm trying to overcome my aversion to it.  I'm trying to see it as a different way of having in-class conversation.  In fact, I'm wondering if we shouldn't have some sort of small group exercise as part of every module.

Poetry Inspirations: First Troy, Second Troy, Invasion Anniversaries

We have reached the time of the semester when I wake up in the middle of the night thinking about all I have agreed to do, all of my various obligations.  I know that I will get it all done.  I always do, and in past semesters, I've had even more on my plate.

I feel something shifting in me, something that says that maybe I should start saying no to more things.  Or maybe I just need a better calendar system so that I have a better sense of what I'm saying yes to--or maybe I need to get in the habit of saying, "I'll get back to you on this request when I've checked my calendar."

I am feeling that grouchiness that comes when I have papers to grade and I feel my poet self hollowing out.  I've been feeling uninspired.

Happily, I keep a blog.  Yesterday I went back to February of 2022, not looking for inspiration, but trying to remember the exact date when Putin invaded Ukraine (it was Feb. 24).  I found this post which answered my question and led me to the second blog post which inspired a poem yesterday morning.  It was this insight specifically:  "I am a middle-aged woman with arthritic feet and limited ability with weapons. I am not going to be the freedom fighter/spy who defeats Vladimir Putin; I do not have that level of skill or beauty."

Here's the first stanza of what is still a rough draft:

"I will not be the woman
who wins this war.
I have no skill with weapons.
I cannot kill the bloodthirsty dictator
after I seduce him,
I was never that kind of beauty.
No ships will burn
because of me,
no second Troy."

I felt inordinately proud of that last line of the first stanza, that allusion to the Yeats poem.  Does it work?  Is it too much?  I don't know yet.

I'm just happy to find that my poetry brain is still working in the background, as I make my way through each day's tasks.

The Morning after the Ash Wednesday Before

I took a selfie this morning that captures my post-Ash Wednesday morning situation:

There are the ashes from last night, still on my forehead, and because my lipstick that remained from last night was blotchy, I did give my lipstick a freshening.  There's the alb on the sofa because I need to wash it to make sure that the ashes from last night come out (pre-treated, not too worried).  There's the book for my Lutheran Foundations class that I'll attend by way of Zoom in half an hour.  There's the labyrinth lap blanket that my home congregation in Florida gifted us when we moved to North Carolina.

Ordinarily I'd be in Spartanburg by now, getting ready to be on Zoom in my office.  I have structured my classes so that on some weeks, I have conferences, and I can get a later start.  I knew that this morning would be a time I'd be happy to have given myself this break, and I am.

Instead of getting ready and being on the road by 7 a.m. this morning, I got to go on a walk and hear birdsong.  I was struck by how long it's been.  I've been walking, but not at times of the day when lots of birds are singing, the way they are at sunrise.

Yesterday was not a day with much downtime.  Often I thought of the Paul Simon lyric from "One Trick Pony":  "all of these extra moves I make, and all this herky-jerky motion, and the bag of tricks it takes to get me through my working day."

But I do feel very fortunate in that all the aspects of my working life feed both my brain and my soul--it has not always been this way.

Trolls in the Forest

Yesterday we went to see the trolls at the local arboretum:

I couldn't resist posing with the above troll:

If I was captioning this picture, I'd say this:  "You'd think a woman who spent the last week teaching Christina Rossetti's 'Goblin Market' would be more cautious about strange creatures in the forest."

I'd been hearing about this exhibit since it first arrived back in November, but I never heard that it had a closing date until last week.  The weather last week was far from perfect:  chilly and windy, which made it feel even chillier.  We thought about Saturday, but decided that there would be crowds.  So we went yesterday, the last day of the exhibit.

It was more crowded than I expected, but it was manageable.  Every troll had a small crowd around it, but we were all respectful of the fact that everyone wanted a chance to take a picture.

I was impressed by the variety of ways to get to the trolls.  Some of them were along paths in the woods, which were less accessible to anyone with mobility issues.  But half the trolls were in the garden area along paved walkways.

It was a delightful adventure, and I wish we'd had more time and warmer weather.  In short, I wish I had gone earlier.  But I'm glad to have had the opportunity and happy that my walk in the woods was in search of trolls.

Tuesday Scraps: Texting Mix-ups and Passings and Other Goblins

Yesterday, I was surprised to discover that I hadn't written a morning post for this blog.  On Sunday, I also didn't write a morning post, but that's normal for a Sunday where we leave for Bristol at 7 a.m.  So let me collect some bits and pieces here:

--If you came here looking for a Shrove Tuesday/Mardi Gras post, head over to this post on my theology blog.

--I have been looking at rough drafts, as I've been doing when I don't have a new poem bubbling up.  I am surprised by how many poems came from the bushel of apples I bought in October.  In the future, when I deliberate the wisdom of buying apples in bulk, let me remember how many ways those apples fed me.

--When I heard about the death of Robert Duvall yesterday, I was surprised.  I thought he had already died.  As I've read about his career, again, I was surprised.  I didn't realize he got his start by playing Boo Radley in Too Kill a Mockingbird; I didn't realize he was in the film.  My favorite role of his will always be Gus in Lonesome Dove, but I admire so many others too.  In the past year, we watched Tender Mercies, and wow, what an amazing performance.  The variety of what he was able to do/create/convey across his career is what impresses me most. 

--This morning comes the news of Jesse Jackson's death.  I voted for him in the South Carolina primary in 1988.  It felt like we were on the cusp of something amazing, and that feeling has come and gone several times since.  I would love to feel that feeling again, like we're on the cusp of something amazing which is good, not that dread that we're on the cusp of something amazing that is a threat to our existence.

--I noticed that the daffodil which was about to bloom in the early January warmth did not die in the ice and snow of later weeks--and now, it's in full bloom with a few friends.  It seems like a metaphor, and  it is, but I don't know that I can do anything new with it.

--I have been having SUCH a GREAT time teaching Christina Rossetti's "Goblin Market"--what a perfect poem for teaching (and reading).

--I've been having trouble finding a space in my schedule for a daily walk--it's part scheduling, part the weather which makes me want to stay inside.  Yesterday I took a pair of socks and sneakers to the office, and at 11:00, I set out for a walk around campus.  This solution won't work every MWF, but for the next few weeks, I'll keep the shoes and socks in my office and try to get more walking in during the day.

--Yesterday, my spouse and I had a texting mix-up.  I asked if he had made it to the grocery store to pick up the wine we were bringing to a neighborhood gathering.  He texted back "No but u can."  He meant to text "No but I can."  I texted back, and fumed all the way home.  Happily, the mix up was resolved, but it was easy to see how it could have blown up in all sorts of ways.  Easy and scary.

Writing Life, Olympian Life

If you came here hoping for a Valentine's Day post, head over to my theology blog to read this post.  Last night I made a quick grocery store trip and was flabbergasted by how many armloads of flowers were at every end cap.  Valentine's Day has never been my favorite holiday, at least not how it's actually practiced.

If you came here hoping for an Olympics post, I have nothing for you.  I am not watching the Olympics being broadcast now; winter sports have rarely held my attention.  I've been more interested in summer Olympic games in the past, but in 2 years, will I watch?  I have no idea.  I remember being enthralled by the 1980 Winter Olympics, but that was because one of my best friends was breathless about it all.  I remember following the progress of the U.S. hockey team in the 1980's, me and the rest of the world.  In 1980, I was also fascinated by speed skating, but I've never been interested in figure skating--or in gymnastics, which seems an equivalent in the summer Olympics.

Yesterday I was thinking about how being an athlete is unlike being a writer.  I watch the Olympics, and I have no illusions that I will ever be at that level, and worse--the window for that level of skill is tied to youth.  With writing, I can continue to improve.

I thought about this off and on throughout the week, as I have walked from my office to my classrooms and observed clusters of students who are talking about their creative writing.  I don't think these projects are for a class.  I think they're just students who like to write and have found each other.  I love the building where most humanities classes are taught.  It was built 15 years ago, so it's a very different building than any other building where I've taught.  There's more natural light, for one thing, and less decay.  The common area has spaces for informal gathering/studying, spaces that look like a small living room, spaces that look like a kitchen table, and two tables of barstool height, with higher chairs.  There's a charging station beside one of them, and plenty of plugs throughout the common space.  There are some backless couches that look like waves outside of each classroom.

Some of the students hang out as they wait for classes to start, but other students hang out all day.  As I overhear conversations, I feel inordinately happy.  There's the creative writing discussions and the students helping each other in a variety of classes.  There are students scrolling through their phones, and others staring at laptops, but more often than not, they're interacting.

As I walk back and forth, I sometimes feel wistful, sometimes nostalgic, sometimes sad about how long ago my own undergrad days have become.  I can also be prone to the sadness of feeling like I haven't lived up to my potential.    Yesterday I laughed at myself a bit--I can still keep working on writing projects, and I can keep doing it deep into old age, barring some kind of injury.  In terms of athletic prowess, I'm not going to be skiing ever again; fear of breaking a bone is just too much of a deterrent.

Happily, I'm fine with that.  I didn't like skiing when I did it in my younger years, so no great loss.  Aging must be much more difficult if what brings one joy is not something one can do with an aging body.

A Typical Thursday, a Good Thursday: Seminary in the Morning, Teaching in the Afternoon

Yesterday was a whiplash inducing kind of day, but not in a bad way:  I left the house early to get to my office to be ready for the Lutheran Foundations class that I'm taking at United Lutheran Seminary by way of Zoom, I attended class, and then I took care of the teaching responsibilities that take much of my weekday life.  

The class was surprisingly interesting.  I say "surprisingly," because it was about the creeds; discussing the creeds is not why I wanted to go to seminary.  But it was a good way to spend part of the morning, as I wrote about in this post on my theology blog. 

One of my former students reached out to me to see if she could interview me.  There's a class that's requiring students to interview someone working in a field that interests them, and she's interested in teaching.  In a closing essay for the Creative Writing class that she took with me, she said that I had inspired her to think about teaching as a career, and she's still thinking about it.  It was a great conversation.

I had a similar conversation a few weeks ago with a student who was interested in how one has a writing career.  It, too, was a great conversation, although I felt I had less to offer.  But through the course of the conversation, I was reminded that I'm perhaps more successful than I might think.  And frankly, just continuing to write is a success.

My classes went well--great poem creating in my Creative Writing class, good discussion of "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings" in my English 102 class.  I did return home feeling very tired.

Happily, I was able to take it easy.  We are watching The Good Place, after delighting in A Man on the Inside.  Yes, we are often late to these things.  I remember watching an early episode of The Good Place and not tuning in again.  The people seemed odious in a way that they don't now, if I watch more than one episode at a time.  I did a bit of sewing, which also helped me feel settled at the end of the day.

I was hoping to have a sermon written at the end of my morning writing time, but alas.  I've got a page and a half, and I'm at the point in the sermon writing process where I feel blah about it.  Happily there is still time.

But first, let me attend to my Friday teaching responsibilities.

Using the Story of the Wise Men to Teach Allusion

At the beginning of the term, I didn't know that I was going to use the story of the wise men in the Gospel of Matthew so frequently.  In this blog post, I've written about my use of the text of Matthew, which include translations, Biblical storytelling, and poems rooted in the text.  I plan to do something similar with my Advanced Creative Writing class today.

Tuesday I created something new for the class, something I didn't use in my English 102 class (although I might in the future).  We talked about the use of allusion, how it can work, and how it likely won't.   For example, if I name a character Herod, that's a name that comes with serious baggage, and I need to make sure that's what I want.  I talked about the passage in Matthew 2:18 that they might see in discussions of genocide in the Middle East, about a voice is heard in Rameh, Rachel weeping.

I gave them the following exercise as a way of thinking about allusion.  It provided some interesting pre-writing, and it was a good way of talking about allusion.

----

For today’s Daily Writing, you don’t have to actually write the story, although you can. What I want is a description of characters and plot for a story that you might write.


But here’s the twist: you must include at least one item from each of the three lists as part of the story you would create.


List 1: Plot

--a journey to a different land

--noticing something different in the sky

--a person in charge without the best intentions

--information delivered in a dream

--travelers show up unannounced

--sudden departures


List 2: Symbol


--a distant star

--gold, frankincense, and/or myrrh

--scholars who study the sky

--prophecy

--murder of children


List 3: Assorted


--scholars from a distant land

--weeping women

--prophecy fulfilled or otherwise

--people who are left out of the story who want a chance to have their say

South Florida Friend, Gone Too Soon

I had the kind of Tuesday afternoon where I did not have a scrap of extra time, between teaching my two classes, getting handouts ready for Wednesday classes, and commuting back to my house in the mountains.  I'm glad that I didn't have time to do internet wandering, so that the bad news could come later in the day, when I could sit and digest it.

I got home to discover that a good friend in South Florida, Stacy Wolfe, had died unexpectedly on Thursday.  She was only 58, and I don't have details about the cause of death.  Her spouse posted on Facebook that she "passed away unexpectedly" which could mean so many things.  I realize that the cause of death really doesn't matter--that's just me, wanting to tell myself that it was a freak occurrence, when the reality is that death is coming for us all and often much too soon.

I met Stacy when I joined the faculty of The Art Institute of Ft. Lauderdale back in 2002.  All of the non-technical faculty shared an office space of cubicles, which was not as grim as it sounds.  She taught a variety of science classes, and I was impressed with how she made the subject come alive for students.  She always organized at least one snorkeling trip per quarter for students, and I was in awe of her ability to coordinate these field trips.

We were also neighborhood friends, eventually moving to the same square mile in the historic district of Hollywood, FL.  It would not have occurred to me that we could afford the house we bought if it hadn't been for other people with similar incomes in our friend group who were doing it.  

We often went for a morning walk, although it could be hard to coordinate walking with our two schedules.  During the pandemic, when our lives changed radically, she and I went for a pre-dawn walk several times a week.  We shared our knowledge about what was happening and what was likely to happen.

We socialized in a variety of settings with a variety of people:  neighbors, scientists, and colleagues from work (and former colleagues, as we started to find other jobs as the robber barons who bought the school started to strip the school and lay off everyone in orchestrated waves).  She was a great dive buddy, always calm and can-do and unfailingly kind.

Those qualities also made her a great friend, one who will be missed by many people, including me.

 

Teaching from the Buddhist Monks Who Are Walking for Peace

 Like many, I've been moved by the Buddhist monks who are walking from Texas to D.C. for peace.  I even talked about them in a sermon in early January, as something giving me hope.

Today they'll be at the National Cathedral, and I'm not sure of their time in D.C. beyond that.  It's hard for me to imagine any officials from the federal government meeting with them, the way that state governing people along the way have, but I'm willing to be happily surprised.

In this post on Diana Butler Bass's Substack, she gives the monks' answer to why they are walking.  I want to make sure I have this, should I want to find the words later, so let me post them here:

"Some people may doubt that our walk can bring peace to the world — and we understand that doubt completely. But everything that has ever mattered began with something impossibly small. A single seed. A first mindful breath. A quiet decision to take one step, then another.

Our walking itself cannot create peace. But when someone encounters us — whether by the roadside, online, or through a friend — when our message touches something deep within them, when it awakens the peace that has always lived quietly in their own heart — something sacred begins to unfold.

That person carries something forward they didn’t have before, or perhaps something they had forgotten was there. They become more mindful in their daily life — more present with each breath, more aware of each moment. They speak a little more gently to their child. They listen more patiently to their partner. They extend kindness to a stranger who needed it desperately.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

And that stranger, touched by unexpected compassion, carries it forward to someone else. And it continues — ripple by ripple, heart by heart, moment by moment — spreading outward in ways none of us will ever fully witness, creating more peace in the world than we could possibly measure.

This is our contribution — not to force peace upon the world, but to help nurture it, one awakened heart at a time. Not the Walk for Peace alone can do this, but all of us together — everyone who has been walking with us in spirit, everyone who feels something stir within them when they encounter this journey, everyone who decides that cultivating peace within themselves matters.

One step becomes two. Two become a thousand. A thousand become countless. And slowly, gently, persistently — not through grand gestures but through ten thousand small acts of love — we can help make the world more peaceful.

This is our hope. This is our offering. This is why we walk.

May you and all beings be well, happy, and at peace."

First In-Person Monday of Spring Term

This morning, instead of my usual morning ritual of frittering away gobs of time by internet wandering, I got right to work on my first paper for my Lutheran Foundations class that's due on Thursday morning before the class meets.  It's not a complex paper, only 750 words, but I need to submit it on Wednesday, since I don't have much time on Thursday mornings.

And now, I have a rough draft--hurrah!

I feel similarly about this paper as I felt about the short Luther paper that I wrote for my Church History class in February of 2023.  I remember feeling pleased with the paper on Luther and sacraments, but I wasn't sure it was what my professor had in mind.  Happily, in 2023, the paper was what my professor wanted.  Hopefully that will be the case here too.

Soon I will head down the mountain to Spartanburg Methodist College.  It's the first Monday that I'll be on campus since November.  For spring term, classes started on Tuesday and then we had the following Monday off for the MLK holiday.  The past two Mondays have been snow days.  And now, here we are. 

Of course, I've been meeting those classes in person on Wednesdays and Fridays, so it hasn't been like I haven't seen those students.  But it still seems worth noting.  A colleague at SMC tells me that in all his years at the school, over 35 years, they've never had as many snow days as they've had this year.  I believe it.

I predict that this kind of weather is going to be the norm as we continue moving through the 21st century--not the snow itself, but the fact that past performance will NOT be a predictor of future performance.

Let me get myself in gear.  This Monday won't teach itself.