Summer Self-Improvement and Strong Foundations for the Future

My work life is a microcosm of the national news cycle.  We think we've gotten bad news, and then we recover a bit, and then we get even worse news.  It's very exhausting, and it has everyone talking worst case scenarios.  But the truth is probably this:  we will survive, in spite of shrinking student population and legislation that means we have to do things differently. 

We're like those folks who go to horror movies:  we like to scare ourselves silly.

Careful readers of this blog will know that I vacillate between being the ultimate Apocalypse Gal and the Wide Eyed Optimist.  So, today, I will focus on this summer of my self-improvement and what it means for our writing lives, and I'll give a nod to our new Poet Laureate.

This morning I saw a weight on the scale that I haven't seen since 2006, a weight that is 25 pounds less than I weighed this time last summer.  Of course, I saw this weight after I lost about 4 pounds running, pounds that I expect I've already regained through drinking homemade veggie juice, a berry smoothie, and coffee.  I've shaved 5-10 minutes off my running time in just two months.  I'm drinking that coffee with half the milk I used to pour in, and almost no sugar (I used to use 1-2 Tablespoons of sugar per big mug).

In short, I've made lots of self-improvement this summer.  When I look back and wonder why I made so little writing progress during the summer of 2011 (as, say, opposed to the summer of 1999, which was a magical, rainy summer of writing), I need to remember that I was working in a different arena of self-improvement.

How did I lose the weight?  The old-fashioned way, by tracking what I ate and by exercising more.  I also enrolled in a competition at my wellness center, and I've been trying really hard to win.  I've been engaging in fantasies about being the woman who pulls the team to victory.  It's very inspiring.

What can this summer of my self-improvement in terms of healthy eating and exercise and weight loss teach me when it comes to our creative lives?  Let me see.

--It helps to have a firm foundation. 

I've made more progress than some people, and I think it's because I already had a fairly firm foundation.  I like fruits and vegetables.  I don't eat fast foods.  I don't drink soda.  I was already exercising 4-6 days a week.  I just needed to make some adjustments, and I was on my way.

Similarly, many of us who have been creative probably have some good habits.  We may have fallen astray, but we remember what to do.  I've written about this before here, but it bears repeating.  Every so often, we should take time to recalibrate and to make sure we're on the proper trajectory.

If we're not, we probably know what to do, whether it's limiting our Internet time or forcing ourselves to send out 3 submissions a week or doing one little act every day that honors our creative selves.  We just need the fortitude to do it.

--Our muse will be there waiting for us when we return.

Whenever I gain weight, I feel a bit of terror.  I wonder if I'll ever lose it.  Some years are better for weight loss than others, of course.  Some months, weight loss is not my priority.  Some months, I'm just trying to hang on.

Similarly with our creative endeavors, we can take a break if we need to.  Some months, our priorities must shift.  But our creative muscles remember, just like our leg muscles remember.  We just need to limber them back up again.

--If we don't have a firm foundation, it's not too late to start.

As part of my program this summer, I had 2 sessions with a nutritionist.  I would have thought she could teach me nothing.  What a fool I was.  Similarly with my work out sessions with trainers, I learned more than I thought I would.  If I had no background in nutrition or exercise, I imagine these sessions would have been even more valuable.

You may be thinking that you've waited too long to follow your creative dreams.  You have not.  You are surrounded by experts who will be happy to share their knowledge of how to get started.  But really, it's fairly simple.  Think back to what you loved as a child.  Start there.  Or think about what you love now.  What kind of artist do you want to be?  Read the blogs of those artists.  Read their work (or view/taste/hear their creations).  Read their interviews.  Emulate them.

--Write things down

I've been keeping an exercise log since I started running way back in 1980.  But I haven't kept a food log or written down my daily calorie count.  I think one of the reasons why I've been so successful this summer is that I've strictly kept track of calories.  I kept a food log because it was part of the program.  And it worked.

I've found that writing things down helps me in my creative life too.  Careful readers of this blog may have noticed that I write down my creative goals, and then, periodically, I check back in to see how I'm doing.  It's amazingly effective.

--Dream the Impossible

When I started this summer of my self-improvement, I had high hopes, but I wondered if I wasn't dreaming a little too big.  Nonsense.  Dream big.

This idea brings me back to the Poet Laureate.  When anyone asks me my dream job, I say, "Poet Laureate."

Actually, my dream job is to be a Supreme Court Justice, since that's a lifetime appointment.

But if I dream of being Poet Laureate, I can do things now to prepare.  The most obvious thing to do is to keep writing poetry and keep sending poetry into the world.  But I can also think about the other part of being Poet Laureate.

All that is required of the Poet Laureate is to give a reading at the beginning and at the end of one's term.  But we all know that most poet laureates have done far, far more.  Think of Robert Pinsky's Favorite Poem Project, a nationwide event that alerted many of us that the nation still loves poetry.  I wonder what Philip Levine will do.

What would you do as Poet Laureate?  What dreams would you have for the poetic future of the nation? 

From Castaway to Fountain: A Photo Essay

I've written about my summer fountain project and the lessons learned from it here.  Before summer ends, let me post some pictures.

The fountain's base is an old concrete sink.  We created the rest of it from terra cotta pots that once held dying/dead plants.  Here's one of them, a before picture, if you will.

We did mosaic work.  What fun to play with glass!

 I like the frosted cake look at this point in the process, but you still need to grout, both to solidify the mosaic project and to make it more waterproof.  With grout, you're literally cementing the whole thing together.  Otherwise, it's just adhesive, and not as permanent.

 We could have gone out to buy white grout and stuck with the frosted cake look.  But we had charcoal colored grout left over from a different project, so we went with that.  The pictures don't show this aspect of our project as well, but the charcoal grout makes the glass glow more than it did when backed in white.

In the above picture, you can see the three flowerpots that we used.



Above, a picture of the sink before the project.

Above, a picture of the final fountain (unless we mosaic the inside).  Again, a picture doesn't do justice.  I wish you could all see it when the sun shines on it--it shines in amazing ways.  I wish we could all join together on my patio (which would be amazingly weed-free for our soiree).  We'd read and write poetry and drink wine and cheese, while the fountain burbled in the background.

In my imagination, we'd all stay cool and comfortable, despite the fact that we've reached the time when the temperature doesn't drop much below 85 degrees, even at night.  In my imagination, I have the perfect patio furniture.  In my imagination, the neighborhood has been magically made quiet so we can hear ourselves think.  In my imagination, the wine and cheese--and let's throw in some amazing bread--contains no calories.

Ah, my imagination! 

How to Pack a Book Box, and Other Skills My Family Taught Me

My parents are moving, and they've spent the last month packing.  Their experience has made me think about packing and about the fact that we've lived in the same house since 1998.  Maybe we should pretend we're moving and start to sort through our stuff.  We have too much stuff.

Our church youth group is holding a rummage sale to help them raise funds to travel to the big youth gathering next summer.  Maybe knowing that my stuff will help the youth group have a once-in-a-lifetime experience will help me gather momentum and the courage to let go of the stuff.

I'm also thinking of the packing of boxes, and some blog posts (here and here) that I've read about books and moving.  Will the day come when we no longer pack books into boxes?  It may already be here for many people.

I think back to all the moves that my parents made when we were kids, and all the times I packed my books into boxes.  Those boxes were always the first to be unpacked.  Once I had my books on the shelves, I felt surrounded by old friends.

I remember the first time my dad showed me how to pack a book box.  Those of you with few books may scoff at the idea that there's a skill to packing a book box, but there is.  You don't want to damage the books, and you want boxes that you can stack.

I think of all the other skills my dad taught me.  Will they be obsolete soon?

Some already are.  I know how to thread a reel-to-reel tape machine.  Of course, I no longer have access to that equipment, and I imagine that most people don't.  I have no reel-to-reel tapes.  It's O.K.

I know how to safely train myself to run longer distances.   I know how to break in a new pair of running shoes.  I return to those skills, first taught by my dad, again and again.

I think of all the backpacking skills my father taught me.  Or did the Girl Scouts teach me more?  I learned how to pack light, and how to estimate what I could carry on my back.  I learned how to wash out dishes with sand and river water.  I can make a tasty trail mix.  I know several ways to disinfect water.

I'm trying not to veer into the land of apocalypse here.  I'm trying not to think of the future as a time when backpacking skills will be more valuable than box packing skills.

I wonder if the time will soon be approaching that I'll wish I had paid more attention to the skills my grandma could have taught me:  how to weather a great Depression.  My grandmother has saved a letter that the seminary sent to my grandfather.  The letter told him that he was accepted into the seminary, but that he might consider staying on the farm, where at least there would be food.

My grandfather went to seminary, and even though there were many years where he didn't earn much cash, the family survived.  I am amazed at the stories my grandmother used to tell about how tough it was at times.  But even though it was tough, they still shared what they had.  My grandmother loved to tell the story of tramps that came to the door.  My grandfather would never give away money--too much danger that it would be spent on the wrong things, like alcohol.  But he'd fix a tramp a fried egg sandwich and sit on the stairs to keep the man company while he ate.

Now I look back with the eyes of adulthood, and I see that my grandfather was sharing scarce resources.  But once again, I'm reminded of the most important lessons that my family taught me, generation after generation:  you're never too poor to share your resources, no matter how scarce they may be.

Ways to Use Your Drama Training

At the poetry reading the other day, I thought once again about how many ways I use the training that I first got in drama class:  how to project my voice, how to take on a persona, how to vary my voice, how to pace myself.  It's also interesting how some of that training no longer matters.  We spent a lot of time as youthful aspiring theatre people projecting our voice to the back of the theatre; now, opera singers are the only ones who don't use tiny microphones.

Long ago, I was a drama major. I’ve had many occasions to think about how what I learned as a drama major has come in handy later, even though I didn’t continue with my original plan to take Broadway by storm. I’ve written about the ways that being a drama geek prepared me for both teaching life and my creative life (most notably here).


It’s interesting to me to reflect on how the training has come in handy, even in smaller ways. I went to a lecture on emotional eating recently. The psychologists leading the session talked about other ways to calm ourselves, including focusing on our breathing. One of the psychologists noted that my hand went to my stomach, as I practiced the deep breathing that I first learned to do during drama lessons, then as a distance runner, and later in yoga classes.

Several of the women in the emotional eating session with me couldn’t get the hang of belly breathing. “I can’t get my stomach to go out when I breathe in,” one of them said. But it’s a process that comes naturally to me.

I’ve been thinking about ways we might need to reinvent ourselves, whether it be by the ways we comfort ourselves or the ways we earn money. I heard this story on NPR which included a segment about an unemployed computer networker who started a singing telegram business. He’s got twelve characters (think Elvis), and he shows up with balloons and a card and a song.

I thought, well, there’s a way to use your drama and voice lessons.

When I was younger, I thought of all the ways that training might translate into money. Now I’m more intrigued by all the ways that training of all sorts can help us in ways that we can’t have anticipated when we started. Does this recycling and renovating of training come more naturally to creative types? Or do we just need to get desperate enough to give our training new applications? As with so many of the either-or questions that I pose, the answer probably is yes and no to both. There’s a whole spectrum there, not just one set of choices.

Poetry Reading at the Museum of Art Fort Lauderdale

I was lucky to be part of a great poetry reading yesterday at the Books and Books location in the Museum of Art Fort Lauderdale.  I've read with the two other poets before, and once again, I was happy to reflect on how well we fit together.

When we first got there, we had some debate about how to set up.  We decided to have the chairs face a landing, where we would read.  I read first.



The pictures make the art hanging on the wall much more vivid than they seemed in real life, when I was part of the audience watching my fellow poets.  Most of the pictures that we took showed the humans in dim light, overshadowed by the art.  I like these photos, but I'm not sure they adequately capture the scene.  Ah well.

I read a mix of poems from my first chapbook and from the forthcoming chapbook.  I read well--no stumbling, and I tried to remember to read more slowly than I usually do.  The audience was receptive.

Here are the three of us answering questions at the end and below, the bookstore manager who was kind enough to arrange everything.  The audience asked insightful questions.  They were such a great audience:  attentive, appreciative, insightful--and willing to come to us despite torrential rains in some parts of the county.

We read to an audience of 50--wow!  About 15 of them came from our school, about 10 were connected to the other two poets as family/friends.  Who were the others?  Whoever they were, they were wonderful.

We've got another poetry reading on October 20 at a children's theatre--hopefully we can do something with a Halloween theme.  I have a vision for a holiday reading, where maybe we'd sell books for people looking for interesting gifts.  Plus, it could be a neat reading:  I'm a Lutheran, one poet is Hindu, and the other is Jewish.  If we read holiday themed poetry, how interestingly multicultured that could be.  I'll start working on that.

I may have a recording of the poetry reading coming soon--one of our friends recorded us.  In the meantime, here's a poem from my forthcoming chapbook that I read.  And if you want a copy of that forthcoming chapbook, let me know; they should be here soon.


Penelope Plans a Play Date


Before motherhood, she had a more inspired brain.
It contemplated fractals and the tiny quark.
But thinking of those days just brings her pain.
Her intellect has gone dim and dark.

Now she maps out schedules of each play date.
She associates with mothers dull and mean.
She tries to accept it as her fate
to talk about ways to keep house and laundry clean.

She once saw her Ph.D. as a shield
to keep her safe from hearth and home.
Eventually she had to yield.
Her baby gave her life a different tone.

But when she thinks of returning to her career,
She reads to her child, determined to find happiness right here.

Planning a Poetry Reading on the Day After the World Ends

So, while a group of us celebrated a friend's completion of her Ed.D. degree, and then I slept peacefully through the night, the S&P downgraded the U.S. credit rating. I read the news this morning, and I thought, well, we've heard these rumblings with their apocalyptic overtones for several weeks now. And one of the worst case scenarios has happened.

I almost expected to see smoking ruins when I looked out the window this morning. But the world looks fairly normal.

I realize, of course, that when various markets across the world open beginning some time Sunday night, we might find out that we really are hurtling into the abyss.  Or maybe nothing will happen.  These days, it's hard to tell.

In the meantime, life goes on.  For those of you who are saying, "Hey, you, give us some comfort," I'd direct you to this post on my theology blog.  It contains my thoughts, some links to other great blog posts of comfort, and a poem that reminds us that times that seem like we'll remember them as the darkest may actually be high points in our life.

Or go to this post of Jeannine's to focus on the good writing news of various poets that deserve celebrating.  Hurrah for Karen J. Weyant (and her great book title, Wearing Heels in the Rust Belt, winner of the Main Street Rag Chapbook Contest); hurrah for Rachel Dacus who has just signed with Kitsune Books.

Or come out this afternoon to a poetry reading at the Museum of Art Fort Lauderdale at 4:00 p.m.  Sure, we might have the remnants of Tropical Storm Emily passing us then, but what's a little rain?  You can drink wine or excellent coffee drinks.  You can enjoy the works of 3 poets who are so similar and so different.

I'm one of those poets, and I'm still in the final planning stages of deciding what to read.  As with last time, I think I'll read a few poems from my first chapbook and a few from my second.  I only have about 12-15 minutes, so I won't be reading too many poems.

Last time I made my reading decisions based on which poems I thought were best, a time-honored way of deciding what to read.  But as much as I love some of those poems for their approach to language, their symbolism, their word play, the subject matter can be difficult.  I'm thinking of "Scout at Midlife," which returns to the world of To Kill a Mockingbird, where we discover that Atticus, he of the magnificent legal mind and moral compass, has Alzheimer's.  I could see from the faces at the reading that the poem was indeed effective--but very painful to hear.  More and more, I am surrounded by people who are watching their loved ones struggle with this disease.  As does my very own beloved grandma--her lucidity comes and goes, and I know there are times when she has no idea who I am. 

It's very strange.  For years, I thought my grandma didn't know who I was because she didn't understand me or my generation.  But she knew more than I was willing to give her credit for knowing.  And I was young, with that arrogance that comes from being 19 years old.  And now I'm older, and it's so very unsettling to be with her when she literally does not know who I am.  I can see how my poem would be hard for people who are living with that situation more closely than I am; I only see my grandmother a few times a year, if that.  As my job circumstances tighten, it's been less, as it's harder to get away.  Now is not a good time to look dispensable in the workplace.

In a week of dreadful news, in a summer of grinding disagreement, I've decided to choose my poems that are most hopeful and most humorous.  I'm not choosing lesser poems, not by any means.  But I'm keeping the subject matter upbeat.

We're surrounded by doom and gloom.  I can't watch the news at all anymore, and even National Public Radio is proving too much for me on some days.  At work, I'm surrounded by people who are convinced we're on the road to hell. At work, I'm surrounded by people who are convinced that we're already there. Very few optimistic people in my workplace these days.  And I think my workplace is a microcosm of the larger world.


And here I thought I would need to change careers to be a hospice chaplain!

Yet I can't quite shake the thought that maybe some of us are taking a bit too much delight in our gloomy moods.  I can't quite shake the feeling that we're wallowing in our pessimism.

No, I am part of several traditions that remind me of my moral duty to be a person of hope and resurrection.  You can dismiss me as a goofy Christian if you like, but I would also argue that as poets and writers, we have a duty and a calling to envision a different world, a better world.  As people who have more than other people, we have a duty to remind the world of what the world could be.  I would say that one of the great contributions that the U.S. has made to the world is the idea of a nation where we can achieve whatever we want to achieve if we just put our minds to it.

Hush.  Do not tell me that those days when anything was possible, that those days are behind us.  They are not.  Out of times of great turmoil, a better world often emerges.  The world needs change agents now more than ever.  Can poets and poems be those change agents?  Can change begin in the cradle of one poetry reading?  Am I being preposterously grandiose?

Of Stars and Ghosts and Other Otherworldly Things

I woke up this morning, rather amazed that it's August already.  Have I sent poetry packets to all the places where I hoped to submit this summer?  No I have not.

Once upon a time I chafed when summer came, and so many journals shut down.  I hated losing momentum.

Once upon a time, I would have had packets ready to go for the September submissions.

Well, those days are not these days.

Today, I am tired of thinking about practical matters, like whether or not the economy is imploding or what my next career should be or where to submit.  Today, I am inspired by the otherworldly postings of others.

I love the photos and the poems at this posting at Escape into Life.  Kathleen Kirk always creates such fascinating pairings, and this time is no exception.  I particularly love the first photo, the one which looks like a boy has captured stars with his face (even though I suspect it's glitter).

Speaking of stars, I love the astronomy information in this post.  Sherry O'Keefe talks about how stars lose their twinkle.  Naked stars without a twinkle.  I'll probably think about this all day.

Over at Dave Bonta's blog, there's a fascinating exchange about ghosts, and much of that exchange is in poem form.  Make sure to read the comment section.

So, I decided to try my hand.  I think what I have here are seeds for 3 separate poems, but I'm going to post this, even though it feels profoundly unfinished with no title.

Our ghosts surround
us.  They stitch shrouds
of lost dreams upon our skin,
a lacy spiderweb of stretch marks.

A sturdy scar tissue of scratches
surrounds the legs of every chair.
We know the ghosts of long dead
cats must visit us.
How else to explain new marks?

And some mornings, I am sure I sense
you, returned to visit all your cookware.
Your bread bowl longs for the feathery
scent of yeast, and your cast iron skillet
wonders when it will cook a pork chop
again.  The canning jars sit empty;
doleful glares surround me every day.