Retreats and Liturgy/Prayer/Recipe Possibilities

Gravity is working overtime in our house this morning.  So far, I've spilled my berry yogurt shake--an impressive mess!  Before that, my coffee bubbled over in the microwave.  I will sit here and write and try not to spill anything.

I've been thinking about the women poets writing retreat, Poets on the Coast, since poets Kelli Russell Agodon and Susan Rich first announced it here.  I've been reading the accounts of the week-end here and here.  It sounds like a wonderful time.  I'm glad that they had such a good time that they're doing it again next year.

Could I go?  The logistics felt overwhelming to me this year; after all, it's on the other side of the continent, and would involve a plane trip and a car trip across unfamiliar terrain, which would also mean a car rental.

I'm hoping that they'll write more about planning the retreat.  How did they brainstorm which sessions and workshops they'd offer?  How did they balance group work with working with individual poets?  How did they decide what was worth including and what wasn't?  And how did they decide on the price?

Yesterday over lunch, I was feeling inspired by their success and wondering if one (or Kelli and Susan!) could do a similar gathering on this part of the continent.  My friend and I chatted.  Would our beaches be as picturesque?  Yes, in a very different way.  Could we find a hotel like the one they found?  Could it be affordable?

Would people want to come more than once?  How exhausting would it be to offer such a retreat?  Could we do it more than once?

And if we wanted to have poets come in to offer special workshops, what would that cost?

Could we do it during one of the week-ends that the Miami Book Fair is going on?  Could we work with them somehow?  Hmmm.  That's a thought for a future year, obviously, since the event is a mere 2 months away.

My mom and I did a creativity retreat for her women's group at church, and it was one of the more fulfilling things I've ever done.  We had the church all to ourselves on that Saturday, and several of the women were expert at arranging for food, so we didn't have to cook.  In the morning, I led Bible study, and then we had creativity stations set up:  knotting quilts for Lutheran World Relief, creating Easter cards for the troops, flower arranging, keeping a spiritual journal, and maybe one or two others.  These were led by me, my mom, and a few women who were part of the group.  Then we had lunch, and we repeated the morning, with new Bible study and a chance to do drop in stations again.

My mom and I have talked about taking that show on the road, but I'm not sure how well it would work with church groups we didn't already know.  One of the reasons it worked so well with my mom's group is that we could tap the talents of the women there.

I love Kelli and Susan's idea because they stayed at a hotel.  Longtime readers of this blog know that I've dreamed of buying land and creating a retreat center, but among the many drawbacks to that plan is that there'd be lots of cleaning:  cleaning to get ready for retreatents, cleaning after they left, providing meals. 

But holding a retreat at a hotel takes care of some of that.  Brilliant.

While I'm thinking of possible futures, let me record something else that occured to me this morning.  A week ago, I wrote this post which talked about spiritual tracks in an MFA program or creativity tracks in a seminary.  I responded to a comment of Wendy's about writing liturgy, which made me think about Marge Piercy's book, Pesach for the Rest of Us:  Making the Passover Seder Your Own.

I think there's a market for books that combine liturgy, prayers, and recipes, regardless of the religious tradition.  I tend to think that because I can write liturgy and prayers and create recipes that anyone can do it, but it's just not true.

Would people buy a paper book? 

My hope for all of my writing is that my work will be published in multiple formats.  I know that some people would want an e-reader version that they could take with them to the kitchen and to church.  I know that some people would never read my work if it didn't come out in traditional book form.  We don't have to choose.

I'd also love to start creating books, both traditional and e-books, that talk about retreats and retreat exercises and that help people who can't afford to go/host/create a retreat or people who might need to do it on a smaller scale.

Could I write a book that would appeal to teachers, camp leaders, and writing workshop people alike?  Or am I thinking of multiple texts?

I'll have to continue thinking on another day.  Now it's time to carefully put on my clothes and jewelry and carefully drive my car to school, with hopes that my klutzy spell is behind me.     

Hermione, All Grown Up

Until a few weeks ago, I could have made this claim:  "I am the last woman in the English speaking world to have not read any of the Harry Potter books."

I meant to read them.  I mean to read a lot of things.  I saw a few of the movies, and until the 5th one, I enjoyed them all.  I thought I'd like the books too.

I remember the summer of 2001, the last summer when children's books and grown up books shared The New York Times Bestseller list.  I was teaching the first half of the British Literature survey course, the one that starts with Beowulf and ends somewhere in the 18th century, if the class stays on track.  That summer, the Seamus Heaney translation of Beowulf and one of the Harry Potter books were both on the list.  I called my class' attention to this fact, and we had a great discussion about it.  The works have a lot in common, after all.

I've been thinking about Grendel's mom, about writing a poem about a modern-day diagnosis of Grendel.  Maybe he'd have Oppositional Defiance Disorder.  Maybe he'd have Autism.

But back to Harry Potter.  My book club chose it because one of our members was tired of not getting her students' references to the work.  I had wanted to read the book.  So we chose the first volume, which I still had on my shelf, surprisingly enough, yellowing away, waiting for me.

I read it on a rainy Saturday, and for the first half of the book, I was surprised with how delighted I was.  I loved Rowling's depiction of Harry's family.  I loved her use of names.

The second half of the book didn't feel as luxuriously paced to me.  It seemed like Rowling was in a hurry to wrap it all up.  And oddly, though I had seen the movie, the ending of the book still surprised me.

I suppose I'm not surprised by my surprise.  It's been a long time since I saw the movie, after all.  How many years?  Ten?

Will I read the rest of the series?  Maybe.  I find the sheer size of the series daunting.  Life grows ever shorter and my list of what I want to read ever longer.  Ah, the eternal sadness.

Will I reread the book?  Doubtful.  It was a nice treat for a rainy Saturday, and it reminded me of the kind of book I loved as a kid, so it had an odd nostalgic value, even though it wasn't a book from my childhood.  I envy my friends who have read the series several times now, who still wax rhapsodic over the books.  I just don't feel that way.

But I'm happy the books exist.  I'm happy that children and adults love them so much.  I'm grateful because I suspect Rowling has single-handedly staved off the collapse of publishing for awhile longer yet.

One of the best compliments I ever got:  back in 2002, one of my friends said that she and her daughter (who was about 8 at the time) had decided that I'm Hermione all grown up.  Some people wouldn't see that as a compliment, but I was touched, both because I love Hermione (even without having read the series!), but because it made me feel like my friend and her daughter really know me.

Yup, I'm Hermione, and my opinion didn't change after reading the book.  I recognize her good girl tendency, her worry about getting in trouble, her wanting to do the right thing, her overanalysis, her overachieving even when overachieving isn't necessary and for what end?

Could I write a poem about Hermione all grown up even if I haven't read the whole series or seen all the movies?  Hmmm.  What kind of children would Hermione have?  How would they rebel?  How would she handle it?

Yes, I might have fun with this!

The Scientist's Daughter Considers Sunrise--Tuesday Tidbits

--People ask me why I get up so early.  This morning, as I was running before sunrise, with the cold, crystal, coin of a full moon to my west and the smooth comforter of the Atlantic to my east, I thought, this is why.

--We've had a calmer hurricane season down here than people in landlocked states, like Vermont.  Our overnight lows have been slightly cooler, still in the high 70's.  Usually by July, our lows never go below 85.

--Interesting to watch how the light changes what I'm perceiving.  When I started my run, in the dark, I thought that the only whitecaps around were the clouds.  Once the sky began to lighten, the clouds got darker.

--The sea and the sky are both gray this morning.  But it's a pearly, luminous gray, not that sullen gray that speaks of storms.

--I hadn't really thought of myself as a scientist's daughter until this post of Jeannine's.  I wrote a comment about being the daughter of a computer scientist.  And now I can't stop thinking of scientists' daughters who become poets.  I want to write an academic paper that looks at the poems with spiritual themes written by the daughters of scientists.  If you have any insights, I'd love to hear them, or even correspond about them--perhaps even cowrite the academic essay?

--I keep thinking about this post of mine, where I consider jobs that might honor the intersections of spirituality and creativity.  I want to put myself in a better position for such a job, should it ever exist--thus, the thinking about an academic essay, or at least something to present at this year's College English Association meeting in Richmond, Virginia.  You could present something too--the deadline for submissions isn't for a few more months yet.

--I haven't forgotten about my panel presentation for AWP, even though I missed this year's deadline.  I'd love to put together a panel discussion of female poets who use fairy tales in their work--or who create their own fairy tales.

--Is creating one's own fairy tale a form of spirituality?  Perhaps that should be the focus of my academic essay.  Perhaps I should write 2.

--I never wanted to have a publish-or-perish kind of job, but I'm finding myself wondering what it would be like to have that job.  I yearn for an academic library; interlibrary loan just isn't the same, and even with everything available on the Internet, I still need a good library.  I find myself longing for the time to write, to research, to ponder. 

--On Saturday, we watched the adolescent daughter of one of our friends arrive from a journalism conference to go rushing off to work on her Senior year project for high school after talking knowledgeably about Constitutional law and her Chemistry friends who just don't get her passion for the Constitution.  Except for the daughter and the visiting grandmother of the granddaughter, we are a group of women at midlife, even if we (I) have trouble admitting that we're at midlife, or perhaps slightly beyond. 

--We talked about doors that have closed forever.  One of the Saturday group could have once been a career ballet dancer--that door really has closed.  We will none of us be permitted to join the military--if we are allowed to join, we know the situation is dire!

--Is it too late for this publish-or-perish job that I'm not even sure I want?  Or is there another way to get access to a good library and time/encouragement to write/create?

September 12

I found yesterday to be harder than I thought it would be, and I anticipated that it would be hard.  In the end, I was glad that the anniversary fell on a Sunday; go here for more thoughts in that direction.

I resolved not to turn on the TV, and I didn't. But NPR did Sept. 11 programming ALL DAY. Impossible to escape. At first, I wanted to listen. So, I listened a bit as I got ready for church. Our church service, too, focused on Sept. 11. Just exhausting, in a way.

When we got home, we live-streamed Garrison Keillor's Prairie Home Companion show, fixed lunch, ate lunch, and took a nap.

I tried to use the day to be grateful that I'm alive and in good health and that most everyone I love is alive and in good health. But that induces a bit of survivor's guilt. Why am I so lucky? And a bit of fear, because eventually, I won't be lucky in that way.

By late afternoon, I felt a bit better, and listened to the NPR programming as I prepared packets to send to journals and magazines.  It seemed life affirming, in a small way, to continue with my normal activities, to send poems out into the world.

I'm glad the day is over, although I'm not looking forward to some of today's tasks at work.  I'll try to focus on being glad that I'm alive and employed, even if it means I must go to strategic planning meetings about unpleasant situations and redo schedules and plans that have already been done.  There are worse fates.  Much worse.

Osama's Sunflowers

I have been dreading this day for almost 10 years, since I've known that it would be impossible to escape the continuous coverage of the events of September 11, 2001.

I think I'm glad that this anniversary falls on a Sunday.  If you want to know what I'm hoping to hear in our places of worship today, go to this post of mine on my theology blog.  The lectionary readings for today, readings that were chosen long ago before world events intruded on our ordinary lives, circle around forgiveness.  For a meditation on forgiveness and today's lectionary readings, see my post here.

For a great post that combines theology, Shakespeare, and thoughts on creativity, I like this post by Marly Youmans.

If  you want a post that lets you look further back, on the events of September 11, 1973, when the U.S. orchestrated a coup that overthrew the democratically elected president of Chile and catapulted Pinochet to power, here's a great post, with great links, by Lyle Daggett.

I've been thinking about Pinochet's reign of terror, about the events of 2011, about our loved ones who vanish and we're not sure what happened to them.  I've been thinking about ash of all sorts.  I've been thinking of all those documents incinerated on September 11, 2001.  I suspect I've been thinking about those documents so that I can repress the memories of bodies.  I keep thinking of the Pentagon, of taking a tour of the Pentagon when I was in grade school, of being told how indestructible that building was constructed to be--but it wasn't.

Today, I listened to this interview with Lawrence Wright, who wrote The Looming Tower.  I wanted a story more along the lines of this one  that explored the events of the summer of 2001.  I wanted a longer, even deeper discussion.  I'm haunted by all the things we missed, all the pieces we didn't put together.  I'm haunted by the folks who say they tried to get a meeting with the President and key staff to go over all of this, but the scheduled meetings were cancelled again and again and again.

It makes me think about my life and all its facets.  What am I missing?  What should I focus upon?

Lawrence Wright told us this nugget about Osama bin Laden, who flirted with both terrorism and agriculture, before committing to terrorism.  He loved his sunflowers.  I will be turning that idea around in my head all day:  the terrorist who fell in love with the sunflowers that he grew.

I understand how people become disaffected enough to leave their sunflowers behind and turn to dreams of destruction.  I'm grateful for my religious heritage that reminds me of the seductive qualities of evil, that warns me not to succumb to that glittery facade.

Will all these swirls find their way into a poem?  I'm not sure, but I'm willing to be those sunflowers will resurface in a poem somewhere.

Book Manuscript Revelation

I've been thinking of myself as having three, distinct, book length manuscripts organized along the following themes:

--nuclear imagery and all the ways our technology fails us

--poems that cover spiritual ground

• poems that use Biblical imagery or characters
• poems that use monasticism
• poems that imagine God and/or Jesus as a physical person in our current world

--poems that talk about work life, particularly work life as women experience it, particularly the ways that modern work life is so ridiculous.  I also have a subset of modern-life-as-ridiculous poems that don't revolve around work, but around family or other societal institutions.

Today I was putting together poetry packets for submissions to literary journals, and I thought, hmm, what if I combined them in new ways?

I've already done a bit of this in the third section of nuclear manuscript.  The first two sections talk about the way technology has failed us, and the third section offers a look at the things which can still console us.

I've also realized that a lot of the poems that deal with monasticism make an interesting juxtaposition to the work life/modern life poems.

This November, when I'm at my annual writer's retreat at Mepkin Abbey, I had planned to completely rework the manuscript of spirituality themed poems.  Now I've got a way in to that revision.  And hopefully, by writing it here, I'll have this idea captured in a place where I can access it.  I can't tell you how many times I've written ideas down on sticky notes or scraps of paper, a system with obvious limitations.  I've started many a manuscript notebook, thinking I'd have one place where these ideas are stored.  I've often forgotten that I had already started a notebook and a year or two later, started yet another one.

I love blogging, because my blog offers me a place to capture writing prompts and possible poetry ideas, a place to write down revision ideas, a place to document what I've done and what I hope to do.  And it's much more searchable than other systems.  I also hope that over the course of the years, it will be useful to other writers, the way that the blogs of others have been useful to me. 

Carpe the Last Days of Summer!

So, I know that the kids are in school, as well as many of us who teach and work other jobs in school.  Maybe you live far enough north that your summer is over.  But most of us could still sieze the last days of summer.

Back in June, I came up with a list of what I wanted to do this summer:

"So, what would be on my list this summer? Let's see . . .

--go to the beach more often (why live here, after all, with all the extra expense, if I'm not going to the beach?).
--go kayaaking in our local park
--swim in my friends' pools
--make homemade ice cream
--grill corn on the cob
--enjoy watermelon
--go to one of the tourist attractions in the area where I haven't gone before, like Vizcaya
--SCUBA or snorkel more
--go to yoga class more regularly
--finish creating the fountain that we started building last year"

I did go to the beach more often, to run and watch the sunrise, not to sunbathe or frolic in the surf.  I went diving once.  I finished the fountain.  I swam and enjoyed all those foods.  I didn't kayaak or go to a local attraction outside of the beach.  Not bad.

There's still time this week-end for one last cookout, even if autumnal weather has come to your climate.  Many of us could go for one last swim.  We could enjoy one last fluffy movie or a beach read book.  We could go to a museum, if we live in places where we'd still like some air conditioning. 

I mention these things because this week-end is the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks.  You might be like me and might be dreading all the coverage.  You may not want to feel that sadness and horror all over again.

I plan to use those emotions to remind myself that life is short, and that we should try to squeeze every bit of joy out of every day.  Each season goes by fleetingly fast.  Enjoying the pleasures of each season, and trying to enjoy something each day, can help.

If you need something for your poet's soul to counteract all the coverage you might face this week-end, here's a great interview with the poet Tracy K. Smith.  I will be buying her book momentarily.  How have I not heard of her before?

Now to get ready for my work day, a day of dreaded meetings.  I'll pack some watermelon to enjoy between the meetings.  And at least at the end of the day, my book club meets.  I'll hang on to that promise of happiness to come at the end of a work day.