Highlights from a Creative Friday

Yesterday was a wonderful creative day, in between various work tasks and meetings that were delightful not horrible.

I had trouble sleeping because I had a writing project due.  So, I got up and typed the rough drafts of all the prayers for the month of April for the devotion book Bread for the Day.  I e-mailed them to myself and printed a copy.

I also finished the short story I'd been working on.  I wasn't sure how I was going to get my characters to the end, but it came easily.  Then I wasn't sure how to end the story, but inspiration bubbled up too.

Then I went to work.  Mid-morning, I went to the fiction meet-up with writer friends at work.  My writer friends really got my story.  They offered good suggestions.  I felt bad for my Hindu writer friend; we had trouble with her story and ran out of time.  Were we having trouble because we're not familiar with the Hindu story upon which her story is based?  The characters changed gender, which is an interesting challenge in terms of pronouns--but she handled the physical change with masterful description.  Were we having trouble because our friend has to make revisions based on what her editor wants?  That's unclear.

Then we were off to our delightful lunch meeting.  Instead of meeting in the conference room, our friend who lives nearby suggested that we come to her house.  We had a great selection of food from the Publix deli:  chicken salad, wheat berry salad, sesame noodle salad, fruit salad--plus amazing bread and dessert from Gran Forno bakery.  Yum.  We talked about technology and teaching.

We also talked about a colleague who has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.  What will happen to her body of artistic work?  Will her husband promote her paintings after she's gone?  And then, thoughts of mortality for us all--what happens to our stuff, artistic and otherwise, when say our final good-byes?

After lunch, it was back to campus to deal with some work-related e-mails and transcript evaluations and strategizing.

In the late afternoon, I returned to my prayer manuscript.  I did final word counts, one last read-aloud, one last proofreading and correcting, and then I sent it off.

This morning, I'm full of gratitude.  I'm aware of the gift of time.  I'm also aware of having an editor who isn't difficult.  I got an e-mail that says that everything looks to be in order with my prayers.  Hurrah!  I have friends who are not so encouraged by their editors.  Of course, they are working on book-length manuscripts, and the editorial feedback should lead to a stronger work--or will it be a work completely different from what they wanted to create?

But more than that, I'm aware of the gift of friends.  It's been a difficult work week, with the bad health news of colleagues sinking in, with strange e-mails and difficult meetings.  But woven throughout the week, with the highpoint being yesterday, I've been aware again and again, that I'm working with good people who have compassionate hearts and bright intellects.

Almost Missed Opportunities: The Prayer Writing Edition

I have been asked to write prayers for Bread for the Day again this year.  In fact, the due date is today, so this week, I've returned to the project multiple times.  Before yesterday's difficult meeting, I did one last revision.  In many ways, it's the perfect way to prepare for a difficult meeting:  work on a different project that reminds me that there are other items that are important to me. 

It's also been the week when many writers head to our big conference in Seattle, the AWP.  That's an opportunity that's often hard for me to make happen. 

This intersection makes me think about how I almost missed the prayer-writing opportunity.

It was a chilly morning on a Saturday in February of 2011.  My spouse had an appointment at a church south of Miami with a Lutheridge staff person who was going to be in the area.  I had thought I would go to spin class and leave my spouse to make his own way down there, but at the last minute, I changed my mind.  We decided to have an adventure together.

Before we went, I checked my e-mail, and I noticed one from an editor for a devotional book.  Would I like to write prayers?  But it seemed the deadline had passed to say yes; I should have responded a few days earlier.  I shut down the computer and tried to console myself by thinking about the small sum of money that had been offered.  Small consolation, as I rarely get offered any money for my writing at all.  I sat in the car and watched the landscape zoom by and tried not to berate myself.

We drove through the foggy damp which sometimes turned to rain and drizzle.  We got to the church a bit early, and no one was there.  Stranger yet, the person who was cleaning up the grounds didn't know of any gathering that was planned, the one the Lutheridge staffer was coming to be part of.

Still, we waited.  When the Lutheridge staffer arrived, the groundskeeper unlocked the building.  How good to get out of the damp!

We had thought the Lutheridge staffer would want to talk to us about planned giving, but she had an even more interesting proposal for my spouse.  Would he be willing to serve on the Board?  If so, more information would be forthcoming from the Board.  He said yes, he'd be interested.

We left so that the Lutheridge staffer could set up for her presentation to the group, the group that had forgotten that they invited her.  If we had known, we might have kept her company. 

It was such a quick meeting, such a long car trip for a 10 minute meeting.  So although it was chilly and damp, we decided to explore the botanical garden that we'd seen on our way in.  We walked along the pathways and enjoyed the trees and flowers.  I kept thinking about that e-mail and my missed opportunity to write prayers.  A part of my brain wondered if it really was too late.

On our way home, we stopped at an Irish pub to warm up.  I had the best French onion soup.  We watched the drizzle turned to soaking rain while we enjoyed being inside.  It was a perfect morning and afternoon.

Later that evening, I decided to write to the devotion book editor on the off chance he still needed someone.  He might say no based on the fact that I missed the deadline and thus, seemed unreliable.  But he might still need writers and be relieved to hear from me.

So, I wrote an e-mail, explaining that I'd been offline while at the AWP conference and would he still be in need of writers?  He wrote back immediately sounding thrilled that I could do it.  And the project became one of my favorites of that year, and the years since.

I am so glad that I took the chance and responded, even though I'd missed the deadline.  I'm so glad that the editor said yes.  I'm so glad I've had the chance to write prayers, year after year.

Happy Birthday to My Sister

My sister's birthday is today.  I'm an English major, so I'm always thinking of favorite quotes to celebrate various days.  Here's one of my favorite quotes about sisters:

 

“For there is no friend like a sister

In calm or stormy weather;

To cheer one on the tedious way,

To fetch one if one goes astray,

To lift one if one totters down,

To strengthen whilst one stands.”

 

from Christina Rossetti's wonderful poem, "Goblin Market"

 

I didn't always feel this way about my sister.  When she was born, I had chicken pox, so not only could I not go stay with the family of my friend (her brother hadn't had chicken pox and back then, there was no vaccine), I couldn't go home right away either.  I was 4 months away from turning 5, so I sort of understood, although I couldn't have fully understood the complexities of immune systems.  After all, I hadn't asked for chicken pox.

Here's a picture of us, with my cousins and my grandmother, at my grandparents' house in South  Carolina.  With those 70's hair cuts and clothes, you might not be able to tell who is who.  I'm the one hamming it up in the back.  My sister is the one on my grandma's lap.

 

 

 

 

 

Later, during our teen years, we had the typical, albeit minor, fights.  I wanted all my cosmetics on the counter, while she preferred clean countertops.  We didn't approve of the way we each dressed.  I'm glad we moved beyond those disagreement years fairly quickly.

 

We were close through her college years.  She went to the University of South Carolina as an     undergrad, while I was there as a grad student.  Those were great years; we saw each other frequently, but had our own social circles.  We even went backpacking once.  I have not yet uploaded any of those photos to the computer, so I'll go with this one, where we're in a tent that we've set up in the living room--no, not for us, but for my nephew:

 

 

 

We've remained fast friends through the years.  She's the one I can always call, the one who knows everything about me and loves me anyway.  Here we are on her sailboat last summer:

 

 

 

Here's my favorite Barbara Kingsolver quote about sisters:

 

"We had exactly one sister apiece.  We grew up knowing the simple arithmetic of scarcity:  A sister is more precious than an eye"  (p. 46 of Animal Dreams).

 

Maybe I should reread that book.  Of course, that book holds my every terror:  a father descending into Alzheimer's, people fleeing evil dictators, corporations with no regard for human life, the heartrending loss of a sister.  But it offers hope too.

 

I love a work of art that offers hope.  I love that Kingsolver's works show how we can be family, even if we're not related.

 

My wish for us all:  that we have the fierce love of sisters (regardless of blood relation or gender) in our lives.

 

And my wish for my sister:  the happiest of birthdays, now and through the years, so that we can grow old together.

Reweaving the Fabrics of Our Daily Creative Lives

Last night, I went to the Girl's Club Gallery with an Art Appreciation class.  I love going on these kinds of field trips.  I find these exhibitions to be restorative in so many ways.

Last night, the teacher of the Art Appreciation class introduced me as a fiber artist.  I find it interesting that after all these years, my first response to being introduced as any kind of artist is to say, "Oh, I'm not really an artist."  Even as I've been paid for my writing work, I tend to deflect being introduced as a poet or a writer.  Yet anyone who knows me knows that I spend much of my day writing.  I get up at an ungodly hour (in the eyes of most people) so that I have time to do my own writing.  Then I go to work where I write e-mails and documents of all sorts.  When there's time, I take breaks and work on my own writing.  If we're still allowing people to have smoking breaks, then I shall claim my poetry breaks!

I used to think of myself as a fiber artist, back when I was doing more of that kind of art.  Not only did I make quilts, but I made these assemblages out of cloth and fibers and often beads:

Once I made full-size quilts. 

Now it seems to take forever to make a baby quilt.

So, let me think about what I've done since we moved to our new house.  Could I still call myself a fiber artist?

I'm still thrilled by fibers, and I've been helping a friend as she devises cool scarves out of textured yarns, ribbons, and other threads.  But I haven't done any of that myself.

I've finished a baby quilt that I made myself, and I helped with another.  I've also made curtains for the cottage, a project which took several week-ends.  It's not exactly art, but I didn't work from a pattern, so it took a lot of plotting and planning.

In fact, it's important for me to remember that I had two big projects this fall that kept me from returning to other art forms.  I helped my spouse reconstruct the cottage.  And I learned how to teach online and then taught two classes.  Those activities consumed a lot of free time. 

Now that it looks like we'll be mandated to stay in our offices more than we once were, I wonder if there's a way to bring fiber arts into my work day.  The benefit to creating with words is that it looks like I'm working on work projects, no matter what file is open.  If I'm weaving a creation of fibers and beads, hmmm.

I'd like to do assemblage at work.  Later, I'll post more pictures from last night's field trip, but I'm fascinated by the work of Samantha Salzinger who creates small vistas and then photographs them from a very close frame.  So you might end up with this picture that looks like a volcanic explosion but it's actually a creation made of cotton and paint in a shoebox:

Could I do this at work?  Hmmm.

Speaking of work, it's time for me to get ready for spin class and then work.  I will continue to think about how to weave art projects of all sorts into the fabric of my days, regardless of where I spend those days.

Tuesday Tidbits: Collaborations of All Sorts

--I've been thinking about Harold Ramis who died yesterday.  You may think you don't know who he was, but if you were alive and conscious of popular culture in the late '70's and 1980's, you probably know who he was, but you don't know you know.  He was the sidekick in many a Bill Murray movie.  For me, I remember his character in Ghostbusters most deeply; but for many of the rest of us, Groundhog Day will be his signature work.  This NPR article gives a lot of background on the actor, the movies, and the trajectory of his career.

--I love the collaborative nature of the work he did.  I love the fact that he realized that he had skills that would be useful behind the camera too.  If he was ever jealous of his friends who made themselves memorable in front of the camera, he hid it well.

--I've been thinking about collaboration in regular life too, in all the ways we help each other.  Yesterday, my spouse and I helped our artist friend take down her MFA art show.    The friend and I put all the art and podiums and materials in the cars, while my spouse dealt with repairing the walls.  It went very speedily. 

--It was strange to think of all that effort leading up to the show, and suddenly, poof, it's gone.

--Last night my spouse craved milkshakes, after seeing lots of commercials for the Sonic fast food place.  But the nearest one was 10 miles away.  So we went to our local grocery store.

--Our local Publix has a very strange vibe.  For one thing, it's the smallest Publix I've ever seen.  It's near the downtown Hollywood area, so there's an inner city vibe, but it's also near some ritzy neighborhoods and high-end condos.  Last night, it seemed the world had converged on that tiny store--many of them in their pajamas.

--Many of the people wandered around the grocery store as if they'd never been to a grocery store before.  One staggering guy who didn't seem quite altogether-with-us looked at a girl choosing movies out of the Red Box vending machine as if it was a fascinating casino game.  Would she win?  Why were the rest of us walking by, so oblivious to the wonders of the red box?

--Tonight I go to a different struggling neighborhood--downtown Ft. Lauderdale, on a field trip to the Girl's Club gallery.

--If I had plenty of money, what kind of business would I create in a struggling neighborhood?  I'm most drawn to artsy stuff, like galleries.  But a bar would probably be my best bet at making some money back from my investment.

--I had a Facebook exchange the other day, as we dreamed of designing clothes.  From there I mentioned Thomas Hood's early Victorian poem, "The Song of the Shirt," where the seamstress is sewing a shroud as well as a shirt.  I said, "Our new company name? The Seamstress Shroud? It will appeal to some of our darker sensibilities, but perhaps not the way to sell frocks!"

--We talked about seamstresses and the birth of the modern labor movement with the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire.  One friend fell in love with the word "Shirtwaist."

--I offered, "Seamstress and Shirtwaists: Sounds like a cool café where people also sew and have poetry readings.  Like Busboys and Poets in DC."

--Then we talked about bar names and bar drinks.  I said, "Frills and Frocks--that would be the name of our very hip bar where people dance the night away and have fruity drinks that are good for them but also deeply intoxicating."

--Then it was time to sign off.  A neighborhood friend and her daughter came over to have us help with a real-life sewing project.  The daughter has to go to school in the costume of a historic character and we were helping transform a grown-up's black skirt into one the child could wear by taking in the waistband and hemming it up.

--Soon it will be off to work, a place where happily, I have many collaborators whom I truly like.  In my poetry break today, I'm working on a pantoum about sea level rise and neighborhoods declining into high crime areas.  I'm basing it on a pantoum that I wrote years ago.  Here's the first stanza of that pantoum:

We expected mushroom clouds and radiation.

Instead we changed the chemistry of the atmosphere.
Chunks of glaciers break for freedom and sail across the sea.
Ice caps melt, and the sea swallows islands.  --I'm collaborating with myself!

--I wrote that pantoum when a friend in a different city suggested we try our hand at writing a pantoum.  Ah, collaboration of a different sort!


 

Poetry Manuscripts and Classical Music Compositions

Yesterday, after a morning with the poetry manuscript, I went to the Broward Symphony.  This concert was much more traditional than the one in December; is that the reason the audience was so much larger?

Although I don't have the understanding of classical music that my parents do, it's always a delight to get out to hear live music--or live art of any kind, for that matter.  As I watched the second half of the program, a part of the Scheherezade suite by Rimsky-Korsakov, I thought about how similar an orchestral suite is to a manuscript of poems.

At first I tried to make a metaphor wherein each instrument was a poem.  But I quickly moved to thinking about the individual chunks of the music.

Each part of the orchestral piece has to work all by itself.  But by careful repetition, they also link together.  Some orchestral pieces link together fiercely.  Maybe they're tied to an outside story, like Peter and the Wolf.  Maybe it's a story that the composer has made up, like The Nutcracker Suite.

Even with no external scaffolding, we see the same elements holding the suite together; but a composer could choose from a wide variety of possibilities.  There's repetition.  There's the type of composition.  There are all sorts of experimental directions.

I don't have the music vocabulary to continue further, so let me shift to the poetry manuscript.  I've always tried to have a variety of poems in my work.  I could put every single monastery-themed poem into one single work, but I like the way they interact with poems that have a different focus.  Still, I've kept the overarching focus the same:  how our faith in various systems (weapons, religious, medical, Capitalism, science) may doom us or redeem us.

I decided that most of my poems would be in the free verse style.  I have a whole manuscript of formalist poems, but I don't think I conform to those structures as skillfully.  I think it's important to return to the poetry of form (villanelles, sestinas, and sonnets are my favorites) as a good discipline, but I don't often leave that practice with a solid poem.

I have a sonnet in the new manuscript, but I took out the pantoum and there are no sestinas.  My next question:  was having a lone sonnet in a manuscript of free verse too weird?  I decided it was fine, like a hidden treasure.

I read the manuscript to make sure that the themes and imagery swirl around each other without collapsing with the weight of it all or slamming into each other in a destructive way.  I think I've been successful.

I don't have any submissions in mind right now, so I'll let it sit a bit longer.  Then I'll read it one more time to make sure I think it's all in good shape.  And then, once again, out into the world it goes.

In Which I Discover My Poet Self Likes the Word Snug

I'm tired this morning, but it's a pleasant tiredness.  I spent yesterday afternoon organizing a variety of files, copying files from one computer to another so that I could print them.  In the late afternoon/early evening, we walked to our friends' house, where we enjoyed yummy appetizers and good wine.  We talked about our all-time favorite writers, and which presidential candidates seemed most like ones you'd want to have a beer with.  Although I would not want to have a beer with Nixon, I confessed my sympathy for Richard Nixon, the Richard Nixon of 1960, not the one of 1972.  I came home and crashed into sleep, where I dreamed of a huge party I was giving for strangers in our new house, but we were out of food, and the place was lit only by candles, and I was afraid of fire.

What better mindset to read the new manuscript of poems?

I wanted to read the manuscript from beginning to end, in one sitting, and now, I have.  I like the way the poems swirl around some of the same themes and images:  nuclear stuff, the rising seas, the difficulty of modern work, monastery stuff, religious images.  I think I have it all balanced.

I need to re-think one image.  In poem after poem, people return to snug houses, snug cottages, snug condos.  Too much repetition of the word snug.  Now to determine which poem gets the word.  And should I try to develop other ways of suggesting that snugness?  Could I have a tightly tucked cottage? Hmm.  I'll let these ideas percolate.

There's also several times where things rise like incense rising in a chapel, prayers rising in a chapel, like smoke wafting to rafters.  I'm not sure that repetition leaps out the way the adjective "snug" does.

I'm startled by how many typos remain.  I really thought I had caught all of those.

And I would not have thought the word "snug" would be one that I would overuse.