Time vs Money or a Summer without Elephants

Posted on May 24, 2008 by randomyriad

Here I am on the verge of another unemployed summer. I am making plans in my head on what to do with this time, if I am, as usual, unable to find a job. They have not coalesced into any form that I am able to discuss coherently at this point but they include: spending more quality time with Mary and not so little ones, finishing my novel, interviewing the extraordinary people I have found who are not writers and writing up their stories, and taking my ideas for using art to teach a broad range of skills and developing a curriculum around these and trying it out at various local private school summer programs. There are also many more vague ideas: Traveling around the county on bike, foot and car taking pictures and writing about what I find, reading my poetry at spoken word events etc. . . . As I am writing this I am feeling a little twinge of excitement. It is amazing how much space in a life a full time job takes up. It is like an elephant in a one room apartment; you can live around the edges, but the whole middle is taken up.

I have a long weekend to think things over and one more day of work, a big fat ornery paperwork day, and then glorious summer of no money and lots time to spend it in. I wonder what I will be doing with it?

Posted in can't really complain but, change, novel projects, summer, Teaching and Learning, thinking in words, whereever you go there you are, working world | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Writing with New Light

Posted on May 15, 2008 by randomyriad

Through a Basement Window at Dawn

From the tree across the lawn

the woven chaos

of the birds blessing this new piece of day

Shifting the night away.


Softly finger rays feel their way

over the surface of wet ground

warming reflections.

Gray separates into muted colors.

The page becomes words.

Shadows recede into holes and cracks,

or stretch out on the ground,

lazy patches that drowse and shrink

as the light climbs.

Plants begin to breathe in.

Flowers unfold

pressing their backs against the thick glass.

These thoughts came to me on this drizzling, dripping, gray dawn. This afternoon the clouds have broken into white islands in the blue, and three wild bunnies chase each other in and out of the still dripping trees and across the soggy lawn. It is really spring. The children in my class played in the large puddle in the middle of our sad little yard. No one got cold, just soaked from head to toe. Water is good for kids as long as there is no danger of hypothermia. There were a few tears, but a lot more smiles.

Posted in All part of the process, paying attention, poetry, spring, Teaching and Learning, working world | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Relocating the Mess or Have You Seen the Toaster, Dear?

Posted on May 13, 2008 by randomyriad

I’ve been moving for the last 3 weeks, which everyone knows is about as good for any sort of daily activity as explosives are for renovation, unless you want to just chuck it all and start over. Well that thought did occur to me several times during the process.

“Let’s just have a bonfire and leave the molten debris,” my wife suggests.  “We don’t need the  stinking cleaning deposit.”

But after careful deliberation with my wife and children we decided to shove every piece of garbage we have so carefully selected and moved about with for the last 20 years, haul it 2 miles, and deposit it in a location about 1/2 the size. Now we are in the process of sorting out and shoving smaller items into the larger cracks in the basement. This process should take until we have to move again. In which case we might just leave that heap of molten mess and flee for our sanity.

For now we are settling and sorting, cramming, arranging and swearing. My wife says she wants to go live at the old house. Now that it is finally clean, it looks like a place she wants to live. But, I remind her all this crap comes with the package, and she sighs and thinks wistfully of the bonfire. I remind her that the fire department would be on us so fast we could only burn half of the stuff, and there we’d be homeless with melted debris. So we continue sorting, settling and searching for places that will take donations of useless items that have found their way into our possession. Anyone want a fondue pot?

Posted in All part of the process, can't really complain but, change, Family, funny stuff, House and home, Telling Stories, the end is the beginning, thinking in words, visions from the dark side, Wacky World | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Three Quotes and Little Bit Of My Life

Posted on April 14, 2008 by randomyriad

“This inescapable duty to observe oneself: if someone else is observing me, naturally I have to observe myself too; if none observe me, I have to observe myself all the closer.”

—Franz Kafka, 11/7/1921

“The flow of talk goes forward. Words or no words we must make a sound of voices to each other and we will; but it will be better if we can launch a thought now and then on the stream of words.”

—Robert Frost

“To find my home in one sentence, concise, as if hammered in metal. Not to enchant anybody. Not to earn lasting name in posterity. An unnamed need for order, for rhythm, for form, three words, which are opposed to chaos and nothingness.”

—Czeslaw Milosz

Over the last week I have been trying to cram my life into to some kind of form that makes sense to me, and I have failed. But, I am still trying. I have been on break from work, and so writing a lot, mostly working on my novel. On Wednesday our landlords informed us that we have to move due to their circumstances. We have been in coping mode ever since. Moving is one of the events that makes me take stock of my life and look to a farther future than tomorrow or next week. It wakes me up to where I am on the path and I take a look around. I am still processing my observations and feelings as I pick out what makes sense to keep and what I no longer want to drag about with me. One thing I realize very clearly: I have too much stuff. And it is just stuff, not really things I use or care about. I have hauled some things around for 10 or more years for no particular reason. Books I have not opened, tools I never used, toys I never played with. So I am in a discarding and evaluating period it will probably last a while as the house we will move to will be a lot smaller. I think it will be good for me in the long run. In the short term it is exhausting and a little scary to have my life reduced to boxing up my possessions and working. I will also write though. I must write to maintain the thin thread that connects me to reality.

Posted in All part of the process, can't really complain but, change, House and home, Other peoples words, paying attention, thinking in words | Tagged , | Leave a comment

A Walk with the Dog

Posted on March 25, 2008 by randomyriad

We reach the top of the little hill

through the muddy forest

suddenly noticing the heron

still, silhouetted

by the green-brown pool reflecting the sun

the “croaaak” of a frog echoes.

At my intake of breath

shadow wings spread pushing up

out onto the sky and stroking away

receding to the horizon.

On the way back down

We pass a pile of rocks gleaming in the afternoon sun

As we continue past, my mind is on

happy beaches of polished and dull stones

piling, sorting

hours just scooping wet holes

down through the layers

of finer pebbles just big enough

to see a bit of color

thinking maybe I could dig

down to the place where the rock

cradles the beach to the ocean’s breast

that pure touch of water

that grinds the mountains into sand.

The dog did not say much only walked and peed

happy to have walked and come home.

When I am on the beach

will I think of the heron?

or the pile of rocks by the road to my house?

or ocean?

or tiny pieces of mountains?

Posted in paying attention, poetry, Questions and riddles, Telling Stories, time travel, whereever you go there you are, Wild Life, wonder world | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments