My Darling Worries

I was dripping from a shower when Fred, Program Director for the Pan-European MFA Creative Writing program@ Cedar Crest College, called to give me the good news. 

It was a Sunday. 
December 2nd. 
11:30 in the morning. 
The sun was out.
I remember this very clearly.

"Would you like to hear what we wrote?" Fred asked. 
"Please."

So Fred read, 
I stood in towel with wet hair,
listening to what any writer who's honest 
really, truly wants to hear about their work.

This is wonderful non-fiction. We could read this writer all day long, pages and pages of engaging ruminations. The epistolary form of "Tiny Lovely Moments" provides a picket around which the narrator's thoughts can range (this is in reference to Annie Dillard's intro to Modern American Memoirs, in which she says that the memoirist can plant a picket anywhere in time and range around it). Similarly, "Why I Write" uses that phrase as a unifying refrain. These unifying formal means allow the pieces to move expansively and surprisingly. We also appreciate the tension in the narrator not wanting to write, not wanting to address certain subjects, and doing it anyway - her resistance and candor are winning. Ultimately, we appreciate the intelligence and elegance of the writing. A definite admit.

be still my heart.\\

my point?

To shout out to me ? as I begin this mid-life journey as a fresh-faced MFA student in Creative Writing. Shout out because CJ's mom always said, if you don't toot your own horn, nobody will. 

Shout out to my daughter, Jesse who was the one trolling the web for her mom, looking for something that would light my fire. It's lit. 

i love you to the moon and back, jess

She called and said, "Mom, do this. Apply." 

She wasn't interested in hearing excuses, period. 

but but but, I don't know, I don't think I can, maybe another day, I'm too old, it's too late, how will I pay for it, am I good enough, it may rain later,I'm scared, I'm too happy

Mom? 

Yes, honey.

Do this.

Belief in ourselves precedes achievement. Our successes are always within our power if we understand our responsibility for them. We are self-talking every moment; the words we use are our personal choice. 
- Mom's Meditation Book

I said yes. 
I said I think I can 
more like, I know I can  

My mentor is a gifted writer who lives in Wales/ Gwyneth Lewis. 
Gwyneth is reading my work. 
We are working together. 
I have a mentor after years of solo writing-hood.
We'll "meet" on Friday, via Skype, UK time.
Wow.

Gwyneth wrote: 

 this is to say: hello and welcome. Dont' worry about anything, this is a good way to get a lot of writing done in an encouraging atmosphere.

What a welcome. 
This writer's dream. 
I'm so happy and still sometimes wake in the night pulling in my usual worries, like favorite stuffed animals, what about Claire, what about Dad, what about work, what about money, what about... love? writing? love + writing


I'm just loving them now: my darling worries.











They've been with me for so long why would I try to push them out of bed. I just don't have to cuddle so close anymore. I can cuddle with the wow, yes, I'm doing this, they like me (god bless you, Sally Fields, Oscar night circa ????) I can cuddle with the intelligence and elegance and candor of my writing. 

I can cuddle with resistance too.

I can cuddle with a definite admit.

what are you cuddling with today?

or who? 

Temporarily Forget

Do you ever fantasize about a more perfect version of yourself? Is there, in your imagination, an idealized image of who you might become in the future? That can be a good thing if it motivates you to improve and grow. But it might also lead you to devalue the flawed but beautiful creation you are right now. It may harm your capacity for self-acceptance. Your assignment in the coming week is to temporarily forget about whom you might evolve into at some later date, and instead just love your crazy, mysterious life exactly as it is. 

- Rob Brezny's Free Will Astrology

www.freewillastrology.com

This is Virgo's weekly update but I think it works for everyone and anyone. I'm so loving this magical piece of advice, I feel way lighter just reading it on this snowy Monday morning ~

I had to pass it on to you, 

This Being Alivers, 

[as Painter-Girl Penny lovingly calls our tribe.]

STOP... give yourself a flippin' break. 















/temporarily forget about whom you might evolve into at some later date, and instead just love your crazy, mysterious life exactly as it is. 


ain't life grand?

xo b

On That Light

It's really cold. Everybody's talking about it.

Kerry, soul-sister from the north country of Vermont, wrote 14 below up here.

Can that be right?

Bill, my brother who lives in the wilds of Ontario 

[see Lion's Head]

sent an email :

I receive this poem every winter and every winter I love re-reading it. It's a beautiful poem and very well written:

SHIT
IT'S COLD

Beautiful, yes?


















All this cold has me thinking of the mouse who was frozen to the edge of our garbage can the other night. 

scream scream at this discovery, run run from can silly silly sad sad

Poor little guy trying to climb inside to get warm or find a nibble to eat? Almost to the mountain top, only to perish?

And being a life-long follower of 

all things Beatrix Potter, 

I couldn't help thinking, 

if only mr. mousey 
was wearing a down vest 
and wool scarf 
and a red and white striped winter cap. 
if only.



But besides frozen pipes and ponds, and mice, besides that and other things that happen across my mind during the course of a day or a week, 

here's what I've been paying attention to lately

the light. 















lightness.















+ light

the really lovely light

when I keep my eye  on that light 

and it's everywhere

i feel lighter in every way.

A Most Unusual Day

Yesterday we woke to a snow-day

a breathing day

Claire slept in, 
me too, 
cozy in bed,
tea and books 
and talking to Michael 
before heading out with shovels.

And Chewy, the big-eared dog, joyfully pronking 

[gazelles pronk]

with Ralphie, our cutest new neighbor. 

Cool air against skin
dogs running
and green trees with white snow

 








Made me think of the New Year leaf I set sail in the river and how each day I'm noticing that there is much to be joyful about, like













buying myself purple tulips

and soaking in the quiet of my house during this winter break from work, tending to my home, clearing out, boxing things up to give away [books, clothes, stuff]

putting spider plant and asparagus ferns in the tub for a cool rinse 

People are suffering from the loss of their precious children while others rage, yes rage with spittle coming out, at the thought of having their assault weapons not hunting rifles taken away and that somehow, if all the mental people could be listed in a database where we could keep track of them, I would be on the list, then for sure, people wouldn't be going into elementary schools or movie theaters, or mosques, or universities or _____________

and letting loose rounds of bullets on innocent beings...

which is why some days, it is good to slow down, if you can, and sweep the kitchen floor, light a candle, make a sandwich for your husband/wife/friend/child, enjoy the simple calmness of folding white bath towels, and speaking on the phone with a beloved daughter.

wash the ferns 
walk the dog
give thanks
while you sit still 
in the very quiet house 
and say over and over into the air

and remember

"Today is a most unusual day, because we have never lived it before; we will never live it again; it is the only day we have."

- William Arthur Ward 

oh my.

xo b

Mad About You

I like that sweater, Dad said,
But it's old and pilly, I said.
Old and silly is no longer a sin! he said.

and laughed.

Hugging me goodbye he looked me in the eye,

I'm mad about you, he said...

and you and you and you and you, I say

You are beautiful. let no soul tell you otherwise

xo b

I LOVE LEMURS

I was feeling kinda low yesterday after talking to Dad. 

"Bets, I seem to be having some confusion," he said.
"That's okay, Dad."
"Josh, who works here told me that I'd not been feeling well last night but I don't really remember that and..."
"That's okay, Dad."
"I seem to be having confusion. Have you been watching the news about the Republicans and Democrats, how they need us to get out and vote. I want to do that and I hope you will too. I assume you're a Democrat?"
"Yup. I'm a Democrat, Dad."
"I remember my father, he had some confusion. He..."

So that felt kinda sad 













which is probably why I was yelling at the dog.

But today I was in a construction zone on the highway and there was a car which had some great bumper stickers on it, and one of them said in big letters

I LOVE LEMURS

which made me feel instantly really happy so I rolled down my window and the people in the lemur car rolled down their window 

and I shouted

I LOVE LEMURS TOO! 

All 3 of us smiled 

and the woman driving clapped her hands.

note: trust all joy

Float Your Dreams

At midnight 
we stepped out the front door 
and banged on pots and pans, 
shouting HAPPY NEW YEAR HAPPY NEW YEAR 
to the dark starry sky and the street
and our neighbors tucked inside their homes.

and then we stayed up until past one, so wild

me
michael 
and claire
reading on the big bed and talking some too.

Today, January 1, 2013













We took our traditional drive to the river, 
this time up Old Mine Road along the Jersey side, 
where we wrote a few wishes on leaves with sharpies 

Usually I gather up fistfuls of leaves 
writing wishes like a madwoman, 
then floating them into the river
a strange sort of spiritual gimme gimme thing
so full of wanting and desiring in this being alive life
but today I kept it simple,

2 leaves

1. cultivate joy  not too complicated

and the other, my mantra

2. trust my path unflinching

which is pretty much my life work,
so flipping wonderful and so damn hard
and so worth coming back to
over and over and over,
year after year.











float your dreams.

Happy New Year, campers!

I love you.
xo b