Thursday Thoughts

I had 1/2 a blog post written yesterday but I disliked it so much that I deleted it and didn't attempt to rewrite it.

My thoughts lately are broad and deep. Lots of pondering, lots of serious thinking about issues both personal and global. Lots of thinking about my present and my future and how to create the bridge that will get me from where I am to where I want to be.

And also... how to bridge where my family is to where I want my family to be, which is clearly a related and interconnected but actually somewhat separate issue.

So, yeah, I've been in my head a lot. So as to not drag you too far into there with me, here are some random things that won't draw me in to a longer, rambling post:

1. I'm surprised by how sad I am that Steve Jobs has died. When he stepped down as CEO of Apple a few months ago, I told the hubby that I was sure that meant Jobs had maybe six months to live because I couldn't see him stepping down in any other situation. It's a time when I hate being right. He truly has changed how we live and it is difficult to imagine what the world might look like now without his innovations.

2. In all the tributes to Steve Jobs from professed "business and technology leaders," I'm disheartened to see that all but one of them are white males. (The exception is Meg Whitman.) We need to do a significantly better job of supporting people of color and women in getting to leadership positions, which ultimately means we need to do a better job of supporting them throughout their education. Lisa shared the TED talk "Why we have too few women leaders" by Facebook COO, Sheryl Sandberg, with me and I agree, it is a must-see.

3. A poet I am a fan of, Tomas Transtromer, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature today. It's not often I recognize the work of someone awarded such a prize, so I am really thrilled for this today. I have been moved by his work for years and feel obligated to share my favorite poem of his with you today:

Answers to Letters
~Tomas Transtromer

In the bottom drawer of my desk I come across a letter that first arrived twenty-six years ago. A letter in panic, and it's still breathing when it arrives the second time.

A house has five windows: through four of them the day shines clear and still. The fifth faces a black sky, thunder and storm. I stand at the fifth window. The letter.

Sometimes an abyss opens between Tuesday and Wednesday but twenty-six years may be passed in a moment. Time is not a straight line, it's more of a labyrinth, and if you press close to the wall at the right place you can hear the hurrying steps and the voice, you can hear yourself walking past there on the other side.

Was the letter ever answered? I don't remember, it was long ago. The countless thresholds of the sea went on migrating. The heart went on leaping from second to second like the toad in the wet grass of an August night.

The unanswered letters pile up, like cirro-stratus clouds promising bad weather. They make the sunbeams lustreless. One day I will answer. One day when I am dead and can at last concentrate. Or at least so far away from here that I can find myself again. When I'm walking, newly arrived, in the big city, on 125th Street, in the wind on the street of dancing garbage. I who love to stray off and vanish in the crowd, a capital T in the endless mass of the text.

~~~~

And so off I go, a capital C in the mix of this day.

A poem for Thursday

A little poem for today (and I don’t know what’s up with the AABCCB rhyme scheme I just made up; I’m feeling odd today – perhaps I hit my head when I fell and just don’t remember):

Today, This Thursday

Today began with my arse on the ice;

Walking Buster, I slipped more than twice.

But only once was I totally felled

By an unkind neighbor’s unsalted drive.

At least I didn’t completely swan dive

Into the dirty, slushy road snow that dwells.

Today the sun has been shining bright

And I sure hope its heat bears its might

Down upon the remaining icy ways

That make me – unlikely! – wish for spring

And all the annoyingly happy sunshine it brings.

I long to read outdoors in a chaise.

Instead, I am stuck inside, at my desk

Surfing for jobs that are not grotesque

So the hubby can find something he enjoys -

Somewhere he’ll be happy to go every day

With a boss who won’t make him want to run away

So hopefully on weekends he can jam with the boys.

I don’t feel like it’s too much to ask

For steady employment with a list of tasks

That don’t contradict or require odd hours

So we could have family weekends

And do crazy things like see our friends!

And the hubs and I could feel more empowered.

The bills keep coming and paying is a stretch;

And I have no interest in continuing to kvetch,

But this lack of money and of free time

Is taking a toll on my home and my life

And I’d rather enjoy being a wife

And all the things in a life sublime.

So here’s to hoping we all find peace

And a little place where we belong and can decrease

The stresses that chase us in our minds,

Leaving us only with happy, grateful notions

And the confidence that we, indeed, can move oceans

Because we have the love, support, and time

Of those with whom our lives intertwine.



Community and Beauty

For Reverb 10:

December 7 – Community.  Where have you discovered community, online or otherwise, in 2010?  What community would you like to join, create or more deeply connect with in 2011?  

I joined the community of mothers/parents.  I tend to prefer not to separate the categories of "mother" and "parent" but I will admit that I have felt a special connection with other mothers this year.  It's definitely deepened my relationship with my sister (who has two children).  And there are times I just feel this connection take over my face.  The look I give a woman with a baby or struggling toddler at the store just feels different now, like the muscles of my face have the ability to emote more/better empathy that they did before.  I always felt bad for the mother/parent with the screaming baby at the store, but now I just really feel it in my heart.  Literally, I feel a tug in my chest now when I see that familiar scene.  I definitely feel like I've gained entry to a club of sorts.

The community I miss the most is the writing/poetry/publishing world.  I'm dying to attend a poetry reading or the release of a poetry journal.  Maybe in 2011 I'll find a night to do that.

December 8 - Beautifully different. Think about what makes you different and what you do that lights people up. Reflect on all the things that make you different - you'll find they're what make you beautiful.

This prompt was contributed by one of my very favorite bloggers, Karen Walrond of Chookooloonks, whose book, The Beauty of Different: Observations of a Confident Misfit, is on my not-really-real Christmas list.  (If I get a Barnes and Noble gift card for Christmas, it's the book I'm buying with it.)  I've really changed my thoughts on beauty this year by really reading and thinking about the things Karen writes.

When she recently asked, "What makes you beautiful?" I responded that I'm beautiful because my husband tells me so every day and I believe him.  I don't make excuses or contradict him (usually) and instead just say thank you.  Sure, I have my off days - days where a shirt doesn't fit right and I feel fat because of it.  But, now, I do look at the shirt and say, "Okay, it's the shirt.  I haven't changed so it's not me."  I think it takes many people, especially women, a while to get to that point and it feels really good to be here.

My unique (hubby would say "lack of") sense of humor makes me different.  My inclination to love "depressing" music over anything else makes me different.  And, I'd venture to say that these two things are related.  I was a sensitive, slightly outcast, outsider-looking-in, introspective teenager and those years still resonate so strongly with who I am and continue to be.

My past makes me different and makes me beautiful because it's created how I see and enjoy the world.

5 Books of Your Life

Yesterday, on Facebook, the Barnes and Noble page asked, "Can you tell your life story in five books (from kids books to current reading)?"

I thought this question was fascinating.  Here, without too much thinking about it, is my five (I can't think about it too much because I'll revise the list a zillion times):

Can you pick just five?

It's not easy being green

I used to volunteer for the literary magazine Epiphany.  I started out as Assistant Poetry Editor, and when the Poetry Editor resigned she suggested me as the new Poetry Editor, which I think the Editor-in-Chief agreed to only because I'd work for free.  I hadn't yet finished my B.A. while the rest of the editorial staff all had their MFAs or MAs (or both), so I felt pretty proud of holding my own with them.  I had to quit the role when I moved to south Jersey for grad school, which I hated to do because I absolutely adored reading all the poetry submissions that came in and deciding which five or six made the issue.  Here's one of the poems I selected back in the day:

The Way of Drinking Water
By Daniel John

I surround you
like a lake
I do not
flood you
I lap
at your
gates
and
wait

Amazing, right?  Such beauty in such a short space.  The poems I chose have stayed with me through the years; when I read them, it's like I just chose them last week.

Shortly after I worked there, one of the founding editors, Douglas Light, published a novel, East Fifth Bliss:

As my tagline goes, I own the book but haven't read it yet.  I know, I know, bad former co-staff member.  I have to get around to it now, though . . . because it's being made into an independent film!  And this isn't one of those little independent films, no.  This film is starring Michael C. Hall and Lucy Liu.  This is the big time.

I'm so very happy for Doug, but so very, incredibly jealous.  To have a novel published?  So awesome.  To then have that novel made into a film??  Wow.  Beyond awesome.

I want to do that.  That's been my dream for a really long time - to not only write a book, but to then have it made into a film.  It's a dream I don't think or talk about much because I don't see how I can fit it in to my life.  No, that's a lie - I can see how it would fit in; I just don't see myself getting up early just to write, as truly good and dedicated writers do.

But maybe it'll still happen some day.  The Pioneer Woman wrote the story of how she and her husband, Marlboro Man, met and fell in love - Black Heels to Tractor Wheels - and posted it to her blog - and now it's going to be published as a novel and Columbia Pictures has acquired the film rights (and Reese Witherspoon is interested in the film!).  Another blogger I read, Katie at Confessions of a Young Married Couple, has a book agent and is writing a book as well.

Augh.  Okay, truthfully, I am happy for these folks.  They work hard for what they achieve.  But, really, I am so green with envy that you can just call me Kermit.  I'm envious that they had the motivation to achieve what they wanted.  I hate that I'm going to be 35 in two months and I haven't become the writer I wanted to be five years ago.

So now I'm blue, as well as green.  I guess that's better than being black and blue.  (Buh-dum-dum, I'll be here all week.)

But I recognize this is one of those things where I have the complete power to change this.  All I have to do is get writing.  Writing is like building muscle - the more you do it, the stronger you get.  This blog helps me continue to feel like a writer, but I think I need to also do some writing for myself.  I often think about it (and have thought about it often for years) but never do it.  Something always gets in the way.  The last time I wrote privately regularly was five years ago when I finished my B.A.

Then there was grad school, and moving, and the wedding, and being married, and new jobs, grad school again, pregnancy, and now Nate.  There will always be something.  If I wait for there to be nothing, not only will the writing never happen, I won't have anything to write about - and that would be the truly sad time.  I'm glad I have so much going on; I love life that way - now I just need to channel that onto pages.