closing shop & starting something new
my first post at a new blog. go see.
expected to mourn: napowrimo 3
today’s prompt from napowrimo.net is to write an epithalamium, a wedding poem. today’s prompt for Poetic Asides is to write a poem of apology/non-apology, which is funny because that’s what i ended up doing yesterday.
i was probably inspired some by the fire images in jill’s icarus poem. i’ve had an icarus poem brewing for a while, but from a very different angle. mine’s about the husband. but i digress — just sharing some bits that may have weaseled their way into this one. oh! and i was also looking out the window after a meeting at work today, looking down upon the trees, decidedly green with leaves.
the photo? it’s got nothing to do with the poem, except that it makes me laugh to think of it side-by-side with a request to write a wedding poem. the boys and i where on a road trip when we stumbled upon a group of men in bennington, vt, who were honing their medieval combat skills. we’re not sure why. perhaps they were fighting over the hand of a curvy redhead or, erm, defending her honor. but again, i digress.
i don’t think this one has come to its ending. i think there are more stanzas that should be written and the weak ones culled out. but i need my rest. long day tomorrow. long, long day.
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stepping around the dead: napowrimo 2
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just like yesterday, it’s national poetry month. so it looks like i may be attempting a poem-a-day challenge like this one or this one, as i have in years past. what the hell! i could fail tomorrow, but i’ve failed at bigger challenges. ba-doom-chick. that’s a divorce joke. it’s not really funny, of course, but in the midst of tax season (we owe uncle sam MORE than he’s already claimed) and in the midst of divorce sessions (if i hear the word-pair “marital assets” one more time, i might scream, and if i hear one more time that someone in the room doesn’t believe in “marital assets,” i might make someone else scream), you have to cut me some slack.
friends have been getting me through, which is interesting because one of the prompts for today is “lean on me” by bill withers. well, at least that’s what it is for me. the real prompt is to find out the song that was #1 on the day you were born. so anyway, “lean on me.” i know the song, of course. but in typical carolee fashion what registered was “stand by me,” the movie based on a story by stephen king. and then i couldn’t shake it. i hope i’m not the only one who sees the connection: friends against the world. but there’s something that makes “stand by me” different — a dead body at the core of the story and each boy’s desire to find it and get credit. now you’re talking my language: bodies as pawns. dead things as treasures. and thus today’s draft, which i am too tired to fix. it is bed time. and i only — and just barely – promised myself i’d try.
her daring and her hesitate (napowrimo #1-ish)
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so it’s national poetry month. typically, i rush head-long into the poem-a-day challenges like this one and this one. but haven’t been sitting down to write much at all. i haven’t been able to write even when i do. and i am nervous about jumping back in. i haven’t been in touch with that part of myself in a long while. so maybe this piece has something to do with that. and maybe it has nothing to do with that at all. 🙂
i do know i had (at least) a couple things on my mind when i wrote it. these two prompts: write a carpe diem poem and write a communication poem (signals, mixed and otherwise). when i first started writing it, it was going to be about his & hers blossoms, but all of a sudden, the gardener appeared. i blame marge piercy. yesterday, i read her piece on the writer’s almanac that begins gardening is often a measured cruelty.
and the title of the post, in parentheses, is “napowrimo #1-ish” because i’m not really sure if i’m feeling up to a writing challenge. but it would suck to regret on day 8 or something that i hadn’t started. so this first piece is an insurance policy. not fully committed. bah.
lips on the first syllable
we spend most of the day together surrounded by our boys. as much as possible (or as little as possible), we bat at strings that still dangle off the week’s arguments. some of it makes me feel better. some of it makes me feel worse. we set a firm boundary: no discussion of the marriage when it was one. nothing that happened before august — when marriage became separation — is to be brought into conversation.
we talk about other things that are undermining us and what’s to be done about it. we disagree, of course, fall into the roles we played for two decades. i say confront it: let’s air it out. he defers to it: let’s pretend it’s not there. i say, you allow it; it’s acceptable to you. he says, let it go. it doesn’t matter. and each of us hangs onto the rope. we talk about schedules, friends — (well, his, though they used to be ours) (it doesn’t matter. let it go.) — the boys, the games, the food. some of it makes me feel better. some of it makes me feel worse (i miss some of the friends). each of us hangs onto the rope.
i think, you still haven’t invited me in to *your* home. but then thursday at my place, i said, get out.
at the end of the rope: a noose it would be easy to hang ourselves on.
i push him in that direction. he pushes back.
we aim mostly at the image of the new thing: divorce.
and how we can be good at it.
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there are lots of noises i’ve learned to tune out living in an apartment in the city: footsteps above me, pipes dripping, celebrations in the street, church bells. the only time sirens get through is if there are multiple rescuers/police all at once. but last night, noise from crows sent me out into my backyard to see what was going on. i didn’t capture them at their loudest in this video, but you get the idea.
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it strikes me as both plausible and ridiculous: this notion of being good at divorce.
we have worked in shifts since the boys were babies. some of those transitions were just as fraught as these new ones, but trading off responsibility for the family was one of the things we did well. we’re not so good at it now. i flirt with the idea that we are a drop-the-kids-at-the-curb couple, a don’t-speak-except-about-the-schedule pair. i flirt with the idea that he’s a failure and a phoney and that i hate him. i flirt with it doesn’t matter. let it go. i flirt with the idea that those who undermine me will get hit by buses or mauled by bears.
but i’m unfaithful to those ideas.
what i mostly think about is wanting to relax, to settle into this post-marriage world with a beer in my hand and my feet on the coffee table. what i mostly think about is being a good mother and how i can’t fit into that nastiness between me and the father of my children. i choose respect and cooperation, and i expect it in return. it’s the getting there that’s the struggle. there are concessions and negotiations.
also what i think about is being a poet and artist and the shame of wasting energy convincing grizzlies to come out of hibernation and do my bidding. though vengeance (the settling of scores, the coming out on top) is such a temptress, she is not my only suitor. others await.
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still, the poet is an undeniable flirt. she put the notes for this in her notebook last night and shaped it up this morning:
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i step through the not-quite
an argument persists all day. i tell him to get out of my apartment. mostly, it all feels terrible, but it is good to have a chance to yell.
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after we read books, i sing “puff the magic dragon” to my youngest before bed. i sound like my mother. i could sing it a thousand times and never tire.
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the photo in this blog post is a hinge in my apartment. the doors are solid wood. the building is old, but i am relatively new to it. it’s only beginning to tell me who it is. like these lovely hinges, for example: i’ve been here almost seven months, and i just noticed them a few days ago.
i live in a historic district, and the park it borders used to be a cemetery. i think often about the bodies there, moved or not, and promise myself i’ll do some research. but not before letting my mind run with it a bit. the facts of a story aren’t always what matters. it’s how it feels, how you can play with it on your tongue.
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i say, “i’m tired of taking the high road and i’m not going to do it anymore.”
he says, “then why should anyone else?”
because it’s somebody else’s turn. because i’ve been standing in the middle of the road alone and no one has come to meet me. because it’s dangerous to stand in the road. because a girl can only take so much.
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he criticizes me for how i behaved after my mom died. first, it was i didn’t get back into taking care of the house quickly enough. today, it was i didn’t talk to him for two years. trust this: we won’t be having a conversation long enough or involved enough for him to come up with a third example.
learn to tie knots at the ends
this might be as much ice as we get. i took the photo christmas day. it’s the lake in washington park. a half-hearted attempt at winter. i’m glad, as you know, that no one cares too much about brutality this year. i’ve had enough trouble to last me a while.
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planning a sewing project with the boys tonight: sock monkeys. finding it fascinating the steps we will take. i realize they do not know how to thread needles. so that is where we are going to have to start. we are going to have to learn to tie knots at the ends. we are going to have to learn basting stitches, whip stitches, blanket stitches. they do not understand how you work from the insides of a thing and then turn it out to hide your messy work. they do not understand the length of time it takes to sew by hand.
i grew up with fabric and yarn and needles. spools of ribbon and thread. jars of buttons. patterns in paper envelopes lined up like books. the women around me were always knitting/crocheting/sewing. though it’s a project they’ve been begging me to do, the boys may get frustrated tonight. remind me that the important thing about this effort is that i’m helping them explore something they’re curious about, that i am sharing with them something my mother and my grandmother shared with me (and i’m sure the lineage goes back and back; buying stuffed animals at walmart is a relatively recent luxury).
i don’t have as much expertise as the previous generations, and i really wish they were around to do the teaching. but — the boys are left to me. i will attempt it. and, even if we don’t end up with anything soft and cuddly, the boys will have seen a process that is at least as interesting to consider in concept (just how will this turn into a tail?) as it is in outcome.
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my tongue feels thick and sore. i don’t know why. then i remember: i bit into it this morning with my breakfast. and then i remember more: i have been biting my tongue for years. pain is a whole body experience for a reason: messages from nerves travel great distances (across the continent, for example) to reach the brain and say, i’m hurting. but you don’t have to go far to find a place where my words are not appreciated. i used to share a bed with the person who least appreciated me. i mean, i used to share a bed with the person who least appreciated my words.
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it occurs to me i do not have any thimbles to protect the boys’ thumbs. i never liked to work with thimbles, but it’s possible that they might need them. oh, well. i have band-aids. it’s not the blood that frightens me. it’s being responsible for teaching them patience. i’m not the right person for that job.
that i was one of them
Last night, I attended my second open mic for the week. This one was Caffé Lena’s monthly poetry reading (the first Wednesday), and it was packed: something like 22 readers and two features (Paul Pines and Stu Bartow)! I hadn’t been able to attend since I featured there in November.
It’s always a wonderful time, a supportive crowd with diverse styles – both rhyming and free verse, both seasoned veterans and new-comers. As a bonus, it felt like spring in Saratoga (as in the rest of Upstate), and there was a new seasonal Sam Adams on tap at the Irish pub just up the hill.
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In my natural state, I am a sea creature. This landlocked locale is a bit too much for me to take. Land on all sides? Dear God, I’ll go mad. Sometimes the only way I can breathe is to find a horizon with two features: sky and water. I am dreaming of summer, already, and planning a couple escapes to one of my happy places: Ogunquit.
The boys love it, too. They really love it. And so I’m using a week’s vacation to take the boys to the house we’ve rented a few times before as a family of five. They’re excited to be going, but worried about their father not coming along. Their delight is tempered with sadness. I hate that it’s something they’re having to learn at 8 and 10 and 12.
They’re greeting this change (separate vacations), this part of the process, as they have all the other parts — with suspicion. Though they say sometimes they can see that I am happier or that my ex is, they’re not happier yet. And what else is there in a kid’s world? Not much.
I know my job isn’t to do whatever makes them happy, and I know my job isn’t to shield them from all difficulties. It would be far easier to tell them it could be fixed than to tell them, the only thing we can do is go through it. And we will be fine, of course. More than fine. But they don’t know that for sure.
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Fortune cookie with today’s lunch:
Over every mountain there is a path, although it may not be seen from the valley.
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I call 2011 my “Year of Not Writing,” because that’s what it seems like to me. I did absolutely no revising and no submitting. I did manage a few dozen poems, I think (I haven’t counted officially), but it still felt like I “never” wrote or that most of the time I “couldn’t” write.
I’m learning now that maybe it was more likely that the rhythm of the writing and the writing sessions was changing, that the energy for the process was either less plentiful or more scattered. But my perception of it as a year of not writing holds. Despite that, something I never gave up was poetry readings and open mics. I kept at them even if I had to read older stuff or repeat myself as I did this week (reading the same pair of poems on Wednesday that I’d read on Monday). Being around writers and hearing their work made me feel like I was still “in it.”
I was partly worried that I was so frustrated with my own process that if I retreated from readings I would be able to convince myself that it was all a ruse, this business of being a poet, that it was a fleeting, foolish endeavor. And so I knew to keep putting myself in places full of creative people pursuing their work. I knew they’d keep reminding me that I was one of them.
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I am going through a divorce, I announced at the microphone last night. It may have been the first time I’d strung all those words together (out loud, anyway), and I did so in front of an audience. I am going through a divorce. Over every mountain there is a path, though it may not be seen from the valley. I am a sea creature. Sky and water remind me that I was one of them. The only thing we can do is go through. Shiver all night. Dear sons, dear poets: we’re more than fine.
the sun, m-expletive f-expletive
So! Winter? Totally survivable so far. No one is more shocked than I am. It’s a gift, and I’m thrilled.
We’ve had a couple really beautiful snows. Enough to cover the ground. Pretty, but not burdensome. I took the picture to the right on my apartment steps yesterday. We had a few intense bursts of snow, the giant flakes. Giant! And then the sky cleared. It was so beautiful.
And the temperatures? So nice! We’ve had a couple of cold days, but not the unbearable long stretches of single digits/below zero we usually get. Today, in fact, my car said 55 degrees (a highway billboard said 49; I’ll take either one).
It almost doesn’t matter to me what that groundhog does: I can survive six weeks of winter even if it regresses to our traditional winter. Winter last year seemed like six months, so six weeks? I can do this.
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Of course, everything’s a metaphor. This winter, which is easier than last winter. A fraught commute to work. Flowers on my kitchen table. Even the sun (maybe especially the sun), which my ex has claimed as the symbol representing his new life.
When I allow myself to be really angry, I slam things around and grumble about him ruining the sun for me. I imagine screaming across the river, “You can’t own the sun, m-expletive f-expletive!”
(That probably wouldn’t be a bad therapeutic exercise, come to think of it.)
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The photo above is from our Annual Tom Natell Tribute and Beret Toss. Once a year, the monthly Poets Speak Loud open mic is a memorial for an Albany poet I never had the chance to meet. I can say it’s quite a shame: if he was anything like the rest of them, we might have been friends. This poetry scene is part of my extended family. I adore each of them. And you, too, of course, dear poets of the interwebs. 🙂
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It’s just a poem bit. Just a piece. That needs work. But it’s something I’ve been trying to do when I want to vent about something on Facebook (what a terrible habit) or whine in my notebook: turn it into fodder for a poem. It’s nothing new to poets, of course, but the exercise at this particular time in my life — and at those exact moments in which acting like a 13-year-old would be incredibly satisfying — is instructive.
It gives me a chance to pause and reconsider. I don’t mean change my mind about how I feel. I mean sit with it a bit. And make my own fucking metaphors.
your answers: chunks of ice
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carolee bennett sherwood 