The Poplar Grove Muse

And Then There Was One...

2012-01-22T19:12:00.000-08:00

A few months ago my dad showed methis picture saying it was his favorite and that he was so happy then. I also had a copy of this picture and it wasmy favorite too. My sweet father, Edgar Evans Riebsomer,died Sunday, January 15, 2012 at the age ofninety-one. I had the privilege of being there with him as he quietly slippedaway, suffering no more. It’s been a long journey for him. It was a lifewell-lived, a life to be celebrated.

My dad is holding my brother andme on his lap in the picture. My brother,Dennis Evans Riebsomer, died in April 2011 and now my dad haspassed, yet I don’t feel alone. I feel Dad’s love all around me. My brother lived a chaotic life and I hope he is at peace. I know my dad is at peace because he was ready to go.

Dad taught me that love was notfinite and that the more you gave, the more you received. He loved and gave tous all unconditionally. He taught me how to parent unselfishly, to let my sonbe who he wanted to be.

He worked hard his whole life andworked part-time for about fifteen years after he “retired.” He was theyoungest of seven and cared for all of his siblings as they aged. He playedtricks on us every chance he got. His glass eye was his favorite prop. Dad wasSanta Claus personified and played him for families and at parties for years.When Dad hugged you, you knew everything would be alright.

I know there were times that Ihurt him, but he never made me feel guilty. He was simply always there, and nowhe’s not. I’m sure I will feel lost at some point, now I just feel relief thathe is no longer suffering as he had been for almost two years. When I arrivedtwo days before his death, he was unresponsive after a fall that caused a brainbleed. It was only a matter of time at that point. I spent the next two nightssitting up with him and quietly talking to him about how much I loved him andabout all of his family who would be so happy to see him again. I just talkedabout anything I could think of to bring him comfort. I hope he heard me; Ihave to believe that he did.

Rebekah for the Poplar Grove Muse

The White Stuff

2012-01-16T05:33:00.000-08:00

This poem, by the “Belle” of my former home, Amherst,arrived in my e-mailbox yesterday, from poetry.org. (If you don’t already subscribe, you mightwant to; I have discovered poets I never knew, and now love, through thesedaily introductions.)

Every child I know is itching for snow, some with a trulyimpressive intensity, while my middle-aged self, far from my harshclimatological origins, and sometimes overwhelmed by the logistics of a clearday, cringes at the thought of significant snowfall. To remind us all of thenew-making, transformational power of snowfall, I share this:

It sifts from Leaden Sieves -by Emily Dickinson

It sifts from Leaden Sieves -

It powders all the Wood.

It fills with Alabaster Wool

The Wrinkles of the Road -

It makes an Even Face

Of Mountain, and of Plain -

Unbroken Forehead from the East

Unto the East again -

It reaches to the Fence -

It wraps it Rail by Rail

Till it is lost in Fleeces -

It deals Celestial Vail

To Stump, and Stack - and Stem -

A Summer’s empty Room -

Acres of Joints, where Harvests were,

Recordless, but for them -

It Ruffles Wrists of Posts

As Ankles of a Queen -

Then stills its Artisans - like Ghosts -

Denying they have been –

I love the piling up of nouns and descriptions, pointing tothe outlining/transformation/disguising of our familiar surroundings that snoweffects. I also love the penultimate stanza, elevating the humblest features ofthe rural landscape to notice, even celebration.

I am restored by evena light dusting of snow to my childhood rapture at snowfall. (I remembervividly a preschool-less, pre-school experience where my neighbor friend and Imade our mothers unearth all our winter regalia for a few flakes, which hadmostly stopped falling by the time we toddled out in all our winterwear.) Iwish for Greg even a single day of local skiing, preferably today, and forAnna, a day of fullhearted sledding before the season is over.

MKP for The Poplar Grove Muse

THE FIRST WHITE MEAT?

2012-01-09T09:09:00.000-08:00

There she was, towering in the air above myhead. Her huge snout bristled withlong, sharp, pointy teeth, engineered for one purpose, ripping and tearingflesh. Massive jaws powerful enough to clamp and hold its enormous prey, smileddown at me. Perched on hertiptoes, sharp eyes locked on her next victim, she looked ready to leap fromthe pedestal.

I was star struck, standing in the shadow of Sue,the largest and most complete tyrannosaurus rex skeleton ever discovered. Forty-two feet from snout to tail-end,with a rib cage large enough to house a family of four, she dominates therotunda of the Field Museum in Chicago. Sue is the crown jewel of the museum’s extensive dinosaur collectionand dinosaurs have always fascinated me so I savored every moment spentwandering the exhibits. As Istared up at the neck-cracking height of the brachiosaurus I envisioned italive and grazing its way through the forest. Stopping by the duckbilleddinosaur’s exhibit we were able to hear what the hooting call must have soundedlike.

I am also fascinated by the thought that thesebehemoths could be the distant relatives of our free flying birds of today. Moreand more the evidences points to a connection between the mighty dinosaurs andour feathered friends. The formidable and enthralling Sue provided scientistswith another clue that helped prove the hypothesis. Her almost complete skeleton revealed she had a furcula, also know as a “wishbone”, whichis common only to dinosaurs and birds. Try making a wish on that wishbone next Thanksgiving!

The conflicting image of the fierce T-Rex festoonedwith bright blue plumage perhaps with a perky red topknot, wars in my mind withthat of the enormous charging reptile depicted in “Jurassic Park.” Reconsidering the dowdy little sparrowoutside my window as a vicious, sharp-toothed predator ready to strike seemedfanciful, but there it was.

Today paleontologists have incredible tools and muchmore knowledge then those who first studied these strange creatures. Many ofthe pioneer dinosaur hunters were untrained gentleman hobbyists. Enthusiastic about displaying andexplaining, their finds they often created unusual theories to reconcilecurrent beliefs with the evidence at hand. When the first colossal bones wereunearthed, the speculation was they belong to a giant race of humans, since goneextinct. When it became evidentthey were enormous reptile-like beasts, the paleontogists of the day couldn’t conceivethat anything so large would have been able to support it’s massive size. The assumption was that they lay prone untilhunger stirred them enough to lurch their large frames upright in search offood. Modern technology has made it possible to explorethese era spanning and extraordinary beasts in more depth. The last century hasseen an explosion of information that has corrected old misconceptions,revealed startling facts and presented new mysteries. The evidence supportingthe theory that birds are the tiny descendents of dinosaurs grows stronger witheach new discovery.

These animals populated the earth for a vastlylonger time then we humans can even contemplate. The earth was their domain formillions of years compared to our mere thousands. For me, the thought that a part of them remains to soar withthe birds that fill our sky is, as it ought to be. Perhaps dinosaurs truly were the first white meat.

Diana, for the Poplar Grove Muse

Living Dead Baby CIRCA January 1968

2012-01-02T01:00:00.000-08:00

A still birth had just occurred. The veterans of many births had hurriedly wheeled agurney into the delivery room, bumping it against the door. The ill-fatedcontents of the six-months-pregnant uterus spontaneously aborted. The tinyfetus was wrapped in butcher paper and placed in the dirty utility room forpathology to pick up. Meanwhile, inside the cold, white, sterile delivery room,the doctor delivered the placenta under a bit more control than the ‘bumpeddoor’ fetal technique.

Nurse Miller, the gray-haired nursing instructor, motionedfor Elaine and her fellow student nurse, Sandy, to follow her into the dirtyutility room. “I’m sorry we’re not dealing with a live baby, but this deadinfant will be worth studying a bit.” Nurse Miller gestured for the two tohurry as she looked up and down the corridors in a furtive manner. “This fetus is a mere 6 months, no good lung development, nohope for viability but let’s see what we can see.” Nurse Miller had quicklymaterialized in the corner area where specimen bottles, dirty linens, and oldinstruments awaited cleaning and reprocessing. On the lower shelf was a tinybrown-paper-wrapped parcel. “I ‘m very cautious about whom I would show thisto…, but you both are mature, smart nurses, so let’s take a gander at thislittle creature’s last remains, shall we?”

Nurse Miller quickly unwrapped the bloody package. Lying inthe middle of the plain brown wrapper was a little thing with a face, fingers,toes and a minuscule penis. A tiny chest started to rise and out of the little slit of a mouth, a gurgling soundarose. This little baby hadn’t been suctioned or resuscitated in any way. Theextremities were a bad, dusky blue color. Maybe he weighed as much as a bottle of coke. He could fit in thepalm of a man’s hand. “It’s alive,” Elaine whispered. Sandy was fumbling forthe tabletop to steady herself as she tried to back away. Sandy gurgled, “Oh my God, this is not right!”

“Let me go for help. Stay right here!” Nurse Miller commanded.She picked up the tiny package with the breath battling baby and turned towardsthe door. Just as she moved, the attending physician, the head of theObstetrical Department of this urban Catholic hospital, walked through theutility doors looking for a place to discard his gloves. With a friendly nod heglanced at the quivering trio. “A little post mortem inspection, Nurse Miller?” He gazed atthem over the tops of his glasses with a sly smile.

“Just in the nick of time, Dr. Anderson, this little guy isbreathing and was just wrapped here to die.” The older instructor walkedtowards him with outstretched arms, the baby lying nude and panting.

“Hold on a minute, put that fetus back where you found it,”he ordered, his smile rapidly disappearing. “That is a non viable little thing.Put it back.”

“Put it back?” Nurse Miller looked confused. Elaine andSandy huddled in the corner not moving an inch. Unclear where the authoritywas, in their teacher or this power figure of a medical man.

“That’s barely a six-month gestational fetus. It will notlive. The parents are distraught and in pain.” The tall man loomed over NurseMiller as saliva collected on his lips and his voice boomed, “Telling them theyhave a child only to incur major, I mean major expenses and have a dead babywithin two days, is cruel and unusual punishment for no good reason. Put thatpoor creature back. Now!” With that he ripped his gloves off and slingshot theminto the trash bin, “I'm doing what is best for that fetus and the family.” Heabruptly made an about face and stormed out the door, leaving it swinging with ahelicopter whirling cadence.

The threesome stood silent and shocked. Nurse Miller responded first andquickly, placing the infant back on the brown stained paper, “He’s right, andhe’s wrong. I’m sorry, girls, it’sthe real world. He‘s a good man. We caught him unaware, this isn’t his nature.”

It took Elaine a moment to realize Nurse Miller wasapologizing for the Doctor, muting his anger and trying to contain the horrorfor them. The old nursing instructor started cleaning the floor where placentalblood had dripped from the umbilical cord when she had spun around in rescuemode just a moment earlier. “It’s not appropriate to look closer at this child,I‘m truly sorry, you saw this.” Her right eye started twitching. Sandy who always had something to say about anything, stoodthere with every drop of blood drained from her face. Elaine vowed never towork in maternity.

EPILOGUE:

Nurse Miller stopped teaching after that year.

Sandy graduated but never passed her boards and worked in aplastic surgeon’s office as an insurance adjuster minimizing all patientcontact, infant or otherwise.

Elaine just collected degrees and taught others to do whatshe couldn’t.

carolefor The Poplar Grove Muse

The Spirit of Birds

2011-12-27T02:59:00.000-08:00

When I entered the small living room of my host on theSolstice day, my eyes were drawn immediately to the Christmas tree, flocked inwhite and covered in birds: clear glass birds, traditional ornament birds,felted birds, birds made of bells and pinecones. The tree was magical, and it drew me once again to a story Ihave been trying to write for months, well years really: a story of birds on aChristmas tree.

My auntie, long deceased, gave bird ornaments. She believed that birds shouldhang on Christmas trees. Every year she bought a new bird to hang on the treein her home, and gave it to her son, her only child, to fill him with the magicof birds.

After Auntie died I picked my cousin up at the airport tospend the holiday with our family, his first Christmas without his mother. He told me sadly that he would miss getting a bird from hismother. At her death,I hadn’t thought of this detail, as I am sure he hadn’t until this season camearound. I asked him what he didwith all the birds from past Christmases. “Gone,” he said. “She soldthem in a garage sale when I was in college.”

I remember the sale. Auntie was tired of moving, tired of schlepping her things fromapartment to apartment, tired of fighting with her only son, and tired of thepain that comes with divorce. She sold it all: childhood toys, jewelry, familyantiques, clothing, and Christmas decorations.

For many years now, I have been reliving that garagesale. Wishing I had the presenceof mind to stop it or to at least stop the sale of those birds. I wished I could have bought them andpresented them to my cousin in some grand gesture of family love and loyalty. I even pictured myself going door todoor on the street where Auntie lived asking people if they had bought any birdornaments at a garage sale, oh so many years ago. Every year at about this time I can picture the event: birdornaments being lifted out of a dusty card board box as they were sold one byone on a hot July day while my cousin waited tables in a far away town, tryingto save enough money to buy books for college, unaware that they weredisappearing.

The story has a happy ending, I told my host, whose tree Istood there and admired. A fewyears later my cousin married a woman who gives him a bird ornament every yearfor Christmas. He has 10 now.

Legend says that birds are the carriers of spirit: takingthe soul with them as they fly high above treetops or perch on branches to singtheir song, and so I bask in the glow of my hosts bird filled Christmas tree inthe waning light of this solstice day. All those years I had pictured the fateful garage sale whenreally this special bird filled tree is what I should have been dreaming about.I finally understand what Auntie always knew. At last, I am comforted bybirds.

Amy C for the PGM

The Light Behind the Window

2011-12-19T07:53:00.000-08:00

A long time ago, I used to love night-walking the streets ofthe New England town where I lived. These were wandering years, 20-something, learning-to-pay-the-bills-years. Drafty apartment, year-long leaseyears, when most of what I owned fit in the back of a blue Toyota stationwagon. I’d been living away from the comfymid-western home I’d grown up in and was struggling to figure out what homemeant to me. I didn’t know it then, butin retrospect, I’m certain I roamed the dim lamp-lit streets of thatConnecticut river valley town in search of a life that felt like what could be mine at a time I simplyhad no idea where I was headed. Thissearching impulse overrode much of the common sense of the time that warnedyoung women against walking alone in darkness anywhere.

Victorian house afterhouse beckoned from the sidewalk. I’dpeer into warmly lit interiors for country farmhouse tables, shabby chic armchairs, upright pianos, and the humans who played them. Occasionally, I’d see a family in animateddinner conversation, an old couple at rest in the blue tv screen light, or ateenager–just a few years younger than I was at the time, but still so young,illuminated by a reading light, encircled in the hug of what I presumed to be herfavorite chair in a wood-paneled nook. Iimagined her solidly planted. At thesame time, I granted she could be yearning for escape just as I had been notmany years before.

I didn’t own a tv, sothose night time walks were my entertainment, my mediation, as well as goodexercise. At the time, I worked longdays helping people live more independent lives after years lived in stateinstitutions. I spent a good deal of the daylight hours in places most peoplewould consider dingy, sometimes dangerous, if not catastrophically depressing. Asthe “light seeker” I suppose I was, I looked for what was wonderful-in humanimperfection and in the complex world people who’d lived most of their livesshut away from were learning to negotiate. Then, under cover of darkness, I walked nightstrying to sort out the murkiness inside of me: who was I and what mattered enough to me tosupport a light I sought to manifest in the world? I took unapologetic comfort in what I sawilluminated in the darkness: laughing faces around a table, a cello in a corner,a comfy chair and a good book to read—simple pleasures that came to mean muchmore to me as I lived in the world and provided an antidote to many greydays.

To this day, I carry the exquisite tug of the ways light anddark play with and serve one another. Even all these years later I continue to enjoy walking in darkness. This, for me, feels enveloping and protected.I am forever drawn to the light behind the windows of strangers.

The winter solstice is nearly upon us. The long nights will be getting shorter andthe light will return. I’d like tocelebrate the complexity, the paradox, the dance of light and dark in our livesand in this world. Each is necessary to bring clarity to the other. Enjoy the season. I bring you tidings ofcomfort and joy!

BLR for the Poplar Grove Muse

Journeys

2011-12-12T16:14:00.000-08:00

Journeys

The holidays are a time of journeys for many of us.Fortunately, I only have a two hour journey to reach my dad and step mom’shouse. I have been blessed with another chance to spend Christmas Eve with themin their cozy home that has the true spirit of Christmas in it every day of theyear. My son is on duty this Christmas, so I will journey to my life-longfriend Sharon’s house on Christmas Day and spend the day with her and herfamily. I love her family and I am grateful to be a part of that family. Therewill be lots of food and laughter. It’s a day I treasure.

As my thoughts turn to journeys, I think of our WWfaC winterretreat at St. Mary of the Woods in January. I love the coziness that wintrycanvas provides, a warm place to reflect and write with no worldlydistractions.

The journey that is really on my mind is the journey WWfaCis taking to the Isle of Iona in May 2012. We are holding a writing retreat onthat amazing island off the west coast of Scotland, but it is more than just anopportunity to write in a foreign country. For me, it is a journey that easesmy soul. Beth Lodge-Rigal has asked those of us who are attending to begin ajournal about this trip, so this is my beginning of that process. We will travel by planes, trains, ferries andcoaches. I have made this journey manytimes and each time I experience an internal change as I gaze out the windowsof these various conveyances and watch the changing landscape and light. Themetamorphosis is beginning.

As soon as I settle on the train for the three hour journeyfrom Glasgow to Oban I can feel my muscles begin to release the internalstresses of every day life. There is happy chatter on the train as it begins itassent into the highlands. When I stepoff the train in Oban, the sea air clears my head as I breathe in its freshness.And the sounds and sights of this Victorian seaport envelope me and mytransformation toward peacefulness is nearly complete. This country is a placewhere I’m utterly at home and content.

When I board the huge ferry to the Isle of Mull on the nextleg of my journey, I climb to the top deck, weather permitting, and let thesalty wind blow the last of the cobwebs from my heart and spirit. The gulls' criesas they follow the ferry welcome me and my fellow travelers.

By the time my feet touch the ground in Craignure on the Isleof Mull, my step is lighter and I practically bounce to the waiting coach totake that beautiful journey across Mull and one last ferry ride to that littlegem of Iona in the glittering bay. I smile. I’m home. I’m home.

Rebekah for the Poplar Grove Muse

Light in Darkness

2011-12-06T07:17:00.001-08:00

It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness. Chinese Proverb

As the days darken down, I find myself in a transitionalspace. I have lived almost my entire life in northern regions, where a firsthint of winter enters on the wind while fall is still in full swing, anddarkness bleeds into daylight well before anyone is ready to face the inevitablereduction in exposure to the sun.

For me, this transition to a dimmed existence is deeplyfamiliar, yet tinged with familiar comforts. My emergence into this bleak,wintry world is simultaneously colored by glimpses of extraordinaryluminescence, made visible in contrast to darkness: the stark illumination ofan icy moon and the miraculous, mirrored radiance from fields of snow; the warmglow of simple, brown-bag luminaria on a dark path; the reflected glimmer of a Christmas tree in belovedornaments; flickering candlelight highlighting family faces at my dinner table.

I grew up in a relatively small town, in a relativelysimpler time, and experienced the freedoms (as well as the limitations) thatexistence offered. One freedom was aless vigilant attitude about the movements of young girls in the waning hoursof daylight. I remember walking home from a friend’s house or school in darkness,feeling covered by darkness in an empowering way, captivated by my own breathvisible in the night, buoyed by the ambient brightness of snow blanketing roofsand yards, animated by cold and the brisk walking pace it encouraged.

As I age, the cold seems colder (although Bloomington isthe most southerly home I have ever had), and the darkness often seems toodark, an inconvenience at best and a serious threat to harmony and mentalhealth on the worst days.

This year, I’m making a winter resolution, to recall thefeelings of aliveness and comfort that early dark and cold can spark, and tocreate light and warmth wherever and whenever I can for myself and those aroundme. I’m lighting the Christmas tree as long as possible, and this morning, Iput fresh candles in the kitchen candleholders. I’m offering mugs of cocoadaily to my girls, topped with airy clouds of whipped cream, and planningfrequent evening baking.

May you surround yourself and yours with warmth and light tolast into the now-unimaginable heat of summer.

Mary for the Poplar Grove Muse

The Beaver, the Lie and the Dentist's Office

2011-11-28T08:41:00.001-08:00

The Beaver, the Lie and theDentist’s Office

As shenoticed people starting to glance their way, Nan hissed, “Would you please keepyour voice down? I can’t believeyou are so upset about this, it’s not like I did it on purpose.” Ted, ignoring her request, shrugged hisshoulders and thrust his hands out palms up, asking sarcastically, “So, thatmakes it okay, you didn’t do it on purpose?”

Nan and herhusband Ted had arrived at their dentist, Dr. Trimble’s office for their six-month checkups. She hadarrived just a few minutes after Ted and had slipped into her seat next to him.The large waiting room was full of people and as she began to explain what hadhappened, more and more of them flicked covert glances their way.

She was stunned to see Ted’s familiarface morph from its usual open and friendly contours to a warped red gloweringface with bulging eyes. Throughclinched teeth Ted ground out, “Are you blind? Did you not see it behind youwhen you backed out? It’s been setting there for two months, how could you notremember it was there?” His voice was incredulous as he said, “You know howlong I worked on that beaver, how much it means to me. How could you be socareless? How bad is it?”

At thesewords the people in the waiting room, who had valiantly tried to disregard Nanand Ted’s conversation, began to titter and glance at each other with compressedgrins.

Nan, in a state of shock, could do nomore than stare at him open mouthed and speechless. Ted, usually the calmest and quietest of people, had neverin their ten years of marriage spoken to her with such venom.

When she finally found her voice shesaid, “Ted, Honey, please calm down, it’s just cracked a little and the head ismissing, but other than that it’s fine. I’m so, so sorry, really. It was anaccident, really!” Ted, finally realizing people were listening and commenting,began taking deep calming breaths to regain his composure. He couldn’t believe Boris--he hadalways secretly thought of the beaver as Boris--was gone. He had loved that beaver.

Three months ago Ted’s college footballteam, the Clark University Beavers, had won the Gladiola bowl, beating theirarch rivals the Dover University Jackals by a decisive 35-0 victory. The lasttime they had beaten the Jackals had been twenty years ago. To commemorate the momentous occasionTed had constructed, in his garage, his homage to the Beavers. With a zealot’s fervor Ted hadconstructed a seven-foot-tall paper Mache beaver. Its broad flat paddle of a tail and its ample haunches servedto steady the towering, snarling rodent. It was posed rearing, its mighty front paws raking the air andits grizzled muzzle gaped wide. Betweenits enormous incisors it held a flailing jackal desperately trying to freeitself. Ted dotingly painted thebeaver in realistic shades of brown and black and of course added a bright ClarkUniversity orange “C” in the center of its massive chest. It had been a laborof love for Ted and as nicely done as a seven-foot-tall beaver can be done. Withbursting pride Ted had placed the enormous beaver at the end of their drivewaywhere it had set until today.

Nan, feelingguilty, made one last attempt to explain what had happened. “I am sorry Ted!” buteven as Nan reaffirmed this she knew it wasn’t true. She had deliberately backed into the brown monstrosity, notonce but twice. She had hated thatbeaver from the moment she had seen its beady little eyes. Her hatred had only increased when shedrove home from work one day to find her driveway full of people. Ted was proudly standing next to the thing;arm wrapped around its wide butt as people with cameras and camera phonessnapped pictures of the crazy man and his giant beaver.

It was then she knew that something hadto be done. The beaver had to go,but how? She had thought of hiringsomeone to steal it away in the night. Then she remembered what her Mother hadalways told her,” simple is always best”. She would runover the beaver as she was leaving the house today. It would be an accident; hecouldn’t be upset if it had been an accident, could he? She now knew the answerto that question. Yes, he could.

So they satwaiting, not speaking, trying to ignore the glances and hushed whispers oftheir fellow dental waiters. Each of them deep in thought, remembering theseven-foot-tall paper Mache beaver with a jackal clamped in its teeth who wassecretly known as Boris.

Diana for the Poplar Grove Muse

Three Thanksgiving Haiku

2011-11-22T02:37:00.000-08:00

THREE THANKSGIVING HAIKU - 2011

Thanksgiving dinner

Missing ones not in their places

Turkey of secondary importance

In woods filled with nut droppings

Wild turkeys look like little old men

Happy to survive another holiday

Giblets’ yearly bow

Loud pause hushes all before grace

The white food awaits

--carole

Poetry Corner

2011-11-15T06:43:00.001-08:00

Some poetry treats for this gloomy November day.

Becoming Separate

I've become someone you used to love,
You've become someone I thought I knew.
I've become a relief from obligation,
You've become an ache I can't find relief from.
I've become the one who can't just be your friend,
You've become not a friend at all.
I've become the one you have hurt and can no longer face,
You've become the one I won't let hurt me anymore.
I've become the one who won't accept the secret part of you,
You've become the one I used to believe in.
I've become a reminder of the man you tried to be,
You've become a reminder to be true to myself.
--Amy L.

Saying Goodbye to the Downtown P.O.

I had no reason to trust in this frumpy
building , its turquoise-tinted windows broken,
speckled linoleum smelling of Lysol,
most-wanted flyers scotch-taped to the walls.
But I did, offering up envelopes
and brown paper packages with the hope
of a newlywed or novice, releasing
my cards into the crocodile maw
of the mail bin, that yawning metal hole
that never vowed to be faithful, yet
still carried every check and love
note to its destination, undamaged.

The post office closed today, and I admit
I cried sending last letters in this place
where life never let me down.
--Lauren B

Some more poetry for the Post Office

When the Post Office was a Happy Place

Back then, when mailmen walked their routes
Leather bags slung over their shoulders
Cans of mace tucked safely at their hips
Mail contained letters and postcards from lovers and grandmas

Leather bags slung over their shoulders
Cream colored envelopes with black handwriting
Mail contained letters and postcards from lovers and grandmas
Pictures of gondolas in Venice and brown bears in Yellowstone

Cream colored envelopes with black handwriting
Gave way to No money down; only %6 APR financing
Pictures of gondolas in Vienna and brown bears in Yellowstone
Became fake sweepstakes entries with million dollar first prizes

No money down; only %6 APR financing
I once was a child traveling with that mailbag
Hoarding the fake sweepstakes entries with million dollar first prizes
Waiting for riches in letters arriving by post

I once was a child traveling with that mailbag
Understanding that hope often came in envelopes
Waiting for riches in letters arriving by post
The most anticipated light of day was the shadow of the mailman on the porch

Understanding that hope often came in envelopes
I had a secret crush on the man who lugged this mailbag up and down my street
The most anticipated light of day was his shadow
Bringing my letters from a long ago best friend moved to Boston

I had a secret crush on the man who lugged this mailbag up and down my street
Bringing my admission to the college that would take me finally far from home
Bringing my letters from a long ago best friend moved to Boston
Or a card and note from my grandmother with a $5 bill

Bringing my admission to the college that would take me finally far from home
Back then, when mailmen walked their routes
Cans of mace tucked safely at their hips
Bringing a card and note from my grandmother with a $5 bill.

--Amy C

Mary and James

2011-11-07T10:01:00.000-08:00

She moves more slowly now than ever. Think weebleswobble but they don’t fall down. She’s short and round. One legappears several inches shorter than the other and the extreme limp is actuallythe result of many years of hip degeneration, a couple of operations, and failedphysical therapy to alter destructive patterns of movement that go back to herchildhood. Her soft tongue protrudeswith the concentration it takes for her to stay on her feet. She looks down to see where her feet willland but somehow, out of the corner of her eye, she’s also aware of the need to get across the traffic lane. So she speeds up. In so doing shetilts and wobbles at ever more extreme angles.

He seems to glide across the parking lot as if on a slowconveyor belt. He carries his slimframe like a torch, but there’s a small stoop to his shoulder and his left armbends close to his chest, his weak fingers curl near his heart. His prominent smile and squint behind thickglasses tells us what he told us earlier. He’s just really happy to be alive. They do not touch as they walk; each make their way as best they can. But they are definitely together.

Lots of people stare. They stop traffic as they navigate the parking lot and I think they shouldhave held on to the shopping cart, or at least she should have, since it workedas a kind of walker for her in the store. After many monthsof our not seeing one another, I’m alarmed by how unsteady she seems on herfeet these days. I do not hover. I walk at my own pace and trust they'll make it through this gauntlet on their own terms.

“That was fun, Sweetie,” he says in a gorgeous baritoneradio voice I keep thinking he could have used as an announcer had hiscircumstances been different in life. She says “Oh yeah Honey, we should do this more often,” and they hug andslide in to the back seat of my Toyota Highlander.

My sister, Kate and I have just taken our youngest sister,Mary, and her boyfriend, James to lunch and to Walmart. This“sister day” was a day Mary had been advocating for for many months. The fourhour drive and my busy schedule have prevented me from visiting Mary in her ownapartment, sadly, for over two years. While I see her regularly at familygatherings, this is different.

Today I think the distance and my life are no excuse. We’re aging. Time is passing. Thissister, who, in my mind, will always be a sweet girl with odd ways in need of my protection, now hasgrey streaks in her thinning hair, and seems on track for a wheelchair if her bodydoesn’t miraculously straighten out. Still, she navigates without me day in day out. She works with James 5 days a week but they never see one another except at break times. So Saturday Lunch and shopping. Meeting James. Mary's wished for this more than anything for a long time and it's taken me too long to make it happen. While there's plenty to worry about on my sister's behalf, James is not one of those things. In fact, he's a beacon and their tenderness for one another gives me pause to think all is well in the world for the moment.

But five hours together is enough for her, as I suspected itwould be. By late afternoon we haveaccomplished all her sister goals for the day. We visited at her place, fetchedJames, ate a meal out on the town, did some shopping. She exchanged her faulty Discman, purchasednew headphones, some beloved “office supplies”: pens and spiral ring notebooks. She got to snuggle and laugh with James inthe back seat as James told me his story and wished aloud for a place of hisown like Mary has. When we dropped himoff at his group home, they hugged but did not kiss. “Loveyou James,” Mary said. “Love you tooMary,” said James.

I got to see Mary in the world with the man she loves. She helped him cut his sandwich at lunch andwas by his side to sort out his financial transaction at the Walmart check-outcounter. “He’s good to me,” Marysays. “She looks out for me, Beth,”James says.

When we leave her, Mary hugs Kate and me each quickly but completely,totally ready for us to clear out so she can have her alone time. She has house chores to do and a schedule tokeep. I know this includes listening tomusic on her new Discman and writing her version of the day down in hernotebook.

BLR for the Poplar Grove Muse 11-7-11

Changeling

2011-10-31T07:55:00.000-07:00

This piece is based on a conversation I had with David Clemson who was co-facilitating a retreat I attended on Iona in 2009. As I think of my return to Iona in 2012, I thought it might be appropriate to share Changeling at this time. The bench in front of the Arygll Hotel is where this conversation took
place.

Someone changed me.Forever. In a way so profound I feel as though my DNA has been altered or achromosome has mutated. I know how to handle hurt. I can kick disappointment inthe ass. I know what to do withpassive-aggressive behavior aimed like a gun at me while the aimer wants me toguess if it’s loaded. It’s always loaded. I’ve learned how to disarm thosemanipulators. I’ve overcome my fear ofabandonment. I know how to grieve and move on with comforting memories held inmy heart. I can set boundaries and keep toxic people out of my life.

But it appears asthough I have never learned how to accept a sincere compliment, a complimentpraising something that is at the core of who I am, My Writing. When someonesays, “I like your hair, earrings, glasses, fruit salad or purse,” I can easilyreply, "Thank you," and move on with my life. But when someone whohas no agenda, who only knows me through my writing, who doesn't love me, whois a teacher and an accomplished poet gives me, in all sincerity, a complimentbeyond anything I've ever heard before, it's hard to absorb. My first reactionwas to say “Yeah, right," and giggle nervously. Then this person says,“I’m not kidding. You are the best writer who has come through this course inthe eleven years that I’ve been teaching it.” When I first arrived at this retreatin Scotland in 2009, I had felt way out of my league, just as I did on my firstretreat with Women Writing for a Change. The creativity and the honesty werealmost overwhelming, but at the same time inspired me to reach higher. So maybebecause I'm sitting outside the Argyll Hotel on Iona and because the sun isshining for the first time in ten days, I start to glow. After a brief stint ofdenial while telling myself it only sounded important because it was said in anEnglish accent, I'm back to glowing.

So what has reallyhappened here? What's happened here is the bar has been raised. It doesn’t matter if what this person said iseven close to being true. What matters is that it was said in truth and I feela pressure to live up to that belief in me. Not because I don’t want to disappoint another, but in order to notdisappoint myself. And do what I truly know I am capable of as a writer.Dammit. This means I need to turn the TV off, quit being distracted by shinyobjects, stop talking about writing and write. Just write.

Rebekah for PoplarGrove Muse

The Book Club Refugee Finds Shelter

2011-10-24T20:32:00.000-07:00

I have had an essay in progress for some years now, with the working title “Book Club Refugee.” It begins to recount the amazing number of book clubs I have attended, at least briefly, since leaving full-time employment in 1996 and moving to serial small university towns with my growing family.

I do hope I’ll finish the essay eventually. Some of the memories are just painful—the play group from hell that morphed into the book group from hell where the alpha women allowed 15 minutes max of touching on the book before launching into vicious gossip; the university women’s book club that picked a whole year’s slate by a committee of long-time members (who wouldn’t allow newer members to speak); several groups of lovely, earnest, intimate women where I just couldn’t break in.

But some of the memories are priceless treasures. The group I found just before I moved to Bloomington looked to be an excellent fit, with a mix of serious readers and hip professors who genuinely wanted to discuss the chosen selections. The second evening I attended, just as I learned I would be moving, we discussed a fabulous book in a secluded backyard hot tub with glasses of excellent chardonnay and candles balanced on the surrounding ledges, as huge, airy snowflakes drifted down around us in a mild New England evening.

I also attended unbelievably rich, public “Author Events” at the Odyssey Bookshop in South Hadley, MA, a second-generation family-owned bookstore just across Route 116 from Mount Holyoke College; it remains a reader’s paradise, with two floors of well-selected books, cards, and bibliophile paraphernalia, and a full slate of monthly author and reader events. There I, along with 11 other fortunate and avid readers who signed up, got to discuss their books with such authors as Alice McDermott, Ruth Ozeki, Jane Smiley, and others. (I coined the name “Book Club Refugees” for the “club” of two, myself and my dear friend Ellen, so that we could attend an evening event limited to book clubs only.) In those intimate conversations with authors, I learned so much about the assumptions I bring to a text, and how little those assumptions sometimes have to do with the writing decisions made by a contemporary author, among other things.

Here in Bloomington, I am a devoted member of the WWF(a)C Book Club that meets third Thursdays over tea and optional sack lunch at the Poplar Grove Schoolhouse. I cannot say enough about this ambitious, articulate, and thoughtful group of readers. We are all serious, but not humorless, about our reading, and discussion of the selections is always primary. A group of some 10 regulars, most with some connection to the WWF(a)C program, we are led by a wise and dedicated facilitator who usually reads the books at least twice and never fails to challenge us with thought-provoking questions and considerations. In recent months, we have chosen a set of three books that all bear on African American history: James McBride’s haunting “Song Yet Sung,” a tale of escaped slaves in pre-Civil War Maryland, Jon Clinch’s gorgeous and grisly imagining of Huckleberry Finn’s Pap “Finn,” and next month, Isabel Wilkerson’s “The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration.” We are all looking forward to hearing James McBride speak in Bloomington as a guest of the Friends of the Monroe County Library on November 12.

Each of us has our own history of reading, alone, with friends and partners, as well as in groups, and surely each of us has our own experiences of the pleasures and perils of shared reading with others. Share some of yours! Or come share ours with us!

Mary for the Poplar Grove Muse

2011-10-17T07:51:00.000-07:00

Making Soup

When I decided to write about making soup, I Googled one word. SOUP. I was astounded by the amount of information available on this subject. The varieties alone were staggering and the historical references copious. I found that this humble food has warmly and steadfastly accompanied man and womankind’s march through time. Soup in all of its guises, broth, pottage, bisque, gumbo, chowder, consommé, stew, porridge and even gruel has found its place in the story of the human race and it’s survival.

Picture early woman, kneeling by her cook fire dropping heated rocks into a stone bowl to bring the water to a boil, carefully adding the ingredients for the cattail, tuber and mammoth stew. Techniques improved through the ages but the fact remains, all of our ancestors used the simple method of cooking grains, vegetables and meats in liquid to make----SOUP! By utilizing the ingredients found in their regions each culture added a unique adaptation, but soup making has been around for as long as watertight containers.

Soup has been used to heal the sick, comfort the old and nourish the young. It can be prepared hot or cold, thick or thin. Soup can be the first course or served up as the entire meal, as simple as consommé or as complex as bisque. Both kings and beggars have inspired it and it is appreciated by everyone.

I come from a long line of soup makers. I recall the rich goodness of my Grandmother’s chicken and dumplings and the hearty brightness of my Mom’s vegetable soup. I grew up eating my sister’s chili and I still judge all other chilies by its measure. I remember my Dad introducing us to the oddly named but deliciously exotic matzo ball soup. To not make and eat soup would never occur to me. Therefore, it surprises me when people tell me they never make soup. I think some people believe making soup is akin to practicing alchemy, that there is a wizard locked in a tower room somewhere, jealously guarding the “soup secrets.” If there is, I’ve never been introduced to him and there is not a secret soup maker handshake, as far as I know. Soup making is not mysterious, it’s just soup.

For me, it is truly a freeform and creative way of cooking. When I make soup, I regard recipes as suggestions. They serve to give me a basic list of ingredients. They recommend flavors and textures that will enhance one another. They instruct in techniques and procedures. All the rest is gleefully and freely open to my interpretation of what that soup will be. The myriad ways to combine the meats, beans, vegetables, grains, pastas, fruits and spices is at my disposal. Only the supplies in my pantry and my own imagination limit the choice. I anticipate the layering of flavors, each ingredient releasing its essence to merge with the whole, creating a new taste. There is satisfaction in striking the perfect savory or spicy note and when the rich soupy aroma envelops the house it is ambrosia.

Vegetable soup, one of the first I can remember making is still one of my favorites. It was nothing complicated, beef, tomatoes, carrots and potatoes, maybe some celery, the vegetables of my Mom’s soup. My first attempt at making chicken noodle soup created a pallid, bashful version. Today my soups are more daring, more intense and like me more mature. Over the years my taste and sense of adventure has expanded and I relish experimenting with new ingredients and techniques. The vegetable soup I made thirty-five years ago would not be recognized as the steamy concoction I give that name to today and that too, is the beauty of soup. The endless combinations, the forgivingness of accuracy and the adaptability of soup are the things that make it so appealing.

Don’t be afraid to dive into the soup pot. Making soup is a joyful, liberating and warm expression of your own creativity that can be enthusiastically shared with your family and friends.

Diana for the Poplar Grove Muse

WWfaC Writers in Print

2011-10-11T11:54:00.000-07:00

Every once in a while it is nice to take a look around and applaud the women and men of our circles who have published written work. Although this list is by no means all inclusive, we are excited when we see the name of someone we know in print. Often the poems and stories that make it into real magazines and chapbooks are part of the circles in which we all participate.

I love knowing that the poems I read in a circle last month or the story I discussed with a writer, are now part of the public eye. Being part of the great ebb and flow of the written word is satisfying in so many ways.

Last summer, perennial WWfaC writer and co-editor of Women with Wings, Lauren Bryant published her first chapbook of poetry. Now Comes the Petitioner arrived in my mailbox in the full heat of the summer. I pulled up a chair, got my glass of cabernet, and enjoyed discovering and sometimes rediscovering some fine poems. You can order it straight from the publisher at finishing line press or of course on Amazon.

This past month, Kim Evans, facilitator in the Young Women's program, and long time WWfaC writer had a piece published in the anthology, The Mome nt I knew: Reflections from Women on Life's Defining Moments. Kim's essay, What I Gave to the Fire, is a beautifully rendered account of grieving and loss. This book is available from Amazon or from Sugati Publications.

Stephanie Lemmons Wilson longtime WWfaC writer and original blogger for the PGM, who moved to the West Coast last year, recently had an essay about friendship published in A Tea Reader: Living Life One Cup at a Time, edited by Katrina Avila Munichiello. Steph's essay entitled A Teacup of Friends celebrates the friendships she has made over a cup of tea. I look forward to receiving my copy of the book very soon. It is officially in the bookstores on October 10th. You can find it on Amazon or at a tea shop near you.

Shane Haggard a sampler and workshop participant who some of you may know from his featured blog Ramblings of a Caffeinated Acupuncturist added an essay about quilts to Crazy-Quilted Memories, his brother's recent book about quilting. The essay called A Story of Creative Inspiration from the Imagination of My Brother lovingly introduces this beautiful book on quilt making.

Last but not least, my own short story, Tulip Trestle, will be published in December in Bloom Magazine. I was excited to win third prize in their first fiction contest. Pick up a free copy somewhere around Bloomington in December.

Women Writing for (a) Change celebrates all people who chose to write and share their stories whether through publication, or simply read aloud at a read-around, or shared quietly among friends in a small group. Please post a note below if you have recently published something and would like our readers to know about it.

Amy C for the Poplar Grove Muse

Elaine Halloween

2011-10-06T12:04:00.000-07:00

Elaine remembered the fall of her second grade. Late on Halloween a knock sounded on her parents’ side door. After nightfall only her Father answered the phone or the door. Men did that for protection and defense. This was many generations ago, when men stayed home at night and most wives stayed home during the day. Let’s say 1955.

An older neighbor dressed like a witch, a pointed black hat atop her head, with warts painted on her face and green lipstick on her lips, cackled.

“Look kids, it’s witchy Miss Thomas from next door,” her Dad said as he opened the door wide.

Miss Thomas thrust a liquor jigger toward her lean Army dad saying, “Tricks or Booze, you choose. I have jars of all sorts to drain it into.”

Elaine and her brothers were sorting the bags of their candy treats into a massive pile in the living room to start bartering with one another. Elaine could always get rid of a Clark bar for a Milky Way or trade the moldy apple from next door for licorice twists. Brother Matt was especially naive in distinguishing good chocolate-y tastes from bright packaging.

“You’re joking, right Miss T?” her Dad muttered under his breath.

“Heck, no, check it out, Harry,” as she opened her bag to reveal glass mason jars labeled with words like GIN and RUM taped on their sides.

“I’ll get a nice supply going tonight. Everyone gives me something. What do you have on hand, I’m not particular,” she giggled. The children turned back to their candy negotiations.

There was much parental muttering that night, but other than ” I told you she drinks!” coming from her Mother, and ”She’s harmless!” coming from her Dad, none of it made much sense to Elaine, who was utterly bored and on her own pre-bed sugar high.

Many decades later, as two older ladies now,Elaine’s mother spoke kindly about the December that she had to call an ambulance for Miss Thomas.

“She had called late, real late at night, 11:30 maybe or midnight. Way past polite calling hours. We had had a snow storm and our street hadn’t been plowed in days. So poor Miss T hadn’t made a run to the liquor store for a while. She was climbing the walls. DT’s, we called them then. She was seeing monkeys on the ceiling and they were scaring her to death. Chewing her toes and fingers, she kept telling your Dad.”

“I guess that Halloween treat bag was long gone,” was all Elaine thought to add.

Carole for the Poplar Grove Muse

If You Saw Me (homage to Gerald Stern)

2011-09-27T06:28:00.000-07:00

If you saw me riding a paint pony, Tonto, around a cool, dimly lit arena on a hot Chicago summer day, my short, 6-year-old legs barely reaching down past the saddle skirt, cantering for the very first time,

You would see a smile fill my face with all my heart’s joy as my body relaxed into that rocking motion and my mind thrilled to the speed.

If you saw me riding a dark bay horse, Charlie Brown, in an outdoor arena in the far northwoods of Minnesota with my fellow campers,

You would hear me laughing as the horse dropped out from under me in the space of one stride. You would see me climb off him just before he rolled in the sandy track, and watch, gleefully amazed at this display of personality.

If you saw me, age 15, galloping bareback cross-country on a blue-eyed albino, Silver Leaf, flying over stacks of hay bales, my hands entwined in that white mane,

You would know I felt in my whole body the power of those long limbs, those broad muscles, as he sailed through the air, and you would understand all my blissful dreams of flying to be reality.

If you saw me on a delicate bay thoroughbred mare, Valhalla, jumping with one perfect spring over poles stacked four feet high, going straight up and straight down in such harmony of motion, ease of momentum, grace of landing,

You would understand what I sought then as a teenager, and now – perfect unity with another living creature, achieved through delicacy of feel and abandonment of thought.

If you saw me out of control, clinging to my thoroughbred Spiffy’s black mane, wind whipping tears from my eyes, as he tore across the rocky Texas hill country until his urge to run was finally spent,

You would see me rise above caution, move through fear, and reach the place of trust.

If you saw me swimming bareback in the Carmel River with Windy, broad backed and solid bay Arabian mare,

You would see her repeatedly, playfully strike out from the shore, swim a large loop while my body streamed out across her back half floating, half pulled by her power through the cold water, and emerge again onto the bank dripping, shaking herself in the California sun.

If you saw me astride Kabir, white Arab glowing under the full moon as he stepped lightly through misty Indiana fields, or cantering in knee deep snow,

You would know the magic of horses’ gifts to me, and you would realize the depths of my gratitude.

Amy L for the PGM

Pride

2011-09-19T07:08:00.000-07:00

Stories about the tenth anniversary of the attacks on the United States of September 11, 2001 have been prominent in the news. Everyone has been reflecting on where they were that day and how these horrors affected them and their loved ones. Even if we didn’t know anyone who died that day, we were still devastated as a nation. I can remember exactly where I was and who told me about the attacks on our country, just as when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963 when I was a senior in high school, I can remember exactly where I was when I heard that news. It was another devastating day for country. Casey was 28 years old when our country was attacked on 9/11 and we watched the news that night together, sitting in front of the TV in shock and hearing the stories of the sacrifices of the firefighters. I’m not sure how much that affected his decision to become a firefighter, but I imagine it had its influence on his ultimate choice to change professions. But this is not about our country’s tragedies. This is about my son, a firefighter/EMT.

The 9/11 anniversary coverage contained numerous features about firefighters and those were the stories I paid the most attention to. As I watched programs about these amazing men and women, I had a slow realization that there is a common trait among firefighters that is immediately recognizable. Even though each one is an individual with different physical attributes, ethnicities and genders, there is a certain look they all possess. It’s in their eyes and in their calm demeanor. To me, it is instantly recognizable. My son has that look.

He has been a full-time firefighter since 2007.He was 35 and just made it in under the wire for the cut off age of 36. He had worked in the family business since graduating from high school, running heavy equipment. It was a job that paid well, but that was about it. It was just a job. He told me when he was taking his training that he wanted to go home at the end of the day feeling that he had made a difference. And he’s certainly doing that now. I’m so proud of him.

He has always been a daredevil, fearless. When he was around 6-7 years old, there was a TV show he watched called Emergency! about Los Angeles county firefighters and EMTs. He loved that show. We bought him a record that played certain episodes of the show. He would go in his room and shut the door and play it over and over again. Maybe on some level he knew then what he wanted to do with his life. I’m so happy for him, that he has found the thing he loves to do in life. And that it gives him the time to do the things that he enjoys, that feed his creative spirit. He rebuilds muscle cars, restores history. He’s one of the most patient people I know and that serves him well in the tedious task of restoring a car from the wheels up, piece by piece.

He certainly has that firefighter aura about him. To me it says, “I’m here and everything is going to be okay.” He is a good person to have around when things get tough. He’s calm, reassuring and supportive, just the right formula to put people at ease when they are frightened or hurting, or both.

He’s an old soul, and we have been around many times together. It’s comforting to know that. That has helped me to let him go and be the person he needs to be in this world. And what a person he is! I believe that parents should lay the groundwork to put their child on solid footing to inhabit this world and then get out of their way and let them Become. I’ve always been able to say that I am proud of him. He has an inner fortitude that has been present since he was a child and had to face some tough physical and emotional challenges from an electrical burn. I have received the great gift of being able to say that I admire Casey for the person he has become. I admire and respect him. I am blessed to be his mother.

Rebekah for the Poplar Grove Muse

9/11 All Over Again

2011-09-15T04:30:00.001-07:00

We each remember the day so clearly, the perfect blue sky for those of us nearby in the Northeast, all crispness and clarity, the very best of fall in New England. We all remember in literally excruciating detail what we were doing, how we heard, the endless loops of destruction playing out over and over on our televisions, the emergency calls and commentary and analysis, rhetoric and remembrances, and throughout, the astonished collective grieving.

Ten years have passed, both quickly and painfully slowly. Two wars have multiplied and misdirected death and destruction in ways we could not, but should have, imagined. International solidarity has been transmuted into a complex soup of contradictory and self-justifying impulses.

People magazine’s cover profiles 9-year-olds born after the devastation of their fathers’ unexpected deaths, who will never know them. Every publication has manufactured coverage, some lesson or lecture or occasion for taking stock and counting blessings. Localities across the nation have scrambled to create memorials befitting the losses and the learnings of a decade, no doubt with varying degrees of success, but all with the intention to wrest something noble from the wreckage.

For those who suffered unimaginable losses on that day (and in the years since, in ways related or unrelated to 9/11), the evocation of grief is necessary, but necessarily painful. For those whose griefs are newer, the anniversary raises them afresh.

In the stunned aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, I promised myself to do everything I could to make my own days matter, to honor those who wouldn’t have that chance. The past weeks have been a time of taking stock, and renewing that promise to myself.

Mary for the Poplar Grove Muse

THE LEAVING

2011-09-05T08:29:00.000-07:00

The Leaving

It is finally moving day and August has gifted us with a gloriously cool morning. The Fates and fortune that took us to Ohio twenty-seven years ago are now taking us back home, to Indiana.

The last fifteen of those twenty-seven years have been lived here, in this house. Built among an acre of spruce and pines, it was once our dream home, but now our dreams have changed. Now our hearts tell us we need to return to our hometown and the comforting circle of family and friends there.

Soon the last box will be stowed and this day will pass but for now the memories run deep and they roll through my mind in ceaseless vignettes. The days, the seasons, the years slipping past in the quick/slow tempo of recollection, the day is bittersweet.

The crew of movers is a friendly noisy group, experienced in handing not only the furniture but anxious homeowners as well. They chat as they move through the house assessing, wrapping and stacking our possessions.

The benches that Jay refinished when we first moved to Ohio are cocooned in layers of blankets, upended and carted off. Rocky, the jokester of the moving crew, points out that the big dresser I have had since I was twenty should never be moved because of its weight. It is the same comment we hear every time it is moved and that makes me smile. The elaborately scrolled wooden secretary, handed down from Jay’s mother is admired as they discuss the best way to protect its glass front. The bright yellow, numbered stickers placed on every box, crate and piece of furniture is that item’s ticket to board the truck to Indiana.

Retreating from the rush I find a seat on the screened in porch and John, the lead mover, seems to understand that I am having a difficult day and tells me he will leave the table and chair on the porch until the last. Knowing that I need my little spot of refuge until they have finished. How nice it is to sit here, where I have sat so many times before, reading, writing, and watching the birds.

More quickly than I can imagine each stickered box, each piece of furniture finds its way into the cavernous maw of the truck. All of our possessions fitting together inside like a giant 3-D jigsaw puzzle. Every trip they make in and out of the house depletes the rooms until we are left standing in the large empty space that was our family room. Making sure nothing remains, we gather even these last memories and walk out the door.

At the closing, excitement is bursting from the young couple buying our house but we are stuck in this moment of transition, not in either place. We still have the three and a half hour drive to Indy to make tonight, so we get in the cars to head west. It is a familiar trip, one taken many times over the years, yet this one feels different. As I drive, I think about the bonds that tie us to the place we are leaving and those we are traveling toward. Life changes and we are changing with it. We look forward to being home.

As our cars pull into my sister’s driveway, family surrounds us and I know that this moving day is finally over, this first step in the journey of returning. There will be other difficult parts I know, but perhaps this was the hardest, the leaving.

Diana for Poplar Grove Muse

September

2011-08-29T12:00:00.000-07:00

Another day of 90 degrees after a season of extreme and unrelenting summer heat. Everyone everywhere every day can say the same of the weather this crazy year. “If this is global warming, we’re in for a world of hurt,” Elaine, our heroine, was heard to say. Initially, she thought having a milder winter sounded perfect, but even these cold seasons were becoming unpredictable. As the winter weather turned a bit warmer with peculiar cold fronts hitting bizarre warm fronts, more snow storms happened then ever before. "Things never occur how you expect them to," Elaine mused to herself. This was a new weather pattern and no one had yet invented a divining rod for the future.

But now it's almost September. A middling month. A tickling of summer heat with a hint of fall’s crisp reprieve. A favorite month, seldom extreme, typically filled with promises of hopeful changes and healthier habits. For Elaine, the survivor of many varied academic years, she was on high alert in this month of new beginnings. September was spanking new and spotlessly clean, blank slate to start everyone on a level playing field. All worthy of an A grade until it is shown they aren't. A completely new year of turning from say, a junior to a senior, just by the passage of time and a few tests thrown in. “ Those were the best days," she thought. Elaine then recalled her even earlier school days when her mother bought each child a new notebook and an entirely perfect box of never used crayons. Flesh was her favorite color but she was always confused why it was pinkish when her best friend’s was toffee colored.

Some of her old school friends even shopped for all new clothes each year. Elaine's needs were simpler: the Catholic school only required a short sleeve pastel shirt in summer and a long sleeve white one with a dark sweater every winter. The same horrid plaid skirt both seasons. "Wonder what they wear now?" Elaine pondered, probably an updated combo like her son wore ten years ago, white collared shirts and beige long pants.

The start of her marriage a jillion years ago was in September. Her parent's wedding over sixty-three years ago, was just two days after her own in that month. Elaine thought, "Freudian, perhaps?" She couldn’t even remember what the weather had been. No rain is all she could recall. She had been more fretful over misplacing the hoop for her dress. It was recycled and the seventies, enough said.

This is the hopeful month of ‘start overs .‘ Although septa in Latin meant seven, this ninth month of the year is pregnant with possibilities. At least this is how she saw September. They even sold those 18-month calendars that began with September. "Who ever really buys those?" she muttered.

TV shows begin a new season lineup in the early fall. "If one more promotion about crossing over teases my interest, I will strangle the cat," Elaine told her neighbor. But the lineup of Oscar worthy movies looked promising. Movies about Hoover and a prequel to the Terminator and a remake of an old Nazi spy film with Helen Mirren were all showcased.

Often in September, a new cause caught Elaine’s interest. This year it was a local horse rescue league. Last year it was the tornado victims and a stint as a Red Cross disaster volunteer. Her interests were as timely as the newest catastrophe.

On a personal note, Elaine was even trying to improve her skin routine. Slathering serums and lotions and potions on her skin every morning and night. “Hope in a bottle”, she sang as she tried to remember the steps of application. She was a bit concerned the special super-duper SPF moisturizer was actually eating away at the jar lid.

Elaine always started some new exercise campaign every September. Yoga or Pilates or walking—something physical. She hated to sweat so that ate into her exertion level a bit. Her mother had told her young ladies never perspire. Zumba about killed her. "I miss my dead dog," she sighed. The dog walks turned her into a daily street walker, rain or shine. Elaine knew all about the newest neighbors from these walks—the next door woman's knee replacement, whose dog/child/parent was ill or what new well was dug or fence laid. Minutes pass by in conversation over a leash rather than a prolonged sit down with teacups and a house vacuumed quickly. Elaine liked people and was social but "I get bored easily, you can say it all in about 30 minutes," she would tell even her dearest of friends.

Elaine’s love of September lasted longer than just one month and she knew in her flawed heart that was a good thing, new crayons or not. “Not like February”, she grumbled.

Carole for The Poplar Grove Muse

A long and happy life

2011-08-23T07:10:00.000-07:00

Earlier this month I had the pleasure of being invited to a 60th wedding anniversary party for some friends here in town. Warren and Joanne have been married 60 years and their 4 daughters threw them an open house at their farm here in south central Indiana.

My family and I arrived to a crowded yard and farmhouse: tables overflowing with beer and wine and cheese and cake and fresh vegetables from the family garden. Family and friends of all ages filled the shady lawn and covered porch talking of politics and family stories. Someone wrote a song in honor of the happy couple. We sang Warren and Joanne had a farm to the tune of Old MacDonald. The 6 verses told their story with children, animals and the farming life. As the collected assortment family and friends sang loud and off key, I couldn’t help but notice that even the most grizzled of politicians had tears running down their cheeks.

I understood in a way that I had not understood before, that this is the point in life to which I think many of us aspire: a pause to appreciate the abundance of friends and memories and good good food, grown with your own hands (or by your friends' hands), and adult children and even grandchildren to know and understand your story.

The leaves of the oak trees spread far and wide over the green lawn filled with babies and big dogs. The happy groom stood to address the crowd that had gathered in his and his wife’s honor: a gregarious and hearty politician, World War II veteran, farmer and gentleman, no one had ever seen him cry. But today his voice was choked, and his eyes were red as he thanked the crowd for joining him on this day and for this long and good journey with his beautiful wife.

We stayed for a while. Made small talk with the guests and congratulated the couple. I did not want to leave, enjoying my small part in this happy life. I think the sadness of leaving was in knowing that there might not be too many anniversaries left for these two lovely people. As we drove away, dogs barking at our taillights, I hoped that some of their good fortune had rubbed off on me. If my husband and I are so lucky to make it to a 60th anniversary, I will remember that day and toast to them, wherever they are.

Amy for the PGM

Take Lessons, Be Grateful, Let Go, Move On

2011-08-16T06:29:00.000-07:00

It’s the first day of public school in our town. The early morning air is abuzz with anticipation and the blowing exhaust of yellow busses stopping and starting on High Street, just behind my bedroom window. I think school still starts criminally too soon in these parts. The school day begins earlier now. It ends later. These are things I’m aware of, but this year we’re missing the adjustment to the new hours, class and lunch schedules, the re-working of the master calendar, because our daughters are leaving home for college. I know in households all over town, and definitely in the kitchens where our teachers ate supper last night, many people were thinking “Here we go again!”

Let me acknowledge and offer thanks for my children’s passage through the public school system, the good and hard lessons we all learned along the way: that you get out of what you put in to any experience, that hard work pays off, that team work tests and rewards you, that kindness matters, and there is more than practical wisdom in cleaning up your own messes--that teachers, like parents, are human and run the gamut from so-so to fabulous. The ones I appreciate the most made my children feel seen and heard and encouraged their confidence along the way.

So our nest will be empty. I’m poised on the edge of grief for the loss of them in our day to day lives and gratefulness for the young women they’ve become. There’s a deep awareness that, while we will always be connected, their journeys will now take them further afield to navigate their own vulnerabilities in this world.

The other night we had old family friends over. Once upon a time our kids ran crazily through backyards, jacked up on sugary sodas , chips and salsa, while the grown ups played music and sang songs for fun . This year, our older teens and 20-somethings sat in a circle and taught us songs—rounds and improvisational music games. For so many years I was sure that the music-times we loved would be permanently rejected by our individuating children. Turns out my wiser friends with older children were right. They’d come around eventually.

The greatest gift of the evening was a Round several of them learned at Malcolm Dalglish’s Ooolation Camp in the Sierra Nevada Mountains this summer. I love what is round about a Round, and what felt piercingly apt to me as we circle around the seasons of our lives.

Our children really do leave us but when you’re lucky, they come back bearing gifts of song and wisdom, just when you need it most. Together, we move along.

This was our Sunday Evening Round 8/14/11

For all that has been/take lessons, take lessons and be grateful/ let go, let go, let go, let go/let go and move/move on/move on

BLR for the Poplar Grove Muse

Dream Followed

2011-08-08T08:00:00.000-07:00

Saturday night I saw a dream come true for my cousin, Brian Haggard. As he was growing up he was called fatty and probably a lot of other names. He soon learned to hide the fact that he was "different." He is dyslexic and reading doesn't come easy for him. He learned to compensate. He also learned to hide the fact the he is gay. Very gay. Gloriously gay. He tried to play it straight, but he just couldn't do it. When he finally came out, he got the full support of his family and his friends who believed that it was time for him to live an authentic life. He has worked hard to become the person he is today.

He is an incredibly talented artist and interior designer. And Saturday night I was invited to share in the success of his first quilting book with him, his partner Kevin, the rest of his incredible family, and wonderful friends. He and Kevin were the hosts of Brian's book launch in a beautifully decorated room with gourmet food they prepared, a tearful thank you speech, and personally dedicated copies of his first book, Crazy Quilted Memories, to each of us.

The book is not just a "how to" quilting book, it's a tribute to his family. He has incorporated old family photographs into his beautifully created quilts. His great grandmother was my dad's sister. I love the baby picture of her that he has crafted onto one of his quilts. His grandmother, Juanita, who was my first cousin, is pictured prominently as a young beauty in another breathtaking quilt. She nurtured Brian's interest in quilting. His stitchery creates magic. Brian's older brother, Shane,a talented writer, wrote a terrific piece for the book as a back story for the quilts. The whole evening was a work of art and I felt blessed to be a part of it.

There were those who could only be there in spirit from both sides of the veil. Their presence was strongly felt. They were and are very much missed.

I think this book is only the beginning of the dreams Brian will make come true. I see him on HGTV as America's Next Great Design Star! It was a great gift to me to see a dream come to fruition. My faith is reinforced that we each have the power to make our own dreams come true. I am inspired. I love this family, not only do they create beauty, they support and nurture me and many others. It's the way family should be. I think I will be processing the many layered lessons and joys of that night for quite a while.

Rebekah for Poplar Grove Muse

IUOP Forever

2011-08-02T20:25:00.000-07:00

I love the IU Outdoor Pool. Our family moved to Bloomington exactly 7 years ago, and even when we really didn’t know anyone (we had to wait to celebrate an August Birthday until we knew some kindergartners to invite), we could go to the IUOP and hang out and feel part of a community.

I love how anyone can come to the pool. (Our girls have not felt at home when invited to the country club pool, as their mother didn’t before them, and they initially found the Bryan Park Pool daunting, though the allure of the slides is undeniable to them by now.) I love the mix of college students hogging the chaises to display their scantily-clad young flesh for one another with the non-native-speaking families displaying their native swimwear from all over the globe with the packs of native Hoosier boys that the lifeguards are just waiting to blow the whistle on with the constant flow of middle-aged lap swimmers diligently beating back the ravages of time. I love the clean, un-adorn-ed-ness of the deck and the chairs, the minimal snacks, the functional and completely unglamorous women’s locker room (haven’t seen the men’s, but assume it is a similar story). I love the loudspeakers blaring a tantalizing mix of oldies and current pop music, which never fails to take me STRAIGHT back to my adolescence at a public pool in Minnesota, where I logged thousands of early and late miles of training, fantasizing lightning and ejection with every flipturn. I love that they play “Hail to Old IU” at the 6 p.m. closing of the pool for recreational swimming, and I feel nostalgic when I hear it, even though I don’t know it.

As we head into the last stretch of summer, and I mourn (and at a certain level breathe an ambivalent sigh of relief at) the departure of my now-undeniably-adolescents from the essential fabric of my day for their own newly-lengthened public schooldays, I realize that it is at the IUOP where I first sense the chill, the shift in wind and light that signals oncoming seasonal shift—cooler weather, as well as the infernally premature start of the Indiana school year, and the accelerating independence of my beloved children.

I haven’t actually gotten to the IUOP as often as I had hoped this summer. As I also had not in the last two summers, to the point where this year we contemplated whether to buy a family pass, but decided that it is an investment in something valued and valuable: which would, on any particular day, encourage us to go and be in community, be in the sun and fresh air (where we too often ARE NOT in contemporary life), be present to the glittering refraction of light on water and absent from the tyranny of laptop or textbook, the distractions of facebook or streaming video.

I offer here a tribute to summer, and to the IUOP, composed on an earlier and seemingly-endless afternoon enjoyed by its glinting waters, and recently revised in an excellent 4-week poetry class offered by WWFaC-Bloomington.

The Underwater Tea Party

It cannot last long,
And so, requires
A perfect balance
Of willing attention
With joyful abandon.

Savor the flickering glint
Of scattered sunlight
On brilliant aquamarine.
Fill your eager lungs,
Plug your nose,
And enter the watery salon.

Your tiny hostess
Grins, giddy
With the delight of this
Summertime ceremony.
Bubbles, laughter,
Stream up from her lips

As she gestures:
Flutter your hands to sit,
Sip a gulp of the silliness
She pours liberally in your general direction
(Pinky politely extended),
Gobble the invisible cookie
Undulating toward you
Before air, or time runs out.

Mary for the Poplar Grove Muse

Dreamtable II

2011-07-27T07:29:00.000-07:00

Was it only by dreaming or writing that I could find out what I thought? --Joan Didion

Recently, it was the dream of the red-jacketed man following me in a dark, no-clear-exit- alleyway, and my only weapon a cutting board to shield myself or wallop with, which woke me. More recently, it was visitors in my house; people I did not know, but did not fear, busily chopping and cooking with my food in my kitchen. They appeared in the dreamspace around 3:30 AM( that time seemed important) as I was working late in my office and noticed soft chatter and the sounds of a refrigerator and cupboards opening and closing coming from the other side of the house. When I went to see what all the commotion was about, they stopped what they were doing but did not run or hide. I asked them how long they’d been there, and one of them, a young man, said, “Oh, we’ve been here since last February.

My only thought before I woke up was: “How could I not have noticed their presence in my house before now?

There’s another quote by another famous person whose name I can’t remember that says something to the effect that people who insist on telling their dreams are among the “terrors of the breakfast table”.

It’s Dreamtable II--and forgive me if I’m being a terror! I have friends and teachers who work regularly and quite consciously with their dreams. Fortunately, they wouldn’t agree with the curmudgeon who’d have us believe our dream telling is a giant irritant to a morning’s peace, but his grumpy voice is obviously in my ear as I write this or I wouldn’t give him so much space. I wish my dream teachers/friends were with me now, as I try to figure out what these two recent dreams might be asking me to pay attention to.

If I get quiet, if I can recall what I saw in the dreams (the images) and the sensations I had as I experienced the dream (feelings), if I can re-integrate the whole of the what- was- happening- between- the –words- spoken, the sonic/emotional qualities of those dreams, I might be able to interpret for myself.

The more obvious questions that arise for me are “Who is following me? And who has moved in to my house without my knowing it?” Another follows: “What’s with all the cooking/kitchen imagery, defending myself with a cutting board…people cooking with my tools, my food?”
My spontaneous answers to these questions are: “Beth, just pay attention. You will be able to see who is following you and with what good or ill intent if you just stay awake. The red jacket makes them visible. Your intuition will inform you of their intentions. You have protection enough if you need it. Be alert!”

The other is one in a series of invitations I’ve had most of my adult life which is to examine the boundaries I set around the care and feeding of others, often, though not always, at my own expense. Clearly, it’s time again for me to re-visit my old patterns and make adjustments on behalf of my own healthy boundaries and well-being. "Stay hospitable", I hear a voice in my head whispering. "Know when it’s time to ask your guests to leave. Too much of a good thing leaves the larder empty without much to offer on the next visit".

So that’s cutting to the chase. I won’t spend more time analyzing today. But I thank Joan Didion for asking the question about dreaming and writing. Both seem to help me find out what I’m thinking.

Let me ask this question though: what are your dreams telling you these days? What is your writing telling you? What space are you making in your life, your head, your heart, to pay attention to the wisdom—practical or otherwise- you already possess to make the small or large adjustments you need for perspective and possibly a bit of balance?

BLR --for the Poplar Grove Muse

Treasure Found

2011-07-19T17:49:00.000-07:00

My writer friend Allison and I have formed a symbiotic relationship. She has been helping me organize the contents of my garage and I am helping her earn money for a spiritual journey she is taking this summer. As we were sorting through old pictures, books and my son’s early drawings, I discovered a forgotten treasure. I found an old collection of James Whitcomb Riley’s stories and poems!

When I was five years old, our early 1950's public school system didn’t have kindergarten in my tiny hometown of Connersville. My mother had a friend, Milburn Bannister, who ran a private kindergarten in her home. It was in her basement and was set up exactly like a classroom. I loved it. I actually attended two years because, as the story goes, I was too short for the desks in the first grade classroom at Grandview Elementary School.

We even had an actual graduation and got to wear tiny white caps and gowns. We had the ceremony in the Administration Building in Roberts Park. This made it seem even more important. I had gotten a brand new pair of white patent leather Mary Jane’s to go with my new white dress. I was so proud of those shoes. There I stood in the front row proudly holding my little rolled up diploma with the white ribbon tied around it, when I heard a sound like water trickling. I looked down and then over. Standing next to me was Jan Moore; she was a very fair-skinned blonde. Her face was beet red. She had gotten so nervous that she started peeing and the stream ran down the uneven old stage right on my brand new shoes. The yellow liquid was so stark against my gleaming white shoes. I remember being so mad at poor Jan and my parents shushing me after the ceremony while trying to assure me that my shoes weren’t ruined. I think maybe they were afraid I might try to slug her. I’m sure her parents got her out of there as quickly as possible because she was sobbing from the humiliation. Mrs. Bannister appeared with wet and dry paper towels to clean off my shoes.

Bannister was what was called a handsome woman in those days. I remember her kindness and patience with all of her students. In our classroom she seemed like a happy person, but as I grew older and became adept at eavesdropping, I realized this was not the case. Mrs. Bannister, my mother and Dorothy Young, my friend Sharon’s mother, would have coffee on Saturday mornings and talk about their lives. Sharon and I always came along to play with Milburn’s daughter, Janet. She was six years older than us and as we grew older we thought she was the height of sophistication. She wore pearls to school every day. We knew we could never be that classy. Even as we listened to Janet talk about the best lipstick and nail polish brands, I kept an ear peeled to what our mothers were saying around the kitchen table. Milburn had become a widow at a very young age and was left to raise her daughter on her own. It seemed she was never able to move past her husband’s death. As the years went by her handsomeness turned to severeness and then to a permanent mask of bitterness that stayed with her until her death. Milburn so overprotected her daughter that Janet couldn’t wait to get away and left home with the first man who came along. Milburn was alone again.

As for me, I was quickly becoming known as “the kid who always had her nose in a book”. I was also becoming a secret writer, never telling anyone about it. I was always searching for stories and ways to tell them. By the time I got to high school, Mrs. Bannister was no longer a big part of my life. I was very surprised when she showed up at my house the evening of our baccalaureate with a gift for me. As she handed it to me, she held on to the plainly wrapped package for a second and her sharp blue eyes looked into my dark blue ones behind by tortoise shell glasses as she said, “This is a gift that will last you a lifetime. You will enjoy it many times over. It’s the best gift I could think of for you.” And she was right. What better gift for a voracious reader and would be writer. Words were what I craved. And here was a poet/writer I could read without being intimidated. He wasn’t a major poet, but he was an Indiana treasure. He told our stories in the language of real people. And this is what I’m still striving to do. I always thought Mrs. Bannister had eyes that could see into your soul. I believe that she somehow sensed what books had meant to a little girl who needed an escape hatch for most of her young life. Thank you, Mrs. Bannister for being the first in my circle of support.

Rebekah for The Poplar Grove Muse

Thanks for Reading!!

2011-07-08T11:08:00.001-07:00

It is hard to believe but we have been keeping up with the Poplar Grove Muse for almost two years now. Many thanks to you, dear reader, for following our various ponderings and poetry as the year has unwrapped.

I'd like to say a special thank-you to our regular team of bloggers: Beth, Rebekah, Mary, and Kim. They write at holidays times, spring break, from vacation sites all over the globe, and with sick kids and ailing parents. I believe I speak for everyone when I say we write because we love to, and self expression in the form of the written word brings us joy and a sense of accomplishment.

I am sad to say that Kim has decided to take some time off as a regular poster to this site. We have enjoyed her writing and wish her well as she works on her own book. Hopefully, she will guest post for us on occasion. If you or someone you know might like to fill in her regular spot for at least a year, please drop me a line at amy@womenwritingbloomington.com.

I have also turned to guest bloggers throughout the year. We have had great guest posts from Catherine, Lauren, Dana, Stacey, Stephanie, and Diana. We can always use an occasional fill in when we get sick or life overtakes us, and we can't complete the assignment for the week. If you can't commit to a regular posting, I hope you will consider being part of the back-up pool. Again, please email me at the above address to indicate your interest.

There are not a lot of rules for posting to our page. Be honest, speak your truth, and celebrate your own unique voice. Many of us are great editors, so there are always people who can give your piece a once over before it is posted.

Thanks again for reading and I look forward to hearing from you.

--Amy for the Poplar Grove Muse

Yo-Yo Ma Makes Me Cry

2011-06-21T08:28:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago, I was thrilled when my on-screen guide announced that the PBS Great Performances series was airing a show with the New York Philharmonic playing Carnegie Hall. I hit the record button faster than you can say Yo-Yo Ma, who was one of the featured artists. When, at last, I had time to sit down and give the recorded concert my full attention, I was not disappointed. Ma would be playing Beethoven, one of my favorite composers, who managed to incorporate every instrument in the orchestra, no matter how large or small in both bold and subtle ways.

Alan Gilbert is the New York Philharmonic's current conductor. He's engaging and drew me into the music immediately, both as a listener and as a musician. I began taking piano lessons when I was four years old and studied until I graduated from Connersville Senior High. I was one of three pianists in our orchestra all four years of school and enjoyed every minute of it. You wouldn't think it, but an orchestra has a smell. It's a combination of rosin, different kinds of wood, metallic brass, the musty smell of old sheet music and people all packed into a sound proof room. The music conjured up that happy memory. I love the idea of all the individuals, each with their own personality, talent and ability, forming the whole of the orchestra to become one.
As I was savoring the music of Beethoven, I was brought back to those high school days with their joy and sense of belonging to a like-minded community.

I was adrift in that reverie when Yo-Yo Ma appeared on stage and then things got even more magical. He began playing and my whole being was riveted to the television screen. His eyes were closed and his entire body took on an other worldly aura. He wasn't just playing the music, he was in the music. The music wasn't coming from his cello, it was coming from his core, his very essence. Yo-Yo Ma was smiling and crying at the same time. I realized I was crying too, because I knew that this is what bliss looks like. The bliss of doing what you love to do best, perhaps, what you were put on this earth to do.

I haven't played the piano in years, but when I'm writing and really lost in the words and the story, I feel blissful. I don't know if it shows outwardly, but I certainly feel it inside. It is a precious gift. My hope is that after we die our energy transforms into a state of bliss, whatever that bliss is for each of us.

Rebekah for The Poplar Grove Muse

,

Missing

2011-06-11T04:21:00.000-07:00

Today, in Bloomington, someone’s daughter is missing—a slight, blonde, lively 20-year-old with a heart condition who believed she could navigate the night on her own and was overtaken in ways we do not yet, and may never, understand. Bloomington knows this scenario all too well, lived this nightmare with a local family as eleven years of hell have unfolded, offering only a tantalizing bit of knowledge about the end of a life of infinite possibility we will never have the privilege to witness.

As the mother of two daughters, the sister and friend of rape survivors, a woman who has lived her life with unwelcome caution—based on the experience of the latter, operating always, in the back of my mind, so that, should anything unfortunate happen, at least stupidity wouldn’t have been the last thing I was remembered for—I am living in suspended animation along with an entire community.

The outpouring of concern, and even more impressive, volunteers willing to walk through heat and unfamiliar territory with faith and hope, is heartening.

It is literally difficult to breathe, at times, while awaiting news. I know that countless others in the community are experiencing this same breathlessness, difficulty in thinking of anything else, A week has passed, and the heaviness grows. Hard to breathe, hard to think, hard to write.

Mary for the Poplar Grove Muse

Of Governors and Governesses

2011-06-01T15:42:00.000-07:00

When I was fourteen and first read Jane Eyre, I was completely immersed in Charlotte Brontë’s story of the young orphan who endures years of mistreatment at the hands of her callous relations and teachers before embarking on a new life as a governess. I enjoyed the book and liked Jane. She is plucky in a beaten-down kind of way, and she never indulges in self-pity. A worthy heroine, she thinks for herself and triumphs on her own terms. So I was pleased when I read about the new film adaptation of the novel, and one Friday night I indulged in a rare solo trip to the movies to see it.

It was a fine plan, and the seven other people in the theatre, all of whom were women of a certain age, reacted at all the appropriate places and seemed quite engrossed. However, I could not enter Brontë’s world this time. I stood apart, like Jane outside the door of Moor House, peeking in but never crossing the threshold.

Here’s why. You should never go to see Jane Eyre the same week that Arnold Schwarzenegger reveals that he had a child 13 years ago with his housekeeper and that International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn is hauled off to Rikers Island, charged with the sexual assault of a hotel maid. It ruins the story.

I could not see the romance between Jane and Edward Rochester as anything but inappropriate and sinister. What business does a smart, clear-headed young woman like Jane have with a manipulative, controlling employer who fails to communicate even the most vital information—my crazy murderous wife lives upstairs—but expects her literally to put out the fires and clean up the evidence? What does she see in a boorish, inconstant man who flirts with her but prances off without so much as a farewell to visit the beguiling Blanche Ingram? Edward Rochester is needy, gruff, and deceptive, a bully who carelessly exploits—at Jane’s expense—the privileges his status and gender confer.

During the movie, the imbalance of power undermined any possibility of ardor. I could not feel the story’s passion because I was preoccupied by the ominous sense that nothing good could come to Jane from a relationship with a man who pays her—and then only when she demands her overdue wages.

(It is the same icky feeling I had when I first saw The Sound of Music as an adult and felt viscerally that Maria should hightail it back to the convent while the Reverend Mother sternly explains to Captain von Trapp that it would take an act of God to transform a governess into an equal partner.)

Amazingly, something good does come to Jane. An inheritance. Newly-discovered cousins. A fire that destroys dark old Thornfield Hall, dispatches the crazy wife, and blinds Rochester.
When Jane hears a voice calling to her over the moors, I kept hoping it would be Judi Dench—as the housekeeper Mrs. Fairfax—telling Jane to take the money and build a progressive school for girls where she could be headmistress. If Edward Rochester wanted to brush up on his social skills and present himself on her turf, she could entertain any proposals. At the very least, I hoped Mrs. Fairfax would take Jane by the shoulders and tell her that she had to stop calling him “sir.”

Charlotte Brontë could not bring herself to do that for Jane, to choose freedom and integrity over companionship and love. It should be a terrible, false, obsolete choice, but as the week’s news reminded me, clichés are tenacious. What could be more banal than powerful men who treat the women in their domestic lives—from wealthy and powerful spouses to low-wage immigrant employees—like useful but stupid oxen? And what could be more trite than women who imagine that such a union is a good wager?

In the end, Charlotte Brontë endowed her heroine with the upper hand: desirable choices, real agency, and the necessary resources to make a good life. In both the movie and the novel, this sudden transformation requires a suspension of disbelief, but I can overlook the great stretch to find a satisfying ending for Jane. The disbelief I cannot quite suspend is that the heirs of Rochester carry on, as if Thornfield Hall had never been gutted.

Dana for the Poplar Grove Muse

Dreams and Determination

2011-05-29T09:25:00.000-07:00

I’ll admit it. For many years, I have harbored the fantasy of being a guest on Oprah. I imagine myself sitting on stage in her modern upholstered guest chair, smiling out at the audience, discussing my new book. I feel the glory of applause and gratitude in response to my words. I enjoy the sense of connection, joyful that my creation has touched others. Oprah hugs me, not unlike she hugged Elizabeth Gilbert, and my book, now blessed with her Midas touch, becomes a best-seller.

This story could take on a sarcastic tone at this point. I could exaggerate Oprah’s influence, or poke fun at my fantasy. However, I write this in all earnestness. For many years, Oprah has represented a pinnacle for me, a goal to strive for, a sense of hope for my story being seen and heard by a wide audience.

The ironic thing is that, as of last Wednesday, her show has ended. Yet my dream of writing a book is still alive. My dream didn’t die with the Oprah show.

I believe in my mission, and it seems that universal forces do too. This might sound strange, but I found it necessary to receive the blessing of my maternal ancestors in order to proceed. I come from a lineage of hard-working, salt-of-the-earth women, who gardened for survival rather than enjoyment. I had to confront my guilt around “indulging” in an artistic pursuit when what I really “should” be doing is hoeing the soil to feed my family. But I realized that writing is MY way of working the soil, and my generation is the first in our family to have this option from birth. Once I explained that to my great maternal grandmother, we came to an understanding. No, I’m not a rotten apple on the family tree.

I have carved out time to write beginning June 21. I have divided my word count goals into days. I am not going to let anything stop me. This amount of determination, I’m discovering, is what it takes to write a book. I’ve confronted the “who do you think you are” whispers that have held me back. I’m daring to be more selfish with my time for awhile. I’m ready to roll.

Over the next six months you may find me rolling in self-doubt or reveling in happiness as I pound out a manuscript. I share this with you because good, bad, or ugly, I trust the process of creating something is worth documenting. I’m fully aware how declaring my intentions may be setting myself up for failure. I don’t care. I dare to fail. I'm encouraged by others I've seen do the same, and dammit, I want my daughter to witness me in this process.

So thank you, Oprah, for providing a chair for me to dream into. Thank you creative spark, for sticking around even after that chair has been removed from the stage. Thank you ancestors, for your blessing, and thank you WWFAC for providing me a sense of community to lean on. I’ve got a story to share, and I’m determined.

-- Kim for the Poplar Grove Muse

I Know Things

2011-05-17T13:24:00.000-07:00

I Know Things

For as long as I can remember I’ve known things or seen things. I don’t know how I know them or why I see them. My first experience I can remember with this happened when I was around
eleven years old. The phone rang and before my mother could answer it I said,“Aunt Merle died”. I could tell by Mother’s side of the conversation and the look on her face that I was right. Aunt Merle hadn’t been sick, so it wasn’t something we were expecting. Mother never questioned how I knew that. She also has the same abilities.

In thesummer of 1995 I was in Scotland working at the Isle of Mull Hotel; I was sitting in the staff room having morning tea with my co-workers. One of thehouse maids, named Mary, looked at me and said, “You know things.” I smiled at her and said, “So do you.” “Ach,aye,” she replied as her blue eyes crinkled and we exchanged knowing smiles. I met many such kindred spirits in Scotland, a mystical place where the veil to whatever is on the “other side” is very thin.

On Sunday evening, May 1, 2011, I was sitting in my living room catching up on some TV shows that I had recorded. Suddenly, I felt this wave of euphoric lightness sweep over me, as if the world was lighter. It felt like something bad had left the world. A little later I was on my computer and saw that Osama
bin Laden had been killed and I realized what my earlier feeling of lightness had been about.

That news took me back to Sunday, September 9, 2001. I had gone to bed and was lying on my right side reading. I sensed something and looked over my book toward the corner where my Grandma Wentz’s sewing rocker sat. I saw an African American lady who was all dressed up in a navy blue suit and a big hat; two young boys, also in suits,were sitting in front of her. They looked as though they were posing for a portrait. Then they were gone. I didn’t know what to make of it and eventually got sleepy and turned the light off. That night I dreamt of a long plywood wall with hundreds of photographs on it,
some similar to the family I had seen in my room. Again, I wasn’t sure what it meant and mostly forgot about it.

Two days later, our country was attacked on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. I watched this
all unfold with the rest of the nation. The anger didn’t come right away; I just felt numb and shocked. Then the plywood walls full of photographs of unaccounted for family members and loved ones started appearing on the news. And I realized the meaning of what I had seen.

But why have I been given this ability if what I can see doesn’t make sense at the time or
doesn’t enable me to help anyone? It can be very frustrating. I’m not saying that I could have stopped 9- 11 by telling the CIA that I saw a wall of pictures, but I still wonder what to do with some of the more every day things I see or dream about.

But there are cases when the meaning is quite clear. Many years ago when, a lady who had
been like a mother to me was in St. Vincent’s Hospice dying from cancer, she came to me in a dream and said that if I wanted to see her, I’d better come right away. I went the next day. She was having a good day and we had a wonderful visit. She died the following day. I’ve paid very close attention to
my dreams ever since. I’m starting to do more dream work and am very excited about it.

I would like to work on this ability and develop these skills further. I am able to sense things about people and this helps me to be more empathic. I believe that we have a collective universal connection. I’ve experienced that during a channeled writing workshop. If we could connect on a less superficial level and
be able to understand each other on a deeper soul-level, we might not be so quick to fight each other for domination over things that we don’t we really have the right to control. We could let each other just BE and all breathe a lot easier.

Rebekah for Poplar Grove Muse

2011-05-12T08:23:00.000-07:00

Moth will help in each transition and show how to adapt to the new surroundings.(S)He will teach you to find your own light as a beacon in the direction you should go. It is time to pay attention to your feelings to clarify your movement and discern what is real and not. Are you listening carefully to verbal and non-verbal cues, to what is and is not being said? Are you sensing the world around you? or sensing too much? Moth will teach how to be still, rest and listen and balance your being. In finding your own light, clarity in the moment of darkness will be found and your sensitivity to Spirit increases.—
http://www.starstuffs.com/animal_totems/dictionary_of_insects.htm

For a week now, each time I’ve approached the door to the lovely old Schoolhouse I do most of my work out of, I’ve been greeted by a different moth resting on the entry door or the warm brick near the entrance. I know it’s that time of year. I think the Maple Tree, the Walnut, and other shrubs around the building are ideal places for moths to lay their eggs and of course the whole life cycle does it’s miraculous thing. May is an “emergence” time of year for many creatures.

But every moth on my doorstep these days has been LARGE…impressively noticeable as any creature goes: A Luna, two Cecropias, and several other Polyphemus, like the one in the picture. These, along with the less visible mothy creatures hiding in plain sight, flattened against the door, convince me I’m being asked to pay attention. Their lives are short, I've recently learned --generally a week or two long. So this daily visitation in this concentrated period must mean something.

“Hello”, they say in their quiet way, “What DO you need to see these days that has not been clear to you before now?” “What do you hear in what is being said around you? And unsaid?” “How do you need to tune your sensitivities for better balance and insight?”

I've been shaking the bushes like crazy this past week. Shining light in dark corners. This started at the same time the Luna Moth appeared. I've been seeking a voice and, I hope, some balance in this voice to ask hard questions in a public way. I've been finding courage for the unsaid to become said because frankly, and in spite of my very good intuition, I have an issue with the withholding of truth...the unspoken, the secretive and the dark shadows cast by individuals and groups refusing to be transparent with one another. Ech. It's hard, but I will say I feel stronger for having made myself vulnerable.

That the doorway to the place I work, where, by and large, lots of truth telling, transparency, hospitality, creativity and healing happens, has been a moth resting-place feels appropriate to me. That I've found a voice I haven't used in quite a while and strength (without dominance), to speak my own truth into a kind of darkness, calms something in me in the midst of turbulent weathers and waters. Times of change and great shifting.

I simply want to invite myself and any of you reading this to notice and celebrate the guides that might appear in your life. They confirm or suggest. They might just be pretty to look at or disturbing. Consider the signs. See where they lead you.

BLR for the Poplar Grove Muse

Wishbone

2011-05-07T03:50:00.000-07:00

You keep this for luck. It reminds you of the chicken you made with your grandmother when she showed you her best kept secrets for moist chicken. You try to forget the large wine stain she made on her best tablecloth (which you have since inherited) when she got drunk and spilled her wine when she got upset over the fact that her sister got the silver and all she got was the lousy china. Damn China. It was really a small matter and you have always thought it was too bad she couldn’t remember the finer things about that dinner. Like the way the chicken just fell off the bone and into everyone’s mouth and the way that the light softened the look on everyone’s face so that by dusk we seemed the very picture of the perfect happy family. Spilled wine be damned.

When the meal ended you carefully put everything in the kitchen. Tracing the outline of the dogwood blooms on the fine white china and wondering why your grandmother hated the china so much and also wondering why someone with so much hate for china could make such damn fine chicken. You see the weary evening of cleaning stretching before you while grandma has leaned her chin into her chest and begun to snore. Parts of the family are chatting quietly and others are putting on their coats. You alone remain in the kitchen scraping gravy remains into the trash and eating the last of the homemade rolls that smell just like grandmother. Making rolls, you think, will be next week’s lesson. As you slowly clean and put away the china and sip red wine you find that grandma has already been there, somehow carving the small wishbone from between the two clavicles of the birds neck. She has set it on the rim of the sink on a paper towel next to her diamond rings. Meat hangs on it and you pick it up and turn it carefully in your hands.

You pack it with your things and take it home and place it in your sock drawer. Grandmother died several years later, you remember her, at every chicken dinner from now until your own granddaughter takes over making chicken dinner. And you remember her when you are tipsy with red wine and especially then you get out your wishbone and turn it over in your hands and remember that night and the spilled wine and the glorious chicken and wonder what on earth your grandmother would have wished for had she been given the opportunity to pull this bone.

Amy for the Poplar Grove Muse

40 Shades of Grey

2011-04-29T09:02:00.000-07:00

As I begin writing, the word “fluff” comes to mind. This surprises me, because I am the one with the motto: Must. Always. Dig. Deeper.

Is it really okay to admit, in a public forum no less, that I snuck downstairs first thing this morning to watch the royal wedding? That, five hours later (yes I said FIVE), I’m still lounging on the couch in my jammies? Competing questions come to mind: shouldn’t this blog be focused on the heartbreaking devastation in Alabama? Our turbulent earth is finding herself in the throes of a long labor with painful contractions. Don’t we have bigger fish to fry than gawking at silly hats, eagerly watching the countdown to “the kiss?”

Life right now is a study in contrasts. Who can deny it? Catastrophe is happening more rapidly than we can process. This is the precise reason we are tempted to escape to Fantasy Land.

I’ll quickly take this discussion to the symbolic. Here’s something to think about: The yin-yang symbol. The yin-yang illustrates a piece of light in the dark; a piece of dark in the light. It’s impossible to have one without the other. I’m fairly confident William and Kate are holding a bit of shadow on their wedding day. And perhaps the people in Alabama are seeing rays of light amidst the devastation.

Did you know the human eye can actually detect 40 distinct shades of grey? If we zoom in for a closer look at the curved line that defines the light and dark, we might see these subtle variations. This could be where life happens; our roadmap to processing this day of contrast.

So much for fluff, I guess. Time to get moving…

-- Kim for the Poplar Grove Muse

Fractured Family

2011-04-19T13:23:00.001-07:00

Fractured Family

Every journey into the past is compicated by delusions, false memories, false names of real events.

Adrienne Rich

On Monday, April 11th 2011 my brother, Dennis Evans Riebsomer died. He was 61 years old. No one could make me laugh harder or scare me more. We were estranged and I said goodbye to him a long time ago for my own safety. It's still a loss. I loved him. He was smart, funny and charismatic, but, like our mother, he had a dark side. And as he grew older, it took over.

Seven years ago our mother disowned us, me for telling her doctors about her alcoholism and him for defending me. My family was good at making things look wonderful on the outside, no matter how bad it was on the inside. Truth-telling was not acceptable.

So how do you grieve in a fractured family? How do we help each other? My parents divorced when I was 19, a good thing. Dad moved on, mother is still bitterly stuck in 1964. We all have roles in our families. I was the hero, the good girl; I made our family look good, made my mother look like she was doing a good job. I was determined not to stay stuck with her in that self-poisoning place. I got help; I healed and designed a life that was right for me. It took time, but I got here. Denny's role was scapegoat. He played out what was bad in the family. Mother enabled him in that role. He could take the blame; she could be the victim of a disobedient child. She gave him free rein, no boundaries, no consequences to his actions. She wouldn't allow Dad to discipline him. I was over disciplined; he was under disciplined. She didn't do him any favors.

What do we do with the sadness, the anger and frustration for an ill spent life? My brother let darkness take over his heart. Still there is loss. The loss of what he could have been, which would have outshone us all.

Denny has three daughters, one died at birth, and four grandchildren--his oldest grandson, more like a son, that love was the purest, brightest thing in his life. He could never put his daughters' safety and happiness above his own needs. He let them down the most. And yet, the eldest daughter, the one who got the brunt of his misplaced anger, is the hero now. She has taken on the impossible job of helping his widow (not her mother) with the minutia of what it takes to make funeral arrangements and coordinate a memorial service with a budget of zero dollars in a family with one half of the tribe not speaking to the other half. Yet, she did it quite well because she has managed to keep the lines of communication open with everyone in the family. In that my niece is like my dad. she can keep healthy boundaries and not allow herself to be manipulated by those in our family who have no respect or basic understanding for boundaries.

There are some people who are so toxic that the only way to protect yourself from them spiritually, emotionally, physically and financially is to keep them out of your life. This is what I did with my brother and sister-in-law. It is a double loss. My sister-in-law was my friend before she was my sister-in-law. I introduced them. She let him turn her into his partner in crime. I know she is devastated by his death, but I can't trust her and I can't afford her. She is not in my life. My niece knows and respects this, more fractured family for her to navigate around.

We have always been fractured: exes, step mothers, in-laws and outlaws. People speaking, people not speaking, you needed a score card. When my son turned five years old we had to have so many separate birthday parties, that by the time we had the last party he asked me if he was six now.

Here's what I choose to do with my brother's death. I choose to keep it simple. I believe that matter doesn't ever die, it just transforms. I want to honor Denny's transformation. Last Wednesday night I had the seredipitous opportunity to have a moment alone in a sacred, peaceful space. I said a prayer and released my brother to the light. It felt right. I want peace for all of us, but mostly I want it for him. He deserves it.

Rebekah for Poplar Grove Muse

Dreams Come True

2011-04-12T11:43:00.000-07:00

I made a recording in 1999 called "Dreamtable". The title song was inspired by an evening with friends during which most of the women at the gathering eventually found themselves at a large oval farm table recounting their dreams. The lyric, which at the time was a fairly concrete recitation of my own personal dream images, included this refrain: "I can tell a story/I often aim to please/And I will tell about the things that bring me to my knees/ round and round the circle/ we try to understand/our dreams are on the table and in one another's hands/".

Five years after this song was recorded, I got some important training from another woman, Mary Pierce Brosmer, who'd years before, followed a dream she'd had to create the founding school of Women Writing for (a) Change in Cincinnati, Ohio. I put up flyers around Bloomington and invited women into a circle to bring forth story in an intentional way. Six and a half years after that, today, lots of women have participated in WWfaC Circles in Bloomington. They've shared their stories, their truths, their poems, their fiction and yes, their songs, and many of those women are finding that they are making art out of their lives. For some, what were once dreams (about publishing, about standing up to read in front of audiences) are coming true. And for some, none of that matters. They simply relish a seat at the dream table. They've written their ways to wellness and greater clarity and find other areas of their lives enriched by having a connection to a women's community that aspires to the most grounded aspects of the conscious feminine.

I write this post on the eve of our 38th public Read Around*. I write on the heels, just the other day, of having witnessed one woman in our community stand up in front of 60 people gathered to celebrate her, and read, in a decidedly unwavering voice, from her forthcoming poetry chapbook. The next day, 14 young women in our Young Women Writing for (a) Change program, ages 11-13, stood up to read in front of a packed audience of friends and parents. They spoke with poise and fierceness in poetic and sometimes plain words about what they see when they look in the mirror and beyond it these days; the unsparing truths of girls becoming women.

I write in amazement and gratitude for what has come forth out of a rich community of telling, trying, and being tried in only the ways community challenges us. I write in reverence to my own dreamlife and what it helped bring forward in me and through me. I write in reverence to the creator of and legacy of this unique work and it's particular "way", and for what is carried forward by so many now across several generations of writers in our circles.

Natalie Goldberg says that through writing we all put down our individual roots and if we are courageous and persistent enough those tendrils will reach the deep underlying reservoir of spirit we all share. Courage and persistence. Courage. Persistence. Connections. Plant life transforms, the metaphor shifts--we are swimming toward the reservoir. Following our words and our dreams on fins, wings, and sturdy feet.

BLR for the Poplar Grove Muse

* Spring Read Around is Wednesday, April 13, 7:00 PM Quaker Meeting House of Bloomington near the corner of Smith Road and Moore's Pike on the East Side of town. This is a women's event. Men, please join us at the end of May as WWfaC is Featured in the HeartRock Poetry Series May 27th. 7pm.

2011-03-31T20:57:00.000-07:00

It’s National Poetry Month again! To the founders of this celebration, April seemed like the perfect time to celebrate poetry—no all-consuming holidays (if you don’t count April Fool’s Day, the birthdays of yours truly or Amy Cornell (a founder of this very blog), or Easter), no school exams, no snowstorms if we’re lucky—and income tax preparation just cries out for artistic distraction . Not too much happens in the thirty lengthening days of this season of transition, where the weather can vary wildly from day to day.

Here is some background on the celebration and its origins in 1996.

April 14 is “Poem in your Pocket Day.” “The idea is simple: select a poem you love during National Poetry Month then carry it with you to share with co-workers, family, and friends.” If you like, The Academy of American Poets will sell you a little volume filled with poems to tear out and share; this year they’ve added another volume for kids.

Teachers are especially encouraged to celebrate the month in their classrooms; the idea is to bring poetry to life, even for the dubious: Scholastic and ReadWriteThink are two sites with suggestions for working with kids. (I’ve just learned, belatedly, that in 2006, the Poetry Foundation named Jack Prelutsky the inaugural American Children’s Poet Laureate. Who knew?)

Here’s a fun list of activities, one for each day of the month, if you are so inclined. I especially like the suggestions for advocacy—lobbying elected officials for arts funding or asking the US Postal Service for more stamps commemorating poets. How about exploring the Favorite Poem Project initiated by one of my favorite Poets Laureate, Robert Pinsky?

Saturday, April 9th is a day of poetry at Women Writing for (a) Change, Bloomington. From 10am-Noon "Poetry Detectives" will discuss poems. Check them out. From 1-3pm, Beth Lodge-Rigal and Nancy Long offer a free sample class for writers and aspiring writers of poetry.

Here's a highly ambitious observance of National Poetry Month—join those attempting to write a poem a day as a participant in NaPoWriMo. “How do [you] participate in NaPoWriMo? Easy! Just write a poem a day for the month of April. You can post them on the internet. You can hide them in a notebook. You can make up a special book just for yourself out of them. Really, all you need to do is write a poem a day for the month of April.”

Enjoy the month! And share with us what you come up with to celebrate poetry in April!

Mary for the Poplar Grove Muse

Summer Camp at Poplar Grove

2011-03-23T14:33:00.000-07:00

Summer Camp at Young Women Writing for (a) Change provides a special opportunity for girls and young teens to enjoy being themselves through many channels of creative exploration. A day at camp is a day in paradise for girls and young teens who love to write. Camp is held in mid-July at the historic Poplar Grove Schoolhouse, a building that served eastern Monroe County as an elementary school in the early 1900s. Poplar Grove now houses offices and writing space for Women Writing for (a) Change, a writing program in Bloomington since 2004, offering youth programming since 2009.

A typical day of camp begins with writers gathering in a circle formed by comfortable pillows and chairs around a center cloth. Facilitators open the day by reading a poem, often followed by an invitation for writers to dive into their first short burst of writing. In these “fast write” exercises, emphasis is placed on writing freely, keeping the pen flowing, and turning off the inner critic who insists on perfect grammar, sentence structure, and spelling. The result is writing that holds depth and insight, with interesting associations that arise from the non-analytical side of the writer’s mind. Participants are given the opportunity to share their writing fresh from the pen, in varying ways. This might include partner sharing, reading out loud in small groups, and large group. Careful attention is given to how writers listen and create safe space for one another, and it is always honorable to pass if a writer chooses not to share at any given time.

One way young writers learn to listen and respond to one another is through the recording of “read back lines” which are resonant words or phrases captured by listeners and read back to the writer at the end of her sharing. Hearing one’s words echoed back is an affirmation to the writer, contributing to an “acoustics of intimacy” that strengthens a writer’s connection to her voice. This support of authentic voice is the underlying mission of Young Women Writing for (a) Change. The added benefits are self- confidence, a sense of belonging, and deep engagement in the creative process.

Camp is led by trained facilitators, and a low teacher-student ratio of 1:5 is maintained. Leaders participate in writing exercises and share their writing alongside students. Hands-on craft activities, music, movement, and visual writing prompts are often incorporated, as well as writing outdoors under the shade tree in the large back yard. At the end of each day, participants reflect on their experience before closing the circle for the day. At the end of the week, camp culminates in a special read-around for parents and friends. One parent reflected, “This was a beautiful experience…these girls are courageous and creative. You do a phenomenal service for them in providing a safe place for them to be brave.”

For more information about Young Women Writing for (a) Change, or to register for camp, please visit www.womenwritingbloomington.com.

-- Kim for the Poplar Grove Muse

I Remember the Sandwiich

2011-03-15T11:05:00.000-07:00

I Remember the Sandwich

In the PBS Masterpiece series Any Human Heart, a character named Gloria Scabius is talking about herself as a poor young woman. She tells her companion about a time she only had enough money for a sandwich or a bunch of violets. She bought the violets. She said she would have forgotten the sandwich, but she remembered the violets. I probably would have remembered the sandwich. That struck a chord with me and got me to thinking about memory. When I took a Cognitive Psychology course, we studied memory and no one seems to know precisely how the brain processes and chooses what information it stores. I find it fascinating; especially when things float to the surface that I haven’t thought about in years.

I remember great meals and the great cooks in my family. My brain has stored the light, fluffy taste and texture of Aunt Etta Mae’s homemade coconut cream pie; the smell of Mother’s yeast bread as it rose in the pan; the popcorn Dad served us with slices of crisp red apples in the fall. Those memories tell my mouth to water and it does. When I smell burnt food, I remember my Grandma Wentz’s fried potatoes and can see my grandpa smothering them in ketchup in a futile attempt to cover up the burnt taste.
Memory can be triggered so randomly. Friday night when I was watching Jeopardy!, one of the questions was, “Who is Chopin?”. That triggered a memory of a tiny bust of Chopin that my piano teacher had given me. It sat on my piano for years. I’m not sure what it was made of, something white that had a little sparkle to it and was gritty to the touch. I wonder what ever happened to it.

Memories are like dominoes, one touches another, opening up another remembrance. Piano lessons remind me of how I used to bite my nails. My parents tried everything to get me to stop. Rewards didn’t work; even painting my nails with a special hot sauce mixture they got at the drug store for nail biters didn’t work -- I thought it tasted good. No outside stimuli worked. What did the trick came from inside me when I began playing in recitals around age 12. The public shame of displaying bleeding nails and cuticles made me stop cold turkey.
Smells are always a good memory trigger. Once in a while, when I smell cigarette smoke that has a special acridness to it, I’m taken back to when, as a little girl in grade school, I would be awakened in the middle of the night by that same smell and the low murmur of my parent’s voices in the next room. As an adult, I realized what they had been doing, but as a child I just thought it was a funny time of night to be awake and smoking. That was before things got really bad between them.

As an adult, I sleep with the covers over my head, just my eyes and nose sticking out. My ears are always covered. I remember doing that as a child to try and drown out the angry voices of my parents. It only muffled them, but it felt safer somehow. I haven’t lived in a house with angry voices since I was a child, but I still seem to need the comfort of covering my ears.

My son grew up in a house without angry voices. The memories I have of raising him are my best memories. He was fun. He had, and still has, the best giggle I’ve ever heard. He’s always been the trickster, loves to play jokes, even as an adult. One of the best tricks he played on me, still makes me laugh out loud. He was about 24 and living with me temporarily. I had come in late and Casey was already in bed. I made myself a bologna sandwich. The phone rang; I sat my sandwich plate on the coffee table and went to my room to take the call. It was an extended conversation, when I came back out and hungrily bit into my sandwich, I couldn’t bite all the way through it. I opened it up and discovered my bologna had been replaced with a piece of cardboard the exact size of the round of bologna. I immediately yelled, “Very funny, Casey!” All I heard from the next room was, “Heh, heh, heh”.

Casey is an artist. The other day I was going through some of the drawings he did as a child. In one of the drawings he used a cross hatch pattern for shading. Another domino falls. I’m immediately taken back to riding in the back seat of my Grandpa Wentz’s Studebaker. It’s summer time and Grandpa is wearing his straw fedora with the black band. He has just had a hair cut and I could see the back of his tanned neck. It had deep cross hatch marks in it. I was fascinated with those marks and what caused them and why they didn’t match the smooth skin on his face.

Because my Grandpa Wentz was such an important person in my life, I’m back again to wondering about memory and how it affects the way we live our daily lives. I’ve worked hard to get my life to where it is today. It allows me to be a happy combination of a social person and one who needs solitary time. This helps keep my life balanced, because when I write during my solitary time, I often draw from the dark and difficult memories of my childhood. I don’t believe writing heals in and of itself, but it gets me to a place where I can process, move on and make more memories, which will create more dominoes to tumble and fall on one another, releasing sources of never-ending memories that make a writing life so rich.

Rebekah for Poplar Grove Muse

It's How You See It

2011-03-09T04:11:00.000-08:00

I’ve been reading these big Graphic Memoir-slash-Meditations on the creative process by artist-slash-writer, Lynda Barry. She’s a cartoonist of the non-mainstream variety, a novelist, a workshop instructor, and advocate of naming and releasing the monsters that keep people from accessing their singular creative authority. Her books What It Is (2008) and Picture This (2010) are wild collage and Zen ink painting explorations of her own evolving understanding of herself as a creative person.

So when I read a book, any book, I look for myself in it somewhere. We do that, right? The characters in Barry’s books come from a world I don’t intimately know. I didn’t grow up on the “wrong side of the tracks” as Barry’s heroine does. I didn’t fall asleep under a threadbare blanket in a trailer in the flicker of the blue TV screen. But I commune intently with the inner world of her searching characters. I was definitely a girl whose first break with her childhood innocence came when she discovered the smelly wheat-colored gum eraser; when the nose on the face of the princess she drew on the newsprint drawing pad was all wrong, and the page ripped and the whole thing had to be crumpled up and started over. And over. When the question: “Is this any good?” came up, and the answer “No, it’s terrible” came back. When this happens, our connection to our first trust of our artistic instinct has been severed. At least this was 100% true for me.

So much of my own life’s journey has been a trip back to the time before I cared whether whatever I was making was good or not. The time of pure play, of living in experience, living inside the pictures that came in to my head as real as any I saw in a picture book. This was the time before erasers and expectations of perfection, if not grandeur. For me those times existed on a woven rug in a tiny naptime room where hours were lost to the unfolding story in the stick figures trekking across vast white landscape of a page in search of the lost village, the small white dog, the magical sea shell.

It took me a long time to realize the true value of a creative life was not the end result, but what was illuminated along the way in the squiggles and merging images and words that showed HOW I was seeing as I went along. There's a kind of presence to the present moment, the image as it presents itself and a willingness to go with it unselfconsciously that we all knew once and I'm convinced, can be reclaimed again if we want to. This doesn't diminish my reverence for aspiration, the masterpieces of art, literature, theater, and song or my respect for those who aim to do fine work.

I’ve been lucky because in spite of the big gum eraser in the sky, I managed to claim enough permission to scribble my way forward and reach out to others, each of us working with our own god-given abilities to draw the princess faces, the landscapes, the, blue-lit rooms, we remember and know. The aliveness and interchange of this work brings me more happiness than I can articulate. And you know what? Sometimes something both artful and informative emerges through the process of giving oneself this permission.

The smoke and mirrors of a world out there that falls on its knees in reverence to “recognition” –whether deserved or not from the standpoint of pure artfulness, is so less interesting to me than the divine creative spirit in each of us ordinary people finding our way back to our source. I believe all people deserve the chance to re-connect with this part of them selves.

This won’t put me on any magazine covers, but it puts me where I really want to live for the moment. And that’s how I see it today.

BLR -Poplar Grove Muse

Breaking Bread and Boundaries

2011-03-01T12:23:00.000-08:00

I am co-leading a feminist spirituality group in my faith community, along with two remarkable women whose life stories are quite different from my own. Apart from traditional women’s circles and auxiliaries, I wonder if there has ever been a class limited to women only, devoted to thinking about women, their faith journeys, and their life stories in this congregation before. It has been a rich experience, drawing women from all stages of life—20’s to 80’s, gay, bi- and straight, every marital status, with no kids, young kids, and grown kids, from a surprising array of faith and non-faith backgrounds, and an array of political perspectives for a largely progressive community.

We are reading Sara Miles’ Take This Bread: A Radical Conversion, a memoir of her sudden, radical conversion, as a leftist, lesbian, atheist journalist, to Christian faith manifested in feeding others, especially the poor and those most unlike herself. One of her central, evolving tenets is that we must rub shoulders with those who are not like us to truly make a difference in the world. I tend to take a pretty traditional approach to lesson preparation, and I really didn’t know what to expect from this group. But the discussions have been delightful, wide-ranging, and deeply questioning. I should have known that we could count on a group of engaged adult women to come together to talk, having done the reading, with many reflections to share, in a spirit of mutual respect, tolerance, and safety.

I am still processing a February 11 column in the New York Times by Bob Herbert, in which he stated: “As the throngs celebrated in Cairo, I couldn’t help wondering about what is happening to democracy here in the United States. I think it’s on the ropes. We’re in serious danger of becoming a democracy in name only.” I actively grieve recent political developments and devolutions, and sometimes despair of how we, at the local, grassroots level, can work to repair and rejuvenate our societal fabric despite the torrent of partisan hatefulness that rains down from our national “leadership.”

This class renews my faith, in a number of senses. Other uplifting examples of “good works” I am buoyed by in Bloomington include: the Interfaith Winter Shelter, staffed by believers and non-believers alike and supported by a wide range of faith communities and political perspectives; the November 2 passage of a local referendum to support our schools, and the ongoing community conversations, some more contentious than others, on how best to use those funds to educate all kids; WWF(a)C’s ArtsWeek “Day of Writing and Art” for girls grades 4-12, which brought together writers, teachers, and artists of all stripes to interact with a patchwork of girls from many corners of our community; the Bloomington Farmer’s Market, where everybody and anybody is drawn together by a common love of food and festivity.

We are lucky to live in this community. Let’s increase our good fortune by supporting and participating in efforts like these that bring together folks who don’t necessarily see eye to eye, on common ground, where we can extend and break down our boundaries, “presuming good will.” What are you doing, or what can you do, to widen your world?

Mary for the Poplar Grove Muse

RIP Borders-Bloomington

2011-02-24T07:25:00.000-08:00

Bookstore from the Movie You've got Mail

When the most recent national news about Borders came out last week, I shared a moment of sadness with folks in those Borders communities. You see, the Bloomington Borders closed right after the holidays this year. We have already gone through the bookstore closing that is to come for over 200 communities around the country.

When Borders came to town about 10 years ago, I was pretty upset about it. They opened their large store just a few doors down from our own independent bookstore called Morgenstern’s which had only been open for a few years. Before Morgenstern’s, we had only IU-based bookstores and teeny-tiny (quaint but small) Howard’s that indulged bibliophiles like my husband and me. We loved to slip into Morgenstern’s on evening dates and roam the aisles reading book jackets and talking about authors and ideas. Once we spent an evening in the children’s section talking about our favorite young adult books.

But Borders came to town, and it was at least three times the size of Morgenstern’s and it had a big ol’ coffee shop and a huge music section. Morgenstern’s did not stay open much past winter that year. That’s the way the free market works.

So it surprised me that I got all weepy over this big corporate store finally closing its doors as well. I had grown used to stopping by on Friday nights after my family and I went out for dinner. My husband would get his coffee and roam the stacks, my son would hit the kids’ section, and I would be over in fiction, or at the sale tables, or travel, or reference—whatever was on my mind that night.

Once the closing was announced, my husband stopped going. He said it was just like watching vultures circling a dead carcass on the road. People stopped in to get deals, so books and CDs flew off the shelves by the carload. Once cases were emptied, books and media would be consolidated and empty cases and racks would be sold. While my husband couldn’t go back in, I couldn’t stay away. Once a week I stopped in, yes to look for books and get deals, but more importantly, it seemed an appropriate way to say farewell to a place where I found great comfort.

Some people find solace in nature, others in churches or in the presence of God, but I have always found comfort in books. No matter what the problem or the mood or the weather, a fully stocked bookstore is what I picture heaven to be: rows and rows of bright colored books—some new, some classics, all stacked high and wide on big wooden shelves. Each book is filled with ideas and stories and poetry, written by dead white men or celebrities or new young authors. There is room for everyone and every idea at the bookstore.

So yes, I went in frequently during those last months of Borders and watched the vultures circling the carcass. I felt sad when shelves were stripped bare, and there were no more tables in the café, and when all that was left was overstocked books , kitten calendars, and coffee beans by the pound. I looked for bargains myself –how can you not buy books that are 4 for $1? (I guess that makes me a vulture too) and generally felt bad about the whole book industry.

It seems odd to me that a solitary activity like reading can maintain a community feel to it. I went to Borders to look for books, but I always chatted with friends and sipped coffee. I made recommendations to anyone looking confused over a selection; I bought books on special weekends recognizing educators or local schools. I sat in the café with members of my writing group while I composed columns and short stories.

So you can see that one mourns many different losses in the closing of a community bookstore: ideas, authors, poetry, community, conversation and comfort zones. I’d imagine patrons of those stores in those places will also circle the carcass for a few months, hauling off treasures and shelving to house them in. We are lucky here in Bloomington, as we still have another large bookstore we can physically enter because turning to Amazon for book needs, or purchasing instantly downloadable e-books is just not the same as mingling among the stacks and chatting with neighbors about ideas and stories. Viva the bookstore!

--Amy for the Poplar Grove Muse

Who You Calling Valetudinarian?

2011-02-15T11:17:00.001-08:00

Who You Calling Valetudinarian?

I think of myself as a healthy person. It’s part of who I am: mother, daughter, friend, and writer. I’m not a patient patient. I don’t have time to be sick. I rarely get tired or sick and it makes me mad when that happens. Last month when I couldn’t walk across the room without needing to rest and catch my breath, I had to give in admit something was wrong and I needed to go to the doctor. It turned out that I was severely anemic and close to needing a transfusion. It was an easy fix, but not a quick one.

I had to cancel things I was looking forward to and barely had the energy to do the things I absolutely needed to do. I felt like a whiner, this was something that could be treated and I would be fine. But it still changed how I thought about myself. This went deeper than just “feeling poorly” as my Grandma Wentz used to say. Between my mother and my former mother-in-law, I’d had a lifetime of hypochondriacal behavior used to gain attention and to manipulate people. I think I felt so used by that behavior that I went too far toward the stoic end of the scale, sometimes to the detriment of my health. Fortunately, for me, I have a good immune system and good genes and don’t have to deal with illness very often. I’m sure this adds to my impatience.

Illness adds another layer of frustration when I’m so drained that I’m unable to create. I hate feeling cut off from my creativity. It feels like a loss of control over my life, that I’m being kept from doing what I want to do because someone or something else is messing in my life without my permission. It makes me feel like I did when my mother and mother-in-law were running the show. I just want to yell, “You’re not the boss of me!” to my illness. Being sick takes me back to a time in my life that’s not fun to revisit and that just adds to my grumpiness and crankiness. I’m not fun to be around when I’m sick.
I haven’t written much of anything for almost two months. When I’m not writing, it feels like a piece of me is missing, my chakras feel out of alignment. No matter how bad I feel, the urge to write and create is ever-present. My fingers itch to write, but my mind doesn’t have the focus to guide them.

Last week classes started again at Women Writing for a Change and it felt so good to start writing again, to be among writers. I was also glad that it was time for my Poplar Grove Muse post. I’ve savored the time I spent this week thinking about what I would write for this blog and I can feel my creative juices starting to flow. It has felt very luxurious to have enough energy to spend my Sunday afternoon writing. I feel balance being restored to my life and I’m on to the next project of creating a special surprise for some women I love and whose company I’ll get to enjoy next weekend. As I sit here watching the snow outside my door sparkling in the sun as it shrinks, I feel the grip of illness loosening its hold on me. The life that I’ve worked so hard to create is returning. I can breathe again. I can write again.

Rebekah for the Poplar Grove Muse

SOFT, KNIFE, ELECTRIC, SHARD, WHIMSY

2011-02-10T06:10:00.000-08:00

It’s whimsy to consider this exercise; a soft approach to starting somewhere—anywhere on the empty page without a shard of confidence at the moment that anything might come forward.

My finger, recent victim of my own carelessness still throbs electric pulses with the memory of a slim, unfamiliar knife I was using when the snow began to fall. This day glistens in aftermath of a brilliant storm. Blue meets brick, meets white and the hardwood underfoot in the Green Bean Café, colors the morning lovely. I write. I look around. I settle in to an unfamiliar chair.

Where do all these bundled travelers come from today? Out of the cold, for one. Out for provisions, some for distraction from home-bound days and ice fall. Sideling up to these second hand tables in sweatshirts and stocking caps, men of various ages gab and turn the pages of today’s paper. Kevin, Richard, Bruce, and the new guy who just joined them, talk religion at a table for four.

“I prefer the Taoist perspective personally, though I was raised Episcopalian.” Says the new guy. “Gimme five, man”... says another, and then suddenly the new guy’s talking about a rat named Spunky—who looked like a Dalmation. “Never owned anything more than rodents, actually.” He says, “ So, did you see, IU Won Last night?”.

The quiet guy, out of nowhere and seemingly in reference to nothing in particular says, “ There used to be a coffee shop downtown right next to Nick’s called the Daily Grind. They’d give you really big cups of hot coffee”.

“I don’t like hot coffee, a-a-a-ctually.” It’s the new guy. Actually appears to be a filler word he uses to minimize what I now recognize is a stutter.

They ramble aimlessly from one fleck of conversation to the other. Transitions are vague, the willingness to flit without landing on any sustained subject, now seems a given. “ I was always good with nouns and verbs and adjectives says the older man named Richard”….as they move to latin derivatives and what they studied in college. Philosophy and English. Turns out Richard graduated in 1948. The new guy is Nick. He stutters more noticeably and says he’s taking a break from school now since he ran out of college money. I suspect there might be other reasons he’s taking a break from college, but am glad for him to find new friends in these strangers today. The capped men of multiple generations keep it up, the coffee and conversation keeps pouring. It’s a sketchy kind of flow. But there’s a rambling give and take, a welcoming presence in this morning light.

I stifle laughter and radiate love for these men of a world I live in but seldom inhabit. I have only seen this little spec of the world because I ventured to an unfamiliar shop today. I pause in a moment of appreciation for the wackiness of refugees and retirees. The ways connection can sound when I’m literally listening in sideways. They consider their plans and old Richard says he no longer plans much any more since every plan he ever made got botched. And now they’re talking about Nick’s stutter and Richard’s lifelong speech impediment. They lean in toward one another in an intimacy of a shared affliction. Richard’s developed when he was in Jr. High. He says he’s convinced it had something to do with S-E-X. He whispers this loudly in the close quarters of the coffee shop. The miracle of the morning is that Richard, who I figure is 85, claims his impediment disappeared a mere 3 weeks ago!

The electricity is on now back home, so the men get up to leave and make their way as softly as possible down the front steps along the knife-edge of the curb to their rusty cars. The new guy, Nick, holds old Richard’s elbow, waves and saunters off once they’re on more solid ground. Shards of light scatter rainbows across the room as a crystal on the door moves with the open and close. This whimsy, this glittering morning, a smile on my face. Grace in the random juxtaposition of people and things. A second cup of coffee and second hand conversation.

BLR for the Poplar Grove Muse

Footprints on Campus

2011-02-03T12:21:00.001-08:00

A new job on campus has given me the opportunity to experiment with two alternative forms of transportation: walking and riding the bus. A typical journey to work looks something like this: I leave my house on foot, walk what seems a like a very long distance down my winding street to the bus stop at the corner of Smith and Morningside. (“Good Exercise,” I keep telling myself). Here I wait for the bus. I anxiously glance southward on Smith Road for any sign of the green-and-white Bloomington Transit with the flashing title “Route 6 – Campus Shuttle.” Sometimes I stand with fellow travelers, sometimes we say hello, sometimes we don’t. I like that there is no pressure to be social at the bus stop.

I’ve discovered on sunny days there is a precise angle at which I can stand and let the sun shine on my face for a few blissful moments. When the bus comes into view, my stomach does a little flip with excitement. This harkens me back to my school bus days. The door opens, I board the bus, flash my pass to the driver, and find a seat. I notice how public transportation in Bloomington is much cleaner than in larger cities (lower demand = less wear and tear).

Luckily the bus has plenty of empty seats. I easily find my favorite next to the window. Sometimes I watch the world flash by outside as I enjoy the ride, other times I pull out my iPhone to check my email or play a game of Angry Birds. As more college students board at each stop, I notice I’m one of the oldest passengers on this bus. It’s hard to believe these young adults are closer in age to my daughter than me. The funny thing is, I still feel like a college student in many ways.

Eventually the bus is packed and I feel like a proverbial sardine. Here is where it can helpful to focus on the Angry Birds game and pray that my seat partner did not have a garlic bagel for breakfast. As we near campus, I begin to gather myself for departure at the IU Business School on Tenth Street where I, along with many others, pour out onto the sidewalk and cross the street to the Arboretum.

I pass the Library; so many memories here. This was my study place when I was a student, sometimes in the cafeteria, sometimes in the stacks, and sometimes in the lobby. I particularly liked the stacks, where it was so quiet the silence padded my ears as I dove into the academic journals for relevant material for my research papers. I once had a Criminal Justice class in the basement of the library called Alternative Control Systems. I remember writing a paper titled “Listening as a Guide to Justice,” in which I argued that more support for teaching people how to listen to one another would lead to a lower crime rate. It’s funny how threads from those days have found their way into my life today.

I walk at a good pace; I have ten minutes to get to my office on time. I pass the Fine Arts building and Auditorium and take the stairs down to the path through the woods that intersects with a well-worn trail from my undergraduate years: the path the Ballantine Hall. I continue south, past the Musical Arts Center, the round music building, and to Sycamore Hall. My walk ends with a hike up four flights of stairs. I arrive, breathless, ready for another day’s work.

I wonder, in the larger scheme, what has drawn me back to campus (I do ponder the Larger Scheme more than I did twenty years ago). Perhaps it is a need to revisit these threads of my earlier self and gather up some missing pieces for the next chapter. Deep inside, I know the answer to this question is best pounded out through the feet, and I take comfort in knowing these feet are leaving a smaller carbon footprint in the process.

-- Kim for the Poplar Grove Muse

January in Ohio

2011-01-26T10:35:00.000-08:00

It is January in Ohio and the prospect of deep snow and frigid temperatures looms in our future for several weeks. On this Friday in January though, I watched the thermometer as its needle approached, then went past the freezing mark. My desire to be outside walking increased in step with the mercury rising inside the glass tube. Watching the water as it trickled down to, then off, the tips of the dangling icicles finally set my mind.

Willingly giving in to the sirens' song, I began armoring myself in layers of warm clothing. A tee shirt followed by a thermal shirt and sweatshirt swelled under the hoodie that I zipped up over the bulk. Searching the top of the closet I found my hat, mittens, and scarf, and pulled them into place. Finally prepared and properly provisioned with iPhone, tissues, inhaler and camera, I stepped out of the garage door and into winter.

The first crisp, fresh breath of cold air is tinged with the wood smoke of the neighbor’s fireplace but still, so fresh. A deep breath in and out caused plumes of steam to flow from my nose and mouth and I stood watching this amazing thing. Emptying my lungs of the stale indoor air and filling them with the crisp frigid air of the outdoors, I walked slowly down the snow-packed driveway. At the end I stopped to consider the direction I should take. Dale Ford Road with its sheltering spruces and wider road would be the safer path for today’s walk, so following thought with action I turned north.

Taking the first step to cross the road is freeing. It feels odd to me that I’m walking on the road made for cars. I enjoy the mosaic created by the pavement’s pebbles and indents. Pressed into its surface are random items trapped there when the surface was soft and new. Today I don’t see any of the wildlife that traverse these roads the rest of the year. I imagine them burrowed in their winter homes. I do see the salt crystals thrown from the snowplows. They have settled at the edge of the pavement to mix with the other debris that has been washed there by the melting snow.

My camera, tucked away in my pocket to shield it from the cold, waits impatiently. My eyes scan the countryside as well as the ground, searching for something appealing to photograph. Framing each scene in my mind's eye, the cold landscape doesn’t offer up the bounty of summer. The bare trees display a stark black-on-white palette against the pale winter sky and I strive to capture that starkness in a photo. The tracks left by wandering deer dot the melting snow in a cross work pattern but none contrive to form a pleasing image.

As I walk, I subconsciously monitor my aging bones, muscles, tendons and lungs for signs of strain, taking care to make sure my booted feet come down squarely on each step as they avoid the icy patches in the road. The line between overdoing and pushing yourself to improve becomes harder to find as you age. This concerns me but around that I revel in the joy of the stunning isolation, the peaceful noisy silence.

Flocks of scavenging birds fly over in neat squadrons but none settle on the phone wires to watch me as I pass. They are scanning the trees for a few bits of food to fuel either their flight south or their winter survival.

I love walking my neighborhood in all seasons and I admit the other months are friendlier and have fancier dress then January. The delight here is the unexpected release of winter's grip. It lasted long enough to allow a brief reprieve and to send a promise of the spring that will follow. It is very welcome.

--Diana for the PGM

Rinsing Her Panty-Hose for Christ

2011-01-17T14:57:00.000-08:00

Writers are recipients of more gifts than anyone on the planet. We need only be constantly ready to receive them, aware of our world and the stories floating all around us. Perhaps, God has given us this talent so that we can tell the little stories of the unseen lives that deserve to be heard. All of them honored equally on a level playing field, the Nobel Prize winner, the nurse, the office cleaner, the firefighter, the actor and the mailman.
Last night I was given such a gift, the spark for a story, as I went to brush my teeth before turning in for the night, on a winter writing retreat at St. Mary of the Woods, enjoying the hospitality of the Sisters of Providence. We are staying in the residence of the sisters who so graciously share their living space, their home, with us. As I entered the sink room, I got a glimpse into a tiny moment of a sister’s life. I knew this was a gift meant for me to write about, this moment in a life that most people never see.
The sister was of medium height, slender and had short wavy, white hair, the kind of white hair that glows of its own accord, not from product. I tried to imagine her as a young girl giving her life to Christ. Choosing not to go to parties with illicit drinking and furtive groping, not to go shopping for trendy clothes with her girlfriends, not to marry a mortal and have little earthly children of her own some day, choosing to live in the bosom of Christ, rather than the bosom of her family. I admire her strength for listening to whatever voice guided her to make these difficult choices that result in a lifetime commitment to serve God and the world. Along with big choices comes the loss of little everyday choices, indulging herself at Starbuck’s with a coffee light frappucino while reading the latest Toni Morrison novel, dropping by her mother’s on a Saturday morning for tea and sympathy and to my mind the big loss: privacy. Sharing quarters her whole life, making her nest as cozy as is possible in one room, sharing a sink room, a lavatory and shower room, no leisurely bubble bath enjoying a glass of wine while surrounded by candle light, reading the poems of Neruda.
But, for women, some things are universal. Every month the sister sheds her blood, sloughing off the possibility of children. Children that Jesus has chosen to keep by his side in Heaven. Month after month, year upon year she bleeds for Christ, the fruit of her labor never seen. Perhaps she’s a professor of literature or poetry in the college here, guiding the children of others who have made different choices in their lives, her reward, honoring Christ by exciting the earthly children of others with the words of Longfellow, Shakespeare or Dickenson.
The years have stacked up and she is past the age of bleeding. Her white hair and peach fuzz skin glow in the dimly lit sink room. It is ten o’clock on a Friday night and while other women her age are watching their grandchildren sleep, or celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary with their husband in Hawaii, or baking scones for their Saturday morning poetry circle, this sister is rinsing her panty-hose for Christ because cleanliness is next to Godliness and that is her best offering on a bleakly cold, February Friday night.

Rebekah for The Poplar Grove Muse

Goodbye, Hello

2011-01-09T11:35:00.000-08:00

It’s really too late now to say goodbye to 2010. The new year has washed in on its new year wave and is already pulling me out to the sea of the “now” and “next steps;” a powerful undertow which, I’ve got to admit in the first week of 2011, raises my heart rate and puts me face to face with my suitability for swimming in fast-moving waters. Time does not slow down. The requirements of daily life, work, and love do not diminish.

Goodbye anyway to a year rocked by cataclysmic world events, extreme weather, bedbugs, disease, downturns and downsizing. Goodbye.

Goodbye and thanks for last year’s lucky breaks—the ones I was fortunate to get from some of that stuff. On peaceful hillsides in Umbria, watching gorgeous dark-haired kids kick soccer balls around in Todi, or a world cup match while eating gelato in the tiny town square of Grutti, Italy. The High Sierras. I tell you; listening to young people singing in the mountains does something to erase the jadedness of any soul. If one of them happens to be your young person –all the better! I don’t ever want to say goodbye to the light our children bring to this world. Or the light of a desert sunrise in Tucson, Arizona. Or the light I read by at night.

For someone who preaches the gospel of slowing down, but who has a hard time taking her own advice, I’m grateful to the instincts and friends that called me out to play more last year. Dancing at the Lotus Music Fest, toasting a storm rolling in out at our friend’s farm west of town during a long summer drought. I say bye-bye to some of the particular joys embedded in that play. But HELLO! Let’s welcome more of this in the coming year.

To the women I walk with most mornings in all weathers, the people I write with regularly, the stories which feed my stories and my keen delight in being alive on this crazy planet, last year was pretty great, I have no reason to think the next will be any less grand.

Goodbye and thanks for a peaceful personal year, in a series of years, I’m sure, in which our family unit morphs and we adapt to changing configurations and prepare for the next phase of the nest emptying.

Hello to what emerges each day, to keeping my eye on the questions that drive me, the creative force that keeps me curious.

Hello to every goodbye and new greeting in the daily turning of the world.

BLR for the Poplar Grove Muse

What I Did on My Vacation

2011-01-03T08:03:00.000-08:00

My family was down to two for a few days this past week. My husband and my youngest daughter flew to California to celebrate his mother’s 82nd birthday between Christmas and New Year’s. Air fares were so outrageous that we only felt we could send half our delegation.

The result was that I was left at home with a fairly self-reliant 15-year-old daughter, post holidays (where for most of a week I prepared three squares a day for larger-than-usual crowds), with very little that I absolutely HAD to do. Faced with this unusual span of available time, I considered dismantling Christmas, various long-neglected organizational tasks, and the obvious housekeeping chores that had been suspended for the immediate needs of houseguests….

And so, of course, I read three novels, back-to-back, in bed, in my nightclothes, for much of the time. It was luxurious, disorienting, and thoroughly restorative.

I find that the only thing that can make me want to ignore my family is a good novel. As a girl, I devoured most reading matter that came my way, including medicine labels, cereal boxes, and junk mail. Before I was allowed, in fourth grade, to check out books from the more mature sections of my library (what a silly and outdated rule!), I would appear at the Bookmobile at the start of their shift in my schoolyard, check out the maximum number of allowed charges, take them home to read, and return just before the vehicle departed to check out a whole new allotment. My mother recalls how she could never send her three children to their rooms as a punishment, since we were never happier than reading in our rooms; I vividly remember the ache of being called from solitary reading to set the table, vacuum, rake, shovel, whatever task the life of the household demanded at the moment. Reading was refuge, escape, transport to other, better worlds, and sometimes seemed like the meaning of life. That luxurious childhood sense of the urgency of reading, and my parents’ acquiescence in my siblings’ and my pursuit of it, is one of the greatest gift of my early years.

However, being a good partner, and a passable parent, I rarely indulge this longing to forget the rest of my world and just read. So this week, with my diminished household demands, was a rare opportunity.

One of my closest friends, Harvard and Oxford educated, a busy physician, parent, and spouse, whom I regularly refer to as “the smartest person I know,” had a childhood ambition for adult success that I treasure. Early on, she defined her standard for adult success as being able to read “a book a day.” It sounds laughable, and in fact I have related this to friends who have laughed at the idea. But it is hard for me to imagine a grownup goal that better incorporates that greatest freedom and pleasure of my childhood, than this one. Needless to say, neither she nor I have achieved this success.

I talk to women all the time, for whom a great regret of adult life is not having time and energy to read. The refrain about reading only a few pages in bed before falling asleep is a common one. As are the piles of unread, long-desired tomes on the bedside table. I know of a number of book clubs that have sadly disbanded, due to the difficulty of mustering a critical mass of members who get the books read month in and month out. Often, there is a tinge of guilt in these narrations, as though we have somehow betrayed our younger, perhaps wiser, reading selves.

In recent years I have rededicated myself to reading more. Nothing makes me feel that I have attended to my core self more than reading. I invite you to join me in this ongoing project in 2011. There are lots of sources for raising your own excitement about making more time for reading: two favorites are Maureen Corrigan’s segments on NPR’s Fresh Air http://www.npr.org/2010/12/09/131763087/maureen-corrigan-s-favorite-books-of-2010 and our own Esmerelda’s “Esmerelda’s Book Thing” http://esmereldasbookthing.blogspot.com/. Consider joining the WWFaC book group, which meets third Thursdays at the schoolhouse.

Happy New Year! Happy Reading! Mary for the Poplar Grove Muse

New Year's Intentions

2010-12-31T09:29:00.000-08:00

"Full Moon Mandala" by SoulArteEclectica

Lately I’m finding myself paying more attention to the cycles of the year. Solstices are particularly meaningful days which mark turning points that I cannot let pass by unnoticed. For the past two years, I have participated in writing circles on the solstices, which provide an opportunity to quietly mark the significance of these days.

In the candlelight of our recent Winter Solstice circle, we wrote a simple exercise that lifted up a trio of themes. We divided a page into three columns:

1. Letting go of; 2. Celebrating; 3. Intentions.

We then had several minutes to generate lists in each column. I found myself jumping back and forth from joy to yearning, to resolve, back to yearning, and surprisingly paying more attention to joy than usual.

My lists morphed into this draft of a prayer-poem:

Solstice Prayer

Let go of darkness

Celebrate joy

Light – let it in, let it shine

through me.

Follow the joy,

let go of lack.

A new way of living, celebrating

love, friendships, family.

Let creativity flow.

Value the process of creation,

Follow the arrow from creative flow

to financial flow.

Follow the joy.

Releasing, celebrating, and setting intention; there is a satisfying combination in these categories. Too often I overlook the celebrating part. But if I think of these three as the legs of a stool, it is equally as important as the other two.

With this in mind, on the final day of this calendar year, I celebrate. I celebrate my increasing ability to hold my center through a variety of circumstances. I celebrate my increasing trust in my inner voice which is revealed to me through writing. I am feeling the growth and am so grateful for the work I’ve done, and those who have been supportive anchors. Could 2011 be a year of reaping benefit of all this work? I welcome this! I welcome my professional endeavors hitting a stride where my energy feels less dispersed. I welcome continued clarity about my desires, and a continued embrace of the (new) belief that desire is pure when it comes from a place of truth and self-love. I welcome an inpouring of abundance through known and unknown channels. I welcome my creativity, and I allow time for the pure joy of creation. I have new story ideas I wish to pursue. I have old stories that are finding their way to maturity. I am excited about what the new year holds.

If you find yourself tired of the tradition of making New Year’s Resolutions, I highly recommend this simple three-column exercise. It’s fun to see where the writing takes you.

Happy New Year!

-- Kim for the Poplar Grove Muse

The Little Brown Purse

2010-12-24T19:28:00.000-08:00

As a rule, I avoid basements; they all seem dark, dank, cluttered and unfriendly. Truth be told I avoid the stairs leading down to basements whenever possible as well. Knowing this, my husband, Jay, kindly took on the intimidating task of excavating our basement in preparation for our move. As he sorted and packed he would set aside the things he wanted me to go through, not sure if they were things I wanted to keep or not.

I discovered one such article perched on a box, quietly awaiting its fate. Next to some Christmas decorations sat an old leather purse. Not much larger then a cigar box it was the color of butterscotch left on the burner a bit too long. The purse had smooth rectangle sides that angled in where they met at the top, creating a long-sided triangle shape for the purse. Demure black stitching lined the border of the small zippered pocket on the side and a tiny gold rooster logo was attached near the top. Two short stitched leather straps served as handles and the leather was marred with scratches and wear.

I could imagine what Jay saw as he looked at the purse; it was just an old purse I didn’t use anymore. What I saw when I looked at that purse was a long haired young girl of twenty, shopping at Ayres. The girl had recently been told by her husband of six months that he was in love with someone else and their marriage was over. She was engaged in the apparently age old custom of buying expensive things that her soon to be ex-husband will get the bills for at some later date. As she strode through the store hell bent on running up that charge card her eyes fell on a small leather purse. The price of the purse was Twenty-five Dollars, which was an absurd amount of money for a purse at the time and far more then she had ever spent on such a thing. She had never even owned a leather purse. By the time she had it in her hands and felt its smooth soft leather and saw the tiny gold rooster on its side, she had made up her mind. She bought that little leather purse.

I’m sure you have guessed, I was that young girl, many, many years, many, many lifetimes ago. It turned out that the, someone else, was in fact my slightly older sister who I had always been very close to……. but that is a story for another day. That old purse bought so long ago will be an antique soon. It amazed me that seeing it setting there among the other flotsam that it had the power to conjure the memory of that day so vividly to my mind.

While I searched through the purse looking for that hundred dollar bill we all think we have tucked away and forgotten in our old purses, I found something else. I found a very old TWA (for you young ones, Trans World Airlines) boarding pass. It was a date in November of 1976, the first time I had ever flown in an airplane. I was pregnant with my daughter Christina and was flying from Indianapolis to Denver Colorado so I could drive back home with my husband. He had been in school there for three months. I remember, I was wearing my favorite maternity top. It was a striped sweater in shades of green with a black turtleneck. I remember, the man I was seated next to was very kind to the nervous first time flyer and he helped me find my way in the Denver airport. I remember my husband’s face as we spotted each other in the airport corridor.

The people that know about these things say that the objects are not the memories and they are correct they are not. They are however the things that signal your brain to bring that memory front and center A.S.A.P.

The need to keep the stuff that prompts those memories must be inherent in all of us to some degree. We treasure the mementos of the watershed moments in our lives, the births, the deaths, the graduations. We store them in boxes that fill up our attics, closets and basements. Is this our brains way of organizing our memories, are they downloaded to these items for later retrieval like an external hard drive or offsite storage facility? It almost makes me understand the strong compulsion to hoard, almost.

We continue to pack, sort, dispose of and re-evaluate our possessions and thankfully the basement is empty. The closets upstairs, yes, there is an upstairs, await and I am sure along with the old clothes and extra blankets I will find some powerful “stuff”.

And of course, that little leather purse and its contents will be heading west.

--Diana for the Poplar Grove Muse

Focusing in a Kaleidoscope World

2010-12-16T14:40:00.000-08:00

Focusing in a Kaleidoscope World

Today as I sit in my chair and watch it snow I think of how hard it has been to focus the past few months.
Dad’s surgery. Mom’s broken neck. My accident. I’ve been in adrenaline mode since late July. The urgencies have eased up in the last couple of weeks; everyone is in solid recovery mode. I’m starting to breathe again. And as I breathe, I begin to notice my surroundings and enjoy the things I love. I’m learning to focus again.
This weekend as I was mulling over topics/themes to write on for the Poplar Grove Muse, I saw the past couple of days as images that came into focus as I turned the kaleidoscope of my memory.
On Friday, Casey, my son, called and as we spoke about family matters, I saw the image of him as a small boy caring for a sick robin he named Duke. And I was so proud of the caring person he’s grown up to be. Later that night, Jackie, who is like a daughter to me, came to spend the night and help facilitate Poetry Detectives on Saturday. As we sat and talked I drew into focus the picture of her as a college student working at the IDS and kicking butt as copy chief. And here she is ten years later helping make a success out of a project dear to my heart.
The next image, a flash of a face filled with excitement as enlightenment comes over a tricky line of poetry as we discuss a poem by Adrienne Rich. Later that day in an intergenerational writing workshop at the Poplar Grove School, the turned up faces of young women writers making their voices heard in the world, the serene faces of mothers happy in the presence of their daughters; the collages we all made with their colors, images and words.
Now as I sit here with a hot cup of black cherry tea, I’m watching Saturday Night Live that I recorded last night and there is Paul McCartney singing, what I’m sure is his homage to John Lennon who died 30 years ago this month, “Give Peace a Chance” and I see myself at 17, a senior in high school, in front of the TV watching The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show. I remember thinking how ridiculous those screaming girls in the audience were. I just wanted them to shut up so I could hear Paul, John, George and Ringo.
So what’s my point? My point is that no matter how many times we turn the kaleidoscope to move the little bits of colored glass/plastic around, the big picture doesn’t change all that much. Forty-one years after “Give Peace a Chance” was released we still don’t have peace in the world; we still argue about abortion, gay rights, health care, education and taxes. Our world comes to us in Tweets, Facebook postings, YouTube videos and sound bites, no wonder it’s so hard to focus. Can’t we all just take a deep cleansing breath and try to focus on making the world peaceful and nurturing instead of running our own agendas?

Rebekah for the Poplar Grove Muse

The Lump of Coal

2010-12-10T11:35:00.000-08:00

My mother, Anne Lodge, is an abiding source of inspiration in…to…for my writing and my life. At a recent visit to our family farm in Ohio, she handed me a faded photocopy of something she’s kept around. This scrap, along with so many slips of paper, snips, quips, quotes, make their way, if she sees fit, into my fortunate hands. The latest was a quote from the poet William Matthews (1942-1997 ). He’s credited in the clipping with “a lucky wit” and “startling intelligence” and offers “a short but comprehensive summary” of all the subjects for lyric poetry:

1. I went out into the woods today and it made me feel, you know, sort of religious.
2. We’re not getting any younger.
3. It sure is cold and lonely (a) without you, honey, or (b) with you, honey.
4. Sadness seems but the other side of the coin of happiness, and vice versa, and in any case, the coin is too soon spent and on we know not what.

So, yeah, this about sums it up. What’s left out are the particulars that bring these themes to life-- startling metaphors, unique turns of phrase, specific images, the grace notes and voicings on any artful canvas or in any room that sing to us the songs of ages. While any story, song, play, dance, or piece of art might tell us the same things again and again, it’s of course how they do so in new and surprising ways that lift and lead us.

Nor does Matthew’s summary speak to the courage it takes to truly live inside his/our themes. Or to come out from underneath the bushel that hides us from ourselves and the world; that gives any of us permission to look, see and say from the deepest parts of our uncensored selves what is true of our experience in the world. I guess Matthews had his tongue firmly planted in his cheek when we wrote his summary, given that he was a prolific poet and could not be diminished by his own ironic point of view. I happen to agree it’s healthy not to take ourselves too seriously about too much of anything. At the same time, if we’re intimidated, or down right bored by the so-called limited subjects available –to whatever it is any of us confronts every ordinary day, we miss a lot. It could be the risk of devastation, the toil of reconstruction, and every little death and rebirth it takes to live into a life.

I went into the woods today and fell down in the snow. My face was cold. My body warm. The sun trickled through the web of tree branches and I rose to meet it. The snowsuit-clad child who came alive inside me reached for the sky and together, we floated up . Call it what you want, but I was in no way alone. The air crackled with connection. It was, you know, sort of religious.

We’re not getting any younger. Well, I know I’m not. I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the window glass this morning and wondered who the silver-haired woman looking back at me was. On another day, I might grieve what’s gone. Today, the scent of my teenage daughter’s shampoo in that same silver hair confused me. I did a double-take in the window, then thought I might want to have breakfast and a nice long chat with the woman who gazed so frankly at me over her reading glasses. She intrigued me.

It sure is cold. Well, literally it is these December days. And loneliness is most often temporary. AND It is real and it hurts. I think we need to call it out when we’re feeling it. Unspoken loneliness is dangerous and the journey through is never ever easy. Let’s look out for ourselves and one another in this realm.

Sadness seems but the other side of the coin of happiness…the coin is too soon spent. I cried suddenly and raggedly in my car on the way to pick up Dan this week with the radio news of Elizabeth Edward’s death less than 24 hours after reading in the papers about her grave condition. It was like a lightening bolt struck through me. “No, I thought…not yet!” In that moment, Elizabeth Edwards’ was the face of any number of loved ones and friends -- of me, for god’s sake! There I was driving through my beloved snow-covered town, in a menopause-fueled eruption of random grief for the passage of time, for the ways good people -- all people --die, and the circumstances of any life lived flip heads to tails with happiness and sadness in ways we cannot control. Anything any of us are able to think or feel or do to make sense of this over a lifetime is a blessing for the journey.

Below is a good poem from William Matthews for the season; for poets and writers or anyone in need of seeing something more in a lump of coal than a rocky threat. Let it keep the fires of life-force and inspiration burning year round for you. May your holidays be fueled by love, by light and warmth, wherever you are, whomever you are with.

Poem (The Lump of Coal My Parents Teased)

The lump of coal my parents teased
I'd find in my Christmas stocking
turned out each year to be an orange,
for I was their sunshine.

Now I have one C. gave me,
a dense node of sleeping fire.
I keep it where I read and write.
"You're on chummy terms with dread,"

it reminds me. "You kiss ambivalence
on both cheeks. But if you close your
heart to me ever I'll wreathe you in flames
and convert you to energy."

I don't know what C. meant me to mind
by her gift, but the sun returns
unbidden. Books get read and written.
My mother comes to visit. My father's

dead. Love needs to be set alight
again and again, and in thanks
for tending it, will do its very
best not to consume us.
--William Matthews

BLR for the Poplar Grove Muse

We're Looking for Bloggers

2010-12-07T11:23:00.001-08:00

We are looking for some local writers who might like to post recent essays, poetry or fiction on this blog. If you want to test out your writing wings in blog form please contact Amy at:

Amy @ womenwritingbloomington(dot)com

Old Friend from Far Away

2010-12-01T05:28:00.000-08:00

I am facebook friends with a man I have known since we were 15. Jim and I came to know each other first in band camp, where we two shy sophomores (in my high school sophomore year was the first year) sat across from each other each night at a picnic table in the camp mess hall--he the lone male in a rank of clarinetists, me the only xylophone player. We ate and drank kool-aid in silence. I never knew what to say to him, and I suppose he did not know what to say to me. He was cute and most of the clarinetists had crushes on him. I don’t think I did, but maybe I would have if I could have thought of something to say.

Not long after those weeks in band camp we found ourselves part of a group that hung out in the library. For some reason we drifted toward an AFS club, and we befriended the foreign exchange students. Before we knew it, we were throwing parties and hanging out at pizza places and making googly eyes at each other in marching band. He turned out to be quite popular and had a string of girlfriends that came in and out of his life. I suppose I wouldn’t have minded being one of them, but we had so much fun just hanging out together, and we had a little gang and we laughed so much I did not give it much thought.

When we went to college we visited each other. Michigan to Chicago, Chicago to Michigan. In the era before cell phones and email we sent letters and talked on the phone. He met my college friends and I met his. Summers we met up back at home--working together at the mall or ice cream stands or at a company in Cleveland that manufactured chemicals. We commuted together and went to bars after work.

Is it any surprise to the reader that my lifelong friend came out to me toward the end of our college careers? I was lucky not to have been one of a string of girlfriend relationships that never went anywhere, but a true friend. Jim has been in my life for thirty years and though we do not see each other often, as is the way of many old friends, I know he is there.

He is fortunate that he was coming out as the era of AIDs was in full force and the beginnings of understanding about transmission were emerging. By then he knew the importance of practicing safe sex. The bell curve of gay men who contracted AIDS bloomed just before he came out. I feel thankful that my generation missed the onslaught of death that faced people just a few years older than me.

Jim left Michigan for San Francisco and grad school. I left Chicago for Indiana and grad school. I have seen him throughout the years in our home town, at weddings and friendly gatherings and now on facebook.

He just posted on my FB wall: a comment about an article I posted about I-69. I posted a comment on his photos where is is working in China. When I saw his words across the years and miles I absolutely wanted to weep. There is no friend like an old friend. I treasure them, and him.