America

     I wanted to title this America the Beautiful, but she is not so beautiful these days, either physically or politically.  Flooding and fire storms are marring her surface, forcing evacuations.  The political landscape has become a quagmire of self-interest and hate-mongering, both home and abroad.  I had become very critical of her.
     Then I read a post by a nationalized friend:  "HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMERICA!! THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU FOR EVERYTHING THAT I AM TODAY, BECAUSE OF YOU. AM HUMBLY GRATEFUL...." 
      It made me think of the time my grandfather - ill with cancer, dying - was taken in by a gang of phony meter readers.  He was robbed.  Two things bothered him tremendously; one that he was too weak to protect his wife, and the other the theft of some papers.
      My mother was exasperated with his need to replace those papers.  She said, "What does it matter, he is dying."  I would have thought as a first generation American she would understand.  I certainly did.
      The papers?   His citizenship papers!  And I am delighted to say he received the new copies before he passed on.  Let me assure you Grospapa was fully aware of America's faults, but he he also knew that it was the best place on earth to live.  And despite the recent curtailings of some of our freedoms, make no mistake, it is still the freest country.
      We may have to work harder for a while to restore the parts that are broken, but Thank you Minnie and Papa for reminding me, that America is still The Beautiful.  

An important look at bailouts and what they lead to

http://sturdyblog.wordpress.com/2011/06/18/democracy-vs-mythology-the-battle-in-syntagma-square/

This link goes to an awesome article specifically about the proposed bail-out of Greece, and the real reason the people have taken to the streets.  To paraphrase the final quote, why aren't people in the U.S., Ireland, and elsewhere also in the street?

BOB

Friends are always posting songs on Facebook, and we often get into discussions, as well as adding others.  This morning, a friend bewailed the fact that listening to Bob Seger made her too sad about the loss of her step-father.  I sent her this essay which I wrote a while back.  I hope it helps her to learn to enjoy Bob again, and remember the good things.

BOB

          Janis Joplin usually lives in my CD player, but strangely, this morning, she did not suit my mood.  As I looked through my CD collection, Elton John looked back, as did the empty case for the stolen Led Zeppelin.  The classics were vying for attention as well.  Bob Seger.  Of course.  However, which one?  The Distance?  It does contain my favorite Seger song, but still, it was not right for the moment.  Live Bullitt!  Yeah!  While I do not have all of Bob’s albums, I do have all the songs, some on CD’s, others on tapes, the rest downloaded to my computer.  I am on my fifth copy of Against The Wind.  Two copies were stolen, one the tape player ate, and the other just plain wore out.

          Most of my friends know that Bob writes all of his music for me.  He speaks to my heart.  He writes what I would have written, had I not gone down another road.  I have never been able to attend one of Bobs’ concerts.  Life has always gotten in the way – no money, no car, illness, out of town.  Once I just plain did not know he was nearby.  Perhaps it is better this way.  I can see him singing only to me.  Still, I should send him a picture, so he will know that I have blondish, not dark hair.*

          We all have some music that makes us feel.  It is second only to our sense of smell, for evoking memories.  There are songs that have been part of celebrations, break-ups, reunions and every other aspect of life - and death.  They are the witness to the everyday occurrences of our lives.  Every culture has some kind of music and even when we cannot understand the words, we can appreciate the rhythms.

          Bob has gotten me through the worst of times and enhanced the joy in the best times in my life.  The timing of his new albums has coincided with the course of my life.  Even when the lyrics might not quite fit, the sentiment did.  I remember when my grandfather was dying of cancer, the Against The Wind album was my rock.  Songs like ‘Fire Lake’ – a place I wanted to take Grosspapa back to – ‘Shining Brightly’ – what he had always told me life would be – ‘No Man’s Land’ – a symptom of the times, kept me from losing my sanity.  While I was still celebrating my youth, ‘Night Moves was on all the jukeboxes to seduce us out into the woods.  Years later, when “sweet sixteen turned thirty-one”, ‘Rock and Roll Never Forgets’ was there for me to dance to and console me.  When there is no good man in my life, ‘Come to Poppa’ springs to mind, as I get ready to call a faithful friend.  Somehow I don't ever seem to stop running 'Against the Wind'.

          Bob has surprised me too.  When my recently former fiancé, Robert Lee, committed suicide, I turned to the older albums, thinking the new album would not take me out of my grief.  In despair when they didn't, I put  the ‘Mystery’ cd in the player.  There was the solace I was seeking.  I should have trusted you, Bob.  ‘Golden Boy’.  I am positive it was written about a young man with a bright future, but whose life ended too soon.  ‘I Can’t Save You Angelene’.  While about a woman, I could not save Robert either.  ‘Sixteen Shells from 30-06’.  The seeming perplexity of the lyrics could have defined Robert Lees’ life.  I almost understood it through the pain and the music – both his life and the lyrics.  ‘West of the Moon’.  In that place is where I am sure he now resides, at peace.  Other songs on the CD were reminiscent of other people and times, although Robert was still in them too.  For the next few days, I listened and mourned.  Memories flooded me.  Mostly, I healed.

          Tonight as I was preparing to write, I turned the stereo on.  I was surprised it was tuned to radio.  NPR?  Oh, yeah, it’s still Sunday; Prairie Home Companion was on earlier.  Well, perhaps I would leave it, if they were playing some jazz or blues.  Even some rousing classical would do.  Nope, cannot handle that whiney funereal stuff, in any kind of music.  Bob was still in the CD player.  Again?  Why not.  Even his break up songs are upbeat.  I will even get to some of the other albums tonight. 

          You take some time too, tonight.  Listen to your Bob Seger.  Relive the memories.  Then tell them to someone.  Even if you have already done so.  Some of my favorite memories are of my grandmother telling me the same story for the fiftieth or hundredth time.  She is gone and I cannot hear her anymore.  Except in my mind.  Especially in the music.





I am a redhead again, been for several years...

         

           

Errant Words

My word for the day: myriad.  In the pieces i posted yesterday, i used it 3 times, twice in one essay.  There it became a bridge between two ideas.  My writings will be myriad as well as errant.  

With so many things to write about, I become almost frozen in the face of all the choices.  It's similar to the bi-polar/anxietal immobilization, but without the consequences.  If i do not write here, for 10 minutes, there is no window of opportunity that i am missing.  You may say what if that window is longer than 10 minutes?  My experience has been that the window, if i can get out of it will only last that long. And if it is longer, there are past writings - my own and that of others, should i feel the need to post *now*. 
Even now, with all the ideas and words and sentences running amok in my head, I find this blog to be truly exciting.  And i will not bemoan the time where i refused for reasons I can no longer remember.  I am simply going to write.  I can edit it all later.....  I can even delete it all entirely.  But i think i will not. 
Part of my illness has led to me destroy my art - words, art, objects - in the past.  No use crying about it, and perhaps i will one day be able to re-create some of it.  And if not…there will be a limitless supply of words to arrange, colors to apply, and objects to shape into something better.
Writers often wonder will they be published, will they be read.  And while i would never want to see books disappear, here, on the net, there is so much more opportunity to be seen.  If even one person finds me, and reads what I have said, I am a success.

I have also invented a word here today – anxietal.  Perhaps one day it will be in a dictionary.  I think it should be, so feel free to use it, as it describes what it  suggests, and we will be part of the growing of language.  Talk about exciting!

Go! Write!

TO Galway Kinnell - poem

To Galway Kinnell

He said

Language is sexual

Could that be why?

I am so good at writing.

Because I enjoy so much,

And am so good at

Love making.

Or is it perhaps,

The other way around?

He said

Worshipping the life force

And I thought:

Let me worship that

Life Force

And be

Worshipped

Let me write.

And be read.

©2006

Mirror, Mirror - Poem

Mirror, Mirror

Mirror, Mirror on the wall

I am my mother after all.

I don’t know who rewrote those Grimm Brothers’ lines,but

Mom gave me a pillow, with those words in needlepoint,

bought at some store.

I remember a time when she

would have made them herself.

And beautiful cakes for holidays and such,

with a theme – like my princess birthday,

complete with a knight in shining armor and

pointed hat with a veil.

When she married my dad, there was no more time for us

or special cakes.  My sister came after that.

Sis doesn’t have that kind of memory of mom.

Mirror, Mirror on the wall

I am my mother after all.

Not the toxic Queen of Control

she somehow became.

The witch who was jealous of what she saw

as my freedom – from kids and obligation.

Never realizing, that was all that I wanted.

So, she punished me in myriad ways.

I won in the end, I walked away.

But it was a Pyrrhic victory, with costs

not in blood, but regret and resentment,

in tears and anger and pain from wounds

she inflicted, without a care. 

At my sister’s house, I saw another pillow, just the same

She said she leaves it out - as a deterrent.

I had hidden mine away, for fear - they would come true.

Mirror, Mirror on the wall,

I am my mother after all.

So now, I leave my pillow out. 

But it’s not working.

I am, like the good mom I recall.

The one who gave me

a love of language and words;

she made me look them up

when I didn’t know them. 

And she taught me to be me,

even though it pissed her off when I was.

She gave me her face, too; I see it when I look

in a mirror.  I am lucky, I guess.  That’s the only

place I can see her now that she’s gone.

And despite all the conflict, the tears and the pain,

I still find myself saying, I have to tell Mom

This or that.  I miss her,

every day, and wish I could tell her

Mirror, mirror on the wall, I am my mother after all.

©2006

Soul Food - Poem

Soul Food

A flock of freshly sharpened pencils

adorn my writing table.

Points creating thin-lined words

on a clean white page.

Pink eraser on the end of each.

My thoughts flow faster

than my hand can write, leaving out

a letter in one word, adding it to another.

It’s easy to see my favorite pencil,

It has no eraser left.

Add on erasers just don’t work as well and

those large hand-held ones just don’t give

the same satisfaction as flipping gracefully

back and forth, correcting errors and

honing my words. 

Crisp, clean, smooth pages.

Never written upon, nor even next to

a written page, invite me to write.

Pale blue lines separating sentences.

Pink/red margin markers;

I usually escape their confines.

New legal pads, journals, old-fashioned copybooks,

graph paper, even columnar pads for bookkeeping.

Bookkeeping, keeping books, as in a library,

Mayhap, one day, one of mine.

Drawing and watercolor papers of all sorts,

fancy linen rag papers, construction paper – all

colors from grade school, all add their imprint

alongside of mine.

Old fashioned fountain pens, cheap

Bic’s® stolen from doctors offices, ball points

advertising some product or service. 

Newer rolling writers and gel pens that don’t skip.

I like extra fine point.

Keyboards with wondrous fonts, to save it all forever.

The smell of wood burning assaults my nostrils

as my cigarette lays on the shavings;

curled, tiny replicants of pencil points, only slimmer.

I want to write with a point that slender, that

sharp, but my hand would cramp much sooner.

Short stubs of pencils, with no erasers, making

them lie unevenly in the tray,  staring sadly at me.

They wait, to be used again, too short

to fit in my hand.

Throw them out, I think, but wait, no,

they have served me too well, setting my words and

thoughts to paper, in song, poems, and letters.

They deserve better that to be discarded,

unthanked, like trash on the side of the road.

Endless as the words waiting to be

written, the abundance of paraphernalia

designed for putting words into the

world, whisper to me

“Use me! Cover me! With beauty,

laughter, and tears."

And I answer by baring my soul.

 ©2004