A Day for Quotes

We are reformers in spring and summer; in autumn and winter we stand by the old - reformers in the morning, conservatives at night. Reform is affirmative, conservatism is negative; conservatism goes for comfort, reform for truth.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

It is good to rub and polish your mind against that of others.
Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592)

Truth shines the brighter clad in verse.
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)

Lake Erie

A last summer day on the shores of Lake Erie. Cleveland always gets a bad rap - but look what we have so close to home.

A Borrowed Poem

Things will be busy the next couple of weeks as school (and work) begins again for me. Please bear with me if posts are elusive for a little while. Meanwhile I am borrowing a poem to share written by my friend and Cleveland Heights poet laureate Gail Ghetia Bellamy. This is one of my favorites:
Tall Kitchens
by Gail Ghetia Bellamy

In my first marriage
we moved a lot
and I struggled
in tall kitchens
where other women
had hung their tea cups
and stored their grandmothers'
turkey platters
I tried to
hit all the hooks
reach all the shelves
and make fresh-baked pies
with good apple smells
that would waft from
windowsills
to backyards
so none of the neighbors
would notice
how short I fell.

Good Books

I'm starting to wonder if some of the stay-up-at-night books I've been looking for have been hiding in the young adults section. Sometimes I think that I've read so many novels that I am just cynical and burned-out from them. I've read so many awful books this year, all the while wondering how the heck they got published in the first place! But finally, I read one that I did indeed want to stay up after bedtime and not put down and it is classified as a young adult book. It is called "The Book Thief" by Markus Zusak. I seem to enjoy good writing more than anything these days and this one was creative, quirky, not sappy, touching and written like one 550 page poem. Loved it! The narrator is Death and it is set in Nazi Germany. Here's a sample of the narrator's poetry:
When their bodies had finished scouring for gaps in the door, their souls rose up. When their fingernails had scratched the wood and in some cases were nailed into it by the sheer force of desperation, their spirits came towards me, into my arms and we climbed out of those shower facilities, onto the roof and up, into eternity's certain breadth.
The book is about a little girl named Liesel (love that name) who wants to learn to read and the priceless gift that books can bring when they are rare and desired. Something we take for granted now.

Another beautifully written book is "Olive Kitteridge" by Elizabeth Strout. It is a collection of linked stories and the writing drew me in and made me want to be a better writer. Novels are often for enjoyment and escape, but they also take hours of our time to read. I like to know that my time is well-spent. These two books were well worth my time. Have you read anything good lately?

A Room Full of Books

I am in the center
of a circumference of books,
and it occurs to me that
in all my living spaces I have
evolved a room such as this.

Like a literary brick layer,
book by book, shelf by shelf,
a small city of manuscripts grows.
They are life-long denizens,
ever-present, standing ingloriously

like straight-stemmed
multicolored Easter lilies
with silent trumpet mouths
waiting to be opened, to teach,
to comfort, to be re-read after

their long involuntary rest.
I dust and lovingly polish their spines.
I rearrange them in my personal hierarchies.
I lionize their centrality in my life
and acknowledge

that nothing electronic
can ever replace
the invitation to come in
when I stand in the doorway
of my room full of books.

Poetry on the Dance Floor

His songs have been on shuffle
in my head since the end of June,
haunting, pulling, I see
visual bodily poetry
images not to be seen again.

Painting by Diane

Cleveland Museum of Art

These are photos from the newly opened wing of the Cleveland Museum of Art - spectacular! This is glass room facing out into an area of University Circle that is full of Rodin's scuptures. In the background of the second photo you can see a little of the Case Weatherhead building which looks like shiny twisted aluminum. This is a world-class museum. The renovations are stunning and will be completed in 2012, but worth seeing now.

A Moveable Feast

I haven't read much Hemingway since high school but I am reading a new edition of "A Moveable Feast". Published posthumously in 1964, the book is a collection of his personal memoirs of writing in Paris in the 1920's. It gives you a clear portrait of Paris at that time and of some notable writers that Hemingway encountered there such as F.Scott Fitzgerald and Gertrude Stein. This edition is supposed to include his complete papers and intentions for the book, not the edited version that his wife Mary published after his death.

Here are some a my favorite sentences from the book. Such pure writing:

Do not worry. you have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence you know.

I had learned already never to empty the well of my writing; but always to stop when there was still something there in the deep part of the well, and let it refill at night from the springs that fed it.

But you knew there would always be spring, as you knew the river would flow again after it was frozen. When the cold rains kept on and killed the spring, it was as though a young person died for no reason.
In those days, though, the spring always came finally; but it was frightening that it had nearly failed.

We ate well and cheaply and drank well and cheaply and slept well and warm together and loved each other.

Food Answers

The first photo is of creamed beet soup with arctic char served with pinot gris. The second photo is indeed strawberry shortcake served with cabernet franc ice wine. Third is beef loin in ice wine in a blue cheese crust served over corn and fingerling potato fricasse served with cabernet sauvignon. The last is a divers scallop wrapped in proscuitto over a bed of spinach served with chardonnay. There were four more courses but I'm not going to keep asking my patient husband to repeat the details again! (I'm not a foodie, but it was all good.)

Take a Guess!

My husband makes wine, so he had a deep yearning to take part in a winery dinner experience. While in Niagra-on-the-Lake we had an 8 course dinner at Peller Winery and they served a different wine to compliment each course (Not a whole glass though!!!) You left your dinner in the hands of the chef so you didn't know what you would be eating. If they hadn't told me I wouldn't have know what I was eating even after I saw it! It was a three hour culinary extravaganza - we enjoyed every minute. Can you guess what these courses are? I'll tell you later.

Quote for a Wednesday

"If you are mesmerized by televised stupidity and don't get to hear or read stories about your world, you can be fooled into thinking that the world isn't a miracle, and it is."
Anne Lamott

Untitled

There is a moment

between waking and sleeping

when I know something unknowable,

when I experience something with no name,

no language to describe it,

an invention not yet invented.

A thought outside my brain

beyond intelligence, beyond human comprehension.

Is it God? Is it the power of the subconscious?

Or is it what I knew before

the waters of the womb spit me out

into the light and chaos of the world?

COEXIST XXV - Sexual Orientation

These are excerpts from the opinion page of today's Cleveland Plain Dealer:

It begins -After a summer of often dysfunctional budgeteering in Ohio, it's welcome news that state legislative leaders are focused on doing something this fall that should engage the best of both sides of the aisle; an overdue law banning discrimination on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation in Ohio.

It goes on - Such discrimination is already illegal in the Ohio Houe and Ohio Senate...both prohibit bias based on sexual orientation. It's time to extend that prohibition throughout the state, as 21 other states have done. Many Ohioans will be shocked to learn it's perfectly legal in most places in Ohio to fire someone based simply on his or her sexual orientation.

It ends - Ohio civil rights statutes make it illegal to discriminate based on race, color, religion, sex, military status, national origin, disability, age or ancestry. It is time to add sexual orientation and gender identity to the list.

AMEN.

Some of Summer 2009

Sunset on Lake Erie

This is glass - at the Corning Museum of Glass

My son got engaged! He did a good job choosing a ring!

Mother-daughter pedicures :)

The Dance

Consciousness expresses itself through creation. This world we live in is the dance of the creator. Dancers come and go in the twinkling of an eye, but the dance lives on. On many an occasion when I am dancing I have felt touched by something sacred. In those moments I felt my spirit soar and become one with everything that exists.

I become the stars and the moon. I become the lover and the beloved. I become the victor and the vanquished. I become the master and the slave. I become the singer and the song. I become the knower and the known. I keep on dancing... Then is is the eternal dance of creation. The creator and creation merge into one wholeness of joy. I keep on dancing... and dancing... and dancing until there is only ...the dance.

By Michael Jackson

The Passage of Time

An unhurried sense of time is in itself a form of wealth. Bonnie Friedman

When I am away from home on a vacation it is remarkably easy for me to have very few thoughts in my head. It's a vacation for my normally over-thinking brain. Last week we went to Niagra Falls to visit the wineries, see a play and relax without much of a schedule. We stayed on the 25th floor of the Sheraton in Canada and this was the view from our room.

I sat by the floor-to-ceiling window trying to read but always distracted by the movement of the water and the spectacular view. There was a moment when I had a bit of an emotional revelation about how many times I had been to the falls. Each time was a different phase of my life.

Besides the proverbial meaning of life, I think the most difficult concept to grasp is the passage of time. There are moments when the brevity of life stuns you, and I had one of those moments as I stared at the beauty.

I stood there, on the American side, my baby sister in a stroller, holding the back of my little brother's shirt, as a worried older sister will do. My parents much younger than I am now. We inhaled the mist, cooled in the shower of droplets.

I stood there as part of a traveling musical as a teenager. The winter falls were partially frozen, the mist a cold cloud as I stood in my plaid hooded maxi-coat, my boyfriend nearby.

I stood there, on the Canadian side, my daughter's little two year-old hand in mine among the roar and vibrations of the falls. My son growing in my womb.

Then they were seven and nine years old, leaning on the railing of a boat taking us to the foot of the falls, smiles under sunglasses, wrapped in blue raincoats.

Then suddenly that phase of my life was over and I stood there with someone new in the exquisite days of new love and the whole world looked new to me. In a photo my wispy hair stood straight up in the damp breeze, his brown curls unmoving.

Last week we stood there once again among the roar and the mist and the power of the water. The rainbow still hanging over the falls, giving me hope, tears in my eyes for the knowledge that I had stood there, by those falls, at different times of my life with all of those I love the most in this world - and with tears for the bittersweet passage of time.

TTFN

I 'm sorry for the sad lack of inspiring posts lately. My heart hasn't been in the writing mode this summer and I'm sorely disappointed in myself for that. I am taking a break for this week and hopefully will return with something worthwhile to say. Enjoy these summer days and say a prayer for me if you would. So, as Tigger would say "TTFN! Ta-ta for now!" stop back and visit me in a week. Love you all.

On the Deck

wallowing in my head

looking for a poem

gives me ADHD.

All I can see is the red bird

making U-turns in mid-air

to avoid me as I sit next

to the birdfeeder.

All I can hear is a distant hammer,

someone is building something

just like I would like to be

building a poem.

I have to watch every time

the dog bolts across the yard

for a black squirrel

even though we both know

she will never catch it.

Then the pink petunias

are nice to look at and so is the

fountain that just turned on next door.

The hammock looks inviting

but it's difficult to write lying down.

I notice the air smells sweet

after the the rain and

OH HELL - forget the poem writing!

Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History

This is taken from "The Writer's Almanac" on July 11, 2009.

It's the birthday of the woman who first said "Well-behaved women seldom make history"; historian and writer Laurel Thatcher Ulrich born in Sugar City Idaho (1938). She wrote several books about the lives of women in colonial New England, including A Midwives Tale (1990), which won the Pulitzer Prize for history. And back when she was a graduate student, she wrote an obscure academic article about Puritan funeral services and she included the quote "well-behaved women seldom make history." She was saying that nobdy paid much attention to the group of ordinary law-abiding Puritan women she was writing about, because everyone was so focused on the women accused of witchcraft in Salem. But her quote got taken out of context and used as a rallying cry for women to break away from their expected roles and misbehave. It got reprinted on T-shirts, bumper stickers, mugs and tote bags. And finally she decided that if she was getting so much press in the mainstream culture, she might as well use it, and she wrote a book with the same title, published in 2007. The cover features a woman wearing a shirt with the authors' own famous quote.

COEXIST - Science versus Beliefs

Today the Cleveland Plain Dealer included an article by Cornelia Dean of the New York Times entitled "On scientific issues, study finds belief gap among Americans." Interesting. The article starts out saying :

When it comes to climate change, the teaching of evolution and the state of the nation's research enterprise, there is a large gap between what scientists think and views of ordinary Americans, a new survey has found.

One of the findings was this:

Almost a third of ordinary Americans say human beings have existed in their current form since the beginning of time, a view held by only 2 percent of the scientists.

I was raised in a Christian church and I believed everything I was taught there. But I also went to public schools and recall believing what I was taught there as well. I might be a shallow thinker, but to me, there was never a big conflict. Science can be proven. Faith is something you believe without proof. I believe in both. I remember sitting in 9th grade biology and learning about evolution. I pondered it for a short time and decided that the notion of Adam and Eve was probably that they represented the first human beings as we know them today. I didn't disbelieve the Bible, but I could see the proof of evolution. Moreover, what's the difference? I trust that God created the world and all that lives in it in His time and within His plan. Learning about evolution did not hurt my faith at all.

I say - Science and Beliefs should COEXIST and we leave the rest up to God, and if you don't believe in God I guess you can prove where the universe came from in the first place, can't you?

To read the article in its entirety click HERE.

Another Good-bye

I had a wonderful childhood full of aunts and uncles and cousins. There were annual picnics and celebrations, game playing, silliness and singing around the piano. My mother's side of the family was in the Pittsburgh area and the trek there was always highly anticpated due to the fun awaiting us. You can read a poem about those experiences HERE. We spent many a New Year's Eve at the home of my Aunt Pat and Uncle Dick and my six cousins. The big highlight of the evening was when Uncle Dick would step out onto the front porch at midnight and play Auld Lang Syne on his trumpet. The neighbors would all come out and clap.

I never saw my uncle in a bad mood. He loved life and loved the Lord. He was a robust man and hugging him was always like hugging a barrel. He was jovial, fun, and found great joy in music. He has been suffering from Alzheimer's for the past few years, but that is the uncle I will always remember. He was the last of my five uncles . He passed away this morning at the age of 91. I know he is up there playing his trumpet for the Lord.

Michael Jackson - Part 2

I wrote the following post a few days ago. Now I have just finished watching the memorial service for Michael Jackson. I cannot describe what a beautiful, respectful, appropriate and spiritually uplifting event it was to watch. It went far beyond the music to his humanitarian efforts and unpublicized encounters that touched people personally. It made me want to be a better person and what better legacy can a person leave than that? At the end, a unscripted and heartbreaking moment occured when his daughter Paris went to the mic,and through her tears said ," I just want to say, ever since I was born, Daddy has been the best father you can imagine. I just wanted to say I love him very much." Some of you reading this may think it's silly to honor an entertainer this way. I've wondered the same thing. I wrote the following in an effort to explain it to myself.

I've spent the past week and a half trying to understand why I am so affected by the death of Michael Jackson. I have never felt so sad at the passing of someone I never met. Clearly, I am not alone, but it has taken me by surprise. Watching old videos, hearing the songs again, being mesmerized by the dancing - I pondered this phenomenon. The top ten selling albums last week were all Michael's. His radio play has been said to have increased 1735% countrywide. There were 2.6 million downloads of his songs in the first three days after his passing. In explaining this, a spokesman from Rolling Stone eloquently said "His music has been liberated from the eccentricities." That's it. We can go back and love the songs and be amazed at the showmanship and innovation knowing that he will no longer do anything curious or weird to distract us from his real talents.

How can one person have such an influence and impact on the world by just being an entertainer? He is, at this point, arguably the most famous celebrity in history - bigger than Elvis or Marilyn, who also both burned out too soon. For me, I realized he has been around most of my life. We are close in age and I was a preteen fan when he was a preteen singing "ABC".

But what does the word influence mean? When you can actually remember the night in 1983 when you saw the moonwalk for the first time (and there is not a lot I can remember from 1983!). When you can picture your little children dancing around the living room to "Beat It" (and they remember it too). When certain songs you hear now bring back memories. When you are still mesmerized by the seemingly un-human dance moves in a video you've seen dozens of times. When you now realize how many musical artists copy his moves from decades ago - I guess that influence. He was, in fact, a part of our lives.

So that's what I have figured out so far. It's a cultural phenomenon that I'm trying to understand. I'd be glad to hear your take on it. Meanwhile, Rest in Peace, Michael Jackson - the peace we can't even come close to here on Earth - you did what you were born to do. You used all the talents God gave you - and that 's the best thing we can do in our short lives.

An Anniversary

We are celebrating our 13th anniversary today. It has been quite an adventure in marital extremes. I am more than grateful that we both chose to stick it out. It's getting better all the time. Happy Anniversary, Babe.

Fourth of July 2009

Take a moment and think back to your fifth grade social studies class and remember how this country came to be. If it weren't for a few good men stepping up, taking leadership roles and fighting for our independence - we wouldn't be out partying today. God bless America.

Random Photos

The heavens are telling. . .

I give up - what is it?

I cleaned out old Christmas boxes - and I do mean old! This box held Christmas trimmings since it held my daughter's bassinett - almost 30 years ago! Talk about time flying! It was kind of sad to see it go although it was a pain to try to find what was in the bottom of it every year.

Our yucca plant in all its glory.

In The Waiting Room

a young couple
re-entered after their visit
with two feet of
black and white shadows
on a strip of paper.
They sat close in chairs,
heads together,
smiling, giggling,
glancing at each other
then back to the
sonogram images,
pointing at their favorites.

Then they sat quietly,
her hand on the
small mound
of her belly,
waiting,
as if they already loved
this baby,
as if they already knew
this child.

Prone to Wander

This morning I sang a solo in church. It was an arrangement of one of my very favorite hymns - "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing". Besides the lovely melody I sing it for these lyrics:

Prone to wander Lord I feel it.
Prone to leave the God I love.
Here's my heart, O take and seal it.
Seal it for Your courts above.

That's the life of faith in a nutshell. We are prone to leaving, prone to messing it up, imperfect and human, but God still loves us and is able to seal our hearts for Him in eternity.

Michael Jackson

Being a blogger, I have to say something about Michael Jackson today. I have always had a soft spot in my heart for him - for the little boy looking for his lost childhood and the man looking for love that wasn't predicated on his bizarre fame and fortune. My own opinion is that his parents did not protect him, but used him as a moneymaker when he was a child. Michael Jackson, in fact, was a child prodigy in his musical talent and style. He was born to perform, but I do not believe that human beings are born to be idolized and worshipped. It is not normal and it is not something that the human spirit knows how to handle. We've seen it time and time again. No human is God - and yet how many child celebrities have gone on to lead weird and dysfunctional lives and early deaths.

Michael Jackson was close to my age and I remember watching the little boy on TV singing his heart out with joy and style. I thought he was adorable. I actually remember the Mowtown 25th anniversary show in the early 80's when he danced the moonwalk and blew the crowd away. I always admire originality. Lots of us thought he was odd, but I don't think you could say he was stupid. He knew exactly how to make himself a star - and he did. But being a star of that magnitude stresses the body and spirit to the breaking point - and that is probably why he is dead at age 50. I think Elvis was 42.

It's a sad story of American pop culture and one full of pathos for me. I pray that he rests in real peace and won't know about all the future sightings and rumors of him not being dead that will surely crop up in the near future.

A (Hopeful) Writer's Life

I don't know why I've written a second novel. I have worked and reworked it for several summers. It's much different than my first one and I truly love the characters that came from some mysterious place in my brain. I remember sitting on my deck one July afternoon and the voice of a young girl started speaking through my pen. Then came her mother's story of having her as a teenager and the voice of the gay man that becomes the third member of their loving little family. But the reality is - is it just another novel. The publishing industry has taken a hit just like all the other institutions in this country. I do not think I'm being pessimistic in saying the chances of someone publishing this novel is miniscule. Even before the recession of the American economy it was next to impossible. A writer will get dozens of rejection letters that state that the publisher or literary agency receives something like 12,000 query letters a year and they publish 10 books in that year. You do the math.

I am not a celebrity that can draw attention to a book cover and I do not know anyone in the publishing industry so I am screwed just like thousands of other sincere and hard-working writers of fiction.

Yet, today I spent another entire day of my life printing out query letters with specifications for each publisher or agent. Each one - if you do your "homework" as you are required to do - is different. One agent wants the first 10 pages, one wants the first 3 chapters, another wants a short synopsis, another wants a long synopsis. You must type the cover letter, or query, directly to a specific person who would be extremely interested in your type of book (again, homework ahead of time is key). I have had three agents express interest this past year. One asked me to send her the entire manuscript. I spent about $20 on copying it and another $5 mailing it. I lovingly sent my precious work off to California - and never heard from her. That was a year ago. Another agent actually called me and spent about 45 minutes discussing my first chapter with me. She liked it but required some rewriting. Of course, I immediately got to work. (Ask my writing group - I HATE rewriting!) I sent it off and - you guessed - never heard from her again. Another agent asked to read more, I sent more, but it was a no-go. (At least she responded.)

What is the point of all this whining? I constantly ponder this desire to write and tell stories. This crazy notion that I have something to say in a unique way. Why? When it will probably never amount to anything, compared to the countless hours of work I have put into it. A writer can spend years writing a book and then more years doing what I did today. Now I've discovered that it takes $30 to copy my complete novel. I spent $30 copying chapters to send out to 11 agents/publishers today and another $20 mailing them.

This is my third round for this novel. I've read time and again that PERSEVERENCE is the key to success - but I've done all this so many times - how long is long enough??? I think that if nothing comes of this day of effort I may just suck it up and self-publish again. Of course then there is the problem of marketing your own work, which I suck at. Maybe I'll just order 10 copies and hand them out to passing strangers on the street.

My daughter read my new book and names it as her favorite book. Maybe that's enough.

Thought for Today

Evil is like a shadow - it has no real substance of its own, it is simply a lack of light. You cannot cause a shadow to disappear by trying to fight it, stamp on it, by railing against it, or any other form of emotional or physical resistance. In order to cause a shadow to disappear, you must shine light on it.

Shakti Gawain

An Oddity of Nature

This morning, while leaving on my 7am walk, I noticed that these little webs were all over my front yard. They were not there yesterday or now. They look like spider webs, but when I searched the Internet for a name I couldn't find anything that looked the same. My hubby said they were tent caterpillars, but (he's almost always right) the description I read did not fit. Can anyone out there solve the mystery?

Daddy's Girl

This poem was published in "The Storyteller" in 2006. Happy Father's Day to my Dad.

You will never again trust
as you did

when Daddy was twice your size
his arms the greatest you knew

they could straighten a baton
or chop down a tree in the front yard

he won every game
and you were his best partner.

Driving home in the Fourth of July storm
your dread of thunder and lightning

abated with Daddy's hands
on the wheel

fearless, you traveled the country
with the deepest knowledge

that Daddy
would bring you safely home.

He never told you he'd give is life
for you, you were born knowing,

you never felt doubt until the day
he held your hands and let them go.

National Flip-Flop Day!

Happy National Flip-Flop Day! Wear them all day. Wear them everywhere! Happy Friday!

Written at Walden Pond

One of my lofty goals this summer is to read some classic books that either I have never read or read many moons ago in high school. I began with "Walden" by Henry David Thoreau. What strikes me the most about Thoreau's observations is that so many of them are completely relevant 150 years later. Get this one on fashion and trends:

The childish and savage taste of men and women for new patterns keeps how many shaking and squinting through kaleidoscopes that they may discover the particular figure which this generation requires day to-day. The manufacturers have learned that this taste is merely whimsical. Of course, two patterns which differ only by a few threads more or less of a particular color, the one will be sold readily;the other lie on the shelf, though it frequently happens that after the lapse of a season the latter becomes the most fashionable. Comparatively, tattooing is not the hideous custom which it is called. It is not barbarous merely because the printing is skin-deep and unalterable.

Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations. Books, the oldest and the best, stand naturally and rightfully on the shelves of every cottage. They have no cause of their own to plead, but while they enlighten and sustain the reader his common sense will not refuse them. (I'm reading something published in 1854, am I not?)

The life which men praise and regard as successful is but one kind. why should we exaggerate any one kind at the expense of the others?

Coexist XXIII - Romans 14

In rereading these familiar passages the other day I found them to be an excellent description of COEXISTING, which to me, includes tolerance and respect for differing viewpoints, lifestyles and beliefs without anger and judgment. The following are excerpts from the 14th chapter of Romans (NIV):

Accept him whose faith is weak without passing judgment on disputable matters. One man's faith allows him to eat everything, but another man, whose faith is weak eats only vegetables. The man who eats everything must not look down on him who does not, and the man who does not eat everything must not condemn the man who does, for God has accepted him.

One man considers one day more sacred than another; another man considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced of his own mind.

Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in your brother's way.... if your brother is distressed because of what you eat, you are no longer acting in love.

For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, (or replace these words with politics, religion, lifestyles etc) but of righteousness, peace and joy ...

Who Says a Rainbow Has To Be Arched?

Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting convenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.

Genesis 9:16

Good Advice

Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Coexist XXII - With Canadian Geese???

Flocked and gaggled
around ponded neighborhoods
squawking at our presence
laughing - haw - haw- haw
at our inability
to frighten them away
leaving soft green cylinders
to decorate our streets
clustered around the brand
new retention basin
and its grassy banks
we all have a way of showing up
for what we need.

My Mother's Art - Harp of Love

Here is my beautiful mother and amazing artist, Martha Vogel with her latest painting entitled "Harp of Love". I am constantly inspired by her originality and awed by her talent. If you want to read a poem about her click HERE.

The Words of Paulo Coelho

I just finished reading The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. It's a philosophical tale about a shepherd boy setting off to find himself and his dreams and all the life lessons he learns along the way. There is a bit of wisdom on just about every page. But I found that I contemplated a piece from the introduction of the book by the author more than the story:

There are four obstacles. First, we are told from childhood onward that everything we want to do is impossible. We grow up with this idea, and as the years accumulate, so too do the layers of prejudice, fear and guilt. There comes a time when our personal calling is so deeply buried in our soul as ti be invisible. But it's still there.

If we have the courage to disinter dream, we are then faced by the second obstacle: love. We know what we want to do, but are afraid of hurting those around us by abandoning everything in order to pursue our dream. We do not realize that love is just a further impetus, not something that will prevent us going forward. We do not realize that those who genuinely wish us well want us to be happy and are prepared to accompany us on that journey.

Once we have accepted that love is a stimulus, we come up against the third obstacle: fear of the defeats we will meet on the path. We who fight for our dream suffer far more when it doesn't work out, because we cannot fall back on the old excuse: "Oh well, I didn't really want it anyway." We do want it and know that we have staked everything on it and that the path of the personal calling is no easier that any other path, except that out whole heart is in this journey. Then, we warriors of light must be prepared to have patience in difficult times and to know that the Universe is conspiring in our favor, even though was may not understand how.

. . . .Then comes the fourth obstacle: the fear of realizing the dream for which we fought all our lives. Oscar Wilde said: "Each man kills the thing he loves." And it's true. The mere possibility of getting what we want fills the soul of the ordinary person with guilt. We look around at all those who have failed to get what they want and feel that we do not deserve to get what we want either. We forget about the obstacles we overcame, all the suffering we endured, all the things we had to give up in order to get this far. I have known a lot of people who, when their personal calling was within their grasp, went on to commit a series of stupid mistakes and never reached their goal - when it was only a step away.

This is the most dangerous of the obstacles because it has a kind of saintly aura about it: renouncing joy and conquest. But if you believe yourself worthy of the thing you fought so hard to get, then you become an instrument of God, you help the Soul of the World, and you understand why you are here.

In a Child's Words

The sixth graders were given bound journals to write in this year. To most of the students I teach (learning disabled or cognitively disabled) writing is something very similar to torture. I would give them the journals and ask them to write something, but most days I heard I don't know what to write or they would just sit there. I explained that journals were personal thoughts and I locked them up every day and promised that no one would read them, and I didn't.

One of my favorite students this year was a boy I had in fifth grade last year. He had a severe reading disability but a lot of leadership potential and he was way ahead of others in terms of maturity. I could glance his way when the others were being obnoxious and he knew how I felt. I knew he did not get much attention at home. He was being raised by a grandmother and no one ever came to school for any reason in the two years I knew him.

Sadly, he left in the spring and moved away without any notice and I did not have a chance to say goodbye.

While cleaning out materials for the end of the year I saw his journal and decided to look at it. I knew there wouldn't be much written and some of it only a teacher of kids with learning disabilities could interpret. This is what he wrote. I've corrected the spelling so it can be understood:

Dear Diary
When I was 4 years old my dad had passed. I was upset. My mom was upset. He was gunned down. The man who killed him was in jail for one day. I'm still not the same from the day it happened to this day.

To be honest, there's not a lot of hope for this kid. From the stories I heard, no one pays any attention to where he is or what he does day or night. He had street-smarts way beyond his twelve years. With a murdered father, an elderly woman for a parent and a severe learning disability - what will happen to him? He is now in his fourth school in four years. He'll be tough because he'll have to survive. Last year I talked to him about using his potential to make good choices and stay out of trouble - but is there anyone else in his life to tell him that?

A Potter's Field

As we were coming home last night from dinner, my husband suddenly pulled into a drive that we'd both been past hundreds of times. We'd heard about it, but never gone in. It is the Potter's Field for the City of Cleveland. The only thing to see is this memorial stone. There were a few plastic flowers and a makeshift wooden cross at its base.

I looked it up and discovered that it was established in 1904 for poor, homeless and unclaimed bodies. Older graves marked by wooden crosses have disappeared over the years, so it is just a lot of grassy area surrounded by trees. A peaceful resting place. It is part of Highland Park Cemetery in Highland Hills, but the records are kept by Cleveland.

It makes you wonder how many people rest there - and why? It makes you think how blessed you are if there are people in your life who love and care about you - who will miss you when you're gone.

Here lies the body of a man who died

Nobody mourned, nobody cried

How he lived, how he fared

Nobody knows, nobody cared.

John Starkwether

Ordinary Genius - A Guide for the Poet Within

Poet Kim Addonizio has a new book out entitled "Ordinary Genius - a Guide for the Poet Within". (She co-authored "The Poet's Companion" with Dorianne Laux in 1997. ) You get your money's worth of lessons in its 300 pages. I was a little disappointed at the beginning, reading ideas like keeping a journal or writing a poem with the first line of someone else's poem, but the book got meatier and more in-depth with every chapter. "Ordinary Genius" is dense with inspiration, poem starters and exercises as well as chapters like "Your Genius, Your Demons" that contain Addonizio's well thought-out philosophies on poets and poetry. She offers adoring insights on everyone from Shakespeare and Whitman to Cleveland's own George Bilgere.

She dares to have a chapter called "Love and Sex Poems" and somehow brings a fresh approach to those time-worn subjects. Addonizio is honest in her assessment of poets when she warns: "When you explore your own life in poetry, it's useful to remember that nobody really cares." And "If you want to be a poet the way some people want to be a rock star without actually learning the guitar, playing scales and practicing - then you are free to fantasize."

Addonizio teaches the sonnet and pantoum in understandable terms. Other chapters include such topics as race, class, addictions and fairy tales. All the regulars are there as well - metaphor, imagery, revising, meter, etc.

It's a comprehensive resource that I would recommend to a beginner or to any seasoned, war-wounded poet who is looking for his/her lost muse.

More Memorial Day Weekend

The beauty a surprise every spring.

My new swan planter.

I painted the bocce court yesterday and my back is remembering today.

Half the pile gone, half to go!

Memorial Day weekend is a time for homeowners to get the mulch down, rake out the leftover leaves of last fall from the gardens, paint decks, drag out hammocks and chairs - but in our hearts we're saying "thank you" to our veterans, old and young, with a prayer that someday there will be no more new veterans to thank.

Memorial Day

This is just a tiny section of the veterans area of Highland Park Cemetery in Cleveland. There is a flag for every veteran's gravemarker every Memorial Day.