Walking with my friend around a shadowed pond, -25 wind chills. We talked and talked and talked, ate tomato soup out of two ceramic cups while the wind floated snow between icy gusts. And then we slowly walked, holding crimson ears with the palms of our hands, ungloved to take a photograph of a tuft of cattail in the late day sun. Blue, windy, clear.
Wind blows thuds out of a spinning mind. The cold wakes me up. It is why I live here. The wind can be relentless. You don’t want to be caught alone, out in the frigid night.
There are stripes across the sky, white streaks of clouds, flurries whip against the naked elm, I sweep the deck with a stiff broom, bristles, John Deere green, rigid, a permanent swoop up, out, over the floor boards. Racing. Everyone is still racing to get somewhere, spinning out at stoplights, sliding on black ice.
I want to reach out a long arm, grab them by the scruff, and ask them to slow down. I want to say, “Go, walk on the pond in -23 wind chills, deer running off the peninsula, cinnamon cattail heads, bobbing, stiff, soldier tight, except for those little cottony streaks reaching up to the sun – go slowly, walk, then tell me again why it is you need to race.”
Winter slows me down. I get home just in time for supper. The cats are resting on the bed, deep warm depressions where their bodies curve back against themselves, paws over the ears, lick to the tongue, back over the ears again. I’m thinking about safety now. At the poetry reading and meditation last night, we were talking about maps, mind maps, the bubbles that extend out from the body, that tell us our place in space and time.
I’m not good at navigating. I can’t find my way without landmarks. I was talking about how strange it is to be in a large city for the first time with no landmarks to guide me. “It’s a matter of safety,” I said. “That’s a certain kind of fear.” And then we were talking about Tom Petty at the Superbowl and how Prince was better last year, sliding on his knees in the rain.
Athletes are good at mapping, at knowing where their bodies are on the field. It’s a skill, the well-developed map. It is not just in the mind. It’s physical, an extension of the body.
This was all after the hour of meditation and listening to the quiet, solid, succinctness of Ted Kooser. He writes about Iowa, sadness, farmlands, family, land, and hands. Lots of hands. I can relate to hands. Every word counts. He is not afraid for every word to count.
Why all the words? We don’t really need them. And if a picture is worth a 1000 of them, why talk? Why not color mandalas or strike a pose for a doodle on a plane to Portland. Or why not a photograph of a cattail burr gleaming in February sun. February is a strange month, that period between winter and the beginning of spring. The bear is having her cubs in a cave in the mountain, the fox and skunk are mating. How can it be this cold?
The three cats are stir crazy. Every morning we get up to shuffled and disheveled rugs, cabinets propped open, water and food bowls empty. “What were you guys doing all night?” I ask while I scoop Colombian into a gray plastic cone. Heat the thermos with scalding water. Careful, don’t burn your hand.
Safety is an illusion. We are never safe. It’s only the perception of safety that we cling to. I trust that if I walk the perimeter of the pond in a setting winter of sun, -25 degree skin, that I’ll make it back to the home to rub the hands together, and thaw the rigid fingers molded to the camera button.
It’s true. I thawed out and drove home. I made it this time. But what about the next? It takes a lot of faith to believe everything will be okay. What about trust. Is that an illusion, too.
I am not sad. No not today. I am thinking, pondering, reflecting. Yet I can’t trust these words in the head. They are only words. I try to move the cold down to the fluttering heart. The heart, it works harder to keep me warm, to keep blood pumping to the extremities. The body says, “Wait, first feed the brain, the heart, the head. If I have to give up a few fingers to do that, I will.”
Strange, this notion of safety.
I used to be drawn to rust. I was anemic and my body was drawn to anything that was iron. I started to love the color orange and dragging rusty objects home to sketch and photograph. A piece of door to a rusty potbelly stove, rusty pulleys and cables, a bike chain, frozen in place – it all got incorporated into my art. I’m no longer anemic. But I still photograph pockets of rust, what is decayed and riddled with wormholes, the leftovers, the forgotten.
I like what is abandoned and left behind. I’ve had that feeling in my heart before. My body relates to rust.
Just now a tattered, hollow leaf turned by the window, floating on the wind, the way the witch pedaled her bike in the Wizard of Oz. Determined, it crackled and looked straight into my eyes. Another haiku.
-related to Topic post, WRITING TOPIC – NO TOPIC and safety hides (blizzard haiku)
This is a magnificent piece of writing.
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You and Ted Kooser and hands. I didn’t think about it until you pointed it out. Of course, you would notice the hands in his poems. The ones that hold out a plate with a roast beef sandwich, the ones that feel the cold, steel handle of a shovel, the ones that fill the blue gloves of the skater.
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QM, I think this is a powerful piece of writing – if 15 minutes is aleady liberating, is it even more so to have no topic? This is almost about nothing and everything, though the cat-tails do get special mention, and the -25 – small wonder!
But for me, what leaves me really gob-smacked is the speed at which you must have written, to put this lot down in 15 minutes. Watch that February finger on the button – I think you (and we) need you to remain ten-fingered!
P.S. I’m trying out for a slightly quieter 2008 – less rushing around, less spouting. So I’ll be here less often, appreciate you guys even more than I do already (if that’s possible), and deliver world-class comments to replace quantity with quality – dream on, 94…!
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The cold woke you up. -25. Hard to fathom, although your writing, and your holding crimson ears with ungloved hands, brought me there.
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You cover a lot of ground in 15 minutes, QM. In a way, this practice was mapping your mind. I visualize your thoughts taking on the biomorphic shape of the lake, with little cups of tomato soup floating around, the shapes of rounded cats, ears, so many curves.
I wish I had a weekly poetry reading and meditation. I need to start one.
Today in Georgia it was a sunny 64! We’ll pay for this day in August.
We’re only safe right now.
Great post!
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The “Non-writer” in the group must say…as long as I can roll my chair up to my Mac…and get to this blog… I never need to buy another book. Every piece I read just gets better and better…
“I like what is abandoned and left behind. I’ve had that feeling in my heart before. My body relates to rust.”
QM…if I may quote you from previous…
YOU ROCK
😉
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You are all so generous with your comments. Thank you. This Writing Practice is 15 minutes of typed practice – not by hand. And I type pretty fast. If my mind is really anchored on something, I can really fit a lot into 15 minutes.
And if I’ve been thinking about a certain theme for a couple of days. Like winter or feeling safe. There are other days when that’s not the case. And then, when I write by hand, it is always slower. And you also have the physical connection of the pen to the page.
I like writing on a computer because my hands can almost keep up with the thoughts in the mind. But writing by hand is so grounding.
I don’t know which ybonesy prefers at this stage. You know when I am in Taos though, I love that I usually don’t check my computer all week, and my cell phone only about once a day. It’s so refreshing to do everything by hand. In my life here, I write mostly on the computer. It’s good to talk about that. Because I think writers all find ways that work best for them.
This morning it’s even colder – I woke up to -14 AIR TEMPERATURE. Where I live, it’s -38 with the wind chill. Yesterday it was warmer when I was walking. But I’ve got to say, my hands were near frostbite from having them out to shoot photographs. I don’t know how they turned out yet. Haven’t even uploaded them.
Taking a walk outside is extremely grounding. I noticed ybonesy’s last Writing Practice had so many wonderful details, too, about the roadrunner. Shifting between details and weird tangents and thoughts is really fun for me.
Just a sip of coffee, back in a second!
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mariacristina, I really know what you’re talking about, being in Georgia in the summers! It’s almost unbearably hot there. But you get spring so much earlier than we do. And all those blooming plants are so lush and rich there in Spring. I loved it last year when I was down there with my Mom. It was June and the tail end of the blooming magnolias. Oh, that smell – it’s mesmerizing!
The poetry and meditation group, a friend of mine started it this year. She is doing one a month for the whole of 2008. Friday night was the first one and I loved it. She played a little music, talked about Ted Kooser, but mostly she read a Kooser poem every 5 minutes and then we sat in silence around the poetry.
Afterwards, we all had refreshments and talked. I loved the people who were there, many I had never met before. And the conversation was so rich coming out of the silence. Really nice. I’m so happy she has started the group. And once a month seems manageable to me. Maybe others will want to use her example and do the same!
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stranger, I can relate to the less rushing around, less spouting in 2008. ybonesy and I are working on lightening our load a little, too, and try to take more time off on the weekends. Less rushing is good. Grounds the writing. Sometimes hard to do in this day and age. Thanks for taking the time to stop by red Ravine.
ybonesy, as we walked, my friend would cover her ears like that and it was such a striking image to me, the simple act of reaching up in bitter cold and protecting her ears (she also had a hat on). That’s how cold it was.
leslie, thank you!
Sinclair, I couldn’t help but notice the hand imagery in Ted Kooser’s poetry. I love that about his work. Very physical and grounded in detail. The poetry reading made me want to go out and buy more of his books. Maybe next week when I’ll be at an independent bookstore again!
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heather, thank you. BTW, you can write. I’ve been to your photo blog and seen some of the things you’ve written to go with your photographs. So don’t go hiding that part of you away! I like the times you write a little history to go along with your photos. You’ve traveled a lot, too. So your photos are diverse. That only adds to the richness.
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Lovely meditation on what winter does to the body mind and spirit… and very true about the reality of safety.
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QM…what a great piece of writing, especially considering it was a practice, meaning it was “off the top of your head,” I presume. Your descriptions of winter – weather- drivers- all of it, were so vivid, I was shivering!! Great photo, as well – I love big, old oak trees – the Grandaddies of trees, gnarled, but majestic.
I’m also a “landmark driver.” Didn’t realize it so much until the time I was approaching Mpls., driving in a downpour of summer rain, and couldn’t see a single landmark. I drove around and around, almost in a panic, trying to find my way!
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QM, I just read the practice again. I love all of it, and I love the final image of the leaf and the Wicked Witch of the West, determined, looking you in the eye. The notion that a leaf has that kind of determination. It does, doesn’t it?
Your relationship to rust. Isn’t that amazing? And yet, it wasn’t rust that you brought into your diet. And yet. I remember when I was in my early 20s, my roommate/best friend and I often ate dinner at Luby’s Cafeteria (like a Furr’s). I was an on-again-off-again vegetarian, and yet when I got in that line and saw liver and onions, I ordered it. I couldn’t understand, myself, how I could something as disgusting as liver and onions, and yet, as if against my will my finger pointed to the dish and the person with the hairnet scooped it into a plate and handed it to me. And I ate it, and it tasted good, and I was happy.
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ybonesy, I believe our bodies tell us what we need. They are just drawn to the vitamins and minerals we are missing.
Another strange thing – I used to chew ice when I was anemic. My mom chewed ice, too, and used to tell me it was because of the iron deficiency. Well, guess what? After I stopped being anemic – I stopped craving ice. It was almost instantaneous. It was so strange. So I guess there was some minerals in the water I needed.
My iron was VERY low, way below normal. And I just could not get it back to where it should be, no matter what I tried. It is a similar feeling to being depressed. Could not get enough oxygen either. Always tired. Really not fun.
Nowadays I try to drink water from the tap sometimes (and not bottled water) so I can get the minerals from the tap or well water. Sometimes my body craves that. Liver is another thing I crave once in a while for all the same reasons as you. I try to listen to those cravings.
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lirone, thank you. Welcome to red Ravine.
oliverowl, yeah, the practice just came out as it came out. Some days are like that. Other days, just crap comes out. A real mixed bag.
That landmark driving thing and trouble with directions, I’ve had it all my life. I’ve learned a lot about it since then. There are tons of people who navigate that way. It’s called Mixed Dominance and is just the way the brain maps, maybe partly chemical, too. I don’t know if they know for sure.
Now, I make sure I tell all my friends and give them the choice of driving if it’s going to drive them nuts for me to drive. Liz has gotten used to it. She’s got a GPS in her head! Now when she gives me directions, she gives landmarks instead of North, South, East, and West!
BTW, we were talking about you last weekend when the subject of Mary Oliver came up. Liz and I went to see her last year and Liz ended up talking to her at the end. So after the meditation last Friday night, we ended up talking about the name Oliver and Mary’s book on Owls with the cool feather photos. 8)
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This was beautifully written, QM. I liked the idea of slowing down, forcing yourself to do so… and then, the contrast between that and your comment about being able to write more, more quickly, when typing instead of writing by hand. I love how inconsistent we are as humans. Anyhow… very, very impressed with the quality of what you can do in 15 minutes.
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pmousse, thanks. Isn’t it the truth about us humans? The only thing that remains constant about us is our inconsistency. 8) That’s a really good catch about my inconsistencies in wanting to slow down but also wanting my fingers to be able to keep up with my mind in my Writing Practices. Sometimes I feel really torn about that. When I write with other people, I write by hand in a notebook. There is something soothing about the feel of the paper under my hand.
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This is like a spider poem, it weaves so many incongruent threads into a delicate net. And in a way it’s like a memory catcher, the final results, because as I read through I thought of this and that to say, but at the end there was too much of relevance here and there, so I think, maybe I’ll leave all those relevancies unsaid and read it again.
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