WRITING TOPIC — CLOUD

Missing Ely’s Sky – 23/365, Archive 365, Droid Shots, Ely, Minnesota, photo © 2012 by Liz Schultz. All rights reserved.

Taos, New Mexico, photo © 2007-2012 QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

Clouds are connectors. We see cloud formations as recognizable, weather predicting puffs of air. Clouds are classified using a Latin Linnean system based on a book written by a London pharmacist, Quaker, and amateur meteorologist named Luke Howard. In 1803, he wrote The Modifications of Clouds naming the various cloud structures he had studied.

New Hope, Minnesota, photo © 2010-2012 QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

The terms used by Howard were readily accepted by the meteorological community and detailed in The International Cloud Atlas, published by the World Meteorological Organization in 1896. They are still used across the world today.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) extended Luke Howard’s classifications into 10 main groups of clouds, called genera. These are divided into three levels – cloud low (CL), cloud medium (CM) and cloud high (CH) – according to the part of the atmosphere in which they are usually found. Types of clouds can be categorized by height and are divided up by the following names:

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Cloud level (ft)	Cloud type
High clouds – (CH) Base usually 20,000 ft or above	Cirrus Cirrocumulus Cirrostratus
Medium clouds – (CM) Base usually between 6,500 and 20,000 ft	Altocumulus Altostratus Nimbostratus
Low clouds – (CL) Base usually below 6,500 ft	Stratocumulus Stratus Cumulus Cumulonimbus

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The names of clouds are based on their height as well as their appearance. Common cloud names are derived from Latin:

• Stratus— means layer and refers to the group of clouds that form in big sheets covering the entire sky. Stratus clouds are made of liquid water and are called fog or mists when close to the Earth. The blend of altostratus can cause ice build up on the wings of aircraft.
• Cumulus—in Latin cumulus means heap. These are fair-weather clouds that we might say look like cotton candy or castles.
• Alto—means middle and refers to clouds that are in the middle layer of our atmosphere.
• Cirrus—means curl in Latin. These clouds are high up and look like wisps of hair. Cirrus are the highest of all clouds and are made up almost entirely of ice crystals.
• Nimbus—comes from the Latin word for rain. Whenever there is precipitation, there are nimbus clouds.

Shadow Leaves, Dusk On The Mississippi, photos © 2007-
2012 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

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What do you think of when you say the word cloud? Do you see the Universe, fog hanging on the mountains, the sky over the prairie? How many types of clouds can you name. Or maybe cloud to you is not that literal. Is your iced tea cloudy; are there clouds in your coffee? Is there a cloud over your day or your mood? Does your past cloud your vision of the future?

Get out your fast writing pens and write the Topic Cloud at the top of your spiral notebook (or start tapping away on your computer or Smartphone).

You can write a haiku, tanka, or gogyohka practice and post it in the comments.

Or you may be surprised at what you discover when you follow the rules of Writing Practice —- Cloud, 10 minutes, Go!

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Resources:

Cloud Spotting Guide — UK Met Office

Cloud Types for Observers — Reading the Sky — UK Met Office

Cloud Atlas

Common Cloud Names, Shapes, & Altitudes – Georgia Tech

Cotton Cloudiness, Top Of The Cedar Avenue Bridge, photo ©
2008-2012 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

-posted on red Ravine, Tuesday, August 21st, 2012

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WRITING TOPIC — I BELIEVE…

believe

Definition:	accept as true, credit with veracity, follow a credo, judge or regard
Synonyms:	v. 1. maintain, assert, opine, hold, consider, regard, conceive, trust, have faith in, confide in, credit, accept, affirm, swear by, have no doubt
Quotes:	♦ In the sky, there is no distinction of east and west; people create distinctions out of their own minds and then believe them to be true. — Buddha   ♦ I believe that every person is born with talent.  — Maya Angelou   ♦ The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just. — Abraham Lincoln   ♦ 20. Believe in the holy contour of life — Jack Kerouac from BELIEF & TECHNIQUE FOR MODERN PROSE
Antonyms:	disbelieve, distrust

I believe…

Do you believe in the Lock Ness Monster, the Man in the Moon, Santa Claus? Do you believe in finding Big Foot, flying saucers, ghosts in the machine? Do you believe this year will be better than the last? Do you believe in yourself, your visions, your dreams? The things I believe change from year to year, decade to decade. I used to believe in the tooth fairy, the Velvet Underground, peace, love and rock and roll. What do you believe?

In the 1950s, a radio program called This I Believe was hosted by journalist Edward R. Murrow. Each day, Americans gathered by their radios to hear essays from people like Eleanor Roosevelt, Jackie Robinson, Wallace Stegner, Helen Keller, and Harry Truman—anyone able to distill the guiding principles by which they lived into a few minutes. (For inspiration, you can listen to essays on broadcasts from the 1950s at This I Believe.)

What are the principles by which you live? Are they different than they were two, three, or four years ago? Do you hang around friends who share your beliefs? Or push to expose yourself to other ways of thinking. The goal of the contemporary version of This I Believe (revived on NPR in 2004) was not to persuade Americans to agree on the same beliefs, but to encourage people to develop respect for beliefs different from their own.

Get out your fast writing pens and write the Topic I believe… at the top of your spiral notebook (or start tapping away on your computer or Smartphone).

You can write a haiku, tanka, or gogyohka  practice and post it in the comments.

Or you may be surprised at what you discover when you follow the rules of Writing Practice —- I believe…, 10 minutes, Go!

-posted on red Ravine, Monday, January 2nd, 2012

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Alter-Ego Mandala: Dreaming Of The Albatross (For Bukowski)

Alter-Ego Mandala: Dreaming Of The Albatross – 8/52 (Gogyohka), 8/52, BlackBerry 52 – WEEK 8, February 27th 2011, scan © 2011 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

Medium: Drawn by hand with a black Ultra Fine Point Sharpie & Sharpie Peel-Off China Marker on Canson Mix Media XL Series 98lb drawing paper. Colored with Faber Castell 6 PITT Artist Brush Pens, DecoColor Glossy Oil Base Paint Markers, Portfolio Water Soluble Oil Pastels, Caran D’Ache NeoColor II Water Soluble Wax Crayons, Sharpie Medium Point Oil-Based Opaque Paint Markers.

alter-ego

1530s, from Latin phrase (used by Cicero), “a second self, a trusted friend” (cf. Gk. allos ego); see alter and ego.

A second self, a trusted friend. Or a dark half that emerges when we least expect it — in art, writing, and poetry. When I viewed Never (Found Poem) from Lotus, inspired by Charles Bukowski’s work The Continual Condition, these were the lines that resonated for me:

Our problem is
that we divorce ourselves
from ourselves

howling
and scratching their bellies,
and dreaming of the albatross.

I looked in the mirror. I started drawing. An outline emerged, a person I vaguely recognized. The longer I drew, the more familiar the image, the less it looked like me. An alter-ego. I went to the studio, pulled out the Royal typewriter Liz bought for me at a garage sale (turns out, it’s French), and while Jimi Hendrix’s Rainbow Bridge played on the stereo turntable, wrote a gogyohka:

Rock, Paper, Scissors – 8/52 (Gogyohka), 8/52, BlackBerry 52 – WEEK 8, February 27th 2011, scan © 2011 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

Medium: typed on Crane paper stock with vintage Royal typewriter. Scanned as TIF, saved as JPEG.

I’ve long been a fan of Charles Bukowski’s work. He was the kind of poet that didn’t pull any punches. He was born in 1920 in Andernach, Germany, lived hard, knew how he would die, wrote about the veneer that crumbles over the steely hardness. He wrote to the end, died of leukemia on March 9th, 1994 and is buried at Green Hills Memorial Park in Rancho Palos Verdes, near his home in San Pedro, California.

It is the honesty in his work I am drawn to. After I read Never (Found Poem), I saw that a reader had left a link to all things Bukowski. I was surprised to find a whole page of his artwork, dotted with self-portraits. Bukowski’s portrait paintings and Never (Found Poem) from Lotus sparked the mandala. The quote stoked the fire:

The difference between life and art is art is more bearable.
— Charles Bukowski

-posted on red Ravine, Saturday, March 5th, 2011

-related to posts: Best Of BlackBerry 365 — First Quarter SlideShow, BlackBerry 365 Project — White Winter Squirrel, Flying Solo — Dragonfly In Yellow Rain, Searching For Stillness, icicle tumbleweed (haiga) — 2/52, The Mirado Black Warrior, Waning Moon (Haiga), The Void — January Mandalas, ybonesy’s self portrait (part of her Farewell To red Ravine)

Lotus and I will continue our call and response by posting a BlackBerry photo for the 52 weeks of 2011. Feel free to join us if you wish (learn about the project’s beginnings at BlackBerry 52 Collaboration).

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haiku 4 (one-a-day) Meets renga 52

Forgotten Winter Snows, BlackBerry Shots, Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, April 2010, photo © 2010-2011 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

New Beginnings, New Moon. It’s a good time to start projects and yearly practices. The tradition of haiku on red Ravine began in January 2008 with the piece haiku (one-a-day). It is a practice born from reading Clark Strand’s Seeds from a Birch Tree: Writing Haiku and the Spiritual Journey during a year-long Writing Intensive with Natalie Goldberg in Taos, New Mexico. The response from our readers was so great, that we continued the practice with haiku 2 (one-a-day), adding the poetic forms of tanka and renga, and creating a community haiku practice that would span two years.

Thanks to our faithful readers and haiku poets, January 2011 will jump-start our 4th year of haiku practice on red Ravine. haiku 4 (one-a-day) granted me the opportunity to do further research on the history of Japanese poetry and led me to the forms of gogyohko, haibun, and haiga. This year’s challenge is to continue to co-create and build on the poems of other haiku writers with tanka and renga, while exploring the additional forms of gogyohko, haibun, and haiga. [Note: For our new readers, I am reposting information on haiku, senryu, tanka, and renga. For the three new forms, scroll down to gogyohko. Makes the post lengthy, but worthy of a whole year of poetry!]

Along with haiku practice in 2011, I’m doing two collaborations with A~Lotus, one which we call Renga 52. (The other is a BlackBerry 52 practice which I will write about later.) In Renga 52, we are going to keep one renga going in the comments on this post for the entire 52 weeks of 2011. We will each add to Renga 52 at least once a week. You are welcome to participate. Simply jump into Renga 52 in the comment section anytime you wish. Here’s to health and prosperity in the coming year!

haiku & senryu (part one)

Haiku uses simple, direct language, words that evoke a season, and usually incorporates a cutting or pivot word, so that one half of a haiku seems to speak to the other. According to Patterns In Poetry, haiku is closely tied to the Japanese aesthetic of Yugen and the spirituality of Buddhism. It is written in a 17-syllable form (usually three lines of 5-7-5) that looks deceptively simple. Yet if you read the work of the masters like Basho, Buson, and Issa, wandering poets who lived during Japan’s Edo-period (1600-1868), it becomes clear that the practice of haiku can take years to master.

Senryu is similar to haiku but strays from seasonal or nature themes. According to Simply Haiku, senryu focuses on people and portrays characteristics of human beings and foibles, and the psychology of the human mind. Senryu can express human misfortunes or the hardships of humanity, and even when they depict living things or inanimate objects, human attributes are emphasized.

What both haiku and senryu have in common is that they derive from a form of Japanese court poetry called tanka.

Characteristics of haiku:

• 17 syllables, 3 lines (with variations for language differences)
• Simple, direct, non-metaphorical language
• Captures a transitory insight or moment in time called satori or the aha moment
• Contains a kigo, an image of nature that evokes a particular season
• Contains a cutting or pivot word that turns the movement of the poem
• Based on experience, speaks of the common, in the moment, just as it is

tanka (part two)

Tanka, the oldest Japanese poetry form, was often written to explore religious or courtly themes and had a structure of five lines with a 5-7-5-7-7 syllable structure. One person would contribute the first three lines (5-7-5) of the tanka, and a different author would complete the poem by composing a 7-7 section and adding a pivot point such as in this tanka from George Knox at Aha! Poetry:

in the check-out line
a worn face ahead of me
turns tentatively. . .
realities of desire
fade in final reckoning

-tanka by George Knox

Characteristics of tanka:

• 31 syllables, 5 lines
• Write the first section of a tanka (5-7-5), similar to a haiku.
• Another person picks up the first 3 lines and writes a response (or continuation) by composing two lines of 7-7 syllables.
• Can reflect nature or lean toward senryu
• Emotional, contemplative, imaginative, reflective, written to be chanted

renga (part three)

Renga (linked elegance) is a form of linked poetry which evolved from tanka, the oldest Japanese poetry form. In renga’s 800 year history it has gone through many ideological changes. (And it was Basho who, after 500 years, snipped off the first three lines of renga to form haiku.)

In renga, one person would often contribute the first three lines (5-7-5) of the poetic chain and a different author would complete the chain by composing a 7-7 section. Then another author would build on the previous 7-7, with another 5-7-5 passage. This chaining of verses or renga, could sometimes add up to hundreds of linked tanka.

The first part of the poem, called hokku or “starting verse,” frequently sets the tone for the rest of the poem, and the authors of hokku often earned the respect and admiration of their fellow poets. By the 19th century, largely through the work of Masaoka Shiki, hokku began to be written and read as individual poems. From the word hokku derives our word haiku.

Characteristics of renga:

• Write the first section of a tanka (5-7-5), similar to a haiku. Hand this poem to another person.
• Second person writes a response (or continuation) by composing two lines of 7-7 syllables. Then the second person hands off the completed tanka to a third person.
• Third person writes another 3 lines of (5-7-5), beginning a new tanka
• Continue in this way until you run out of time or feel that the poem is complete.
• Contains a bridge or pivot point that links to the emotional element
• Don’t try to force the storyline. When writing a response to the previous poem, focus only on the last section of the tanka, not the whole poem.
• Think of each stanza as a springboard from which you are going to jump. The important thing to watch is what happens between the links.

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gogyohka (part four)

Gogyohka is a relatively new form of Japanese short poetry founded and pioneered by Japanese poet Enta Kusakabe. In 1957, at the age of 19, Kusakabe developed the concept of Gogyohka in order to create a freer form of verse. According to his website, The Gogyohka Society, gogyohka is pronounced go-gee-yoh-kuh (the “g”s are hard as in “good”), and literally translated means “five line poem.”

Gogyohka is five lines of free verse on any subject matter. There is no set syllable pattern or requirement for the length of its lines, but they should be short and succinct  — governed by the duration of a single breath. The goal is to practice self-reflection and contemplation by distilling an idea, observation, feeling, memory, or experience into just a few words. I am new to the form, but here is an example by Rodlyn Douglas at The Gogyohka Society:

Have you loved enough
to know the taste
of blood on the tongue
of one who has been bitten
by betrayal?

-gogyohka by Rodlyn Douglas

Characteristics of gogyohka:

• 5 lines of free verse
• No set syllable pattern
• Short & succinct lines, governed by the duration of a single breath
• Captures an idea, memory, observation or feeling in a few compelling words

haibun (part five)

Contemporary haibun is a combination of prose and haiku poetry sometimes described as a narrative of epiphany. What makes the haibun electric is the contrast between the prose and the haiku. According to The Haiku Society of America, haibun is a terse, short prose poem in the haikai style, which may include light humor as well as more serious elements. A haibun usually ends with a haiku. Most haibun range from well under 100 words to 200 or 300. Longer haibun may contain haiku interspersed between sections of prose, but the connections may not be immediately obvious. The haiku may serve to deepen the tone, or take the work in a new direction.

Japanese haibun is thought to have developed from brief notes written to introduce individual haiku, but soon grew into a distinct genre. The word haibun can be applied to longer works, such as the memoirs, diaries, or travel writings of haiku poets. According to Contemporary Haibun Online, haibun is the Japanese name for 17th Century monk Basho Matsuo’s travel journals. Basho’s view of haibun was haikai no bunsho – “writing in the style of haiku.” His best-known works, The Narrow Road to the Deep North and The Hut of the Phantom Dwelling, were poetic prose, studded with haiku. Saga Nikki (Saga Diary) documents the day-to-day activities on a summer retreat with his disciples. Here is a contemporary example of a beautiful haibun from Contemporary Haibun:

By The Bay

Dusk turns the water into a fire opal.
The fragrance of fresh earth merges
in the air with white flowers.

Waves seem to whisper through the
western windows of the cabin my grand-
father built for my grandmother.

“Love poems” she once told me.

As I hold you in the dark, I recall her
wistful sighs on the porch, rocking to
the rhythm of the sea.

summer dawn –
I rinse the sand
from the sheets

-haibun by Hortensia Anderson

Characteristics of haibun:

• Combines prose & haiku
• Written with the brevity & conciseness of haiku
• Dependent on images, syntax dominated by imagery
• Combines light humor & serious elements
• Ranges from less than 100, up to 300 words
• Usually ends in a haiku

haiga (part six)

Haiga (Hai means comic and Ga means painting) is a style of Japanese painting based on the aesthetics of haikai, from which haiku poetry derives. Traditionally, haiga combined a haiku poem (written in calligraphy) with a simple painting and was based on simple, but profound, observations of the everyday world. In Haiga: Haiku, Calligraphy, & Painting, Poets.org describes traditional haiga as haiku’s more visual cousin. Some of the early masters were Morikawa Kyoroku, Sakaki Hyakusen, Takebe Socho, and Yosa Buson. Contemporary haiga often adds digital imagery to haiku poetry by the juxtaposition of a photograph to a poem. Or by overlaying the poem on to the image. As we have found on red Ravine, there is a natural inclination to combine haiku poetry forms and digital photography. At Daily Haiga, you can see examples of blended poetry and photography.

Characteristics of haiga:

• Combines haiku & a simple painting, photograph, piece of art
• Images restrained, minimal ink strokes, light colors
• Free flowing with no unnecessary detail
• Light, ironic, amusing, even when subject is serious
• Unromantic, down to earth, humorous
• Ordinary, day-to-day subjects and objects

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haiku practice

Feel free to drop a haiku into this space anytime, day or night. Or join the word play and collaborative effort of tanka and renga. I’m excited to explore the 5-line form of gogyohka, and have already started writing haibun in my Journal 365 practice this year. I thought it would be fun to continue to explore these ancient forms of Japanese poetry, and see where the journey takes us.

Also, it’s okay to experiment, break form, and move out of the traditional structures. English syllables translate differently than onji. And according to Richard MacDonald (from his essay What is Tanka?), Japanese poetry is syllabic by nature and not metrical or rhymed, because like the French language, the Japanese language lacks stress accents.

There are different schools of thought about how rigid one should be in counting syllables. From what I have read, it is a matter of personal taste whether to stay close to the Japanese model, or stray from it for personal reasons or aesthetics in order to incorporate Western heritage into poetic work. The most important thing is to relax and have fun with it!

Option 1 – haiku

• Drop in a haiku or senryu, 17 syllables, 3 lines (with variations for language differences)

Option 2 – tanka

• Grab another poet’s haiku, and write the 2 additional 7 syllable lines to create a tanka

Option 3 – renga

• Grab a tanka created by 2 other poets, and, focusing on the last 2 lines, start the beginning of a new tanka (5-7-5) to be completed by the next poet

Option 4 – gogyohka

• Write a gogyohka, 5 lines of free verse, governed by the length of a single breath, no set syllable patterns

Option 5 – haibun

• Write a haibun, combining prose & haiku, less than 100 – 300 words, ends in haiku

Option 6 – haiga

• Drop in a link to a haiga you created, blending or juxtaposing a haiku with painting, photo, or any form of visual art

DEFINITIONS:

bridge — word, or words leading the reader from the nature image to the statement of emotion

cutting (kireji) — Punctuation mark or word that divides a haiku into two parts. A cutting can be a hyphen, ellipses, colon or a word.

gogyohka — 5 lines of free verse on any subject matter, each line the length of one breath, no set syllable pattern

haibun — terse, relatively short prose poem (100-300 words) in the haikai style, usually including both lightly humorous and more serious elements, ending with a haiku.

haiga — combining a haiku poem (written in calligraphy) with a simple painting. Contemporary haiga combines digital imagery, photographs, other art forms with haiku.

haikai — short for haikai no renga, the popular style of Japanese linked verse originating in the 16 Century, as opposed to the earlier aristocratic renga. In both Japanese and English, the word haikai can also refer to all haiku-related literature.

hokku — first part of a renga, hokku is a “starting verse” that frequently sets the tone for the rest of the poem. Authors of hokku earned the respect and admiration of their fellow poets. By the 19th century, largely through the work of Masaoka Shiki, hokku began to be written and read as individual poems. From the word hokku derives our word haiku.

kigo — A seasonal reference in haiku. Usually a kigo has accumulated resonances and associations with earlier haiku and Japanese aesthetics about time.

onji — Japanese syllables. The language differences between Japanese and English are vast and complex. Converting onji to syllables may not always be a one for one process.

pivot word — A word in a haiku poem that changes, or turns the direction of the poem

renga — Japanese poetic form made up of linked tanka verse; the word renga means “linked elegance”

satori — A moment of insight or reflection that emerges in a Haiku poem (usually around the cutting or pivot word)

tanka — Japanese poetic form that is made up of 5 lines with a 5-7-5-7-7 syllable count. Haiku derives from tanka.

yugen — Japanese term for beauty that suggests mystery, depth and a tinge of sadness

RESOURCES USED IN WRITING THIS PIECE:

• The Gogyohka Poetry Society – fantastic resource on Gogyohka, founded by Enta Kusakabe, the creator of Gogyohka.
• contemporary haibun online – definitions, essays, examples of haibun
• Haiga: Haiku, Calligraphy, & Painting – article on origins of haiga at Poets.org
• Patterns In Poetry – great basic site for haiku, tanka, renga. Distills everything down to the simplest terms. Very helpful when first learning about the concepts.
• Aha! Poetry – In depth reviews and one of the best Internet resources for haiku. Edited by Jane Reichhold; features articles, advice, critiques, contests.
• What Is Tanka? — an essay by Richard MacDonald at Aha! Poetry
• Tanka vs Haiku — by Jane Reichhold at Aha! Poetry
• Seeds from a Birch Tree: Writing Haiku and the Spiritual Journey by Clark Strand — wonderful book for learning about the spiritual practice of haiku and the inspiration for red Ravine’s first haiku (one-a-day) post
• Simply Haiku: A Quarterly Journal of Japanese Short Form Poetry – original contributions from new poets
• The Haiku Society of America – educational resources, contests, and magazine. Founded in 1968 to promote the writing and appreciation of haiku in English.

-posted on red Ravine at the first New Moon, Wednesday, January 5th, 2011

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Balloons

Balloons, paint, pen & ink on vellum, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, December 2010, photo © 2010 by Louis Robertson. All rights reserved.

While we were digging out from a December blizzard in Minnesota, my brother was painting in Pennsylvania. His transplant recovery is going well. He’s driving again, working full-time, and almost able to lift as much as he could before the surgery. We chatted a little about his painting when we talked on the phone this morning. I asked what it meant. He said, “What does it mean to you?”

I see layers. Color. Community and separation. Vellum, which resembles parchment paper, is an unusual medium which was once prepared from the skin of a young animal, like calf or lamb. The word is derived from the Old French Vélin, for “calfskin.” These days paper or vegetable vellum is commonly used for technical drawings and blueprints. I always look at paper and media choices when I look at art. Process is important to me.

Maybe it’s a piece about process. On the other hand, the painting could simply be a bundle of balloons. What do you see in his painting? What does it mean to you?

-posted on red Ravine, Sunday, December 12th, 2010

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That’s One Way To Lose Weight

Me: I love my new Spin class.

Mom: Ew, I don’t think I could do that one; I’d throw up.

Me: Yeah, I feel pretty bad for the first 15 minutes, but more my breathing than my stomach.

Mom: But aren’t you really dizzy after all that spinning??

Me: What do you mean? Just your legs are spinning.

Mom: Just your legs??? I thought…don’t you…well, what is Spin class anyway?

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Walking With Centipedes

centipede.
distant relative (third cousin twice removed) of the lobster, crayfish, and shrimp—which is why the centipede likes to live under rocks









legs.
anywhere from 20 to 300 pairs, depending on the type (this one being Scolopendra polymorpha, or Desert Tiger centipede)















bites.
yes, indeed, inflicted by the poison claw that exists  just under the head (and some centipedes have stingers in their many legs, so best rule of thumb: Don’t handle centipedes!)









dinner.
centipedes are meat-eaters (munching on lizards, insects, toads, rodents) and they get eaten by fellow carnivores (owls, coyotes, roadrunners)










size.
up to 6-8 inches, average 4-5 (either range spells “t-o-o  b-i-g”)







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This centipede showed up on a walk on the ditch that my daughter and I took shortly after I wrote the piece Centipede Dreams. My daughter was in no mood to hang out with me while I picked up a small stick and caused the centipede to walk in circles as I tried photographing it with my iPhone. I don’t think the centipede thought much of me either, but I had fun.


-Related to post WRITING TOPIC — INSECTS & SPIDERS & BUGS, OH MY!

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Centipede Dreams

Centipede Dreams, scar from a benign tumor taken out when I was 12 (37 years ago), September 2010, photo © 2010 by ybonesy. All rights reserved.

Most people no longer ask about the large blemish I have in the center of my throat, down where my larynx meets my chest. It’s a tracheotomy scar that must be getting lighter the longer I have it. When I was a kid, it wasn’t uncommon for perfect strangers to approach me in public places and ask, “What happened there?”

I had the tracheotomy at age 18 months after a croup turned to pneumonia. It was an emergency operation, part of my childhood mythology, the small Mexican doctor with wild hair who stabbed open a hole in my trachea so I could breathe. She had a frantic look in her eye, her hair loose and Bride-of-Frankenstein-like, and she held the sharp instrument up in the air before bringing it down to pierce my throat.

That’s the image I hold of her anyway, an image formed out of the seemingly hundreds of times I heard my parents tell the story. It was the kind of improbable drama — the dying child whose life is saved by a small doctor who is both Mexican and a woman — with a happy ending that held friends and relatives rapt year after year. I loved the attention, standing near my parents, Mom nudging me to lift my chin so everyone could see the scar. A few gentle strokes of her fingers on the chamois-soft skin, rubbing as if to say, “See, it’s permanent.”

In each telling I embellished the imagery. When my parents described the moment they decided to rush me to the hospital, how my lips had turned blue and I’d stopped breathing, my mind’s eye pictured the veins and blood from my body shimmering purple through translucent skin. Or when Mom and Dad said that my hair went from straight to curly “just like that” as I lay in the oxygen tent in ICU, I saw it happening as if in time lapse photography. Like the stockinged feet of the Wicked Witch of the West curling after Dorothy removes the ruby slippers, so went my hair, forming into tiny ringlets all over my head.

It must be natural, I think, for a young kid to turn her childhood stories into morbid scenes, but what strikes me is how much staying power those scenes have. I don’t replace them with more reasonable pictures — a modest Mexican woman with hair pulled back in a bun, a ride on the gurney into a stark emergency room at the hospital. No, my scenes involve my parents bursting through a set of double doors, my limp blue body draped across Dad’s arms, them watching in horror as the doctor plunges a knife — or better, a pair of sharp scissors — into my throat. Or my parents watching in awe as my hair springs up in a bouquet of curl all around my head, like an angel’s.

I don’t have such vivid imagery when it comes to the scar on my knee, although being that I got it at the impressionable age of 12, I did manage to fabricate a mythology around that one, too. I developed a crush on the orthopedic surgeon who did the procedure — my parents said he looked like a hippie, which made him all the more intriguing. In my mind, his golden hair flows out from under a light blue surgeon’s cap and he dons a small silver hoop in his ear. I clearly recall him coming to visit me after the operation, carrying the kind of Bell jar used for canning fruit. Inside is my white globular tumor floating in a yellowish brine. I’m surprised it isn’t perfectly round, like a golf ball.

The scar from that procedure resembles a centipede on the inside of my right knee, and once after a real centipede crawled across my leg while I played hide-and-seek in the coat closet, I decided to tell any kid who asked me how I got the scar that it was left there by a centipede that seared itself into my skin. “That’s how centipedes bite,” I told them, “they burn themselves right into you.”

Kids looked at me with respect after that, but my story fell apart once they began asking all the questions that come with the idea of centipede-as-branding-iron. “What happened to the centipede?” “Well, it dried up and fell off,” I said one time, and then another time, “It dissolved right into the skin, see?, you can still see parts of it here.” Soon I became tired of the technicality of it all, I couldn’t keep the story straight and over time I left behind the centipede saga and kept only the image of my long-haired doctor.

My latest epic scar involves two puncture wounds on the outer bridge of my nose, close to my eyes, that our rooster Lindo gave me when he tried blinding me with his spurs. Lindo and I shared a mutual animosity, he was a beautiful cocky bird who had such an intense hatred that the moment he spied me coming out the door he would strut my way with the intent to fight. I took to carrying a bundle of dried bamboo stalks, which I used to whack him as I made my way to whatever part of the yard I needed to go. He’d come after me again and again until my stalks splintered into pieces, at which point I took off at a full out run.

Ultimately he got the better of me, one evening when I let down my guard. I had gone armed only with a bowl of compost into the bird pen. I bent down to throw a piece of lettuce to the bunny who lived there with the roosters, turkeys, and ducks, and Lindo saw his opening. He flew up at my face, spurs aimed at my eyes. He almost got them, too, and I’m not embellishing when I say that I traumatized my youngest daughter when I stood up screaming, blood streaming like tears down my cheeks.

The strange thing is that no one notices the scars unless I point them out. One time, at a luncheon in China, I sat next to a German man who had the exact same two puncture wound scars near his eyes. All through lunch, I wanted to ask if he, too, had been attacked by a rooster. But I barely knew the man. I tried to imagine every other possible reason he might have carried scars identical to mine. Maybe he’d suffered terrible acne that resulted in two pimples near his eyes. Or perhaps as a teen he wore black leather and sported a purple Mohawk and a piece of bone pierced through the bridge of his nose.

In the end, I couldn’t think of a way to broach the subject without embarrassing us both or drawing attention from the six other European men at the table. However, in my mind, I am certain that the very thing that happened to me also happened to him. Anything is possible.


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Postscript: This essay is based on a 15-minute Writing Practice in response to WRITING TOPIC – SCARS. The details that emerged from my Writing Practice were similar to other times when I’ve done timed writing that led to stories about my tracheotomy (specifically here and here) so I figured it was time to polish the narrative. Plus, since it contains important elements of my life story, especially my earliest years, I wanted to go with the energy, hoping it might turn into something I can weave later into memoir.

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PRACTICE: Scars – 15min

Most people no longer recognize the patch I have in the center of my throat, down where my larynx meets my chest. It is a tracheotomy scar that must be getting lighter the longer I have it. When I was a kid, it was not uncommon for a perfect stranger would approach me in some store where I was buying sunflower seeds or Jolly Rancher apple sticks and ask, What happened there?

I had the tracheotomy at age 18 months after a respiratory virus turned to pneumonia. It was an emergency operation, part of my childhood mythology, the small Mexican doctor with wild hair who stabbed open the hole in my trachea so I wouldn’t die. She had a frantic look in her eye, her hair loose and Bride-of-Frankenstein-like, and she held the sharp instrument up in the air before bringing it down to pierce my throat.

That is the image that came out of those many times I heard my parents tell the story, it was the kind of story they would repeat to relatives and friends, even after we’d heard it for years, and in each telling I would embellish the imagery. Just like when they said that in the oxygen tent in the ICU, where I stayed for days afterward, my hair went from straight to curly, just like that and I can see it happening, in time lapse photography. Like the stocking feet of the Wicked Witch of the West curling and shrinking away under the house after Dorothy removes the ruby slippers, so goes my hair, forming into tiny ringlets all over my head.

It must be natural, I think, for a young kid to turn their childhood stories into morbid scenes, but what strikes me is how much those scenes have stuck with me through the years. I don’t replace them with more reasonable pictures, a modest Mexican woman with hair pulled back in a bun, a ride on the gurney into a stark but clean emergency room at the hospital. No, my scenes involve my parents watching on in horror as they see the doctor plunge the knife into my throat, or watching in awe as my hair springs up in a bouquet of curl all around my head, like an angel’s.

The scar on my knee came at an impressionable age, around 12 years old, and I fabricated a mythology around that one, too. I developed a huge crush on the orthopedic surgeon who did the procedure, my folks said he looked like a hippie, which made him all the more intriguing. Even though this seems unlikely, I clearly recall him coming to visit me after the operation, carrying the kind of Bell jar used for canning fruit, and inside was my white globular tumor floating in a yellowish liquid.

The scar from that procedure resembles a centipede crawling on the inside of my right knee, and once after a real centipede zipped across my leg while I was playing hide-and-seek in the coat closet, I decided to tell any kid who asked me how I got the scar on my knee that it was left there by a centipede that burned itself into my skin. That’s how centipedes bite, I told them, they sear themselves right into you.

Kids looked at me with respect after that, but my story fell apart once they began to ask all the questions that came with the idea of centipede-as-branding-iron. What happened to the centipede itself? It dried up and fell off, I said one time, and then another time, It dissolved right into the skin, see, you can still see parts of it here. Soon I became tired of the technicality of it all, I couldn’t keep the story going and over time I left behind the centipede and kept only the image of my long-haired doctor.

I have two puncture wounds on the outer bridge of my nose, close to my eyes, that our rooster Lindo gave me when he tried blinding me with his spurs. One time, at a luncheon in China, I sat next to a German man who had the exact same two puncture wounds near his eyes. All through lunch, I kept wanting to ask him if he, too, had been attacked by a rooster, but I couldn’t think of a way to broach the subject without coming off sounding like a whacked out American.

Now, in my mind, I am certain that the same thing that happened to me happened to him. Anything is possible.




-Related to Topic post WRITING TOPIC – SCARS and Guest practice, PRACTICE – SCARS – 15min by Louis Robertson

NOTE: Scars is a Writing Topic on red Ravine. Guest writer Louis Robertson was inspired to join QuoinMonkey and ybonesy in doing a Writing Practice on the topic.

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PRACTICE: Be Impeccable With Your Word – 15min

You know what I think of when I think of the word “impeccable”? I see Felix Unger from The Odd Couple. Remember Felix? He was impeccable in his behavior. Tidy and organized, precise. Precision, yes, that’s what I think of.

But the way this first agreement flows, Be impeccable with your word, well, the word “word” modifies the word “impeccable.” Impeccable is the adjective, and yet the object is what seems to modify in this case. We’re not talking about washing a dirty dish the moment Oscar lays it on the table after eating a hot dog. We’re talking words, powerful, meaningful words. Words that we yield.

They can be swords, daggers, a pat on the back. I remember a note from a colleague, not too long ago, that made me cry, a note she sent me by email in response to a note I had sent to someone else. My note was just a short thing, three or four lines giving praise to a new person we’d hired. I wanted the manager of that person to know how impressed I was with the new person’s attitude and performance. The colleague whose note made me cry had seen my feedback and said something like, “Roma, in case no one has told you today, thank you for caring so deeply about the people you work with.”

Just that one line. She was impeccable with her word. It was a reverberation, me being impeccable with mine, then me getting it back from someone else.

Don Miguel Ruiz says that with this first agreement alone, we can transform our lives. It’s that powerful. Don’t criticize unduly. Don’t abuse others with your words. Importantly, say what you mean and mean what you say. Live up to your verbal commitments. Be impeccable with your word even as you use it on yourself. Don’t let your inner critic bring you down. Those are words, too, the ones inside your head.

Dad was impeccable with his word. Words were important to him. They still are. He still wants to be heard. When I was a teenager and unwilling to listen, he wrote his words down in two or three letters he then slipped under the closed door of my bedroom or left on the kitchen table for me to open after he left for work. He was like Felix Unger in some ways, a tidy man with small and precise handwriting. His handwriting is shaky now, but then his writing looked like a professional cursive font.

The letters he wrote on yellow legal pads, and so he fit a lot of words on them. He told me the things he had tried to say to me but that I would shut down. What was important to him, the things he wanted to pass on, the wisdom he wanted to impart. He worried about me, the friends I had chosen, my boyfriend. He acknowledged that even though I had many bad habits, I was still keeping up my grades, and for that he was grateful.

He did pass something on to me, didn’t he? His honesty with words. That’s a powerful gift. And Mom passed on her love of words, too, the gift of gab, the love of gossiping. And even though don Miguel Ruiz says that gossip is a form of not being impeccable — and what exactly is the opposite of “impeccable”? Peccable? — I don’t believe that gossip is always bad. Not when it binds a family, becomes part of the way they communicate. A network. Stories passed down.

No, I think the opposite of being impeccable with your word is being careless and messy, or being mean-spirited with your precision, using your words like a scalpel. We can cut out a piece of someone’s heart with our words. Or making a commitment and then not meeting it.

And when we’re not impeccable, like I can tend to be at times, that’s human. But for the most part people are good. We just make mistakes, all of us, at different times. Sometimes we go through many years making the same mistakes, and other times, maybe when we’re older, we start to see our patterns and try harder to not repeat them.




-Related to post WRITING TOPIC — THE FOUR AGREEMENTS

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PRACTICE — TREES — 15min

By Bob Chrisman


Trees hold a special place in my memory. I planted lots of trees in the yard of the house where I lived for the first 21 years of my life. The poplar trees went along the north border of the yard next to the gravel alley. They grew tall and then split in heavy winds. I learned that not all trees live a long time.

I planted a maple tree in a spot near the raspberry patch. Subconsciously I must have known that it would grow tall enough to shade the raspberry bushes and keep the sun from nourishing them. It took ten years for the tree to grow to a height sufficient to block the sun on the west end of the patch. By then my mother had stopped picking raspberries and selling them to her friends and neighbors anyway so she didn’t miss those bushes killed by the lack of sunlight.

My favorite tree was the Dutch elm that grew in the side yard. It provided solace to me in my childhood. When I was punished as a very small boy I would take my teddy bear which was as big as I was and carry it to a place under the tree, throw it on the ground, and lie down with my head on his chest and cry. The old black cat would come from wherever he was in the neighborhood and sit next to me and the bear until I stopped crying. Then he would wander off. I would pick up my companion and carry him back into the house.

That tree watched over me for many years until it died of some disease. All those years it escaped the Dutch elm disease only to die of some other cause. I sat and watched as my father cut it down and wondered what life would be like without a place to cry.

I read a book one time about the spirits in trees and how each tree has its own personality. My experience tells me that the spirits do exist. We usually aren’t quiet enough to feel them or hear them. No, they don’t talk like we do, but they express themselves through their movement and the leaves.

The cedar pines outside my grandmother’s farmhouse whispered in the slightest breeze. I curled up on the daybed on the screened in porch and fell asleep to the sounds of those trees talking to each other and the background conversations of my family in the living room of the farmhouse.

At the cemetery about a half mile from my grandmother’s house, the shushing of the cedar pines became the voices of the dead buried among the roots of the trees. No matter how hot the temperature in the world away from those trees, the air under those trees was cold as though when the dead talked they expelled the coldness of the world in which they lived.

The sycamore trees that grow in the park not far from my house spread their branches across large areas. The big leaves provide shade and shelter to all different kinds of birds and humans. People, with their bags of possessions, sleep under the trees during the late afternoon and early evening. People picnic at nearby tables. The walkers and runners appear to relax when they reach the shade.

In the winter these same trees with no leaves looks like skeletal hands reaching toward the sky to beg some god or goddess for the return of spring. The bleached whiteness of the branches against the cold blue skies of winter or the gray clouds that bring snow beseech some higher power for the return of warmth.

The sweet gum tree that grows in my front yard shades the house from the intense afternoon sun. The huge leaves provide hiding places for the squirrels and birds. For some reason no birds nest in the tree. Maybe they know that the wood is too soft sometimes to withstand the windstorms.

In the fall a leaf turns yellow, detaches from the branch, and floats to the ground. Soon the entire tree goes from the vibrant green of summer to the soft yellow of fall. Next the leave fall to the ground covering the yard in a layer of golden yellow and leave the naked black branches to hold the winter snow.



-Related to topic post WRITING TOPIC – TREES. [NOTE: This was a Writing Topic on red Ravine. Frequent guest writer Bob Chrisman joined QuoinMonkey and ybonesy in doing a Writing Practice on the topic.]

-Also related to posts: PRACTICE: Trees — 15min (by ybonesy) and PRACTICE — Trees — 15min (by QuoinMonkey).

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lang•widge

By Judith Ford
 
 

You’re Invited, lang•widge, March 27, 2010, Gallery Neptune in Bethesda, Maryland.

Poetry is a lot like music. Music evokes visual images; visual art can stimulate poems. Read that backwards and it’s true that way, too.

Last March, while visiting a friend in DC, I had the opportunity to experience all three — music, my friend’s paintings, and a spontaneous poetry happening — mixed together for one entertaining evening. The event: lang•widge. The setting: Gallery Neptune in Bethesda, Maryland.

My friend, artist Freya Grand, paints landscapes. Not your ordinary landscapes. Landscapes filtered through Freya’s vision and open to interaction with the viewer. In Freya’s words, “Painting landscape begins as an internal process. As in abstraction, forms transmit a mysterious secret life, exert a presence.”

Presence was abundant on March 27 at Gallery Neptune, even before the rest of the evening’s events unfolded.  I’ve always had my own strong responses to Freya’s work, partly because I’ve traveled with her to some of the locations she later painted. More because her work is emotional, full of motion and light. Like me, the lang•widge participants responded in their own unique ways.

So here’s how it went: A few weeks before lang•widge, Freya and gallery owner Elyse Harrison asked jazz musician Steven Rogers to preview the paintings and compose short pieces of music in response. Once everyone had had a chance to walk around and see all the paintings (munch on cheese and crackers, drink wine), we were asked to gather in front of a podium and listen to a short poetry reading by Charlie Jensen, poet and director of The Writer’s Center in Bethesda, and the poet, Reb Livingston.








            



                            



                                       


Works by Freya Grand, Rock at Low Tide, 48″ x 60″, 2008, Burning Fields, 30″ x 30″, 2009, Cotopaxi, 48″ x 60″, 2006, and Fog, Benbulben, 30″ x30″, 2010, paintings © 2006-2010 by Freya Grand. All rights reserved.




Suitably warmed-up, we were each given a clipboard, a few sheets of paper, and a pencil. As Steven Rogers’ techno-jazz music played, we looked at the paintings again and quickly jotted down short lines. Whatever came to mind.

I was surprised by how much I liked the music. I am not a big jazz fan, but looking at Freya’s work and listening to this weird contemporary music, I found myself enjoying the way the visual and musical bits blended together. Whatever it was I wrote in response — I didn’t preserve any of it —  was full of the light and movement I’ve always seen in my friend’s work.  Hope, change, powerful natural forces, awe, wonder. 

When the four short pieces of music had finished, we reassembled in front of the podium. Volunteers did most of the reading, but first Charlie Jensen and Reb Livingston demonstrated the technique. They chose two from a diverse collection of colored dice. The number rolled determined the number of pieces of paper to be read together to create a spontaneous poem.

The results were surprising, to say the least. Where I had seen light and life, others had seen darkness and death, despair and violence. Sexuality. New life forms. Being lost, being found. Memories of blankets, clouds, and chaos.

 
 

During lang•widge, poets Charles Jensen and Reb Livingston explain the process, draw poem pieces, then read the resulting poetry, photos © 2010 by Judith Ford. All rights reserved.



Here are some of my favorite lines:

smiley in foam, red glee

his daughter in a box, pushed out to sea

I’ve made a mistake coming here

I’ll never eat butter cream frosting again

When my husband, Chris, who loves to perform for an audience, volunteered, things got even stranger. He happened to pick a very long series of lines that were written in five different languages. Chris speaks nothing but English. His courageous attempts to pronounce Spanish, Italian, French, German, and, I think, Swedish, were sidesplitting.

Afterward Chris sought out the writer of those lines, and, yes, she did speak all those languages. She told Chris he’d done a pretty good job at guessing the pronunciations.

I sought out Freya. “Did you realize how much pain and despair was hiding in your paintings?” I asked. Freya is not prone to darkness or despair. She told me she was actually more surprised by the butter cream frosting than the pain. She said something like, “People project into my work whatever is up for them at the present moment.”

Not sure about that butter cream.

Freya Grand and Chris Ford, photo ©
2010 by Judith Ford. All rights reserved.

So here’s an idea:  How about trying a little mini da-da poetry writing sans Steven Rogers’ music? Take a look at any of the Freya Grand paintings in this post (or visit her website). Pick out a piece of music you currently like a lot. While the music plays, quickly, without much thought, jot down five (or so) lines or phrases.

Email them to me at pinkeggs@gmail.com.  After two weeks or so (about August 9) I’ll randomly pick out lines, type them in the order I’ve picked, and post them here in the comments section. Let’s see what we come up with.

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Here are two poems created during the lang•widge event; these are also posted on The Writer’s Center website.

1.

this is reversal

clouds coming up through earth’s crust

all my orange drizzles around in dust

I fly over this, I needn’t touch down

Earth is melting

manna comes down

my wings are lifted by

heat from the ground

Lift off!

Earth Burnt and Fractured

Evaporated Anger

Unexpressed Blindness

earth’s breath

greeny pastures of ooze

trudging uphill I see my shadow and a whale

I’m near a synthetic ocean

one that’s flat and even dry

cured epoxy cement

fake lily sky

but here’s where I swim

and here’s where I’ll die

your piano carries me anywhere

you play

standing stones

scottish shore

volcanic mist

walk to the top edge

as above, so below

coolness rising

You and me

never the same

mountain ranges between us

ocean depths……storms

air that we breathe

the only media

that unites

I lived there so long the ocean was like a person to me.

A giant meatball rolling towards its destiny.

2.

East coast sunsets

are less brilliant

but the sand between my toes

feels more like home.

Scary golf course littered laced

and smoking with traps sandy

silken tofu nowhere is there a

flag or a hole to crawl into

Dark fog charcoal wall

surrounding me give me grass

but it wriggles this grass

maybe the rocks will protect me

marshmallow antlers and steamy pea soup

There’s a smiley

in the foam

red glee

misty canyon aerie wheat

volcanic atmosphere rock strewn beach

geyser rivulets

yves tanguy

shadows

cliff hanger

steam

heat

his daughter in a box, pushed out to sea

wash of creation

thrum

pure thin air

Moses parts a red and vanillas sea

A single, persistent surfer.

I’d made a mistake coming here.

bleed





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Judith Ford is a psychotherapist and writer who lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She was red Ravine’s very first guest writer, with her 25 Reasons I Write post. Judith’s other pieces on red Ravine include Mystery E.R., I Write Because, and PRACTICE – Door – 20min.

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PRACTICE: Trees — 15min

I’ve always noticed the trees where we’ve lived. Growing up on Neat Lane, we had out front a big sycamore that Dad kept trimmed into a tidy globe of leaves. In my memory, there is a sidewalk under the tree where the itch bombs fall and gather. We pick them up and for fun explode them, throw them with all our might onto the sidewalk.

Except, I’ve been back to Neat Lane several times as an adult, and there is no sidewalk. I think there’s a curb, but beyond the curb it is up to each family to landscape their yard. Some people — like Dad — kept their yards worthy of the street’s name. Others (and again, in my faulty memory I see a washing machine and old love seat on the front porch of the neighbors across the street) did not.

It is the trees that attracted me to the house where we live now. Someone, and I imagine it to be a her, lovingly picked out the many trees and placed them all around the house, knowing that one day they would grow huge and tall and would shade the place, keeping it cool from the summer heat.

There are Ponderosas and an ornamental plum that blazes a deep red you can see from the road. There are poplars, one is now diseased on one side, that grow high without becoming wide. The leaves look like the cottonwood except silvery on one side, and in hindsight I realize the poplar reminds me more of an aspen than a cottonwood, although I believe all three are from the same family.

In our old house there was a locust tree that drew me in, outside the kitchen window. How many times did I sit on the cozy warm tiles in that house and write, pausing to stare out at the small deep green leaves of the locust?

Some trees are invasive, I’m thinking now of the elms that Jim got permission from our neighbors to cut down. The elms were on the fence line, Chinese elms, of the variety a former mayor long ago imported to Albuquerque thinking they would grow well in the arid landscape. When Jim felled those elms (and I like using the word “felled” although it seems unnatural to my language) I mourned them. I looked at them as living things, yes invasive, but they provided shade and privacy. Jim saw them as water mongers, non-native species, and I suppose he imagined a different kind of tree, one better for the water table, in their place.

Dad always disliked certain trees. For a long time he and Mom complained about the large Russian olive out front next door. It dropped tiny leaves and spongy fake olives, causing Dad much consternation. A tree is a tree, I would think. Why in the world, how in the world could they dislike a tree?

Russian olives are in fact bad for the valley and come up like little weeds everywhere. Jim has gotten rid of quite a few, but I look at them and think of the old olive trees I saw once in Jerusalem, in Gethsemane’s Garden, and I see how the trees get gnarly and thick, and each layer must have seen a different scene. If you cut back the bark, you’d find a layer that saw Jesus himself.

That’s what I think of when I think of the Russian olive. Or I think of a family photo I remember that hung in the hallway of Jim’s parents’ house. I would stare at that photo when I first went there to visit with Jim. The trunk grew sideways instead of up, and it eventually did grow up, but the sideways portion made a natural bench on which the family sat or leaned. It was a photo of them long ago, when everyone was young and Jim’s parents were at their most vibrant. Something about that photo appealed to me, like I could see marrying into a family that sits around a tree.

I think of trees like people, and I think about how we want to be like trees. Grounded and firm, with strong roots going deep into the land. Sometimes when I water a tree, I think about how the root system underneath is probably as long and wide as the portion of the tree that grows above the ground. Like a mirror image.

If people are like trees, that means that beneath us we have our mirror images, supporting us as we walk, reflecting back to us whatever it is in the core of our earth.

I couldn’t imagine living in a place without trees, and yet what I love about New Mexico is that the tree is sacred. It is not abundant, and when we see it we seek it out for shade. If I had a patron tree, like a patron saint, it would be the cottonwood. Dark, rough bark that protects the soft wood inside. And deep roots. A sign always when you see it that water is nearby.



-Related to Topic post WRITING TOPIC — TREES

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WRITING TOPIC — MY FAVORITE COFFEE SHOP

Caffe Tazza, sign of this famous little coffee shop in Taos, NM, March 21, 2010, photo © 2010 by ybonesy. All rights reserved.

 
 
 
 
You know the place. A quiet buzz about it, like the buzz you get when you drink what it sells. Café latte. Cappuccino. Chai. Espresso.

You go there because that’s where you like to go best when you have a free moment to write. The sound of people talking, milk being steamed, the coffee grinder — it’s white noise. Not so loud as to distract yet not so quiet as to hear your voice inside your head.

Unless you live in a truly rural area, your city or town probably has such a spot where people gather, maybe talk politics or business deals or religion. Maybe it’s more diner than coffee shop, but no matter, it’s a place you can depend on for a good cuppa Joe and a little peace of mind.
 
 
 
Some coffee shops are as old and famous as monuments. Heck, they are monuments.

According to the Kona Joe website, coffee houses are part of the foundation of modern financial and shipping centers, not to mention cultural ones.

The New York Stock Exchange started as a coffee house, as did Lloyd’s of London—previously Lloyd’s Coffeehouse. The Baltic Coffeehouse became the London Shipping Exchange, and the Jerusalem Cafe became the East India Company.

 
 

Up until recently the runners at the British Stock Exchange were still called waiters due to fact it too started as a coffee house.

Other cafes evolved into centers for both the arts and sciences. Sir Isaac Newton hung out at the Grecian Coffeehouse. Jonathon Swift and Alexander Pope hung out at Old Slaughter’s Cafe.

The French and American Revolution were fomented in the coffee house. On July 12, 1789, Camille Desmoulins leaped on a table at the cafes of the Palais Royal and urged the mob to take up arms against the French aristocracy.

Due to the fact that much discussion of political intrigue and gossip occurred over a cup of Joe at these famous coffee houses it was only a matter of time before someone started writing these things down.

A man named Richard Steele decided to publish a weekly magazine on the most interesting gossip collected from the coffee houses. Correspondents were sent out to these coffee houses and wrote what they heard as narratives. This collection went on the become “Tatler,” the first modern magazine. London’s second oldest newspaper, “Lloyd’s News,” started as a bulletin board in Lloyd’s Coffeehouse.

 
 
 
 
There are famous coffee shops all around the world and a heckuva lot of not-so-famous ones, too.

Coffee shops come and go. Coffee shop owners are, I imagine, a lot like bookstore owners. They go into the business because they love the product, and not just the coffee or the book but the whole experience. But independent coffee shops can be as rare as independent bookstores. When you find one, hold on tight. Tell your friends about it, and make sure to frequent it often.

I don’t know about you, but when I get to a new city somewhere, the first place I seek out is a coffee shop. It makes me feel settled. It gives me a place to go, to sit alone quietly and know that even though I’m hundreds, sometimes thousands of miles away from everything familiar to me, I am home.
 
 
Do you have a favorite coffee shop, at home or in the cities you visit most? What is your special place like? Think about it. Why do you love it so? Is it a soothing place to be? Is it dingy yet homey? Do you love it for the dependable java or the people who work there and/or go there?

How often do you go and how long do you stay? Where do you sit and what do you do while you’re there? Do you order yours skinny, decaf, double, with foam?

Write about your favorite coffee shop. Hey, go to your favorite coffee shop and then write about it.

My favorite coffee shop. Fifteen minutes. Go.




   

The oasis that is Oasis, ybonesy’s favorite coffee shop, March
2010, photo © 2010 by ybonesy. All rights reserved.

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Greenies Unite!

Leprechaun, Behind the deli counter in an Albuquerque Whole Foods, March 17, 2010, photo © 2010 by ybonesy. All rights reserved.

There once was a smiling leprechaun
with a golden beard and skin the color of fake lawn.
She worked at Whole Foods in a place called “The Deli”
and when laughed, she jiggled her belly.
She took our order then got her Green on.

HAPPY St. Patty’s Day!

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WRITING TOPIC — DOOR

Door etymology: Merger of Old English dor (pl. doru, “large door, gate”) and Old English duru (pl. dura, “door, gate, wicket”). The base form is frequently in dual or plural, leading to speculation that houses of the original Indo- Europeans had doors with two swinging halves. Form dore predominated by the 16th Century, but was supplanted by door. First record of dooryard is c.1764; doorstep is from 1810.

Symbolism of Doors

Doors symbolize hope, opportunity, opening, passage from one state or world to another, entrance to new life, initiation, the sheltering aspect of the Great Mother. The open door is both opportunity and liberation.

Gates shares the symbolism of entrance, entry into a new life, communication between one world and another, between the living and the dead. Gates and portals are usually guarded by symbolic animals such as lions, dragons, bulls, dogs or fabulous beasts. At the gates of the House of Osiris, a goddess keeps each gate, and her name must be known to enter.

A door is an important element of a house, a symbol of passage from one place to another, one state to another, from light to darkness.

Entrances to holy places (temples, cathedrals) are not necessarily invitation to participate in the mysteries contained inside. The act of passing over the threshold means that the faithful must set aside their personalities and materialism, to confront the inner silence and meditation that it symbolizes.

As an access to a refuge or the warmth of a hearth, a door also symbolizes communication, contact with others and with the outside world. An open door attracts because it signifies welcome, invites discovery, but a door can also signify imprisonment, isolation. A closed door signifies rejection, exclusion, secrecy, but also protection against dangers and the unknown.

Doors in Literature

A doorway has a narrow view of the world, but a person can walk through the doorway. The doorway is their opportunity to actually make a difference in the world. People who are more willing to make a difference in the world have an easier time walking through the doorway then others.

Characters in stories that are too scared to walk through a door are also scared about what the world might do to them. They would rather keep that doorway as their shell from the rest of the world.

Words for Doors

“Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door.”

~Emily Dickinson

“A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of.“

~Ogden Nash

“I look like just like the girl next door…if you happen to live next door to an amusement park.”

~Dolly Parton

“The outward man is the swinging door; the inward man is the hinge.”

~Meister Eckhart

“You build on failure. You use it as a stepping stone. Close the door on the past. You don’t try to forget the mistakes, but you don’t dwell on it. You don’t let it have any of your energy, or any of your time, or any of your space.”

~Johnny Cash

Your Door Assignment

Write about doors. Doors of perception, cellar doors, sliding doors, The Doors. A portal or entry. A doorway. Indoors and out of doors. A door to your mind, locked doors, open doors. What does a door mean to you?

Off your hinges? You make a better door than a window? Katy, bar the doors! ybonesy is on her way, and Lord knows, we don’t want her shadow to darken the door.

There are so many door idioms. We beat paths to doors, get a foot in the door, see someone to the door, close one door only to have another open, and think fondly of the girl next door.

Pick up your fast-writing pen and your notebook and write without stopping. Cross that threshold, but don’t cross out. For 15 minutes. Now.

(Pssst. If you want to photograph doors, please do so and share your thumbnails in the comments section below.)

All photos were taken by ybonesy in January 2010, in or around
Hue, Vietnam, at three sites: the Citadel, the Palace of Emperor
Khai Dinh, or Emperor Minh Mang’s burial palace.

Sources

About Doors

• Door Etymology
• Door Quotes
• Symbolism of Doors and Windows in Modern Literature
• Portal Symbolism

About Vietnam (photos)

• Citadel in Hue, Vietnam
• The Royal Tombs of Hue

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On Feeling Good, Being Good, Doing Good, Doing Well in 2010 (Intention)

These are my intentions for 2010. They seem both like a lot and not enough. Some of it’s plain common sense. Some is just living better. At any rate, I’m saying it here. This is what I have.

Let the fun begin!

body~mind

• Heal my body. I’m still plagued by bouts of lower back pain, am starting to feel stiff in the knees. Want to be limber and energetic. Water, exercise, stretching. Would love to take yoga. More walks.
• Slow down. Be present to what I do. Don’t hurry. Take at least one retreat. Maybe two if Jim wants to do one. But one alone for sure.
• Early rise. Get my sunrise on.

family

• Take care of them. It’s OK to be a wife and mom. Love them to pieces.
• Take my girls abroad. Stop saying it, do it.
• Be present for their development. These are heavy times. Make them light.
• Get up and go. Movies, hikes, day trips. Be active together.

art~writing

• Get serious about Angels & Demons. Finish Axis of Evil. Plan other works. It’s a long-term series. Go as far as I can.
• Have fun with the other stuff. Pendants, bracelets, what else? Experiment.
• Doodle a day. Easy stuff. Keep doing complex doodles but let doodle-a-day be a scribble, if that’s all I can get to.
• Writing Group. Keep it up. Three times a week. Other writing? Nurture the books percolating. Leap on opportunities that come.

business

• I have a number in my head. It’s not huge. It’s a start. (Or, rather, last fall was the start. This is the first lap.)
• Figure out what I want to do and where I want to be. New shows? Get into a gallery? New websites? Don’t rush it. Slow and steady wins the race. And just the right amount of pressure keeps it doable.
• Stay organized. Get taxes done early. Keep my space to where I can work every day. Lists. I loves them!

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This post is the Intention portion of the exercise laid out in WRITING TOPIC — REFLECTION & INTENTION. Unlike resolutions, intentions are put out to the universe. (At least for me they are.) I log ’em in my noggin’. They have a way of coming to fruition. I can’t say exactly why it is that they work for me while resolutions don’t, but they do. I trust the process.

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