Memories, Writing, & Family Recipes

Stirring the steaming, liquid vanilla pudding as it warms on the stove is kind of Zen for me. The silver spoon gleams and swirls through currents of milk and cornstarch. I stare, mesmerized.

Liz was bustling around the kitchen, dicing and dashing, mixing the Dijon, OJ, and honey basting sauce, chopping bananas, basting the naked Cornish hens, while I stirred, and stirred, and stirred.

It’s a meditative practice, stirring pudding. Anything can be practice. Cooking is grounding. Recipes provide structure. Food anchors us in detail. Natalie often taught us – if you want to ground your writing, write about food. The closer to your heart, the better.

I kept staring at the steam, lost in memories of all the times Mom would grab one of us kids to stir, and keep the pudding from scorching, while she hurried around the kitchen, trying to pull a meal together for our family of 8. I have a lot of appreciation for all the meals she cooked for us.

When Liz broke into the box of Nabisco “simple goodness” Nilla wafers, she smiled and pointed to the inside of the cardboard. There, printed in both English and Spanish, was the recipe for the Original Nilla Banana Pudding with meringue topping, the one that Mom talked about in her comment on Southern Banana Pudding.

                          

I remember the old style pudding and the time it took to make it. In further research, I discovered that the recipe for original banana pudding with meringue (that’s printed inside our Nilla wafer box) can be found at NabiscoWorld, Original Nilla Banana Pudding. 

There’s also a page of Spread Some Holiday Cheer Nilla recipes that includes a Meringue-Topped Southern Banana Pudding that uses the boxed vanilla pudding (not Instant but Cook & Serve) that is in R3’s recipe post — Southern Banana Pudding – A Family Tradition.

                         

Confused? Like I said, there are as many banana pudding recipes as there are families to make them. Each is unique, traditional for that family. It seems to me that as puddings and pies became more packaged and convenient, the recipes were slightly altered to adapt them to the additional speed needed to save time as women became busier and busier outside the home.

That’s my theory. So take your pick; try them all and see which appeals to you. Next time, I want to make the vanilla pudding from scratch, the Original Nilla Banana Pudding with meringue. Just like my Aunt used to make.

I hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving. A Holiday to count our blessings. To be grateful for what we have. Now it’s time to head off to my writing projects. I’m grateful for the simple gift of time. This day is just for me.

 
 

-posted on red Ravine, Friday, November 23rd, 2007

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WRITING TOPIC – KINDS OF LOVE

  

Heart & Soul, Mabel Dodge Luhan House, on the hill behind the zendo, Taos, New Mexico, February 2007, photo © 2007 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

My sister-in-law told me about a book she’d recently received as a gift, The Five Languages of Love by Gary Chapman. It’s about the ways individuals express love. And the ways they like to have love expressed to them. What makes you feel loved?

On a recent 62 degree November day, I was taking a walk by the Susquehanna River with my mother, and we started talking about the subject of love. The lively discussion led to many questions.

What if the way you are able to give love is not appreciated by your partner or spouse? What if your partner or spouse doesn’t know what makes him or her feel loved? What about friends? Isn’t it important that they know the things that make you feel appreciated?

According to Chapman, there are 5 primary languages of love:

1. Words of Affirmation
2. Quality Time
3. Receiving Gifts
4. Acts of Service
5. Physical Touch

               

Think about the things that make you feel loved. Are they acts of service. Thoughtfulness. Gratitude. Is quality time high on your list. How deep is the well. Half empty? Half full? To love we need to be able to both give and receive. How do you like to receive? How is learning to receive different than taking?

If you’re having a hard time answering, Chapman provides some clues, questions to ask yourself to help determine your primary language:

 1) What does your partner or spouse do or fail to do that hurts you most deeply. The opposite is probably your love language.

 

2) What have you most often requested of your partner, spouse, or friends? That thing is the thing that will probably make you feel most loved.

3) In what way do you regularly express love to your partner, spouse, or friends? That method may also make you feel loved.

After answering the 3 questions above, pick up your pen and do three, 15-minute writing practices:

I feel loved when…

What hurts me the most is…

I know my friends care about me when…

  

    

The journey is discovery. Where would we be without love?

-posted on red Ravine, Tuesday, November 20th 2007

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PRACTICE – Lost – 15min

I don’t often lose things. Keys, gloves, hats, mittens, I usually own them for life. I don’t know why that is. I tend to be pretty grounded and track on a minute by minute basis. It’s changed as I’ve gotten older. I have more spaciness. I attribute it to hormonal shifts in the brain and the body.

Last December, after I moved from an apartment I’d lived in for 14 years, I lost track of everything. I purged and got rid of things quickly, off to Goodwill and ARC and Salvation Army. Art studio items were boxed up and moved to storage. I didn’t know what I was living with and what I’d given away or stacked into the garage.

I still don’t know. I recently drove over near the lake to grab a few boxes out of storage. I ended up with about 10 piled inside the Camry, and now stacked by the piano in our living room. In two of them, I found the documents I needed. One bent box, with my scribbled handwriting of 10 years ago, contained a stack of old journals. I’m thinking I may toss them or burn them. I need to see what’s on the page.

Before I did writing practice, my journals were filled with intellectual analyzing and the day-to-day trivia of love and life. So what’s changed? A lot. I can’t stand to read the old stuff. But it does have details that I might use in my memoir. It’s just so boring. I guess this could be considered boring, too. But usually by the end of a practice, I’ve gotten down to some little tidbit that I didn’t know about myself before.

Losing face. The mask. I’ve felt a lot of shame over the course of living. It’s been a long haul to turn it around into confidence. To let go. To know that the choices I make and the things I do are not me. They are choices I make and things I do. Many women feel some form of shame. I know because I hear them talk about it or act from that place in their heart. I recognize it. If you know what to look for, no one can hide.

I often wished to be lost. To never have to grow up. The better I feel about day-to-day living, the more fond I am of the notion of adult. It’s not necessarily easy to think the way artists and writers think. To pull the grub into the heart and spit it back out in words or images that ping the feeling in others. You’ve got to be willing to take in all the crap life has to dish out.

I’ve lost my way a few times. Felt completely ungrounded. Like when I was 21 and moved to Montana. One day I was in Pennsylvania. The next I was flying into Missoula. The only ground I could find were the mountains that captured me the minute I stepped off the plane, held me, and never let go. I still dream about them sometimes, especially the Bitterroots where I spent time stripping logs and digging foundations for the cabins my friends were building.

When I see photographs of myself at that time, I have this lost look in my eyes. I don’t recognize the 20-year-old body. What happened to that? I’m staring at the camera, eyes clear and hazel blue. But where are they going?

Here. They were going here. To the place I’ve landed. The last 10 years have been more about letting go and letting in a bigger life. I didn’t think I deserved a bigger life. What do I think now? There are givers and takers. And they live side by side. I’ve given away too much. But no regrets.

The wind’s whipping through the naked oaks outside the window. I’m waiting for the contractor to come power wash the deck in preparation for sanding, shoring up, and painting. There is a wobble in the pine rails and floorboards. But the foundation is solid. The peeling paint is tinted from the green of arsenic. The contractor said that’s what they used to use to preserve building wood. He said arsenic is not used anymore. But the chemical they’ve come up with to replace it is no better.

That’s the way I feel this morning. Wobbly and solid. Not lost. Not found. I’m here on the couch beside Pants who is curled up in a pile of lime green and hot pink tissue paper. It was wrapped around the Halloween bouquet a few days ago. He quietly cleans himself. The paper crinkles under his ear. It seems to comfort him. Cats never seem lost. They know to follow their instincts. I’m learning to listen.

-from Topic post, WRITING TOPIC – WHAT HAVE YOU LOST

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WRITING TOPIC – WHAT HAVE YOU LOST

What Have You Lost, Rainpainting Series, outside the Fitzgerald Theater, downtown, St. Paul, Minnesota, night of Ann Patchett, October 2007, photo © 2007 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

If you want to know someone, truly know someone, ask them about the things they have lost. No matter how long it’s been. It doesn’t matter. The things we have lost stay with us.

These are the words of Ann Patchett, author of The Magician’s Assistant, Bel Canto, Run, and Truth & Beauty: A Friendship. She wrote the memoir Truth & Beauty to grieve the loss of her friend, Lucy Grealy. The book was her grieving process.

What are the things you have lost? Have you ever lost face, your faith, time. When did you lose your virginity? What about your innocence. Did you lose your childhood, your dreams, someone close to your heart? Did you lose your keys the day you hiked the ocean cliffs of an Oregon beach and were left stranded in the dark.

Make a list of the things you have lost. Choose 1 or 2 items off of your list and do a 15 minute writing practice on each. Let yourself grieve. Take the time. What do you have to lose?

Grief is a debt you owe. After you pay, you can get to the joy.

-Ann Patchett on Talking Volumes at the Fitzgerald Theater, St. Paul, Minnesota, October 2007

-posted on red Ravine Sunday, October 28th, 2007

-related to post, The Parking Is Free

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WRITING TOPIC – HAUNTED

The Haunting, All Hallow’s Eve By The Fire, one year ago, Minneapolis, Minnesota, October 31st, 2006, photo © 2006-2009 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

Maybe it’s the time of year — Halloween and Day of the Dead nearly upon us. Nights grow longer. Frost kills the plants, and another season is put to rest.

Or maybe it’s our era, so many things to haunt us. We seem to be troubled, melancholy. Is the world crying, or is it just me?

I believe in ghosts, and not just the kind that might spook one cold, dark morning. (Who just caused the book to fall in the room next to me?)

It doesn’t take much to be haunted. Something someone told you that you can’t shake. Or something you saw. Experiences can haunt, and the specter of disease can haunt, and memories — my, how they haunt!

Is it bad to be haunted? Or is the ghost only as menacing as we allow it to be? (Remember Casper, anyone?)

In the October 1, 2007 issue of The New Yorker, Philip Roth said this about the inspiration of ghosts and haunting for his novel Exit Ghost:

‘Haunted by the past’ is a commonplace phrase because it’s a commonplace experience. Even if one is not, strictly speaking, ‘haunted’, the past is perpetually with one in the present, and the longer it grows and the further it recedes the stronger its presence seems to become. I agree with the Chekhov character who, when, in a crisis, he is reminded that ‘this, too, shall pass’, responds, ‘Nothing passes’.

What do you think of when you think of haunting and ghosts? Are you frightened? Or do you regularly revisit your old ghosts?

Write about ghosts and haunting. You can write about the ways you are haunted figuratively, or write about your real experiences with the supernatural. The topic is rich. Write more than once.

At the top of your page, write these words: I am haunted by … and then for three or so minutes list all the things that haunt you. Just like in Writing Practice, don’t stop to think about your list. Just click off each item.

When you’re finished, pick one of the “ghosts” on your list and write about it for ten minutes. Pick another and write for ten more. If you’d like, send us one of those writing practices to post on red Ravine. We’ll publish as many as we can.

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PRACTICE – Sleep – 15min

Sleep, the Temptress and the tempted. She doesn’t come easily for me these days. There were times when sleep was a blessing, refuge of the depressed. Then there are dreams. I don’t always remember them. But lately, they’ve been restless and disturbed. The things in which I’ve put my trust are rocky and double-edged.

Last night, I woke up at 1:30am, restless and worried. The cats were tossing and turning, too. Kiev and Chaco had been to the vet, Dr. Tiffany, in the late afternoon before supper, hot vegetable soup. Kiev was a doll. Chaco, with his oily black coat, howled the way Siamese do, lashed out, hissed, and threatened to bite. But he is harmless, a survivor of abusive previous owners.

The fairy thin vet assistant grabbed him by the scruff, then tied on the black muzzle with pink shoestring laces that Chaco ripped off with a single paw in two seconds flat.

Domestic animals may not remember short-term inconsistencies or the emotional ups and downs of their owners. But they remember long-term abuse. It’s stored in their bodies. And as much as Liz tried to comfort Chaco, he sat through Kiev’s temperature check and yearly shots, then dove into old anxiety, emerald eyes splayed wide, as she placed him on the cold stainless steel table.

Mr. Stripeypants had gone to the vet earlier this year. So he stayed at home. Waited, nostrils to the windowpane. And when Kiev and Chaco returned, he sniffed and smelled and growled at them. The scent of squirty needles and alcohol and oozing medicine.

And that ties in with the book I am almost finished with, Ann Patchett’s Truth & Beauty. She races through the latter chapters of her friend Lucy’s addicted and chaotic frenzy. And I think of the ways that addictions plague artists and writers. Recovery offers hope. Addiction cycles around again. It’s inevitable.

Writers go to places that others don’t want to go. They are willing to look at the good, the bad, the ugly of human existence and write about it, so the details of our living history are not forgotten. And I wonder why it is I can’t sleep.

I dream of reams of money floating down from the sky and read how Ann and Lucy had more than enough money with New York parties and scholarly literature awards. A temporary balm, it didn’t matter in the end.

Writing will not make you happy. Or save you from anything. It only offers the comfort of a moment of captured truth – your truth. But back to sleep. How did I stray so far off track? I don’t count sheep.

Kiev and Chaco finally got to sleep and I rocked the bed, boing, boing, turning over and over, leaning up softly against the warm back and hands that sheltered and slowed the spinning in my head. Finally, I grabbed a warm finger, turned over on my side, crawled into a fetal position, and leapt into the next dream.

I was standing in front of a classroom, talking to a group of students about how writing will not save you; I was rattled, a skewed version of art imitating life.

And then, buzzzzzzzzzzzzz, the alarm with the microchip that connects to a satellite clock somewhere in the snowy mountains of Colorado beeped through my brain. And I rose to the dark Fall Minnesota morning.

-posted on red Ravine, Tuesday, October 9th, 2007

-from Topic post, Writing Topic – Counting Sheep

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Somewhere Buried Deep

Somewhere Buried Deep, Rainpainting Series, outside the Parkway Theater in the rain, September 2007, photo © 2007 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

First Thoughts

somewhere buried deep
within the fire of second choices,
first thoughts

-posted on red Ravine, Friday, September 28th, 2007

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13 solidarity haiku

I found these haiku in the pages of a notebook I was rereading from August of 2006. Has it really been almost a year? They were written at Ghost Ranch when I got separated from the writing group after lingering too long at the pond. I sat on the prickly ground, alone and silent, chewing on a bite of apple, steam from a soggy T-shirt rising in the dry heat.

I sat for 10 minutes. And then wrote these haiku. I’m posting them in solidarity for my friend at Ghost Ranch. I have a clear visual of the open space where she is painting, the yellow pond (it’s green to me), and the path up Box Canyon. The wind – it’s swirling around in my head. I’m racing around trying to get packed. I’ll be in Albuquerque sometime tonight. Then on to Taos.

It will be good to be back in New Mexico. And at the same time, I long to be home.

 13 haiku

the cottonwood wind
floods by me in an instant
shade next to my back

the dragon fly flits
over the lime green water
my back to a tree

lizard on a rock
doesn’t seem glad to see me
ducks into a hole

red rocks rise skyward
desert breeze shakes the cedars
next to the green pond

gold fish swims by me
startles my shivering breath
then leads the way home

leaf winding slowly
yellow wasp on white flower
bobbing to and fro

leaf lands on the pond
the cottonwood is silent
a ripple swims out

big hole in the sky
a dragonfly flew through it
and left me alone

the twisted bark wraps
its thigh around the red ghosts
soaked next to dry bones

blue sky sparkles green
through wind in the cottonwoods
ants fight for a crumb

the wind smells like sage
I sit next to an ant pile
pray not to get bit

rock towers flood through
the blue dragonfly’s four wings
I watch from the side

hairy bumblebee
black diamond down its soft back
sucks on a flower

-haiku from a writing practice at Ghost Ranch, August 2006

Friday, July 6th, 2007

-related to posts, What I Remember About Writing ,  A Taste of Ghost Ranch, NM

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WRITING TOPIC – WATER WINGS

Island of Pine and Clay, Clarks Hill Dam, June 3, 2007, photo © 2007 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

Have you ever made love under a rustic waterfall or on the sand at Cannon Beach, Oregon (it doesn’t feel as romantic as it looks in the movies). Have you soaked in a natural hot springs in New Mexico or dipped in a sulphur pool on a canoe trip along the Nahanni River in southern Canada? Have you ever flown in a  seaplane?

Tell me everything you know about water. Here are 20 useful water facts to get you started. Did you know your brain is made up of 70% water, the lungs weigh in at 90%, the body can be all the way up to 60%. How many times a day do you shower? What’s the longest you’ve gone without brushing your teeth? Have you ever heard of the human squeegee?

Would you rather live in the desert or along a lake, river, or stream? Did you honeymoon at Niagara Falls? When’s the last time you walked slowly in the rain? When did you learn to swim, who taught you, were you wearing water wings? How long can you hold your breath underwater? What are your first memories of water.

Do a writing practice on everything you know about water. Then choose a memory and write it down adding as many details as you can.

 Wednesday, June 6th, 2007

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100 Writing Topics

1. why I like midnight
2. my favorite times to write
3. blue moons
4. what it is about being the oldest child
5. fresh air
6. what I learned from my favorite teachers
7. the Tao of Underdog
8. why I don’t write pulp fiction
9. everything I know about State Fairs
10. the last concert I attended
11. the first concert I attended
12. the day I learned to drive
13. who taught me to drive and why
14. classes I loved
15. classes I hated
16. the first time I thought I might like to write
17. favorite places to write as a child
18. where I used to hide out
19. how to get space in a family of eight
20. what was I like in junior high
21. my first crush
22. the last time I played on a seesaw
23. bottle rockets
24. the best intentions
25. why loss is forever
26. why no one wants to accept that loss is forever
27. life after healing
28. states I’ve lived in
29. my favorite coastal town
30. my favorite coast
31. the first time I flew
32. the last time I flew
33. when I was in New York
34. driving country roads
35. why I wanted to be the Lone Ranger
36. what happened to Dale Evans
37. people I know of who came from Texas
38. ways to identify your suitcase on the luggage carousel
39. how many miles I’ve flown
40. favorite places to visit
41. my favorite vacation
42. the year I turned 30
43. old address books
44. where to find memories
45. where to lose memories
46. the last time I was at the ocean
47. everything I know about body surfing
48. the last time I played hide and seek
49. people who have forgotten me
50. people who have remembered me
51. people I’ll never forget
52. people I wish I could forget
53. the last time I ironed
54. what I know about spray starch
55. the unforgiven
56. the last time I played chess
57. walking in the park at night
58. French fries and milk shakes
59. where I go for a good hamburger
60. the last ride to the airport
61. old hangouts
62. the first time I learned to ride a bike
63. the first time I roller skated
64. my favorite bike
65. what I love about motorcycle riding
66. what I remember about nursery rhymes
67. what scares me
68. what makes me stronger
69. my favorite snacks
70. frozen yogurt
71. when I buy toothpaste I
72. makeup counters
73. my favorite color lipstick
74. what I know about Crackerjacks
75. towns I’d like to forget
76. the last roller coaster ride
77. last time I took the bus
78. folding chairs
79. picnics I remember
80. last fly in the soup
81. green inchworms
82. rose bushes
83. gardens and gates
84. what I love about travelling
85. what I hate about travelling
86. last time I tasted buttermilk
87. famous cow names
88. famous horse names
89. stone fences
90. green is the color I
91. when I get angry I
92. Barbie and Ken
93. slow boats and fast trains
94. the last musical I saw
95. fresh fruit
96. mad dashes
97. what I find unforgettable
98. what I find unforgivable
99. the nature of spring
100. summer in the city

– from Topic post, WRITING TOPIC – COFFEE BREAK

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PRACTICE – Memorial Day – 10min

It’s the day before I leave on a two week trip to Georgia and Pennsylvania to do some research for my book. A memoir. I talked to my mother this morning, a short check in before I fly out tomorrow. I told her I am keeping my heart and mind open and looking forward to the time I will get to spend with her. Since we live in different towns, different states, the visits become important. Every minute counts.

I’ll be excavating information, excavating lives and people and roots and history. Untangling loose ends. I don’t remember so many things that my mother remembers about the South. And I have my own memories that I now get to ask her questions about. I just thought of that Baldwin quote from that 1973 interview with Nikki Giovanni:

“Because the responsibility of a writer is to excavate the experience of the people who produced him. The act of writing is the intention of it; the root of its liberation.”

Liz is down in the garden, pulling a few last minute weeds. I’m having French Roast on the deck. The clouds have lifted and the sun is peering through the oaks and ash that surround the house. It’s quiet. All the garden and yard work we did yesterday made my back sore. I’m no spring chicken anymore. In fact, wasn’t it just this morning I was noticing the spaciness of hormonal shifts and laughing about them with my mother? She confirms the craziness of aging because she walked it before me. More history. More bones.

I’m thinking of ybonesy near Taos with her father on their annual pilgrimage. Soon my mother and I will visit the graves of close loved ones and distant relatives in Georgia and South Carolina. We always go to my Aunt Cassie’s and my Grandmother Elise’s gravesites. I visit with them quietly there, spread out on the grass, and ask Mom the questions I might not have asked before. For me, this is memoir – excavating memories. Questing for truth. I want to hear her stories. And skirt the edges of the places I’ve come from.

There may be Myrtle Beach and Savannah. I’ve never been to Savannah. What writers are from Savannah? Flannery O’Connor for one. Maybe we’ll walk past the Cathedral of St. John, the oldest Roman Catholic Church in Georgia, and then one block south is where Flannery grew up. Maybe some of my relatives know of her. Maybe not.

I’m sad to be leaving Liz for so long. And our gardens and home. And Mr. Stripeypants, Kiev, and Chaco. I am fortunate to have a partner that understands. She is loving and supportive of me and my writing. She gets what it takes. I’m lucky that way.

I am lucky for a lot of reasons. I feel a great abundance in my life this morning that is hard to describe. This practice doesn’t do it justice. And there are next to no details. It’s mostly about feelings. And anticipation. And gratitude. For everything that has led me here.

Mom said my step-dad had read a piece on the blog and said, “I didn’t know she felt that way. I didn’t know she had positive memories of that time.” It’s true. Some of my memories used to make me sad. But I’ve done tons of work. It’s in the past. The river keeps flowing. And on the first day of summer, it feels like these steely memories make me who I am. Some writer from the Northwest and Southeast and Northeast who now lives in the Midwest. And once in a while, travels back for a visit.

Monday, May 28th, 2007

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Job Haiku

 
–I Spy, photo © 2007 by QuoinMonkey, all rights reserved

Job Haiku

sprawling pecan tree
rusty monkey wrench
1 fixed, 1 adjustable

Thursday, May 24th 2007

-from Topic post, Job! What Job?

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Holding My Breath – Water

–Holding My Breath – Water, Mabel Dodge Luhan House, Taos, New Mexico, February 2007, from the Holding My Breath series, photo by QuoinMonkey, all rights reserved

 – PRACTICE – Holding My Breath – 10min

Friday, May 4th, 2007

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Holding My Breath – Wind

 –Holding My Breath – Wind, Mabel Dodge Luhan House, Taos, New Mexico, February 2007, from the Holding My Breath series, photo by QuoinMonkey, all rights reserved

– PRACTICE – Holding My Breath – 10min

Friday, May 4th, 2007

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Mabel’s Lights

-Mabel’s Lights, Mabel Dodge Luhan House, Taos, New Mexico, February 2007, photo by QuoinMonkey, from the Wake Up series, all rights reserved

For all the writers who are meeting soon to write, read, listen, and keep the connections going. Here’s to community.

 Sunday, April 22nd, 2007

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Richard Wright – 810 Haiku

A few nights ago, I stayed up past midnight writing a piece. PBS was on in the background. I wasn’t paying much attention until pre-film credits started to roll and I glanced up to see opening scenes of Native Son.

Not the 1951 version where Richard Wright played Bigger Thomas. It was the 1986 version with Victor Love, Matt Dillon, and Geraldine Page.

I had never seen Native Son. Or read the book. I first started researching Richard Wright last summer when I did a presentation on James Baldwin. We read “Giovanni’s Room” and “Another Country” for the writing Intensive in Taos last year. I fell in love with James Baldwin. One of Baldwin’s mentors was Richard Wright.

After we got back from Taos, a writer friend of mine went to a Twin Cities used bookstore and bought up all the Baldwin books. Some were original paperbacks; they smelled like the 60’s. She gave them to me as a gift.

One was Baldwin’s collection of essays, “Notes of a Native Son.” When she paid the clerk, the woman said, “Oh, there’s been a resurgence of the Harlem Renaissance writers lately.”

I’m not surprised.

I found the 1986 film version of Native Son to be heavy-handed and over dramatic. But I stayed up and watched anyway. Out of curiosity, I decided to research Wright a little more and stumbled on a Washington Post article on poetry.

While taking refuge in France from the fallout of his books, “Native Son” and “Black Boy,” Richard Wright wrote and studied haiku. There are 810 in his collection, “Haiku: This Other World,” published by Arcade in New York.

Not only that, according to the Robert Hass article, 5 Haikus By Richard Wright, Wright’s agent said he wrote 4000 poems during the last 18 months of his life, from the summer of 1959 until his death in 1960.

It makes sense to me that Wright would turn to haiku. Simple. Bare. And elegant. A good place to stop and rest. Shelter from the storm.

I am nobody:
A red sinking autumn sun
Took my name away.

A sleepless spring night:
Yearning for what I never had
And for what never was.

-Richard Wright, from “Haiku: This Other World,” by Richard Wright
(Arcade, 1998)

Saturday, April 21st, 2007

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bell hooks & Thich Nhat Hanh – Building a Community of Love

I’m almost done with the bell hooks memoir, Bone Black. I posted a link to the bell hooks articles and profile in Shambhala Sun a few weeks ago in 10 Minutes with the King. But I want to repost Building a Community of Love: bell hooks and Thich Nhat Hanh as a separate log.

All of  the bell hooks articles in Shambhala Sun are excellent. But red Ravine is about community. I don’t want this one to get lost:

 “Building a Community of Love: bell hooks and Thich Nhat Hanh”

 Or this one:

 “There’s No Place to Go But Up” – Maya Angelou in Conversation with bell hooks” 

In honor of all practice.

 Monday, April 9th, 2007

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