Advice . . .

for my grandchildren to whom I have given journals

There's nothing new under the sun
It's all been thought and said and done.
But when, my friend, it happens to you,
Everything's fresh, everything's new.

Which means you ought to write it.
Put it in a journal. Try an essay (Essay: an attempt; a trial, meaning try). Don't stop to evaluate the the idea or experience. Write it first, then you can evaluate.

Sometimes You Have to Work on a Poem for Years

Morning Encounter

I head up towards the aspens,

their leaves quaking, shimmering,

careless of the daisies and lupine below

that jostle and bend with the wind

whipping down these gullies.

A broad red-brown road curves,

wraps around this mountain like a scarf,

then narrows to the rutted path I walk.

A slender stream carries on polite conversation

with rocks and road as I pass.

I know this place.

The cap of snow,

the wind’s chill,

the morning silence.

It is early, still dark...

startled by a sound,

some movement in the bushes,

I stop, hold my breath,

look and look and then see it,

a porcupine at early breakfast.

I breathe easy now,

wondering, as I watch him

snap off leaf after leaf,

does he know I'm here?

has he caught my scent on the wind?

He takes no notice of me

but only eats.

I want us to be alike,

the porcupine and I,

some understanding to pass between us—

"there is wildness in me," I say,

"and I can be single-

minded like you."

I move close,

as if to touch him,

show him we are kin.

He moves away,

waddles up the mountain,

chewing as he goes.

“Porcupine,” I call after him,

“stay a while.” He

turns his eyes towards me

long enough to see what we share

and what we do not.

I hear him break through

the bushes and wildflowers

long after we have parted.

What a Day

It's Monday in Boise and just look at this sunshine and blue sky. We've been hoping for it, waiting for it. And now we have it. Bright and beautiful, like a smile.

Speaking of Language

Look what you can find if you just read a little here and there. This is a comment I found on a news story we're all familiar with just now. Wanting to share, I copied and pasted it here. I suppose we shouldn't be surprised at what some people will do to please the Elite.

Mrs. Kennedy ?

Her family name is her number one strength and she has many good qualities....But she surely was not the right person to represent anyone but the elite and to show compassion they throw

things down to pheasants to please the Elite..

Yes..her family has been through more then their share...but she is not Hillary or TED or JFK.. so let her stay happy in whatever she does out of politics.. no stomach for political fights

Give Me A Break, Tom Hanks

Tom Hanks says Mormons are unAmerican.
Must be true if he says it. Right? I mean, look who he is.

Actually, Tom, that's quite a label to slap on. And I would like to be clear on what you mean.

By unAmerican do you mean unpatriotic, as in Mormons don't serve in the military or salute the flag or become public servants? Or Mormons might speak out against America? Is that what you mean, Tom? You might want to look into the matter.

And by Mormons do you mean all Mormons or only California Mormons? You know, Tom, anyone has the right to campaign for or against a candidate or an issue.

If you mean all Mormons, here's something to consider. Not all of the 12+ million Mormons are American. Did you know that? Such a fact seems relevant, don't you think? Especially given the label you apply to them. And, really, don't you think it's foolish to characterize an entire group? I mean, I don't label all Hollywood celebrities as immoral, egomaniacal drug addicts, just because some of them are. That is if we can believe the news reports about them.

How many Mormons do you know, by the way? And, by the way, did you mean me? You know, I'm a Mormon, and I consider myself very much American and proAmerican.

I'm disappointed in you, Tom, and fearful you have become a little too self-important. So here's my label for you, and I hope it helps.

Tom Hanks, the great Omnignorant.

Language Fascination

I heard a news report about Howard Dean, outgoing Chairman of the Democratic Party. He will now be “going into private life.” I believe that was a quote from Mr Dean himself.

Going into private life. Interesting word choice. I guess "going into" follows "outgoing" nicely. But outgoing was my word.

Anyway, I know what Mr Dean means, I think, even though the words don’t exactly say what he means. For instance, it likely does not mean he is “going” anywhere necessarily or even that private life must be gone “into.” Pursuing private life? Another way of saying the same thing. Maybe, but that could mean he’s looking for something or chasing it. Privately. But pursuing is not what the story reported.

I think going into private life means no more public life or political life or life in the public eye, which does not mean he will be living privately entirely, in that he will never be seen in public, like J. D. Salinger, for example.

I live a “private life,” I think, and I didn’t have to go into it. Even when I taught at Boise State, which put me in—but not into—the public eye, I still was “into” private life or at least living it, and when I retired it would not have seemed apropos to say I was retiring to “go into private life.” Is it that only those who have been “public servants," if that’s what we would call Howard Dean, can then go into private life, and the rest of us are just already there? Perhaps there’s a qualifying measure, like how much of one’s time is spent as a public person.

Are those people we call celebrities living a private life? Or must they quit their celebrity and go into it? Or doesn’t everyone have a public life and a private one at the same time? The answer is, yes, of course.

But I may be moving away from the original idea or question, which is: why those words? Why is private life, for Howard Dean, something he must go into? Doesn’t the English language provide another, perhaps a better way of saying what he means?

I know, I know. It’s an idiom, and I have made no exhaustive investigation here. It may very well be the easiest way of saying what Howard Dean will be doing. Sort of..

Update 2

Yesterday I bought three clocks. Well, I bought two, kind of expensive, decent looking. Both looked bad wherever I put them. They were supposed to be for the bathrooms, but when they looked awful there I tried them elsewhere. But no.

I took them back and came home with three. I know what you're thinking. There may be something wrong with me.

Anyway, up they went on the bathroom walls, and, I mean, they're pretty cheap clocks, but they look fine, really.

Just one thing--my whole house is ticking now. Really.

I may have to think this over.

Update

I gave away one calendar, Alyce may be happy to know, the Norman Rockwell from GNC. I was feeling pretty good about it, but somehow on Sunday I picked up two more. I'm not sure why I took two, one for me and one for . . . who knows? But there they were, and free, of course. I'm only human, you know.

But Yikes. That really has to be the end. I mean, everywhere I turn in my house I can find out the day and date. Is that really necessary?

However, I am thinking of buying two more clocks, one for each of the two bathrooms where there is currently no clock. It seems right to me.

Margaret Thatcher

I like Margaret Thatcher. I've quoted her before. Here's what she said on the subject of personal power.

"Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't."

Words, Part 2

And what about the folks who say asterik for asterisk? This one I heard twice in a week, once by Ron Howard on TV. Now there, I thought, is a man who should know how to say that word. I don’t know why, just because he writes, directs, produces movies.

I think fiction writers and screen writers sponsor, perpetuate, and encourage misuses of language in their a) efforts to replicate the speech of the street, and b) own ignorance. It’s one reason I so liked Frasier. The writers of the show and the actors knew words and made a big thing about knowing words and using them correctly. Yes, the characters often showed themselves as snobs—how very comic of them—but I figured words were important to them.

I cannot count the times I moan inwardly at “between John and I” or whatever. And I got a Christmas card from a friend, someone I like very much, who gave “thanks to He who . . .” I can’t correct her; it’s a Christmas card; it's the idea that matters; she’s a friend.

And yesterday, another very good friend phoned and wanted me to know the perimeters of the essay contest she’s asking me to be judge for. I said nothing until much later in our conversation when I said--and it was hard to do--“Well, okay, I’ll go online, and when I find the rules and parameters I’ll . . .” but she may not have noticed, and I quite hoped she hadn't. Besides, maybe perimeters could work there.

No need, I suppose, to get into nuculer for nuclear or relator for realtor.

Although I tend to get excited about words and their use or misuse, and although I may fire off an email or make a phone call to someone in the public eye who ought to know better (like Carolyn Holly on Channel 7 News), I long ago resolved to be calm about the whole words phenomenon among friends and family members. After all, not everyone is in my English class, which, by the way, I don't have anymore, so it is not my business to teach them. Not unless they ask, and some do.

My bottom line? People and our relationships with them are more valuable than words.

New Post

I just wrote a new post for The Widow's Chronicle, Mother/Daughter, and I think it should be here. Either here also or here instead. But it isn't. It's there.

Remember These?

phantom, as in I can't phantom it

out of balance, as in he stepped over the line

prowness, as in athletic prowness

field gold, as in football - that three-point kick over the gold post

three throw, as in basketball - that chance to stand at the line and shoot without interference from the other players

athleticism, as in a word I thought some sports announcer made up but, no, it is in the dictionary

Freewrite

Sometimes I cover the screen so I cannot see the words. It’s a freewrite, a game to try to make myself write something. A freewrite has no theme, no restrictions. It only insists that I write something, anything.

Today, all morning, the words “I have nothing to write about” have kept themselves in front of my mind--like a blocker in a football game--to stop me, to keep anything from getting through to the paper, to the screen. Sometimes a freewrite can break through and find what's behind the block.

Quiet. Wait. Something will come, like magic, to my fingers. Something is in my mind, something to write about. Often when I freewrite my dad comes into my mind. I do not know why.

This time I am in my old neighborhood, the house where I grew up, looking out from my father’s office or from anywhere inside the house. I can see through the walls, see the hydrangeas at the front of the house, the strawberries Daddy planted along the west side, and the bougainvillea with its dark pink blooms climbing up the front wall to the second story. I see the hill my house sits on, the palm tree in our front yard, the lawn sloping down to the retaining wall, the red tile roof on the apartment building across the street where my friend Sandy lived.

I look to the right and find the ocean, see my little legs trying to keep up with my dad as he walks with my sister Lucile and me down the hills that lead to the beach. He walks fast, like he's in a hurry, and we have to run to stay with him. It is six blocks, I think, but it seems longer. I can’t wait. But when we get there Daddy is not patient. Clearly, this outing was not his idea. A few minutes in the swing, twice down the big slide, and we are done and on our way back up those hills. But that part I don’t remember.

So much for free writing, because it seems to me that my freewrites will never be free enough. I have tried the morning pages to dump out what’s floating around in my brain, that old stuff that sits there without purpose and probably without worth. But I do not know how long I would have to write to get past certain things. Memories that seem to be waiting for my fingers to rest on the computer keys, and then out they come. Or my dad popping into every free writing I do. I want to retrain those pathways in my brain, but I forget now how to do it.