autobiography of turquoise

Migrations

2011-10-10T08:11:00.013-05:00

Autumn in Albuquerque.
Autumn Equinox.
Balance.
Climbing walls, looking forward.
Maps.
Boundaries.
Blossoming bursts of color in the high desert.

Troubadours - the role of the poet as singer, as voice.
Carrier pigeons.
Migrations.
Cranes.
The Rio Grande.
Cottonwoods.
The Sandia Mountains.
The pain that was here.
The healing that remains.

Bald eagles still nest here along the same trees by the river that were pictured in kiva drawings thousands of years ago. Drawings depicting dances for rain.

Looking down on my beautiful city from
Sandia Crest of 10,600 feet,
I am home.

These mountains are major North American travel routes for migratory birds such as red-tailed hawks, golden eagles, sharp-shinned hawks and turkey vultures.

"The poet's primal voice is to pierce walls," summarizes my friend Margaret Randall in her book of essays "First Laugh." Nature knows no borders. Birds fly through countries. Bodies retain their cellular memory. We remember. We must speak the truth, our truth, to the world to allow healing.

Vistas await me...
wonderful new adventures.
The birds already know this.
Time to follow my inner instincts, migrations.
Balance with the Autumn Equinox in my beloved New Mexico.

Summer Solstice

2011-06-18T12:49:00.010-05:00

I came to find light. From the northern land of clouds and rain, I followed my tug of intuition that set me off on this journey to New Mexico. A pilgrimage, or a sabbatical; I came to find clarity in a new landscape where the sky is a different shade of blue and light reflects more intensely. I have experienced more sun in the last three months than I would have in several Minnesota summers.

The last couple of weeks Albuquerque has been engulfed at night by smoke from the Arizona wildfires a couple of hundred miles away. Breathing is no longer taken for granted. The moon turned red.

It’s clearing out now and the days remain clear, the nights are full of stars. Riding back from Santa Fe in my new friend’s yellow convertible, I breathe -- I notice the big dipper hanging above us. I am finding my own sense of clarity within the wind, the dust and the clearing smoke.

I arrived here in March, just after the Spring Equinox, in the middle of one of the windiest windy seasons on record. I found out I am allergic to dust, and realized after a few weeks that I miss water, and rain, and endless green. It took me a couple of weeks to acclimate to the altitude. Minneapolis elevation is at 841 feet. Albuquerque is 5,000 feet. I came in on a whirlwind of hope , only knowing of five people who lived in the state, and only knowing one fairly well, my writing coach. I stirred up quite a bit of feelings being introduced to a new romantic interest that started very quick and intensely, and is now evolving into something I’m not as sure of. There are patterns and circles that flow and interconnect, kind of like fractals.

What did I expect when I came here? What type of journey did I think I would find? I look back to the reasons I wanted to move here and the fears I had on what was holding me back. The fear of how I would stay the same, in the same patterns if I didn’t make it happen. The fear of getting stuck. I wanted to move if I but only if I had the right conditions: if I could keep my friends, if I could make new ones, if I could grow and have new experiences. I wanted to move to save money, to have new places to explore on weekends, to jump-start my writing, and most of all, to challenge myself. I worked through all of my excuses with help from my Minneapolis community and a lot of exercises and workshops. I made the decision and made the move and set off on an exciting new adventure. Of course, things always take longer and cost more money than planned.

What I found was unexpected. Hot air balloons. The windy season. Romance. Volcanoes. Alien beer. Petroglyphs. Inner turmoil. Light. I chose to become an immigrant and to be uprooted. I have the independent, wandering spirit from my grandfather, who came to Minnesota from Sweden in 1901 at age 18, the only one in his family to leave the homeland. He came for new opportunities, and to get away from the Swedish-sponsored Lutheran church. He had sponsors and help for a new start and a new life. I am a native Minnesotan and although I have traveled quite a bit, I had always lived in the Twin Cities metro area. I wanted New Mexico as my new home and I have found a few ‘sponsors’ to help me. I also knew that whatever struggles I would have to deal with, the landscape would hold me. The landscape is what drew me here and what I continue to respect and learn from. The gorgeous Sandia Mountains fill my daily life. The volcanoes have their secret beauty. It is a terrible type of beauty where I am not in control. I have to listen to the voice of the land.

I am reading “Death Comes for the Archbishop” by Willa Cather, which was a gift to me from Tim’s parents. I had never read the classic and although I never thought much of the Catholic church and what they did to the Native Americans, Cather’s fictional rendering of Father Jean Marie Latour coming from France to the vast unexplored territory of New Mexico in the 1850’s portrays him as sympathetic and respectful. Latour learns from the unforgiving landscape and explores his own loneliness. “That country will drink up his youth and strength as it does the rain." Ah, yes, how appropriate. I am not a tourist anymore, I am here for the long haul. The landscape is testing my strength.

To give another example, here is an excerpt about the Bishop Latour on his way to visit his Native American friend Eusabio – “the ride back to Santa Fe was something under four hundred miles. The weather alternated between blinding sand-storms and brilliant sunlight. The sky was as full of motion and change as the desert beneath it was monotonous and still, -- and there was so much sky, more than at sea, more than anywhere else in the world. The plain was there, under one’s feet, but what one saw when one looked about was that brilliant blue world of stinging air and moving cloud. Even the mountains were mere ant-hills under it. Elsewhere the sky is the roof of the world; but here the earth was the floor of the sky.”

Jean-Baptiste Lamy was the real-life French roman Catholic clergyman and the first Archbishop of Santa Fe that Cather’s novel is based on. His bronze statue is in front of the St. Francis Cathedral and he is buried under the sanctuary floor of the Basilica.

Personally, the land is my spiritual haven. I have moved from the 44^th latitude parallel to the 35^th latitude parallel. Albuquerque has 14.5 hours of daylight on the summer solstice, whereas Minneapolis has about 15. I lost a half hour of daylight but gained more sun. The Swedish midsummer is celebrated around the time of the summer solstice, with dancing around maypoles, bonfires and wearing crowns of wildflowers. Midsummer was thought to be one of the times of the year when magic was strongest and it was considered a good night to perform rituals to look into the future.

My will is sometimes tested with the quirky culture of Albuquerque (or Albuquirky as some call it). Getting my New Mexico driver’s license was easy enough, however I had to go through a week’s worth of paperwork and several trips with emissions and VIN doctors and MVP bureaucrats to get my New Mexico license plate. The political climate here can be depressing with a new Republican governor, the public schools are among the lowest rated in the country and the daily news reports endless drunk drivers with no treatment or no plans to get them off the road before they kill someone. Drug trafficking is in the schools and there are abandoned pet notices everywhere. In spite of all this, I am encouraged by the literary community here with a wonderful collaboration of poets and musicians. I have found a Monday evening open mic that is interesting and inspiring, and there are several weekly workshops and readings that give me options of ways to be connected and involved in the community. There are several independent, small presses here and a good University system. Every city has it’s down side, but Albuquerque, Santa Fe and Taos have some of the best artists in the country. I am here to take advantage and learn from that. I am already making the 50 minute drive to Santa Fe a weekend habit (or taking the Rail Runner), and Old Town Plaza is just a few minutes away. What I used to dream about is right outside my turquoise door. Last week I was writing in the O’Keeffe Museum for an evening workshop. I already have had a stream of visitors to my guest bedroom. My taste buds are happy too - who would have thought this Swedish girl would become addicted to green chile! I have learned to make it at home and put it on everything, including my new favorite, green chile mac and cheese.

I am writing – that is the main thing – new poems, new collaborations.

I continue to meet new friends and the Duke City is home for me. I felt that when I visited Minneapolis for a reading a few weeks ago and flew home. Albuquerque is home. When will I feel like a local? I feel it now, with my apartment, seeing friends, reading my work in front of others, going out to eat or on my daily walks with the gorgeous mountains. I have a routine and I’m settling in. I see the occasional road runner or the cute little lizards scampering across the patio. I mostly feel it learning what the land has to tell me. I am living my authentic self, or trying to. Here I am on the sage-brush desert edge of the world where I can breathe.

Rising to new adventures

2011-04-14T15:58:00.001-05:00

Today I wake up to four hot air balloons rising, which I can see from my patio in my new apartment in Albuquerque. A good sign, since I am hoping to go ballooning Sunday morning. I treasure the invitation from my new friends, Randy and Diana, to be part of the adventure, and I am bringing along my new romantic interest, Tim, who has also never been ballooning. I took a leap of courage in my journey to come here without knowing what to expect and I am pleasantly surprised, or more appropriately, blown over, by the intensity of what is happening in my life. I have met a wonderful man, and I had to come all the way to Albuquerque to meet a fellow Minnesotan. We’ve known each other only a few days and it seems like weeks, or months, or a lifetime.

As I watch the balloons rise, I think of the role balloons have played in history. I read the book “Jules Verne: The Man Who Invented Tomorrow” by Peggy Teeters. The book practically fell off the shelf to prompt me to read it at the Albuquerque library last week and reminds me that I chose my name for my writing life and for curiosity and adventure. (Most of you know my birth name was Julie, but I legally changed it to Jules many years ago).

The legendary author Jules Verne writes a fictional account about balloon explorers on the “Victoria,” a passenger balloon scheduled to go across Africa from east to west following the trade winds. It’s three passengers were Dr. Samuel Ferguson, an English explorer, Joe Wilson, a faithful servant, and Dick Kennedy, a courageous Scotsman. They maneuvered the “Victoria” over the jungles of Africa where the local inhabitants thought she was a foreign god. She was moored on the top of a breadfruit tree so that she would be safe from attack by some of the people below. On another occasion, her trail rope becomes entangled in the tusks of an elephant that begins to race wildly over the terrain with the balloon in tow. Jules Verne couldn’t resist putting Victoria and her crew in the midst of a blinding rainstorm and had Dr. Ferguson battle to make her rise high above the clouds away from the flashes of lightning. At the end of the story, the three men finish the journey without the basket, clinging to the net of the sinking balloon.

Verne’s novel opens with a brief factual account of African exploration up to that time – this is 1862 – and the reader is promised the revealing of the source of the Nile, Lake Victoria. This is the manuscript for Jules Verne’s “Five Weeks in a Balloon” which was published in January 1863 (after over fifteen rejections) and was an immediate best-seller with adults and children and provided enough income for Jules to live off his writing and give up his jobs that allowed for no creativity. In fiction, the Victoria has a successful flight in spite of its heart-thumping moments. On the other hand, in real life, there was an international race going on to discover the source of the Nile, the longest river in the world. Africa was unknown to the Europeans of the time and Jules’ idea of having his fictional explorers find the source of the Nile granted him success.

The French explorer/photographer Felix Tournachono, better known in Paris as Nadar, had a giant balloon, named appropriately, “The Giant” and equipped it with double-decker bunks, a kitchen, and a darkroom. Nadar didn’t really believe that the balloon could succeed as a means of transportation and told Jules the only reason he was building the “Giant” was for the money and the publicity it would bring him so that he could construct a primitive kind of helicopter. Jules, however, kept on writing. Nader’s
“Giant” crashed in Hanover, Germany, nearly killing the adventurer and his wife.

Hot air balloons also helped the French war effort in the 1870 with Napoleon’s downfall and victory over the Germans. Over sixty balloons left the capital during the siege, with most of them landing in friendly territory carrying pigeons, dogs and letters. One balloon flew 600 miles to Konigsberg, Norway, while another got up to a speed of 95 mph. A German balloon and a French balloon (piloted by the Frenchman Nadar) had even engaged in an air battle – the first in world history. Nadar had shot the German balloon down.

Jules Verne would go on to write “Around the World in Eighty Days,” “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea,” and “Journey to the Center of the Earth.” Jules Verne passed away at the age of 77 on March 24, 1905. Over 5,000 people came to his funeral, including schoolchildren, soldiers, politicians, clergy, scientists and writers. Jules’ son Michel erected a monument on his gravesite two years later at the Le Madeleine Cemetery in France. I will have to put Jules Verne’s gravesite on my list of cemetery visits for my own future travels. Jules Verne is an inspiration to me as a writer. New Mexico balloons are inspiring, floating pieces of the imagination that can take me almost anywhere.

I am not going to be as adventurous as the “Victoria,” however! Randy and Diana’s balloon is named “Sky Candy,” very appropriate for bright skies and fun travels! We will lift off from a parking lot at 6:30 in the morning, float over the suburbs and the valleys and land a couple of hours later to a welcoming tailgate party. I am a virgin balloonist, and now, by lifting off the New Mexican soil into the one-of-a-kind blue sky, I am finding out what courage and adventure feels like. How rewarding it is to feel at home with new friends and new love, in a new landscape. I want to share my experiences with all my friends scattered in Minnesota and elsewhere. My past is grounded, my future is open, my present is rising with the balloons.

10 days - 3,170 miles

2011-01-04T17:00:00.006-06:00

Photo: northern Iowa as the snow starts to appear.

The final statistics:
10 days, 3,170 miles! Quite a road trip. If I knew what the weather would be like and how tired I would be I would have thought twice before going. I did go, I needed to go and it was well worth it! I have now made my decision - I am moving to Albuquerque in April!

Recap:
12.25 - MSP to Emporia, KS
12.26 Emporia, KS to Boise City, OK
12.27 Boise City, OK to Las Vegas, NM - 2 nights
Las Vegas is one of my favorite places and fun people! Harder to find places to rent there though...
12.29 Las Vegas, NM to Albuquerque (snowstorm in Santa Fe) - 3 nights
highlights: finding an apartment complex I like in Albuquerque, and seeing my writing coach Demetria Martinez and writer Margaret Randall and her partner Barbara.
New Year's Eve in my hotel room, went to bed early for the long drive the next day
1.1 - Albuquerque to Kimberling City, MO (900 miles!!!) what a road trip, but I did it to spend time with my parents. I was sick of hotel rooms and it was nice driving weather-wise, although very long and I needed to stop and take a break for some home cooking and a guest room bed. They are happy for me and excited that I will be moving! They may even visit (my parents and my brother have never been to Albuquerque). I-40 straight through Armarillo, Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Joplin, MO and south to Springfield, MO area.
1.3 - Kimberling City, MO to Minneapolis, MN. 650 miles. Great sunny weather driving until I hit Mason City, IA where it begins to get snow, dark, and increasingly worse weather. Had to slow down to about 45 mph around Fairbault, MN to deal with the decreased visibility and slippery road conditions. The last 2 hours were the worst. It felt like I was going through a tunnel from sunshine and open space into this cloud of dreariness. I am a native Minnesotan, and for the first time in my life, coming 'home' to the Twin Cities is not feeling like the 'home' it used to be for me. I am ready for a new life, a new adventure in New Mexico! "Bagheera" my car ran great.
1.4 - Sleep in, unpack, a day off to be ready for work at home tomorrow! (and off to Boston - by air - next week)

We've wandered mony a weary foot, Sin' auld lang syne

2010-12-31T19:23:00.003-06:00

The Sandia Mountains are majestic today - this last day of 2010. Clouds have cleared, although it is still cold at about 20 degrees with a windchill that makes it feel much colder. I had lunch with the writer/poet/photographer/activist Margaret Randall today, and her partner Barbara at Flying Star cafe on Central Avenue. She is an amazing woman, and we traded books (my chapbook for her book "My Town.") At the end of the year, we turn - to reflect, to sing, to toast.

Margaret Randall returned to her hometown of Albuquerque when she was 48, after living in New York, Europe, Mexico, Cuba, and Nicaragua. She has been here ever since (and travels frequently). I will be leaving my native Minnesota at age 48 to make Albuquerque my new home town. New Mexico has always felt like my second home.

The old year ends and the new year dawns. I will be in my hotel room, reading poetry for the first time this trip and reflecting on the year. Robert Burns' 1788 Scot's poem is set to the tune of a now familiar folksong:

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And days of auld lang syne?
And days of auld lang syne, my dear,
And days of auld lang syne.
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And days of auld lang syne?

We twa hae run aboot the braes
And pu'd the gowans fine.
We've wandered mony a weary foot,
Sin' auld lang syne.
Sin' auld lang syne, my dear,
Sin' auld lang syne,
We've wandered mony a weary foot,
Sin' auld ang syne.
We twa hae sported i' the burn,
From morning sun till dine,
But seas between us braid hae roared
Sin' auld lang syne.
Sin' auld lang syne, my dear,
Sin' auld lang syne.
But seas between us braid hae roared
Sin' auld lang syne.

And ther's a hand, my trusty friend,
And gie's a hand o' thine;
We'll tak' a cup o' kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.
For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne,
We'll tak' a cup o' kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.

Day 6 - 30 Dec 2010 -Living with the Mountains

2010-12-30T19:24:00.010-06:00

Good to see the mountains again! The Sandias are named that way, watermelon, because of the sunlight reflecting on them. The overcast clouds reminded me of Minnesota, and there was a snow shower earlier today but it didn't last long. Seems like I wait an hour or two and the weather changes. Windy also, saw a tumbleweed blowing across a city street. (Photo: Albuquerque highway heading west)

I was out apartment hunting and am getting a feel for the market and what I can get for my money. Driving around a lot to check out areas and taking lots of photos so I remember what everything looks like. One place I really like so far, so when something becomes available in April I'll be prepared! I definitely need a 2 bedroom, for my office and a guest room. Most places here have washer/dryers in the units and are separated buildings grouped outside so you have your own outside entrance. Rental notices are 30 days (state law only requires 30 vs. 60) No garages needed for me, I can do a carport if I want to keep the sun off the car in the summer.

I also met my writing coach and friend, Demetria Martinez for brunch at Mannie's on Central Avenue (near the U of NM and Nob Hill area). It's a great local hangout. She grew up here and is giving me lots of writing contact ideas. I will have no problem becoming involved in the writing community here. The poetry scene is very non-academic, outside of the universities, which I like. It is free-flowing and has room for growth. I am losing track of what day it is, and that tomorrow is New Year's Eve. I probably will spend the night in my hotel room watching something on the limited cable. It's cold here, in the 30's but no snow on the ground makes it feel warmer, and it's still a heck of a lot better than being in piles and piles of Minnesota snow. It is cloudy now, but the sun peeked out even a bit for today. The sun improves my mood immensely. New Mexico is one of the sunniest states in the nation. I am still very tired, all this driving around and reading maps is exhausting. Watching the weather channel is also tiring, as I'm deciding what day to leave and the best route home. I probably wouldn't have left at all if I knew the weather was going to be this crazy but some things I have to do regardless. I am feeling good about this trip and being here, getting things done I need to do. I stopped at Whole Foods - there are no co-ops here (guess people have tried, or there are natural food stores, but hey I'm spoiled with the Wedge) to pick up a snack for my hotel room. Wine is sold at the grocery store, convenient. Prince was playing in the background music - our local boy makes good. Minnesota is always in my blood to remind me where I come from and my history. New Mexico helps me with my future.

New Year's Eve brings a full moon - I will see what the sky is like and maybe I'll be able to see it. This trip and moving is a gift to myself, a resolution for the New Year.

The photo below has the New Mexico flag in the distance, looking out a bedroom window, an empty room, full of new possibilities.........who knows where I will go with my writing and connections when I come here. Safe travels to all - physically, mentally and spiritually - as you prepare for the turn around the corner, the coming of the new year, a time for celebration and reflection.

snowball in the park

2010-12-29T23:02:00.001-06:00

Las Vegas, NM plaza area - a patch of snow...... 28 Dec 2010.

Las Vegas, NM railroad depot

2010-12-29T22:59:00.001-06:00

The railroad depot is restored and running! Amtrak stops here. (This photo is for my dad and brother, the railroad buffs) Taken 28 Dec 2010.

car wash!

2010-12-29T22:56:00.001-06:00

After 1200 miles of salt and grime, my "Bagheera" car gets a wash! Taken at the Las Vegas, NM railroad depot parking lot. (about 45 degrees outside feels like a heat wave)

Las Vegas, NM photos - day 3 - 27 Dec 2010

2010-12-27T21:24:00.008-06:00

Two posts on Las Vegas windows - my kind of town!
The Library - Las Vegas, NM

the other Vegas - Day 3 - 27 Dec 2010

2010-12-27T20:54:00.010-06:00

Photos: Oklahoma sky, cattle country, finally see the mountains in the distance. Pinon hills, the southern part of the rockies, Carson National Forest.
Clayton, NM elevation is 5,000 feet.

Same highway 54, the old Santa Fe Trail. Yesterday was another 500 mile day, today will be shorter, only 200 or so. Destination: Las Vegas, New Mexico.

When I get to Las Vegas I feel like I have been coming off a long journey from the prairie. New Mexico smells different, there is pinon in the air, sage and pine. I head into downtown, near the plaza area. Las Vegas, NM has been used for many a film crew and it is a funky little town of about 15,000 people established in 1835. The Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe railroad came here, and Amtrak still stops here. Las Vegas has more than 900 buildings on the National Register of Historic Places, and is a mix of Victorian, old west and adobe. I have lunch at a local cafe and savor the New Mexican food that I can't find anywhere else. After my 'fix' I study my maps from the Chamber of Commerce. Las Vegas is like Santa Fe was in the 1970's - very laid back, artsy without being overblown about it, and not overcrowded with adobe building codes.

I call my friend Anya to let her know I'm here. She used to live here and she is now in Minneapolis. She calls me back immediately. Within a few minutes I have the names and phone numbers of her friend and also her old landlord. The house she used to rent is a few blocks away. Since I have only his name, I knock on the door. The landlord's relative is home, and shows me around, it just happens that the 3 bedroom 'cowboy house' is available soon, but I'm really looking for something smaller. There are a couple of 1 bedroom places in the same house. She calls the landlord and he answers and gives me information, he will try to set up a showing for me tomorrow so I can get the feel of the place. He calls me back later that night, he has 14 properties in town, what a selection, what a nice guy, we talk about red and green chili and may meet for a bite to eat tomorrow. I call Anya's other friend and she says yes, she will see me tomorrow, cook me dinner, and is excited to meet me. It is either a very friendly small town or everyone is looking for someone new to do things with. I could very easily settle in here but I need some time to get more of a feel for the place. There is only one movie theater that shows one movie at a time (I have Netflix), one theater (the college), a great library with a park and a plaza to itself (that says something), a good used bookstore, lots of cafes and restaurants and it is an hour away from Santa Fe and the crowds, two hours from Albuquerque, lots of natural parks and open space. I find a few massage therapists and herbal medicine shops and the town has a good vibe to it, I feel at home here. The Universe listens and puts things in motion quickly. Now all I have to do is decide, and act.

I'll stay here two nights and then head south to Albuquerque. I have friends and places I need to see there, too.

I check my work computer connections and all is well. I have wireless and my cell phone so I can link into work tomorrow for a half day. Amazing that I can work anywhere I want to! This is my dream, to be able to live in some funky small town and still have my job. I love Minneapolis, but sometimes I need to get away from it all, I can think clearer here, not so much pressure. Somehow I will find a way to put the edges of the puzzle together into a whole.

Breaking edges - Day 2 - 26 Dec 2010

2010-12-27T19:34:00.019-06:00

Kansas can be a strange place.

US Highway 50 - the old Santa Fe Trail.

Stone City - named after stone cutters
Chase County - the largest cattle shipping port in the US and more than 60 trains a day came through here.
The highway follows the railroad (I notice this because my dad and brother are train buffs).

Most of these towns were established in the 1880's: Florence, Peabody, Newton, Hutchinson, Pratt, Greensburg. This is Wyatt Earp country. 40 to 50 miles between towns and a lot of empty space in between. I take it town by town and enjoy the view. Neil Young is on my CD player: "That ol' white line is a friend of mine......rolling down the open road...."

Frost is on the trees and the grass making this Kansas prairie highway an Antarctica of the west, as I like to think of it. The colors are enchanting: whites, tan, grey mixed in with grass, trees, overcast sky, the black of road and occasional rusted out farm equipment or old trucks. It is the edge of a new world. I am familiar with the prairie combines, farm equipment, windmills and sprinklers. Telephone poles and cellphone towers. Then I see my first oil well. And another.

I should have a poem out of this, or a novel something like Cormac McCarthy would write, or a Coen Brothers film. I see owls - three of them. One was a few miles back, by the side of the road grabbing prey, it was white and tan and I saw its face. Another one flew over me, towards the car. A white owl symbolizes wisdom and spirituality (a Harry Potter icon?) and if you see one in the daylight it's a deserted place. Yes, this is deserted, but it is full of life. I will work the white owl into one of my personal folk tales.

The sun is setting low in the sky and it is only two p.m. Wind turbines sparkle in the distance. I am in Greensburg, and a single wind turbine is at a John Deere tractor parking facility. I pass the hospital and two wind turbines are there, supplying extra power right in town. It is 38 degrees and partly sunny. 248.5 miles today so far.

At a rest area I stop and see birds, hundreds of black crows or ravens swarming over the trees like bees (see photo). They are fluid, and move as one organism. This highway is the old stagecoach line. In the 1880's and '90's Donald Green served areas not reached by the railroad and carried the mail from Wichita to Kingman. He had teams of six to eight horses which were changed every eight to ten miles. As the railroads advanced, his service dwindled but he is remembered by a historical marker at this rest area with the birds near Greensburg.

I make it to Meade, home of the Dalton gang hideout. The land changes again, the edge of the prairie breaking off into the west, breaking the edges of maps. The land is more open, and the few trees now are planted evergreens or low bushes, tilted with the wind. In Hugoton a house has trees along three of its edges, all planted pines neatly in a row and they bend almost to the ground. 43 degrees. 4:41 pm. I am breathing with the prairie, into the western hills, no city lights, just open space. No people except for the few I see when I slow down in a town. Tumbleweeds roll across the highway. I slow down for Rolla, from 65 mph to 40 mph. Trucks with their trailers come towards me often enough in the other lane that I recognize a pattern. They are usually followed by one to three cars behind them, like flies attaching to a horses' flank, waiting to pass. The wind here is so strong that I grip the steering wheel hard when I meet a big truck in the other lane, I can feel the wind as my car hangs on to the hard asphalt of the road. Oil is in asphalt, oil built this road, and more and more we continue to pump of it, to feed our driving habits. 16 miles to Elkhart, 17 miles to the Oklahoma border. I am almost to the Oklahoma panhandle.

I am racing the sun now, it is setting fast and I am heading into it and soon it will be in my eyes. It's so bright and right on the road that I have to pull over a bit and wait for it to sink into the horizon. I arrive at Elkhart - "The Cornerstone of Kansas" the city sign says. I make it a few more miles to Boise City, Oklahoma where I will spend the night. It's enough of a town to have a choice of three hotels and one restaurant that isn't fast food.

I choose the "Crystal" hotel, an old brownstone lit up with a red 'vacancy' sign and a lobby with a Christmas tree and lights. It reminds me of a grandma-type of place and is vintage 70's. There is a fabric store across the street which is a good sign. The lady at the desk has gray hair and tells me about her library collection that is down the hall. She lost most of it she says, doesn't say how and later I see there are only two sparse shelves of diet books and romance novels and old seed catalogs and a macrame book. There is dark paneling on the walls and shag carpet in my room, striped. Reminds me of my parents basement. It is comforting in a way, until I discover that the wireless internet doesn't work upstairs and I have to bring my laptop downstairs to get any type of signal. (I don't have a smartphone). My cell works, there is no phone in the room, just cable tv. I feel like a female Jack Kerouac on the road, which I am, in a way. I wonder what time zone I'm in - still central. I lose track of days and time here. I pack differently when driving. I stashed a few bottles of wine, snacks, extra shoes, books, things for the 'fridge. Things I would never travel with by air. It's nice to know no one is patting me down or scanning me as I move from place to place.

What have the stars told me? I see Venus out my window and the bright stars on the black Oklahoma sky and I'm up and packed by 6:30 am so I can have breakfast at the diner and see the sun rise on the prairie.

Day 2 - 26 Dec 2010

2010-12-27T19:27:00.004-06:00

William Allen White House - Emporia, Kansas

Closed for the season, but a nice view nonetheless. In the old residential part of town.

Roadtrip - Day 1 25 Dec 2010

2010-12-25T20:04:00.008-06:00

Photo: Iowa

7:31 am – leave Minneapolis. Car mileage 48,225. Daylight just beginning. Head south on I-35, so much different than my summer road trips. This is the same way I drive to my parents house in southern Missouri, but instead of doing 650 miles and a 12 hour drive, I will veer west into Kansas City and see how far I will get. Everything is white, the freeway is clear, the plows have been out. It is good enough to set the cruise control at 68 mph (speed limit 70) and feel comfortable. I reach the Iowa border at 9:18 am. I recognize the same rest areas from my summer trips, and stop at every one to stretch my legs. (In the summer I usually go every other one or so). It seems strange to sometimes be the only one there. I say hello to fellow winter travelers, we seem to have a common bond in our venturing out for winter travel. There are, however, a surprising amount of cars on the freeway, at least near the metro areas.

Iowa can be desolate in the summer on the freeway – now it has a sense of abandonment. White everywhere – white snow, white clouds meeting the horizon (although no snow, good driving weather, no bright sun) – a sense of calmness, grayness, whiteness, quiet. Trees are beautiful blanketed in snow, small farmhouses and barns add bits of color to the landscape. The wind turbines I see by the freeway blend into the whiteness and are not moving, they are silent. Everything is clearer out here.

I listen to Christmas carols on the radio. Jazz 88 and KFAI faded around Fairbault, NPR’s classical station 99.5 faded around the Minnesota border, and I search to find whatever station NPR is on where I’m at. It fades in and out. Driving like this takes patience and hope – and I think of the evergreen trees. We bring them into our homes to symbolize hope, the pagan celebration of endurance waiting for the return of the light. This roadtrip is a gift to myself.

I slow down. I-35 in northern Iowa has some drifting snow. One lane is always open, the passing lane a bit snowy in spots. Maximum speed about 50 to 55 mph now. The snowplows are out, plowing the edges, and there must have been a major snowstorm here a day or two ago because I pass at least a dozen cars in the ditch the next few miles. Probably going too fast, or it was a white-out. In a blizzard it would be hard to see the road. The land is flat and there is nothing to stop the wind. The cars and four-wheel drives are all tagged with yellow tape, some upside down. Iowa tests my patience, and I count off the 150 miles to Des Moines. I gas up near Jewell, Iowa and it is 18 degrees. 197 miles into my trip. Once I reach the outskirts of Des Moines, it is over, the freeway is clear again and I can breathe easier. I go around Des Moines and head on the long stretch before Kansas City. Cross the Missouri state line at 48,557, 1:21 pm, 23 degrees. I call my parents from my cell with my headset.

Photo: The Missouri rest area has fake buffalo.

This is the time when I usually want to stop for lunch, but this stretch doesn’t have much. I take a chance on Cameron, off the exit at a place called Nellie’s. I think it’s going to be a nice local restaurant and it’s not a chain, but not much better. I am surprised by the ‘non-smoking’ section and remember Missouri still has smoking allowed in public places. I feel like an outcast the moment I walk through the door with my furry boots and coat (a lady likes my coat and compliments me on it) and most everyone in here is white and over age 60 with John Deere sweatshirts or fishing caps. There is one black guy, at least. The waitress is prompt and friendly and has a southern twang and loads me up on carbs and sugar. I can’t each much, but it helps curb my hunger for awhile.

Back on the road, I breeze through Kansas City. So much different than my past experiences (I usually avoid it). No road construction and no rush hour! The suspension bridge is done and beautiful. There is a “Minnesota Avenue” exit. It feels better in Kansas. A bit of city driving makes me feel at home again. It’s still over 150 miles to Wichita and it gets dark around 5:30 pm (I gain about 20 minutes of light this far south). Out of the snow zone now, just brown grass, gray trees and overcast getting dark. Still cold, about 30 degrees. I pull into Emporia, Kansas around 6:30 pm to look for a hotel. About 550 miles down so far. A good day.

Emporia seems to be a good choice, I see signs saying ‘home of William Allen White.’ White was a renowned newspaper editor, politican and author (Feb 10, 1868 – Jan 29, 1944) He was also a leader of the Progressive movement. There is also a sign saying “National Teacher Hall of Fame.” The writers and teachers are with me! It is time to check in, update the blog and veg out watching cable TV with my own snacks to rest up for another long day of driving tomorrow and see what this town looks like in daylight.

New Mexico road trip

2010-12-24T21:41:00.008-06:00

Christmas Eve, 2010

Photo: downtown Minneapolis from the 35^th floor of my apartment building, looking north.

Tonight I am packing for my road trip – from Minneapolis to Albuquerque. Tomorrow’s journey on Christmas Day will be south on I-35 hopefully to Wichita, KS (aprx 600 miles and 10 hours). Sunday night will be Albuquerque (another 600 miles). I was going to go through Nebraska and Colorado but because it’s January and with the snow, I’ll play it safe and go more south. Those of you that know me well know that I’ve always been enchanted with ‘the Land of Enchantment.’ The landscape pulls me there, along with the energy. I feel I need to be there to discover something.

The first time I set foot on New Mexican soil was in November 1992. I’ve been there many times since, and in 1996 I wanted to move there, but got married instead. This time, I’m not going to let anyone hold me back. I’ve been thinking about this for several months; my apartment lease in Minneapolis ends March 31^st – where I will move come April 1^st is uncertain at this point. Taos, Santa Fe and Albuquerque or somewhere in between are all possibilities. When I follow my intuition and announce a change, I feel resistance. The fact that I’ve acknowledged it and announced it helps me commit to it. The end of the year is a time for evaluating the past and planning for the future, but mostly it’s a bit like jumping off a cliff – there is fear involved – but also a sense of power and purpose. “Leap, and the net will appear” is a saying I remember frequently. I think of what would happen if I DON’T do this and am filled with regret, so I know I have to make this trip and see how New Mexico fits into my life.

Whatever happens in high desert country, I want it to be an extension of my life in Minneapolis. I have strong roots here as a native Minnesotan, and moving to Minneapolis from the St. Paul ‘burbs was a big step for me at the time. I want to continue to challenge myself and have new experiences. I still love Minneapolis and Minnesota and realize how much of a Midwesterner I really am. If I would write a mission statement for what I want to accomplish these next two weeks it will be to keep an open mind, stay flexible, follow my heart and intuition and see what will work for me. It will also challenge my current relationships, which is good too, we all need growth and change, that is the only thing that is constant. I hope I am not running away from anything (sometimes it feels like that) but that I am going to another place for my second home. Something that complements what I have here. I love travel, and want to keep the flow moving for new places, people and experiences.

Now that I am working 'remotely' at my day job, Capella University, I can take my work laptop with me! I intend to take advantage of my flexibility.

I also love being out on the open road, with open space around me. The motion usually gets my creativity going and I will be blogging as I go, taking notes, writing poems and hopefully will have a whole new set of experiences and writings to do something with later. I invite you to join me and check back daily on this link. Me and “Bagheera” (my black 2004 Chevy Malibu car) will keep you posted!

Notes on John Yau's reflections on Yves Klein

2010-11-12T09:01:00.002-06:00

At the Walker last night...John Yau (poet/art critic) shared his words on the artist Yves Klein. I, in turn, wrote down my words.

Cherry Bomb - Chicago cab parked in Santa Fe, NM

2010-09-17T05:52:00.000-05:00

Cherry Bomb lyrics

(Jett-Fowley)
Can't stay at home, can't stay in school
Old folks say ya poor little fool
Down the street, I'm the girl next door
I'm the fox you've been waiting for
Hello daddy
Hello mom
I'm your ch ch ch
Ch cherry bomb
Hello world, I'm
Your wild girl
Ch Ch Ch
Ch cherry bomb
Stone age love, and strange sounds too
Come on baby, let me get into you
Bad nights causin' teenage blues
Get out now, 'cause you've got nothin' to lose
Hello daddy
Hello mom
I'm your ch ch ch
Ch cherry bomb
Hello world, I'm
Your wild girl
Ch Ch Ch
Ch cherry bomb
Hey street boy, ya want some style
Your dead end dreams don't make you smile
I'll give you somethin' to live for
Have ya, grab ya till you're sore
Hello daddy
Hello mom
I'm your ch ch ch
Ch cherry bomb
Hello world, I'm
Your wild girl
Ch Ch Ch
Ch cherry bomb

Sandhill cranes descending by North Branch, MN and the full moon

2010-08-28T09:36:00.001-05:00

Paul Bunyan and Babe - Bemidji, MN

2010-08-26T13:27:00.002-05:00

Paul Bunyan and Babe - Bemidji, MN

2010-08-19T22:12:00.000-05:00

Chief Bemidji

2010-08-19T22:10:00.000-05:00

Chief Bemidji, 1824-1904. Bemidji is the first city on the Mississippi River (along with Lake Bemidji). Bemidji means 'to traverse, or river route'. Chief Bemidji's daughter married a white postmaster. Well he wasn't officially a chief, but that was his honorary title. His real name is Shaynowishkung.

Tony Jaros' northeast Minneapolis

2010-07-11T10:41:00.000-05:00

Bridge at 8th Street, Northeast Mpls, now torn down

2010-07-11T10:38:00.002-05:00

This is the old bridge by 8th street in Northeast Minneapolis, near Tony Jaro's restaurant - it was torn down in spring 2010.

Kitty curtains at the Hemingway House, Key West, FL

2010-07-06T22:02:00.000-05:00

Photo by Jules Nyquist, June 2010

Poet Spencer Reece shooting pool - Bennington, VT

2010-07-06T09:25:00.001-05:00

Photo by Jules Nyquist. Spencer played a game of pool at the old student center at Bennington College, VT, winter 2007. Check out his book "The Clerk's Tale"

Bascillica at sunset July 4th, my balcony, Mpls

2010-07-05T23:53:00.000-05:00

Coneflowers - Lake Harriet, Minneapolis

2010-07-05T23:44:00.001-05:00

Loch Ness on Lake Harriet, Minneapolis

2010-07-05T23:43:00.002-05:00

www,lakecreature.com

Lisa's Memorial Service

2010-01-24T09:27:00.008-06:00

I read this for Lisa's Memorial Service - it was such a beautiful remembrance with family and friends and several people read or spoke. I was especially moved by one of Kyle's teachers who spoke about how Lisa was so involved with Kyle's school - she is well-respected and loved by the community and has touched so many lives.

The photo at right was taken 13 years ago - at my wedding - with little Kyle - he was about 3 months old....

Remembering Lisa -

I have spent the last few months thinking a lot about Lisa. When Lisa called me in May that she couldn’t make my birthday celebration, and she told me on the phone that she had cancer – that word went through me like a rock shattering glass. How could life be so unfair? One day we’re meeting for happy hour and she is driving her cute little Audi – then, all of a sudden, it’s cancer. Actually, I was a bit envious of her car and also that she learned how to drive a stick shift. I have still not learned how to drive a manual transmission. Lisa was so happy that her boyfriend John had taught her how to drive that car.

There is a Hindu proverb that says – “no disease like hope.” I continued to have hope, that precious, stupid hope that we all have that we can beat death. Sometimes I live my life almost in a dream, hoping not to wake up. The dying teach us to be present, to live in the moment. A Buddhist teacher and author Sylvia Boorstein (author of the book Don’t Just Do Something, Sit There) says: “Life is difficult for everybody. Once you’re in, there’s no way out. You have to go forward. And we all die in the end. So how to deal with it?”

Yes, how to deal with it.

A couple of weeks ago I visited a greenhouse in the middle of winter. It was the Cowles Conservatory at the Walker Sculpture Garden. It was very cold outside, on one of those 10 below zero days and as I walked inside, it was 80 degrees. Palm trees were reaching to the ceiling and seedlings were emerging from the dirt. I was almost hesitant to take off my coat, that yes, this warmth was real, it really was nice inside. There were green plants thriving in the middle of winter. I stayed for about a half hour and it helped brighten my gray, uncertain mood. It helped to know that one season overtakes another. At this time of winter, when winter solstice has passed and the days are gradually getting longer and lighter, it gives me hope. But ice was on the glass. This was just one square of isolated heat, it was still winter. When visiting hours were over, I would have to leave, I would have to step out into the cold.

I’m glad I spent a lot of time visiting Lisa these last few months. I would come over and sit with her in her bedroom, climb on the bed with her, and sometimes my nephew Kyle, and we would talk and watch movies, almost like a slumber party. I brought over lots of movies and magazines for her, it was something for me to do. Lisa’s dad would answer the door and make us fresh squeezed lemonade. Sometimes we ordered pizza. As the chemo and radiation treatments intensified, Lisa said she was sick of being sick. We were all waiting for what was coming, we just didn’t know when, or if, or for sure.

I knew Lisa before she married my brother, we were both friends with Caroline, who married my brother’s friend and who died of cancer almost a decade ago. We went to a lot of funerals, including Lisa’s mom, who also died of cancer. We both had divorces in the same year and it was hard to be in the middle of things, to lose part of my family and hers. Lisa remained a dear friend, like a sister to me. I’ve been looking through a lot of photos lately and I had forgotten some of the happy times we had together as two families. Lisa and I were in each other’s weddings. After our divorces, we hung out a lot together and we gave each other support. She attended some of my poetry readings and art events and sometimes Nicole came with. I would meet her for dinner, we always managed to keep in touch with our busy lives. Lisa was there for me when my boyfriends were unreliable. She would invite me over for dinner with her and the kids. I was grateful I could see my nephew Kyle with both my brother and with Lisa. It was a way to see everyone more often.

I've been saying 'I love you' a lot lately - to Lisa, to family and friends. I'm a bit overly-sentimental because of all this. Each time I visited Lisa it was harder. Each time I hugged her more, held her hand, rubbed her feet, kissed her cheek. Sometimes I want to wake up and hope it was all a bad dream. I still get angry. Sometimes I feel I am trapped in that glass greenhouse, in a very fragile state. What are we here to learn? Why are we here at all? For love? For learning? I certainly don't know the answers. All I know is that we are all in this together. Lisa’s smile, her laughter, her friendship, will always be with me.

I want to close with a poem by Minnesota poet and a friend of mine, Freya Manfred. It is from a series on Winter and she writes a lot about water. Lisa liked spending time up north at the cabin.

Winter – by Freya Manfred (from her book “My Only Home”)

Down on the frozen lake,
I look for signs of life.
In the center of the bay
I find three round holes
Drilled and abandoned by ice fishermen.
I lie on my stomach and peer
Into one pale green cylinder,
Hoping a fish will swim by.
I wait until the entire lake
Tilts upright – with me at the knothole –
But I see no fish, no mermaids, no stars,
Just pure water rising toward me
From a meadow of green light:

Like a memory of a dream
Of a place I once
Belonged.

Lisa is a bright, shining star that will continue to be there for me. Nicole has been an amazing force of positive, healing energy. I know Lisa is proud of her and of Kyle. I am using Lisa as my inspiration to live my life, to do those things that need to be done. Someday I will learn how to drive a stick shift car and I will do it for Lisa. We now have one more soul on the other side watching out for us. Thank you Lisa, for being my friend, and for all that you are.

In Loving Memory -
Lisa Joy Nelson Nyquist
April 22, 1965 - January 20, 2010

Glass House

2010-01-11T19:42:00.010-06:00

Window looking at snow - it is not a dream.

It is ten below zero outside, and 80 degrees inside. Ice forms on the glass.

I took this yesterday in the Walker Sculpture Garden greenhouse, looking out at the Basilica.

It reflects my mood: gray, uncertain, cold. One season overtaking another. Winter blotting out summer except in glass houses in squares of isolated heat, although that doesn't mean it can spread anywhere else. When visiting hours are over, I have to leave.

I am posting this for Lisa. I am remembering her, yet she is still here, still alive, still fighting to say goodbyes as she dies, faster than the rest of us, coping with cancer. Terminally ill, she is in hospice care at home, brain and lung cancer at 43.

The photo above shows Lisa and I in July 1994. I am on the left, in the hat, Lisa and I were attending a wedding. I can't even remember the last wedding I went to - I've had a lot of funerals lately.

Lisa's smile, her laugh, her friendship are all still with me. She is now my ex-sister-in-law, she married my younger brother Russ and they divorced in 2003, the same year I divorced. I forgot some of the happy times we had together as a big family as I went through old photos. Her daughter Nicole is now 24, her son Kyle, 13. I don't need to put all the details here, but I do want to think about the shortness of life, this fleeting moment we have on planet Earth. What are we here to learn? Why are we here at all? For love? For learning? I certainly don't know the answers. Life isn't fair.

I've been saying 'I love you' a lot lately - to Lisa, to my parents, to family and friends. I'm a bit overly-sentimental because of all this. I visit Lisa once a week or so and each time it gets harder; each time she is a little weaker, and losing memory. Each time I hug her more, hold her hand, rub her feet, kiss her cheek. I'm not ready to lose her yet, but I know it will only be a few months, or weeks. Each time I let go a little bit more and know that she is letting go too, making peace with herself and her life. She is such a wonderful mom, and her daughter Nicole helped to organize a benefit for her in October. (Photo above is Kyle, Lisa and Nicole, Oct 2009). I want to wake up and hope it was a bad dream.

It's winter overtaking summer. I am trapped in the glass house, fragile. Visiting hours will soon be over and Lisa will leave us. She is wonderful and beautiful; a bright shining star. She will always be here with me - I remember. It's hard to talk about, but it is good to see her, here in the present.

2009-12-30T22:06:00.024-06:00

Icons for the Bereaved - Poetry Reading - December 17, 2009 Hennepin History Museum, Minneapolis, MN

Sometimes the only place that feels like home is someone else's home.

December 17, 2009 - Icons for the Bereaved Poetry Reading at the Hennepin History Museum, 2303 - 3rd Avenue South, Minneapolis, MN. The photo at left shows a bit of the warm ambience I felt here reading with my poet friends. We shared our words on death, grief, loss - leading to hope. It was almost winter solstice, the time of the darkest night, when light will begin again to creep into our lives, to lengthen our days. Thanks to Jada Hanson, Executive Director, for letting us perform in this beautiful museum space.

When I went to the exhibit opening about a month earlier, I was so moved by the artifacts and the feelings I experienced I just had to share it with everyone. I thought of my friends that may have writings related to the exhibit theme and with a connection or two, I was on my way to curating the reading series. I wanted to bring poetry to those who may not have attended a reading. I wanted to bring the museum and this exhibit to writers, and to help expand the museum publicity new faces. Cheryl Ullyot graciously provided the food and wine, and we were off.....releasing grief and sorrow out into the Universe and the dark winter night, where it was magically transformed into something larger than ourselves. The cycle of life and death continues. Several of us have mothers, uncles, friends who are hovering at death's door, or who have passed through. We let it be, it is, and we remember we are not alone.

The exhibit has some powerful photos and artificats of late 19th and early 20th Century rituals. Full mourning lasted a year, wearing black in public with modest crepe fabric, hats and veils for women. Another 9 months of black silks and velvets. Relatives were born at home and died at home. Photography was in vogue and familes wanted portraits of their deceased loved ones with the living, sometimes the only photo they would have of a mother and daughter, or father and son. Two photos in the exhibit stood out for me. One was a young deceased child sitting on a rocking chair in a white dress, holding a stuffed toy, in front of the fireplace. The other was the deceased mother dressed in black, standing behind her living baby; the mother's eyes were closed and her hands are clenched in fists, wrapped towards her child. I'm sure the family wanted this as a keepsake, probably the only photo of them together, but oh, what a moving, powerful, almost creepy tribute.

Anya Achtenberg read an excerpt from her novel - it seems like the man in the painting is listening in, waiting to announce his approval - whoever he is. (His name was listed, but I did not recognize it, that is a subject for further research).

Kari Fisher shared a moving tribute of poetry and memoir, referencing W.S . Merwin's "For the Anniversary of My Death" (Every year without knowing it I have passed the day....) and Meridel LeSeuer into something I can only now recall as magnificent!

Our John Berryman experience (Berryman is referenced later...) was when we visited his gravesite a few years ago, where he is buried next to his mother in a Catholic cemetery in Mendota Heights, MN. See the separate blog entry on that.

Cindra Halm - your musings on your mother and Lake Superior, the sounds and rhythms you bring were enchanting - you bring us hope and light through the solstice!

Freya Manfred opened with one of my favorite Bill Holm poems on the Solstice (Bill passed away earlier this year). She shared her work from her sixth book of poems, "Swimming with a Hundred Year Old Snapping Turtle." Freya and I have a bond with our philosophy on reading - her father, the novelist Frederick Manfred was always reading, before or after dinner, or anytime he could grab a minute. "The best way to be a good writer is to read," he said. I agree. Bennington College, my alma mater, always told us, "read 100 books, write one."

One of the themes I see in Freya's work is water - how it represents a passage through time, and hope. Here is one of her poems from "My Only Home" part of the "Winter" series:

Down on the frozen lake,
I look for signs of life.
In the center of the bay
I find three round holes
drilled and abandoned by ice fishermen.
I lie on my stomach and peer
into one pale green cylinder,
hoping a fish will swim by.
I wait until the entire lake
tilts upright -- with me at the knothole --
but I see no fish, no mermaids, no stars,
just pure water rising toward me
from a meadow of green light:

like a memory of a dream
of a place I once
belonged.

Loren Niemi's theme was John Berryman - he read a poem that referenced something about meeting a girl in a bar, being stood up for lunch, and quoting Berryman. He shared one of his masterful stories about sitting in on a U of M class where Berryman could be in one of three states when he walked in: drunk, sober or hungover. Loren closed with a poem, and although I didn't write down the number of the dream song, I have included a John Berryman poem below, #11 - (from "77 Dream Songs") that I thought would be a good tribute. Loren's mother was dying when this reading was taking place, and she died on December 24th. Our thoughts and sympathies are with everyone who has had someone they love pass on to the other side.

#11 - by John Berryman

His mother goes. The mother comes & goes.
Chen Lung's too came, and came and crampt & then
that dragoner's mother was gone.
It seem we don't have no good bed to lie on,
forever. While he drawing his first breath,
while skinning his knees,

while he was so beastly with love for Charlotte Coquet
he skated up & down in front of her house
wishing he could, sir, die,
while being bullied & he dreamt he could fly --
durring irregular verbs - them world-sought bodies
safe in the Arctic lay:

Strindberg rocked in his niche, the great Andree
by muscled Fraenkel under what's of the tent,
torn like them limbs, by bears
over fierce decades, harmless. Up in pairs
go we not, but we have a good bed.
I have said what I had to say.

I shared poems on suicide and a monologue on Liam's shoes. They felt like a collection of eulogies, or notes on what is coming: cancer, unrequited love, waiting impatiently for resurrections. My uncle had died two days earlier. I find my solace in nature, it's healing presence, and in friendships. This reading was a tribute to acknowledge those who have passed before us, to release the grief out into the universe, into the darkness. I wonder if some of those gone were listening. I know those still here were. With friendships and shared writing and reading, shared poems and stories, we help each other heal, we bring forth the light that will last longer each day.

Roslye Ultan - your poems on the loss of your husband were deeply moving and I loved the progression they took through time as the years have passed.

I will end with a poem by Minnesota poet Bill Holm - a fitting tribute:

Letting Go of What Cannot be Held Back
(from "Playing the Black Piano")

Let go of the dead now.
The rope in the water,
the cleat on the cliff,
do them no good anymore.
Let them fall, sink, go away,
become invisible as they tried
so hard to do in their own dying.
We needed to bother them
with what we called help.
We were the needy ones.
The dying do their own work with
tidiness, just the right speed,
sometimes even a little
satisfaction. So quiet down.
Let them go. Practice
your own song. Now.

Thanks to one and all - I will be focusing on a quarterly reading series. This was the beginning - Winter. Watch for something in Spring.

For reader bio's, click here.

Trust the Vortex

2009-06-25T13:43:00.028-05:00

So long since the last post, I suppose it's appropriate that when I post again it's back from another visit to Bennington. This time for the Bennington Writing Seminars 15 year all class reunion. For me, it is 2 1/2 years, since I graduated in January 2007. Two of my classmates, Jan Johnson and Woody Lewis were there - whom I haven't seen since graduation. So good to see them! And others, from other classes, Tanaya, Nancer, Suzanne.....the faculty and staff. New friends made from other classes, in our poetry craft gathering with Henri Cole - we hung out in the dorm living room and dug ourselves deep into discussing a few works from Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell. Talking about poetry re-energizes me. I also signed up for the nonfiction gathering with Bob Shacochis - mostly hanging out with good discussions and a bit of workshopping. I am working on memoir and playwriting and it's good to have feedback from non-fiction writers.

I went back for a two main reasons -
1. To reconnect with friends - life is short. Sue Case, our class of Jan 2007 passed away this spring- her cancer came back. This was a bit of a surprise, as I thought she was doing better and she will be missed by all of us. I don't know when I will see classmates again, so I needed to get out there. Jan and Woody made it and we had a lot of fun reconnecting - besides a kick-ass time out on the dance floor! Woody, you always beat me partying every time, rumors were that you jammed with the Dog House Band till the wee hours (I missed that one, dang!) and hit the Blue Benny diner at 5 am and someone was tree climbing. That's all I say about that one. I took care of Jan and I - we both so needed to escape and relax from work and everything else.

2. To recharge my writing batteries and creative spirit. Sometimes I have to leave Minneapolis and get out of my groove here to re-connect with the wild woods of Vermont and sit in the vortex awhile. It truly is a magical place for me.

I had a bit of a change of plans at the last minute. My classmate Mary Elizabeth (my Auntie M as I call her) were going to meet in Hartford, CT and drive up together. She had a funeral to go to at the last minute, so she wasn't able to go to campus, so I rented a car and drove up and then stayed with her on Sunday evening so we had a day together before I had to leave on Monday.

Whenever I drive I get more of a feeling for a place. I drove up I-91 from Hartford, all the way to Highway 2, in northern Massachusetts - I've always wanted to see what that road is like - gorgeous! Through the Green Mountains - pouring rain all the way, but creeks and streams, forests, hairpin turns...it would be cool to hike and explore that area more. I stopped at North Adams, MA - a college artsy town with a lot of galleries. Then a short drive up to Bennington - this time I stayed at the Best Western - I've stayed there before when the June heat got to me and I couldn't stand my dorm room another minute - but this time it was raining and cool and it was getting late so I got a few comfort foods from the nearby Hanaford grocery and settled in my room to watch cable TV and veg out. Those 4-pack single serving wine boxes are nice! Vermont has wine, beer and groceries in the same store - will Minnesota ever catch up to that? "That 70's Show" was on; love the reruns. Eric's girlfriend was becoming best friends with his mom and he hated that - but she didn't have her mom to hang out with, so they were going shopping, baking cookies, doing mom/daughter things. This triggered an emotional outbreak - my issue has always been family. I'm realizing I married the first time for the family I thought I didn't have, I haven't been that close to my mom until recently, and when my parents moved out of state 18 years ago; well let's just say I don't get to go shopping with my mom much. I now call my parents once a week or so - I used to go months without keeping in touch. Friends have always been like family to me. I missed my girlfriends which I don't see enough of - I've been in a bit of a funky anti-social depressed spell since the last blog post. I wanted to remedy that.

I also feel very midwestern whenever I travel east - Vermont has all these wonderful 'farms' - vegetable gardens, mostly. I think of farms as those vast stretches in Iowa where one can see for miles....Names I only heard about in books were now on highway signs. Hamden, New Haven, Yale, Middlesex, the Berkshires, Appalachian Trail. I didn't grow up around colleges and English Lit majors, I've learned more from experience than someone pointing me in the right direction. But that's what the Vortex is all about - make your own opportunities. Read hundreds of books. Write one or two of your own. Always Be Closing. The trip begins when I arrive on campus Friday morning.

Bob Shacochis had the first lecture that I attended, at 10 am - "Postmodernism 2.1 - the Blurring of Genre." I like Bob, some women seem to hate his male chauvinism, or they call it that and he can piss some people off. I like that quality that he tells it like it is without the academic babble and game playing. Be real. Life is unbearable without illusions. What is unrecognizable in yourself? No one ever knows themselves. When writing, let the conversation (dialogue) speak for itself, tell vs. show. Sometimes truth needs lies. The 'control' of life is a facade. Genres can be bent and twisted. A collage has to be edited to be art. Selective imagination?

By now it's stopped raining. Sun peeks out, more humid. I walk to the 'end of the world', that group of rocks at the end of the commons lawn to sit in the armchair for an hour and close my eyes in the sunlight. I only have to write one poem - maybe. I know I can always come back here, and that is comforting. I start writing....

Alumni dinner in the yellow dining room, Jan hasn't made it yet, I won't see her until later this evening in the student center....she drove in from New Hampshire from work. Welcome, everyone, we are back together, some haven't been back for years and years, some many times. We toast to Liam. Share stories. There is someone here from every graduating class!

At the evening guest/faculty reading we have Mary Gaitskill and Nick Montemarano. Mary's work is enchanting - she wrote the story "Secretary" that was the basis for the feature film of the same name. She reads a bit from "Don't Cry," her new collection of short stories. "It was a sad situation....except...." (write from there!)
Nick talks about the Law of Attraction and I realize he is reading from his novel with the protagonist as a motivational speaker dealing with is fears - of doubt, his sickly wife. A new life, the one you've always wanted...start now....

We hang out in the 'new' student center - at least the lights are dim and the Doghouse Band is about to play (Sven on guitar, David Gates on guitar too and others...) but Jan and I miss the old one. Change is the only constant. She's had a rough year, both parents died, a feral cat she was taking care of wrecked her apartment and she had to move, but we survive and move on. Her book is out there, yay for that! I watch everyone dance. I am relaxed, I feel at home. I wish I stayed on campus now, but it is too late for that.

Saturday graduate lectures - I miss the first one, but didn't miss a quick cafeteria breakfast...one graduate (Rider Strong, what kind of cool name is that?) does an excellent piece about Ernest Hemingway and omissions - he ties it in nicely by starting off with how his wife packed his manuscript and carbon copy in a suitcase to take to visit him in Paris, and it was stolen, so he lost everything. How did that affect his writing style? An exercise to consider for yourself - write your first draft, then, without looking at it, rewrite it.

Panel of 3 alums and Sven - the Life of Letters post-Bennington. I'm glad they called this the Life of Letters vs. something with publishing. It's all about closing, creating your own opportunities, letting the vortex help you out....

Our poetry session with Henri Cole - he is now visiting faculty. I never had the chance to have him as an instructor, so it was good to get to know him better - and the other poets, all new friends. By this time I was ready to write again, but the graduation ceremony for this year's grads was looming in a half hour, so quick changed clothes and walked over to Usden Hall. It is different without Liam, and Sven Birkerts does a fine job. He laments a bit about the future of reading and writing (see any of his books on the subject) Mary Gaitskill was the commencement speaker, who also shares some stories about students who - if they don't read much, or aren't exposed to much art or music - they still feel the power of it, they RESPECT it. She told the story of a renowned classical musician who played for 45 minutes in a subway station in New York City. Only 3 people out of a thousand stopped to listen. One recognized him, the others paused, one was a child who wanted his mom to stop, but he had to move on. All were in a hurry. What are we listening to? Will we stop to listen to something on the street that people pay high ticket prices for in a concert hall? All I can hope for is that people will hopefully feel something that is real once in awhile.
Dinner, wine, talking with everyone, a good time had by all! And dance, dance, dance...there were hula hoops too...something finally clicked in me about halfway through the dance in the student center - and I let go and we all danced till closing. It was REAL. The DJ was okay, he kept playing weird mixes. I requested "Fame" by David Bowie for old times sake (my graduate lecture used that as a theme song).

Sunday morning breakfast, Bob's workshop and on to our alumni luncheon in the Carriage Barn. Last chance to see everyone, along with faculty, Ed Ochester my instructor was there too. Closed with a reading by Henri Cole, Jill McCorkle and Bob Shacochis. There were more activities planned, but it was time for me to leave...hugs, kisses, goodbyes and my drive on south Hwy 7 to I-90 across the mountains again - more pouring rain for a bit - I listen to Garrison Keillor on the radio. I-91 to Hartford, and then Cheshire, CT where Mary lives. (about a 3 hr drive) It's always good to see her, she is so sweet to have dinner ready, and her husband Bruce joins us as we all chat and have a good time talking at the dinner table, and more wine in the living room. Her kitty, Elliot, passed away since my last visit, he was 16. I am happy and peaceful and in a much better place emotionally than I was in January. The next day (Mon) she drives us to Guilford on the coast and we do some shopping and eat at a Thai place for lunch. I leave her some books to ship back (I always bring and buy too many books to haul back!). I love seeing the coast off Long Island Sound.

We drive back past Sleeping Giant State Park and she tells me the legend behind the name. Sleeping Giant was a Chief who enslaved many people and he ate a lot of oysters (oyster harvesting was in the area, and still is) until he ate so many that he bloated up. He is now the mountain that is in the area. The environment was destroyed, the people were enslaved, the oysters were over-harvested. Many lessons here, still going on today. Maybe someday Mary will come to Minnesota, she has never been here.

Hartford airport is nice and cozy compared to Minneapolis and I breeze through security and wait awhile before my flight. Slowly come back to my other world, make a few calls to friends and family. Landing in Minneapolis it is 95 degrees and sunny - wow, it's hardly ever nicer here than where I'm coming from, and I take my time getting home. Step off the light rail onto Nicollet Mall and walk the 6 blocks to my apartment downtown. A band is playing at Peavy Plaza so I sit a bit in the heat with a brat and an iced tea and enjoy the downtown scene. I am grateful that I have a good place to live, and the front desk people are feeding my cat, Cleo, when I am away. She is, of course, happy to see me when I walk in the door. I sit on my balcony and say hi to my neighbors and we make plans to get together soon for dinner, something I've been meaning to do for a long time. The next day I will visit my sick friend, my boyfriend, go to work in the evening....but for now I am back home and I am content. Life, the vortex, trust it.

Photos taken by Jules in order of apperance:
1. Bennington Commons
2. Jan Johnson and Jules
3. End of the World rocks on campus
4. my feet
5. Green Mountains
6. David Gates and Doghouse Band member
7. me with new poet alum friends Debra, Leslie, Tim
8. me, Jan, Woody at Grad dinner alumni table
9. Mary Elizabeth Lang at Guilford, CT area coast
10. me at Guilford, CT area coast off Long Island Sound

NEW BOOKS I'm reading:

"Rudyard Kipling in Vermont" (Birthplace of the Jungle Books) by Stuart Murray ISBN 1-884592-05-8

"Naming the World and other Exercises for the Creative Writer" edited by Bret Anthony Johnston (Bennington bookstore, Random House ISBN 978-0-8129-7548-2

"The Art of Time in Memoir" (Then, Again) by Sven Birkerts (Graywolf Press) ISBN 98-1-55597-489-3 (actually re-reading this one)

Out to the Vortex

2009-02-03T21:28:00.021-06:00

Mid-January, I was back at my alma mater, Bennington College, in Vermont. I caught the last few days of the residency. I did this for a writing break, and also to get out of the midwest and reflect on my life. What to bring? Books - one for each of my former instructors. I will start this with an excerpt from each -

1. "American Prodigal" poems by Liam Rector

Toast

To memory, that enormous bowl of water.
To what we imagined, what sent us off.
To that pitcher, which poured us.

To water and to what we drink nw
Which brings us back
As though we were water to each other.

The plane, the car service, and here I am, at Tishman. 2 years have passed. Walk up the snowy path, night, stars, pines, the sky and smell I remember. Open that black door and there I am - the same benches, the balcony, faded blackboard light - Sven there, in his hat, in his usual spot on the balcony right. Memory of Liam lingers. My name is still known, familiar faces, I see Jack, sit, welcome back. He started when I graduated, now he is graduating. Journal in hand, I write while the faculty reads. David Gates reading a work he thought was no longer in progress, I am in the midst of it suddenly, yet drawn close, intimate, immediate, sex, sex, sex, "hands under sweaters", nakedness. Askold Melnyezuk works in progress about the 70's, Norman Mailer, what he stands for, the library, front lines, bedroom, "weeping while fucking was not a good sign.." Time now to hang at the bar (well student center not quite the same) no lectures due for me, I can do whatever I want. Erin calls me from Boston, a student reviewed one of Ed O's books - she thought of me - Ed has this semester off, first time in 10 years. We will do lunch yes? I forget we are 4 hours apart back home.

My first night in the Alumni House - room #1 - full moon - the trees, so quiet, 6 degrees. I walk back at 11 pm, a bit lost, the half mile at least walk in the plowed snow path the houses all look the same, and find it, around the brick garden gate, to the left...who else is here? I will find out in the morning.

2. "How We Sleep on the Nights We Don't Make Love" E. Ethelbert Miller

Space is the Place

Love is the last planet in our solar
system. Your heart crying like the
rings of Saturn. How can we believe
in stars in this darkness? I watch
the sky for your return. Inside my
hands nothing but gravity.

Morning breakfast, trek to Commons, my student id card still gets me a meal. Grad student lectures 8:30 am. Someone references the book "Poetics of Space" - poems that begin in rooms, kind of poetry architecture. I think about the color of my room when I was 10. The color of the sheets, what I dreamed my life would be.

3. "Snow White Horses" Ed Ochester

Robert Bly Watched by Elves

On snowy evenings I like to
drive downtown to place my
cheek against the steel
of the lonely midwestern mailbox.

Tonight I receive illumination
from the street lamps
as I lie in snow
surrounded by elves

lifting their arms, Salud!
Their mittens are filled with snow.
The snow is shaped into balls.
Now the elves run from a ghostly

snowplow plowing through
snow toward us. It is good
to lie in snow, seeing things
invisible to impure men.

Ed, I miss you, your cigars, smoking with you, I will again next time. It is like boot camp here again. I expect to see familiar faces of my classmates, but they are not here. I am already tired, hungry, writing, into the vortex all over again. I do not have any workshops. I cannot sneak a ride to the Blue Ben Diner. I walk to Crossett library and sit by the window downstairs in the law section to stare out the window. Anything can happen here.

I am home away from home. New friends and old. Some students seem a bit enamored that I had Liam as my instructor, they want the stories. I get to know them a bit, and know faculty more. Wine, talk, new possibilities. What happens here, stays here, we are at the end of the world. Late night movie in Tishman, "Love Song" (Cannes 2007) a French musical comedy, perfect for this mix of men/women/trans/straight/gay/bi/poets/novelists/memorists/playwrights mix of everyone where there are no boxes, it just is and is perfect the way it is. How absurd to try to categorize.

4. "Swan Electric" April Bernard

12. Opera Interlude (excerpt)

I feel like explaining something.
When I lived through those days,
my private score was always Brecht and Weill,

oompah-dark and clarinet snaky.
That man I loved had a photograph of Weill
and would claim he was his father.

We had all come to believe in them,
and knew that only they had understood us;
they had predicted us.

How tough and paradoxical and worldly we were;
how still in love with the tuneful
and the heartbroken, but that was before

we had any idea what heartbroken was.....

April and Alice sitting together, your big black furry hat...we had our semester review in the rocking chairs on the porch facing Usden Hall, the open grass lawn and the fireflies out on a June night. I was going from heartbreak to heartbreak myself, and managed to pull through those poems.

Michael Kruger lecture - visiting from Germany. "You dont' find an empty space in Europe anymore.." Translate - a worthy ambition. Notes to myself. A few hundred poems in a lifetime, a few dozen in anthologies, performances, what is to be remembered when it is all done? The Life of Letters.

Create your own opportunities. Always be Closing.

I leave on Saturday, take the Amtrak to Penn Station (layover, hook up with Star, what are the chances that we both need to be at the station?) and on to New Haven to see fellow Benny alum Mary, my Auntie M. A few days to enjoy her hospitality, in the country; relax, see a movie, and visit the Mark Twain House in Hartford, CT.

"Travel is fatal to prejudice" (Innocents Abroad- Mark Twain)

Wanda Gag house in New Ulm, Minnesota

2009-01-04T22:15:00.016-06:00

On a sunny December day, (12.28) Kari and I drove to New Ulm to see the Wanda Gag house. We had talked about this for awhile, and I am glad we did it. Kari and I are in our writing group together and she introduced me to the Gag family history. First, we saw the Schell Brewery - the peacocks were sunning themselves!

"Herman the German" is a statue on the hill overlooking New Ulm - this commemorates the battle between the German tribes and the Romans back in 9 A.D. - the Germans won. Next summer will be the 2,000 year anniversary of this event and New Ulm will stage a reinactment of the battle of the Teutoburg Forest.

A visit to New Ulm is not complete without a German meal for lunch. Kari has a

relative that owns a restaurant so we had sauerkraut and ribs, bread pudding, and warmed ourselves with some 'chocolate' beer.

We had a personal tour of the Wanda Gag house, built in 1893. When Wanda was 14, her father died and asked her to make a name for the family. There is a nephew of the Gag family in Bloomington, but very few relatives remain, Wanda did not have any children. She was 35 when "Millions of Cats" was published, her most well-known children's book that has a fairy-tale style to it. The font of the book was hand-lettered by her brother.

At the time, in the 1930's and 1940's, she was very independent - she had a scholarship to a New York school and chose to accept it and move there (this was after her mother died) and the older children worked hard to put the younger children through high school. The rest of the family wound up moving to Minneapolis and selling the house - it eventually became a rental and had to be restored after it was bought by the historical society. Her father, Anton Gag, was also a well known painter and photographer and supported the family by painting the ceilings of many churches, and he had his own photography studio, the Elite Art Studio. Several of Wanda Gag's drawings are in the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, however they are in storage. The MIA was dedicated in 1915 and Wanda and her fellow students served as exhibition guards on opening night. This was when she was going to school at the Minneapolis School of Art.

My personal favorite for her drawings is "Two Trees" a linoleum cut from 1923. (I can't find a photo on line of this print) Wanda submerged herself in nature and art theory and was a bit disappointed because she never went to Europe like some of her other friends, but she found solace in nature - this is a diary entry from June 1922 in which she describes her response to being among daisies on a hilltop:

"There is an exuberance and lavishness about the foilage that is
intoxicating and the lascivious plentitude of their form filles me with
primitivism..I want to tear off all my clothes and lie among the grasses...Or
else I want to run -- fast and selselessly...I also like to sit and watch the
forms and rhythms of the clouds and the essence-form of the trees and hills, and
I like to let my eye create compositions wherever I direct it, with curved and
diagnol force-lines, inter-relation of spaces and forms, all
complete."

(from the biography "The Gag Family: German-Bohemian Artists in America" by Julie L'Enfant, a good intro bio I recommend)

I like how Wanda Gag focused on intensifying a message - forms are simplified and distorted, a bit like folk-art. She was a bit of a surrealist - and used sexuality and the unconscious as the routes to art.
Wanda Gag had many lovers and did not get married until the end of her life, to Earle Humphreys, and only because he needed to be married to keep his job at a machine shop. Wanda died of lung cancer in 1946, but as was the custom then, the doctor didn't tell her what was going on, he told her husband and Earle never told her the truth. He left her estate a mess and died a few years later. Wanda's younger sister Flavia did some paintings of her own but Wanda was the one who supported the family and made a name for herself.
The Gag house was decorated with Christmas trees when we
visited - one for each of her books. Here we are standing in front of the one for "Millions of Cats" and there are paper cats as ornaments. I did not know much about Wanda Gag until our visit, so I am glad we went and I look forward to going back in the summer.

Imagine

2008-12-08T21:41:00.003-06:00

December 8, 1980. I remember where I was. Senior in high school. I had never been to New York City but the world changed in that instant. I remember I had a British pen pal and we wrote letters, he was a Beatles fan; we were devestated, of course. I finally visited NYC for the first time in April, 2007 and had to stand at the Imagine memorial. Every year I remember.

Imagine

by John Lennon

Imagine there's no heaven

It's easy if you try

No hell below us

Above us only sky

Imagine all the people

Living for today...

Imagine there's no countries

It isn't hard to do

Nothing to kill or die for

And no religion too

Imagine all the people

Living life in peace...

You may say I'm a dreamer

But I'm not the only one

I hope someday you'll join us

And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions

I wonder if you can

No need for greed or hunger

A brotherhood of man

Imagine all the people

Sharing all the world...

You may say I'm a dreamer

But I'm not the only one

I hope someday you'll join us

And the world will live as one

Thanksgiving Trees

2008-11-29T14:39:00.010-06:00

Sometimes answers come in the most unexpected

places. This year I decided to cook a turkey and all the trimmings even though things didn't turn out like I had originally planned. When the turkey was in the oven I took a walk outside - trees always cheer me up. The photo is of one in the middle of the city. A friend came over and we had dinner, and it wound up being a wonderful evening of good talk, good food and good wine. That happily surprised me and reminded me of the many good friends I have.

A few days earlier, on November 24, my mom emailed me that their first born son would have been 50 years old that day. He is the one I wrote about in my poem "First Born Brother" that was published in Salamander journal. Some things untalked about release other things into the world. I called my best friend - he got it immediately, how life works like that.

The holidays this year will be a time of healing and change for me. Change, because they don't always work out as planned. An answer came in a very unlikely place today. I was watching Season 8 of "Magnum P.I." on Netflix - the final season where Tom Selleck as the Ferrari-driving private eye Thomas Magnum reveals once and for all if Higgins is none other than Robin Masters himself. I remember the TV series well from the 80's, but never saw the last season. In the episode "Transitions" Magnum says - "The only thing to count on in life is change. Transitions are hard. But don't be afraid of transitions. They make you strong."
Throughout the episode, tidbits of advice are doled out:

Change comes at an inconvenient time.

HOW you make transitions are as important as making them.

Finish up whatever you are working on before moving on to the next thing.

Change - you can't hurry it, even though you want it to go faster. It moves on its own time.

You can get so caught up in changes in your own life that you don't always notice people around you going through change too - stop a moment - and once you do, notice. Give friends some help with their problems and in the meantime your problems seem to have a way of working themselves out and even if they don't at least it reminds you that you're not th e only one who is trying to sort things out.

Thanks Magnum for a great Thanksgiving message for me! Healing comes through change - sometimes the Universe has something better in mind than what I planned. I am making peace with situations, friends and loved ones. My boyfriend and I may no longer be doing the same things, but he is still my best friend, and although I don't know how to label it, all I know is that we are talking, going through change. So even if things aren't the same or as planned, the Universe usually has something better in mind. I just have to be patient, try not to rush it, and notice.

First Snow

2008-11-22T07:52:00.008-06:00

I woke up today to this view - yes, a dusting of snow to go along with the cold.

My boyfriend and I "broke up" on election eve - unexpected, but the signs were there. Time has been passing slowly and swiftly for me, processing, grieving, and now rebuilding. Times of silence, finally talking it out, feeling the pain out, reading, writing. When we talked a few days later, he told me of the poem of mine that said his feelings, the one I wrote a long time ago and almost forgot about. Can we still be friends? Yes. But things will never be the same between us and my life is now moving on, changing seasons with the first snow.

When I teach one of my writing classes, I reference a poem from Yuko Taniguchi, a Minnesota poet, from her book "Foreign Wife Elegy." I won't list that one here, but reading her book again I discovered this one, that is appropriate for now.

Practice

"But trust the hours. Haven't they

carried you everywhere, up to now?"

-- Galway Kinnell

I practice piano and repeat scales one hundred

times every day because what we do today

becomes tomorrow's harvest; practice makes perfect.

Bach's prelude drops layers of voice all at once.

Over and over, I practice until I realize that the sound

full of sorrow demands a complete

separation from the pianist

full of sorrow.

II.

Walking into the dark tunnel alone

at night frightens you, though you may

overcome this fear if you practice

this every day, or you may never

overcome it like the terrible emptiness

inside you; it does not make you stronger.

III.

All the living that you did

suddenly seems like practice

for dying, but living is not supposed to be

a rehearsal for death. We are never ready

for departure, but the curtain is wide open

with lights shining on the stage. You are getting up

slowly. Soon you will walk away from us

as if to practice walking

for the first time.

Yuko Taniguchi

The world rejoices!

2008-11-05T14:20:00.003-06:00

All I can say is wow - I thought it might happen but was very nervous it wouldn't and now it has. I watched the television for awhile and then had to get out into the world to be with others and celebrate this historic moment. I voted for Obama in the caucuses back in February - and yesterday went to the same school to vote again. I showed up at 7 am and the line was around the building, waited over an hour but well worth it. The world will know what America is again.

excerpt from Langston Hughes' Let America Be America Again:

(thanks to facebook friends)

O, let America be America again--

The land that never has been yet--

And yet must be--

the land where every man is free.

The land that's mine--

the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME--

Who made America,

Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,

Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,

Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose--

The steel of freedom does not stain.

From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,

We must take back our land again,America!

O, yes,I say it plain,

America never was America to me,

And yet I swear this oath--

America will be!

I love fall!

2008-10-19T16:25:00.000-05:00

I took this photo on Friday - leaves, colors, crisp weather, warm days....I love living here where there is autumn!

Debates & Diagramming

2008-10-07T08:19:00.007-05:00

Remember the other woman whose last name also begins with "P"? In the what's-her-name-I-refuse-to-acknowledge political media hype, remember that the Speaker of the House is third in line to the Presidency. So, if the current VP candidate managed to get elected from American stupidity had that heartbeat away experience to become President and then something happened to her, there would be another woman waiting in the wings: Nancy Pelosi. (Another good thought, she is there waiting, for the Democrats too).

I am not particapting in the audience for TV and radio political media foolishness. But I am reading the New York Times, and Maureen Dowd had an insightful and funny op-ed piece on speech patterns of political candidates. Since when does being 'common' or 'middle class' mean that you talk in "Frontier Baroque"? (Dowd)

Then she uttered yet another sentence that defies diagramming: "It is from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there." (Dowd)

Dowd summarized her thoughts with her best insight - True mavericks don't brand themselves (as mavericks).

I started thinking about my high school experience - the "brains" were sometimes picked on by the "jocks," in a kind of jealous way. The jocks had the veneer of popularity with their looks overcoming any grammatical and intellectual setbacks. We had debates in high school too - and a good debater could take either side and make a good closing argument. The art of debating is lost in television. Now it's looks, personality and one or two soundbyte lines. My personal high school experience didn't prepare me very well for diagramming sentences or identifying a dangling gerund or mangled preposition but I did come out of school a good speller and in the top 20% of my class. Maybe there should be a spelling bee debate - Obama/Biden would win hands down. Obama wrote both his books by himself, without a ghost writer, only the usual editor. What is it that America has against intellectuals by calling them "elite"? At my 20 year high school reunion, well...even by the 10th....the 'jocks' were looking old and the 'brains' or 'nerds' had the good jobs, the money and were suddenly popular with those who never paid them any attention. That is, if they bothered to show up at the reunion.

The Presidential Election reminds me more and more of a High School Homecoming King/Queen contest - but this time the brains must win over the jocks. There is more at stake than a football game.

Rebuilding and Remembrance

2008-09-24T23:18:00.000-05:00

Last weekend I drove across the new 35W bridge. I had my reservations about doing this. There are a lot of memories tied up in that bridge - it collapsed last August - killing 13 people, one of them a Capella employee. I found myself driving on my Saturday errand schedule and decided why not, I'll try it. It is white, fresh, new, multi-lane with lights and some funky crooked-looking spires on each side. I have been in the habit for so long taking alterate routes that I forgot how easy it is to cross it. How quick it is to get around with those exits I used to take with it. I'm glad others are using it, it clears up the downtown traffic. I couldn't help but hold my breath a bit as I remembered those who have crossed it, before. So, this bridge is finished in a mere 14 months with an influx of Federal government cash and a focus. We are all waiting for other bridges and construction projects to be completed. Let's hope they all keep moving along.

Capella University, where I work, is donating money towards the memorial in Gold Medal Park, which is near the Guthrie Theater. Here is the link. I am glad we are remembering. I have a post earlier in this blog on what I was doing when the collapse happened.

I think about what I remember from last year. Besides the bridge collapse, there were other losses - the suicide of my writing instructor and Bennington College director Liam Rector in mid-August. My cat Tex died in October. My college life sometimes seems worlds away as I am focused more deeply into my world of work, and I have changed my lifestyle a bit by moving. I am still writing poetry, but not as often. I am venturing more towards essays and stories. America is changing, with presidential candidates and situations that seem more insane everyday. Poetry grounds me. Writing builds the foundation. I remember what Liam used to say - "Always Be Closing." That means, make your own opportunities. Create your own work because no one can do it for you. The photo at left is of Liam at Bennington - one of his lectures to the new students. He would play a clip from the movie "Glenn Gary Glenn Ross" with Alec Baldwin slamming the salespeople on how to close. Liam would play it at the Bennington session with no explanation, once a year, to the new recruits and the returning students. You either got it it or you didn't. No explanation. Like life.

How will I refine my life in the oncoming months? What new bridges to cross await me?
I will let the poems come as they may - they will decide for me.

My brain on audio books

2008-09-21T19:38:00.000-05:00

I drove to my parents house over Labor Day weekend and decided to try audio books on CD to help ease the 12 hour each way trip. The book I chose was Nancy Pelosi's "Know Your Power" which was a fairly short (3 CD's) light book, with a lot of storytelling. It helped pass the time, but I have decided I don't do well with audio books and driving. It's different from reading - I miss the page and my own pace. As the CD's wore on it was hard to pause something or replay it. The thought process is different in my head when I read than when I hear it read aloud. This book happened to be in Nancy's own voice, so it made it more personal and it was inspiring, but I felt I needed to be present with my own thoughts on the road.

I've been reading Sven Birkert's book "The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age." Reading and re-reading, taking notes, writing in the margins, bending pages. I can't do that with an audio book. Sven (my Bennington colleague) also talks about information and how it is filtered differently from reading. He writes

"To read the book we must, in effect, bracket off our own reality and replace it with (insert author name). Better, we must use what we know of our world to create his. His can only exist at the expense of ours, though - this is the law of fiction. We agree to suspend our self-grounded posture, our place in the 'real' world, in order to make room for (the author's) alternative sense of things." (p. 93)
This is why I can't drive and listen to any type of fiction audio books - my attention drifts from the road, I will get absorbed in the book instead. Kind of like talking on a cell phone while driving.

What will be lost if people stop reading printed books? The brain functions differently when one reads instead of listens or watches. It is interesting to note that centuries ago, the Greeks revered oral poetry and were an oral culture. Then the printing press and the book age came along, and now we may lose it again. Birkerts quotes from scholar Oswyn Murray:

"To him (Havelock) the basic shift from oral to literate culture was a slow process; for centuries, despite the existence of writing, Greece remained essentially an oral culture. This culture was one which depended heavily on th eencoding of information in poetic texts, to be learned by rote and to provide a cultural encyclopedia of conduct. It was not until the age of Plato in the fourth century that the dominance of poetry in an oral culture was challenged in the final triumph of literacy." (p. 121)
Birkerts remarks that our transition will not require two centuries, fifty years will be enough.

I remember in elementary and high school that I lost myself in books. That was the world that was worth living at the time. It was my secret, a gateway out of my parents house and my immediate neighborhood. My favorite place to escape was the library. The fact that I could check out books for free and have access to all this information was just as good to me back then as the internet is now. It was good to be in a different place, to have something physical, to browse through the card catalog, take notes, think about things while typing before having to move them around. I think different on the computer than I do the typewriter. My brain functions differently writing longhand than it does typing. I still keep my journal longhand, and can barely read my own handwriting sometimes.

I find it easier to write notes while I am driving than to listen to an audio book. I can't imagine reading the Sunday New York Times totally on line without that paper to cuddle up with on the couch and my morning tea (and the cat on top of the paper). It seems more tangible that way, like I'm back in the library.

Women of the Mighty Midway

2008-08-27T08:34:00.000-05:00

"During a campaign stop in July at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, presidential hopeful John McCain talked about issues and spoke off the cuff about his wife, Cindy McCain. One of the rally's 'high points' is its Miss Buffalo Chip Beauty Pageant, which boasts female contestants who are topless or dressed in bikinis, engaging in simulated sex acts. McCain told the cheering bikers, "I encouraged Cindy to compete. I told her with a little luck she could be the only woman ever to serve as First Lady and Miss Buffalo Chip." From The MN Women's Press and seattlepi.com.

The above photo - taken by me at that great Minnesota get-together, the State Fair midway, is perfect, don'tcha think? Love the revolver. Come visit the mighty Midway, Mr. McCain, maybe it will get you in touch with working adults and roaming kids of the midwest. Concessions were a bit slow, money is a bit tight this year. So now, besides being out of touch with any middle class reality at all (how many homes do you and your wife own, now, really?) your beer heiress wife might just strap you down after that remark. I'm all for sexual power in women, but not in your degrading fashion.

I've been watching the DNC - my few times with the tube. Michelle and Hillary, the Democratic party (despite our differences) inspire hope - giving back to the people. Republicans promote fear, selfishness and tax-cutting plans that backfire on the economy.

This week is the 88th anniversary of women's right to vote. August 26 was Women's Equality Day. No one seems to notice much anymore that the Equal Rights Amendment never passed. Walking through the MN State Fair midway, I know it's fake, but I let myself be taken away by the illusions anyway. The music, the flash - this is more real than the 'real' world, that American Dream that seems so out of reach for most Americans. Try your luck at winning a prize, a giant stuffed toy or a job. Work hard and be rich! No one gets rich on a day job, it isn't going to happen, people. Forget about the tax cuts that are above your income level. Obama is proposing a cut to the payroll tax. That will affect you more than any Republican tax cut ever will unless you're earning over a million a year or so....It's like that chance to win the lottery. Your chances are unbearably slim, and even if you win, statistics show that most people are back to where they started income wise within a decade or so. So why not accept where you are and live in the real world.

I prefer this mighty warrior image - she is self-sufficient and powerful. She is definitely putting some cracks in the glass ceiling.

Observe the new Foshay

2008-08-18T07:14:00.000-05:00

The Foshay is now new and modern. But on Friday, August 30, 1929, the skies of downtown Minneapolis lit up with skyrockets. Earlier, John Phillip Sousa and his 75 piece band gave the first of several concerts for the cities citizens. The next day, James Good, Herbert Hoover's Secretary of War, would deliver an address dedicating the object of all this civic fuss. The Minneapolis Journal was 'downright poetic' about Foshay's monument:

Like veritable temples in business, these modern towers rise high in the air and house the thousands. Safe and luxurious elevators lift one from floor to floor more dexterously than Jacob's ladder, with angels ascending and descending upon it. Modern towers unite people rather than divide them. From their heights mightly searchlights guide lone pilots on their way to ports and havens safe. (Mpls Journal, Aug 30, 1929)

I wasn't thinking of this statement when the doorman escorted my friend and I up the elevator to the 27th floor bar, Prohibition, part of the new Foshay's makeover into a W hotel. Ralph Burnet, you're making quite an impression on this little city that could. (I used to sell real estate for Burnet Realty in another life).

The photo on the right is the entrance how I remembered it. Clouds on the ceiling, the lit chamber boxes with historical tidbits. I walked through the building on my lunch break or after the bus ride. So last week, Thursday to be exact, I held my breath in anticipation of what I would find as I walked through the doors. Bright pink neon, dark walls, luxurious leather couches along the wall, the modern bar of Manny's steakhouse and restaurant. Foshay, are you all grown up now? Do you like your new makeover? Your lobby is now the hotel front desk and public space. As we wandered through the bar and the lobby, I wondered what will the future be for my favorite building in Minneapolis? The bartender poured my gin and tonic so strong that that must be a good sign wanting me to come back! Earlier I had met some co-workers at Keys, our usual hangout, on the sidewalk. We talked of the upcoming Republican convention, how strangers will take over the twin cities and we will be cringing, waiting for it all to be over. But we can have some fun, too. Give directions to tourists to the bad parts of town. Even our elected officials don't realize that St. Paul is the headquarters, not Minneapolis. They forget we are the TWIN cities. I read about our cities in the New York Times on Sunday. The travel writer didn't even mention west 7th street restaurants, right next to the Excel Energy Center where it all will be happening. Maybe they're not hip enough, or rich enough for them. Remember, this is the midwest.

I thought of Wilbur Foshay going broke. His empire crumbled two months after its greatest monument was dedicated. Mr. Foshay was tried in federal court with mail and securites fraud. Foshay was convicted and sentenced to 15 years at Leavenworth. President Roosevelt pardoned him after three years. One of the jurors for this trial, Mrs. Genevieve Clark, was prosecuted for perjury and convicted. She had perjured herself in defense of her former boss. The day before she was to have begun her prison term, she, her husband and her two children were found dead in the family car out at Pryor Lake. They hacked a hole through the side of the car and had run in a rubber hose from the exhaust pipe.

The observation deck is still open to the public, on the 30th floor, now dwarfed by skyscrapers, but I can imagine what it was like when the Foshay was the highest building on the horizon. Look down into history - there are many stories to be told poking around in the life of Wilbur Foshay, the history of the legal system, farmers driven off their land, the Gateway district, the Great Depression, and the Floyd B. Olson movement of the '30's. Olson was a progressive echoing the same sentiments we are dealing with now. Look up the 1934 workers strikes; there was bloodshed and the calling of the National Guard. Olson received the 1934 Senate endorsement, but died a few months later. A hero mourned by 200,000 Minnesotans.

Remember the history, those of you building empires. The Foshay may be around longer than you will.

(photos by Jules)

snowplow the photo

2008-08-12T20:30:00.000-05:00

Thanks Gina, for the snowplow photo....from the MN weather site. Also brings good memories of Dad plowing out the Taystee Bakery where he used to work, those late nights and early mornings.....of course I was just hoping for a snow day at school.

snowplow

2008-08-05T08:50:00.001-05:00

When I saw the new X-Files movie, "I Want to Believe" it sent me into a flashback, personally and with the show. I hadn't watched anything since the TV series and it was a joy to be back in Scully and Mulder's world again. I saw the 1998 movie also. When the X-Files went off the air in the '90's that was when I stopped watching television. At least any type of tv series that involved weekly commitment. I was disenchanted after that. Now, here I was in the theater with my boyfriend, thinking about where I was the last time I saw an X-Files episode live tv broadcast, or the movie. Back then, I was alone. I was married, but living in my own world mostly and my ex-husband never got into the X-Files like I did. Now, my boyfriend and I had a connection, we could pick up instantly on everything that was going on, even though we didn't know each other when the originals were out. This was the moment.

And the snow. 90 degrees outside and I'm content watching the blizzard. The snowplow did it. My ex-husband (gearhead that he is) had an old beater Bronco that had a plow on it. It was red. I had to drive it to work once when my car wasn't running and that was quite a trip taking it on I-94 when I used to live in the 'burbs of St. Paul. No one tailgated me then, they stayed out of my way.

I haven't seen the new Batman movie yet, but I will stay with my X-Files. I don't need the big chases and explosions. The subtle remembering works for me. Things in the world are different than they were those many years ago that seem like yesterday in a way. The film has humor in references to the 'real' world - the theme song playing with a photo of W - Mulder's cell phone pulling up names of the movie directors - but through it all I really do 'want to believe.' I want to get back what is missing from the world. The world is now that future that I thought would never happen in my lifetime. Sigh. Now if I could only find a picture of a snowplow to post.

Trees

2008-08-05T08:12:00.000-05:00

Time with trees is best. This pine is in "The Lost Forty," an area of the Chippewa National Forest in northern Minnesota and is over 200 feet high and 300-400 years old.

In 1882 Josiah A. King and his survey crew traveled 40 miles from Grand Rapids, a settlement town at that time, and mis-surveyed a six square mile area. His mistake is our benefit.

The Lost Forty is 144 acres that have never been logged.

When I spend time with trees I am in the present moment. The forest has much to teach me. The unconsciousness takes over, and I notice things I never did before, like mushrooms, moss, pine cones (male and female). I learn things from curiosity, and let the forest teach me all I need to know.

The tree on the below was in a fire. You can tell which way the fire was heading by the v-shaped groove; the flames curled around this way towards the dark opening, so the fire was heading from the opposite direction.

The tree to the right is in the woods by the Forest History Center. My boyfriend and I spent the day there reliving 1900 and the logging camps. We had some great thoughts between us and I did the viewing, he did the writing. He wrote it all down perfectly in poems. Those words are only there once and he captured them. My brain didn't have words anymore, it just had the moment.

Later, going to town (Bemidji) words looked like this ......

Stranger in my own country

2008-08-05T07:56:00.000-05:00

Remember Rick's Market? I found these pics I took back, when, around 2004, 2005? The friendly neighborhood grocery store when I used to live in Northeast. Lots of memories in that place, including the time I broke my ankle and my friend Amy helped me grocery shop. It wasn't trendy but it was friendly. I knew I had to take photos before it was torn down for the Lunds and Cobalt Blue condos. That brick building used to be a school. It was hard to imagine at that time what the new space would look like. The bar next door to Rick's moved across the street and the bar across the street changed names, used to be the Union. I wrote a poem at that bar - I'll include it below. Thanks also to 5 am, where this poem appeared summer 2005.

At the Union

At the Union Grill & Bar,

the beers are flowing at 11 am.

CNN replays trails of white plumage

across the Texas sky.

Seven astronauts perished this same week

17 years ago.

What was I doing then?

Same as the country,

not paying attention.

Then the explosions came,

nameless faces

all too real after a short encounter

and my gut rumbled

every time I saw their image.

As a little girl, I thought someday I'd get to outer space.

Figured out how old I'd be in

the year 2000.

Back at the Union it's almost noon.

Gravity keeps me hostage

to another beer,

another blind date

with a stranger in my own country.

2008-07-19T16:59:00.000-05:00

Where is this eagle? At the Minneapolis Convention Center park. This is an original artifact from the 1927 auditorium - there were originally four posts which had inscriptions relating to citizenship that were located on the four corners of the auditorium. Two of the eagles currently reside at the park entrance from 2nd Avenue and the other two are across the street from the Convention Center entrance. There is a small sign that explains the history near this statue. It had me thinking as to the year the convention center was built - that would be 1991. I didn't get to Minneapolis much growing up, as I lived in St. Paul so I don't remember the auditorium. I do remember the St. Paul Civic Center and some of the events there in the adjoining auditorium.

round and red and ripe

2008-07-16T11:11:00.000-05:00

It must be summer. I have my first ripe tomato! Okay, this is a big deal since it's the first one on my balcony for my new place. Figure in the plant (purchased from the farmer's market downtown), soil, pot and lots and lots of daily watering. That small tomato will be well worth it on the next salad. Sigh....

Here is a poem called MAY that I have on a postcard

This will be the season
in which time stretches before us
like the recesses of space itself,
the season in which leasure
swells like a slow tomato,
until it's round and red and ripe.

--from Verlyn Klinkenborg's "The Rural Life"

A rural girl at heart living in the city, that's me.

What are the other signs of summer?

Should I mention the gin and tonics at twilight with my "intimate other"? (I found that term in a textbook - like it) Azure sky, full moon, planet Mars - the moon moved from one side of the church steeple to the other in the space of a couple hours as we sat on my balcony.

Reading "Russian Mythology" outside. Reading anything outside.

Playing hooky from work. Dang, have to go in shortly. Planning the next vacation.....

It's not the MN Orchestra...

2008-07-07T07:06:00.000-05:00

More on that remark later.

The July 4th weekend - or Independence Day - is when everyone is out of town. Those of us who prefer to stay in the city are left with peace and quiet and few offerings of things to do with whoever is left. The man I'm in a relationship with left the city as well, unexpectedly, so I had a bit of a writing retreat, which turned out to be mostly getting organized. Independence Day is not exactly my favorite holiday and I would prefer those in charge just change it to a weekend every year and give us all a long one and leave it at that. When I did venture out I went up to my apartment roof on the 35th floor and watched the fireworks with strangers. A bit surreal - at least a dozen, maybe even twenty or so clusters of color and pops sounding off on the horizon above the Minneapolis city lights. One by one they had their grand finales as the smoke hung low.

On the 5th Lynette mentioned that she was asked to play violin

as part of the 331 Club's "Le Cirque Rouge Cabaret & Burlesque" (there she is in the photo at right). No, it's not the Minnesota Orchestra, but a campy, vaudville-like act with a hostess in a Marilyn Monroe accent and a safety pinned dress and several ladies of the evening flashing their body parts at the audience to the jazzy music. The guy in a tux onstage perfomed his 'innocent' act as he gathered the tossed articles of clothing from the stage. I came a bit early to get a seat at the bar so I wouldn't have to stand and met a nice woman who works at the Swedish Institute.

Sunday was uneventful. Hanging out with my kitty, just the two of us. Here she is enjoying her perch on the table on the balcony.

Summer at the MIA

2008-06-29T18:07:00.001-05:00

Shadows and light mix at the Minneapolis Institute of Art's garden area where I spent a Sunday morning.

Marquette Avenue

2008-06-10T18:13:00.000-05:00

An apartment window 'display' on my walk to work - Marilyn Monroe, Spider Man giving the finger, Garfield, a Jesse Ventura doll. I love how this person is making their statement to the world, as it all fades in the sun from winter to summer.

Below......doors on Marquette Avenue...............

Rods and Cones

2007-12-29T23:02:00.000-06:00

No, this is not a planet. Or a mammogram. The images are my right and left retinas.

The back of my eye, behind the pupil...the small circle in the middle is composed of rods and cones, the whitish circle is in my eyeball oriented near my nose. I was at the Retina Center this week, having my eyes poked, prodded and photographed, and of course I asked if I could have a copy.

I looked up the definition of retina: The retina is the light-sensitive layer of tissue at the back of the inner eye. It acts like the film in a camera -- images come through the eye's lens and are focused on the retina. The retina then converts these images to electric signals and sends them via the optic nerve to the brain. The retina is normally red due to its rich blood supply. An ophthalmoscope allows a health care provider to see through the pupil and lens to the retina.

I've worn glasses since third grade, and contacts since I was 16, so that's almost 30 years of having something on my eyes. When I started with them there were only hard lenses and I had to be on a wearing schedule and I remember taking them out and putting them in every 2 hours while I was at school. I'm at the point where I have 20/25 vision with contacts, we can't correct it anymore and I have to wear glasses over my contacts for driving and distance vision. If you're wondering, my contacts are at minus 10. I'm also getting a bit of blurry vision and halos at night, which is the start of cataracts. I have had all this verified in the last few weeks in the hopes that maybe my health insurance would cover the cost. No such luck - my vision has to be 20/40 CORRECTED or I'll have to be 65 on Medicare. I can't have regular lasik surgery, I have to have "natural lens replacement" where they put the lens in my eye. It's similar to cataract surgery and then I will never have to worry about cataracts in the future. Unfortunately, all this costs $4,000 per eye - so until I have an extra 8 grand laying around, I'll continue to see as well as I can with my contacts and glasses.

The composer Bach went virtually blind with untreated cataracts. My cat, Tex, went blind from high blood pressure and various other health issues. I suppose the U.S. government will be photographing everyone this way if they keep reacting in fear since the blood vessels are unique for everyone. I don't take my sight for granted - when one sense is weak, other ones compensate, but since I'm also hard of hearing, I think I have an extra-sensitive sense of touch.

I remembered a poem I wrote a few years ago - here it is below - while I was thinking about rods and cones..........................it was the year that June Carter Cash passed away - which happened to be the same night as the lunar eclipse. I saw the moon from the Stone Arch Bridge over the Mississippi River, in Minneapolis on a warm summer night.

Lunar Eclipse
by Jules Nyquist

The highest goal that humans can achieve is amazement.
- Goethe 1810, Theory of Colors

Tonight Minneapolis transpires into rods and cones
under my pupils.
A city wearing a white halo, offering me steps of gold.
My bicycle takes me to the middle of the Stone-Arch bridge
where I pause.
Purple thoughts tangle in my wind-blown hair and
I realize, for the first time,
that if I jump off this bridge
into the weeping wake
floating with the river glass,
it will be okay.

Full moon lays bare in the Northeast,
her white light signals my resurrection.
She bobs from the fisherman’s unseen boat
in a sea of indefinite color
that lacks a word for blue.

The divine is hidden
but on this night
everyone is coming out to watch.

Welcome to Fridaland

2007-10-24T18:17:00.000-05:00

This week I started a class on Frida Kahlo. It's taught by my friend Roslye as part of the U of MN compleat scholar program. Perfect timing since it also coincides with the Walker exhibition that is opening on Friday. Frida's exhibit is the most expensive exhibit they've had ever - even more than the latest Picassos.

Frida painted her reality. She doeosn't call it fantasy - she literally paints her reality. One fact I didn't know was that she changed her birth year to 1910 - the same year as the Mexican Revolution because she identified so strongly with it (she was actually born in 1907 and died in 1954 at the age of 47). Her dream was to become a medical doctor - which gives some insight into her paintings. She was an 'untrained' artist; her father was a photographer. She was at times adrogonous, bisexual, met Georgia O'Keeffe in the 30's at the New York gallery scene, and also loved to write poetry and love letters to her husband Diego Rivera. She lived an authentic life - ironic, funny, rebellious. I love this photo of her - she is winking at me, reminding me to always be true to myself in the way I live my life, in my art.

A toast to Tex - at peace

2007-10-24T17:38:00.000-05:00

Last week, I had to put Tex to sleep. He now has his freedom in a place not bound by bodies and all things physical. I miss him terribly and I wanted to reminisce a bit about him:

Tex was in a pet store near Dallas, Texas (hence his name!) I bought him on April 28, 1992. The day before I flew standby on American Airlines to Dallas (first class, back when a hot breakfast was served enroute) for a flight attendant interview. At that time in my life I was a travel consultant and thought I wanted to be a flight attendant, or at least interview for one. After the interviews that day, I stayed the night and flew back the next morning. I had some free time in the morning and took the hotel shuttle bus to the nearby mall. I wanted an orange kitten and hadn't been able to find one yet. There was a pet store in the mall, and I met Tex and his brother. The woman owner put me in a room with them (she knows how to sell!) and of course it was love at first sight. I told her I'd keep him if I could fly back with him, so I called the airline and they said yes, I could bring him on board. So, we boxed him up in his cardboard carry on and I had him with me in the cabin under the seat. He was very good, and settled down once we were in the air. Then he had to come home and meet Cleo - my other 6 month old kitten. But he stood his ground and with one swap on Cleo's face with his claws they had their pecking order established.

Tex was fond of chasing rubber balls - he played 'fetch' and would return them (when he wanted to). He also knew his name and would come when called. He slept with me on the bed, and has been there for me since before I was married and longer than most relationships. He survived a hyperthyroid, a stroke - where he miracously recovered after three days when I didn't think he was going to make it - and then high blood pressure, and finally, blindness. He taught me patience - and to never give up. He loved unconditionally. Tex, I will remember you. I still have his photo as my computer screen saver at work. Sometimes people and animals are connected in special ways, I know that is true with Tex. He was 15.

It was hard for me to put him to sleep but the vet was very nice and I had the support of a close friend to drive me around since my car was in the shop. Sometimes I think my car went out on purpose that week because I needed the support of others that I wouldn't have seeked out on my own. We buried him in his backyard near the trees where he will be at peace. Afterwards, we went out to eat and had a toast to Tex - remembering the good times he brought me, along with the other cats in our lives.

(I wish I could scan his kitten photo in here, but alas I don't have a color scanner).

I still have Cleo - she is mellowing out a bit and is more affectionate. She is usually very jealous but I think she misses Tex too.

Teaching me to see

2007-10-13T22:55:00.000-05:00

This is what a cat sees - a lot of blues and greens, and grays.

Tex, my 15 year old kitty - is blind as of last week.

I'm trying to figure out what to learn from all this. He has a hyper thyroid (for a couple of years at least), and some high blood pressure which probably caused the loss of vision. He is managing okay - better than I thought he would. He's on another one of his many lives, overcoming obstacles, living in the moment. He dreams a lot - moving and twitching - and then wakes up. What is it like to wake up to darkness? He knows his way around the apartment - he has that memorized. He's learned how to jump up on the couch and the bed - amazing. He's on a new diet for kidney regulation, along with saline injections because he was dehydrated. He still has his thyroid medication. All of this is worth it, hopefully. I'm not going to go to any extra-ordinary measures to save him, I'll let him decide how active he wants to be. These first few days have been hard on me - taking him to the vet when my car also broke down posed a challenge and a friend has been very generous in getting us where we needed to go. I'm wishing my other vet would have been more pro-active in telling me what to do to get some of this under control earlier, now it is too late.

I think about the morning rituals I have - opening the blinds, the curtains, how life must be so different without sight. It's made me pay attention to everything. Tex is aware of sounds and smells, his whiskers tell him where he needs to go, he seldom 'bumps' into anything. I know he's gradually adjusting. I don't think he's in pain unless his eye is bothering him. His one eye is worse than the other, he may have to have it taken out but it's too early to tell. The vet tells me about cats with no eyes who get along fine. The eyes are the window to the soul. It's hard to relate to others without the eyes looking back at you. Now they are a cloudy stare, his pupils are dialated and stay that way.

I'm not ready to give up on him yet. It seems like everyone says, 'he's old, he's not going to last much longer.' True. But cats are there to talk to; it will be lonely without him. I'm the type of person who needs a cat around the house. (Cleo, by the way, my other cat, is the same age and has hardly been sick a day in her life and is doing just fine) Tex may be blind but he is teaching me to see.

A good website on cat vision is: http://videoforcats.com/catvision.htm

Abstraction

2007-10-13T22:25:00.000-05:00

Abstraction

The MIA at night

(Minneapolis Institute of Arts)

Fri, Oct 5th

My friend Maggie and I went to the MIA to see the O'Keeffe exhibit "Circling Around Abstraction." A small exhibit of her work. This was significant for us - the last time we went to an O'Keeffe opening together was back in 1994 also at the MIA for the "O'Keeffe/Stieglitz" exhibit. We had lost touch as friends for about six or seven years and just this year got back in touch. Some things are like that. Circling.

You can see more on the O'Keeffe exhibit at http://www.artsmia.org/circling-around-abstraction

You can see my version of red flowers in the photo at left.

I noted some of Georgia O'Keeffe's observations throughout the exhibit:

"nothing is less real than realism"

The abstraction is often the most definite form for the intangible thing in myself that I can only clarify in paint

The blue that will always be there as it is afar

after man's desctruction is finished.

I decided that I wasn't going to spend my life doing what had already been done. (1976)

Notan - the Japanese word for dark/light
There is no word in English to express the idea contained in the phrase dark-light.
Arthur W Dow, "Composition," (Doubleday, 1914)

Shoes

2007-10-13T22:04:00.000-05:00

Liam Rector Memorial Service
St. Mark's Church in the Bowery, 131 E 10th Street , New York , NY
Saturday, Sept 22, 2007 - 3 pm

The first thing that struck me was the shoes. Liam's shoes, 8 to 10 pairs, maybe, all across the steps of the altar, lit with candles. Would they catch on fire? He was there in that spooky presence of his, but not there. Some of us half-expected him to come in to say this was a cruel joke, but of course it wasn't.

After being forced to wait until 15 minutes before the service to get in, the ushers finally relented. Why they did this I don't know, maybe they were lighting candles. It was raining lightly, there was a bit of a downpour earlier in the day. In line I talked to several classmates and instructors.
Friends and family spoke:

Tree - "It wasn't depression. It wasn't a whim." Liam lived life in quality versus quantity. Poetry was "the third thing" between them. They were married 16 years. The last night of his life he donned a tuxedo with a polo shirt, they had a nice dinner, he asked her to dance. Did she know he was planning this? She didn't say. She seemed composed. I'm wondering how she will be a few months from now.

Virginia Rector - Liam's daughter from another marriage, age 23. She also looked composed and read from a prepared script. She says she never got to say goodbye. She quoted a line Liam always said (and that I remember from Bennington as well) "Life's not fair."

Tree and Liam were married in Donald Hall's backyard, before Jane Kenyon was sick. Black ties and red sneakers.

Donald Hall spoke, sitting in a chair instead of the podium. He couldn't read anything prepared, he just talked, he sounded upset. He and Liam wrote letters back and forth via mail. Three of them came after his death. Movies, clothes, shoes. One time Liam made a list for Donald of "85 suggestions of the duties of Poet Laureate."

Jerry Winestone - Liam lived his life his way. (Did suicide give him control? Probably.)

Ed Ochester was stuck in the Pittsburgh airport. I found out later there was a bomb threat and the whole airport was closed down. Some kid with a circuit board around his neck as an art statement?

Bob Shacochis - Bob, thank you for being honest. No sentiment from you, as usual. You are angry he left us, we are all angry and you put it out there to admit what everyone else was avoiding. You wrote a letter to Tree. You always were one of my favorite Bennington instructors, because you have a sarcastic, skeptical, witty view of life, and don't take shit from anyone. And you're not taking it from Liam now, either. Liam had the song "Mashed Potatoes" playing on his computer at his desk when he shot himself. Was that a hint for the poem "Gravy" by Raymond Carver? You talked to Tree about this. A clue left behind. I have trouble believing that Liam would 'stage' something to leave clues as to the motive behind his death, besides his suicide note. I don't know him well enough for that.

The poem "Gravy" was published in the New Yorker three weeks after Raymond Carver's death at 50 in 1988. I see the similarities here, I don't know what Liam thought of Carver but I'm sure he was an influence. Liam survived his 20% chance to live in the battle for colon cancer and added a few more years. That is, until he decided life wasn't worth living due to more health-related issues.

Gravy

by Raymond Carver

No other word will do. For that's what it was.

Gravy.

Gravy, these past ten years.

Alive, sober, working, loving, and

being loved by a good woman.

Eleven years

ago he was told he had six months to live

at the rate he was going. And he was going

nowhere but down. So he changed his ways

somehow. He quit drinking! And the rest?

After that it was all gravy, every minute

of it, up to and including when he was told about,

well, some things that were breaking down and

building up inside his head. "Don't weep for me,"

he said to his friends. "I'm a lucky man.

I've had ten years longer than I or anyone

expected. Pure Gravy. And don't forget it."

Sven Birkets - also addressed the anger. "Friends don't do this." I agree. No goodbyes, no warnings. Sven mentioned James Dickey's poem "Lord let me die, but not die out." I was enamored with Dickey's poetry as an undergraduate student, the way he wrote about nature and memory. Sven, you will carry us on as acting director of the life of letters.

Others spoke. Jill McKorkle, Amyl Hempel, Tom Sleigh, Linda Gregg, Martha Cooley, Jason Shinder, Elizabeth Wray, Matthew Graham, Victoria Clausi, Lucie Brock-Broido, David Fenza. Two hours later, Askold Melnyczuk showed a group of slides on St. Mark's white wall on the altar. Above the shoes. Titled "American Prodigal #6". Liam's baby and childhood photos, his wife, daughter, with Tree. The full frontal nudity shot thrown in for good measure. Liam's birth name was Ron, he changed it to Liam.

David Broza performed "In Snow" (Liam's poem and music by David) on guitar, and sang. A fitting ending.

Afterwards, the church lights stayed dark, we got up, talked, moved to the outside patio area with water (no drinks, no toasting). A Bennington reunion, in a bit, this sad occasion that has brought us here. St. Mark's had a balcony and it reminded me a bit of Tishman, except Sven and Liam weren't in the balcony like the old men in the muppets. Some went to nearby bars. I walked back the few blocks to my hotel (the Carlton Arms) to pick up my bag and head to Penn Station for the train to New Haven , Connecticut to meet another friend and fellow alum.

It had stopped raining. I touched the Buddha at the Carlton Arms entryway for what - luck? wishes? Left a penny for my thoughts - like everyone else.

I decided to bring along Donna Tartt's novel, "The Secret History" to read while on the planes and trains. I finished it the day after I returned to Minneapolis . Tartt models the fictional college of Hampden after Bennington College with references to the Commons, the dorms and other Bennington landmarks. It is a murder mystery, a close knit group of six sequestered undergraduate students studying Greek philosophy. It was a fitting time to read the book, one I had always meant to read but was put on the back burner due to other projects. "We don't like to admit it," said Julian (the Greek instructor in the novel), "but the idea of losing control is one that fascinates controlled people such as ourselves more than almost anything. All truly civilized people - the ancients no less than us -- have civilized themselves through the willful repression of the old, animal self. Are we, in this room, really very different from the Greeks or the Romans? Obsessed with duty, piety, loyalty, sacrifice? All those things which are to modern tastes so chilling?"

No longer a mystery. Those shoes - others will fill them but no one else will walk in them.

Into the Vortex - post-death sentimentia

2007-08-28T22:14:00.000-05:00

In Memory- Liam Rector
1949 - August 15, 2007

Photo: Liam Rector (left) and Ed Ochester, June 2007, Bennington College campus. (photo credit: Woody Lewis)

Liam, you died on my classmates' birthday. We all remember where we were when we read the email - at work - what? how? why? It was health, you shot yourself. Almost two weeks ago. I write while things are still fresh, while death isn't dead yet, your email address can't be deleted from my address book - not quite yet.

I sat with Liam and Ed Ochester at graduation dinner in January and we were talking about suicide. Liam said when he was 17 he thought of killing himself and then decided to live the next year with no regrets and it was the best year of his life so far and then he turned 18 and decided not to kill himself. We jokingly talked about how to kill yourself and not leave a mess, i.e. jump off a bridge or something. He said it would be horrible to kill yourself in a hotel room and have the maid find you there, all that stress on her. It sounds horrible to talk about this now, we were in a mood that wasn't down, just being honest but I didn't take it as a sign that he was thinking about it. I knew he battled depression but he seemed to be doing better with his book out, and he asked me about the program a lot and looking back I think he was seeking more self-assurance than usual. He seemed to look at all of us sitting up there at graduation with long looks that I just felt something going on in him but it didn't make sense and now it is making sense. I just knew him a short while, I only really got to know him a little when he was my instructor. I started to know him as a friend, a mentor. He handed out CD compilations of his favorite songs each term - the "sentimentia" collection. He played the Glengary Glen Ross damn DVD - which I absolutely LOVE - to "Always be Closing" - his "see you in a minute" letters, his wry wit. I'm angry. I'm sad.

The need to speak.

Liam talked about this as he read my poetry manuscript on cassette tape which was included with the first packet. He did this for each one of his students. Entire manuscripts in his voice, the best line editing I could have had, off the page, which is where it starts. Liam Fed Ex'd my packets back every time, always almost late, but always on time. That moment of anticipation every month, to see what he might say in our letter back and forth. I play the first tape, my ms first draft and he says: " listen for each poem's need to speak. Rilke talked a great deal about the need to speak in a given poem and if you listen for that need to speak, that motive, that source, that animating scene of instruction, propulsion, what brings it to speech, what brings it to the page, if you listen very carefully as a reader, as a listener, you'll hear in that your own need to listen and any consequent reader's need to listen. I'm reading it as a stranger in a bookstore, who comes at it the first time. So, how to listen: with your bullshit detector, any false words, false line, false image, false stanza, anything that doesn't contribute directly to the presentation. As you go through what of these poems you're going to in fact use in your manuscript, the ones that sound strongest, the ones that sound weakest, and the ones that are having conversations with each other….their need to be juxtaposed, or revised, or alchemized towards each other. The semester is a meditation upon the book - this manuscript - you're thinking what begins, what middles and what ends this book, this ms, this thesis that I'm putting together. Listen to the point of utter boredom and distraction listen to it as a reader it has its own independent life, approach it as a reader, put it together as a writer, with the arc of communion with the reader, that sacred creature that we're going to be considering the entire semester. Read one thing after another, without commentary….. "

Liam loved convertibles and I have a convertible too, I wish I would have had a chance to ride in his when he was still doing that with his students. He wrote me on cream colored stationery with his name and address imprinted at the top; you don't see that around much anymore - "The Mark Twain" - his apartment/hotel. He took the time to respond, with three or four or more pages, that life of letters we all came here for. I remember him calling me to tell me I'd been admitted into the program - that personal phone call everyone gets, a message and waiting a whole day for him to get back to me, and not really knowing what the hell I was getting into in this program but I knew it didn't matter, I'd figure it out somehow.

I look at the reading list for my 4th term and remember I still haven't read Thomas Hardy's "Jude the Obscure" - one of Liam's favorites along with Hart Crane. It's sitting on my bookshelf now. The DVD of the BBC series is shipped from Netflix and I have watched three of the many episodes, how can I stand the fall from the dreams, the controversial ending?

I am pushed by this act to start living my own reckless life again. "We are sending you off as a woman of letters, as a player, as a person who does not only apply for jobs but creates them. As both a poet (which means maker) and as a producer." Liam did a fantastic job of creating this program. The vortex - what the hell was he talking about at orientation? I wanted practical details, he jumped into a fantasy that I didn't understand - not yet, anyway. He wrote on the board:

Vortex - an indestructible node or cluster.

Thinking about it now, that describes Liam. He sucked me in to the center of the program, it is all or nothing at Bennington and he pulled out of me poems I never knew I had, by saying very little.

As I connect with my classmates and instructors and fellow writers we feel that weird Bennington solidarity. We are together, yet apart, all of us scattered until we come together again. We want to be together to grieve, yet we are apart. Liam's memorial is in New York, a sense of closure, but mostly so we can go on, reminisce and see what will happen along with the rest of the Bennington family….Ed, I will smoke a cigar with you, Liam, this drink is for you, fellow classmates, instructors, friends. I miss him terribly. Cheers.

The End of the World.......

The Remarkable Objectivity of Your Old Friends

by Liam Rector

We did right by your death and went out,
Right away, to a public place to drink,
To be with each other, to face it.

We called other friends—the ones
Your mother hadn't called—and told them
What you had decided, and some said

What you did was right; it was the thing
You wanted and we'd just have to live
With that, that your life had been one

Long misery and they could see why you
Had chosen that, no matter what any of us
Thought about it, and anyway, one said,

Most of us abandoned each other a long
Time ago and we'd have to face that
If we had any hope of getting it right.

More on Liam: http://www.bennington.edu/news_prfp_070822rector.asp

Poems: http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/379

bridges are for jumping off not falling

2007-08-09T00:20:00.000-05:00

Stone Arch bridge from Mill City Museum observation deck, taken 5.26.07. The 35W Bridge (not seen in this photo, it's to the right) collapsed in Minneapolis on 8.1.07

Bridges are for jumping off not falling
by Jules Nyquist

a sestina falls
what would be those six words?
bridge
collapse
last
breath
last
phone call

e mail text are you okay?
canoes are in the river, helping
media descends on this little city
fucking politicians all out of town anyway
leave us alone, driving down university avenue in dinkytown for a haircut
I forget
the bridge, the traffic
bridges are for suicides
for John Berryman on Washington Avenue
or the girl who was released from the hospital ward long enough to get her keys
water her plants she says, pick up a few things instead she
locked her door, slid the keys under it and jumped off a bridge

I only have a 6th floor balcony
over the rail, who would find me dead on the pavement
in the courtyard?
who would they call you? who would they call?
you called me right away
that is a good sign

hundreds of bridges, thousands in a lifetime to go under
over and constantly do I notice the river? yes I crossed it six times this weekend
in the last two days is it only a paper suicide?
glad we didn't know anyone, but yes I do, almost

a co-worker matters
I dream of skyscrapers flooding
cars floating up to the 16th floor
and you were there almost under
telling me about it when you touch me
I ask you to say how you feel
you stopped at the coffeehouse and the cop
had cement dust on his shoes

it's all the same day

2007-06-03T14:48:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I went to the MIA (Mpls Inst of Art) and realized it's the 40th anniversary of the Summer of Love, 1967 in Haight-Ashbury. How can it be 40 years already?

Janis Joplin has always been an inspiration.....I was only 8 years old in 1970 when she died. I've sometimes wished I was born 10 years earlier. It was strange listening to her music in a museum with headphones instead of at home or on the street.
What did I do when I was 27?

You only have one day....

"It's all the same fucking day, man........"

Yes, it is, Janis, yes it is.

Songs and fools

2007-05-15T22:11:00.000-05:00

Last weekend I had a brief brush with gunfire while driving home early one morning from a friend's house taking a detour. I won't elaborate here, but I'm fine, witnessed the scene in my car and couldn't escape; had to leave my car and come back to get it. The fist fights have disappeared, guns and wars keep growing like adolescents without anywhere to channel their energy except in hate. Our President has to be talked into wearing a tux to meet the Queen (a little boy once put in the corner away from her by his mother so he wouldn't make a fool of himself). Ah, the fools are still out there and we the bystanders are left wondering whether to fight or to leave.

"Siren Song"
by Margaret Atwood, from Selected Poems 1965 -1975. © Houghton Mifflin, 1987.

Siren Song

This is the one song everyone
would like to learn: the song
that is irresistible:

the song that forces men
to leap overboard in squadrons
even though they see the beached skulls

the song nobody knows
because anyone who has heard it
is dead, and the others can't remember.

Shall I tell you the secret
and if I do, will you get me
out of this bird suit?

I don't enjoy it here
squatting on this island
looking picturesque and mythical

with these two feathery maniacs,
I don't enjoy singing
this trio, fatal and valuable.

I will tell the secret to you,
to you, only to you.
Come closer. This song

is a cry for help: Help me!
Only you, only you can,
you are unique

at last. Alas
it is a boring song
but it works every time.

snapshots

2007-05-06T17:53:00.000-05:00

Photo I took of my cat Tex

Photo I took of my cat Cleo

This photo was taken of me a few years ago, at Trade River, WI, photo credit Doug Beasley.

Oryx & Crake

2007-05-06T17:19:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was my birthday. Today I finished reading "Oryx & Crake" by Margaret Atwood, one of my favorite authors; brilliant, witty, ironic. I had a signed copy from 2003 on my bookshelf that I just now got around to reading. A good day is having the whole day to read, with a break for writing, lunch, and more reading, followed by a good movie. "All best wishes" she writes, and that's what I think about for the start of a new year.

Latest poetry? "Autobiography of Red" by Anne Carson (hence the name of this blog) and Donald Hall....saw both of them on two separate events at the College of St. Ben's in St. Cloud in mid-April. Anne's lecture was composed of 14 sonnets, with visuals of dance and her taped voice. Brilliant. Donald was visited by 'the girls' our poetry group. I've been receiving birthday cards in the mail. I've been calling my friends out of state to say thanks. Auntie M from Connecticut (Bennington) and Gina in Washington, D.C. Good to hear their voices. When will I have time to visit? Corporate jobs have no sense of vacation time needed for an artist.

Wishes for the year ahead.........more writing in my work, poetry is everywhere.

Movies: I'm still working my way through Woody Allen. Can't go wrong, most of what he writes and films has an underlying message spiced with humor. Friday night I saw "Alice" with Mia Farrow at her best. She is married to Jeff Bridges in the movie, has an affair, has fun being 'invisible' with special herbs (what would you do if you could be invisible for a few hours?) and winds up doing what her heart tells her to do.