Raw Word Batter

                Monday, October 2 2006, 2:34 PM 

Detours

                I am trying to be as efficinet as possible because I have so few days left before Keith gets here and I was hoping to move when he came.  And I have an MRI and doctor appointsand Ted Kooser Poet Laureate and Annie Pennisi's wedding.

                I also only walked once in the last 4 days and that was Thursday (no Friday?) and I'm supposed to walk every day.  And it's a beautiful day, and supposed to getcold andrain coming up.  so I took a break fromworkingoncleaning sorting and packing to take a walkwhile while the sun was still out.  I could have used thatsame excuse to go visit my Mother, but Great Bear was closer, so I came here.

                Normally it takes 11-12 minutes to getto Great Bear from home.  I was tooling happily along (if you can call crying wildly "tooling happily along," but that's another story) when suddenly the car ahead of me slowed and there has a trucked parked blocking the road and person ina  reflective vest pointing down some tiny side street.  The car ahead of me went and I followed.  Since I had turned left (west) and was headed north, I turned right at firstroad, whichcut back nicely atangle toward 57 (headed north east,which Iway Ineeded to go.)

                But the road ended on another road whichended on another road and after a while I foundmyself in Hinmansville.  This wasgood, I thought, because a road from Hinmansville endsup at Great Bear.  I crossed the one lane Hinmansville bridge.  Everything seemed familiar butsomehow wrong.  I drove out the road "toward 57" (or where I thought 57 should be), andencountered a second detour where they wereworking on wires and had the road blocked off.  but I did not see Hawthorne taking off at an angle to the right.  This was my first clue something was  wrong but I kept on going and came outto a busy raod which I thought was 57.  It didn't look right, but I thought I'd justmissed Hawethorne and that it seemed unfamiliar because Inever gos traight on 46.  I don't know that corner.  I turned left and drove until I saw a sign saying 48.  Now I had asudden bout of confusions anddisorientation and remembered that only a fewnights ago, Debbie and I had been shunted off 80 east on out way back to the hotel and had subsequently driven around for over an hour before wemanaged to find our way backwith the help of a friendly gas stationa attendant.  I pulled over (after driving a ways before I could find aplace to pull over) and studied my map--but themaps,noneofthem, showed the roads I was on!

                I thought that Iwas driving south twoard Baldwinsville,but itnever occurred to meto look at the sun.  Itwas sunny.  But mytheory was I had crossed the Hinmansville bridge in thewrong direction.

                This defied logic, because of the river.  How could I have gotten onto the wrong side of the river? 57 is on the east sideof the river andthat was where Iwanted tobe, but 48 is onthewest side ofthe river.  I turned around and retraced my path back around detorur number 2, back across the Hinmansville bridge in the other direction and drovelonger than it seemed I should have, but there was Hawethorne and there was Great Bear!

                I'd like to see a map ofthe area to see how that could have been passible,to try and retrace my route.  But I believe mymaps of Oswego county are in Detroit!

                I think that 3 or 4 detours in 3 or 4 days.  If thata dream instead  "reality", I would ask myself what my subsconscious was trying to tell me.

                The symbolismis pretty obvious.  I'm taking too manydetours. I'mbeing slowedby detours in getting where I'm going.

                Thenext question is,wheream I going (or trying to go? [clearly not thesamequestion])?  Here are some answers:

•           I am trying toget toKeith and Graham.

•           I am trying to getmoved to Detroit

•           I am trying to getout of the house

•           Iam trying to express my creativity'

•           Iam trying write and publishnovels

•           I am trying to publish a poetry book

•           I amtrying to get to a place where I can make a difference in the world.

                Meanwhile, Iamwalking along tje riverwith camera gear slung around myshoulders and I see somemovementin the grass, something large and dun-colored (deer?) so I look thatway and immediately look away again but I've already seen a naked couple engaged inoral sex.  The man is moving his head up and down over the woman's spread legs but the woman has seen orheard me and lifts her head toward me.  I look carefully toward theriver asIwalk.

                Earlier, I had stopped to pee in the bushes and a couple walked by just as I was peeing, talking loudly,and I betit was them.  I'msorry I disturbed their privacy,but I didn'tknow they were there.  I'm certain it setthewoman back in her orgasming.  But surely theymust know other people walk here. They were right next to the trail.  Onetime atclark Iencountered someonedoing that in the center of thetrail,andclarkismorewell-used that Great Bear. Didtheywant to be discovered,or were theysimply not thinking?

                THis diturnedmystory,my littlepersonal essay on Detour.  A detour of sorts from my story of detours.

                It occurred tome that Detours is"who Iam" inasense. I'm a Gemini with multiplepeople living isnide me, and I have ADHD, meaning I am easily distracted.  Distractions are detorurs, are they not?

                I've been on the other end of that sex and the woods encounter more than once.  I harbor them no ill will. But it was, I'm afraid, unfortunately disturbing to both parties.

                The fact that Iw as carryingcameras is alsodisturbing, although of course, I did't point them toward the naked couple.  It remindsmeof thetimeKeith and I,carrying manycameras, walked fully clad down anude beach. We didn't know it was a nude beach, but felt very conspicuousand foolish.

                There wereseveral carsparked atthe trailheader when I came,surely theymust aware howmany people walkhere.  NO?

                I'venamed some places I'm trying to get.  Soemare physical, some are social some are creative, someareethereal. Ihadn't finsihed mylist though.  Iwas also going to name,among other thinngs:

•           I want to get to a place of healing,a healed and whole place within myself (emotionally,mentally

•           and aphysically healthy place as well, to be and behave as a honorable, honest,open loving human being.

                Of coursethere's more, but the detourpast sexuality (a big detourinmyownlife aswell) has made me lose track of my thoughts. 

                I can't go to all of those places at once.  Some I can do together and some I must do serially if Ilive long enough.  I'd liketo live a longtime, because I ahve so much to do:

•           I want to mother Graham and see himgrown

•           I want to partner Keith and enjoy his company

•           I wantto see myfuturegrandchildren

•           I want to writeandpublish books

•           I want to do art

•           I want to get to a spiritual place where I am spiritually whole and physically, mentally and emotionally healed

                Of course, these are parraellesorredundanciesof where I want to go in asnse (same thing)

                So, then,the next question toask,ifthise werea dream is, what road-blocks and detours am I providing myself?  (and why?)

                (Iwonder if those people checked for poison iny, which is rampant here,beforetheylay down.  What is the right tenseoflay?)

                There are physical, mental emotional and spiritual roadbloack to each of those goal "destiantions."

•           an obvious physical roadblockto themove is the house, and themess in the house and the accumulated junk andmyinabilityto deal with it.  There were physcalmentalemotionaland spiritualreasons for the junk's being there in thefirst.  I have serious shortcomings (otherwise known as faults!) in the departmentof organization and "hoarding" (OCD) and concentration and will toward cleaning.  I've never been neat my whole life.  I've been sick for years with seriousasthma, fibromyalgia, sleep apnea, tiredness, insomnia etc.  Myexcess weightaffects the fibromylagia which in turn affects the weight and the twoofthemaffectmyphysicaland emotionalenergy levels.  If I couldeat less (a lot less) maybeI'd lose weight, but I have a genetic component, myparents were both overweight as wasmy paternalgrandmother,my aunt andotherreltives.  Of coursestudies alsoshowthatrape and abuse victims tend to gainweight too.  None of these arean "excuse" inasense, but I seem to have clearlyfailed to getpast them.

•           I amnot all thateager to go to Detroit.

•           and while Iwant to be withmy husband and so,there are issues there as well, with rape, abuse, and so much of Susan's stuff still in the house.  It doesn't feel like MY house at all.  I don't think to myself, oh, I'm not going to clean because I'mafraid of Keith abusing me or because Susan's retainer and make up is still in the bathroom cupboard.  But it doesn't ENCOURAGE me to bite the bullet either.

                Well, of course I had more to say, but now I am back to the car and need to go home and do some more work.  I think I will take Hawthorne, Pendergast, River Road etc, and I hope I don't meet anymore DETOURS.

                I walked more than 49 minutes (maybe 52?)

                And I didn'tevenmention the bridge repair.

                4:08 PM Home in the driveway

It was a movement, dun and slow and still and quick and jerky

as an injured squirel, an unexplained shape in the grass

and trees beside the river in the October sun too large

and low and smooth to be a deer, and moving oddly so I looked

and quick away because then I knew.  The softly opened legs,

the head between them, the other head lifting toward me

as I turned to suddenly study the river, the way the yellow leaves

swirled, the way the far shore was a wash of yellow reflected

from the trees.  I saw no breasts, no penis, not even a butt, really,

not that I can bring to mind, no vagina visible, no porn, only

that odd-moving head.  Only the dun color, the soft spread legs

and the head rising toward me.  No eyes, but I wonder

as I try to arrange myself around this double intrusion,

if those eyes were like the deer I first imagines, wide and dark

and startled, or like the coyote who paused to look me

in the face, wild and seemingly unafraid, not running,

not walking into the golden woods, waiting instead for me

to move on.  Every separate hair, grey, black, brown, red,

shone in the low orange sun.  There was the coyote, too. 

There were the lovers, disturbed by me, and me, disturbed

by them and that backpack of memories torn open,

 trying to place those images and lovers somewhere in my heart

and failing, and deciding at last to just leave them in that space,

hanging dun and still, jerking like an injured squirrel

among the flaming poison ivy leaves.

Mary Stebbins Taitt

0610021st draft

OK,now Iamsupposed to write beyond the poem,to write whythispoemresonates forme. To addmoreimages.   But unbeknownst tome,Isat here in the car morethanhalfan hour writingthat poem.  Time flies when you're in the zone. Another detour fromhosuecleaning,buthosue cleaning is also a detour from my REAL WORK ofwriting poetry.

                Also unbeknownst to me, I had my sunglasses on the whole time, weird, first poem I ever remember writing with my sunglasses on.

                I forgot to turn off the solar when I left. I rememberedthis while Iwasgone. and wasrelieved thatitwasn't unbearably hot when I gotback.

                I got side-tracked, detoured from my rant on Detours, I wanted to do more it, but ran outof timeand steam.  One thingIwnated to add,among others,is that this was NOT a dream, unless reality is a dream. Sometimes,relaity behaves like a dream, which is both scaryand exciting.  Terrifying even.  Of course the calmrationalselfsays the bridgeconstruction and thedetours arejust aCOINCIDENCE andnot the synchronicity they seem to be.

                I've done a lot of blabbing about all this, but not only did I not finish my explorations, I did NOT ask what, if anything, I should DO about all this. Seeing aproblem does NOT, in and of itself, necessarily solve the problem.

                Why are detours a PROBLEM,are they, i fact,  a problem?

                I have a lot to say on this subject,but IMUST getto work!

                6:34  PM

                It'snotjustthe detour, but the detour casing meto to get lost andlose a lot of timefrom thegoal activity.

                This could be a love poem.  It could be a more ambitious poem.  If I had a life.

                Iam at Wegman's.  I'd run out of everything before Ileftfor Dodge, so I wantedto shop.  BUT, DUH, I forgot the check Iwnatedtodeposit in the bank rightnext door.  Another waste of time--I'll haveto come back to cash the check.  Grrrrr.

                Debbie complained of a sorethroatwhen wewere atDodge. now I have a sore throat.  I didn't KISS her!

                :-(

                I've been cleaning in themidbasementandhave "finished" another corner, the NE cornerofthe south half of the midbasement.  By finished, Imean there isprobably nothing leftinthere Iwant.  I threw away a lot,rescued a few things, and otherthan apairofboots Iwant, that's itthere,butthere are still things thatneed to be dealt with and sweeping etc.

This could be a love poem.  How often have I wanted

to lie in the bushes with you? Notice the sudden appearance

of a "you," And no, dear anonymous reader, I don'tmean you,

but you, my love, you.  Would you lie in the grasses with me?

would you lie in the poison ivy?  Would you lie beside the trail

and touch me until I quivered?  If someone with acamera came

walking, would you movelike an injured squirell and keep