The hawk Erin and I saw--Merlin? Pigeon Hawk? Kestrel?
Cash Sara's check or mail to Keith
MRI North Medical, 4820 W Taft Road, suite 114, 3/28, 9:15
BJ's gas in B'ville/Clay is 2 cents cheaper per gallon than in DeWitt
Nikon S4 digital camera with swivel lens, pocket size, $369.99, BJ's (both, 6 MP, 10X optical zoom, 2.5" digital display, SD memory card plus 13.5MB internal memory
BJ'sDewitt, pocket Nikon 10 optical zoom, rotaiting head
HP wireless wide screen (15.4 scr) 1G RAM, 100GB hard drive BJs 1399.99, built in card readers for some cards.
Toshiba Satellite M760, M45359, wide screen wireless 1G, 100GB 1299.99 BJs "lightweight", keyboard narrowed by player :o(
BJ's Sharp 512 MB, 80 GB 3.6 pounds (lightweight!) 1399.90
Sam'sHP Pavilion NB DV5003 CL 999.67 80 gigs, 15.4 " screen
Sam's Sony 15.4,80 GB, 512 MB 1149.84
Sam~s, Toshiba qosmio, 100 GB HD, 1.86 Ghz ,2 MG cache, 7.94 lbs, TV DVD 1099.81
None ofthe computers have "buds"
at BJ; printer scanners from $75 (brother)
at Sam's, HP 16101 print scan copy $79.81--takes USB, 1510V 89.86, Lexmark print scan copy p6250 $69.81.
Staples,Lexmark colorinkjet printer 2735 $50.00
BJs: X-brand portablelaptop stand raises screen $35
Monday, March 20, 2006, 6:05 PM It is amazinly still light. Geese are flying overhead honking. It is snowing, windy and cold. Brrr, cold. I am out walking. Because I had that strange dizzy spell at noontime today, I did not drive anywhere to walk,and I am going to walk in segments, assuming I can walk. I am walking around the block on the road, rather than plowing through the snow. But I dislike this, as there is traffic and no sidewalks, so I have to walk in the road. There is a snowbbank beside the road, so if a car is to close I have to leap ino the snow.
My hands become too cold to write so I put both them and the computer in my pocket. I am so used to writing while I walk that it does not seem unusual, special, or dangerous to me. I've been doing it for years and years.
I deeply dislke walking along the road in my neighborhood, and much prefer woodland trails or at elast the paved sidewalks at Radisson. I am really not looking forward to living in Detroit at all EXCEPT for Keith and Graham and Sam and Joan and ML and so on. Gail, who is in Jackson.
The place where I walked down to the river is posed, the one at the bottom of the hill that I walked to from home. So I was trespassing when Iwent there, but I did not break and enter, I simply stepped over the chain. If the gate were closed and ocked and Isawed open the lock,that would be breaking and enetering. It is one step worse than trespassing. But i would ot do that, because it would cause harm.
I do make a sort ofinfrequent habit of trespassing, maybe 5-7% of my walks. This is because I feel that I am doing no harm to simply walk through. I try to minimize any damage Imight dod. But I have gotten in trouble of number of times, and I don't like that, so I do it less often. And some of my faorite trespassing places have been made more secure against trespassers, perhaps in part to me, but not too likely. So I can't go there any more.
I amnearly back home. I seem strong and balanced, though I do not et feel normal. I decideit is safe for me to walk around another block, but my hands are very cold.
When I called the doctor's office about my dizziness and the spinning room,she asked if anything were making me anxious and I said no, no more than normal. But I suppose sitting up until 1:45 AM sorting stuff and feeling that I'mmaking no headway and will never finish could be a form ofanxiety. I was thinking panic attack, and I was feeling fairly calm, the thing that was making me ancious was the DIZZINESS itself. I was starting to imagine all sorts of dire things it could mean.
My friend Jdy got dizzy and few weeks later,she was dead of ovarian cancer.
My father got dizzy and collapsed on a walk with my brother and me and that was when his cancer returned.
and he died.
I guess I really AM anxious about my house and getting out of it, I'm so BAD at this sort of thing. It mkes me unhappy and I feel worthless. Still, wouldthat make the room spin aroundme VIOENTLY?
I am nearly home again. I walked less than half my required 45 minutes (for fibromyalgia). But I'mtaking a break. Making stirfry. Cabbage, zucchini and beef. Then hopefully walk more.
I'd prefer to walk somewhere other than on the stupid streets in the dark with traffic and no sidewalks. But I amnot feeling up to par,and don'twant go anywhere. I am feeling significantly better than I was. Though after my two blocks,I felt more tired than usual.
I'm meeting with my poet-friend Janine tomorrow for breakfast at 8:30 AM so somehow, I have to have a few poems ready tonight--TONIGHT--since I have no printer here,I have to email them to her to print.
(I'd better set the alarm before I go for more wallking, as Imight forget otherise!)
I am not (NOT!) rich,but we are all rich compared to the people spoken of in the Bible.
Hope I can sleep tonight!
Live simply that others might simply live. I likethat but boy I'm notgood at it! All my life I've aspired toward it and failed. Though I've often lived much more simply than other people, that's not really enough. I'm not sure what enough IS.
I am out walking again. It is snowing again, still. In the dark, I can't see the snowflakes, but they show up in the street lamps and the car headlights.
I feel almost normal agin, still slightly funny, off. Little belly ache, almost gone. Little "weak", though certainly able to walk.
In spite of the snow, there are holes in the clouds where I can see the stars. The snow is falling gently, likein a Christmas card.
I'm walking the less traveled streetswhere ever possible and it is quieit and peaceful. Occasionally, I hear a voice. No dogs barking,which is nice.
Back to the question of God. How does one know God.s will?
• by reading scripture
• by reading other theological works
• by attending church
• by talking to God or His or Her emmisaries.
Wgich reminds me that when I was talking about God, I never had time to discuss all the points that were whirling about in my head. Shamanism believes that the world is peaople with spirits and that these spirits can intercede on behalf of people.
If one were to see God as the mind of the universe, all things then partake of that mind. (It confuses issues of good and evil, though, a separate point entirely).
If God Himor Herself is vasr ad unknowable, bust exists in all things,perhaps we can communicate with God
• inside ourselves, if we cab reach the spiritualpart of ourselves
• through animate and inanimate physical beings andobjects
• through "spirits"
Dreaming is a time-honored way to talk to God, as is visions, prayer, and meditation.
Talking to God seems relatively easy (although doing it well may not be), but listening to God is another matter altogther, as you know. The object of prayer is to have a dialogue with God, a two-way conversation.
Of course,who am I to attempt to talk about this when there are trained professionals? That would be ikemy giving advice to the Lovelorn or Heloise-type household hints. I probably should just be quiet about itbefore I get in trouble.
Not being one to take good advice, even my own,I would say one thin further, that though a combination oflistening skills and methods is idea, the ore direct the link the better. That's my opinion, anyway.
Forgive me for going on about it.
9:01 PM I am at the doctor's office. Iam dressed warm because it is cold in my house (trying to save money), but it is not cold in here. I'm signed in and I paidmy copay (in cash), and I'dlike to work on a poem formy meeting with Janine tomorrow, but first Ineed to type up this list for the doctor about my Dizzy Spell.
Dizzy Spell
I had a 1 hour and 45 minute-long dizzy spell from about 11:45 AM until about 1:30 PM:
• dizzy
• room spinning vioeltly (or sometime spinning more slowly
• eyes twitching rapidly
• nausea
• sweating (in waves)
• burping abnormally
• I ate nothin abnormal for breakfast (rolled cooked grains, bran, 2T raisins,rice milk)
• ate no lunch (too nauseous) [I did eat lunch later at about 3:15 PM]
• meds:synthroid 5mcg, Lescol 80 mg
• afterwards,I felt very tried and sleepy, took a short note
• history, I've had similar but much milder episodes in the distant past, more than 3-4 years ago. Had similar burping and stomach pain during an allergic reaction to Wellbutrin,but no room spinning
There. That's that.
9:28 PM the first nurse said I probably had vertigo in the inner ear. She said my weight was down since last visit, my blood pressure was good.
Kay, the nurse practioner, said she had noidea what was wrong and wanted to give me blood tests and an MRI tomorrow.
Tuesday, March 21,2006 1:18 PM I am alone out on the Mildred Faust trail at Clark. There'slots of snow,but it's wet because it's sunny and above frezing (barely). I'mkicking myself because before Ileft Imeant to turn the solar on. I opened the upstairs vent but when I got down to do the downstairs vent and turn on the solar, I got distracted by something else,and never did it. I was cold all day yesterday, all night last night, and the night before and the day before. I would have liked to have warmed up the house. I feel like a dunce.
I had breakfast with Janine at the all night eggplant (8:30 AM) and we talked and did poetry. I got gas at BJs (about $29-worth), and then I went into BJ's to get Candy for Mom and ended up getting a few other things including a wireless mouse for Toby because the little "bud" hurts my finger if I use it too much. It's in the wrong place,unlike Della's and Ida's buds. Then Iwent to see my mother, stayed til they brought her her lunch, and now I am walking at Clark. I called Dr. Fazio before I started my walk, but they didn't have the MRI info yet. If I'm going today, I'd prefer to have it before I drive all the way back home.
It's a lovely day. In a cold, snowy sort of way. The sun feels good, the birds are singing. But not much has caught my attention for photos.
I want to do a 5 minute rant onmortality in hopes of capturing images for that new poem I'm working on. (1:26) Janine says she thinks my "acute vertigo" (that's what the doctor called it) was a MIGRAINE. I said I didn't have a headache and she said migraines aren't headaches. Yesterday, while I was having it, and it went on and on and on without relenting, I got nervous and scared, Iwas afarid I had a brain tumoror some other dread disease and that I would die. Morbid. But I couldhelp worrying. I wouldn'tbe happy to have migraines, but at least they aren't fatal (life is). I wasnt to rant on mortality because tht poem I started seems to be about mortality, though it could be about love. It is about history,memory, ruins.
• history worry nightmare fallow
• mortality flight heron eagle silence
• memory magic midnight motion dance language
• ruins darkness emptyness loss quite birdson
• death life touch fire breath
• open close shrivel
• rot decay diminish grow
• autumn fall harvest winter snow
• meditate ruminate contemplate ponder
I am looking for words, evocative powerful words that convey the mood. The place is an old orchard with ruins nearby, rotting apples, the season late fall, early winter. The mood somber and meditative. No that's not the right word. Contemplative. I really like the idea of it being both about mortality and love. (or one or the other.) I don't know where the images came from, they really came out of the langauge itself. Now I need to run with it. Is that what a language-driven poem IS? I love and admire certain thrilling turns of phrases, but for me, there has to be soem meaning beyond a thrilling turn of phrase. Maybe I'm more of a story-teller than a poet. Sometimes, I feel like a fraud. The sysem is cranking out thousands of MFA poets. Only 20% stay with it. But MFAs sort of spoil one's love of poetry, plus, you see what an incredible challenge it is.
I'm not ranting on mortality here, or using those words, so I guess I'd better walk on,as I have a lot to do today.
I like the poem i started, but I need to generate more relevant material, as it feels unfinished. I don't think I can do it here, as I need to go back and forth between the lines.
I need to make a discovery in the poem. Right now, the language is beautiful, but the "discovery" at the end is unearned. It's a surpise, but not an inevitable one. And I say, "no history," when clearly there is history.
2:41 PM I am at Dr. Fazio's office for my "labs" (blood tests). I've been carrying the cell phone around all day because they said they were going to call me, but they never called. So I asked the receptionist and she said my MRI is at North Medical at 9:15 on the 28th,which is in a week. Lasy night they told me I had to have it TODAY. Oh well, that's OK withmeas long as Iam feeling OK.
Right now I am HOT, thirsty and hungry, as I have had no lunch and I am dressed for being outside. I strip off several layers of fleece and flannel and put them on the shelf above the coats. I need them off for the blood test anyway.
A woman comes out of the Dr.'soffice who is very slender and beautiful At first I think she is a girl, to young to be the mother of the teenaged boy she is with (he's on crutches). Then I see she has greay hair. Quite alot of greymised with the blond. I feel horribly fat and frumpy.
The waiting room is really crowded. They had to stab methree times before theygot any blood. AK!
3:34 PM I'm at Doug's fish fry. I hadn'thad any lunch and i was really hungry and there's no food i the house at all, so I decided for a Doug's treat after being stabbed three times in the arm and then it took a long time to fill the vials.
I stopped home and finally turned on the solar. t was purely sunny earlier, darn it,bow clouds are coming in, but the solar did comeon. It should warm up he house a littleif I get home in time to turn it off again before night.
Mortality, huh? I was feeling very mortal yesterday! Boy oh boy. Now I need to thinkin terms ofimages
WOW, hot. I forgot that the cole slaw has Mayo and the Mayo has soy. Aiee!
Sunday, March 26, 2006, 5~33 PM
Bones, branches, birchbark and bunnies. First PEEPERS! (I'llmiss peepers in Detroit!)
I am standing in the warm sun at 3R listeningto my first peepers of the season,a nd the honking of geese. Catkins are starting to open. Ot's in the 40s and the wind is cold, but I'm in a sheltered spot and getting overheated.
5:43 One problem with slippery windpants is, if you sit on a hil, you slide down. I'm winded and sitting on a hummock tryin to catch my breath. I went in to the no trespassing ruins area of 3R and tried to take someof the old trails, but they are all overgrown. I've been beating my way through intensely thick underbrush, "bushwhack," or "severe fight." I called it bushwhack as a kid, after bushwhacking, and "severe fight" is an apt orienteering term. Phew. I'm in the sun and washed by the sounds of peepers, toads and woodfrogs. I won't be in the sun long, it's about to set behind the trees. I've already walked 46 minutes and as soon as I catch my breath, I'll continue on back to the car, afew minutes away.
I saw bones where a goose or duck had been eaten by a predator. I kept thinking I saw more because there was so much bright white grey birch bark and branches that looked like bones. At one point, I saw an extremely well-camouphaged bunny and took some shots of it. It may not even show up. Other than that, I took very few pictures. The best picture I think I took was of the morning doves in the redbud tree in my own yard. Two pairs of them, the one from the front nest and the one from the back nest, are hanging around. Both their nests are gone. I also took a shot of some aspen catkins in the "pussy willow" stage. I saw lots of pussy willows, too, wild ones, of course, but took no shots of them.
This was an invisible tral day and other than sections of trail still extant, no one would believe that I was followin trails that were once well-used. A sign of old age, I guess.
The sun has slipped into the treetops and it feels amazing colder--so quick.
I almost got hit crossing the road when I first left the car. I lookedcarefully both ways and no one was coming, but then I got distracted looking at something else and started into the road a moment later as a car ca.e over the rise. It stopped and I'm sure they were disgusted with my stupidity, as was I. Aiee!
In a way,the fact that everything is changing and trails are being closed and favoite hiking places fenced off should make it easier to move to Detroit. But I still feel a sense loss moving to a city and Keith doesn't really seem to understand. He has his childhood and his whole life all around him. And he doesn't know how deeply thewilds and open spaces are rooted in my soul.
I'mback in the sun, which is very low. I walked out from behind the trees. The sun is the color of ornage juice but still has some warmth.
Nature, at least somenature, and open spaces, are very soothing. Calming, healing. I want to stay out here, but of course, I cannot. I am visualizingmyself going home and sitting and sorting when I remmebr I have no food and I need to shop. Wegman's here I come, bye-byepeepers and woodfrogs and well-camouflaged bunnies.
Monday, March 27, 2006, 2:31 Pm My watch is not coordinated with the Franciscan one. I thought I was on time,but their clock says I am 4 minutes late.
It's beautiful and springy outside, in the upper 40s and sunny.
I was listeing to an interesting NPR program and debate about the guest worker programand illegal aliens. I'm personally inclined towrad leniency balance with appropriate fairness.
I was earlier listening to a program
I suddenly lost my train of thought--I.m in the waiting room waiting and people are coming and going and talking and showing off new hairdos, people signing in to see doctors, people with name tags. In the parking lot, a woman wanted to talk tome about the nice day and I sort of tried to talk and keep walking cause I didn'twant tobe late but when shecomes in from her cigarette I am still siillsittingg here and she wishes me a good day. People always seem to pick me to talk to.
I'm thirsty and I left my water bottle home. I brought it nside so it wouldn't freeze over night and forgot to take it out.
3:00 PM I am over at Clay Central park off Wetzel road--I should bring Erin here since it's so close to where she lives with Mr R for a walk. It is nestled into Hamlin Sate Wildlife management area.
3:08 It's colder and windier here and the sun is less bright as a bank of haze has moved in and is partly covering it, so I put on a fleece and took my parker apart and put on the nonhooded part (the liner jecket) but no hat. I'm thinking I might ought to have worn a hat. As usual, it is wet, muddy andand squishy here. I'mloaded up with gear but who knows if they'll be anything to photograph.
There is one other car full of gabbing high school kids. The red-winged blackbirds are going nuts trilling. The sound of the kids laughing is fading ad Iwalk further into the black bird and away from the kids.
I brought various filters but may not use any of them. I couldn't find the adapter. The holder but not the the thing that holds the holder in. So if I want to use them, I will have to hold them on.
Now that I am on the trails in the woods, the breeze, though still presnet, is less strong, but then again, so is the sun.
All the gear in the world won't help if there us nothing worthwhile to photograph.
There is still snow here, but very little. Instead, the trails are all mud and mud-squshy grass. I have nomap, and trails go off every which way. I make wild random choices, trying to take ones I haven't taken before. I wonder if google earth would show the trail system. I cross some boardwalks I've never drossed before that are randomly broken and scary.
For the most part, so far, theys eem fairly safe if slightly jiggly. I back up the trail a little and take a picture of one of them.
Most of what Iam wlaking through so far is "fight" or bushwhack," except inlike yesterday, I do't have to fight or whack bushes because there'sa trail.
I walk through an ecotone down into the swamp, which is all big Sophie Willows. There is skunkcabbage in flower. I'm sure it's been out a while,but it's the first I've seen! There appearto be nesting geese, geese, that is, that appear to be nesting. I look through the 75-300 that I have on for possible birds and squirrels etc, but there is clutter in the way, branches etc. I switch to the macro for the skunk cabbage and then to the wide angle for a shot of the swamp-owishing Keith here here to help--I don't seem to have enough hands. The geese are upset so I beat a hasty retreat.
Someone has stpped on some of the skunk cabbage willy nilly, and that makes me sad.
Now I am getting overheated. Someone is appraching with dogs talking onthe cell phone. The dogs swarm over me friendly and muddy and smelly.
I come to a boardwalk thwere there are LOTS more skunk cabage, but none better than the one I already took,soI don't stop,just smile andlook at them as I pass through. I'venever been ehre before either, unless it was perhaps under snow. I'd always strated in the other direction,to the right instead of the left. Today Iwentleft, east, I think.
No wait, I have that backwards, I always gone LEFT or west and north,and this time I went right or EAST. Stupid diyslexia!
I come to a place where the trail is totally flooded and there's no boardwalk, and turn around and start back the other way. it's 3:41 and Iwantedto be at Loretto by 4, no way now. Aiee! I'd like to take Momout for a little walk, too!
I've been actuallt wlaking 22 minutes, because of stopping tot ake pictures. That's not even half of mytime out that I need but perhpas I should try to find my way back to the war and walk the second half of my walk later.
I take another random trail. Idon't even know where I am so findingmy way back to the car in an expedientmanner may not be an option.
Using the sun and slope of the hill and sense of which way I came from, I make another series of random trail choices (not exactly sandom, but clearly not the way I came and not definite), I domanage to come out in the sme sloppy spot where where I went in and I walk back toward the car across the wide playing fields wondering what the most expedient way to get to Loreto from here is, I'm about as far away as Icould be and still be in the same county.
It feels like spring today, the grass is greening up. Crows cawing, und red-winged blackbird trilling and meltwater everywhere and warm. Puffpant, I'm trying to hurry now.
3:52 PM Back at the car, walked half an hour, so I only had to walk 15more minutes. I'mall swetaified from rushingback.
I had my fog filter,mygraduated fog filter with me onmy walk and Iwanted to try it out in the swamp, but I forgot.
5:06 I got in at 4~18 to Loretto, took Mom for a walk, watered her plants, wrote aletter for her, and delivered her back to the dining hall in timefor dinner.
5:25 One thing about visiting Mom right before diineris rush hour traffic.
Now I'm at OLP Invisble airplane, OLP good dog park. For the second part of my walk, 15 more minutes.
Half the building is sheared away, open like a doll house
with rugs and wires hanging down and cutrains flutterin
in the windows like moths. We aregoing abou our business
asif nothing is different
and it isn't. It's garduation, my graduation, though Ican't remember
what I'm graduating
from.
Crowds of people have arrived, people I ahven't seen in years.
In one of the severed rooms,my fathher sits on half a velvet couch
in his tan sweater and bown pants. He is talking and laughing
and telling me about something I can't quite understand
because I'm confused. He's so alive, but I remember him dying,
the slow horror of it, his wasting away and turning pale and grey
like a skeleton with a bit of clay. But he'sso cheerful,
so anmated. I wonder if I could be dreaming, but clealry
i'm not. Look at these cellar stairs, how solid they are
as I go down to bring up the canned bear cubs and faded eels
for the feast. I couldn't walk on them, stomp my foot down
on them if this were a dream. I the basement, a crowd
has gathered and winds flowers into my hair, braiding
in feathers and strands from the unraveling carpet.
Rebecca arrives, in another crowd. She, too, has died.
My dead aunt and Dead Uncle, all looking younger and rosier.
What kind of graduation is this, I ask her, suddenly afraid.
I know I'm in a dream, now, awake inside a dream
where those on both sides gather for my moving up.
I go on talking as if I were calm while the gaping
half a house continues crumbling and shrinking around me.
Theimage of the half demolished building across frommy Lan seemed to slip into this dream, but it still has a way to go to be worthwhile poem.
I put my feece and jacket back on and now my hat, too. The sun it low and it is cooling off rapidly and feels cold. I put my phto gear on and atgger over tot eh shore through mud and musing spongey grass.
I look athe river where the sun had alreay sunk into the trees, at the gulls and geese and the rippled water and bare trees and I think of those two second place winners I saw on BP this morning and laugh. this place looks barren and ugly and unlikely to produce any prize-winning photos. There's no clear view of the sun. I ahve all my filters and gear but there's not much hope.
I wander toward a spot of sun but by the time I get there it is gone so Iturn and walk back the other way. I think I wll just walk andif I see something I like, I will take it.
I had a piece of grapevine tangled in my hair, Somehow the little crokscrew tendril had wound itself in ad I could not get it out. I should have left it in rather than wating time.
It must be spring, the watr is starting to smell like dead fish.
5:31 PM Ok, Iam headed back to the car. I spent too much time trying to capture a sunset, way too much time! Very upsetting, when I have so much to do. Also,I have only had ONE meal, breakfast! And I had been thinking of making meatlaf, but that's so slow cooking. I did have a fairly large breakfast, but that was a LONG time agao, a blueberry sausage omelette with southwestern eggs, zucchiniand shiitakes and oat cheese. Excellent. with a couple slivces of current bread (ww). Now it is fark and wr're not supposed to be here after dark. But how can you photo graphy the susnet if you don't saty til dark? It may not even be worth it. But you can't take a good picture if you don't even try.
Mom seemed to enjoy her walk outside today. I am not cold any more, just feeling anlittle frustrated wth myself.
I want to work and I want to play and this is a time of work, theoretically. I need to work, I must work.
There are still people at the good dog park, so I guess I won't get in trouble or gt locked in.
It's good and dark though!
Tuesday, March 28, 2006, 9:08 AM I am at the Diagnostic imaging place. My appointment is at 9:15. I filled out a ton of paperwork already. Aiieee. They've got my card. They told me to come early because the slot ahead of me was cenceled, but here I am, still waiting, and there's lots of people in the waiting, OK, not lots. Only 2 now. There were more, but some of them disappeared.
And now there goes another.
I am going to walk at Hamlin again, even though I just went there yesterday, because this office is so close to it--I drove right by getting here.
There is a television on and some wretched horrible program. I HATE it, and I'm not good at screening it out of my mind,ugh.
10:34 AM Well, thatwasn't fun, not that I expected it to. First, you have to hold very still for an hour.. You're not supposed to move at all. The technician, a pleasant young man with a severe buzz cut (basically a skinhead) said I did a great job. Second, they injected heavy metals, Caladium, I think they said, into my vein, another stab, but at least only one. It did hurt someand lasted a while.
The technician let me see the images, all of them,only cery quickly, like a movie of the various layers of the brain from the top down and from the side. I could see my eyeballs in some of them and also other things I wondered what they were. But he had other peole waiting, so I couldn't really ask.
It's sunny. The air is chill. It's supposed to go up to 60 later in the afternoon. There is still some snow on the ground.
Lating inside that machine bothered my back and sacroiliac and I don't really feel lke walking immediately. I was at a few points having something akin to hallucinations (hypnogogic visions), very strange. I was doing some breathing exercises to help relax my back.
I think I amright near Birchwood wheremy father died. I'm not sure. I think I am near Homewood, but I'm not sure about that either. I feel slightly disoriented.
I also feel sleepy! I had a bad night, and lying still on my back for an hour trying to relax has made me sleepier than I normally feel at 10:42 AM.
On my way out, an elderly obese women asked me for help getting out of a chair and then clung to me a few minutes gratefully. She was in the X-ray affice. She came in after meandleft before me. MRIs take a long time.
The technician asked meifI wanted the radio and I said sure, but on came THE SAME horrible show I'd been hating in the waiting room,so I asked him to turit off.. All I couldhear was the buzzing and thummping ofmymachine and another nearby which seemed to say loudly over and over: PRIEST PRIEST PRIEST PRIEST the PRICK PRICK PRICK PRICK then CRAP CRAP CRAP CRAP the PREDICT PREDIcT PREdict, then conflict conflict conflict and the repeatthem all again.
Even though I used the bathroom before we started, by the end I really had to go. I was afraid of that. Plus I had to fart but didn't. Didn't want to stink out the technician.
Now i am at the Clay Central entrance to Hamlin. Diane Reems is coming on next with a program about Cezanne that mightlike hear, but I'm going to drag myself out and walk, though I don't feel like it at all, iin spite of the nice sunshine.
I feel a little bad and very tired.
The MRI machine I had my last MRI in had holes on the side you could see out ofbut this one was a tube and a tight tube at that, so tight it hurt my elbows and I couldn't see out at all.
What I feel now is sleepy and sort of hunrgy and a little nauseous. I don't like the idea of heavy metals circulating in my veins and my kidneys strugling to siphon them off.
There are two cars here. A cild. A youngman shooting baskets by himself. A blue sky with thin wispy clouds. Birds chirping. Crows, too. The distant sound of traffic. I'msaying this because I dn't want to move.
Patty Hearst Dreams of Persephone Lost On Cadillac Mountain
There's a highway running through your dream, with Harleys,
Hell's angel Harleys and big semis and a little platoon
of matching yellow cars. You know that deer standing
at the edge of the road is about to die, to be thrown
up over the hood of a red car that will careen into the side
of another and they will roll into the ditch at your feet.
You want to wave your arms and head off the deer, but
your arms are timbers from the mast of a ship
that has grounded on rocks in the fog. You know now
you're dreaming because you wouldn't mix metaphors like that
in your waking life, but you're trapped in the dream anyway,
surrounded by Harleys revving their engines, skulls grinning,
knowing that deer will drown soon, knowing that you will fall
through the green water tangled in the limbs of the drowned
deer forever.
Mary Stebbins, 3-28-06
11:25 AM I'm finally walking. I had ti write a poem. Thatere's wo on here now, which makes menervous because last timeI had a lot of poemsand novels and stories on one of these, it got stolen.
I wander slowly,dazedly through the mushy field toward the woods, not with the determined stride I had yesterday. I'm headed north northwest (mostly North), not east like I did yesterday, to the trails starting as far to the west as possible in hopes of ot repeating myself at all from yesterday. I've got gear strapped all over my body but feel knd of out of it like taking pictures might be too hard.
I was cold an put my hat on, but then got hot and took it off. I'menetering the "woods" now, the bushwhack of old sumacs and gre-stemmed dogwoods. I hear asingle gunshot, loud and fairly close,then another.
11:42 AM I turned west off the main trail to a side trail. That trail split, with one side turning west and south and the other nroth. I too the north fork,which descended into a marsh. I tried to cross it, but it was deeper than my boots. The trailseemsto have dead-ended and I am standing on a hummock surrounded by water with wet feel. Mourningdoves cooing, peepers peeping (only a few, not a din). The only dry landis to the west where the gunshots are. I decide to go thatway anyway, but turn back south away from the gunshots.
My feet aren't damp, they're soaked.
So now I'm bushwhacking, on no trail at all.
The bottom six inches of my pants are also socked. The woods gets thicker and thicker until I amplowing through a grey-stemmed dogwood thicket too dense to reasonably go through. Just when I think Imight have to go back, I see the other trail and press onward until Imake it. I have to wade again and the water's not warm at all (thinksnow!)
There's a drownedmole lyingpuffy bythe edge of the water. There are insects out and one with a loud buzz repeatedly strafes my head. I'm alone out here, but it's not necessarily the kid of place you'd want to be alone,nolake to sit beside,no mountain view, no place to sit, no view except of mud and scrub.
11:59 AM I am back on the main trail now after slogging through more marshy places and beating through more brush attempting to avoid the worst of it. Did you notice I keep mentioning sitting? I feel more like sititing tan walking. I've been walking 28minutes so I have 17 more to go. I take another side trail. This one heads east.
Did I mention all the bat boxes?
I cometo a place where I'll have to wade or go back. Imeanreally wadein water deeperthan my boots. Swamp on both sides of the trail. My feet are already wet. I consider and consider. I decide to head back,dang it.
Frigging need waders to wlak here in the spring!
Sigh.
I haven't taken a single picture, either. Nothing to take a picture OF. All those winners had something pretty to look at.
I start down another side tral.
Also headed west, but at the mment, uphill,not down.
I stop,takemy jacket off, tie it aroundmy waist. I hope I didn't lose fileter crashing through the swamp or bushwhack. I thought I had filter in both pockets!! Fiddle, I'd never find them,if I did lose them. These pockets don't zip.
I need a better wayto carry gear. Something that actually works. That would be sadly ironic if I lost them on a day I didn't eve take any pictures! I couldn't get that italic to turn off! Squirrels chattering at me, geese flying over, birds singing. A siren, a jet plane. A buzzing fly.
I put on clean jeans this morning ebcause yesterday's were all muddy. Now these are all muddy too.
The linerjacket I was wearing and now have tied around my waist has no zippers on the pockets and when I was thrashing through that thick brush,my filters could have been knocked out. But since I was not on a trail, I don't know how I'd ever be able toretrace my steps through that bushwhack and search. Also I went off the trail numerous times to skirt wet areas, and whther I could determine where again is unlikely. I'mback at thecar, I walked only 42 minutes, but I'm not going back out. I'd have to walk another 42 to attempt to retracemy steps and Inever wanted to walk in the first place and I would go if it was more straightforward, but this is so nearly impossible as to not be worth the effort. However, NEXT time I'm in the areaI could attempt it maybe, as it's unlikely anyone else would follow that route so if they are out there, there MIGHT be a chance. maybe. Unlikely but possible.
Nope, they won't be out there. They're in my bag, I never loaded the second group offilters, they're righthere. Good. I didnot take a SINGLE picture. Not one.
There are three cars in the parking lotwith peoplesitting in them. The one nearest meis a well-dressed woman. In a cool-colored --a deep marroon purplish red, highly glossed as if with several extra coats of clear coat.
Two Harleys roar by as I am reading Patrick's poem. Whenever possible, I read one poem when I arrive somewhereand one poem when I get back in the car to leave. Sometimes I read the same poem several times before I go on to the next one.
Famous Paleontologist speaksto Julia Child outside the Museum of Natural history
I've eaten something I should not have, but I don't know what.
The petrified eyelash of a dinosaur, perhaps. Birds
have eyelashes, think of the ostrick, batting its thick
translucent lids and smiling coyly. I'm sure you were pointing
one out to me. An eyelash,you said,in my my omelette.
But it was only the edge of a bubble of oil. Grease, you called it,
and when I looked horrifed, you said, yummy grease,
as if addingthe word yummy would make it OK. But the eyelash
keeps reappearing, in a stew, in a sandwich, on my steak,
and growing. Not a coprolite, precisely, not the imprint
of a giant fern of the wing of a pterasaur, just that eyelash.
The tyranosaur who lost it thrashes in my belly.
Ok, well, I don't suppose I should really start writing poetry, as ittakes time, like everything else Iwant to do.
12:52 Now I am at Wegman's to get my Lescol XL perscription. I only have 3 pills left.
I'm studying Pat's new book, Feeding the Fear of the Earth. In it, two famous but unrelated people meet each other in every poem. That's one rule. The next rule is, they are never mentioned. The poem is about something else only obliquely related to the people--if that. Or sometimesquite related. I think he may break that rule occasionally and let someone actually appear in the poem, but I'm not sure.
Of course I've read it all before. But it is always new.
1:27 PM I got both the synthroid and the Lescol. This means I can go about a month without worrying about it. My feet and my pants are still wet. Petula Clark is actually in the poem that bears her name. I am actually in the car, with the sun shining in the open door, wanting desperatelyto be moved,to not go back and sort more crap.
I don't wantto sort crap, I just wantto be moved.
I want to eat something bad, something sweet. Or somecoconut chicken. I want to eat something bad and not be sick afterwards. It's annoying to get sick.
There are big piles of snow in the parkinglot. BIG piles of snow. They are very whitein the sunshine, only grey around the bottom.
I want to live inisde a poem or a dreamwhere the sun is shining and I can fly like a bird,only without wings or flapping and where I never become afraid and tumble out of the sky. I wantto sit on a cliff inthe sun until I am so calm I cansave the world from itself.
I once made a list of all the things I should do to UNMUCK myself, but I am wallowing inmy ownmuck and I hate it.
If I throw everything away and live in a cave, it won't save the world, or me.
Today,what George Bush is doing seems horribly important. but who cares about Dan Quayle? Political poetry is mired in the past, because today is sinking into the past at breakneck speed.
Famous Paleontologist speaksto Julia Child outside the Museum of Natural history
I've eaten something I should not have, but I don't know what.
The petrified eyelash of a dinosaur, perhaps. Birds
have eyelashes, think of the ostrich, batting its thick
translucent lids and smiling coyly. I'm sure you were pointing
one out to me. An eyelash, you said, in my omelette.
But it was only the edge of a bubble of oil. Grease, you called it,
and when I looked horrifed, you said, yummy grease,
as if adding the word yummy would make it OK. But the eyelash
keeps reappearing, in a stew, in a sandwich, on my steak,
and growing. Not a coprolite, precisely, not the imprint
of a giant fern of the wing of a pterasaur, just that eyelash.
The tyranosaur who lost it thrashes in my belly.
Mary Stebbins,060328b
Patty Hearst Dreams of Persephone Lost On Cadillac Mountain
There's a highway running through your dream, with Harleys,
Hell's angel Harleys and big semis and a little platoon
of matching yellow cars. A flock of goldfinches, a school
of fish. You know that deer standing at the edge
of the road is about to die, to be thrown
up over the hood of a red car that will careen into the side
of another and they will roll into the ditch at your feet.
You want to wave your arms and head off the deer, but
your arms are timbers from the mast of a ship
that has grounded on rocks in the fog. You know now
you're dreaming because you wouldn't mix metaphors like that
in your waking life, but you're trapped in the dream anyway,
surrounded by Harleys revving their engines, skulls grinning,
knowing that deer will drown soon, knowing that you will fall
through the green water tangled in the limbs of the drowned
deer forever.
Mary Stebbins, 3-28-06 060328b
It's funny how I feel both numb and more alive, but dreaming
and more awake. Likethe heat radiating off the car hoods
in the parking lot. Everything wavers. Everything doubles
in the snowmelt the huge lake of it only an eighth of an inch
deep. People swim through my dream, their voices hushed
and reverent. Look, they say, the fmaingos gather on the shore.
I'm looking for the great pink birds, but they must be
in some other dream. I have only the sludge left from the snowmelt,
the tin wispy clouds, and the cart handler whining by with his cart pusher,
smiling and waving. Waving hard, as if I'm his nother.
The pavement feels hard under my head, but I know that is just an illusion.
Mary Stebbbins 060328
I like 3 Rvers better than Hamlin. I think I should take Kieth to Hamlin, or go there myself when I'mnear there, but three rivers is clealry better.
I sit in the car inmy driveway eating strawberries andthen walkaround thewarm sunny yard picking up trash. A LOT of trash has blown injust since Icleaned up the other day,plus Imissed some. I find, joyously, my first crocus. I take a fewpix withthe point and shooti carry in mycamera.
The pied Piper speaks to George Bush outside the oval office
Rats. It was a sunny sunday afternoon and you had some business
you said,
in City Hall. I sat in car outside raeding until movement
caught my eye. Rats. Fat brown Norways rats, baby rats
teenage rats. The parkwas crawling with rats. Hundreds,
thousands of rats. So that's what's happening to our children,
you say. No one paid the piper and he's singing the wrong tune.
War, his flute says. War,war, war, and more war.
In washington, the rats proliferate. The notes are discordant,
but the children follow.
?ary stebbins, 060328
OK, this is gettting out of hand.
AND Imeantto get batteries for the Psionwhen Iwasout, and I forgot.
3:25 PM I sit in the living roomand sort until my asthma gets so bad i can'tbreathe and I have to leap up and escape. I have't mademuch progress, but whatwas good was I threw away ALMOST everything I found. Tossed it directly in the trash or recyling.
This is a good thing. I'd like to get RID of asmuch as possible.
Because I have asthma and because it it relatively nice out, I go out and run around in my T-shirt picking up sticks for a while. I start in the back yard with the biggest ones and work. I pick up trash and broken shingles, too. More trash. More shingles,more sticks. There are so many.
Nomatter howmnaysticks I pick up, there are always more. I'm stacking tome in the vegetable garden, but they willneed to be dealt with by someone. OK,that's enough of THAT for a while!
I say that, and i take a crous picture, another, and ten I pick up more sticks.
I don't want tospend the day doing this because I think cleaning up INSIDE is more important, but soon I will have to MOW. So I amy as well get a start on it.
Keith would probably be critical and say I amnot effcient,but a little ineffcient stick-picking up gets the lawn closer to being ready tobe mowed.
3:52 PM Every time I think 'mgoing to quit, I see another group of sticks and think, Ijustget tose. Then I get a bag and pickup anoher bagful of trash. It's sonice outside I'm working in a T-shirt.. But I really need to work INSIDE!
I drag myself in with a leaf rake and do what I've been threatening to do--rake the crap over toward the cahir when I hopefully can reach lit better when I'm tired. It stirs up lots ofdust andmoldso I run away again. As soon as it settled,I need to peel up more stuff. I want to vacuum part of the space if I can, so I can see some actual progress.
It'shot in herebecause the solar's on, running constantly because of the sun.. I am not feeling terribly well. A bit of a belly ache.
4:14 PM. I peeled stuff up and piled itby my chair and raked somemore. I amback outside. I can't work in thereany more for at leats few minutes til my lungs clear. I wanted to vacuum,but I have to get some air first.
Some kids are messing around in my yard. Little boys, so destructive. Whyare litle boys so distructive?
More tarsh has already appeared in my yard. I pick it up. There's trash under the honeysuckles, but I'm not ready to get out rakes and tongs to get it. I pick up more sticks. They're getting progressively smaller.
Not a Poem: Patrick Lawler follows St. Francis Down the Freeway
Because it's a solar oven, I sit in the car with door open. I read a Patrick Lawler poem from his new book, Feeding the Fear. Then I read another. While I am reading, clouds of shadow pass over the page, roiling and twisting. Heat radiation. The sun bends through it reaching toward the words. They escape like smoke. I tumble into the hooting coos of mourning doves. This is not a poem, I say. This is mortality. We dream the world solid. I bang on it with my fist. See, I say to no one in particular. To Dante, to Persephone, to you, see? It's not a dream. It's too hard to be a dream. Too difficult. It's real. My hand hurts, and the banging echoes in my head. I wake up. It's morning. I brush my teeth, start frying eggs. Then I wake up again. I'm in this car and it is driving down the road by itself. No one is steering. The car goes faster and faster. Careens down a hill. But I'm okay. I'm reading this poem by one of the Patrick Lawlers, reading through shimmering shadows, through heat and dove song, and I know this is just a dream. Mary Stebbins, 060328
Like I said, out of control. I really am sitting in thecar with the door open, breathing in sunshine. I'm about to go in and try again. I'm tired of cleaning, of asthma, of this house. In some ways. But I like this space I am in, this poetic space, and I wonder if I can find it in Detroit.
It's not the computer that is the antithesis ofpoetry, it's the internet. It's not the internet, it's the people n the internet. or meto be in a poetic space, I need periods of solitude and no oneasking for stuff. When I get inlines, someonealways wants something and I comply and there goes my timeand attention. If I wnatto write poetry, Ineed time away from the computer and periods of soitude. I do better in thecar or out in nature. In the house, there is too much to be done. And I'd better go do it.
Usually, the frontdaffodls flower first, but it looks as if the side ones willthis year, they are fat and ready to burst open.
I look at the first crocus again, It's closing, it's in the shade, it's richly purple.
I take a couplemore pix with thepoint and shoot. Bryan with a Y says take lots, take themfromdifferent angles. I do.
One poor littlewell-photographed crocus.
5:05 PM I am sorry to say that I am back outside. I rushed out hacking, coughing and wheezing after raking more in the livingroom and then vacuuming the open areas I'd just raked.
I can't breathe in there! I didn't really finish the job,by anymeans,but Imade some progress. I wish I'd made more. AK!
I was thinking that I might go some where tonight and look for a sunset. But if were to spare myself that time,where would I go? It needs to be some place close. The first place I think of is too far. It is so far that I can't even remember the name. Junius Ponds. I'd like to go there. Or Tully Lakes. Also too far.
It's clear tome that Iwant water, that I want relfections. I want theeast shore of a body of water. I want a place that is pretty. I want there to be something worthy in the frame. A rock or a log or a goose or a duck. Something. But I can'tthink of any place, and if I don't hurry, it will be too late.
There are ponds at Radisson and ponds at 3R.
• Radisson
• 3R
• OLP
• Great Bear
• Verona Beach and ponds
I can think of nowhere worth taking the time to travel to, especially since I've already walked (and done yard work.) I guess unless I have an inspiration, I'll forget it. WAHN!
I want some place pretty.
• SprucePond
• Labrador pond
Both too far away, good for another day.
• silk creek
One thing is, I have to picture what is there and wherethe sunwould be. Silk Creek is too far down in the gorgeto get sunset reflections, prolly.
• white Lake
• Old Fly Marsh
OK, give it UP! Too far.
• Rattlesnake Gulf.
• Whetstone Gulf
• Clark
Mary Queen of Scots Meets Harry Trudeau
Who's going to live in my mother's burning house or collect
the fingers she chopped off in the mower, now that she doesn't remember?
She's amazed when I recount her stories. I did that, she asks,
I put my fingers in ice and drove myself to the hospital?
People look at me like I'm crazy. I start doubting my own memory.
When I was a child, we had a fire. Not my mother's fire,
which swallowed half her house, but a fire outside
that swept through the summer dry fields and the grownups
beat it with burlap bags. I stood at the double glass doors
and watched. This really happened, but the night my grandmother
stayed with us and wolves looked in the same glass doors,
smiling, hungry, saliva dripping from their pink tongues
was probably a dream. I told the story for years before I realized.
A match fell into the wastebasket, my mother told me, and house
went up in flames before we could stop it. I'm trying
to remember it for her. Remember the grandmother, she lived with
and cared for. Today, at 82, she says, I have to go down
to Ellsworth Ave and check on Grandma. At the hospital, they sewed
my mother's fingers on. The ones holding the match are still
a little crooked. When she drops it into her basket of memories,
they all go up in flames. I cup my hands around one here,
one there. Wisps of smoke and ash. Most escape.
And I'm losing my grip on the others. They're crumbling
in my hands. Solight a burden, so litttle left. Will you
check on her grandmother and carry the severed fingers
for her when I no longer can?
Mary Stebbins, 060328
It's getting dark and I've been siting and sorting and getting asthmatic. Bleah. Coldout. And I'd turned the solar on and it ran all say with the vents closed and the upper onecovered,what a DUNCE!
--
I am certain of nothing but the Heart's affections and the truth of the Imagination- John Keats
Mary
