Journal

Knives?
090303 J Tuesday, March 3, 2009, 1:58 PM
I am in the examining room in Muna Beeai's office. My last
appointment was in April 08 and I was supposed to come back in six
weeks and it's been almost a year. My weight when I was here last
April was 148.6. And today it was 152 fully clothed and with shoes,
keys, camera etc (if I'd taken them off, it would have been very close
BUT I am disappointed that I came out with a higher number, I was
hoping for a lower one. My blood pressure was 124/72, which they said
was "good." I had a blood test (got stabbed twice and they took it
from my hand) and a urine test.
My assignment for poetry class, due Monday, a week from yesterday, is
"To write the poem you've always wanted to write." I hate that kind
of assignment. I'd rather have a theme (write about worms or farts or
macadam or just about anything) or a list of words to include (French
fries, pig pens, the Caribbean, Roy Rogers) or a technique (write a
sonnet or a haiku or a tanka or a limerick, although I'm not all that
crazy about that either), but write the poem I've always wanted to
write?
I could say that the poem I've always wanted to write is whatever I'm
writing now, which would be partly true, but not necessarily true to
the spirit of the assignment, more to the letter of it.
The poem I've al2ways wanted to write, huh? Some part of me of
course would like to write an award-winning poem, but although Natasha
Saje says every poem should ambitious, I don't think I should start
out writing with the hope of winning an award.
And anyway that's probably not really my deepest wish, which is to be
seen, heard and loved/accepted.
So what is the poem I have always wanted to writer? It would be
magical, resonant, "important" in the sense that it would say
something deep and meaningful. It would be the kind of poem you read
and say, "Oh my God," and want to read again multiple times. It would
be shaped in such a way that the reader would be successfully guided
into an EXPERIENCE that would elicit powerful emotions in the reader.
I would, in a way, like to write socially conscious poetry, but not so
much overtly so, necessarily, but more of the personal is political
variety. So where does that leave me?
Saturday, March 14, 2009, 2:32 PM I am out walking on Rolandale
toward Balduck Park. I have to cross Moross, a four-lane road, both
coming and going. I've been painting in my new studio. I'm painting
it white for maximum light. Keith made it clear that he does NOT like
white painted rooms, but too bad, it is my studio and I need light.
As I cross Moross, and ambulance is coming, but I run in front of it
because it was far enough away that I was able to safely do that.
Balduck Park is unexceptional. It is a smallish park with baseball
diamonds, a sledding hill and a small woods, which at the moment is
full of water, and a treed picnic area with swings. The tables and
swings are beat up. It took me 5 and a half walking minutes to get
here, not counting the time I spent waiting to cross Moross.
Dog walkers, many of whom drive here from the surrounding area and
many of whom allow their dogs to attack hapless strangers walking in
the park, inhabit the park.
Although it is sunny and warmer than it has been, all the huge
puddles under the trees are still have frozen and there us ice under
the leaves ("permafrost".) There are, as I suspected dogs, and lots
of mud, and I make a quick decision, turn around, and leave the park.
I take Canyon to Lannon and head south on Lannon. On this street,
like many others, there are houses for sale everywhere. I worry about
what is happening to the people who live or lived in them. They may
have lost their job; families may be at risk. Same with the house I
bought on Rolandale. The old owner, Nancy COULTER, paid $105,000 for
the house and then put a lot of time, work and money into it, fixing
it up. Then, the bottom fell out of the housing market. She couldn't
rent or sell it at a reasonable price and was going into foreclosure
and had to sell to us for a fraction of what she paid.
I hope we don't take the same kind of beating if we have to sell!
Meanwhile, Back at the ranch, Keith is taking off the back porch. It
was rotting and falling down and that was one of the things we have to
do in order to get a certificate of occupancy.
I am back across on the other side of Moross, walking along the
hospital to the sidewalk that cuts over to the street that goes back
toward the Rolandale house. I've walked around enough so that I am
beginning to know my way around. It's not that hard, but there are a
few unexpected pattern changed in the street layout due to the
hospital, the park and other obstructions.
Someone has a plastic owl hanging in a tree.
Most of the children outside playing are black. Bob, one of our new
next-door neighbors, is white.
Did I mention tulips? There are tulips coming up in the new
Rolandale front garden. Also weeds. I am back at the other house
(that is, the Rolandale House.) I walked 23 minutes, which is half my
total required walking time. It stinks of paint in here, but I think
I will try to set up temporary bookcases so that ML will have
something to do tomorrow when she comes over to help. G may be having
a concert at 3 tomorrow. I'd like to go work on the brush pile
outside for fresh air--maybe I will do that after a while. I have to
remember to ask the girls about the knives.
4:17 PM I worked in the yard for a while. Did a little trimming,
carried some stuff from the weed pile, and dug out two large heavy
cement blocks that were put there to keep the pit bulls at this house
and the lab next door from digging through to each other.
I found out something else. Nancy COULTER's partner's name is
Ernie--we already knew that--what we didn't know what that his son
used to live here--he's the one who raised pit bulls. He got raided
by a school bus full of cops one night and got hauled away and Bob
next door, who was telling us this, never saw him again.
Bob told us one of the pit bulls got loose one very cold winter night
and no one was around. It was after Ernie's son got busted but before
his friends took away the pit bulls. Bob caught the dog and put it
back in one of the pens. Everyone was amazed that Bob had the courage
to do that, but he confided in us that he'd made friends with the dogs
when they were pups.
I wanted to get the bookcases set up so that when ML came over
tomorrow, she could unpack books and I could put them on the shelves.
But there aren't that many shelves and I never got them set up--I need
clean bricks or something to put between them. I unburied those
cement blocks and K carried them to the basement and I washed them,
but I decided that they were too big. Not really what I need. But I
can use them in the basement.
I am very tired. I haven't been working all that hard--K is working
MUCH harder, physically, but I haven't been sleeping well and
suddenly, I'm just exhausted. I was on my feet painting and then
doing yard work, and now I want to sit, but it is already 4~30, maybe
I will go walk.
4:33 PM I am out for the second half of my walk. My hips and other
joints hurt, including my neck, and it is chilling off a little and a
thin cloud weakens the sunlight. I ran around the yard and even
peddled the stationary bike for a little while, but none of that
counts for anything, because I didn't time it.
I smell wretched dryer sheets, horrid, stinky perfumey dryer sheets
polluting the clean city air, LOL. Well, the air does smell better in
the parts where I can't the dryer sheets,
Mourning doves are cooing.
The red maples are in flower, though the stamens aren't fully
extended yet. I'm supposed to report that. To . . . I forget.
Somewhere on line where they are doing a phenology.
Other people are also out doing yard work, cleaning up the winter
mess. We need to do it at home on Moran, too.
I've walked into Grosse Pointe Woods and all the houses look very
much alike, not exactly, but close. Terrible. They are the same
height, same distance from the road, have the same number of windows,
etc. Only the colors are different. I am glad I don't live here,
Monday, March 16, 2009, 2:58 PM I am at the Rolandale House and I
would like to start painting but I don't know whether K will need me
or my car and I don't want to get paint all over things of I have to
suddenly leave.
8:52 Pm It was a beautiful, warm sunny day, warm for March, anyway,
but my fibromyalgia was so bad that I didn't enjoy the little walking
I did, which was walking to the store. Now I am out walking again. I
have to walk a half hour. It's cooled off considerably now that it's
dark.
Keith has gone to Kroger's and Graham is alone in his room. He's
supposed to be practicing now, but he probably will not.
Dogs are barking, many barking dogs, probably because a man and woman
are walking by with an armada of dogs and that has excited all the
stay-at-homes.
I am grateful for trees. Such grace and beauty.
I remember Dawn's assignment to write for 45 minutes about what's
around you and something will resonate for a poem. Sigh. Since we
got the house, we've been so busy working on it that I've done
essentially no writing.
But I will not be out for 45minutes. And I am not sure I want an
inspiration anyway, I have too much work to do.
The dark clear sky is speckled with stars, not as many visible in the
city as elsewhere.
When I am writing, I am a little bit distracted from the fibro pain
in my hips, but I can't walk as fast. Not that I walk fast when I'm
in pain, but U walk even slower when I write.
I have to walk for 2 and a half more minutes. When I'm in pain, I
just want to go home and sit down.
* * * *
The woman paints while she walks. She wears and easel strapped to
her belly, hanging from her shoulders, like the portable drink trays
at football games. Instead of drinks, she carries paints, brushes,
water, rags. She paints the trees marching past, crooked, swaying
with every step. She paints, the stars, blurred and bouncing in the
branches. In the trees, also, she paints a few crumpled leaves and
scattered seeds like ornaments. And birds, blowing past in the wind
like small bright untethered kites, the red cardinal and its
dry-blood-colored mate, the fat shiny blue grackles with their yellow
eyes looking like jewels. Sometimes, she paints at night and
sometimes in the sun. Sometimes, she stumbles on the uneven and
winter-heaved sidewalk blocks, catching herself and her work before it
spills, or tumbling among the paints and brushes, skinning her knees.
When it rains, the paints wash down the page in a blend of colors.
The neighbors call her crazy and whisper behind her back, but they
can't see how the rain merges her spirit with the souls of trees, with
their graceful limbs, with the wet birds and their miraculous flight
wobbling among the raindrops. 1st
Well, see, I wrote a new "poem". If you want to call it that.