Monthly Archives: August 2005

The Breathing of Poetry

There is a sense in which poetry is not so much the writing of words as it is the movement of breath itself. To write it, you must pay attention to the breathing of poetry, to all speech as breath, to the relationship of our thoughts and emotions and the actual way they fill our bodies.

–Robert Hass, from The Language of Life: A Festival of Poets by Bill Moyers

Recovery, Or How I Took Charge And Busted The Logjam

Writing that last post flushed a lot of negativity for me. And people’s responses, wow! I’m touched by the outpouring of empathy and encouragement.

I’m suffering today, but differently. Yesterday my husband and I decided to hike at Muir Woods. I packed snacks of cheese, crackers, vegetables, and trail mix, and he prepped our water bottles. We departed at noon; the traffic through San Francisco took a bit longer to get through than anticipated. When we turned onto the road heading to the national park (still Route 1), we noticed cars parked on the roadside about one mile before we got to the entrance. Not promising! We arrived to find the parking lots full, and the place was crawling with people. This is not what we had in mind. Even a hike on more remote trails would involve climbing around other walkers.

In the spirit of adventure, we headed to Stinson Beach. Having never been, we didn’t know that it was a regular beach for swimming. (By the way, those were brave souls in the water. The temperature was 65 degrees, and it was windy.) We pulled over to reassess our options. At one point, a battered old Volvo wagon drew alongside with two very dusty, disheveled people in the front and a bunch of stuff packed willy-nilly in the back. They looked like, and probably were, nomads. The woman emerged from the car with gallon-size water bottles and began refilling them at a pipe from which a stream of water trickled. Aside from one grim glance toward us, they went about their business.

Still wishing to hike, we ventured further, to Point Reyes National Seashore. We arrived around 3:00, just the time of afternoon when I do battle with the urge to nap. The park is enormous, with trailheads numerous miles apart. It was not nearly as densely populated with people. We decided to start at the visitor’s center trailhead, which provided the option of breaking off onto shorter trails or heading out to Arch Rock, 4.1 miles one way. Mind you, we like to hike but rarely do more than three miles round trip. However, lately I’ve exercised diligently; my stamina has increased, and my muscles have more strength. I was game. My dear husband, wanting to please me, agreed (he’s much less active than I).

The path was wide, the trail elevated gently, and a creek meandered alongside. We walked quietly, listening to birdcalls and tree breezes, greeting people heading from the opposite direction. We reached Arch Rock, which offered a cliff vista unlike any I’d seen. As we rested our complaining feet and snacked, we joked about a lone seagull lurking and eyeing the food pack. (Remember Finding Nemo, where the gulls cry, “Mine?! Mine?”) A little boy with his parents started a conversation with us. He was a cute kid. They passed us on bikes and he waved. On the return trip we crossed paths at the mid-point, where we all stopped to rest, and his sharp eyes caught sight of white deer on the hill. He pointed this out to everyone who passed by, and most people actually stopped to look.

I noted that the trip back felt as though it went quicker, because we knew what landmarks to expect, but our bodies ached intensely enough to make it feel longer. At one point we sang that hackneyed song from Chariots of Fire (he provided the percussion while I sang the melody) just to keep ourselves going. We told each other jokes and I inflicted puns on him. (He was, after all, a captive audience.) We minced our way back to the car around 7:30, having hiked a total of 8.2 miles. Then we headed toward San Rafael with the intention of stopping at the first drive-thru fast-food joint we saw to get dinner. My husband, despite sore feet, drove us home. We limped into the house, where I collapsed into a hot tub of water and he on the sofa. We’re nursing big blisters, but we really enjoyed that hike. It hurts to move today, though. I feel another hot soak coming on.

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Now regarding my blog ennui, I’ve taken some action. First I visited this link (thanks, Rodrigo), where I read the pamphlet and laughed and laughed at myself. Excellent spoof of that genre of public service brochure! I also decided to join Toasted Cheese, an online writing community, as a means of making a commitment to writing something other than blog posts. A fellow blogger, Eden, is a founding member of the the site. I’m not certain what type of writing I want to explore, but it’s a gesture of commitment.

Someone asked me what I would do if I could do anything. I know myself pretty well, having asked and answered that question before. The complexity of the situation has more to do with the other factors which complicate action; it’s not lack of knowledge that hinders me, it’s ambivalence about something else. What? For one thing, I struggle with sloth. I’m also withholding the pleasure of making visual art, and I don’t quite know why yet. What I do know is that movement seems to break the grip of resistance. Some parameters set around the time I spend on the Internet will also help. In any case, it can only help to assess again what it is I would love to do, and then to take small actions toward them.

Doldrums

I’m struggling.

Lately I’ve detected that I am supremely bored with blogging. I don’t read many blogs, I lack inspiration to comment, and I don’t feel much like posting or replying to comments. I am beholden to my habit, my readers, and even the layout of the blog. I pay attention to nit-picky, irrelevant details such as adding the books I’m reading and watching my stats. It doesn’t provide pleasure or release. It is a sham activity that yields the illusion of busy-ness and involvement while I remain disengaged.

I am on break for the summer, but the company I work for may not call me back to work until October. It’s a startup that provides supplemental education services, and my employment depends on the company securing contracts. This cannot occur until school starts and parents make their selection as to what company they want providing the service. Furthermore, there is no guarantee that will be a job. So this leaves me wondering what I want to do with my time.

The question of what job to seek is complicated by the fact that what I truly love to do is unavailable to me. Because I will not undergo a second, duplicate master’s program, 3000-hour internship, and state testing, I am not permitted to seek clinical jobs in mental health or general social services; nor can I have a private practice as a therapist. I’m a woman of diverse interests, skills, and talents, and I know I am quite capable of many types of work. I simply don’t know what I want. This knowledge is muddled by the ambivalence my husband and I feel about living here. We’ve begun discussing in earnest whether to return to Austin. Nothing is decided, but it’s under serious consideration. So what employment do I seek when I’m not invested in staying? However, leaving isn’t an option yet, and I need to do something.

I’m lonely. Oh, I’ve been volunteering — at the city library and Hands On Bay Area. I exercise at Curves and have become acquainted with women there. I chat with grocery store clerks and greet people I meet on my walks. But my closest friends are in Austin, and while we talk on the phone and email, it is disembodied community. I spend enough time with the ethereal community of cyberspace; I need flesh-and-blood friends. Seeds of friendship I planted when I arrived here didn’t take root, in part because my life was full of disruption for many months with family issues, and in part because the relationships simply didn’t click into place. I recently visited a UU church and enjoyed the experience, but then I miscarried. I have difficulty pulling energy together to foray into more of the uknown and lay groundwork for community. I would be doing this alone, since my husband and I have differing positions on spirituality and church.

In the 12 months I’ve lived here, the only original art I’ve created is a tiny collage that I used on my name badge when I worked at a bookstore. And writing? I’m wasting it. I’m piddling away my hours on blogging, which provides an outlet but also bleeds away my time, attention, and energy which could be applied to a more substantial writing endeavor. I’m reading prodigiously, but not with attentiveness.

I also feel the shadow of residual grief from both my father-in-law’s death four months ago and my miscarriage three weeks past. Oh, and I’m angry. At myself, for not filling my needs. At life, for continuously changing. About all the difficult transitions in my life in the past 18 months. About the fact that I am in control of very, very little.

I’m struggling with dislocation and disenchantment. I need purposeful employment. I need a muse. I need self-discipline. I am one bundle of confused, aimless need.

Ugh.

Identification, Please

on the road to somewhere

My life would have been much simpler, I think, if I had learned how to drive when I came to America. An American without a car is a sick creature, a snail that has lost its shell. Living without a car is the worst form of destitution, more shameful by far than not having a home. A carless person is a stationary object, a prisoner, not really a grownup. A homeless person, by contrast, may be an adventurer, a vagabond, a lover of the open sky. The only form of identification an American needs is a driver’s license.

Time and time again I stood humiliated before a bank clerk who would not admit to my existence because a passport meant nothing to her. Over and over I’ve had to prove my existence to petty clerks and policemen for whom there is only one valid form of ID. Driven to despair, I wrote my first autobiography, The Life and Times of an Involuntary Genius, at age twenty-three for the sole reason of having my picture on the cover. Whenever a banker asked to see “some identification,” I pulled the book from my mirrored Peruvian bag and pointed to the cover. More often than not, it was not enough. “What we mean is,” the flustered interpreters of rules and upholders of reality would insist, “we want to see some proper ID!” Books have never been proper to those in charge of upholding the status quo.

–Andrei Codrescu, Road Scholar: Coast to Coast Late in the Century

Yes, I took this photo while I was driving. Slowly.

Also see: A driver’s license as national ID?

Why I Loved Counseling and Miss It So

Though this quote pertains to ministry, the work of psychotherapy was also rooted in what the words below describe.

When people come to speak to me, whatever they say, I am struck by a kind of incandescence in them, the “I” whose predicate can be “love” or “fear” or want,” and whose object can be “someone” or “nothing” and it won’t really matter, because the loveliness is just in that presence, shaped around “I” like a flame on a wick, emanating itself in grief and guilt and joy and whatever else. But quick, and avid, and resourceful. To see this aspect of life is a privilege of the ministry which is seldom mentioned.

–Marilynne Robinson, Gilead

Experience the Power of Community In Action

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Volunteering with Hands On Bay Area is easy, simply register online and then attend one of our New Volunteer Orientations. There are over 100 volunteer opportunities each month in San Francisco, the East Bay, the Peninsula and the South Bay. To learn more, please browse our online project listing or phone us, 415/541-9616 or 650/965-0242, with any questions.

More Amazing Than Elvis Returning

Recordings of the ivory-billed woodpecker’s distinctive double-rap sounds have convinced doubting researchers that the large bird once thought extinct is still living in an east Arkansas swamp.

Last month, a group of ornithologists had questioned the announcement made in April of the rediscovery of the ivory-billed woodpecker, last sighted in 1944. They said blurry videotape of a bird in flight wasn’t enough evidence. So a Cornell University researcher who was part of the team that announced the bird’s rediscovery last spring says his group sent the doubters more evidence.

”We sent them some sounds this summer from the Arkansas woods,” said John W. Fitzpatrick, director of the Cornell ornithology lab. ”We appreciate their ability to say they are now believers.”

—Ivory Bill’s Doubters Convinced by Tapes

The Cornell researchers plan to release the audio publicly at the American Ornithologists’ Union in Santa Barbara, Calif., Aug. 23-27. Explore the Cornell Ornithology Lab. More images here.

Fini!

I finished Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince this afternoon. All I can say is, “Wow!” She has matured the characters well. I’m also pleased that my hunch about What Happens to a Certain Character is correct. But it’s kind of a let-down to be finished. Ah well, here’s to waiting for book seven.