Haiku and other musings

 

I remember going to a presentation by a Haiku master, who said the following rules apply

• 5-7-5 syllable pattern
• The first and second lines form one thought, the second and third another 
• Most are about Nature

I am going to play with the format a bit

As man attacks her

Nature hurls back her defense

The Earth is awake

Walking on the path

We do not see the flower

Blooming for no one

I miss the craft of poetry.  It can be work or it can just fall out onto the page, it is never clear which way the poem wants to go.  

Often I approach them with the same idea a painter I knew in college took- something to the effect of  just doing it and not editing it ( I think she said she was taught that her work needed to be completed in 7 minutes, but it was a LONG time ago and I may be mis-remembering it) sometimes, a poem will sit in draft for a long time and I will either edit it or delete it if I cannot remember just what I wanted to say.

I was talking to Chris today about really focusing on my art.  Art is the thing that restores us and in these dark days in this country, we need to remember to make space for it.  I fear the Fascists will only endorse what THEY like ( hideous things, monuments to themselves, covered in gold)  It is only a matter of time until the Kennedy Center is rebranded the Trump Center, isn't it?

Keep making art, whatever you do. Let us not sink into despair, as long as we can fight back.

Get your girls checked

 

Update.   There is a problem.  I have to go in for more tests.  I keep telling myself it's nothing.

I have an appointment this morning for a mammogram  I am not looking forward to it, but I am not dreading it ( the same cannot be said for some of the other "fun" exams that women need to have done)

I have been having them every year since I was 48  I should have started when I was 40.  My mother developed breast cancer in her 70's and they caught it early enough so she just needed a lumpectomy and radiation.

The reason I went is that I ran into a friend on the subway, who causally told me that she was better and that they had gotten all the cancer. alarm bells went off in my head and I scheduled a mammo.  They found "something" and that something was getting ready to turn.  I saw her on the subway a few weeks after my surgery and told her she saved my life.  I stopped riding the subway a while after that and never ran into her again.  So, wherever you are Shari, thank you,

I have had the "the doctor needs to see you" appointment three times.   I have had three biopsies ( those FREAKING HURT) and two lumpectomies. Both were on the verge of becoming cancerous and I had a mammo every six months for two years after each surgery.

I am on top of it.  

If you are reading this- and you ARE- please get your "girls" checked ( I call mine "the twins") If you have a friend who hasn't gone , encourage them to do it. It is uncomfortable, sure I am a particularly "voluptuous" girl and  getting my tatas flattened is not my idea of a good time. I am fairly short and sometimes standing in one position is hard for me, but it's worth it.

I generally get my mammo in April.  I am reminded by T.S. Eliot that "April is the Cruelest month"  so I go. Today was the earliest convenient  appointment. I'll let you all know how it goes.

Willa Cather "My Mortal Enemy"

 I love Willa Cather. Well not Willa herself because I never knew her, but I love her books.

I read and re-read  "My Antonia" over the years and loved "A Lost Lady" ( I never realized how much it echoes "The great Gatsby" until now)

But I just finished reading her short book- My Mortal Enemy

It is an interesting character study.  The book I checked out had a very long and frankly judgy introduction to the book I stopped reading halfway.  He declared Myra to be a thoroughly unpleasant person and had no love for the book.  

The intro reminded me of term papers and I decided I did not want to read anymore because I wanted to come to the book fresh.

I enjoyed it.  Nellie's observations of the Henshawes both in their very Flush period and at the end of their lives are details of the miniscule and we get a complete before and after.

I am NOT going to go all "English Major" here and opine that Myra Henshawe symbolizes the decline of a gentler age and the ending of the book is both sad and hopeful as Oswald Henshawe embraces the future.

Nope.

Jus that it was a good read. 

More could be made of possible Infidelities  on both sides that are hinted at but left to the imagination.

I am pondering Myra's dying declaration that she "must die like this, alone with my mortal enemy"

The narrator takes her to mean her husband, having said something about how love can grow to hate, but the Lit major in me asks.  does she mean her husband or herself?  She is disappointed in how her life turned out and wishes that she had not done some of the things she did.  

Had she grown to hate herself, in looking back?

I have to think about that one.

I have three other books I have to read before I can go back to Cather.  Anyone want to recommend what I should read next by her?

Jazz

 Don't hate me or judge me for what I am about to confess.

I hate jazz.

Really.

I know right now you are screaming at me JAZZ IS A TRUE AMERICAN ART FORM!   WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU??

Well, I am not saying that Jazz should be tossed on the trash heap or banned in public places, just that Jazz is not MY thing.

Well, maybe Dixieland, which was my Dad's preferred music. I learned to listen to individual instruments with my Dad and still do that sometimes and think of him asking me to repeat what the clarinet was doing in a particular song.  He loved Dixieland and Glen Miller.

But Jazz, especially "smooth jazz" is NOT my thing.  You know how some companies use "Smooth jazz" as their "hold music" to sooth the customer while they are waiting? Yeah.  If I have to listen to that for more than three minutes, I am SO agitated by the time the customer service person comes on the line, I have to take deep breaths before talking to them.

It does the opposite of calming me down.

Now the reason for this is really a question.

My husband loves Stanley Clarke.

Mr. Clarke is playing at the Hollywood Bowl this Summer. 

I know my husband would like to see him- even if we do not like the Hollywood bowl ( I think I detailed our problems last Summer when we had a heck of a time getting there and back again. The bus drive actually told us we should "run")

I would like to make my husband happy, but the thought of a an evening of jazz makes my skin crawl.- and YES I know Mr. Clarke is amazing , I am not discounting his virtuosity I am just repeating that jazz is NOT my jam.

I would like Chris to go, but  I value my sanity and wonder if I should buy tickets and ask someone to go with him.

Any takers?  

In the meantime, I will be avoiding malls and calling companies that use smooth jazz as a panacea. Give me thrash metal instead.

Moment ( a poem)

 "My grandmother loved bougainvillea" she said

apropos of nothing

as she looked out the window

at the late Spring garden

But I knew a storm was coming

that would destroy the remaining purple blooms

making them slick on the garden path

sticking to my shoes

like onion skins

But she was lost in her reverie

I murmured assent

and drank my tea. 

For Julie

  Poem

You were in my dreams last night.

I was searching for you

along a beach that suddenly

burst into flames.

I was told it was bonfires

but I knew it was you

creating one last beautiful flame

before you transformed

into the whisp of wind

that blew the sand

and the flames

into the air

I hate being sick

 So, I picked up a weird bug.  No fever, no anything except chest congestion.  That always scares me, as I have lung issues and any "cold" generally defaults to bronchitis and I had a serious fight a few years back with pneumonia . That almost killed me, I was really, really sick.

I don't ever want to do that again.

Chris is taking wonderful care of me.  He went out and got me soup and meds.  I had one of those "stop breathing" episodes, where my vocal cords slam shut, but I was able to do the "dog panting" exercise that relaxes them and I never got to the gasping for air part that is just not fun

So I am taking it easy this weekend.  I foolishly signed up to review TWO books that sounded good- Spoiler alert they almost always sound good. I started the first one and I thought to myself. Gosh I hope this is a murder mystery and that the main character gets killed.  It is written in the first person and I am NOT enjoying being inside her head.  My Kindle tells me it is a six hour read.  I hope it gets better.  I have only a few DNFs on this project. On at least one of them, I  wrote my promised review indicating that I would rather have had a root canal with no meds than finish that book.  I believe my review on that one  on Amazon is titled DON'T  JUST DON'T.

Last night, I had a dream that I was seeing a doctor who told me I have some kind of disorder , where I use the word "thing" far too much. This might have been related to an article I was reading about Alzheimer's. My mother died from Alzheimer's and I worry that it is in the DNA.  So I just went back and  edited my third paragraph and replaced the word "thing" with other nouns.

I need to do that more often.  It is easy to slip into a pattern that I learned from my mother.  I always understood what she meant when she would wave her hand and say "you know... the THING" I think of myself as a writer-unpublished, sure but a writer nonetheless, after all YOU are reading this, aren't you?    ( and thank you, I love that people are actually reading what I am babbling on about) Mostly, these days, I write for me. To keep my chops up, to release whatever is bothering me and just to feel better.

Like I said, I hate being sick.