Summer Reading

Summer is already proving to be promising much more than it can deliver.

One of the topics we discussed at the NCW members coffee this morning was, summer...how and what to do about summer. How do you get anything done? What are the best ways to be sure you get the most from the long lazy days? In the past I remember I felt depressed when summer came along. I had so many wonderful projects planned. I would make a huge long list. But family vacations, visits, lessons and classes for the kids, vacation bible school, camps etc. etc. would crop up like weeds in my carefully planted garden. Granted I'm past the kid schedule routine (even though I do have grandchildren schedules to consider for at least two days a week) but I still seem to suffer from that over expectation cloud.

Suggestions given by NCW members were helpful: Make deadlines for some things, get in a routine you follow daily and more but the best one was, if you can't make it to your computer (or yellow pad) read.

So that is what I will do. That is what I have already been doing. Even though it is only the first day of summer, here are my summer reads so far.

Pat Stoltey's mystery, "Prairie Grass Murders" was a delightful, romp through a small town's dirty laundry, basements, barns, and psychiatric wards that wouldn't let me put it down. It was complex enough to keep me wondering and with enough action to keep me curious about what was going to happen next to the delighful sleuths.(One of which was close to my own age!) I am not a regular reader of mysteries but this is a perfect read for the summer.

The second book I read was Mark Doty's book, Dog years. It is a dog story (at least two dogs) and a memoir about love and life. Here is what the back cover says (so you won't have to read it when you go into the bookstore) "When Mark Doty decides to adopt a dog as a companion for his dying partner, he brings home Beau, a large malnourished golden retriever in need of loving care. Joining Arden, the black retriever, to complete their family, Beau bounds back into life. Before long the two dogs become Doty's intimate companions, and eventually the very life force that keeps him from abandoning all hope during the darkest days. Dog years is a poignant, intimate memoir interwoven with profound reflections on our feelings for animals and the lessons they teach us about living, love, and loss.

This was a book that was recommended to me by a member of my writer's critique group and I am so grateful. It is a model for what I want to say and how I would like to write, down to using poetry throughout. I hope you read it.

Another book I picked up on my last visit to the bookstore was, The Introvert Advantage, a book that only after ten pages or so has described to me who I am and why I keep looking for books that help me figure out who I am... I am ready to drop the guilt and go for it. Dive underneath all the personal bashing I have done through the years. My psychiatrist saw it in the bookstore and suggested I take a look. Just one of the helpful suggestions she has made in the very short time I have been meeting with her.

I think I will suggest she read Dog Years. She would get a good insight into who I am

Variety

When I had the idea to form a support group called MSG-Spice of Life, several years ago, I was deeply into my menopause years. The group never formed but I liked the name and decided to use it for my first blog. The 3 letters, MSG are a reference to monosodium glutamate, a general purpose spice that tasted OK but was later found to be hazardous to our health. I thought it fit because MSG also could stand for Menopause Support Group. Menopause, as I know now, is (could be)hazardous to our health. Since then a lot has been said about menopause and I'm not really about writing about it today.

But now I really don't like the name I had chosen for my very first blog. This came to mind because I was using an old recipe yesterday that called for MSG. And from somewhere in my head I heard the word VARIETY. Thats it! Now I am feeling better about my blog. It seems I can't change the URL but I know clearly what I have been trying to explain when people ask me to describe this blog. It is about variety. Variety is the Spice of Life, of course.

So what variety do you have in your life or your writing? Are you stuck? If so for how long? I have learned the longer you walk the same path the more likely it will turn into a rut and then into a canyon of sorts. I know I need encouragement to climb out of those ruts, help finding hand holds and footholds.
I have lots of manuscripts sitting in boxes, good ideas and good thoughts, pretty well done manuscripts. My main rut is that I want to hold on to them till I get to them someday. Critque groups, readers, getting acquainted with other writers like at NCW help alot. And I have an organzational coach who is helping me too. It is hard. Sometimes it feels like I am tearing my heart out and that I will be doing this for the rest of my life.

But one thing I just did, that I moan about all the time...yes time. I don't have time to write. But I do, and I am, writing this blog right now this morning and it is nothing like I thought I would write if I got to it today. Something different.

But that's another story. I need to quit now that I have written what is on my mind. I know that as I sort through my writing and slowly (maybe it will get easier) throw out (or rework) outdated stuff, I will make room for new things.And I will surprise myself. Hurrah! Variety is the Spice of Life.

Momentum!

Momentum was the first word that came to my mind when I realized it has been a month since my last post. For me, momentum has a lot to do with my writing. I see this little fly wheel merrily turning along until for some reason the juice stops flowing and it goes slower and slower until it stops. Then, Oh, brother it is the devil to get started again. At first it is so heavy and it goes so slow it feels as if a thousand little strings are holding it back, like in Gulliver's Travels. Then A Ha! it starts and all that heaviness seems to be helping instead of hindering getting started again.

When I returned from my husbands college fraternity reunion (including my best friends from my sorority as well) in San Diego the good weather, California cuisine, flowers, and renewed friendships spread a kind of euphoric flavor over everything. And it was good, that time out and soul filling. It also put me in an idealistic place as far as what was really going on in my life. Lots of little strings.

When we landed at DIA (while we were still getting off the plane) we got a call from our daughter. She said, "I wanted you to know before you got home that we have not seen Cookie since Saturday." It was her job to make sure the cats were in the house for dinner because of the nightime threat of being dinner for the coyotes, hawks, foxes and owls nearby. She had undoubtedly spent a few nights worrying and felt bad but the fact remained, my sweet tortoise-shell kitty was gone.

I am a over involved pet owner and a volunteer for the Fort Collins Cat rescue partly because of one cat I lost when we first moved to our 'farm' so this was a jolt. It made me mumble to myself during the whole two hours or so trip home from the airport. "She'll come back, she'll come back".

Long story short I found her that night as I walked ours and neighbors fields with a flashlight calling her and tapping her food dish. I called and listened for a minute, walked and called and waited. Then in that small silence I heard a quiet 'meow', looked around and there she was, trotting after me. When I picked her up in my arm she was purring.

So back to the momentum. Something like this slows it down but so does all the loose ends that were there when we left Colorado. I am trying to schedule and organize myself so I can produce some finished essays (by way of blogs) that take a tremendous amount of will power in order to get past the clutter and this over scheduled time in my life. This blog is the first I have actually sat down to give it a push. And what will come out of this one I don't know. It is just that as the sun comes up this Sunday morning those tethers are loosening and the wheel is beginning to turn ever so slowly.

There was a Reason

(The Monfort Professor-in-Residence Program brought 'citizen writer' Terry Tempest Williams to Fort Collins for a reading and discussion of her newest book "Finding Beauty in a Broken World". She is a naturalist who shows how environmental issues are social issues and ultimately matters of justice. This is my reflection.)

There was a reason I made the trip to hear Terry Tempest Williams speak one night last week. There is always a reason. I need to remember that. The problem is that I have to be shaken up a bit before I really believe it. I know part of it is because of my early childhood. According to my Enneagram I learned about myself through seminal experiences ages ago. Birth order, inheritances, experiences…so it has to do with self-esteem. So I don’t believe what is in my gut because I wasn’t believed 50 or so years ago. Hogwash. (Sorry, my Iowa roots) But the fact remains, it takes a while. And I want to change it.
That’s why when I read in one of my local newsletters that Terry Tempest Williams was going to do a reading in Fort Collins I wrote it on my calendar with great excitement. She was the one who introduced me to memoir, nature, compassion, grief and was the epitome of an examined life. Underneath I wanted to write like her. I read her memoir, "Refuge", just after my own mother’s death. This book connected the death of her mother with the displacement and loss of birds around the flooding of Great Salt Lake. It didn’t need to point a finger at the atomic bomb testing in the Utah desert for me to know the ache in her soul from the many cancer deaths in her family. Their stories carried that message. It was beautifully written and again I wanted to write like her. But something inside told me I couldn’t. I didn’t know how. Fear. That was a long time ago. I think I'm learning.
When she took the podium she commanded a presence in a soft and gentle way. This not in spite of but why her words rang true. She spoke out of an unimaginable brokenness.And while she sounded soft and gentle, her words packed a punch. She is masterful at making connections . The title of her new book speaks her theme and her cause, "Finding Beauty in a Broken world". She wrote it in the same way she wrote"Refuge". In her current book she connected the art of mosaic with the massacre of a million people in a thousand days in Rwanda with the annihilation of prairie dogs. It is a mindset she says.
And so I come back around with the reason. I recently began taking a new direction in my writing, stealing myself to stories of loss but with a "heart broken open and ready for service" (from J.Barrie Shepard in one of my favorite books.) Peace and justice had been at the heart of my ministry as a member of the Presbyterian Church (USA)all along. So now what? What is the next step for me and for you too? How do we make a difference without polarizing?
Each of us in our own way.I began with the animals...to parallel the path of respected C.S.U. professor Temple Grandin. I began with feral, abandoned or stray cats. I am convinced that we have much to learn from animals. The study of communication skills of prairie dogs can begin to teach us how to communicate, feral cats like prairie dogs have community and take care of each other too. Helping to provide humane ways to respect life while respecting property is a challenge. Bottom line for me is when eyes can see with compassion 'the least of these' then compassionate eyes can be opened to the Rwandas of the world.
As a shy person I have experienced a hesitancy when I speak of my passion about animals and recently feral cats. But life, plain and simple is a gift. I believe... God’s gift for all creatures 'great and small'. Terry Tempest Williams' soft smile and honest words have underlined my search for ways to express my passion. She shook me up. That was the reason.

A Box Office Smash Hit

I thought his years Northern Colorado Writer's Conference was a box office smash hit. It was easy to navigate, well organized, things started on time, the food was really good, and best of all the workshops were topnotch. I struggled to decide which of the workshops I had to leave out. The ones I attended moved me closer to my goal to prepare/finish a manuscript or two for publication sooner rather than 'one of these days'.

The nuts and bolts, the learning parts if you will, from Rachelle Gardner and Mike Befelor were complete and well presented. My afternoon sessions with John Calderazzo, Laura Pritchett and Tina Forkner were superb. I can't think of a better way to say it.

Although I didn't feel I was ready to do a pitch, I had planned to make contact with one of the presenters and I was able to do that over breakfast with Tina Forkner. I benefited by her depth of information about the inspirational market which parallels many of my interests. I believe we are on the same wave length and she invited me to e-mail her if I had questions.

But the best thing about the whole experience was that I got to listen to people who loved what they were doing. They woke up each morning excited about that day, from the Hollywood elegance of Stephen Cannell to Todd Mitchells heartfelt words to the delightful 'On the Spot" improv. group...they were all having fun! And so did I!

Thanks Kerrie!

Catching the Mare

Catching the Mare
Pasture Musing
March 2010

morning quiet, drifting along,
rope in hand I stumble a bit
over rough ground, marking it,

I lift my boots above mounds

of soft earth,old grass

I wonder about

tall grass that had such promise
but gave up long ago
to lie pushed down by
snow weight, sun's burn
horses feet, soaking water

I believe it was happy to return
something of what once was
to the earth… I'm thankful
the winter sun
the wind’s hint of warmth
the shortened darkness

elusive fox, mysterious coyote,
brave feral cat leave
their tracks in earth too,
next to the grasses
they survive but some, like me
still don’t understand

Smile but Stubbornly Go

One of my searching times was way back in the 80's when I was attending seminary. I met weekly with a small group of students that first year for support and challenge, for opening eyes and hearts. One thing it was supposed to do was to help us become at least aware if not tolerant but hopefully accepting of other students' widely divergent views and experiences about what they believed. This may have been more true of Iliff School of Theology in Denver than for others such as Oral Roberts for example.

I made the decision to take this path because of my passion for making a difference, but not in the way you may think. I was not a preacher who was hell-bent on saving souls. I just wanted to do what I could to make a difference in my small way, like the star thrower who returned one of hundreds of starfish that had been beached to the sea. It didn't make a difference to hundreds of starfish but it made a difference to one. I was searching my heart for the best way to do that I guess. And I ended up at seminary. My passion for justice grew through church involvement. in social issues. Tom Sutherland, one of the hostages held in Lebanon was a member of my congregation. I was convinced then as I still am today that God is love. And love will win but only if each person tosses a starfish back into the sea.

As I recall the year I began was the first year the number of female students equaled the number of male students at Iliff. It was also marked by a growing number of students embarking on their second or third careers. I was 45 and I felt like a fish out of water. It was helpful though, to see that there were also lots of other fish. So if numbers mean anything I think there was beginning to be a critical mass. Many women thought of themselves as pioneers. And we were.

I remember thinking as I emerged from my first exam which happened to be in Old Testament that if I passed that test I would probably make it through to graduation. It was certainly the first time I had studied the Old Testament and to be honest it was also the first time I had read the whole thing through. I questioned my decision to attend seminary many times in the years following but this first exam was a make it or break it for me and one that made me keep asking myself "what I was thinking?".

So when I came across this poem by Denver poet Lois Beebe Hayna it became a kind of a mantra that I memorized and wove into my soul. From the day I took it to my first year discussion group till now it reminds me, even as I get older that it is never too late to "tend a vine of my own choosing.''

Late to the Vineyard

by Lois Beebe Hayna

Delayed Bloomer, ten o' clock achiever,jack of all directions but your own,lady, will you tend at last a vine of your own choosing?
Forget calendars, ignore warnings of frost and blight;discount praise for your delicate hands.Smile but stubbornly go,because Indian summer shines for the late-to-luckand time runs earlier, earlier than anyone suspects.

Frost will miraculously bypass your budswhile rain rounds harvest ripe for you.Your grapes will be sound, lady, sound and sweet.You will sip each fruitlike wine.