End of Summer Reading

I don't want you to think this has turned into a book review blog or anything but I do have two more books I have read this summer that I want to tell you about. I guess I need to create a book list on my blogs but I haven't figured out how to easily do that yet. There are lots of things I could be doing with my blogs and even when I get some help with it, it seems that after my helper has gone on to other things and I am on my own, invariably something comes up different than I was shown and I am stumped again.
But this is about books. In my quest for books that relate or connect in some way to the blogs I am writing I came upon two. The first one is "Making Rounds with Oscar: The Extraordinary Gift of an Ordinary Cat. by David Dosa, M.D.
A couple of weeks ago I was startled to learn that one of my blogs about a rescue cat named Jake from Writing Outside the Barn had been picked up by Animal Planet and they wanted to come to Fort Collins to tape him going about his life for an episode of Cats 101. Jake was filmed in several places, one of which was a nursing home. He had recently passed his test to become a therapy cat and had also visited a rehabilitation center where he was given a great deal of attention. So I picked this book up to see how this writer dealt with this sitiation.
Dr. Dosa is a geriatrician who worked with alzheimer's patients in a nursing home. Iwas happy to see the cat was not romanticized and his visits to patients was not seen as a death sentence. But at first when the doctor became aware of the gift Oscar possessed he was skeptical. The book was written as he interacted with the patients and their families. By the time I finished the last page I was in love with this cat and his recognizble but still not explainable way of knowing when a patient or family needed some extra love and care. There is a possible physical link to the cat's ability but still, not that pursuasive.
Since my Dad was an Alzheimer's patient and needed special care I related to the stories deeply. And I remember when my Mom died while visiting family in Phoenix at Christmastime. I was chosen to go on a mission to fly to Colorado to retrieve her companion of many years who was waiting for her to come back, her cat Meisha. It was clear she never would. When I brought the cat in to my Mom she held her close. Meisha stayed by her for her remaining days. It was a comfort to her and to the rest of us as well.
I learned a lot about people in that situation, more than I learned while I was going through it. If you can open your heart to extraordinary connections between people and animals, you will be captivated by this heartwarming and comforting story.

One day, later in the summer I was visiting with a friend about how difficult it was for me to reconcile my hope to protect animals with the need to allow them their freedom and agency in the world. It is not a new dilemma. She suggested I read The Daily Coyote: A Story of Love, Survival, and Trust in the Wilds of Wyoming by writer and photographer Shreve Stockton.

Besides being a beautifully written book with its exquisite descriptions of the wilderness and Wyoming life near the Big Horn Mountains it is an extraordinary photo diary of the coyote puppy she raises after it had been rescued.
A New York City born girl who lived in San Francisco ends up in Ten Sleep Wyoming. How this happens will surprise and delight you. Her pluckiness and willingness to become a part of the landscape and people and to rough it makes an amazing story in itself. Her story will challenge everything you have understood about interactions with wild animals. Even I raised my eyebrows a bit. Her writing is down to earth and real as she brings in classic themes of love and freedom and applies them to her own life. However, nothing overshadows her actual relationship with the coyote, Charlie.
She winds her way honestly through the challenges her decision to keep the coyote pup entails, including her own safety as Charlie matures. She searches her way through it to an ending that provides reconciliation for herself, her current relationship, and Charlie.
This is strictly a personal account, and doesn't go deeply into the politics of raising a coyote in an area where all coyotes are shot on sight. But in a way, it keeps you on the edge of your seat to see how she contends with these dangers. Weaving throughout is a special account of an interspecies relationship between "Charlie" and her young cat, "Eli" that was absolutely magical.
This is an intense book, one I was not able to put down until I got to the end. And then I was disappointed. I wanted to know what happened next. And due to the website originally created by the author when she began to send daily pictures of the coyote to friends and family, I can.
Shreve bravely makes her way through her weeks and months with the coyote, in a new relationship, living a new pioneer kind of life along with the challenge of writing this book. At one point she quotes an uncle when talking about love. "Love is tolerance" she writes. After having been married to the same man for 46 years I can agree. Letting go shows trust, belief and respect. You can't get much clearer then that. I loved this book.

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