Art Food Soul

You know how you look and you don’t see? Kick it up a notch into mother mode and then you will. When I’m looking for something for myself, I can miss it even if it’s in plain sight. When I’m looking for something for my kids (or Marty), I am their St. Anthony. I always find it.

Me — I’ve gotta pray to St. Anthony, but he always comes through for me.

“St. Anthony, patron Saint of the Lost and Found, please help me find what I’m looking for.”

Rainy Sunday here on Cape Cod, flood warnings keep coming on in between football games. Right now it’s the Pat’s and Titans in a snowy Foxboro. It’s been a great day, stayed in my pj’s all day, working on a flyer for my women’s group, making comfort foods and lots of tea, catching up on blogs and so on. Did a bit more decluttering (videos), read a little Mondo, and wrote a sort of poem. I was looking through my latest journal last night and saw my answers to a question:

If I didn’t have to do it perfectly, I’d try parenting. (Oh wait, did that already and it wasn’t perfect. We all survived for the most part).

If I didn’t have to do it perfectly, I’d try poetry.

If I didn’t have to do it perfectly, I’d share my work.

If I didn’t have to do it perfectly, I’d do radio.

If I didn’t have to do it perfectly, I’d launch a local cable TV show.

If I didn’t have to do it perfectly, I’d do comedy.

I kind of like the exercise, so since I didn’t have to do it perfectly I wrote a poem this morning, inspired by Mary, of course.

Gray water pouring
flowing over eaves
through gutters
flooding streets
no fair weather friend, my seasonal water view.

“Wouldn’t it be better for you to discover a meaning in what you write than to impose one?”

— Flannery O’Connor

I think the reason her words speak so eloquently to so many is because of her plain language. As she said, she likes plain language. Poetry’s no fun when it’s so lofty and literary that you can’t understand it. I think it’s similar to why Shakespeare spoke to so many in his day and still does. (“Brevity is the wit of reason”).

When listening to Mary Oliver read her poems the other night, it was like listening to a warm conversation, both wild and deep — full of meaning in its blessedly simple language. (And her sense of humor was totally unexpected and totally cool).

Reading poetry and hearing it spoken are two different experiences. Having heard her read them, her poems spoke to me more clearly. I’ve read them, of course, but I’m lazy. I’d rather listen to her say the words. Straight, real and to the heart. Unpretentious.

I believe poetry is language meant to be spoken. Perhaps that’s why the expression “poets and troubadours” moves frequently through my consciousness lately.

** photo from Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts

where my writing’s been all these years — buried in the works of others who spark my soul… and in my life’s journey, er, journals (yes, there too)…it’s time to let the words out and howl the eternal yes…i am a writer (with a capital “I”)….I am a writer! Yes!

…been catching up on Jen Lee’s archives (the creator) as well as Blue Poppy’s (the curator)…

(Andrea’s MB assignment for today was to say yes to something scary — my something scary is putting it out to you, World).

After reading Stef’s post on her weekend with her girls, I thought I’d share a couple harvest weekend shots of my girl — before she carved her pumpkin…and after…I swear I can see in that pumpkin’s face the joy she felt carving it. Something primeval about this time of year…when the kids were little we picked apples, took hayrides into the pumpkin patch to pick pumpkins and so on. I feel rich with these beautiful memories that I can share.

This past spring I found a couple of Polaroid cameras, one at the swap shop and one at Morgy’s (Goodwill, for 5 bucks). No film but what the hey, I found a source for film too. At my parent’s house I found another Polaroid camera, this one with film, including black and white. I love the haunting, otherworldly quality of polaroids.

I walk regularly at an old cemetery near us, lots of old Cape Cod names there — Nickerson, Hallet, Huckins, Bassett, Crocker, Phinneys, Hinckleys and so on.

There’s a beech tree there, probably over a hundred years old. It’s gigantic for these parts. Majestic, mysterious, with carvings in its elderly trunk — I bet it could tell lots of stories.
I’ve been photographing it occasionally, different times of the day, different times of the year. Have to do my fall shots soon.

No one really plants beech trees anymore. They grow very slowly and everyone wants fast growth these days, myself included. I planted all fast growing trees at my house in Vermont — I wanted big fast.

I love trees, and this old beech tree speaks to me of history, of a slower time, of someone who wasn’t thinking about fast and about their lifetime, but perhaps future generations, of eternity, of eternal connection to others. Or not. But still…

When I look at the beech tree, it reminds me of my dreams and I ask myself questions. Questions like, if we don’t plant species or dreams that take a long time to grow, what might the world miss?

(photo was taken 5/25/09 at 2:20PM on a sunny day (I still don’t know how to put a little blurb under my images here in blogspot).

Give a big hug to the dark knight of your soul.

Jen Lee is an inspiration to me and turns out she is also the oldest of four (girls, too?). I love this video she did and Brene Brown shared on her blog. At squam, her spiral book spoke to me and more of her stories have snuck up on me. I’d like to take a class with her. I wish for a wild writing group in my neighborhood similar to Laurie Wagner’s or perhaps something with Jen Lee. My mondo beyondo starts today.