POSTCARD FROM THE MUSE

Well, she must be reading my blog--or my mind.
The Muse sent a postcard this weekend--came to me in a dream--the message stayed solvent upon waking.
A new poem.
A few new drafts. (poemlets...)

While not a big deal to most, for me, it's been years since I've thought in lines of poetry.

In fact, at my lowest point in L.A., I went through every last poem I'd written in the last few decades and discarded all that hadn't been published.(House cleaning at its most manic!) I realized I had become a hoarder--of words.

 Like a lot of hoarders, I wasn't able to differentiate anymore between the quality and the quantity of the collectibles. Pure tripe was mixed up with aging poetry. Short story bones were rotting on top of full length fiction. Even my cartoons were repetitive. (The lines! The lines!) Everything had become sentimental...

Just because it is hidden under electronic bytes doesn't mean that there isn't a mountain of debris about to crumble. I had grown so accustomed to its smell, I didn't even recognize the stink. What mess...It wasn't until a recent episode of reality t.v., where a long-time hoarder burst into tears, blaming the walking out of her grown daughter (who had suffered the hoard throughout her childhood and only recently gathered the strength of a boyfriend, to escape) on why she "had let things go"...it was abandonment. It was the "other person's fault". It was all life's boogers.

Kaboom! My brain imploded! I was blaming my Muse's vacations on my own growing bad habits. Not all one-liners are worth saving. Metaphors are cheap, if not easy. Pickled poems, though keeping for a while, do have expiration dates. Time to move out. Move on. Clean up. Clear out. Refurbish. If the Muse were to come "home", it would never be to stay. Make room for the visit, but always understand, it would only be temporary.

Well, she isn't dead. Or sickly. Or mad. Only out raising hell with some other writer on the side. She's never pretended to be faithful--though loyalty is another issue. (She is loyal in her way. You gotta respect that.)
Last night, a postcard from the edge of unconsciousness.

Today, a full blown poem.

I will turn it into a pdf. file. (To share.)

Wahoo!

JUST REMEMBER TO BREATHE

One of the ever-present critiques my blood family bestow upon me, daily, is that, since living in California all those years, I've become a tortoise. (Maybe that's why I named my Subaru "Tortuga"...) An hour doesn't go by without being prodded, pried, pressed to "pick up the pace, K.K.!"

At first, it was funny. I attributed it to age--I'd been gone so long they still expected me to be eighteen years old. I'm 55--even if I don't exactly think of myself as 55--the physical body sure does. Wearing sneakers doesn't help my speed,either. Somehow, the family expected if I laced up the Nikes, things would improve.

Then, I attributed it to the temperature. From living at a mean of seventy-nine, to plunge, now, to a mean of around forty, well, it affects one's bones. Everything creaks when faced to leaving the cocoon of the sleeping bag and jumping on to a bare, wooden morning floor. I've taken to wearing a beanie, everywhere, and suddenly understand on a deeper level why so many balding men cling to their baseball caps. Cold does freeze me in place. I think twice about heading outside in a blizzard. I wear baggy clothes not for fashion and a certain style, but because long undies fit easily under loose layers.Mittens, scarves, down jackets--all the bane of my childhood, now my closest allies. (If I slip into a snowbank, though, it's all over...no getting back up...)

Finally, I chalked my speed critiques to the simple banter of a tough-as-nails-wild -and-wooly- clan; raised in the bosom of New England with both Catholic and Protestant work ethics; high pain thresholds; no-whiners-allowed philosophy; if you weren't moving, and moving quickly, accomplishing many tasks simultaneously; you weren't alive. I expected that some day, I'd wake up and like the worst horror flick of adolescence, find myself buried alive, scratching at the coffin lid, screaming to be let out!

Then, today, just purusing my Buddhist collection, I came across Thich Nhat Hanh's simplified code for living like a Zen monk, mindfully: "Smile. Breathe. Go slowly."

Yup.

Now I remember where it began to change for me.

Ahhhhhhhhhhh.

TRACKING THE POETRY MUSE

Maybe it's writing collaboratively (a screenplay; a speech; copy for brochures; letters of rec); maybe it's writing academically for licensure courses and grad courses; maybe it's sending out a hundred plus resumes and cover letters (plus untold first chapters and letters of inquiry for publishers)? Maybe it's too much texting or blogging or e-mail?

Whatever the reason, the Muse (my Muse) is off on her own trek for the umpteenth time. Each adventure/absence grows a wee bit longer. Does it make my heart grow fonder? You bet...as well as my head growing lighter. It seems that though I use old methods of filling the hours via journal writing, cartooning, reading the classics or watching old movies, nothing truly primes the pump of the poetry waters. The drought rages and I grow more and more parched at her absence. Nothing seems to work.

I've looked for her at other readings. I've stalked her in nightclubs, poetry slams, coffeehouses, open- miked barrooms, and even in support groups for the Poetically Challenged. She eludes me. Sometimes I get news of her--a sighting via FaceBook; rumors carried by college buddies from afar. Once I know I caught a whiff of her perfume blowing down the street in Silver Lake, the last spring I wandered L.A. When I stopped, it was gone, leaving a lump in my throat and a watery eye. (Silver Lake had changed for good; forever.) I stopped going back.

Close friends and family don't even ask about her anymore. (It is out of pity.) A few beloved students inquire, full of the excitement and promise of their own Muse Sightings--the possibility of a Real Relationship with Inspiration flickering before them. It tantalizes, as does all first loves. I don't tell them the truth.

I don't mention the heated exchanges, the heartbreaks, the empty nights and cold mornings of absence. I never reveal the disappointments or the fickle-flights of fancy. I sometimes allude to the homecomings. The brilliant relief at her first step back --though I have precious little evidence to prove those re-unitings. (They exist! They do!) Better to allow the Young to hope. In yearning, there may be genius. (One can't be sure.)

I've tried voodoo. Voudun. Wiccan Love and Creativity Spells. Holy Candles. Rosary beads. Scapular medals.Communion. Sufi Dancing and Zen sitting. I've taken retreats, alone, to craggy shores and windy deserts. I've heard distant flutes sounding--but no drums. I've seen mirages and they were beautiful. (Maybe, even, besides the paw prints of coyotes, a footprint...or not.) One morning I woke to find lipstick on my cheek...the tent flap flapping...but, she had fled, without a sound. (All of my pens were dry; the notebook bereft of pages.)

I'm ready for her to come home. I keep the lamp burning on the bedstand. There are plums and blueberries in the frig. (I'll spring for a bottle of Merlot, if she'll only appear.) If you see her when you look up, tell her these things for me, please.

I'm waiting...

ANOTHER GUILTY PLEASURE

Even as my NYC friends link me up with the virile YouTube clip about what New Yorkers say...I have to admit to my own guilty pleasure as of late: "Portlandia".

If you have cable, and you get the IFC station, it is on on Friday nights at ten p.m. If you don't get IFC, some cable companies have select picks from IFC ON DEMAND. Luckily for me, "Portlandia" is one of them.

Begun as a kind of riffing on their platonic friendship, Saturday Night Live comedian Fred Armisen (of Obama fame) and Sleater-Kinney singer Carrie Brownstein started making quick "takes" for YouTube. Mostly focusing on life in their favorite city,Portland, Oregon, it does what New Yorkers say...i.e., common stuff taken to the extreme.

While critics mention the repetition, what comedy these days, high or low brow, doesn't use repetition? I find the based-in reality approach to sketch comedy like a cold drink on a hot afternoon: refreshing, even if not original. The fact that the show is based on Portland, and its aging hippie/punk-rock/ duffuses  gives the show a patina that is exactly that.

Maybe you had to be there...(or be there, still,)  but "Portlandia" captures what most of us dreamt of, sometime in our twenties --or are dreaming of, still. As a character seriously stated in the first season: "Portland is the place where young people go to retire". It is still okay to be "cool"--still cool to be cool.
And in Portland, EVERYBODY is.

Recent bits feature owners of a feminist bookstore welcoming a world class author and regaling her with their own computer-printer woes--finally getting the in-store printer to begin spitting out their first novel, in the middle of the author's reading. (I have had similar adventures on my own performance trails...) There's also a great take on "a cool wedding"--the anti-thesis of the mainstream (sort of) "Housewives of Beverly Hills"  and "Say Yes To The Dress" series featuring upscale, over-the-top million dollar celebrations. (I'm not sure if it was the bride-to-be yelling at her aging friend "...don't touch me,you're a dirty hippy and you've never understood Punk!" as the friend tries to comfort her while the groom storms away or when the groom-to-be throws a tantrum under the rainbow parachute because it is "too festive"...but this nailed more than one "unification ceremony" I've attended in recent years.)

"Portlandia" isn't for everybody. If you want a bit more sophistication, stick with PBS, for sure. If you aren't a fan of street culture, choose ABC or CBS. But, if you count hipsters, Trekkers, Dead Heads, punk rockers, performance artists, feminists, Battlestar Galacticans, vegans, cyclists of all sorts, counter culture activists, animal rescuers, animal hoarders, wiccans, Weathermen, Petas, or orthodox anyones among your friends, you owe it to yourself  to check out the second season of "Portlandia".

(Or, you can always hop a train and visit, for yourself.)
Peace.

HOW MANY WORDS FOR WHAT?!

We've all heard about the Eskimo snow vocabulary list. Here in New England, we actually put this list to work. At least at 88 Maple Street, we put the list to work...Dad's snow obsession continues unabated. But, this morning, my inner alarm clock went off before either he or the city snowplows were in operation. I just rolled out of bed in my long undies and wool socks, pulled on beanie and boots and down jacket and hit the driveway.

The storm hit sometime before dawn. A quiet, hard-balled, light, tight snow. No softly moving flakes, but a serious, office-worker type that you might expect in the mountains of Eurasia. This snow was moving and productive--it meant business. Already almost four inches deep (small potatoes by Massachusetts standards), I was going to meet it, head on, before it "accumulated under my Subaru".

I chose the small, snowplow shaped orange shovel from the back porch and cleared the stairs. Then the dog's path and the bird feeder paths. (God forbid we couldn't get to either station...) Next, out to the driveway. Dad was fast asleep in his recliner, the morning news blaring as he nodded off. Mom was still upstairs, "tidying up" in her morning ablutions. But I was the weekend warrior--minus technology--except for a plastic shovel with a plain wood handle and my own grit.

My fingers were already beginning the telltale burning sensation through the polymer fibers of the cheap gloves I'd grabbed. Bad move. I should know better. Still, only my second winter back, my brain still lags behind the idea of winter utility vs. winter fashion. I pulled my Dr. Seuss striped beanie over my ears and put my head down, into the gritty snow. I would make this a fast trip and try not to focus on my tingling fingers.

The snow, like this, is easy to shovel. Hard, shaped like sand on the beach, light, it doesn't clump and it doesn't retain the heavy wetness of earlier storms. I begin pushing it, rather than shoveling it over my shoulders. A much easier proposition, though, the distance is the same. My brother, the Engineer, has commented that I should just have Dad show me how to work the blower--it isn't rocket science. He is correct. It isn't. It is Old Yankee Science--which translates into: "Don't touch my tools!"  Further, even if I did, there are so many exposed wires, jerry-rigged switches, a broken piece of wood that Dad carries with him whenever he starts or stops the machine, for which I'm not sure its use, only that Dad is constantly "thunking" something on the blower that is below his kneecaps, and gas leaks out in various spots while this operation is going on--I have no desire to touch it, let alone pry it from his gnarled grip. I go back to the orange plastic shovel.

Defining the edges, then sweeping back and forth, all the way down to the street (which hasn't seen a snowplow all morning...)takes about twenty-minutes. I am aware, not only is Maeve, the dog, keeping a watch on me in the window, one window over, she is joined, now, by a wide-awake Dad. He keeps making all kinds of incomprehensible hand signals to me, which I choose to ignore. I pretend the wind carries away his words, from behind storm windows. I pretend my glasses are so fogged I cannot see him--or Maeve. I pretend I am a Zen monk, sweeping a sand garden, trying to find enlightenment and contentment in the swirls   and order I am bringing to the ground below me. I am pretending my fingers are not burning at their tips and in dire need of warm water to save them from going  Mt. Everest black.

Finally, Dad bangs in the window closest to me with something that nearly cracks it. I look up and he is grinning, waving me in. My Subaru is still in the driveway, blocking his exit, but it is free of snow and ice. I gasp my way inside, frozen from stem to stern. There is one cup of coffee left. The dog acts as if I have just come back from the Pole. Dad starts going on and on that I've used "a butterfly pattern"--very effective. Course it isn't what HE would do, but, hey, everyone has their own style when shoveling a driveway...
Nice job, he actually volunteers. Now he doesn't have to take out the blower...just yet.

When Mom comes downstairs and sees me scrambling an egg, she says, " Hungry, K.K.?" in a very sarcastic voice...I tell her I've just shoveled the driveway and yes, now that I've got the feeling back in my fingers, I thought I'd have a hot breakfast.

"Shoveling's good for you...you don't get enough excercise..." she says, exiting to the laundry room.
I flip a piece of scrambled egg to the dog and take a sip of coffee.
Outside, the gritty little grains keep piling.  

TIME WARP DRIVE

Could it be that a person loses a decade or two without noticing? I mean, the body ages, but sometimes, it is a sudden leap into creakydom. One night you go to bed on the futon, exhausted from kayaking or backpacking the Santa Monica Mountains for three days and the next morning, rising becomes an issue! What happened?

Same thing with friends. One day you are attending a party, there are thirty to fifty friends around. Some are dancing, some are dancing with each other, some are drinking some are recreationally engaged in other endeavors, some are just gossiping with neighbors. The next day, you call or e-mail or just drop by to discuss the evenings goings-on and no one is home. Or available for comment. No one.

Suddenly there are kids and new relationships taking over where the old ones broke off. People are getting on or off the wagon of sobriety. People are in or out of hospital care. Or hospices. Or hotels. Or hotel businesses. Or just plain "holes". Everyone is moving from one coast to the other. Some are going North past Alaska. Others south beyond the wild horn. Some in planes. Others in ships. Others on the backs of motorcycles or bicycles or by foot. Some have luggage with Gucci tags. Others are sporting over-stuffed backpacks. A few only travel with plastic cards and sunglasses.

When I inquire, I get wedding invitations; shower invitations; birthday party for the kids invitations; house-warming invitations; bar mitzvah and bat mitzvah invitations; anniversary invitations--all instead of conversations. I seek out a dinner date and get down-sized to coffee--standing up--between Iphone calls and e-mail warnings.Sometimes a Skype will interrupt a latte date! Even in the remaining few bookstores around, the sounds of cell phones and Ipads break in...sometimes, ironically, discussing if the hardcover edition in the store is cheaper on Kindle or Nook...makes me weep.

It isn't the technology. There have been advances since I received my first real set of drawing pens and India ink. However, it is the people behind the technology--literally--who seem only to exist on-line or between the flying bytes. No one is really around...or really present, if they manage to show up for a quick event. Events are only attended for a few minutes--then on to the next one. Popularity is managed by how many invites you receive and whose parties you are simultaneously attending/dismissing. (Or what you brought for a present/a dish/a bottle of wine.) Or, what giftbag did you get away with.

I thought, like my suddenly aging body, it was a figment of my over-active imagination and only an L.A. phenom. However, upon returning to New England--even in this small town--it is via our cyber connections that people are most "alive"--or sharing. Of course, since all cyber connections, including Skype, can be manipulated, staged, edited and re-cast, what we are sharing may only be the fantasy life of the person on the other end--if that. It could be the soccer Mom's fantasy for her daughter; it could be the proud Papa whose son's sports camp achievements and trophies are generic, but screen well; it could be a tot's  ballet recital YouTubed to look like a national production for the White House. But it is what we share, and we receive.

Even submitting written material--short or long--fiction or prose--poetry or editorial--must be in a form that is digital. Must be accompanied by short bios and jpg. headshots and be ready for instant publication.If we all need biographies and headshots, just like the "famous people", in their industries, then does that mean we are all famous? Or duped?

I feel as if I've woken up and my body objects to what's in front of it, for the day. I'm too young to be out of the game and too aware not to be pulled into still playing. I have my semi-okay headshots and I have several forms of biography--all of which have been edited, commented upon and honed for particular audiences.
Has my writing improved? Have I been reaching more people? Perhaps the latter. But I know my poetry remains quantum measures behind where I thought it would be when I was 21. I know that many of the poets I've studied with, whom I was promised were the up and coming famous ones, didn't reach their peak, either. Were they rushed from behind by the wave? (Some of them retained a reputation on one poem or set of poems, written decades ago and surfed on, since. Tsunamis of students keep them afloat...and yet, are they better? Deeper? More closely read?) Where are we all moving if nothing gets a finer patina? If we don't  
hone our spirits? Faster might, indeed, be better. Maybe all of this equalizes us into basic physics and molecular structures? I'm not sure.

I just wish that I could find the moment it began to change and begin to feel unreal...that morning when I first woke up and didn't want to jump into the kayak before dawn...but, instead, wished for a couple more hours of sleep.  

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