Vision Pages!

What?!? One vision collage for the whole year? I think I'll do four. Four is reasonable, right? ;-) Besides, they're small...and one of em is really all about a new home and not so much about personal growth. Oh well, I love them. Also, it was awesome to remember feeling like the Queen of Collage again.

Tuesday Treat

On Quitting
by Edgar Guest

How much grit do you think you've got? 

 Can you quit a thing that you like a lot? 

 You may talk of pluck; it's an easy word, 

 And where'er you go it is often heard; 

 But can you tell to a jot or guess

 Just how much courage you now possess? 

 You may stand to trouble and keep your grin,

 But have you tackled self-discipline? 

 Have you ever issued commands to you 

 To quit the things that you like to do, 

 And then, when tempted and sorely swayed, 

 Those rigid orders have you obeyed? 

 Don't boast of your grit till you've tried it out, 

 Nor prate to men of your courage stout, 

 For it's easy enough to retain a grin 

 In the face of a fight there's a chance to win,

But the sort of grit that is good to own 

 Is the stuff you need when you're all alone. 

 How much grit do you think you've got? 

 Can you turn from joys that you like a lot? 

 Have you ever tested yourself to know 

 How far with yourself your will can go?

 If you want to know if you have grit, 

 Just pick out a joy that you like, and quit. 

It's bully sport and it's open fight; 

It will keep you busy both day and night; 

 For the toughest kind of a game you'll find 

 Is to make your body obey your mind. 

 And you never will know what is meant by grit 

 Unless there's something you've tried to quit.

Tuesday Treat!

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/20913

What To Do About Sharks
by Vivian Shipley

1. If a hammerhead or a great white makes waves during your workshop or poetry reading, don't flap your elbows or slap at it with rolled manuscripts. Sharks thrive on visual stimulation.

2. Blow out candles. Ease away from the podium, and wait at least ten minutes before going for a light switch. Join hands to keep karma with the other poets. It's okay to recite poems you memorized in fifth grade, Joyce Kilmer, in desperation, even Longfellow.

3. Rule of thumb: it's a shark not a dolphin if it is slamming about the room, hugging, blowing air kisses. Performers, sharks are almost all instinct and no brain. Without a sense of occasion, they'll crash any gig, underwater or not, from Madagascar to Malibu.

4. Being eyed by a shark can be exasperating, but don't rush or shift from foot to foot to induce motion sickness. Sharks are immune. They are, however, dyslexic. Flash cover quotes, prize-winning poems directly in front of both eyes. Better yet—stop reading. Pull your new hardback from a knapsack, and if the shark noses you with repeated sharp jabs, hit it on the snout.

5. If all else fails, sharks have a keen sense of hearing. Sing The Battle Hymn of the Republic at the top of your lungs. Sharks have short attention spans, get bored, leave if there is no open mike. So, swing into another verse: Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! His truth is marching on.

Tuesday Treat

A Non-Christian on Sunday
by Amy Gerstler

Now we heathens have the town to ourselves.
We lie around, munching award-winning pickles
and hunks of coarse, seeded bread smeared
with soft, sweet cheese. The streets seem
deserted, as if Godzilla had been sighted
on the horizon, kicking down skyscrapers
and flattening cabs. Only two people
are lined up to see a popular movie
in which the good guy and the bad guy trade
faces. Churches burst into song. Trees wish
for a big wind. Burnt bacon and domestic tension
scent the air. So do whiffs of lawn mower exhaust
mixed with the colorless blood of clipped hedges.
For whatever's about to come crashing down
on our heads, be it bliss-filled or heinous,
make us grateful, OK? Hints of the savior's
flavor buzz on our tongues, like crumbs
of a sleeping pill shaped like a snowflake.

There Were Scrumptious Hats

Tuesday Treat

Excerpt from Walking to Oak-Head Pond, and Thinking of the Ponds I Will Visit in the Next Days and Weeks  by Mary Oliver

"...I'm wading along
in the sunlight-
and I'm sure I can see the fields and the ponds shining
days ahead-

I can see the light spilling
like a shower of meteors
into next week's trees,
and I plan to be there soon-

and, so far, I am
just that lucky,
my legs splashing
over the edge of darkness,
my heart on fire."

We Were Bad-Asses, Or at Least We Thought So

It's been at least ten years since I really thought about middle school, but last night I dreamed the faces of my friends and there they were.

When I read news articles or when people talk about girl gangs, a part of me understands so completely. In sixth and seventh grade I was part of a group of friends that was inseparable. We were dictatorial, derisive, and cruel as only girls can be. We formed innumerable combinations of best friends and scapegoats among ourselves--but when we were all together it was like dynamite. Our slumber parties were epic and legendary among our fringe friends. We would stay up all night talking about boys and abortion and feeling sexy and how to get rid of pimples and the women we were so close to becoming. Together we tried out futures and personalities and experimented with how it felt to be in love. Their faces and names are etched so deeply inside myself that I could recognize the emotions in their expressions instantly in my dream.

Cassie. Aurelia. Alison. Megan. Darcie. Kelsey. Tara.

There were more girls, more friends who came and went, but those are the ones my heart remembers from before we scattered. By eighth grade I had moved away, and even though I have precious letters from some of them it was never the same--it never is. One of my friends ran away from home and never came back. Some of them finished high school and some didn't. By the time I started college, I was out of touch with all of them. If, as adults, we crossed paths I doubt I would recognize a single one of them unless we started talking and then I would like to think that our hearts would tumble out of our mouths and I could see their twelve year old faces again--all laughing and full of braces.

In my dream, I was being hunted--fleeing from the terrible knowing that someone is after you, knowing that they will catch you and when they catch you you will die. But my friends, those girls, they came to my assistance as naturally as they would back in seventh grade. Arriving at my side--answering questions someone asked me with the answers that were already in my mouth. Not because they thought I couldn't speak, but because they knew exactly what I was going to say and that by saying it for me I was made stronger for it. In the dream someone asked me who the leader was, and they answered, saying that there really wasn't one, but if they had to pick one it was me.

Hidden

"when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work"

"It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work, and when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings."  ~Wendell Berry

what i know is that i can't sit here much longer. I am so full. So full that 

this chair is torture, this desk is torture, the fan, the still air outside
my small space, the clicking of the keyboard, the slurp of water that
cools me for a moment and then stops cooling me completely. So full.
So full that my shoes are tight, my socks bursting up in the tops, my
ankles swelling with fullness. So full. Soulful. Souffle of boredom
and stress rising between my shoulder blades and branching into my
medulla oblongata. Fullness itching at my eyelids, scratching the
hairs in my nose. Full Full Full. I am going to look that Wendell
Berry quote I saw yesterday up and I will emblazon it across my dusty
window; those who are doing nothing and all of it. Spinning my wheels,
driving the ruts in deeper. I may look like I am holding still but
desperation is driving me inside. Each shallow breath pushing that
fullness like freight from vein to tunnel changing vein. Each shallow
breath telling me that I am full and that soon there will be no more
space left for more of this. I know what I want now, I just don't know
how to get from here with this circumferential path of uncertainties
and rules and agonizing breathlessness to there, with it's golden
gleaming promises of art and joy and laughter and a warm baby to hold.
How do get there from here? Which route will lead me to the wide open
vista of my life? The top of the plateau, the gleaming desires wide
necked and open before me? The tangle of the ocean of desire. I wish
to read again. I wish to open myself up to the possibilities of
theory, the proudness of understanding original thought, the glee of
knowing something new rising within me. I am full of here, full or
desire for there.

Hugging

This morning when I woke up I woke Retardo with my tears. It was a long convoluted dream, and I was going places, always going from one place to the next and at the end of the dream we arrived in this place and Everyone was there. Everyone, all sitting out in a long oval of lawn chairs, just waiting for us to arrive. And I saw my friend Droolie standing all the way down at one end and she had a lavender blanket over one shoulder and I knew there was a baby under it and ran all the way down and friends were heckling me because I didn't stop and say hello, and when I got down there I got to hug her and it was just her, there was no baby I could feel but the hug was so real and perfect and exactly what I needed and when we were done, I looked to my right and there was my Grandpa sitting in a chair and he was so whole so Not-Broken-Anymore and he said 'Come here Holly-Dolly,' and I came to him and he hugged me and it was such a good  good good hug.

Mandala Flower

Tuesday Treat

God Says Yes To Me by Kaylin Haught

I asked God if it was okay to be melodramatic
and she said yes
I asked her if it was okay to be short
and she said it sure is
I asked her if I could wear nail polish
or not wear nail polish
and she said honey
she calls me that sometimes
she said you can do just exactly
what you want to
Thanks God I said
And is it even okay if I don't paragraph
my letters
Sweetcakes God said
who knows where she picked that up
what I'm telling you is
Yes Yes Yes

Definite Life Goals

• Be a good cat-mama for Artie & Madeline
• Be able to assist our parents to live a better life
• Be an awesome partner/wife for Retardo
• Be debt-free by the time our as yet unmade child graduates high school
• Be more confident/spend less time hustling for approval
• Continue making a large portion of my clothing
• Do work that improves other people's lives
• Explore my spirituality & feel alive in my life
• Feel valued and supported in my work life
• Give more--work up to tithing 5% each year
• Go on one 10+ day and three 3+ day trips each year
• Have a monthly party that won't break our budget
• Have an amazing garden with tons of edibles
• Have and raise a child - be an awesome mama
• Have our own house with a good wishhome rating
• Know conversational Korean
• Live an earth-friendly sustainable lifestyle
• Love & support my extended family and friends
• Make art every day
• Make time each week for playing, dancing, and singing
• Live with less--simplify the un-necessities

Joy

Girl Heroes From Books That Inspire Me

• Harriet the Spy
• Paloma Josse 
• Pippi  Longstocking
• Hermione Granger
• Matilda Wormwood
• Flavia de Luce
• Meggie 
• Anne of Green Gables
• Meg Murray

What Does Water Smell Like?

The clean wash, the rinse of taste out of my mouth, the salty and the sweet of  lunch swept away until only the taste of water remains. The smell of the taste of salt on the ocean, each breath inhaling the waves, in and out. I'm having a hard time with these prompts, pretending to ignore them most of the time, halfheartedly reading them at other times. I think it's the reading of everyone else's responses on facebook that makes me feel like I have to write to impress. Write for others' satisfaction or response. (What would you do if you knew you could not fail?) I know that I love the smell of water. The smell of my lake, standing on the rocks and feeling my family stretched all around me, the creaking rot of the boathouse, the musty smell of the bunk beds they built under the garage. The smell that encompasses spiders and columbines and back alley bridge; the microwave with the rotating numbers--spin them up, watch them count down; the pantry that still holds the phantom smell of prune juice and oatmeal and whiskey; the pictures of grandma and grandpa and his biggest fish; the raccoons who used to live in the tree outside the window by the dining room table--waiting for grandpa to put peanut butter on the pine-cones. All of it surrounded by the smell of the lake shore, the calm lapping of the waves, the thin mountain grass on the protected shoreline.  The smell of being young and hugging my grandma on the beach; roasting marshmallows and toasting my cold legs by the bonfire; being a teenager and putting on deodorant and body spray in the bathroom with my cousin, practicing being cool, practicing knowing everything I thought I needed to know about life and sex; coming up on an odd weekend with my first love to do laundry and watch the waves while the dryer spun and shook; even this summer, the smell of our mini-moon, the half week of resting in the bed that was my great grandparents, cuddled inside the cabin, listening the to rain plinking on the roof, dripping into the water, the smell of the lake on my wedding dress, rob's wedding suit. the red and orange petals from the roses we brought with us spinning out onto the clear green water, under our feet and over the dock. The smell of the lake, dancing and laughing inside me--breathing in and breathing out. 

Eat All the Foods

Cheese. Korean Ovalette Noodles. Bread. Cookies. Muffins. Butter. Ice Cream. Oatmeal. Olives. Pickled Radish. Pickled ginger. Earl Gray Tea. Good Earth Original Tea. Custard. Doughnuts. Vietnamese Style Coffee. Coffee. Battambang's Special Noodle. Bleu Cheese Dressing. Strawberries. Pineapple. Horseradish. Potatoes. Garden Fresh Lettuce. Mint Tea. Irish Cream. Rum. Kahlua. Margaritas. Broccoli. Biscuits. Tomato sauce. Huckleberries. Cheesecake. Dirty Dirty Dirty Martinis. French Fries. Thick Yogurt. Raisins Covered in Chocolate. Pretty Much Anything Covered in Chocolate. More Cheese.

Look out the nearest window. Describe what you see.

I see the grey white of a sky threatening to snow again, for the third
time so far this winter. Sky normally ashen gray in Seattle, pushing
us all into our passive aggressive pastimes. This isn't what I want to
write about it. I shouldn't have read the facebook posts of others,
the better ones, the ones who can write already, who haven't forgotten
their own plots--are so busy knowing their syntax, their arias and
auras. But here I am, Sweet Mozart, forgive me for trying to match my
keystrokes to your brusque musician delivered sounds. Here is a window
I want: the one that faces the garden, the garden filled with
vegetables in full blush, kiwi fruits thick on the vines. The garden
with overflowing lust--dripping with flowers and heavy with bees. The
garden with a muslin draped arbor, a chair in the shade. Tea on the
table in perfect china cups. Another window: the art studio in the
corner of the garden, looking in from the tall windows in front. A
painting on the easel that is begs to be touched up, altered, changed
and changed again. My sewing table draped with cloth--shelves of
fabric along one wall. Bins and drawers and glass jars with bits of
ribbon and shelf upon shelf of scissors and thread and paint. Here is
the window I wish I wanted: the one I can see right now, reflecting
back at me a better version of myself. One who doesn't spend her time
avoiding herself. A reflection of a better woman--prettier, skinnier,
successful, and smart. I wish I wanted to be here and be better, but I
don't. I want the garden and the art. The space to make and make and
make and read and draw and laugh. I want parties and new friends and I
want to feel brave and get over feeling fat. I'm tired of feeling
myself hustle and hustle.

Pick Out 3 Things That Are Beautiful

1. The beautiful grace of the philodendron, sitting on the corner of the accounting desk in my stuffy little office; it's bright lime and apple green stripes.

2. The triset wedding photo that Retardo put together that I'm having printed right on my updated credit card so that I have a reminder that love and relationships are more important than things and stuff.

3. My work rocks. The pile of them placed by my fan, especially the hole-y one from the Columbia River Gorge and the smooth ones I inherited when I moved from small room to small room in this office.