Posted on July 9, 2004
There is a buzz of activity on our road today. Bob the Tree Man is at Clara’s, my next door neighbor, getting ready to cut down a large tree that fell from her neighbor’s lot on the other side onto a small grove of trees in Clara’s yard.
It’s a tough situation, since the fallen tree rests precariously on Clara’s trees. Underneath is not only the equipment that operates her sprinkler system, but also a large boat moored in the river that is the northern boundary for all our houses on Derfla Drive. Bob the Tree Man, his crew, and his chain saws are standing in the yard and assessing the situation.
Across the street another man is building a house, almost single-handed. He has been at it since late last fall, even working in solitude on Christmas Day. But this week helpers showed up to put on the aluminum siding. There’s a radio blaring, but that’s okay because he and I like the same music.
On the other side of our house, that neighbor has built a huge bonfire. He does this occasionally, although it isn’t the season for burning leaves. I’m not quite sure what he burns, but since he is eighty-five years old, I usually keep an eye out when I start hearing the familiar crackling. I don’t want him to go inside and leave the fire unattended. I am his insurance policy.
Another neighbor across the street is babysitting his two young children. The wife is at work and the usual babysitter is on vacation, so Robert has been pulling a wagon up and down the road for the past half hour.
The river itself provides additional activity. Motor boats and jet skis travel up and down, one looking for secret spots where the fish are biting and the other looking to make as much noise and scare the aforementioned fish, although not intentionally. It’s just that jet skis are made to go fast and jump waves, while fishing boats are made to troll slowly and create as little disturbance as possible. On this river, fishers and jet-skiers don’t like each other very much. I side with the fishers.
See more 10 Minutes in category Flora/Fauna, Small Town Life
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Posted on July 8, 2004
Carl Sandburg once wrote a poem about the power of grass to erase bitter memories of war and death. It isn’t explicit in the poem, but the scene is a cemetery where crosses grow. Newly dug graves with shiny markers remind the visitor of the horrors that occurred either on the very land or nearby. Over time, grass softens the scene with its verdant blanket. Told from the point of view of the grass, the eleven lines of poetry speak volumes. “I am the grass, let me work,” ends Sandburg’s poem.
This morning, I sat musing over coffee in bed while looking out my bedroom window. Because of frequent summer rains, our own lawn is green and full. There is no cemetery in view, but I wondered about the nature of grass as I sipped from my cup.
What if I cut a one inch square of lawn and counted the number of blades it contained? Then if I multiplied that number by the number of square inches in the one acre that our house rests on, I would discover the approximate number of blades of grass in our lawn. I believe it would be an amazing figure.
Cemeteries are much larger than one acre, so if I continued the mathematical progression and multiplied the number of blades in a single acre by the size of the cemeteries at Austerlitz or Waterloo, or of Gettysburg or Verdun, I might get a real sense of what Sandburg meant.
Even without doing this, I know the staying power of grass cannot be denied. If you want to read Sandburg’s poem for yourself, the quickest way is to go to http://www.bartleby.com/134/91.html. Tell Carl I sent you.
See more 10 Minutes in category Flora/Fauna, Things to Ponder
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Posted on July 7, 2004
I never understood the concept of writer’s block, although I’ve read that it can be very debilitating. I suppose frustration and fretting become steady companions if your next novel is due at the publisher’s or your next play is already optioned by some producer and you are unable to complete the assignment.
My dictionary says writer’s block is usually a temporary condition that prevents the writer from doing his or her work. But what does that mean? Has the writer run out of ideas? Or inspiration? Is it a lack of interest in a previously interesting project? Boredom? Ennui?
I cannot imagine having difficulty putting the words down. Even if they are not memorable, they are always there. Ideas come to me all the time, to the point where I keep a list of things I plan to write about. To prove the point, my file cabinets are filled with manuscripts in various stages of development, and my computer houses an equal amount of material.
Perhaps you might say my condition is the opposite of writer’s block. I call it writer’s deluge.
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Posted on July 4, 2004
Today is Independence Day in a presidential year, and I have a modest suggestion for celebrating it.With coast-to-coast parades and picnics, there are many opportunities for politicians to promote, promise, and preach.
But what I’ve noticed most about recent political campaigns is the tendency for one candidate to use his or her air time and print space to criticize the opposing candidate, in ways both subtle and sledgehammer-like. I believe this all started when those two giants, Pepsi and Coke, began one upping each other with commercials that used the other’s name.
But politics is a far cry from cola companies, and I suggest that major candidates refrain from throwing carbonated rhetoric at us. Instead they could tell us what they stand for. Think of it as the difference between a cheap, fizzy, fake-sugar soda and a really thirst-quenching drink. And even though many Americans are on no-carb or low fat or artifical sweetener diets, I don’t believe this should extend to the political fare being offered this year.
If you think this is a good idea, pass it on. Write your newspapers, email your congressperson, challenge the trend toward negative campaigning if you go to local rallies. As for me, I plan to do likewise, but as a protective measure I’ll also spend the rest of the summer with my fingers in my ears.
Posted on July 3, 2004
While we were in Alaska’s Denali National Park, we attended a presentation about the brave (crazy) mountaineers whose passion was to scale the summit of Mount McKinley, the tallest mountain in North America.
The presenter — I’ll call him Mr. New Zealand after his country of origin — talked of the outer and inner gear one needed to climb such a mountain. Since he had not only stood on the top of McKinley but also on the top of Everest, the tallest mountain in the world, he spoke from firsthand experience.
While clothing has certainly changed since the first men reached McKinley’s summit almost one hundred years ago, the basics still include various types of shoes for various snow conditions, food, tents, ropes, and books to pass the time when the mountain forces climbers to hunker down and wait out a terrible blowing storm.Pared to the essentials, this list is similar to what one needs to survive at sea level.
Mr. New Zealand passed samples of these items among the audience members. Then he talked about the inner gear a mountain climber needs: desire, training, commitment, determination, and patience.I was struck by the notion that the required inner gear for climbing a world class mountain is the same as is required to write a world class book.
The New York Times Best Seller List is my Mt. McKinley.
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Posted on June 15, 2004
I leave for Alaska, the last American frontier, early in the morning. Most likely I will not be writing the next two weeks, since where we are going is rather primitive by computer standards. Rather I will be basking in nature’s beauty and serenity, only to return home filled with words and wit and wonderment. I look forward to it all.
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Posted on June 14, 2004
Some of the photos from my birthday bash are arriving via email. One friend, in particular, took 65 pictures of the event; which is probably more photos than I’ve personally taken in a lifetime. Nevertheless, the photos are a wonderful record of a wonderful day.
One thing I am struck with, however, is how much I’ve aged over the years. I would never have classified myself as a great beauty, but the past 20 years or so have certainly solidified my membership in the unremarkable category.
My hair is dull, my chin sags, my shape is amorphous. Yet, from the inside looking out I feel as if I were just turning 30 instead of twice that. I feel cute, clever, casual; not flabby, fat, or frumpy.
I plan to continue thinking of myself as the former instead of the latter. At the same time, reality forces me to realize that when I walk down a street, I am almost invisible because my physical attributes are those of an older woman instead of a young chick.
What is really sobering is that, instead of relying on looks (if I ever did), I need to rely on more substantive things. Like being kind, being loyal, being funny, being there for family and friends alike. It’s a sobering thought. At the same time, it’s liberating, because I can be what I really am instead of some plastic personification.
There is a poem entitled “When I am an old woman, I shall wear purple.” It describes the eccentricities of the author, noting that now she can do whatever she wishes. I understand this fully, and I plan to do the same.
With or without physical beauty, I am what I am.
See more 10 Minutes in category Me/Family, Things to Ponder
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Posted on June 13, 2004
Earl and I leave for Alaska in less than 72 hours. We’ve both said many times how it will be the trip of a lifetime, how we separately and together have talked about going to the last American frontier for years. However, as the time draws near, I realize neither of us has a clue as to what awaits us there.
We’ve heard of the vast beauty, the untouched wilderness, the wildlife, and the hearty men and women. We’ve seen other travellers’ photos and listened to their memories. And we’ve checked the weather in Fairbanks every day this past week to bring the proper clothing along.
But have we really studied Alaska? Did we check out books from the library? No. We do have one book and one giant map that are making the trip with us, but as the time for departure draws near I get the feeling we are in for a real surprise instead of some fairy tale vacation finally come true.
Most of our more exotic travels have been in the opposite direction of Alaska: Costa Rica, various islands in the Caribbean, Jamaica, etc. We travel to get away when winter comes to St. Joseph. We leave in January when the days are short and the nights are long. But when we arrive in Alaska the days will be long and nighttime as we know it will not exist. Sleeping patterns might need to change. But we haven’t checked into this, so we really don’t know. It also feels strange that we’re taking our turtlenecks and sweatpants with us, instead of leaving them in the car at the airport for our return.
None of these things is particularly significant, but I am aware of them and of the impact they imply. Yes, this is an exciting vacation . . . and we haven’t even left home yet.
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Posted on June 12, 2004
Direct mail catalogs are the rabbits of the advertising world. It only takes one, two at most, showing up in your mailbox before they begin to proliferate exponentially. They are also as difficult to get rid of as the real thing, and I am constantly looking for ways to reduce both animals from my home.
It’s not that I have anything against catalogue rabbits or the furry kind. I’ve even read Peter Cottontail and The Velveteen Rabbit more than once. But too much of a good thing is too much.
My poor mailperson could probably sue me for back injury by the time the December holiday season passes. By then he or she — I’m not sure which — must have delivered (I use this in the “assisting at birth” sense?) on average a dozen catalogs a day since before Thanksgiving.
As for the real cottontails, they have become an annoyance for eating my roses and my coleus. I’m all for sharing what I have, but I want my flowers to be respected as things of beauty and not as a power lunch.
There is a sticky substance you can spray on flowers which the rabbits dislke, and it works quite well. Perhaps someone will eventually invent such a substance to spray on mailbox interiors to keep unwanted catalogs away. But until then, the balance of nature is regularly under siege.
See more 10 Minutes in category Annoyances, Flora/Fauna
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Posted on June 11, 2004
Hey, Natalie Goldberg, you are responsible for this blog; you and your book, Writing Down the Bones, which I read years ago. I’m still trying to practice your directive to sit somewhere and write without editing for ten minutes a day. Write as if you really had something to say and had to commit it to paper before any more time passed. Write as if commas and misspellings and pronouns didn’t matter.
Your original advice was to take pen to paper for that special ten minutes, and I did that for a couple years, filling more than one of those blank books that are popular. I wrote and wrote. It wasn’t about journaling as much as it was about sweeping the cobwebs from one’s creative core, so some selections went this way while others went that. Public issues, private thoughts, fiction, reality are all grist for the creativity mill.
Perhaps you think writing ten minutes a day on a computer is cheating. I know, I know. You can delete, copy and paste, and do all sorts of things more quickly, thus sabotaging the real purpose of the exercise. But I want to tell you that I’m being true to your advice.
I write without mulling over each word, examining each sentence, or considering the value of any given paragraph. I decide on my subject, set my timer, and let my fingers goes.
When the typewriter was invented, perhaps there were writers who thought creating an essay or a book on this new contraption wasn’t writing. And perhaps there are purists who feel that way about working on a computer. But, Natalie, we have to change with the times if we want to keep up. So I’m practicing my ten minutes online.
Maybe one of these essays will catch your eye and you’ll know I’m still true to what you taught me.
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