Sometimes the breeze

from the north touches
the skin of your forearm
and suddenly thoughts are gone
and it is only this moment
smoothing your mind
like a gentle wave
stroking sand, repeating
now, now.

from my book, The Spaces Between

on being apart

silence draws me
like a silk cable
like a deep well
and as I flail and fall
I feel the gravity of my need

during weeks of activity
and engagement you’d think
I’d feel connected
with all these people
these important projects

but it’s in the quiet
of separation
that I surrender
sometimes, in bits,
into unity.

Beyond

the definite edges of maple
buds itching with sap
the clouds’ luminosity
out of nowhere they form
and race, dissolve
and grow again
soft-verged
what a day when
such as these
can form before our eyes
move with majesty
and boil into nothing

Every morning after I meditate, I write a poem. They are humble little containers like clay cereal bowls, but sometimes I like them enough to share. This came to me today.

Mixed Colors

The day is dreary, subdued, but yet there’s something in the soft wetness that brings out the soul-colors of the foliage. The kind you can’t get right from the tube, not vermillion, cadmium red, Hansa yellow, cerulean, but where you’d have to mix, some orange, some burnt umber for the branches, and a delicious 15 minutes with yellow ochre, alizarin, cadmium orange, raw sienna, burnt sienna, and a bit of hooker’s green—that combination might get one part of the maple out the window there, which holds the kind of muted yellow that looks drab this week, but for 11 months of the year would be seen as astounding, brilliant, off the charts.

How easily we drift into expecting the best and the worst. We expect the fall to look like an image we stored in the back of the memory files from a calendar, or one day last year we defined as perfect. Then anything different is just ordinary, not quite what we wanted.

A couple of weeks ago, the day was soft and rainy like this, the panorama of leaves ranging from deepest forest green to purest red and yellow. Driving my car to Pelham Auto to be fixed, along the roads plastered with brilliant maple leaves, I felt an awe of the season. The woman at the auto place had a different take. Dreary, she said, such rotten weather. Oh, it has its own beauty I said, but turned the conversation to things we had in common—grown children and the town we live in.

But back to mixing—that’s it. The subtlety of a day like today requires that kind of slow attention, nothing showy in it, nothing quick. The kind of attention that sits at the table with the paints at hand and mixes, considers, mixes again, tries a dab on the newspaper, shakes its head, adds a little ultramarine, then a modicum of ochre, and grunts with satisfaction.

gray

God’s idea
of a way to introduce
spring. Good joke, eh?
They hated the boring white of winter.
OK, I’ll give them gray and brown
heaps of spent scuffed snow,
drizzle emulsifying the air
then just these tiny droplets
on bare branches
to refract the world.

Holding the Space

Each day I hold this morning time for being and for creation. I’ve written a number of little poems, I’ve done some painting, I’ve taken a lot of walks. Today at this moment, I feel lost and lonely. I miss my friends who have left town.

I look out my big window and the maples are still, the leaves half-turned and looking motley. I feel like that—unfinished, half-turned, waiting for a season to change.

And in another breath, when I let go of the need to make this into something, it is just time, my time, and the space opens up between me and the maples. It is all good just the way it is. I guess it’s this re-finding that I need to practice.

Day 3 of Dedicated Time

Today I feel uninspired, slow. Why bother to take this time for creativity when I feel uncreative? Ah, that’s exactly where the practice comes in. Do it anyway. I journal. I do some routine keeping track of my writing. Then I hang out the wash. I ignore the phone, I stretch.

Suddenly I’m ready to start making monoprints with acrylic paint and saran wrap. Do I know how? No. I just just do it. No Picasso, no genius, but serious fun.

It seems to work: make the time and something will come.

Dedicated Time

It’s so easy to get called back into the habits of a lifetime and get busy with doing things. In the past few months Ive been feeling very busy inside, losing my sense of center and of peace.

For years I’ve been accustomed to doing the “important” things first, the things that affect other people. My own stuff comes last. I’m a morning person, and my habit has been to look at the to-do lists first thing. Oops! That leads off in ten thousand directions.

I decided to dedicate mornings to my own work. Today’s the first day. I didn’t look at the to-do list. I didn’t answer the phone. It is so exciting to ask myself what piece of creative work I want to do at this moment—will it be writing a poem, revising an old piece of work, or painting with acrylics (a new love)? I’ll let you know how it goes.

Busy Time and Dreamtime

It’s so tempting. When I was professional and overworked all those years, the little things did not get done: the corner-sweeping details of house and garden. Now with the luxury of time, I am enjoying getting around to some of these in an unhurried way.

But wait! It’s possible to get completely engaged with this taking-care-of-things. I find myself thinking that I could get everything truly in order, when that’s not really my nature or calling. It’s important not to get busy all over again. I need the dreamtime to watch dragonflies and herons at the beaver pond, write poetry, and follow impulse.

Technorati tags: retirement, nature, time, leisure, busy

Poems On Retirement

On Retirement—75 Poems, edited by Robin Chapman and Judith Strasser (University of Iowa Press) has just come out.

The collection embraces wonderful, thoughtful poems by people like Ted Kooser, Denise Levertov, Maxine Kumin, Ishmael Reed, Lucille Clifton, Grace Paley—and my "Walking Out"! They muse on changing roles we play, on open spaces of time, on continuing parenting and grandparenting, on our relationships to cities and countryside, on connection and disconnection from those we love.

“This collection is a magnificent entrée to a season of life when time is at once bountiful and limited, is taken and surrendered, has been invested and withdrawn. Some of these voices say that time is leaden and some say it flies, and all are resolute in facing the arc of life’s course.”—Dave Ekerdt, director, Gerontology Center, University of Kansas

The Third Half of the Show

The Car Talk guys coined that phrase, “third half of the show,” but as I took a walk today in the winter woods, ice crunching underfoot, I thought Yes, that’s what this time of life feels like. The first part of life, maybe up to age thirty, was growing up and getting educated. The second half was work and family. I’m not sure how it feels to other people, but when I hit 60, I felt a strong sense of coming to the downward arc of my life. It’s not downward in the sense of despair or depression, but it’s clearly moving towards an ending. I am conscious of mortality nearly every day, even though my health is excellent.

I’d never planned for the third half of the show. People tell me it’s time to do the things I’ve always wanted to do and they ask if I am traveling to colorful places. But really, the work of creative writing is an exotic land to me. I don’t so much yearn to see the Amazon as I wish to allow unformed and creative parts to emerge and do their dance.

It’s time to develop my spiritual life, which I see as connection within myself; connection to nature; a new, less goal-oriented way of being with other people; and attunement to the creative process. These inter-connected elements make up the core of my third half life.

Technorati tags: retirement, writing, creativity, leisure, spirit

Getting out of busyness, again

How did I do it when I was working 60-hour weeks and trying to have a life? Over the past six weeks I got very busy—well, “very” is relative, but I did help my son roof a cabin, set up a website for the Authentic Movement Community, have houseguests, submit a manuscript to my writing group, join a dance group of differently-abled people, and do some of my own writing. All good things.

Now I’m making the transition back to “my own time.” It’s hard to describe the difference. It’s not like I do nothing, but I have the sense of doing nothing. It’s not like I have endless time, but I attempt to treat it as endless. I stop the lists running in my head (I have one on the kitchen counter for the basics). I notice that voice that keeps asking “What next?” and “What should I be doing?” “Nothing,” I answer the voice.

“Shouldn’t you check email?” “It will wait.”

“Shouldn’t you do errands?” “They can keep.”

I spend time looking out the window at the branches waving in the wind. I suddenly have ideas for three poems—now those are worth the time! I take a walk. I make tea. I write this essay. Tomorrow is a busy day but I have three days in a row after that with no fixed points. What luxury!

Technorati tags: retirement, leisure, meditation

free fall

(a little meditation on retirement)

as if I deserved it
the whole forest turns
gold, light enters
on a daring slant
leaves flame in the swamp
the beaver dam barely
holds back tons
of shining water

time that was never
mine, is now

in July monotonous
ranks of worker
leaves made sticky
molecules
for mother tree

one October sunrise
the work of holding on
is complete
I hold my breath
to fly between
unclasping and the
anonymous pile below

This poem was published in Peregrine XXIV, 2006

The Gift of Time

An old pseudo-folk song said, “Nothing is what you could wish it to be.”

Oh life is a toil and love is a trouble,

beauty will vanish and riches will flee.

Pleasures they dwindle and prices they double

and nothing is what you could wish it to be.

It’s true but it’s not true, and how fortunate I am—no beauty was there to dwindle and I have enough money and I have time. Who knows how much time, but while it’s here it’s mine.

The Last Gift of Time, Carolyn Heilbrun titled her quirky book about the challenges and joys of being in her 60s. She had thought she would commit suicide rather than face that decade but instead she wrote a book about the changes. Then killed herself at 77, when she was still in good health. I was angry at her, knowing her only through her writing—the high-toned murder mysteries and the essays. Why destroy herself when she was well able to negotiate the city she loved and while she still had friends and the infinite horizon of writing to be done? In The Last Gift she wrote of her friendship with May Sarton who—as Heilbrun describes her—was in her old age still feeling angry and deprived because of the recognition she didn’t receive in academic and literary circles. Only millions of actual readers, not the establishment, loved Sarton. There’s definitely a lesson there in taking what you have and being grateful.

But while it’s here, time is mine, that was the thought. My time to pick the ugly larvae off the Asian lilies, to walk in the Quabbin Reservoir wildness, to talk to the cats, to write whatever I choose, to cultivate new friendships. To learn to live in what already is.

Art and Fear

Among my indulgences is a shelf full of books on writing and creativity. A friend loaned me a wonderful little book called Art and Fear—Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking, by David Bayles and Ted Orland.

One of the major themes running through the book is that artists (including writers) are people who continue. Many people who start creative activities get discouraged, feeling they won’t ever be great or famous, or whatever they think of as achievement. If you keep going, you might or might not do something great; if you quit, for sure you won’t.

Bayles and Orland tell the story of a pottery teacher who divided his students into two groups, one to be graded on the basis of quantity, the other on quality. Those graded on quantity would have all their pots weighed at the end of semester and the weight translated into a grade. Those who were working for quality only had to produce one perfect pot to get an A. At the end of the semester, most of the really good work was done by those who worked on quantity and had the chance to learn from their work.

As Art and Fear says, no one can tell you what it takes for you to keep going. It’s different for every person, though we can learn from one another about some general patterns. So good luck to you in your creative endeavors, and keep on working!

book, art, creativity, Writing and poetry

Now

You can stop waiting.
It has arrived. Whatever
you were waiting for—
the train on Track 5,
springtime,
the moment when
you can be yourself,
the answer to the question
What am I doing?
They all just landed
on your porch, wrapped
in brown paper
delivered with a thud
by the indifferent postman.
You can stop pacing,
you can stop asking
Where will I send this poem?
It’s time to stand at the end
of the walkway
scan the faces
choose your beloved
and hug. Say How are you?
How was the trip?
Are you hungry?
Can I carry your bags?
No more looking
at your watch
checking the schedule
wishing you had planned
a different reunion
with yourself.
Your life has arrived
at the station
now.

What is life about?

Retirement opens up this question all over again, just like adolescence in some ways. For thirty-plus years of college teaching I knew my purpose was to serve students and the institution and to grow in my technical area. Now I don’t want the growth to stop, but it’s in different directions.

Joseph Campbell said these years are about enjoyment of the world. William Bridges, in Transitions, said they are about sharing our wisdom.

But I am most drawn to Jung’s expansive view of development, which he saw as continuing for the whole of a lifetime. He called it individuation—the long, slow maturation of the soul, flowering in creativity and integration of all the parts of a human, including the light and the dark, childhood and archetypes.

I guess, after about a year of retirement, that I feel this segment of life is about all three for me: enjoyment, sharing wisdom, and further integration.

retirement, life, diary, Jung

Sunset on the Sea of Cortez, Baja

The joy of unstructured time

I haven’t blogged here for a while—in part because I’m taking my lack of responsibility seriously. I’ve been writing a lot (poetry and memoir), enjoying winter in New England. And I took a wonderful trip to Baja California with my friend Michelle, where we saw mother gray whales and calves and gorgeous scenery. In the evenings we told stories by candlelight.

Back here, I’ve settled into serious chunks of time that are all my own. It’s easy to let the days get clogged with little actions and appointments, but I’m happier when I sweep them clear and let myself drift from thing to thing. It will be interesting to see if my relationship to time shifts some more, but less than one year out from retirement, I’m zealously guarding my freedom.

The demons at the door

Lately, since I returned from a (really nice) trip to the Southwest, I have been feeling very busy inside. When I try to slow down, I hear a lot of voices inside telling me I should be “on top of things,” should be out saving the world, should be doing something, not slowing down.

Sometimes it’s hard to know when to turn around and confront the voices, and when to keep on moving in the direction of my dreams. This time, I need to face them.

My father was an old Marxist. His voice is with me now as I take time to sit and stare at the maple trees, watching their leaves whirl down to earth. He says that everyone should be politically active all the time, the more the better.

My mother was from a long line of busy, competent women. She was always thinking what to do next. In free time, she did craft projects like beading and embroidery. Sitting watching the trees would seem strange to her. Her voice tells me to look around the house for things that need doing, plan my finances, and keep busy.

It’s as if my personal demons are guarding the door through which I must pass (more than once) to get to my own world. The closer I get to being serious about creating a new more spiritual life, the louder they shout and scream.