Time of Transition

The first interview goes well. We meet for two hours in LM’s studio, sharing an orange essence dark chocolate bar and taking turns talking into the tape recorder. Her work and life are so personal, it behooves me to exclude any details about it here. Suffice it to say that her project is profound and worth writing about. In fact, she deserves truckloads of recognition for this particular series and if this 3,000 words does anything for her, I hope it is just that. The editor has informed me that the Spring issue will be distributed by mail in March, and make it’s debut at the SGC conference in March, shared with all participants, curators, and presenters.

And this is how time moves forward. I’ve officially exited from vacationland and am gearing up for the writing and the residency again. Today I made lists of things to do for the first time in two weeks – a sure sign of entering a high-productivity mode. So what will the New Year bring? What resolutions are calling attention to themselves? I’ll have to ponder this tomorrow.

I know the blogs have lacked narrative flow lately. Living at my parents’ house for the holidays and not having a tight schedule (no work) lends itself to a loose lifestyle. It’s good for me to kick back like that every once in a while, but it’s not where I do my most creative work. I’m eager to get back into it and this work with LM is just the kick I needed.

For now, one day at a time. Today: one interview down, cleaned half of my house to shut it down for the winter, added two more pages tomy website, helped my parents move more boxes and unpack into the new house, and studied the history of etching. Tomorrow: meditate on resolutions, conduct the second interview and type the transcripts, start painting the inside of the neighbor’s house, clean the other half of my house to shut it down for the winter, take the night off and have a blast!

Quick Progress

Things move quickly. I’ve studied LM’s printmaking work for two days, reviewed her artist’s rant, and looked up the techniques in Judy Martin’s Encyclopedia of Printmaking. Today, coincidentally, she receives an email from the editor of THE publication for printmaking in the U.S. Apparently, she and LM met at a conference and forged a true connection, whereupon the editor was moved to offer a her feature space in the publication. The time has arrived and it happens to coincide with the week I’m conducing interviews with LM.

I email the editor. They need a 3,000 word interview by early January. I leave on the 5th for residency. Can I pull it off? Yes, yes, and YES. I meet with LM this afternoon. We begin preliminaries but it is all easy and flowing because LM and I trust each other and have a true heart connection from our time together in Women’s Singing Night. I borrow books on the history of etching and Rembrandt from her vast library. Then we go out in the field beyond her studio that faces the Black Mountains. We stand together and meditate for an hour by candlelight as the sun sets, then close with three ritual songs. Next, we share dinner at her cabin with she and her husband. We recap the plan for tomorrow and say goodnight. “Thank you for walking this path with me,” she says into my ear as we embrace.

Tomorrow, I’ll begin the first interview, then come home and type the transcripts. The next two interviews will probably happen early next week and then I’ll have one to two days to produce the interview in edited and intentional form for the publication. I send the editor an email outlining some of my purposes as a writer, including a link to my website (up and running just in time!) where she can read samples of my work.

Hard work pays off. So does receptivity. What a fine way to move into the New Year!

Blast from the Past

Before tonight’s post, two important details to attend to:
1. The guitar-kitten (aka Dad’s Christmas present): While Dad never believed we had a kitten hiding in the back room for him, by Christmas day he had completely confused himself and forgotten all notions of getting the guitar back as a gift. He was surprised, slightly, but mostly he was very grateful and moved. A good thing all around, without a doubt.
2. The website, which is now live, that has been sucking parts of my brain into cyberspace for two days. It’s my first attempt, and many thanks to Britt for help with the main graphics. Feedback welcome and appreciated - I’m trying to hold a presence on the web for editors, etc. so while the site is up, it is being worked on daily and not all pages are finished. Check it out at: http://katey.schultz.googlepages.com or click here for a direct link.

My family and I spent the day moving boxes from our Oregon life out of the storage unit in SmallTown, NC and into the new house up Shuford Creek. The mission was simple: downsize. The task, however, was grand. I worked in the side room and sorted things into five piles: throw away (homework from high school classes, rugby plays sketched out on graph paper from college, dried rose from someone’s wedding whom I can’t remember), donate (stuffed animals, odd porcelain keepsakes that don’t matter any more), use now (Tupperware's, nut cracker, miso soup chinaware from Japan), store for use someday when I own my own home (gold painted chinaware from Japan, large framed artwork), and “too sentimental to sort quickly.” The latter category being, of course, the most interesting.

Too sentimental to sort quickly: notes from middle school, yearbooks, photos galore, eleven years of soccer trophies, etc. I will quote a key example to demonstrate my point and the usefulness of this fifth pile of sorted items (given the fact that I am a nonfiction/memoir writer). Here it is, no shame, verbatim as scrawled in my loopy seventh grade cursive on a love note to my boyfriend at the time Tony. He played clarinet. I play Baritone. We liked each other’s smiles and were both shy. Yet somehow it began. After Tony, I wouldn’t have another boyfriend until freshman year of college. Good thing I didn’t know that then.

5/11/92
Dear Tony,
I know you must be embarrassed about how I walk and that I’m overweight. Starting tomorrow I’m going to change my eating habits and try to get more exercise. About my walking, I don’t even know why I walk that way but it’s something I can’t change. [I was severely pigeon-toed] I know what it’s like to be embarrassed, people call me “wobbler” and “Darkwing Duck” and all these names and I just try to ignore them. But after a while I just get tired of it. Then I start wondering if anything I do is right, if i deserve the wonderful friends I have. And i just feel really bad. I guess that’s what I’m feeling like now.
I love you a lot and I don’t want to lose you because I’m going through a hard time. That is why I was wondering if you still liked me, I don’t know why I asked you that on the phone but I guess I shouldn’t have.
At some points in my life I just feel really pressured and uncomfortable with my life. I’m just so worried that I’m going to lose you and that will be the end of it. I don’t know why I think that because I know it’s not true. I guess what I just wanted to say is I’ve been kind of weird lately and it’s because of the way I’ve been feeling. I don’t want you to think I’m mad at you.
I hope you understand and accept my apology for being weird and embarrassing you.
Love,
Katey
P.S. Please write soon.

[Note that the letter was never delivered, seeing as how I’ve found it 14 years later, 3,000 miles across the country, in my own hands.]

R&R

Rest and relaxation means, in my world, finally losing track of time, calling friends just to see if they want to waste time together, going the extra mile for others without even knowing it's the extra mile, sleeping in and staying up late, wearing pajamas all day, drinking coffee at 5pm anyway, and wasting time doing searches online because you finally figured out how to make your dad's computer connect to the wi-fi network down at the community center.

Check, check, check and double check. All R&R tasks completed and indluged in.

Tomorrow, reality check:
Learn how to shut off the water and drain the pipes for my house and for the neighbors (in preparation for all of us being gone in January). Finish raking (one hour, approximately, to go). Do a family work project for the new house all afternoon long. Install the new Operating System on my external harddrive and get updates to prepare my computer for the hi-fi-wi-fi-hi-tech world I'll encounter "out there" when I begin the residency and travel to Colorado.

The remainder of the week:
Interview LM for a future article on printmaking. Research printmaking and printmakers throughout history (where to begin?!). Critique 100 more pages of in-progress manuscripts from my nonfiction peers in preparation for the residency. Finish webpage and send announcements. Print business cards. Plan nuances of trip (Rental car? Rides to the residency? Paying my bills while on the road?)

To feed the artist's child in me, as Redboots would say:
Keep reading poetry. Millar, Levertox, Laux, Defrees, Bell, Stafford, Hopkins, Wilde, Sears, and Bridges down. Kunitz, Lee, and yeats to go. Write poems. Read Cam's essay. Play and sing music with friends. Go on a long walk in the forest. Stop eating more food when I'm not hungry.

And why all this?
Gearing up for the New Year, the next semester, the next leap of faith in the writing life. Clearing the plate to lay another foundation. Onward.

Musical Flakes

Snow and snow and snow and snow. It’s snows all day, high up here along Shuford Creek. And still, by midnight, the roads are barely kissed with white. The flakes are small and featherweight, floating in a pitter-patter orchestra of distant sound. The grass and gravel can hold the snow. Car windshields. Dips in the hillsides.

I cannot help but turn my gaze westward, up, up, up the slopes of the Blacks to the place in the sky where I guess, through the darkness, the summit of Gibbs Mountain is. Along the ridgeline, in the deepest gullies, down the drainages, up there - the snow will stick.

Wind whistles down such drainages, treetop melodies sent from the peaks to accompany the snow orchestra below. Each flake like a musical note turned loose from the page, free from bars and scores, from scales and triplets, rippling through the air at breakneck speed. No wonder the flakes don’t seem to land. I don’t think I would either.

And yet - there is a tinking sound, like champagne glasses from across the room or Cinderella's glass slippers crossing ballroom dance floors from fairy tale land. The snow seems to collide midair, then sometimes land with a tink, before skidding across pavement and rockslick and rhodi leaves. Never stopping. Ever-frozen. Like the memory of one night in all of time.

Happy Holidays!

My parents are moving into their new house up Shuford Creek.

We finally found the Christmas tree stand in the boxes we were unpacking, so today the tree was moved from the gravel driveway into the living room.

We can't find the stockings, so pillow cases it will be.

But the point is - they're happy, and we have a home of our own for the holidays - and the guitar/kitten is still hiding safely and secretly in the closet.

No blog posts until 12/26.

Enjoy the holidays everyone!

Christmas Surprise

My check from Our State came yesterday. The check for the biography work came today. Noelle and I drive to BigCity, NC and head straight for the bank.

“I’d like to cash both of these and withdraw $459.96 from my savings account please,” I say to the teller.

“Do you want it in small or large bills?” she asks politely. I always wonder how bank tellers can be so even-faced handling such private pieces of information about people all day long.

“Anything’s fine. If you could please count it out and put it all in one envelope that would be great.” I feel like I should be nervous but I am not. This is just what I need to be doing.

“That’s 10, 11, and 12. Then fifty nine, and ninety-six.” She counts it all twice for me to see, then tucks the $1,259.96 into an envelope and seals it with a smile.

“Thank you.”

I’ve never done anything like this before, but I’ve also never bought something so expensive that felt so right. It’s Christmas and Dad doesn’t know it, but I’ve had his vintage Martin guitar in the hands of the certified Martin repairman for the Southeastern United States. Randy’s had the Martin for six months, working slowly at it, studying the chemistry of the wood, using steam to remove the neck, hand filing the bone, re-fretting it and buffing the entire body. It’s the facelift of a lifetime in guitar terms, and it will add to the value of the guitar, ease my worried mind, and make the best gift of all time for Dad. So what if I’ve dropped my savings account on a gift? It’s the thought that counts, and the thought behind this has been growing into its own story for quite some time now.

Fifteen minutes out of BigCity, NC, up a steep gravel drive, is Randy’s shop. I open the door and am greeted by a computerized voice: “Door is open. Door is open.” Then Randy peers from behind his workbench and greets me with a smile. The machine that is talking is part of a $5,000 humidity and air temperature control system he has in the shop that allows him to manipulate the wood in stable conditions. I close the door and a humidifier across the room sprays a fine mist into the air. A screen on the opposite wall indicates that the humidity is too low. The sprayer shuts off, and the numbers on the screen stop blinking – everything is equalized again.

I hand him the envelope and he hands me a specially typed note to my father that includes details of all the work he did on the Martin. There’s no way I could explain it all to Dad in technical terms, and Randy’s letter serves as a seal of approval. This is it. This is the kind of thing Dad never would have done for his own guitar because of the money and I’ve been able to save enough and do it for him. And when Randy pulls the guitar out of the case, it all comes together. The action is meticulously fine. The neck is perfectly aligned with the body from end to end – not an easy thing to accomplish. The body is polished and no marks remain from the tragic party incident. The bone is fresh and filed to a tee and the fret bars have all been replaced. It plays like magic, the sound reverberating inside the body of the Martin for swollen, melodic seconds.

But when I make it out of the city, back into the valley, and finally to my parent’s new house, Mom says she has to talk to me. I’ve managed to sneak the guitar into the house and Dad knows there’s something in the back room, which is off limits from now until Christmas, but he doesn’t know what it is. Or so I thought – that’s when mom says: “Dad said to me today, ‘I bet Katey’s going to BigCity, NC for the guitar. This has something to do with music.’”

“Well, crap! What’d you say mom?”

“I told him I didn’t know why you were going.”

But this makes me too nervous. I’ve worked too hard and too long to have this surprise blown. Mom and I devise a plan. We agree to pretend that there is a kitten hiding in this room as Dad’s Christmas present. For the remainder of the evening, she and I take turns going in the room that is off limits to Dad to “check on things.” This drives him crazy in a fun sort of way and by the end of the night, he is guessing left and right about what the gift could be. He strikes out every time.

And when it is time for me to go, I go in the back room and walk out with a fleece blanket in my arms, puffed up in the middle, and carry something secretly – though right in front of him – out the door. The Martin still sits in the back room, but we’ve hidden it.

This plan’s got to hold for three more days, then it’s Martin time!

Thank Those Foggy Stars

I drive up out of the valley through the syrupy fog to the top of Seven Mile Ridge. This is the back way to GP’s new rental and I owe him a visit. The ridge tops out at around 4,000 feet, then it’s a right turn to cut down the backside of Chestnut Mountain. From there, I take another right onto Crabtree Falls and follow the black, snaking road across the county line, through townships and fire districts, past the Blue Ridge Parkway, and finally to 226A and the small, hilltop town we’ll call Little Sweden.

On a clear night, it’s worth seeking the few turnouts on this route to park the car and take in the view. From the ridgeline it’s possible to see all the way to Charlotte – two and a half hours away by car. But more than likely, the view is glazed with fog that sugarcoats the mountain view and makes the cabins that dot the cliff sides feel placeless.

Tonight is such a night and so it is that I find myself swimming in the mountains, floating above the pavement, buried in a lightness, and all other forms of sensorial paradoxes that the imagination could dream up. It’s a 14 mile drive from my place to GP’s and tonight it takes thirty minutes. Still fairly good by mountain fog standards and I only had one scare when a snow-white dog the size of a baby polar bear bounded down the slopes of his territory, hurling his body at what seemed like certain velocity in the direction of my two ton vehicle. Of course, the bear-dog knew better and was only doing his part. He stopped just short of the fog line on the road, his flesh still leaping forward and bunching up around his shoulders and collar as his four paws stood firmly on the ground.

Bark. Bark.

I debate about the proper response. A honk from one beastly body to another? Roll down my window and arf-arf back at him? But before I can decide, time moves faster than the car and the car moves faster than my brain and then the dog is gone, fading into a foggy circle of light reflected in my side view mirror.

I thank the stars I cannot see but are surely somewhere overhead. Thank them for bear-dogs and holidays and mountain passes and even for the fog. Thank them for fog lines and loving parents and Chinese medicine and sensitive ex-lovers. Thank them for poetry and particularly, Bob Dylan, Stanely Kunitz, Walt Whitman, and these days, Joseph Millar and Oscar Wilde.

Close Call

“That’ll be $160 even for the ball joint part, labor, and oil change.” Ronnie is kind when he hands me the bill. “Just sign here Ms. Schultz.” He points to the dotted line.

I sign without a flinch - $160 is chump change compared to what I thought I was up against, what with visions of my guitar having mechanical diarrhea, falling apart from the inside out. “I can’t thank you enough, really. You guys do fine work here. This is a real deal.”

We shake hands, my firm grip cupped by his stronger, well-oiled bear paw.

“If you have a minute I’d like to show you the part though,” Ronnie says, nodding in the direction of the garage. I follow him around the counter, through a narrow doorway, down a low step, and into the heated garage. There are two car lifts and one other mechanic, his presence made known only by the two legs protruding from underneath a Chevy.

“This here is your ball joint,” Ronnie says, placing his hands on the worn part. He wobbles the mechanism side to side, then pulls it up and down. “And see that?” He jostles the part some more and it rattles at his touch. “That’s supposed to be a smooth connection. Nothing loose or moving up and down like this. The whole thing was just fixin’ to go and when it finally did, that’s what you heard. It locked up the wheels which is why you felt so much resistance trying to steer it onto the wrecker afterwards.”

“Wow,” I say, still a little unsure how all the parts fit together. Still, there’s no denying the broken part in his hands - the fissure and broken seal are plain to see.

“Thing is, you’re lucky that didn’t happen when you were going sixty,” Ronnie says in a serious tone.

“Well, we justed pulled off of I-26 where we were doing sixty,” I say, “then we parked. When I got back in the car later to leave, we didn’t get more than three feet before it gave out.”

“Like I said, if it’d gone out on you at sixty, probably woulda wrecked you. Your wheels would have locked up at full speed, no telling what after that.”

“Oh God,” I say, shaking my head.

“The Lord was looking out for you, that’s for sure.” Ronnie looks at me, then opens the door as I walk back past the service counter to pick up the keys.

On the way home I try to shake off his words but the fact is, he’s right: for whatever reason, my friends and I lucked out - to say the least. Thanks Goodness.

Owning it All

I own it all.

I own the inflation of stories and lust. I own the desire. I own being in love with love. I own the smoke-curl of want that seeps from my pores, the deep seas of longing in my eyes, and the fearlessness it takes to swing my heart-gate wide every step of the way.

And now I walk away from it all.

I see it and don’t need it. I can feel it and understand its salinity, its toxins, its heat. I’ve swallowed the bait and have a good memory. Fool’s paradise? That’s where they find fool’s gold, which is what I’ve been handling all along.

Fool’s gold because when I’m with a man and have an agenda, I’m not really with him at all. I’m engaged with some false temporality, some code behavior, something so potent only in falseness.

This is a far cry from self-deception or intentional deception. This is, instead, about as real as it can get. To hold it all the patterns outside of myself and gaze at them as if they’re wrapped around marble in the palm of my hands. So this story goes here, and connects to that story, and this other story hangs over all these side stories, and then here, underneath it all, buried beneath the slime and muck of it, is the real story. The lack of story. The tiny spot on the colored marble where no pattern exists. I’ll take that speck, place it back inside, act from this place, learning from the past and wedded only to the present.

Fire at the Littleville Grill

I’m driving down highway 80 heading out of the South Toe River valley when I see two firemen in the middle of the road – without a fire truck.

“You headed Littleville way?” the first asks. He is about my height and has a just-outta-bed pinkness to his face. It is, after all, only a little after 8am on a Sunday morning.

“Yessir,” I say. “Where’s the fire?”

“Down there in Littleville, you know. If you don’t mind, you might go by way of Blue Rock instead.” He points to a side road and nods his chin. I know the way, though it takes me a few miles the wrong direction. It’s essentially the only other way to go out of the valley to end up at least somewhere near where Littleville.

“Littleville? Is it the Littleville Grill?” I ask, thinking of the icon of Littleville just eight miles down the highway from my house.

“Yeah, that’s it. It’s about gone now, burnin’ down to the ground.” He says this with a slight smile on his face, which at first confuses me and then I realize: He is the scout and this is the news. He’s the first the share the news, an act that has a sense of pride and duty to it. That’s where the slight smile comes from. But it’s that same news that causes him to lower his chin when he finishes speaking, a gesture also reflecting this pride and duty of his service.

“Thank you sir.” I wave goodbye and turn east onto Blue Rock Road, which dips down to the riverbank and cuts back south for a few miles before climbing again out of the valley.

I can see and smell the smoke about a mile before I get to Littleville via the detour. I’m in dad’s truck today and higher off the ground than usually. Pressing through the dense smoke, it feels as though I am floating through the sad cremation of someone’s dream. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. A distinctly plastic and fried smell fills the air, hardly mistakable for a woodstove fire. Nearing Littleville on highway 19 I can see clearly through the wintered trees onto the roof of the Littleville Grill. A box of deep smoke rises in a fast moving tunnel above the ground where the Grill used to stand. Not an inch of building is visible in the smoke and I can count at least five fire trucks from my view on the neighboring highway.

The fire trucks are positioned strategically cornering off the hazard and protecting the other buildings of Littleville: our post office, the barber shop (closed in winter), the antique shop (where sometimes you can buy baby chics), and the make-shift lumber yard which stores at least 12 cord of wood (for sale, $3 per bundle). Houses dot the hillsides and families stand in their nightwear, covering their mouths and noses, watching from porches and roadsides as the icon disintegrates. The cremation of someone’s dream.

W is for Wayne

[Beginning attempt to describe last night…]

“Katey,” Wesley says, turning to look at my from the passenger seat of the car. “You have to get a cell phone.”

We are in the middle of Rankin Avenue in BigCity, NC and the axle or steering mechanism or transmission on my car is dangling like a loose tooth from the innards of the vehicle.

“But--” I say, wanting to remind her that they don't even work where I live.

“You don’t have to tell anyone you have one. You just really should get one, you know? What if you were alone?”

She is right…maybe. But now’s not the time for debate and we are on her cell phone with AAA who wants $3 per mile and a ninety minute wait. We try Geico who connects us with Wayne at BigCity Recking and he shouts into the phone as if he is a bird of prey at the top of a tree, hollering down to us rodents blocking Rankin Avenue.

“I’LL BE THERE IN 30 MINUTES. IT’S $2.50 PER MILE, Y’UNS JUST SIT TIGHT!”

We sit tight.

The pressure in my throat grows and starts to make my head throb and I am thinking about FamousAuthor’s uninspiring peace poem at the reading we just attended, and how his poem sounded like a children’s book (and then cursing my self for being so critical and why did I think I was well enough to go out tonight and, and, and…) when Wayne from BigCity Recking pulls up. In my half-sleep half-sick state of mind I am overly agitated by the lack of a W in the company name. I consider that Wayne has a W in it and wouldn’t Wayne like W’s and want another W in, say, the company name? As in BigCity, Wrecking? “Where is the W, Wayne, where is the W?” I want to shout but I don’t because it would only be an awkward manifestation of my hallucinations and besides, Wayne with a W is here to save the day (or night, rather).

Ummm...How do I even begin?

New Rule:
[To be applied to last night, and hopefully never again]
No blogging when your throat is so swollen it feels like you're sucking on a hard boiled egg and just when you finally get in the car to go home, turning the keys, shifting into gear and pulling out into the middle of the street, something the size of Haley's Comet falls from the bottom of your car with an undeniably decisive thud.
No blogging when you realize that contained within that undeniably decisive thud are all the thoughts and worry and financial straing you might feel given that you're 55 miles from home at midnight, sucking on a hard boiled egg, without a cell phone, and ten dollars in your checking account.
No blogging when you're picked up by Wayne, from BigCity Recking Company, who is kind and sweet and tells you stories all the way home and doesn't charge you for the extra miles between the mechanic's shop and the Silver Bullet, where you friend has parked her car and will safely drive you home.

Sick Day

Sang at the Montessori school solstice with all the happy children.

Went to the craft school staff party.

Went to the craft school staff after party.

Sick, sick, sick.

New rules say no blogging on sick days.

I'll be back tomorrow, for sure!

MGL calls and there is peace. It comes easily. Our last words to each other: "Be well."

I get home at 11pm from women's singing night and Parker is in my bed, wearing my ear-flapped hat and curled on one side of the bed.

I hop in.

Labor of Love, Labor of Life

[Dear NC Readers: Check out my article in the esteemed Our State Magazine this month! It's a big break for me and the article covers a noteworthy topic for the state and particularly the mountain counties. The magazine is available everywhere and also in SC near the border. Yay NC! Yay editors that gave me a chance!]

I am in my eighteenth hour of raking when I hear my name over the rustle and toss of dry oak leaves.

“Katey! Katey it’s me. I’m over here!”

I peak through the trees, down the path, and see sweet Janey – a neighbor and friend in the valley. She lives just up the road from the house my family is building, right across from Joe’s farm.

“Hi there!” I wave the rake, holding it high in the air like a champ. When I walk down the path to greet her, the closer I get the more her face comes into focus. She offers a raspberry face full of smiles, her natural pinkness always affording a warm welcome. The way she stands in the light, her shiny white hair is backlit by the afternoon sun and a halo of flyaways from her loosely tied bun adds to the glow.

“I’ve been watching you rake. You’re hard at work!” She takes my hands into hers and kisses me softly on the cheek, her wet lips and gentle surprise. One thing I adore about this valley and its people is how we hug and kiss, greeting each other with easy love and genuine affection. I give her a bear hug in return and pat her shoulders firmly. She is a strong woman – on her feet and in her heart – and someone whom I’m eager to get to know better.

“Look, I’ve been studying,” she says, and as her smile widens the raspberry-pink of her complexion comes into bloom, a hidden treasure of winter. She holds up a stack of Spanish textbooks, a workbook, and a CD-ROM. “It’s easier than I thought!” She is here to have a Spanish lesson with the neighbors for whom I am raking.

We talk and make plans for late December, when my family and I will be up at the house and just across the road from her. “I’ll have you over for a breakfast,” she says, clutching my arm. “Or maybe we could all have dinner together! I’m so happy to know I’m going to have Schultz’s as my neighbors.”

My God, what a blessing, her sweet smile, her heart-full enthusiasm, her uncoiling affection. My parents left so much behind to come to this state, this valley, the school they teach at with the boarding students. My mom left her teaching career in Montessori. My father closed his private practice. The sold the house, the cars, the dogs passed on as if timed to bitter perfection, and before I knew it 25 years of our Portland lives sat in boxes on the west end of SmallTown, NC in a storage unit. But most of all, my parents left their lifelong friends, a city they knew and loved, and a way of life that caused hardly an ounce of strain.

They left though, because they were determined to live a simpler life, determined to get to the mountains, and determined to love the school and community they teach in with all the heart they have. That community welcomed them but their life at the school nearly killed them in spirit (and it seemed, almost, in body) the first 12 months. But today in this unfiltered sunlight, with a simple task of raking laid out before me, and a kind friend at my side, I could think of no greater gift than Janey’s blessing. Step back further and I felt the fortunate nature of my barter situation, for which I get free rent in exchange for seasonal outdoor work. My labor on the land paves the way for my labor with language. Life is labor, right? Embrace the strain until you understand it is the only path we must take.

Schizo Night

I haven’t seen Parker in two weeks so when he comes over there is plenty to talk about. Mostly though, I watch how at ease I feel because I have no agenda.

[Hello World! It’s me! I HAVE NO AGENDA!!!]

This is the kind of perspective I’ve longed for all along – just being with someone I’m attracted to and letting that be. And so we talk…and talk and talk and talk and then we’re laughing again like before and it feels great. I’ve had a heartsick and weary day and became so trapped up in my head that I forgot to drive an elderly friend to a meeting that I promised I’d attend with her. Needless to say, Parker’s his cheerfulness, his wide-as-the-sea eyes and rosebud cheeks, the joy of his facial expressions – all of this is very comforting.

---STOP---

Promise: I will not write about boys/men/love/lust if it inflates something that is just a sliver of life, if it extrapolates on circumstances and makes unjustified inferences, it if in any way adds to a false sense of elation on my part.

That said, I think I’ll write a poem instead, even though my time with Parker was HEALTHY and NORMAL today.

Prompt: Choose a poem title from the table of contents of a book of poems. Write. Five minutes. Ready, set, go!

Title chose: One Cell
From: Dorianne Laux’s Facts About the Moon

My take:

Pinhead world of cosmic consequences,
if peace could penetrate
that Great Wall,
ease through
your border of defense,
unwind
your genetic
code, coil
coiling,
uncoil
unravel completely the
Punnent Square
of violence,
then slowly,
like a patient seamstress
stitch back the marrow
of our making—
making us whole again,
as good as new.

Unglorified Disclaimer that I'll Probably Regret

“What’s up, Schultzy?”

This is Cam talking. Only Cam calls me Schultzy and I love it. We talk shop: poems, submissions, cents per word, the poet’s market, and my upcoming visit. He wants to know about Parker. So I tell him: “Well, it naturally dissipated. What can I say? It’s a strange feeling, to go from such intensity to such neutrality, but it feels fine.”

“You’re in love with love, Schultzy.” He says it like a sage, like someone who’s been there before, like someone aware of how intensely that path pulls.

“I know,” I confess. “But you used to be, too. How did you stop being in love with love?”

“I don’t know, I just did.” The answer comes quickly. Then he hems, haws, and stutters. Then a sigh. “Shit Schultzy, I don’t have the answer.”

“But were you bitter about it all in the end?”

“Shit, yeah. No, no I wasn’t. I don’t know. Yes.”

**

It’s safer sometimes, to hide out in something inflated. There’s a lot more room and you’re less likely to bump into things, snag a cuff on the edge of the banister, bump into corners in the night.

Then there’s articulating the experience – even if the experience is something inflated. “Writers are always selling somebody out,” Joan Didion said. By which she also meant, I believe, they are doing only what they know how and the selling out is a default effect. Awareness of this effect is crucial. Owning up to it is essential. I claim only first drafts and fleeting moments in this stomping ground of expression. Sometimes those moments are captured in a way that tells more truth than the experience itself. Other times, the moments are captured and completely distorted. And the poetry, most of all, takes liberties but it does so because it claims no voice, no stable-bodied producer, no continuing narrative. Therefore, take heed. I’m in love with words even more than I am in love with love.

Curse

Truth and deception poem.
Use an analogy. 20 minutes.
Ready, set, go!
[all blogs copyrighted…duh]

CURSE

I could lie all day
to this computer screen,
weave a story with
the blinking cursor
of your love,
tell about how you
loved me
loved me not,

tell about the night we met,
sky clear enough to crack
under the unflinching stare
of a full moon.

But it wouldn’t be the same
as the truth of you
standing in my kitchen,
breath close enough to taste
hand afraid to touch but already reaching,
then how I dropped the spatula,
forgot the eggs,
nestled instead into
the crook of your arm where
that smell I knew as us
was still alive.

It wouldn’t be the same
as the truth of you
backpedaling out the door,
sulking down the drive,
turn signal blinking like a pulse
deleting yourself from my life.

Boyfriend Bonfire

Bitter poem. About love, lust, loss.
Quick. 150+ words, 15 minutes, first draft.
Ready, set, go!

BOYFRIEND BONFIRE

It would never work, see,
because I’d have to burn books—

which I do not do.

(Charles Frasier, Cold Mountain.
Naomi Klein, No Logo.
Anita Diamont, The Red Tent.
William Irwin, The Simpson’s and Philosophy.
Sei Shonagon, The Pillow Book.)

Or I’d have to burn albums—

which I do not do.

(Sonic Youth, Sister.
Talking Heads, Stop Making Sense.
Paul Desmond, Take Ten.
Sun Volt, Trace.)

And it wouldn’t work
to have you here,
or You here
or yOu here
or YOU,

because even when I had yoU,
I coveted our silver shard of hope like
something lost before it even began,
my love spread across your body
like iridescent mourning
from the fool on the hill.

It would never work
because I breathe
in dreams,
drown in words,

bury myself deep in the marrow
of charred affirmation
where I settle the ash long enough to
make house with, to
drive home
the loneliness of solitude
the longitude of lassitude
the soggy grey of heartache.

It would never work, see,
because the lit match cannot suffuse
a weary heart
and besides,
I’d have to find a way to
be unafraid again—

which I cannot do.

Full Moon Fever

The universe heaves with messages today:

A rejection letter from a nonfiction literary journal. (And when I read the note, I see that it is signed by a familiar name…quick, flip back through the papers, yes, there it is. I have rejected this editor’s submission to Silk Road, which I edit. Now, he has rejected mine. Surely, we have been anonymous to each other since he hasn’t received his rejection letter yet, but oh! The coincidence!)

A rejection letter from an anthology. (And when I read the handwritten P.S. at the bottom of the form letter, the editor has noted: “You made it to the last round!”)

An acceptance letter from another literary journal regarding the same essay I submitted to the anthology. (And when I read the form letter, I learn that I have made it past the first round and my submission is being sent to the editorial board for further review.)

An email from Parker: “I’m back. Do you want to hang out tomorrow? I’ve decided to move to UniversityTown, NC.”

And most notably, an email from MGL. MGL who appears in the essay that has been rejected and is now being considered for publication elsewhere. The essay is a version of this.) MGL who I met at Joe’s farm on a full moon night, sky clear enough to crack, just light tonight.

Dear Lord, what a day.

I could chase any one of these rabbits down the path. Feel rejected by the rejections. Feel hopeful for making first cuts. Feel lonely or relieved knowing that Parker is going. Dive head first into the flash flood of emotion and memory-scenes that envelop me after I’ve read MGL’s message.

Of all the triggers, it is MGL that my mind chases and it does not take long, because the path is familiar. I’ve worn ruts down this way for many months at a time.

But this time, not an ounce of anger. Not a sliver of pain. No beasts of betrayal reside here. In fact, the dominant emotion is curiosity, which I am immediately nervous and elated about. Can I trust myself to reconnect? Have I gained wisdom from this past year of heartaches, the innocence that blinded me so thoroughly with MGL now waned, slipping through the cracks in my heart?

I come back to the present. Touch on the slogan: “When you realize you’re thinking, let the thoughts go.” I notice the energy inside of me, free of content. And that’s all it is, quite simply – energy. Not good, bad, happy, or sad.

If I can act from this place, I will not carve the same paths I’ve already worn. If I can stay in touch with the energy of now, spontaneous wisdom will guide me rather than habitual tendencies. I pray for this.

Winterkill

This morning, the pee bucket is frozen solid on the porch. Rhododendron leaves huddle like pups. Dead leaves curve their spines in the morning light, kissed by frost. Glistening, they are like one thousand scattered forest sleepers, uncurling their pale, white backs to greet the day. A high of thirty-four. Finally, sweet winter begins.

And here again by nightfall, the season begs for attention underneath a full moon. An owl hoots. There is a shriek in the thicket. Nightkill under this wild, blue light. What predator stalks me in my cabin as winter freezes its way beneath the soil? What tendrils of thought are chased down into my bones by the frost, fated to be heaved up to the surface for scrutiny? What births will come from the death of autumn?

I examine my urge for acceptance. I question my motives in speech. I marvel and grow weary of this incessant attraction to men. I dig down, down, down to the soft spots of it all and see a sadness based in fear. It’s something we all have but only sometimes touch. It’s cold down here in the deep, dark much of it. But if I shine my gaze gently, like the warming light of the early morning sun, the hardened icicles in me will begin to melt, each drip winding it’s way to some greater collective.

Winter lives in me this way. It is my favorite season for the raw lessons it paints across the canvas of each day. Threadbare. Tumultuous. As swift as an owl’s capture and equally as brilliant.

Post Meditation

Two and a half days of meditation.

My body hurts and my eyes feel popped open like corkscrews but still, my heart is at ease and my skin is porous to the world. The barrier between “me” and the car I drive all the way home, between the valley the road cuts through, between the range the mountains string together, between the continent from which those mountains rise, between the ocean upon which the continent floats – all of it feels like water and I am a sponge. What a relief. What a substantial gift to be given each day.

It’s never easy going back, even when we’re excited after a rich weekend of study and practice and even when we’re ready to attend to the mail, the phone messages, the to-do piles, etc. But there is joy in the unwinding, and re-entry is so intriguing that the teachings from the weekend are immediately called forth and helpful on the spot. At my parent’s house I have to multi-task: knit while waiting for the washing machine to finish while talking to dad while eating soy ice cream. Life is suddenly complex again but I am prepared, can stay with my breath and interact with my environment at the same time. The whole experience feels spherical, radical, dare I say, a joyful litmus test for the times to come.

See, even here I cannot fully come back – not to the page, to the desk, to the office, to the cabin, to the driveway, to the valley, etc. Fearless groundlessness.

On Retreat

I am meditation retreat this weekend. Here is a description of the study I am doing - though obviously not at this location:

SHAMBHALA TRAINING LEVEL IV: AWAKENED HEART

The next post will be on Sunday night.