Blogging, which, to be fair, I’ve only done for a month, has its drawbacks. It feels something like hollering back into a long dark tunnel, as you’re walking out. Or maybe it’s more like setting off one of those parade poppers that have colorful streamers – there’s a big beautiful burst, but then the streamers fall to the ground behind us, ignored.
OK, I’m still working on my similes.
Writing a blog is homework for a Memoir class at Chatham University taught by the extraordinary Sheryl St Germain.* It is intended to be a place where we can respond to the prompts from "Old Friend from Far Away: The Practice of Writing Memoir," by Natalie Goldberg, or respond to assigned readings. In short, it's a place to exercise our writing muscles.
It’s a pleasure to read my classmate’s blogs, on which we are to comment. And I enjoy reading what others say in their comments, but here’s where it gets cumbersome.
Everyone is busy, and I’m lucky that am only taking the one class. But even for me, it feels too time consuming to track back reading the comments about the comments, and then, days later, more comments back. I suspect readership, even among the willing classmates, falls off quickly. So final comments remain unread, ignored, mere litter at the parade.
And, darn it, there’s some real interesting writing going on there.
So, as I sit here exercising my writing muscle I realize it is time to come ‘round to a brilliant conclusion. Maybe it’s this: if they’re beautiful, let’s pick up the streamers, hold on to them and run with delight.
*read: apple
Showing posts with label new blogger.. Show all posts
Showing posts with label new blogger.. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
When is the last time you were truly happy? Prompt 19, Jean Rhys II
Happiness is so cliché. Really. Happy? What does it mean precisely?
Recently there have been moments that have brought me palpable joy, you know, the kind you feel in your body as well as your mind –
1. Monday night, my classmates and teacher had praise for a reworking (my 5th revision … I know, it takes 11) of an essay that is eaking its way out of me. (That might not be an official word, eaking.) My heart just jumped with joy that I might be onto something.
2. Within the first hours of setting up my blog a young woman from Tennessee signed on to follow. I was shocked and delighted.
3. On a slightly deeper level, my son clearly recognized that it was grossly inappropriate (“He’s a creeper” were his exact words) when his girlfriend’s obstetrician said, “From now on the pants come down,” (indicating he planned internal exams).
4. Oh, here’s a good one: seeing my mother last weekend for the first time since the chemo effects wore off. She had dark, present eyes, a genuine life-is-so-good-to-me smile, and brand new white hair in soft thick curls. It’s gorgeous. People stop her in a store to ask where she gets her hair done. Its known as the ‘chemo curl,’ but my Mom says, “Well, honey, God knew I was 6 months with no hair, so now He’s giving me this. He’s like that.”
But the last time I was “truly happy”? That’s difficult. it's hard to remember a time before the deep dark streak of worry blocked it. Certainly it would be before my young son’s impending fatherhood, before my mother’s ovarian cancer and certainly, before the sexual assault.
I’d have to go way back, I suspect, to remember through-and-through joy. Perhaps even before my son was born – parenting has included a boatload of worry for me. Before that I feared I would “do harm” as I was learning medicine. And then there was the worry about getting into medical school at all.
And let’s not forget the fear and anxiety about being lesbian in a homophobic world. And that was a powerful place compared to the lack of power I felt relative to my boyfriend and father, before “women’s lib” hit.
Was it when I was a teenager, then, that I was truly happy? No, I was self conscious and insecure. And there were all those discipline problems in grammar school.
So, when was I not worried?
Wait... I know this. It was in the little yellow school bus right before I stuck my neck out and the bus driver landed his frustration about his busload chaos and noise on me. Right before that I was truly happy.
For more on that story see "sticking my neck out", my blog entry on january 20th.
http://janicea-blog.blogspot.com/2009/01/normal-0-another-potential-theme-for-my.html
.
Recently there have been moments that have brought me palpable joy, you know, the kind you feel in your body as well as your mind –
1. Monday night, my classmates and teacher had praise for a reworking (my 5th revision … I know, it takes 11) of an essay that is eaking its way out of me. (That might not be an official word, eaking.) My heart just jumped with joy that I might be onto something.
2. Within the first hours of setting up my blog a young woman from Tennessee signed on to follow. I was shocked and delighted.
3. On a slightly deeper level, my son clearly recognized that it was grossly inappropriate (“He’s a creeper” were his exact words) when his girlfriend’s obstetrician said, “From now on the pants come down,” (indicating he planned internal exams).
4. Oh, here’s a good one: seeing my mother last weekend for the first time since the chemo effects wore off. She had dark, present eyes, a genuine life-is-so-good-to-me smile, and brand new white hair in soft thick curls. It’s gorgeous. People stop her in a store to ask where she gets her hair done. Its known as the ‘chemo curl,’ but my Mom says, “Well, honey, God knew I was 6 months with no hair, so now He’s giving me this. He’s like that.”
But the last time I was “truly happy”? That’s difficult. it's hard to remember a time before the deep dark streak of worry blocked it. Certainly it would be before my young son’s impending fatherhood, before my mother’s ovarian cancer and certainly, before the sexual assault.
I’d have to go way back, I suspect, to remember through-and-through joy. Perhaps even before my son was born – parenting has included a boatload of worry for me. Before that I feared I would “do harm” as I was learning medicine. And then there was the worry about getting into medical school at all.
And let’s not forget the fear and anxiety about being lesbian in a homophobic world. And that was a powerful place compared to the lack of power I felt relative to my boyfriend and father, before “women’s lib” hit.
Was it when I was a teenager, then, that I was truly happy? No, I was self conscious and insecure. And there were all those discipline problems in grammar school.
So, when was I not worried?
Wait... I know this. It was in the little yellow school bus right before I stuck my neck out and the bus driver landed his frustration about his busload chaos and noise on me. Right before that I was truly happy.
For more on that story see "sticking my neck out", my blog entry on january 20th.
http://janicea-blog.blogspot.com/2009/01/normal-0-another-potential-theme-for-my.html
.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
My mother’s hands
Prompt 266: Tell me about your mother’s hands: Go for ten.
My mother’s hands. Old. Delicate. Strong. Pained. Knuckled. Smooth. Dark spots and thick veins on thin white skin. Welcome. Wanted. Yearned for.
.
She reaches deep into ground meat to mix breadcrumbs, eggs, ketchup and mustard. Teaches my son to flute a piecrust. Butters a turkey. Gives a stinging spanking. My mother’s hands. I watch as she dries them on her apron before reaching for something: a knife, a spice, a runny nose. She gestures as she speaks. Places hundreds of pills, one at a time, into a month’s worth of four-times-a-day containers.
.
My mother holds a baby with her hands, with her arms, with her body. Lifts a cigarette to her lips, long nails polished. Struggles to write, or spell, a short note on the bottom of a birthday card, after having underlined the important words from Hallmark. I see her hands cleaning. Wringing out rags. Using a thumbnail for the stubborn spots. Shaking a damp tea towel with a ferlop, and then spreading it out on the counter at end of an evening when all the dishes have been washed, dried and put away, counters wiped down and coffee set for morning.
.
I feel my mother’s hands lay softly on my cheeks as she looks into my eyes as if to embed some hope or wish for me, until she sees me next.
.
.
My mother’s hands. Old. Delicate. Strong. Pained. Knuckled. Smooth. Dark spots and thick veins on thin white skin. Welcome. Wanted. Yearned for.
.
She reaches deep into ground meat to mix breadcrumbs, eggs, ketchup and mustard. Teaches my son to flute a piecrust. Butters a turkey. Gives a stinging spanking. My mother’s hands. I watch as she dries them on her apron before reaching for something: a knife, a spice, a runny nose. She gestures as she speaks. Places hundreds of pills, one at a time, into a month’s worth of four-times-a-day containers.
.
My mother holds a baby with her hands, with her arms, with her body. Lifts a cigarette to her lips, long nails polished. Struggles to write, or spell, a short note on the bottom of a birthday card, after having underlined the important words from Hallmark. I see her hands cleaning. Wringing out rags. Using a thumbnail for the stubborn spots. Shaking a damp tea towel with a ferlop, and then spreading it out on the counter at end of an evening when all the dishes have been washed, dried and put away, counters wiped down and coffee set for morning.
.
I feel my mother’s hands lay softly on my cheeks as she looks into my eyes as if to embed some hope or wish for me, until she sees me next.
.
.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
first blog
hello wide world...
what better way to start this new fangled 'blogging' then with a poem about my father. I've been thinking about him recently, perhaps because my son is about to become a father himself. So for my first blog, here's a poem about the day my father died.
Father’s Last Day
There is barely room around the bed
of this cherished man
transitioning.
We stand, hold hands
remember…
Say Our Father
hushed and reverent.
Young ones tuck their heads
on the chests of their mothers.
Aware of each breath,
They glance at their feet, up to us.
Awed
by this life and then death.
Outside, a June rain falls
soft, straight and sure.
The blossoms stand grateful.
Janice Anderson
what better way to start this new fangled 'blogging' then with a poem about my father. I've been thinking about him recently, perhaps because my son is about to become a father himself. So for my first blog, here's a poem about the day my father died.
Father’s Last Day
There is barely room around the bed
of this cherished man
transitioning.
We stand, hold hands
remember…
Say Our Father
hushed and reverent.
Young ones tuck their heads
on the chests of their mothers.
Aware of each breath,
They glance at their feet, up to us.
Awed
by this life and then death.
Outside, a June rain falls
soft, straight and sure.
The blossoms stand grateful.
Janice Anderson
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