Into the Wild Wood and Home Again

Rainy and chilly again. Yes, people need the wells filled up. But gee whiz. It's been a pretty wet stretch of time. Today, all students in grades 9-11 take PSATs. I will be working with seniors on college app essays. Or resumes. Or both. Either way, I'll have about two hours of time with a small crew of kids who likely would rather be sleeping. As would I, honestly. But I'll bring a boo bucket of Dunkins munchkins, and we'll see what we can do.  That all said, TODAY IS HOLLY'S FIFTH BIRTHDAY! What a hoot! She's amazing. Meg got her a boo bucket of munchkins to share with her class at snack time. We'll convene at the diner for dinner (her choice, this kid loves diners), and head back home for cake. Somewhere in there will be presents. I didn't go overboard, much. Well, a little. She's my favorite human.  I'm sure she'll be wound up tight today-- who isn't when it's their birthday and they are five?-- but I hope we'll also extend a ...

Chilly, rainy, and Tuesday.  Holly and I had a great day yesterday, and I got almost everything done that was on my house cleaning list. I still have folding of laundry to accomplish, and it looks like there's at least one load to put in. I also have to wrap some b'day gifts for an almost-five-year-old! I sure hope her cold is better for tomorrow-- what a bummer to be sick on your birthday.  But I have today. Meg is home with possible pink-eye (ew, and ouch), so I likely will not be picking up Holly from school. I'll have to find out for sure, though. If I'm not, then I have a stretch of time this afternoon to finish the laundry stuff and the wrapping stuff. And I want to make an applesauce bread.  Who has time to work? I have some other small things I want to attend to, as well, such as getting out the fall kitchen linens. Minor, but these things matter to me. Call it a last stand against the chaos out there.  And there is chaos. And havoc. Sixes and Sevens. O, the ...

Rainy, chilly Monday-- Indigenous Peoples Day (I won't go there, but it's not "Columbus Day" in my mind).  I know this post is a little later than usual, but I got up at the usual time, and then proceeded to get a turkey soup going (boiling the meat on the bone, then pulling it out to "pick" and adding veggies, then putting the meat back into the pot). I got the sourdough starter fed and going, too, so I can make bread later. And I have a metric ton of house work to accomplish, but first, I'm taking a minute to write a little to you.  So, how ya doin'?  How about those Patriots? Love them or not, it was a good game, especially since some first-string starters are still on the IL. Never count 'em out, eh? And the 49-ers won their game, too -- my second choice team since way back with Joe Montana. What's best is watching the football game with Meg-- she gets me. She's just as vocal. And I love spending time with her. Holly has little patien...

Sunday, and it's a lovely magenta start to the day. Yes, likely there will be unsettled weather, but it's pretty nonetheless. We have church, then breakfast (Knights of Columbus pancake breakfast--once a month). Then, I'll be coming home to process the last pears and apples from our trees. Well, maybe the last. You know how it is.  And yesterday ended up being a pretty good day. I was working on my full-length poetry manuscript, going down a really deep rabbit hole (when poems are about family, it's like exploring old wounds sometimes). I was, in short, getting both frustrated and depressed. Mainly because I had it all sorted in the summer, but when I went back to it, I didn't see what I thought I'd seen, the arc of the manuscript didn't hold up. It was facile, too easily organized and catalogued. I didn't like it. I didn't even like the title, and it clearly needed a new poem or two to work with the ones already in play. None of this is news to anyo...

It's been hard to ignore the horrors in the news. In fact, I haven't ignored them-- I'm just having a really hard time processing how evil people are. The story about the Cornell rape-fest is making my stomach turn, especially since the response given to a reporter's question was that the men involved would not get a "fair shake" and he "feels badly" for them. Agent shooting a man with a five year old child in the car. The proposed televised execution of a man who, admittedly, did a horrifying thing in 2009, but to put a man who is a paraplegic in front of a firing squad? And there is so much more to be horrified by.  Who the hell are we, as a nation? How and why are we "celebrating" this violence and evil? This is not, and should not be, merely an ontological question. It addresses the core of who we are, both individually and as a country. As human beings. It feels like our moral compass has been smashed to unrecognizable shards.  I...

Finally Friday. Not that it's been a bad week, just a long one. I'm really looking forward to tomorrow: I have the day sort of free to do some poem work. I also need to plan the reading/writing/reflection workshop series I'm going to be hosting at church that focuses on poems by Mary Oliver, Wendell Berry, and the book of psalms. I have a couple of people who have emailed me already that they are going to attend --and I don't know them!-- so I need to make sure to have all of my poems figured out. The series will run for four weeks, take a couple off for Thanksgiving, then have one final session with the goal of assembling a small booklet of poems to offer to the parish. We'll see how that goes.  And I'll have time to figure out my own book tomorrow. I hope. And I want to make herbed butter. That isn't time consuming, except for the prepping of the herbs, and it's good to have on hand all winter. I should think about submitting some poems to journals, to...