Into the Wild Wood and Home Again

I may have spoken too soon about that sleeping well thing yesterday, but still, I sleep better with the window open. I had a terrifying and stressful dream about my house being hit by a huge storm, something like a tornado, and it crashed a tall tree through my bedroom window and there was glass everywhere, and my quilt got sucked out the window, and everything outside was broken or gone...  ugh The high points, if there are any, is that two teachers from work appeared, offering help, and my friend Pauline was on the spot, helping me find my stuff and temporarily cover the broken window. And she would do just that, too-- she's a gem.  The one take-away from this: When I woke up, I was wondering where my house insurance paperwork is. I assume it's in the lock-box. I even looked on the bill for the mortgage to make sure it was, as I knew it was, being paid monthly.  And no, there are no tall trees outside my bedroom window-- shades of the tree scratching at the window in Wu...

I've been sleeping with the window open a couple of inches at night, and I am pleased with the result--I'm actually sleeping. I love the sounds: peepers, a soft breeze, and then, early, peepers again, but also birds. This morning, at 4:50, robins began warbling in the day. I drifted back to sleep for a half hour, but it was pleasant and I feel almost rested.  This is all good news, given I tend to not sleep well at all. I actually got 7.5 hours of almost unbroken sleep. Imagine that. The weekend is supposed to be spring-ish: sunshine today and Saturday, rainy on Sunday. I hope G gets the beeyard finished today on his day off-- the bees are coming Sunday! I don't think I'll be pruning roses yet, though; I was hoping for Sunday, but nobody wants to be entangled in branches and thorns in the rain. It can wait a little bit longer.  That said, G says he might get the deck furniture out today, as well! Won't that be nice, sitting outside with coffee? And a book? I feel th...

There is so much to be said, and I can't say what needs to be said cogently about the mess that is the Gaza war. I've been reading a lot, avoiding the television news (it's too fraught and shock-inducing for me to try to parse out the information), and lately, I've had a conversation with a friend who has more immediate interest in the situation. Colleges around the country are hot-spots of indignation, and that, in itself, is nothing new. But the response to the students' idealism and outrage is frightening, too. Clamping down on protests only makes them more heated-- and it's the why of it all, this harsh and sometimes violent suppression-- that puzzles me. Yes, it is noisy and messy. And disruptive--it would not be a protest without that factor. But I wonder if colleges are worried about the backlash from conservative factions more than they are concerned about the opportunity to wrestle with difficult conversations.  Will big donors pull the plug? Will, in ...

  "I read the news today, oh boy..." --John Lennon I don't like to rant on this little blog about politics too often; it's like hollering down a well, anyhow. But there are just some things that trouble me to the point where I am compelled to speak. The idea of letting state governments have the legal option of tracking women's pregnancies and menstrual cycles? That is only one of many, many goals stated by Trump for his second term, if elected, that would gut and manipulate how our country operates, both at home and on the international stage. There is a full article in the current issue of Time magazine that brings, as they say, the receipts. Noted historian Heather Cox Richardson writes a cogent discussion about the implications, and she ties it nicely to our country's historical steps and mis-steps in her "Letter" today . Trump told the interviewer that he was "too nice" the first time around. I am afraid. We can't afford this. We...

I got back on the writing-a-draft-a-day bandwagon yesterday; granted, pushing out two drafts in quick succession is not comfortable, and I know that one of the two is dreck, but writing them serves as a type of bookmark for me to come back to, the images and ideas are there for me to revisit and work with/through, if I choose. What's puzzling me is how I've turned to the computer instead of pencil and paper for creation. I used to draft by hand, only, and now I seem to be able to ramble on with ease on the computer. I'm curious when this shift happened, and how, if at all, it has changed or informed my work. I am paranoid that one day this computer will finally crap out, and I'll have lost it all. I should print everything, and probably will, but not this minute. Ink is expensive. Maybe I'll put it all on that fancy new external storage device of mine and print it elsewhere.  I'm not going to be one of the minor poets in this country where anyone wants my "...

Well, my goal of writing one poem draft a day for the entire month of April fell off yesterday. That said, I have 28 new drafts (most are just blurts) to work with. I'm pretty satisfied with that. Our monthly writing group met yesterday, just a handful of us, and I tossed two of those drafts to the group for input. They were both well received; that counts as engaging with writing in my mind. I appreciate the discipline of writing one a day, and I'm looking forward to revising and poking and prodding the drafts now. That all said, I also sent out some work this week, and already got two poems accepted. Those were "homeless" poems of mine, things that I've sent out, that have been declined, then have moldered away in a file for a bit. Most poems will find a home, if they are any good at all, I figure; you just have to find the right one. So today, I'm back to work. I'm okay with it; not excited, as I know that this stretch can be a bit muddled. But today --...

The last day of "vacation," actually just a regular Sunday, except no papers to grade. I've done all the spring cleaning I planned to do, got a good start on the outdoor chores, and in general, have managed to wade through the week. Except for three nights of stressful/busy dreams, I've gotten a bit of rest that I sorely needed. We even had a small adventure to Ben and Jerry's. All told, a pretty good week. Now we enter a stretch of mild chaos at school: AP testing, field trips, and other general interruptions, punctuated by periods of actual class time. I don't mean to fuss, really I don't, but I feel the pressure of getting things accomplished without having to rearrange the plans over and over and over again. I do my plan book in pencil.  Graduation is June 9th, so we have precious little time to get through the 20th century in American Lit. I try not to lose focus: they will still live productive lives if we don't make it past 1960, but still...but...