Wedding Bells

So yesterday was the wedding--the kids, the ring bearer and flower girl. I'm too tired to post anything beyond a brief re-cap of the day so here it is...

 Phoenix's idea of being a flower girl was to grab huge handfuls of petals, chuck them on the floor, and then stomp on them. Meanwhile, Fisher was coaching her to toss more or not enough.

 When she saw me at the end she tossed the whole damn basket and took off for me, while Fisher was left to point out her mistake. They were utterly adorable.

 With cousins. This girl has all of them wrapped around her pinky finger.

 Sibling love.

 Fisher was thrilled that his suit pockets were deep enough to allow him to bring bigfoot along for the day. And if anyone had a problem with that here's his middle finger.

 Ready for the long day ahead. And it was. They stuck it out for 12 hours and even at the end of the night, long pass their normal bedtime, they were dishing their moves on the dance floor. Phoenix kept running into the crowd of people that fringed the dance floor and tugging on their hands to come join. The life of the party, that girl. 

There are no words for this cuteness.

Randoms

Driving home at sunset last night on a country road my 4 year old Fisher had this to say: why do all the people and houses and corn and grass and trees eat the sun...the blood of the sun. And minutes later, you think up your dream and the more you think the more it grows. I'm raising a thinker here. Often when we're driving he's so quiet, staring hard out the window and so I'll ask him what he's thinking about. Sometimes he'll wait a while to answer, as if not wanting to break the line of this thoughts, and when he does answer it blows me away, catches my heart. He and Phoenix are in their aunt Kelly's wedding today (ring bearer and flower girl), so last night was the rehearsal. Here's a hint of how that went:

The always-up-or-a-party-never-follow-authority Phoenix, and Fisher the thinker. 

I'm sure I mentioned in some other post that the best starry sky I have seen was in Pecos Valley, but just this morning I remembered the one that trumps it. I was on the Island of Caye Caulker off Belize eating dinner with my feet in the sand when the power went out on the entire island. No man-made light pollution for miles and miles. It was like sitting in an open-air cave--so black, and the only light at all in that world was the bowl of stars above. 30 minutes passed like this, and when the lights flickered back in their exposing way I started talking to the owner of the restaurant where I was seated. He had been a high power suit on wall street and took a rare vacation to the island some years back. He decided he liked the person he was on that island more than the person he was in NYC, so he quit his job and moved there. I admire people like this--people who take risks to live by their own time and not the whims of society.

It's odd that I think the water from the bathroom faucet tastes different than the one in the kitchen. Amazing how our views can change our tastes even when the product is the same.

What Our Names Mean

Here's one of my father's classic jokes--so there's this woman named Sally Lipshits and she decided to change her name. Do you know what she changed it to? Suzy Lipshits. It's funny how names seem to own a person, as if there is some requirement that comes with them. A roll we fill without even knowing it. My name means brave and I suppose I am and have been all my life whether I wanted to or not. I knew a guy who only ever dated girls named Jennifer. It's not like he went around asking people their names and upon meeting a Jennifer, pursuing her. He'd just have some attraction only to find out after that her name was...Jennifer. Clearly people named Jennifer have a certain personality he's drawn to. Every Greg I have ever met is easy-going, almost impossible to anger. What a strange thing--that we become the meaning of our names. It's the same with horoscopes, a phenomenon that occurs before we are aware of what it means. I'm a Libra and all my life I have sought balance--long before I knew what a horoscope was. It seems almost preposterous, impossible that the month we are born to defines our personalities in any way at all. But it does. It's as if whatever goes on in the ever is playing some joke on us, or else giving us some nudge, a hint that there is some energy beyond our knowing that is so great as to make us predestined to be a certain type. And the world needs all kinds. If only we could figure out a way to work together.

On Irrational Thinking

The other day the kids and I were walking through our neighborhood and Fisher, pointing to one of the lawns, said "they should mow their grass because if there was a really short person they wouldn't be able to see over it enough to walk through." The grass was about 6 inches high. I told him he was very thoughtful. Kids make the best poets don't they, because they believe that anything is possible. They believe in dreams, can convince themselves of anything, can look at a wall and assume it could disappear, can think that a sharp rock is really a dinosaur claw and they need to start digging for its bones right here, right now. They haven't heard no enough ways to keep them from that kind of magic thought. The remnants of our childhood minds lives on in us as irrational thoughts. And maybe irrational doesn't have to be a negative word. It could also mean playful absurdity. I still run up basement stairs two at a time because I used to believe some boney-ghost like hand was trying to capture my ankles. And I'm not ashamed of this. There's a certain softness in this kind of thinking isn't there--makes the world less rigid. Sometimes instead of always trying to figure out the meaning of things we should follow the line of this playful absurdity because who really knows anything and why not let yourself grow soft.

Re-cap

I didn't post yesterday because I was driving home from Minneapolis, at one point following a car with SOBSTRY on their license plates, where I was awed by the performance of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs at First Ave and where I had the following encounters...
My buddy from grad school, Derek Tellier (Tellier for short) and I had a drink and eats before the show. Sitting next to us on a patio was a guy with a camera and so I asked him what kind of pictures he like to take. His answer was portraits and that the thing he loves about photography is the control and capture of time. He's all about the mechanics of photography having grown up under the hood of a car. He used to love speed. That changed when he was in a car accident--flipping end over end 4 times. I asked him what went through his mind then and he said it was just a pause and then I am alive. He was fine, but now he prefers to  slow things down. I wonder if he does so because he is forever trying to capture that moment where his life paused--to live in that space that is so like the moment frozen in the click of a camera. Then we talked about the cruelty of the world--me trying to explain that the cruelty can be an awakening gift and it's just a matter of perspective and then we left and I'll never see him again.

Standing out front of First Ave, I noticed one of the stars read Lifter Puller. Never heard of them and what an odd name I said to Tellier. At that moment a girl passed by and said hey, they're my friends! She gave me their story.

Karen O rocked the show, played my favorite songs, wore an awesome Jackson 5 shirt, and got the crowd keyed up, my chest fisting and swelling with the thrill of it all. Someone, noticing my friend's bear claw necklace, told him if I were you I would totally wear that. And on our way out I saw a guy wearing a suit, which I complimented. He said thanks, it's like wearing pajamas. He'd just gotten off a flight from London where he had the best weekend of his life and he wanted to be cozy on the flight. Then he left to try to make out with Karen O.

We went to a rooftop deck after the show and chatted with some more suits--two gentlemen with ties tossed over their shoulders as if some great wind blew, shoes off, feet propped up on the ledge, toasting the Blackhawks Stanley Cup win. Then we walked to the sculpture park and took some pictures before getting kicked out and taking a taxi back to Tellier's. I had been up for nearly 24 hours, capturing as much time as I could fit before my eyes shut.

A Poem on a Monday

Here are some more photos taken by the lovely Tana...

And what Monday would be complete without a poem. Since last night marked the peak of the supermoon--even though rain here prevented us from viewing it--I'll include one of my own poems that includes the moon image. Have I mentioned before that I wake up most days around 4 am? There is nothing like waking up to the stars and feeling like you have the whole town to yourself--it gives my days center, a kind of secret gift. Everything in this poem is true.

I Wake With the Stars

Yesterday a dozen owls rounding the tree top air

in the still-dark. Their quiet diving and lone hooting

took root so that all day their presence bloomed. Now

the moon is the color of a peach and huge, sinking

over the hills as a claim to beginnings – its light

illuminates the table and I think now the table

is the moon and of course now I am

the moon. The things we carry.

My daughter Phoenix sings of clouds.

I want to be in a cloud, she says. I want to fly

but I don’t have wings. And because she’s two

she adds maybe someday. Because I am a mother,

because I carry a moon inside my ribs – because

I’m trying to embrace the thought that surrendering

to joy doesn’t mean the world will come

crashing down – I say yes, someday, and I believe it.

Casey Lord

Full Moon

I know scientists have debunked the theory that a full moon affects human behavior, but tell that to a poet or to anyone working in an ER or anyone with kids and they'll say the scientific proof doesn't matter. People go batty in the hours surrounding a full moon and maybe science just hasn't figured out the right way to explain it. And would it even matter if they could? It's no question the moon affects the ocean's tides--but aren't our own bodies comprised of 58% of water, and even more than that in children. We carry an ocean inside us. When the full moon presses down on us with more gravity than usual how could it not stir our biological processes? And beyond that is the fact that what we see around us becomes a part of us. To look at the moon then is to bring it inside and everything has its own energy. Perhaps even images we bring to mind carry their own kind of weight that unfurl in our bodies. Perhaps we carry around the essence of everything we've seen.

I was thinking about this phenomenon last week--before I even knew that the supermoon would be appearing over this weekend--for the simple fact that my kids were driving me nuts. They were like tiny bats stuck in a box--flickering about, unsettled, cagey, extra rowdy. My first thought--a full moon. And I remember a time some months ago when both kids kept tripping over the tiniest things. It was preposterous how often they fell down over the course of that week and I told a friend that it was as if the earth was off its axis. Their reply to me was that it was. It was strange and comical to witness the difference in my kids' stumbling feet--to think how something so vast and inconceivable as the world could manifest itself in something as small as a child's gait. A phenomenon so small one could put it in their pocket. I've never had a brain for science because I think beauty isn't meant to be calculated and measured but felt and wondered about. I'll take the metaphor over the numbers.

In honor of the supermoon, here's one of my favorite passages from a moon poem (titled "Returning From an Artist's Studio" by the great Stephen Dunn):
"Late at night in my own life / I see fireflies scintillating a field / and a fullish moon up there working / on its reputation, which I thought / was secure. And though I'm not one / to stop my car for beauty / I stop, get out, begin to understand / how the first stories winked / of another world. It's as if / I'm witness to some quiet carnival / of the gods, or the unrisen dead / speaking in code."

Randoms

When my friend Tana was in town a few weeks ago we had a little photo shoot. Did I mention she's a very talented photographer? And for the next 5 weeks she and her husband and son are making Amsterdam their home. Just because. Here's a small sampling of the pics she took:

Hans--dear friend and fellow poet who currently imprints the ground in Chicago--if you're reading this did you know there's a line you once wrote that I always replay in my mind when I think of you, and especially on these hot sticky Midwest days. It goes "the day's come on like broth."

I've never been to First Ave in Minneapolis, but that will change on Monday as I'm heading up to check out the Yeah Yeah Yeahs show with my buddy Tellier. An on my way back home I hope to stop in Mankato to see one of my best friends. I imagine Nate and I will cuddle up on his porch swing, talking and feeling big. And his lovely wife Nicole will plant a seed for me to write about. I love these people.

I have a book by Bill Holm, signed and addressed to me when I saw him give a reading once, titled "The Heart Can Be Filled Anywhere On Earth." It's one of the best titles I know of and it seems especially fitting as I sit here getting eaten alive by mosquitoes, thinking about people I love spread out across the globe--so many little dots of light as seen from an airplane window.

Building Walls

I just woke up from a dream but I only remember the last image before it sent me awake--there was a dream catcher dangling from an old grayed wooden fence post in the dawn light. Perhaps it means the things I fear can form a block of sorts, can try to keep me from moving freely. We build up so many walls, constructed out of our uncertainties. But this year for me has been about overcoming these uncertainties so I'd like to think that if I had finished my dream I would have climbed that fence and walked across it like a tight rope, shrinking my fear. What does it mean that one of my kids' favorite things to do is build forts? Fisher has spent hours setting them up, using blankets and chairs and sofa cushions. Then he and Phoenix will lie down in them and just be--eating snacks or pretending there are zombies outside those walls. I remember building forts myself as a child, and who didn't? I wonder why that is such a timeless and universal past time of childhood. To be so young is like walking in a foreign country, scarcely knowing the language and just figuring things out as you go. Perhaps constructing forts is their own form of safety and reasoning--their way of shrinking the world down to smaller bits that are easier to digest, to make sense of. Then they have a more intimate taste of the world that to them is so wide and unknown. I'm thinking the need to box in our surroundings, to build shelters, is a fundamental part of our nature. We want safety, we want to own a piece of something. But every once in a while, isn't it a lovely thing to sleep under the cage of stars?

On Timing

My friend Jessica recently told me that if she had mailed off her college dorm room application all those years ago the day before or after it was actually sent she would have never met her husband. She would have had different roommates, perhaps never even meeting the girls she did room with--would have found herself surrounded by a whole group of different people. And maybe that different experience would have brought her a different love. Maybe it meant that she would have never found herself in Mankato, MN for grad school, where she would meet Jason (and me). She would have been a different person as invariably the people we surround ourselves with offer us something different and our experiences and interactions with them do help shape us, mark us, light the way for new paths to follow. Think of all the alternate lives we could have lead had we met different someones. Yes, at our core we are a certain type of person--but we are also as malleable as clay, formed and remolded again and again by our encounters and what they teach us.

It amazes me to think about how all the little things we choose can shape our lives, and there too how the timing of others' decisions connect us. Maybe we get stuck at a red light and because of that we show up at our destination minutes later and end up walking through the door at the same time as someone who could mean something to us. Maybe a person decides to listen to a song so all day they carry that rhythm with softened lines on their face, humming the tune aloud, and someone needing a reason to smile finds one as they pass that hum on the street. Your car breaks down and a stranger you would have never met stops to help--you'll forever be known to one another now. For me, whenever things don't go as planned I like to think there was a reason--maybe I avoided an accident or the wrong door ends up being better. Everything has the potential to awaken something inside of us. And it is a symbiotic nature--our choices married to those made by everyone we pass. Together we are quite the wonder.

Just Think About It

In my post last Saturday I mentioned that I rarely see fireflies around any more when they seemed to abound in my youth. Since then I've chanced on seeing a handful blinking across my yard. And maybe they'd been there fluttering about all along but I had just forgotten to notice. Or maybe the universe answered my call, sent them knocking. Either way it's an intriguing phenomenon--how an idea in our mind can suddenly unfold before our eyes. How the things we notice are the result of thinking about them. You know how when you meet someone new and thereafter you run into them in various places--the grocery store, a cafe, a random sidewalk. And then it hits you that you'd probably seen them in these various places before your official meet but you didn't really notice them then because your mind didn't know them. It could be that everything we see outside of us is really the manifestation of what our minds allow, what it tells us to recognize. Our very own magic trick. What a great responsibility we have then--to know that we create the world before us every day by how we think. We are not pinballs bouncing around in some machine at the whims of some gamer--we are in control even when it doesn't seem like it for the simple fact that we always see what we want to see. And how fascinating to think of the life we can construct for ourselves because of what our minds choose. What can we do with that knowledge and that power?

The other day I found myself telling Fisher that he needs to learn to take no for an answer. He'd been a record on repeat--asked me a couple dozen times to take him to the woods to search for Bigfoot. The moment my statement spilled from my mouth I questioned the impact and validity of my words. I felt bad. For my sanity it would be great if he only had to be told once and would then drop what his heart was after. But I don't want him to concede to the no's of the world because that means giving up. Think how different our lives would be if everyone adhered to their mother's advice and accepted the rejections of all the doors that closed in their faces. If they didn't keep trying to find a way in, a way around. I want him to be hungry for his dreams, to be a fighter, so will my statement to him play out in his future? Will he remember my words and miss out on an opportunity? That's the difficult thing about parenting--to walk the line of making your own time easier by drawing on easy definitive answers when it comes to dealing with them directly, all the while wanting them to question and challenge the world at large. I don't believe my children should do as I say and not as I do. I don't think anyone wants to parent like that, but wanting and doing are separate things and sometimes it is easier. I strive to act in the manner that I teach. My kids watch me exercise, read books, dance, smile at strangers, or even just sit quietly in the grass and gaze up at the sky. It is true that we are better for others when we make ourselves better so hopefully my own challenging of the world will counteract the words I planted. And maybe they already have because that boy still won't back down!

A Poem for a Monday

The kids and I planted our garden a few weeks ago. Fisher claims he is the best hole digger around. I want them to become intimate with the process of growing--to feel the dirt in their fingers, to watch the seeds sprout and the plants get tall, to know the patience and time it takes to bare the fruit, to appreciate the harvest. And when the time comes they'll fill their bellies with the food they nurtured and nothing will go to waste because of the swell of pride. We've had a lot of rain and already we've seen several inches of new growth, which they mark daily. So here's a poem in the vein of gardening:

In the Garden

Heart—why do you keep imagining what it is

you should have said or done? The world

is full of ways to make you stuck, though you

grow old anyway. In the garden I never planted—

pea shoots swirl on trellises, springing airless

yet rooted. The mouths of zucchini blossoms

gasp, filled with the weight of sun.

Rosemary and chive, the clean scent of basil

filling the space between ears. Oh the tomatoes,

ripe for the hands still trying to decide who

they might be. It will take years for asparagus

but it will feed us for years. There must be honeysuckle,

hardy and substantial. Carrot and sweet potato,

parsnip and Vidalia bursting sweetly and well-hid.

Like a map for the lonely, wire trenches to keep

the gophers from tunneling in. And they always try

to get in. Wild and tender in the crisp night,

thirsting yet fed under sun. To be bountiful—

nourished and nourishing. Laid bare

by the harvest of chance.

Casey Lord

Happy Father's Day

I grew up hearing my dad's stories about how he only received a pack of gum for Christmas and sometimes dinner consisted of saltine crackers and ketchup. His family owned a gas station in Chariton, IA so I am well versed in the art of squeegeeing car windows. He taught me how to change a tire and oil filters, to two-step to Patsy Cline, taught me dirty jokes and how to say goddammit. He took me fishing, to the races, used to flip me the bird daily. He'd wake me up by throwing things at my head. He'd dump ice cold water on me while I was in the shower. He told me he dropped me on my head as a baby and that's what my problem was, or else I was adopted. Once after exiting the bathroom he told me that he had my twin but the head came out tapered so he flushed it. I loved every minute of it. But the kicker story that I believed for the longest time was when my parents took me and my sister to the circus. I was just 2 at the time and apparently the elephants went wild and started to stampede and everyone grabbed a loved one and fled the tent. But my father, holding me, stayed behind and watched the mayhem unfold. He was later interviewed on the news about what he saw. That part is true. But for years and years my sister and I believed him when he told us that he had stood in front of those elephants, looked into their eyes and ordered them to stop. And so they did. I remember sitting in the kitchen as a teen and my sister was telling her friend about my father's heroism. My mother said--you know he didn't stop those elephants don't you? It was if a balloon had been deflated. Still, part of me will always believe that he did. Because that's what my father is--a pull my finger jokester, Harley driving, hard working, stubborn and sympathetic, ketchup on his macaroni and cheese eating protector. He showed me how to be lighthearted and to appreciate storms from the garage. When he wasn't making me laugh he was planting little seeds of wisdom and in between there was a lot of time for just being quiet together. Because of him I find messages in the silence. I love you dad, and I wouldn't change a goddamn thing about my childhood.

Randoms

Last night's storm has passed, but the droplets of rain still clinging and falling from trees sounds like so many kisses when they find ground.

Delirious, reverence, tremor, shadow, cellar door--these are some of my favorite sounding words. Maybe I'll write a poem consisting entirely of the words most pleasant to our ears.

Here's an interesting fact--in Bali, they make rice offerings in little boats and place them outside their homes. And all the people that have gone to dust and back to the earth, living again on the tiny bodies of bugs in the dirt, will not harm them. The offerings prevent the critters from going inside the homes and spoiling the food stored within so the family is safe. This is what it means to worship the dead.

Someday soon I hope to travel to Scotland alone and walk the width of the country.

Our taste buds renew themselves every 10 days. Our skin renews itself on average every 27 days. It takes around 10 years for our bones to replace themselves. We are born with all the brain cells we will ever have--100 billion.

What happened to all the fireflies? They abounded in my youth and I spent so many evenings caught in the magic of catching them in jars and smearing their light on my skin. Now I scarcely see them.

I imagine the closest you can come to feeling the scent of bread would be to walk through fog.

Too Much Talk

I have a tendency to be lazy. Not sit on the couch doing nothing lazy but more of the not finishing what I start variety. I've had so many great ideas over the years, many of which I start to follow, but often I don't follow through. I don't know why that is. Maybe I'm just too impatient to take the required time, maybe I lacked the confidence, maybe another idea came along and took up more prominent residence. I once spent days reading all the names of cities and towns in the atlas. Can you imagine telling people you were from Cocoa, Thunderbolt, Fawnskin, Flowery Branch, or Social Circle? There are so many interesting town names and I thought it'd be cool to have a series of poems composed entirely of only these names. I wrote only one and here's a taste:

Bald Eagle Circle Fishkill,

Carefree Skull Valley Buffalo,

Blue Grass, Blue Hills, Sparrow Bush.

Black Rock Divide Elbow Lake,

Three Rivers Spur New Roads. 

Black Horse Gallup, Pound

Big Stone Gap, Blowing Rock,

Blue Ash. What Cheer Lame Deer—

Salt Lick.  

I've started a novel and a screenplay, started stories, started knitting, started a whole heck of a lot. I've had several ideas for children's books. I imagine it would all be quite amazing. I wonder if part of the problem is that I talk about my ideas. I mean it is helpful to discuss your dreams with others but I wonder if talking about them too much prevents me from actually doing. The talk can plant seeds of uncertainties and also make the idea grow to a point that seems daunting. And if I already construct the big picture in my mind then it takes away the delight of the process. So I'm going with that notion and I'm vowing to be a better doer. Enough said. 

To Matter

I can't recall which horrific shooting it was - who can keep count - but I remember seeing a woman being interviewed on the news once about one such tragedy and she was smiling. I found it so strange that she would be smiling while discussing the loss of life. We want so much to matter in this world that we get all googly eyed with the prospect of being known on TV. It wasn't like she was happy about the events, but she  was pleased as punch to be asked for her opinion, to be seen. And what of our inadequacies--the bully projects their shortcomings on others, unwilling to admit their own faults because they want to matter. And now I'm thinking longing too is the same kind of thing--we look outward and dream for what we think is lacking in our lives, but isn't that really bullying ourselves? In longing we are projecting our needs - a way of judging what we think our hearts are missing. But isn't everything we truly need already inside of us? In the blink of an eye we can change, can awaken, can love, can make ourselves happy. It's all a matter of perspective. This tells me that we truly are social creatures, for it isn't enough to matter to ourselves--we also want to matter to others. We need to share and be understood and appreciated. Our connection with one another runs so deep that every intention held in our minds is a plea to be accepted by the community. No matter your upbringing or nationality or economic status or actions--at our core we all just want to matter to someone. And sometimes we have strange ways of showing it.

What Happens at this Hour

It's 4:30 in the morning and I am sitting in the back yard with a cup of coffee and a white legal pad of paper and a pen. The sky is cloudy and rumbling, orange-tinted with occasional flashes of blue from heat lightening. The canopies of trees appear black. The air itself is utterly still. It's a surprise to hear cars on the freeway at this hour. Birds are coming into their noise. These are the only sounds--mild thunder, birds, and the rush of cars. That, and the Patsy Cline songs stuck on repeat in my head. When I hear a noise interrupt these predetermined sounds of the dark--a rustling in the grass nearby--I ignore it because I don't know what it means. Isn't that the way of the dark--the sense that anything can happen, and our minds can betray us. It's terribly romantic in these hours. And somewhere the sun is rising, frogs jump from lillypads, people are running, crying, fighting, dying, dreaming, working, smiling, eating, loving, moving, being born. A rock is sliding down a mountain, flowers are blooming open, a boat is crossing the water. At every moment the landscape of the Saharas change. A friend of mine once wrote a flash fiction piece about a fisherman who called out a random word and it came to be that whenever someone in the world is at a loss for a word, that word will find a tongue somewhere else. That's what it means to have random thoughts--words borrowed from strangers. Now bats are circling and fat droplets of rain are soaking into the page. When my kids awake and see the sky I will tell them we get to walk inside the shadows of clouds today.

On Distance

One of my best friends in the world lives in Madison. Jessica and I see each other about 6 times a year if we're lucky and every time we're together the world feels right. We are freakishly in sync with one another--always having the same thoughts, ideas about what we feel like doing, food cravings--you name it. We share weekends of laughter and dancing and talking and making sense of things and energizing one another. The last time we were in Chicago we sat for a time on a bench in utter silence. Is there any better quality in a friend than being able to share the quiet? When we part we always wish how we lived closer so we could see each other more often. But Jess once said that she wondered if our time would be as special if we did see each other more frequently. It made me recall a line from a poem titled "Vilnius" by Jane Hirshfield: "If you lived higher up on the mountain, you'd see more of everything else, but not the mountain."

So are the best things in life best experienced in small doses? It makes me think of all the times I've heard people say that tourists see more of the city in which they live because they never seem to get around to doing all the things they intend to do. Their city isn't going anywhere. Do we appreciate things more from afar? And why would that be? Yes, I know the idea that we take common things for granted, but I'm wondering how to get around that--how to avoid allowing our days to become mundane. Perhaps looking at everything as if it were a small dose is key. Each moment, here for now. Perhaps it is better to embrace uncertainty--to welcome it like the night welcomes the restless mind. If we stop struggling to fix the image of our future we just might surprise ourselves with what we see in front of us. It is true that absence can build in our hearts, but so can making up our minds to be fond of every breath in our lungs as if they were small doses that fill our hands with some great mystery. To be in awe of whatever is available for the simple fact that we can.

Jessica and I at the New Glarus brewery outside of Madison.

A Poem for a Monday

I have called 6 different cities home. In each place I have not only made friends and acquaintances--there are also all the faces who remain nameless but that left an impression on me all the same. Years later and I can still recall people I used to see at the grocery store, the gentleman I bought vegetables from at the farmer's market, cashiers at places I frequented, or even those who made a habit of passing my window on their walks while I happened to be looking out. And then there are all those I have encountered only once, some oblivious to my capture of their faces, like the guy I refer to in the poem below. Just a glimpse and these people awaken something inside me--a smile, sympathy, an idea, a kind of love. Out of the blue I find myself remembering these nameless people--where are they now, who have they become? Our encounters with others live in us and remembering keeps them alive. I find it amazing to think of how we can impart glimpses of who we are that last in the hearts of strangers without our even knowing. So this poem combines two things I love--driving with the window down and the mystique of our encounters.

Riding Solo

For now I am driving home – a dreamlike sun

fillets the tops of cars on the road –

sending hillsides and fence posts into

an era of hazy gold. With the window down

it is loud as loud. The frenzy of air

knots my hair like some heart-set lover.

Miles ahead, a farmer burns his fields –

the smoke slitting the sky without prejudice –

the scent is ancient. Everything

that has ever been is again. There are many

directions this road could lead.

My chest fists with thankfulness for those

I love, a kind of prayer.

On a different road years ago I happened

a glance out the window – buried

my eyes in a pond huddled by trees.

I will never know the man sitting there

cross-legged near a makeshift teepee.

The prospect of him still an echo. He

wore a straw hat, mirrored the calm of water.

Are we not the sum of chance encounters?

And who am I in the minds of others?

Have I ravished a heart? Perhaps faith –

faith is simply knowing we are thought of.

It is impossible to be alone.

How To Recover From a Bachelorette Party

I spent my Saturday and Sunday with these lovely ladies in Kansas City (yes, my second Sat. in a row there) for Miss Kelly Conklin's bachelorette party. Here we are fueling up for the long night ahead...

Then we took back the streets. Because of the occasion I can't go into details, but I will say this--there may or may not have been several pre-party hours in a hotel with lots of delicacies shaped like a familiar male member as well as vodka infused gummies, followed by taxis, clown cars, drag shows, dancing, bull rides, and fun and games with a guy named Peter. And I can say with certainty that the sweet and sultry bride-to-be had a bang up of a night. Love you Kelly!

So after the late night and long drive home I knew the only way I could recover was several glasses of lemon oil infused water, a nap in the sun, and a good work out. Here's one of my favorite sweat-detoxing routines: 10 minute interval run on the elliptical machine (warm up for 2 minutes, and then alternate between a 30 second sprint and a 60 second jog for 8 minutes). Follow this with 20 seconds of sumo squats/10 second rest and then 20 seconds of side plank crunches/10 second rest--repeat the sequence 3 more times for a total of 4 minutes. Do another 10 minute interval run and then the following set of moves 4 times for a total of 4 minutes--20 sec push-ups with alternating knees to elbows and then 20 sec tricep dips. Finally do another 10 minute interval run and finish off with 100 crunches and 100 russian twists for good measure. And now I feel human again.

Randoms

Yesterday I downloaded Patsy Cline's greatest hits and sang my heart out while pulling weeds as Fisher dug for worms. When the work was done we sat in the yellow sun and shared a bowl of cherries.

I must have been feeling nostalgic for the music of my childhood. Those days were filled with Patsy Cline, Neil Diamond, Donna Summers, Michael Jackson, and Prince. All on vinyl of course. I grew up dancing.

With all of the moves over the years I'm not sure I could place it but somewhere I own a slide projector as well as a slew of slides of some couple's Hawaiian vacation from the 60s. I used to play those slides in the background of gatherings while in college. That unknown couple could have never fathomed that 40 years later the evidence of their trip would be on display in my apartment.

There is no way of knowing what places will mean to us over the stretch of years. I didn't grow up in Des Moines, but I was here enough to pass by the street I now call home, the parks we visit, the school where my children will attend. There's no other way to say it--it's an amazing thing.

My father who rarely gives heart-to-hearts but prefers jokes and silence and the immediate once gave me advice when I most needed it and which has stuck with me. He said "Casey, you'll look back and realize this time is just an inch of your life."

After I posted my thoughts on old photographs yesterday, I couldn't stop thinking about a poem by William Stafford titled An Archival Print. Here's the link to read it: http://www.phys.unm.edu/~tw/fas/yits/archive/stafford_anarchivalprint.html

A Kind of Still Life

I call my daughter sunshine because she is a ray of light. She wakes up with a smile, usually singing or saying let's have a party. One can't help but watch her--she is a force of energy, sweet and fierce. And every time I call her sunshine the song "you are my sunshine" fills my head. It is such an eerie song. It makes my heart swell with love and also sadness. There's a certain melancholy about it that reminds me of old photographs. I can't help but feel awe and eeriness when I look at those 100 year old sepia photos--the men and women and children stone-faced as they poured their life into that lens. I love to imagine who they were in the world, to create a story for their life, to figure out the secret behind their eyes. All the details that made up their life--their songs and movements and preferences--now long gone. But still there is this photograph and surely other signs of the tracks they left--memories passed down, floors that have worn their feet, trees planted, dishes chipped. One only has to walk through an antique store to see the artifacts they've left us. But we can only guess at their dreams and thoughts. I've met so many amazing people that remind me how deceiving looks can be. A few months ago I was standing in a line in Chicago and met a young man who, just a few years out of college, quit his job and was getting ready to travel the world by himself for 2 years. And even the people I know well and love continue to surprise me with their decisions--to move, to go back to school, to start a new career or follow a new passion. I think the biggest mistake we can make in our interactions with others is to assume the ordinary. We're all walking around with our own secrets and everyone has the potential to amaze. We are here, so let's BE here until we aren't--let the people who live 100 years from now guess at the marks we've made.

Look at these faces--can you imagine what they will mean to the world?

On Viewing

When I was little I used to stare out the window from the back seat of the car as my parents drove through the Iowa country side and I would imagine jumping the fence posts intended to keep the land in and then running across the fields to the highest point. Maybe I would keep on running. And I remember days when I would intentionally do things opposite--sleep with my head at the foot of the bed, sit at a different side of the table, sometimes even hang out in a corner of a room I had never spent time in--just to feel the difference, to experience a new angle. I like the surprise of seeing common things in a new light. I'm still the girl that does these things. The other day I realized I had never really looked out one of the windows in my house so I rested my forearms on the sill and took it in. The view wasn't great, overlooking trash cans, but it was new. I prefer back doors and alleyways, places that don't see many feet. I like walking in the street and having a closer view of the asphalt and cracks that go unnoticed from cars. I always wonder about all that space in those McMansions--all the places overlooked, never sat in or walked on. I only ever want to live somewhere that can be lived in.

So here's my to-do list for today:

I will appreciate someone who doesn't know I feel that way.

When I see someone I initially have an aversion to, I will think of 3 good qualities about them.

I will spend at least 30 minutes in a peaceful place doing nothing except feeling what it is like to exist.

I will gather blades of grass and let the wind take them and think about and feel what it means to let things go and run their course.

I will give my children undivided attention.

I will find a place in my home or in my yard where I have never stood, and I will stand there. I will breathe that air.

Hump Day

I recently reconnected with a couple of friends after several years of distance. We have all changed and experienced different worlds but we've come together as new people with the ease of old friendship. There's been no awkward filler conversation--we just jump right in as if the years didn't happen. These are the best kinds of friendship--unaffected by time. And these women amaze me. Tana is beautiful and comes across as soft-spoken, but she has an unassuming fierceness about her. She's a fighter for justice and for figuring out how best to live her life. And Amy with her striking, searching eyes. I've known her my whole life and to see her now--her calm strength, her wisdom, and to know what she has overcome to be who she is now gives me pride. What is telling about both of these women is their refusal to be complacent with the way things are or with what society deems as appropriate. I met with Amy yesterday and we were talking about our high school time, the time when we grew apart. I hated high school. For me they were dark, confusing times. Those were hard years and I was miserable. But I told her of course I wouldn't change anything, and that when I find myself in dark and lonely times I own it. I let myself feel it fully because I know it won't last forever and it can only bring me closer to understanding myself and providing empathy for others. I don't invite it, but I embrace it for what it could mean. That's probably why Wednesday is my favorite day of the week. I think I have an affinity for this day because it represents what is ahead and what is behind, here in this moment.

On My Mind

I believe we are all walking around with two minds. One in our heads full of facts and figures, ideas and the illusion of reality. It's all business. It tells our body how to function, to avoid hot stoves and jagged cliffs, dark alleyways. And the other mind resides in our hearts. It is our heart. The stuff of dreams, our sense of mattering. The second mind is all feeling. That mind is filled with sunsets and sweet words. I can actually feel that mind thinking--making my chest warm and flutter when my kids say I love you out of the blue, when I speak with a beautiful friend, when I dance or hear an owl or gaze at the moon. The meaning of life is not something tangible you can fit in a box and hold in your hands. We are here to feel, to love and learn and make. So giving heed to the second mind brings meaning. But what to do when these minds don't mesh? Sometimes our hearts have to play catch-up to the reality of our brains. Our heart wants what our brain knows is a far cry--uncertain or impossible. We thank the stars for having felt.

A Poem for a Monday

I had a dream once that I was mostly naked and hanging out with friends like nothing was out of the ordinary. This poem was inspired by that. And thinking about those awkward, angst-prone teenagers I saw at the concert the other night, it seemed fitting to include this one for my Monday poem (and it's probably appropriate that it's my only poem that includes an f-bomb). So this goes out to them...

Blue Nude No. 1 At Breakfast

All of my friends were there

in my new studio apartment

with 30 foot ceilings and bricks

and wood floors, two fireplaces.

It was morning, I was grinding

kona coffee, toasting

pop-tarts, wearing nothing

but sea blue underwear.

And no one minded, my morning

breasts bouncing around the kitchen,

always a step ahead, as if it

happened all the time.

Often we tell ourselves to hold back,

stand straight, suck in, sound smart.

Is it any wonder loneliness reigns

and lives are mistaken?

I imagine beauty as an ice storm,

the rain’s way of saying

here I am, come see

a moment crystallized.

So what if I did unveil

the mammary orbs, the flesh,

squirt milk in coffee, no sugar please.

There is a time to stop being

modest,

say fuck it,

say it loud.

Buzz Under the Stars--Kansas City

 We had such a fantastic time at the show yesterday--8 full hours of music. Here's a pic of me and Shelby when we first arrived. 

 From left: Shelby, Maddy, Talia, me

 Taking a break between sets. 

Here's the Lumineers in all their glory. I love when you can tell when people love what they do and these folks clearly did. The sound was perfect--one could hardly distinguish between hearing them live and hearing them on the radio. What excites me about live music is feeling the noise reverberate through my chest and being completely held in that moment along with thousands of other people. Music can create community-mindedness like nothing else can. Imagine if countries held music festivals before considering war...

It was an eclectic mix of people, scanning every age from newborns to 70 year olds. And I was struck by the complete awkwardness of teenagers. They are strange creatures aren't they? The way they stand and fidget, looking around to see if they are noticed--all pimply and self conscious. Of course everyone endures those awful times. I just wanted to give each of them a hug and tell them to own their voice, to not care about the opinions of their peers. It is true that youth is wasted on the young!

Randoms

I have a thing for wind. I love the feel of it flexing its endless muscles across my skin and making me feel more alive. I love how it is relentless and at times ruthless. I love knowing that the wind is a force in the world, traveling great distances, and thinking about all the people who tilted their faces in it and breathed it in. It could come from anywhere. The wind is a way for the world to give us a nudge--it asks: who are you and what are you doing with your life? On a windy day I like to sit outside and feel the peace of it washing through me. It is enough to make me happy. If you sit in tall prairie grass and close your eyes and listen to the wind threading through you will think you are sitting by the ocean. When the gusts are strong it makes me giddy with the absurdity--there is no way to control it or make it stop so stop fighting it. I like to be wind-blown; let it dry my hair when it is wet. And I especially love driving with the windows down, the music extra loud so I can hear it over the torrent of the wind barreling through the car. Today I'll be driving to Kansas City to check out The Lumineers concert tonight. My window will be down and I'll be alone, singing at the top of my lungs. I awoke at 4 am here on a street in Iowa, and tonight after seeing hundreds of new faces and hearing live music I'll go to sleep on some bed in a different city. Love these kind of long-winded days.