MN Trip

Matt took me to his hometown of Litchfield, MN this weekend. I met his parents. Celebrated his brother's 40th birthday. Saw the homes in which he grew up and his old stomping grounds. It's a sweet, peaceful little place at the foothills of the northwoods. I adored all of it--his family, the town, the time. And no stop in that area would be complete without checking out the world's largest ball of twine...

 Check out all of that snow!

 With the lovely Miss Ella Knott.

The drive home was white knuckle, windy, and blurred. But we got out just in time and missed the worst of it. Plus, this was my view.

While unwinding from the trip last night I picked up the Tao Teh Ching and highlighted these lines:

"Is it not because he is selfless that his Self is realized?"

"When you are lacking in faith, others will be unfaithful to you."

"The world is a sacred vessel, which must not be tampered with or grabbed after. To tamper with it is to spoil it, and to grasp it is to lose it. In fact, for all things there is a time for going ahead, and a time for following behind ... A time to be up and a time to be down."

"How do I know the ways of all things at the Beginning? By what is within me."

And my favorite from my reading: "Thirty spokes converge upon a single hub; it is on the hole in the center that the use of the cart hinges. We make a vessel from a lump of clay; it is the empty space within the vessel that makes it useful. We make doors and windows for a room; but it is these empty spaces that make the room livable. Thus, while the tangible has advantages, it is the intangible that makes it useful." This passage struck me, having just come back from seeing Matt's hometown--all those solid, tangible things that made up his childhood history. There was a beauty to them because they were part of his history. And as for matters of the heart--all those intangible feelings that are rooted there and that define and birth our words and actions--it is the love in our heart that makes the world around us meaningful.

Bobby McFerrin - Don't Worry Be Happy

After I drop Fisher off at school today and Phoenix at her aunt's, I'll be heading up to Minnesota with Matt to meet his folks and his brother. I think my sensitive Fish is a bit worried about me not being there to pick him up from school, even though I assured him his dad will be there and he'll be there early to get him. So I thought of this song and played it for him. He's been listening to it non stop ever since. Here's to a happy weekend...

Love

I haven't had a whole lot to say lately because I'm not wrestling with questions. My heart is full. I'm the happiest I've been in a long time. It feels like my whole chest is smiling and peaceful. So I am giving in to this euphoria, held like the moonlight in a clearing of woods. That place on top of the hills you drive by and imagine pulling over and running up to. I am a fire on a beach. I am the smell of pine trees. The sun and moon and breeze on a face. A creek you walk along. Simply profound things that silences tongues, leaving nothing at all to say but love. And even that word doesn't seem to gather all the breath in you. But I don't want to think too hard about another word, I just want to be here in it. So here's to each and every one of you, here's to the world--I send love.

A Poem On A Tuesday

It snowed again. The cold front has returned. So here's one of my poems inspired by winter:

Snowed In

It was so pretty, wasn’t it—waking to winter’s

first snow spread out like breath on roofs and lawns.

Like a ghost—occupying chairs, flower pots, and tops

of cars. Shin deep. Soft and seemingly weightless

as a kiss of air, or a thousand kisses.

But tree limbs creak and buckle under such harmless beauty.

Backs ache into the lean of shovels, the kids go mad. And you,

standing there in the silvered wind with all your thoughts—

your fears and wonders and unspoken loves

wheezing in your mind like so many kisses.

What will it cost you? Your thinking

is a leaded blanket smoothed over your shoulders.

It is the sap in your bones. The blinding light

of sun across a white expanse, hallowing eyes.

Innocent yet enveloping.

Casey Lord 

Randoms

I was on a mission yesterday to give my kids the kind of winter day that it's been too cold to have of late. We started with sledding, and then went on to this...

 A snowperson, complete with Mohawk. Finally the temps were right to make for good ol' packing snow.

 That'd be Fisher in his bigfoot costume from Halloween, which he likes to wear in place of a snowsuit and go tramping around the neighborhood making bigfoot tracks in the neighbor's yards to, as he says, give them a scare.

 We even fit in a road trip before nap time. We drove to Newton to check out the Maytag cheese dairy farms. Despite coming inches away from crashing into a deer that came out of nowhere and crossed the road, we had a nice drive listening to music real loud and watching the farms go by. I can't help but belt out the lines to one of my favorite "The Head and The Heart" songs, titled "Heaven Go Easy On Me". It goes like this: "Is it that the good life is a simple one, sittin' in the lawn chair watchin' leaves go by. Readin' good books and playin' songs. Watchin' the wind blow through your front yard. Don't follow your head, follow your heart." Those words fill me with a kind of contentment. Because they're true. Because I have an affinity for wind. Because if you can't be right with yourself just sitting in a lawn chair then nothing will feel right for you. Because it's that simple. The dairy farm tour by the way isn't all that fascinating. You don't get to see the production side of things. Just a real short video and tour. But I'm sure on some level even the clipped version of the cheese making process gave them a new appreciation for when we're walking down the cheese aisle at the grocery store. It's good for them to see where things come from, and how.

After naps Fisher constructed some ramp out of a cardboard box and came up with a game where he dropped a ball down it to try to go into some random items he found--a boot, a jug, a nest. He gave himself prizes, including some foil that was packed into a ball that he found somewhere in a grave of toys. When I said "oh, you get a foil ball" he said "no, it isn't a foil ball" and then ripping it in half, "it's a broken foil ball." Somewhere in those words is a poem. Finally, we ended the evening with a trip to the fish store so we could become fish people.

 

 

 

 

 

 



Iowa Historical Museum

Yesterday I took the kids to the Iowa State Historical Museum and I kept wondering why I hadn't been taking them there more this winter. It's free. It's educational. They loved it...

 From the notes of Albert Lea on his adventure to Iowa.

 Fisher insisted on wearing a tie yesterday.

 The staircase in the atrium--what better way to spend a cold sunny winter day.

 The globe that was once in the lobby of the Des Moines Register.

 After the museum, we went to one of my favorite restaurants--Olympic Flame.

A Humpday Poem

My friend and neighbor, Jay, found this poem by Tony Hoagland as part of the flood facebook with poetry deal that I participated in. It's such a fine poem that I am including it here:

"Personal"

Don’t take it personal, they said;
but I did, I took it all quite personal—

the breeze and the river and the color of the fields;
the price of grapefruit and stamps,

the wet hair of women in the rain—
And I cursed what hurt me

and I praised what gave me joy,
the most simple-minded of possible responses.

The government reminded me of my father,
with its deafness and its laws,

and the weather reminded me of my mom,
with her tropical squalls.

Enjoy it while you can, they said of Happiness
Think first, they said of Talk

Get over it, they said
at the School of Broken Hearts

but I couldn’t and I didn’t and I don’t
believe in the clean break;

I believe in the compound fracture
served with a sauce of dirty regret,

I believe in saying it all
and taking it all back

and saying it again for good measure
while the air fills up with I’m-Sorries

like wheeling birds
and the trees look seasick in the wind.

Oh life! Can you blame me
for making a scene?

You were that yellow caboose, the moon
disappearing over a ridge of cloud.

I was the dog, chained in some fool’s backyard;
barking and barking:

trying to convince everything else
to take it personal too.

Tony Hoagland