Have Less- Live More

It's the most magical time of the year.  For some.  I'm not a fan of holidays and crazy days.  I don't begroan anybody else's pleasure in festivities.  It is just not my cup of tea.  And if you keep on reading I will try to clarify my unpopular position.

First - let's begin with the diminishing daylight that occurs each year between the autumnal equinox and the winter solstice.  I am not SAD*, I am just unhappy it.  The feeling that I am burning daylight comes at two pm.  By the time I go to the gym, an Al-Anon meeting and run a few errands, I can see Mr. Sunshine attempting to dip below the Front Range.  In summer I have plenty of time to get home, pack a mini-picnic and sit my tush out at the pool in the gentler version of afternoon rays.  There I can read and write and dip and dive.  Heaven on earth.  This time of year I find myself on a chair, decaf in hand to warm my arthritic bones, reading lamp on.  At four pm.

Second is holiday music.  This is a treat I would prefer left to Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.  Yes, these tunes have improved over the years with famous vocalists releasing current and worthy renderings of songs old and new.  I don't dispute that.  It's just the constant onslaught of forced cheer and lyrics that may be outdated.  Why must I be subjected to listen while picking out produce or riding the bike at the gym.  I know I can pop some ear-buds in and listen to the tunes of my liking.  I know others may enjoy this holiday barrage.  It's just not my idea of everyday music.

Next up?  Shopping.  An activity I bemoan year round and deplore between Halloween and December 25th.  It used to be that Thanksgiving weekend was the official start of the holiday season, but anyone who visits a craft store knows that items are now available way before that.  The constant rolling of one occasion right into the next is exhausting.  Back to school and Christmas are practically back to back.  How much crap can we purchase while purporting minimalism?  How much money is spent on people we don't really like?  On products we don't even need?  On shit we already own, but hey!  A bigger, better version has just become available.  I say Stop the Madness!

Decorations...  Dollar Tree crap.  Wrapping paper... Future landfill fluff.  Party City is nothing more than single use, bound for the garbage nonsense.  Do I sound like Scrooge yet?  I hope not.  I do enjoy the outdoor lighting displays that bring brightness to the darkest season.  Just spare me the blow-up Santas!

The spirituality of the season moves me.  Hanukkah represents the resilience of an oppressed people.  A salient message today.  Christmas represents the birth of a rabbi who preached love, compassion and kindness.  I'll repeat that.  Love.  Compassion.  Kindness.  The hypocrisy of believers who celebrate the Christ child, but not an immigrant baby leaves me empty.  Love thy neighbor, but only if they really live in your neighborhood.  Peace on Earth - Good Will Toward Men.  Only if you are American, suburban, white?  OK.  Whatever.

People talk of returning to simpler times.  While waiting on line at Wal-Mart.  People profess to love their fellow man.  Then cut them off in traffic.  People say 'tis the season.  To Facebook bash anyone with a different opinion.  Why is November and December the magical months to be decent?  What about the rest of the year...

If the holidays were truly holy days; sacred celebrations of each individuals personal faith I'd be on board.  But in our materialistic, me first, society I don't often feel that kind of vibe.  That is why I turn inward at this time of year.  My time to reflect on what has transpired, what I can do better.  Do I need to make an amends to anyone?  Is there a charity I missed but care enough about to donate to - either with time, money or talent.  Does my neighbor or friend need a hand, or a meal?  These are the small, important things I can do.  And they don't cost much.

I can spend time - the most elusive commodity of today - with those I love.  Or like.  My family had a celebratory dinner earlier this week.  The food was great, but the best part was being with my three children and two grands.  Delicious.  Tonight I will dance and pot-luck with a dance community I still feel part of in Colorado Springs.  More than anything, I look forward to knowing I will hug and be hugged.  Love and be loved.  Fancy footwork and festive food is not the main attraction.  It is the fellowship and friendship.

Time to Write,

Jane

* SAD - Seasonal Affective Disorder

Poetic Dreamscape

I've just finished an eight-week class on Reading as a Writer - Schools in (mostly) 20th Century Poetry.  If it sounds heady, it was.  I am a poet of the heart.  Ideas and feelings come to me and I write about it in rhyme and verse.  I hope I am approachable and relatable to my reader. 

This Monday night journey to the Lighthouse Writers Workshop not only took me up to Colfax, but also into my head. The schools were a bit tough to wrap my brain around. I can intellectualize just about anything. But poetry? I attempted to write a piece in at least one of the schools each week, modeling my style after famous poets. I read the 108 page handout the teacher e-mailed in advance of the start date. I admit, there was much I didn't 'get'. I took two voluminous tomes of poetry out of the library and renewed them until I couldn't. In other words, I gave it my best shot. Last night was the final class and we were encouraged to each bring a poem to read and cursorily workshop. The week before we had learned about Charles Spicer and were challenged to write a piece where we appear in a dream as a poet. There are a few layers in the following piece. *The stages loosely follow sleep stages *I took some liberty and lightly incorporated a different school into each segment *These are 'reworked' poems. Some I've edited to fit the theme. Others are a few stanzas of longer poems Poetic Dreamscape Stage I:  Beacon         

    How I loved to sit in that tree   

painstakingly planted

by my mother

That tree was my best friend

I would settle for hours

in the fragrant, feathery branches

No one could see me in that tree

sketchpad or notebook in hand

an early observer of my own world

Stage II:  Burst

Setting the perfect table

Forks on the left; sharp objects to the right

My mother always had a cornucopia

Filled with sarcasm and sage.  Nuts still in their shells

The centerpiece of judgement

Overwhelms my holiday table

Who will bear the vibration of this

Electric knife and cut into the flesh

Of our family dysfunction

Stage III:  Parasomnias

I wanted to be a nature poet

Happy haikus about migrating birds

Ode to autumnal colors

I yearned to be the poet

Whose wisdom is quietly whispered during savasana

Spandexed yogis nodding, namaste-ing

Instead my Higher Power, God?

Tapped me on the shoulder

Gave me sharp words.  Piercing prose

Stage IV:  Deep

Please, I begged.  Never write a love poem

With my name in your title.  Instead watch me dance

In the icy blue cosmic ooze. Learn the architecture of

My body.  The taste of my tongue

Poison ink of Eve’s garden - knowing

I am the forbidden fruit of my own desire

I was an Egyptian in my first lifetime, entombed in a

Jeweled sarcophagus.  Choking on my own throaty laughter

Once I gazed into a pool of malevolence, or was it mirth?

To see Narcissus.  I tumbled over but never drowned because

My wings noiselessly fluttered into the verse

Stage V: Delta

Grace is a place

that lives in my heart

in lightness and dark

abundant and stark

the song of a bird

kind actions, soft words

Amazing grace is a song

written by a slave master

denigrating black skin

while his shone alabaster

Grace is your mother

giving you birth

allowing your life

to flourish on earth

Grace is your father

without gentle hand

the day that you realize

a man’s just a man

Stage VI: REM

Must I write a poem to document the mundane?

A list of activities, chores and boredom

Does this let you into my heart?

I want you to know I am sensitive and brutal

I do not desire to write in another’s fashion

Wear their shoes.  Sleep with their spouse

I want you to read my words and.  Cry

Recant my thoughts.  Secrets.  Fears.

I would rather eat William’s plums

Than swallow his style

Stage VII:  The Awakening

In shadows

                                              I breathe

                                                                                       My poetic soul

Emerging                                                                                                                                                          

Stage VIII:  Circumverse

My poetry.  Nothing more than a vessel

Holding my heart full of nails

Jagged words

Often when I breathe

Breathe deeply, do the waxy serifs

Soften enough to let in

The neon yellow lettering

I try to juggle those

Encaustic ocher syllabary, but

Rune always manages to fall

Ever so slightly beyond

My unvoiced reach

Potato People

My People Were Potato People

My people were potato people

Doughy peasants who stooped

To plant, then pick, potatoes

Resourceful to eat the lowly tuber

Boiled into thin soup

Day after day as sustenance

Over time, my people

Came to resemble their life source

Lumpy bodies sheathed in brown muslin

Polish women in babushkas

Held potatoes defiantly in their hands

A small sharp knife making swift cuts

Once I dreamed of Nana’s latke recipe

And that winter morning made

Perfect potato pancakes

Potato people are bygone

No lunger hunched in fields

Filled with suspicious eyes