O'Cottonwood

What I did to the Sunday photo from my father

What he meant for me to see: my Mother on Mother's Day

Somewhere in New York, a friend treated her mother to the first lettuce from her garden. This was yesterday, Mother's Day. Here in Montana, you can see what spring is like. Spring is a bit of a winter extension. Quick rule of thumb dictates no planting until after Mother's Day and only after you see the cottonwoods budding.

In the photo that Sherry's Dad's daughter ruined up above, you can see yellow-greenish colorations on some of the forelimbs. These budding colorations are proof  the cottonwood tree is still living. My father says it is proof that the tree is Irish, with it's nothing-beats-me-down attitude. I dunno, I think the photo is proof that the photographer is Irish what with his nothing-can-stop-my-blarney-spinabilities. Whichever way you would like to consider this, I remain the dutiful daughter who believes what she is told, but  then messes up his photography when his back is turned.

flying burgers

Today was moving day. My daughter moved home from college. We've done this enough times we remembered how important it is to take a break every now and then. We also know where to go for that break. To a place that promises it can fly anything. Do you know about flying burgers? Do you know about Hot N Tots? What about Bee Bops? Oh and they can do a basket on just about anything on their menu. Turns out their large order of fries is a full pound. Fresh cut potatoes.  Now, back to the move.

Frank O'Hara Reads "Having A Coke With You" | The New Republic

Frank O'Hara Reads "Having A Coke With You" The New Republic



I don't want to lose track of this link. Every few weeks I click on this video and hope you find time to do so as well.

So, back to your regularly scheduled program. For me, it's writing another 1000 words.

outrunning light backwards

It makes sense, he tells me, that we could travel forward in time because the speed of light is forward. We'd just have to figure out how to move faster than light.

But to travel backwards in time, not only would we have to be fast, but we'd have to be fast backwards. The exact quote: It doesn't seem possible that we'd be able to outrun the speed of light backwards. (How can you not love a mind like that?)

Still, I would like to outrun light backwards. On good days, I actually think that perhaps I succeeded. The more I move forward in life, the more often I understand the dynamics of this life by revisiting the past.

For example, I've come to understand that a writer is an outsider looking in. Whether a writer ever gets published, or whether a writer ever sits down and actually writes, a person with writerly qualities is gifted with the power of observation. Said power places said person on the outside looking in. Sometimes with shoes three sizes too big for her feet. Often sitting on a couch.

Exhibit A:

Note: only one subject is using her powers of observation to notice there is a camera in the room.

(All the while making a mental note of asking her folks later why the boys got to wear holsters but she didn't.)

Exhibit B:

Note: again, the same subject is seemingly removed from the spirited occasion on said couch.

(Outside looking in?) 

Clearly she is making mental notes for her future journal about how some cousins are allowed to stand on furniture when she specifically remembers being told to sit still on her Aunt Linda's lap.

Exhibit C requires more detail. Not everyone reading this may consider himself/herself to be a writer. Only after I started putting words on paper a few years ago did I start to notice a common trait among writerly friends. We narrate to ourselves. And we did not realize we did so for many years. While we might have noticed we were not quite like the other kids on the block (or, for me, down the river), it took a length of time for us to realize we narrate inside our heads all the while we are engaging in life. It's as though we were jotting down notes for a future story while we were shaking hands with Magic Johnson at the LA Forum, or feeling the sting of the Bishop's slap when being confirmed under the name of Gabriel. Or watching our cousin, the couch-stander almost drown. This narrating inside our heads is not always a good feeling.

On Being Nine and Becoming a Writer
 

Compared to Terry, my brothers and I were born knowing how to swim.
We knew the ways of water and how the rivers bend. She camped with us
because her parents didn't camp.They rented motel rooms with T V sets
whenever they left town. She and I - we were wading in the water, pretending
to build a dam in the shallows of a creek in a ponderosa forest a hundred miles
from home. She was wearing my second brother's flip flops when a lazy current
slipped them from her feet. In slow motion style, she gave chase
while I ran to the water's shore, up the cut bank and around the bend
to watch uprooted trees and deep eddies pull her underneath. Then I stopped
and watched for her- willing her to fight. I thought I could catch
the sandals and my cousin if they floated further downstream. She remembers
this was when she learned to swim. I remember this was when I didn't know
how to run for help. This was the day I stood still and almost watched her drown.

helping kass feel better

I thought about titling this post "Smushed".

A favorite story regarding my daughter has to do with a college paper she wrote. She earned her usual A but the professor wrote a note to her that a word she used in her paper, smushed, was not a word. She approached him after class to discuss how to conjugate the verb smash.

If smushed wasn't the past tense, would it then be this: smash, smoosh, smooshed?

I try not to beam and glow about her, but perhaps you can see how she earns an extra A for charm?

Now, speaking of smash:

Balue is going back to live on the farm.

He's seen one too many back ends of one too many big red pickups.

(Editor's note: Sherry had nothing to do with this accident.)

(Balue never belonged to her, just to her insurance policy.)

(No daughters were, thanks be to heaven, injured in the above.)

I was allowed to post this photo as long as I kinda distorted it.

Jack (fka Derby) would rather not be easily identified.

No Photos, Please

This morning seven deer  were standing between me and my ride to work. My ride to work used to be called Derby on account of his one accident. Lately, his name is Jack on account of looking like a one-eyed Jack due to the crumpled blow near his left eye...er...headlight. I could take his photo and show you what I mean, but really it's too sad to see.

I watched the deer. The deer watched me. The earth as we know it stopped spinning. No one would believe me about Time stopping to sit down in my driveway and saying "Sherry, go ahead and soak up the moment."

I considered the fact that you might not believe me about the deer, so I thought to take a photo. But Time and deer both took off before I could snap a shot. Sorry, I know how much you would have liked to see seven white-tails and Time in roper boots slipping away from me in early morning light. Trust me, it was real.

When I arrived at work, I stopped to visit with my boss. Father of four, leader of  five great businesses, deacon of his church, pillar of our society. He couldn't have known this, but with his briefcase snapped open and propped against the file cabinet I was leaning against, I could see a set of two bushy eyebrows and a large red fake nose inside his briefcase. I smiled at him. He smiled back. I understand better why I enjoy working with him. Again, I have no photos to show you. Think of me working with Mr. Marx.

When I returned to my own office, a text from my son greeted me. Seems he had spent the evening with one Mr. Cooper, working a bit with him on his golf swing, sharing a bit of chat about the local courses and how to play into the winds we've been experiencing. Did I tell you he performs under the name of Alice? (Not my son, but Mr. Cooper). In Montana? I know, this is harder to believe than Time and seven deer taking five in my driveway. But naturally, I must ask you to believe in me and accept that there are no photos.

page 89

This is to say I received the book you sent my way. I'm on page 107, noticed that page 89 arrived with an earmark. I was tempted to go back and earmark page 46 in which Manhattan was described as succeeding early on as a great harbor, but failing at first as a city.

 I didn't read the book for two days after reading that passage because I spent time thinking about when and where this has been true in my life. What makes for a good harbor in people? What makes for a good city? I notice when I think about this, it's the harbor qualities that beckon me, turn my head. There'll be more on that later, probably when I get out my tugboat book. Right now, both books are secured in a locked room--no way can the pups do to these books what they did to an earlier book.

Sugar on a rope showed up in the early pages of this book. Not only were clotheslines used between buildings to dry laundry, but these lines were also to exchange cups of sugar. Imagine! Sugar on a rope. Sidewalks weren't the only means for getting from one point to another. The rooftops were commonly used, but I suppose everyone but me knew that already. (Remember I grew up without rooftops, miles and miles from the nearest town . . .)

The sense of community has been impossible to escape while reading this book about the later 1800s and early 1900s of NYC. The book documents a spirit on the streets, a prevailing sense of doing whatever must be done. I didn't expect to find such prairie pioneer spirit in Manhattan's streets. I found myself realizing my maternal grandmother might have come from here, had she not grown up on a homestead in Eastern Montana.

My grandmother taught us not to complain. An early poem of mine was published in Touch: The Journal of Healing, explaining the way she moved through life. I'm not sure about how many fish were caught back in the days in NYC, but I know for sure more fish was caught there than we had sugar on any rope back west of there.

Mercy Tin

She stored her mercy

in an old bandage tin.

The hinged lid, with sliding clasp,
groaned each time it was needed.
There were patches for faith, rolled
gauze for trust and tubes of forgiveness
ointment.

It hung by her kitchen stove
next to the match dispenser
below the ‘kwitcherbellyachin’ motto
Gramma-great burned into a left-over
slice of barn door.

She filled it with sunrise blush
and that center skip in hopscotch,
sprinkled in a somersault’s pause
and the tug from a six-pound trout line.

Whatever you take out, you put back in
was the rule she taught her children.

strange maps lead to war rugs

If you were reading earlier posts, you may have noticed a few maps. Were you able to see the map I carry in my head, you'd see this arrow pointing to a spot that is marked "you are not here".  That's a bit how it feels to be lost. To be not found.

If you can get comfortable with this sensation, being lost doesn't need to have a negative value. Moving through life in a sort of *not found* way can allow for exploration. Exploration allows for discovery. Discovery requires keeping an open mind and being willing to consider the impossible. (The seemingly impossible.)

Random note: My siblings and I used to actively collect redundant statements.We couldn't make them up; we were just on the alert. A basketball coach being interviewed prior to an important game explained his game plan: "If we can put the ball through the hoop more times than the other team, we'll win the game tonight." Or this: "Right before the river widens, it is more narrow."

Years ago, we heard this on the Discovery channel regarding the discovery of a new subspecies of jellyfish: Prior to its discovery, it was not known to exist.

My daughter has a bit of a snowglobe going on inside her. Shake her up and you never know where her snowflakes may fall. In teaching emotionally disadvantaged children, she once wrote to a publisher for donations, explaining that her war boys would love to read about Stalin and Hitler, Roosevelt and Churchill. 

In thinking about this snowglobeness quality about her, I came across  a poet who wrote a poem about being inside a snowglobe with reindeer. In her blog, she links a website regarding  strange maps.

I *heart* maps (this is what started today's blog, and so I am repeating myself).

Sample of a map I found while visiting Strange Maps:

Apparently someone didn't want others to find Ireland attractive, eh?

This website lead me to another website:  Right Basic Building explores better ways to make flat maps of a spherical world. From their website, here is a map with the South Pole in the center:

Now comes the leap.

Allowing yourself to be lost, allows for exploration. You find some great maps that do not lead you home, but lead you to where you started. A full circled journey is realized, so to speak. In this case, the daughter with her war boys and her snowglobishness led to the poet led to the website of maps led to a website that specializes in rugs of war. I did not know such things existed. Not that I like the rugs. I don't like why there are war rugs. But I like the way discovery feels. I like the leap that is required to get here.

holding ponds

Watching the New Power House Get Built

I expect to hear water falling when my father sends photos
taken from across the canyon where he raised us kids.

The river is as it's always been, but now the water’s gone.
How can that be, I worry. What is a river without water?

He writes of newer slower turbines timed to turn in ways
any fish can survive through these next years of construction.

Penstock, channels and after bays. Depths of sediment.
These were words we heard at dinner time when he was boss
of the power camp. A hundred years ago,

before the dam was built, a deep hole was dug
in case of water shortage, or a need to hold some back.

Next time you come home, he writes, we'll go out and look around.
Once I see the holding pond, I'll believe rivers can't run dry.

In case you are still interested: the logistics of building a power house downstream from the dam requires water being diverted to allow for a dry building site. The photo below shows the old power house (circa 1910 or so ?). Once the new power house is built (with the slower turbine, with its wider blades), the old power house will be torn down. Sad face thingy for me. The dispatchers' office in that power house was the nearest place we could go to for a candy bar. The guys usually had chocolate bars and cough drops stashed in their desks. We could show up with a nickle and buy from them, even though our folks told us not to. We didn't understand "personal stash" when we were so young.

Here's a photo of the old power house and the new construction site.  *Wah*

Random Note:

Look to the right horizon. See the train cars? That is where my brothers and I learned

to run across the tops of train cars, just in case we ever got cast as robbers

needing to make a fast getaway in some fast action movie.

where did sugar on a rope come from?

He told me potatoes were complicated. I know this is true because I wrote it on a scrap of paper and saved it in my back pocket. Some conversations later, I retreived the scrap of paper from the lint trap in my dryer. Apparently I had laundered the words when I washed my jeans. The scrap of paper looked a bit like this former leaf, except I could see these words in faded ink: potatoes are complicated and some poems are born in badness.

The trouble is I cannot remember the  conversation that produced these quotes. I don't remember anymore where these words came from.

Do you have such scraps of paper? I don't always know what to keep and what to let go. I'm not the sort to let anything go. There are scraps of paper all over my house. For example, these are the words next to my kitchen sink: We don't even need to talk about houses on the hill.

And so, (leap with me now) the next photo illustrates the hanging on and the not knowing when to let go.

When he talks to me, he uses panoramic strokes, coaxing me to see the big picture. And for a bit of time, I am right there with him, seeing the big picture. And in fact, I am enjoying the wide view his words offer:

 then something happens as we keep talking, as if we go around a bend, chattering and laughing but

then the poetry-gene activates

and the next thing I know I am on my knees,
examining something minute, something telescopic:

and later, I will find more random words on scraps of paper:

sugar on a rope, failed harbor

What does it mean to want to be heard?

little men lined up like starfish on the edge of a tidal pool

Did anything happen in 1882?

Some of these words will find homes in my poems. Some of these words will end up as lint in my dryer.And (I am sorry to admit) I am not likely to remember the walk along the river, the wide blue sky, the way back to my car. I won't  remember taking the above pictures.