thin ice

May we skate on the thick ice as long as we stay away from the thin? And how do you stay away from the thin, a brother asked as we slid across the ice.

The world divides in two: Those who think the sign warns that all the ice is thin, and those who think the sign reminds us to stay off the thin ice, but allows for skating on the thick.

**

I was watching a video on David Foster Wallace last night. He spoke about what we lose when we allow ourselves to gratify any and all of our desires, often times instantaneously Where do the chunks of quiet go we once had in our days?

"We don't want things to be quiet anymore," he said. "The part of you that can think for thirty minutes of silence never gets fed." When did living start feeling so thin?

**

I asked Hewhoflies about silence and living thick or thin. He told me about a month spent in Ireland a few years ago. The only time he and his wife spoke on their drive along the Irish coastline was when they reached a small village overlooking the sea. To their right, a police station. In the window, a sign: For Rent.

They shared a hearty laugh.

They drove on. Now they are back in the States and he entertains the notion of renting that active police station. For what, for why? To see if he can.

quiet

We get quiet when others cry, Mary Little Cross whispered decades ago. It's like lighting candles on an altar; it's the way we send our prayers. The Bear Don't Walk  kids were boarding our school bus a few days after their mother had died while painting the ceiling in their kitchen.  

I feel quiet. In the wake of Japan's disasters, everything I have to say is small.

**

I wondered if Hewhofliesplanes would be flying rescue in Japan the way he did in Indonesia a few years ago. In the middle of wondering, my cell phone rang. He was calling to say he was involved in a different mission and so he'd not be in Japan.

Where would they, how would they find the courage they will need to recover? How would any of us? Whenever Plane-flyer and I visit the subject of courage comes up. Mostly we were quiet, but then he shared this quote with me:

"Courage is the price that life exacts for granting peace. The soul that knows it not, knows no release from little things; Knows not the livid loneliness of fear."  -Amelia Earhart

Photo courtesy of Nadine Hergenrider.

icicle

Of the two photos my father emailed to my Blackberry in the middle of the night, I open the one he's named Chop. The other one, Self Portrait with New Necktie, is one I can't bring myself to open. Not yet. Instead, I start my day earlier than usual. I take a photo of an icycle icicle hanging from the eaves of my house. The colors of a winter sunrise are distorted when looking through the ice. I'll send that photo to him before I go to sleep tonight now that I've looked up how to spell it.

icicle: noun: a pendent spear of ice formed by the freezing of dripping water.

On my early drive to work, Hewhowatchesmoviesfromthebackporch calls with today's weather forecast. He's surprised I am already out of bed and on my way to work. He just got off night shift so he knows how snowy our roads are and (surprise) he's watching I Love You, Man. Did I know, he asks, it was filmed at Venice Beach? Remember where we found that great parking place in the shade of a rundown garage's awning one alley from the beach? Everyone else was parking a mile away, but not us. We had found a secret parking spot.

Oy, I remember. So does he. He tells me that for years afterwards he would sometimes drive to Venice Beach to see if anyone else had discovered our spot.  

icicle: M.E. isykle, from is "ice" + ikel "icicle," from O.E. gicel (rel. to cylegicel "cold ice"), from P.Gmc. *jekilaz (cf. O.N. jaki "piece of ice," dim. jökull "icicle, ice, glacier"). Dialectal ickle "icicle" survived into 20c.

In how many ways can something keep hurting?  I am driving up the slick hill to my office, thinking about this but I don't say it out loud. Instead I tell him about my dad's latest emails and how I don't want to open the Necktie shot just yet. Moviewatcher-Parkingspotrememberer clears his throat.

I flip my left-turn signal on and ask if his movie has reached the sad section, but he says no-- he was just remembering my dad back when we were together. Remember how your dad took photos of his radiation mask when he had throat cancer? He measured it and emailed everyone a photo of the mask, the diagram, the radiation table, and the prognosis of oxygen tubes someday hanging around his chest.  

Traffic clears. I turn left and bounce across my office's icy parking lot. I turn the engine off and sit in the silent pickup cab, phone held against my ear and listen to him tell me: Taking photos and documenting pain are forms of detachment which help your dad find the courage to deal with what he must.

icicle: A pendent mass of ice tapering downward to a point, formed by the freezing of drops of water or other liquid flowing down from the place of attachment.

deleted scenes

Someone lent me a dvd to watch. I don't remember the title, but I do remember being warned only parts of it were good. My sister lends me books with sticky notes attached: "Let me know what you think of this when you are done reading it." What that means is she didn't like the book but wants me to read it anyways, just in case (JIC) she might have missed something. Do you know these same sorts of people?

The best part about the bad movie -- turns out I went ahead and watched it all -- was the section marked: Deleted Scenes. These were the scenes that told a different story (their own story). Sorta like the lines of poetry we strike from our poems, and put back into our cheater's notebook for use in a future poem. Scrapers. Bits of memory.

Watching this movie tonight reminded me of a man I used to watch movies with -- before we didn't anymore. I sorta wish I hadn't remembered. He would have to leave the room during the sad sections. And yet, he's a movie addict and watches these movies over and over. Even now, I know if I were to call him, likely he'd be watching a movie with sad spots in it. Oh, I would say, if you are watching a movie, I can call back later.

And he would say: No that's alright, I'm sitting on my back porch, the sad part isn't over yet. I still have five more minutes.

something else about red

When I was five I had my own Popeye coloring book. Growing up in a large family with a tight budget, not having to share a coloring book with siblings was a pretty big deal for me. For once I could color just the way I liked. And so I colored every page red. Wasn't red wonderful? I'd ask my brothers.

Our little sister at the time was still a toddler who slept in a crib in our parents' bedroom. She bit the heads off the plastic stable ponies in our farm set and so we didn't trust her around our coffee can of crayons. Only decades later did I discover what color meant to her. We were spending a cold April day in our nearby ski town when she coaxed me inside a quilter's fabric store -- one of the few places that close in on me and make me nervous. I am not domestic when it comes to fabric, but she was and still is. She ran her hands along every bolt of fabric, naming colors in such wondrous ways:  Azure Dairy Cream, Rock Hen Red, Foam Curler Pink.

Shewhobittheheadoffponies wouldn't leave the store. I was bordering on hyperventilation when she turned and asked what it was that centered me the way color made her glow. Color? Somewhere between my Popeye Phase and my Black Sweater Todays, I had misplaced my feel for color; I had misplaced my feel for . . . red!

How had I let that happen? The notions and bobbins and fabric bolts -- even the pinking shears -- closed in  on me, waiting for my reply. I took one deep breath and answered: Wide open spaces. And then I did what I always do -- slipped out the store's back door.

styled!

Well wow, what do you know but Kathleen and Kass have included this blog in the Stylish Blogger Award List! 

I started this blog almost a year ago to this day and have so enjoyed meeting so many creative, bright, intelligent, generous and kind people. The rules to accepting this blog award ask that I name five more stylish bloggers and then tell you seven things about myself you might not have known before.

I would have included Kathleen and Kass in my list, but since they have already named me, I add these bloggers to the Stylish Blogger List:

* Kerry at farmlass: This is where I go every time I lose my center. Kerry's sense of art can be found in every word she types, every photo she takes. Her sense of Earth is everywhere on her blog. AND her Irishness is everywhere, too.

* Marylinn Kelly : This is where I go, and this is who I hear from whenever I doubt myself. And whenever I want to find tough answers to easy questions, Marylinn has them. Her blog will really take you places.

* Sarah Jane Sloat at the rain in my purse: Everything slant can be found and felt when you read Sarah's words. 

* Amanda at Travels with Persephone: I get the greatest sense of Life Wide Open when I visit her blog. Her Greek soul and sense of adventure revives me every time I stop by.

* Magpie at A New York Magpie's Eye: Love the way she shares the way she sees the world. Her artwork and photography opens up another world to me every time she posts.

****

And so now, a list of seven things you didn't know about me until now:

1) I was late in learning when you cast with a right-handed reel using your left hand, not to take the resulting mess personally. There are two types of people in this world, as they say: the ones who have fun untangling the line with you, and the ones who storm away.

2) Speaking of storms, I was a stormy morning once in downtown Chicago. The storm went away once the shoeshine man let me shine his shoes.

3) I was caught without an umbrella in DC not too long ago. In Montana, it rains so seldom very few of us living here own an umbrella. As I made my way from the Holocaust Museum to the Smithsonian Castle, a man approached me from the curb. “You aren’t from around here,” he said. He gave me his umbrella.

4) I grew up within the spray of the Crooked Falls on the Missouri River. Friends would come spend the night and not be able to sleep. “What’s that sound?” they would ask. I wouldn’t realize for a little bit that the sound they were hearing and feeling was the sound of water falling. This is part of what I try to keep with me wherever I am.

5) Outside my bedroom window is a tiny rose bush. The miniature yellow roses bloom in November and in June. When I leave my house in the morning I check for new yellow buds even when it isn’t November. Or June.

6) Aligning magnets on the front of my refrigerator is a restorative exercise for every member of my family. The door is 72% filled; there is room for more. My daughter is the first to notice when something on the door has changed – the twinkle in her eye gives her away.

7) My favorite all-time video is my collection of Planet Earth documentaries. My son loves them, too. We both love the episode about snow in the Gobi Desert. Snow doesn’t melt there, it evaporates. Imagine that, we say to each other. Imagine that, I say to you.

8) I look for exceptions to the rule. When I play games, I make up new rules. Maybe break a few. Games that require cheating are the most fun. I don't count to seven.

lifting

Color gets better with age. Someone said that some time last autumn -- I wrote it in the cheater's notebook I carry almost every where I go.

It was with me way back when my father found it easy to talk while driving the gravel roads. We were on the road to Sullivan, a place no longer on the map. He thought if he drove his children there we'd remember the way even though it's gone. But, along the way: there, a red barn in a grove of trees--once an opera house for the orphans growing up in a remote Montana valley.  I am barely amazed, one of us had murmured.

Of course this would be where our great-grandmother grew up. Such verve, such resiliency. Back in the frontier days, when men lost their wives, their children were sent to this orphanage. Wasn't she the one, we asked after heading back to town, who wore purple and orange together when all the other grandmothers were wearing black?

Was she the one, I wonder now, who told us whenever you've got something to say-- say it red. (?) My first lifted quote.

three tracks

Once you know the back roads, you don't have to read the newspaper. He tells me this as we drive along a washboard road. We are not on our way to watch the  Bald Eagles return to the stream to feast on Kokanee Salmon. It's spawning season, the newspaper reports, a great time to spot a large gathering of Bald Eagles. 

But he knows a far-off meadow and how to park so the sun can't cause reflections. And we both know how to fall quiet.

Alongside us -- miles of barbed-wire fencing. Every six feet, the wire is stapled to the short trunk of sagebrush or juniper. And up ahead, soaking up the sun are six teenaged Bald Eagles roosting on six different posts.

We watch without breathing. If you think of all the times you've wasted your breath, he whispers, you realize you can breathe in  later.

The eagles spread their wings and we think- oh, they are taking off. But no, they stretch their wings and hold them wingtip to wingtip six times over. A tremor runs through their feathers and finds it way to my sneakers. And the inside of my elbows. Afterwards, he tells me this is the way eagles rid their feathers of mites and other unwanted varmints. The feathers get too hot from the sun, the mites and such find it too unpleasant and escape their feathered hideouts.

**

He knows all the lyrics to Cielito Lindo and would have sung them for her, but she didn't follow him far enough. Down and around the way from where the wide subway platform narrows, a trio of Mexican musicians were taking a smoke break. Had a train come by, it would have been scary business, what with how narrow and dark the passageway was. Elbow to elbow in the confined shadows, he shared a stick of gum with the accordion player. She thought of dark evil and furry creatures and stayed in the safety of the wider platform; he thought Canta y no llores.

Sing, but do not cry.

**

Somehow my mother thinks a bee can fly 5,280 miles in one day. This is her answer to the trivia game we are playing at her kitchen table. A grandson challenges us to consider, then, the sound of a bee flying 220 miles per hour. Mom doesn't really think this is possible, but because she's imagined and written it on the whiteboard, she's made it possible for her children and grandchildren to imagine so much more.

One of my brothers fixes a plate of raspberries and yogurt. He can make the shortest bee buzz of all of us. That's because he knows something we don't know, he admits after we declare him victor.

Last fall when the beekeepers were moving their hives from Montana to California for the winter, one of the semi-trucks stopped outside his office. Come outside, the driver hollered. And so my brother did -- just in time to witness the heat wave rising from the back of the flatbed truck. What the . .? he wanted to ask. The driver nodded back. The bees are beating their wings to keep their queen warm. It's a long way to California.

curls

she barely makes a ripple

driving home to work to home.

radio off, eating the same burger king
one dollar special, noting who says
thank you, who says do you want that
in a combo. she wakes she sleeps she stays
on her side of the bed. one pillow dented
one blanket untwisted. when he loves her
he loves her for how easy
she complies, the way she curls and how
she chooses coil over curtsy. he's sure
he understands, thinking coil
as in circled rolls of cinnamon
and brown sugar -- not curry-
comb, bull snake, the rap
of a thirty-thirty.
 
 
 
Previously published by Soundzine. Click here to listen to Kate Connover's powerful reading of this poem.
 
 
**
 
I was going to share this poem yesterday, as my anti-valentine poem. But then, I didn't. It was a lot of fun to write. I love the way Kate Connover read this. (PS- Soundzine published this long before I became its poetry editor.)

juneberry pie warming on the dash

In the ebb and flow of trying to fly back home from Washington, DC a friend sent a link to a news article to read while I waited at Gate 22. Across the ocean and underneath one of the oldest cities in Europe, a network of underground caves holds that city up. It's illegal to crawl around in that depth of centuries-old-murky-history, but there are those who do it anyway.  And why? Because they've discovered that coming to terms with whatever it is underneath the ground you stand on can make you strong.

My connections from Point A to Potential Point B to Possibly Point C to Hometown Point D were scrambled. At one point I had a collection of four different boarding passes, in case Plan B fell through, Delta had arranged for Plan C and D for me. I was beginning to forget what home could feel like.

Home is my solid ground. I should take it with me wherever I go, right?  Home is when a brother sends a text:  Do you have a four-mile walk in you today? 

The weather is blustery when he shows up. Inside the cab of his pickup, the defroster is humming and keeping ice off the windshield. Two red-lidded tupperware bowls are warming on the dash. Juneberry pie from the Hutterrites. For later- after we've finished our brisk walk.

We start out in gopher heaven. Only a few grandfather gophers are out. Between here and there we weave through squirrel country and shallow platters of frozen ponds. Can we find the ice that cracks beneath our step? The ice that gives good glide? And what is this -- a scattering of feathers?

i could not bring myself to take a photo of the fluff.

I stop to examine every find, every feather. My brother has been here before. He doesn't look down; he looks up and points. Ahead and towering over the railroad tracks are the grain elevators. Remember the Murphy kid? - he asks: He shoveled grain in the silos during high school. Murphy wasn't afraid to climb the ladders to the top.

And at the top of the silos are tracks of sticky tape roosting pigeons  get stuck to. The grain company cannot risk having pigeon droppings mixing with the grain. Murphy's job was to collect the pigeons in a cage to be delivered to the trap and shoot club.

But the baby pigeons? My brother pauses and gestures to the downy fluff frozen to the ground near the tip of my boot. Those are their feathers, he says quietly. Baby pigeons cannot fly.