which end do you bite first?

Square One

Not mentioning any names, but someone wrote to ask me when I planned to share the way I write in this blog. How is it that I write? Can anyone ask themselves that question and answer without a pause for contemplation?  Remember the first time you heard your own voice on an answering machine or as background sound while you operated a video recorder? It isn't so easy to recognize our own sounds. And when we begin to consider what it was that first shaped those sounds~well, for me, this quick story sorts out that Square One.

We thought of ourselves as city kids when we moved to a place called Rainbow Dam, a company housing camp five miles from town. Unlike the farm kids who had haystacks and cows to play with, we had the forbidden Missouri River and the surrounding hills. My brothers and I took to the hills with our elaborate army games. Setting up land mines (cactus), spooling out communication cable (tin cans and string), and laying in supplies (stolen potato chips hidden in shallow caves) As their little sister, I was shot the most and carried the heavy bazooka (a tree limb) each time the front line advanced.

One day, we stumbled across a faint trail leading to a hill we had yet to explore. Mike ordered Pat and me to cover his flanks as he crept up the hill. To our astonishment, as he crested the hill, he dropped quickly to his belly. He turned to us, motioning us to Shhhhh. With visions of enemy fire directed towards us, we took cover, holding our breath till signaled to army crawl up the hill to join him. We raced to be the first to reach him and dropped beside him as he pointed out a sign down below.

At six and just learning the entire alphabet, I could just make out the letters, “A M I N A L” carved into the wooden sign. Well it said something after that, but we couldn’t make it out. When in doubt, Pat and I deferred instantly to our older brother, whom we called Mr. Science when he wasn’t near enough to hear us. Mike was eight and knew everything already.

“It’s a warning! Animal crossing!,” he whispered excitedly, “Shhhhhh!” he commanded as Pat and I squirmed and gasped. Any moment a mountain lion could be coming along the dried-up creek bottom 10 yards below us. We held our position until dinnertime and then reluctantly headed back home. Running the mile back to our house, we agreed that this would have to remain our secret. Why, if everyone knew of the animal crossing, then they’d all show up and scare the animals away.

That summer, anytime we tired of army games, mud pie slinging, boxcar exploring, we’d take turns keeping watch on the crossing. I was envious of Mike and Pat because they had all the watches when the mountain lions, bobcats and bears showed up. As time went on, our adventures spread out and we grew up, with little free time to spend at the secret animal crossing.

After I left home for college, the entire housing camp was torn down. People just didn’t want to live there anymore, our father told us. One by one we returned to Rainbow to say our goodbyes. I waited the longest, being the one most afflicted with Irish Nostalgia. The houses, swing sets, water fountains and elaborate gardens were gone, but the trees with the bazooka limbs remained.

It took me awhile to get my bearings before I found my way back to the animal crossing. One last survey, I decided, and then I would let go of my childhood home. I found the trail to the lookout point, dropping to my scouting pose for old times sake. This was the no trespassing point that Mike had staked out, telling us sternly that if we were to drop down into the creek bed, our scent would permanently scare away the wild animals.

I took in the sight of the dried-up creek bed, the bushes and trees that banked it; I was surprised to see the sign was still there. I slid down the bank to see it better. The carved letters were so faded after all these years that I had to trace my fingers over each letter to “read” what it once said. “Aminal Graveyard” it stated. And on the back of the sign, it said, “Here lies Max, my pet mouse.”

*********************************************************************************

a napo poem I am working on:

Every Time He Asks We Draw a Different Map

Our father wants to know where the trail was
to the animal crossing his children watched over
while he was at work. We lived in the country,
down river from the falls and knew not to play
near the water. Finding this sacred pathway bound us

to secrecy. We might have shared blood oaths—depends
on which of us you choose to believe. Cactus camouflaged
the path; spring brought wild asparagus and a rabbit
with a twitched nose. Afraid he’d scare away the bison
and the tigers, we bribed him with lettuce from our fridge.

From the far side of the river, our father watches now
and sends us his photos of the abandoned camp.
He understands the humor in the lesson when
we learned to read graveyard on the cross, but no one
who thinks mysteries are for solving will ever see the map.

any day now

Tug Boats on the Hudson

Sometimes I lose the curve to my earth
so I wake him from where he sleeps.
Everything feels flat, I might say,
tell me about trade routes from China.
Maybe this time he will unwind parchment rolls,
thumb through sheets of centuries
to find a story that begins
with spun threads of turquoise and coral,
which lead to dipping vats in Burma and winter wool
for soldiers fighting for Napoleon,
with metal buttons sewn on sleeves.
He'll coax me across the waters, asking
to imagine cotton plantations in the south
and sweatshops burning in Manhattan.
These stories roll my edges under, again
and again—rebuilding a sphere that spins
with talk of cargo on a wharf
and freighters weighing anchor.

Like Father Like Daughter

This is where my parents often run their dogs.

I'd like to learn how Dad shot the above photo. The colors and the curve!

This is where I run *my* pups.

This was taken in the autumn~see why I like the fall best?

reason number four

he sends the african ocean to me
in blue airmail tissue

somehow without the water
he knows somehow when

i am alone, i sleep with maps
of the ocean floors

I smell cabbage cooking in the kitchen

It's windy here, which means I'd rather be somewhere else than here.

How about a time and place that happened before television?

Have you ever had anyone wait for you like this?

Ok, so maybe not all Olden Days were Golden.

Looking at this photo makes my left hand ache for a baseball glove.

Before the days of Multi-Tasking and Ipods.

 Forearms + The ability to draw maps of ocean floors = Oh La La

My favorite, even over the forearms photo.

There are more photos— if you are like me and enjoy getting lost backwards in time and other countries. Check out this  link to the 1930s and 1940s.

both sides of the road

I'd like to say that I figured this out a long time ago, but it has baffled me until recently. Likely you are a creative person, and likely you are so tuned into me that you already know what I am writing about (?)

Creative people are complex in that they straddle seemingly contradictory sides of the road simultaneously. Contradictory extremes. I feel more confident using this term after reading this article.

What did I learn?

** We (notice how I include myself) are smart and naive at the same time. Creative people use two opposite ways of thinking in novel ways: convergent and divergent thinking. I especially related to this: divergent thinking doesn't lead to agreed-upon solutions but rather allows for fluidity and flexibility.

** We (I'll go along with this as well) are both physically energetic and yet require large chunks of down time. It's enough to drive a roommate mad, right? Strong doses of eros and yet spartan celibacy play into this as well. (. . . enough to drive a partner crazy. . .)

** Creative people are on both ends of this spectrum: playfulness and responsibility/discipline. (Dropping the "we" here, but I am so pleased to see playfulness in the same sentence with discipline.)

** Creative people are both introverted and extroverted simultaneously. (This can befuddle others. . .)

** Rebellious and conservative at the same time. (Trying to remove the "we" here, but in doing so I realize I have only made it more obvious that this applies to me rather well.)

** Scaredycat and risk taker all in one.


So read the article and you'll feel better understood. I do. In case you miss the part about innovation for its own sake, here a quote from Eva Zeisel:

"This idea to create something is not my aim. To be different is a negative motive, and no creative thought or created thing grows out of a negative impulse. A negative impulse is always frustrating. And to be different means 'not like this' and 'not like that.' And the 'not like'—that's why postmodernism, with the prefix of 'post,' couldn't work. No negative impulse can work, can produce any happy creation. Only a positive one."


And for my poet friends, here is a final quote just in time for April:

"Perhaps the most important quality, the one that is most consistently present in all creative individuals, is the ability to enjoy the process of creation for its own sake. Without this trait, poets would give up striving for perfection and would write commercial jingles . . ."
~From Creativity: The Work and Lives of 91 Eminent People, by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

on the way to trading back-up pony for a book

In a little bit, I need to do some more explaining about the tug boat thing showing up in this blog. It involves trading my back-up pony for funds to help me acquire a dream-come-true book about tug boats in NYC. (But why tug boats and why NYC? Well, consider this a post-trailer . . .)

This is not Annie. This is Buck.

In the course of trading back-up pony, I was offered these photos from last year's lambing season at my sister's farm. They were taken by a good friend of Mary's whom I will refer to as *Ray Ray* for now.The thing is, she is a misplaced Montanan living in temporary exile on the east coast. You'll see that life back in Montana would suit her so well (read on . . .)

Mary knows where all her lambs are but for one . . .

Let's thank *Ray Ray* for these photos

And then it's time to say *so long* to back-up pony

who's in trouble now?

Two pups + time on their hands = trouble

Hard to believe? I know.

I took the pups outside and questioned them-

Spoke to them about how we want the Tugboat Book

and how this household better get into ship-shape condition

because I had to trade my back-up pony

to get the funds for the Tugboat Book.

That's Charlie "Not Me" the Dutch Shepherd on the left

and Cali "I Know Nothing About No Book" Aussie on the right.

****** ******

Let me know who you think did the crime.

If you are right, you win the dog.

If you are good at sanding and painting,

wanna come over this summer and refinish my deck?

Tug Boat Pilot Seeking Hudson Navigator

RookieTug Boat Pilot License

Sherry LG 'Olive Oyl' O'Keefe

This affadavitizes to said reader that said

Pilot is duly authorized and deputized

to operate any and all tug boats

on any waterways herein originated within

the said boundaries of said Territory of Montana;

further said document documents that said Sherry

is a journeyman in 19th century handsmything signals

and a master craftsman at knots and B S anchoring

post 1829, but remains a rookie at reading

channel markers due to the limited number

of channels in the landlocked Territories.

Any tugboating originating outside these boundaries

requires a notarious master journeyman navigator

with his or her own set of scrolled charts

at her starboard side. Usual and substandard

tequila sunset hours of operation apply.