On the First Day of Spring

The World

I say yes to a world with green meadows,
flowers, to lying in sun. I also
say yes to fury, rage, broken asphalt.
I say yes to a world with everything.

(March 18)

I decided to share this quatrain tonight, because I was thinking about the Big Yes Model. I know that sounds a little strange, but bear with me.

When I went to the education conference in Tennessee, Dr. Carla DiMarco was the keynote speaker. She is a psychologist and adult educator, and she was teaching us (a group of often overstretched student services administrators) about saying yes and saying no.

Her taught us how to use her Big Yes Model -- a way to quantify and visualize what you want to say yes to in your life. To simplify it, it's a grid that you fill in what you want to expend your precious energy on. You put your "Big Yeses" closer to your center. Then, you fill in your "flexible no's, " things that you may sometimes say yes to, but reserve the right to say no to. And finally, you fill in your "Big No's," the things that you never ever want to spend your time and energy on.

Simplistic? Yep, in a lot of ways. But, I was surprised by how many things in my Big Yes category that I ignore, let languish, or put off and by how many things in my Big No category that I live with. Overall, though, I was happy with how many of my Big Yeses I pursue.

So what are your Big Yes items? How are you honoring them today?

Notes on Keeping a Daily Practice

The biggest lesson I think I have learned (and relearned) through my writing practice is: It will come back. I am constantly repeating this mantra to myself the past few days, because I feel lucky whenever it comes back.

Natalie Goldberg has a line in Writing Down the Bones, which I used to share with my students back when I taught College Composition: "There is no security, no assurance that because we wrote something good two months ago, that we will ever do it again." I think writers live in this fear that the last good thing we wrote will be the last thing we will ever write. I know this is true for me. Every time I go through a dry patch, and this blog certainly shows that I go through lots of them, I feel like I'll never be able to write again. I'll never have that joy or inspiration in writing poetry again.

When this happens, I flog myself through what my friend Kate and I called in college Writer's Sludge. It's not a block, it's just a moment where everything I write is crap. If I'm writing at all. Towards the end of this winter, it hit me hard. (As I've been writing here ad nauseum.) The sad thing is, each time I go through it, even though I know it is temporary, it bums me out so much.

Luckily, I've been forcing myself through a daily practice. One quatrain (4 lines of ten syllables each) a day. They aren't miraculous, but they are writing. Forty little syllables are a great place to start, because frankly, they aren't initimidating. They're just words strung together, like beads. I write them on the bus on the way to work. Now, to be honest, I only write them on work days in which I take a bus, so I'm averaging four or five a week. But still, it is better than the nothing I had been writing earlier.

I've never been a huge proponent of daily practice, because of the aforementioned Writer's Sludge, but dammit these little forty syllable pieces are working. To make matter even better, I stumbled on a project to do with these little quatrains. Putting these two ideas together, and I'm enjoying writing again. Hallelugiah! I'm thinking of my project when I'm not writing... and not with dread! With actual joy and inspiration.

So now that I'm enjoying writing again (this week) and producing something regularly again (this week), I'm toying with the idea of engaging in National Poetry Writing Month, after reading about it on Poet Mom. Am I a crazy masochist? Will I regret it? Will my writing continue to feel fresh? Probably yes and no to all of the above.

Drawing Cards

When I was in high school in California, I taught myself how to read tarot cards. It was my first step into my own independent, spiritual practices, and it opened up doors for me.

I don't read cards as much any more, mostly because I feel like I've answered my questions for now, but I still remember what it felt like to learn how to read them. So, when read. write. poem. had a prompt to interpret dream symbolism through tarot (among other methods), I was immediately transported back to that time.

Here is the daily quatrain that resulted:

Three of Swords

Everything was too big for me: width and
length of the deck in my hands, the questions
I tried to answer. Three steel swords piercing
my fragile pink heart. Too big, the burdens.


Note: If you click on the title, you can read an interpretation of the card. The picture is of the different "Three of Swords" cards from my personal decks.

Yes, I'm Slowly Healing

My Body's Slow Response

Each day, my small cut reduces, grows thick
with brown callous. Skin expands and contracts,
growing over a weeks-old mistake. Soon,
I won't remember life without this scar.

(February 26)

I wrote this quatrain today, in my brand new quatrain journal. I made the cover last night and downsized to a smaller, lined notebook, in an effort to commit myself to this project. The "found" quatrains on the cover, cobbled together from magazine ads and lines from Poetry magazine poems, read:

Among the things the body doesn't know
it is the dark box I return to most:
heart
Luckily there's enough regrets.

There is no headline
No photograph, no
illustration.
Only silence.

Imagine four
possible
true wild
reactions.

I hang your lips
like birdseed
outside my door.
What choice do I have?

tonight
let go
the snow
It's easy.

Tonight, my husband and I watched The Darjeeling Limited and this quatrain popped into my head again, when Owen Wilson's character unwraps all his bandages and says, "It looks like I have more healing to do." I like small syncronicities like these.

Back into Practice

These past couple of weeks, I've been doing many things, but writing isn't one of them. I've been keeping up with my articles, for the most part, but I have stopped my daily writing on the bus and I haven't been able to regularly keep up with prompts from read. write. poem.

So, I've decided to change my daily writing practice a bit. I haven't enjoyed the morning pages, so I've decided to write one syllabic quatrain a day. I began writing syllabic quatrains in graduate school while writing my thesis, because I figured, if I could get out at least 40 syllables, that was good enough. Several times, I've written quatrains around a theme and then brought them together in one poem. Right now, though, I'm not thinking that far ahead. I'm merely trying to get my hand moving.

So, I began writing quatrains on Thursday, and I now have three. Funny enough, they all center around the last RWP prompt of sacrifice, so I'm submitting them belatedly for RWP. (I haven't even started on my ode, which is due on Monday.) I may not publish my daily quatrains every day, but I will try to post the ones that I've found interesting.

On Sacrifice

When wanting, I'm left with the metal
tang of blood on my tongue, remnants of skin
clipped from cuticle, chewed from the soft
flesh of my cheek. I never wanted more.

(Tuesday, February 12)
* * *

I've lived with less, intentionally, less
creased books and wrinkled receipts, less shopping
malls crammed with clothes. I laid myself prostrate
on acrylic counters, begged for my price.

(Wednesday, February 13)
* * *

Today, I woke from weeping dreams, hiccups
and sighs I've hoarded for years. I only
recall bright glimpses of someone else's
treasures, glittering hopes I've long since lost.

(Thursday, February 14)