Well, that didn't work...

Well, it was a good experiment. And fun while it lasted. But from now on, if I do any poetry analysis, it will be done at my all-in-one blog at:

www.never-travelled.blogspot.com

Thanks!

Summer: Mary Oliver

Leaving the house,
I went out to see
The frog, for example,
in her satiny skin;
and her eggs
like a slippery veil;
and her eyes
with their golden rims;
and the pond
with its risen lilies;
and its warmed shores
dotted with pink flowers;
and the long, windless afternoons;
and the white heron
like a dropped cloud,
taking one slow step
then standing awhile then taking
another, writing
her own soft-footed poem
through the still waters.

Ok, let's just face it. I adore Mary Oliver. I only want to read Mary Oliver poetry lately. And, apparently, I only want to blog about her too.

But that's okay. I selected this poem because I just got back from one of those slow summer evening walks. I didn't see any herons, although it's certainly possible around here, and I do see them on a regular basis on one of my walks. Tonight I mostly saw cats. And a few squirrels.

I just like to think about the coming summer. It's almost here. One might say it IS here, but we've yet to have our first big summer heat, our first too-hot night. My favorite season is autumn, without a doubt. But my favorite seasonal experience is probably a warm summer evening, a quiet stroll, just observing who is out and about. It seems everyone is out when it's warm and the light is long. Cats, mice, snakes, birds -- oh, and people too.

Tonight I saw three girls playing on a rope swing, suspended from a tree branch. They were laughing like crazy and having the best time. I had to stop and watch, and smile. I could have watched them all night. We had a tire swing in our back yard. It didn't work very well; unless you were very careful, you usually ended up hitting the tree trunk. But we loved it anyway, and I remember the view once you really got going -- the trees above Mrs. Welchel's house, and the way they rustled. It was right near the grape arbor, right next to the wood pile (and later, the wood shed). I'd swing as my dad gardened, or hauled wood, or mowed the lawn. As my mom planted flowers, or sewed (and I could hear the sewing machine softly in the house).

That tree was (and is) an ancient, gnarled apple tree. The last time I was home, it was looking a little sad. It was off balance, leaning far to the left, supported by beams my dad lovingly constructed to help it stay upright. Isn't that what we do, when something we love needs some help? We prop them up.

Anyway. Summer is almost here. I have plans. I will visit friends. I will walk to the soft-serve ice cream place down the block. I will go kayaking. I will see otters. And I will take lots of evening walks. Maybe there'll be some frogs, if I'm lucky.

Have You Ever Tried To Enter The Long Black Branches: Mary Oliver

Listen, are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?
While the soul, after all, is only a window,
and the opening of the window no more difficult
than the wakening from a little sleep.
Only last week I went out among the thorns and said
to the wild roses:
deny me not,
but suffer my devotion.
Then, all afternoon, I sat among them.
Maybe I even heard a curl or tow of music,
damp and rouge red, hurrying from their stubby buds,
from their delicate watery bodies.
For how long will you continue to listen to those dark shouters,
caution and prudence?
Fall in! Fall in!


This is a much longer poem, which you can read here. (caution: it has dippy music, but worth enduring for the poem)

All day today I've been feeling the tight crush of anxiety in my chest. I'm not sure why. I saw my extended family last night - maybe I'm letting in the feelings of missing them, feeling like I'm on the fringe of family, wanting to be a part of things, not sure if I'm entirely welcome. I feel like this on both sides of my family - not exactly a part of things, yet not exactly apart. Kind of nowhere. But I love these relatives so much, and I feel deeply connected in an unspoken way. My cousins and I share such similar traits: awkward yet friendly, shy but welcoming, all quirks and smiles and trying to figure out how to be in the world. I see the similarities to my dad, and I miss him, and my brother. I wish I'd stop trying to fit myself into some box and just expand to fill my own space.

This month I've decided to do two things: appreciate my job, and take better care of myself. I'm doing a pretty good job with both. I'm trying to be in my body, and be in my life. I do love parts of my job, very much. And I'm finding it easier than I thought to eat healthier, take real care of myself. It's a pleasant surprise to find out how much I like things not overly sweetened, and rediscovering how fun it is to try new vegetables. I'm really enjoying it.

I'm taking a break creatively, but I feel like there are lots of things just below the surface. It's stressful not having Terri here, and I am conserving energy and trying not to put too much pressure on myself. But I feel the urge to make new jewelry, try new painting styles, make collages, sew something... soon that urge will be irrisistible, and it will come pouring forth. I'm happy now to tend my life so that when that torrent comes, I'll be rested, healthy, happy and ready.

I feel very much like I'm in a stage of preparation, and I'm letting it just unfold. Preparing for whatever is next at work, in my creative life, in all parts of my life. I'm not feeling too much pressure to do anything but listen and wait. I like this. Waiting for the light to shine on whichever door opens next. Gathering up resources, opening my hands.

A Dream Of Trees: Mary Oliver

There is a thing in me that dreamed of trees,
A quiet house, some green and modest acres
A little way from every troubling town,
A little way from factories, schools, laments.
I would have time, I thought, and time to spare,
With only streams and birds for company.
To build out of my life a few wild stanzas.
And then it came to me, that so was death,
A little way away from everywhere.
There is a thing in me still dreams of trees,
But let it go. Homesick for moderation,
Half the world’s artists shrink or fall away.
If any find solution, let him tell it.
Meanwhile I bend my heart toward lamentation
Where, as the times implore our true involvement,
The blades of every crisis point the way.
I would it were not so, but so it is.
Who ever made music of a mild day?

Obviously there are a lot of ways you could read this poem, but tonight I'm reading it as saying that to wish for the perfect, quiet solution -- away from everything -- is to completely miss out on life. Who ever made music of a mild day? Stuff happens. Life is messy, messy, messy. I've had the experience lately of friends telling me, in different ways, that they are looking for the right way to: have a relationship, have friendships, have a career, be themselves, be someone. I'm guilty of this myself, as we all are. But I think it's interesting what's being reflected back at me, sometimes. Interesting connections are happening.

Life is messy. Love the mess! Love the arguments, and spilled cat food, and things that didn't work out as planned. Stop trying so hard. Stop trying to be something that I'm not (perfect, always agreeable, got it under control). What's so interesting about that? Not much.

Life is messy. I read an article recently on wabi-sabi, something I'm getting more interested in. The beauty of impermanence, of imperfection. Something is beautiful because it's not perfect.

I wish that were easier to remember, but again, life is messy. The learning is the thing. Being in the mess, rather than away from it. Celebrate the mess.

A Day!: Emily Dickinson

A Day! Help! Help! Another Day!
Your prayers, oh Passer by!
From such a common ball as this
Might date a Victory!
From marshallings as simple
The flags of nations swang.
Steady—my soul: What issues
Upon thine arrow hang!

Yeah. Um, I don't know what the rest of the poem means, but I love the first line. I think I might have to print that out and post it at my desk at work. Help! Help! Another Day!

I looked up Miss Emily Dickinson because I've been thinking about expression, and being your own true self (regardless of what that may look like on the outside), and how each of our gifts, no matter how small, matters in the world somehow.

Take Miss D. She, by all accounts, was a housemouse. She wrote short, spare poetry. And yet, over 100 years later, her poems are taught in every high school, and are an inspiration to introverts everywhere. I wonder if she longed for fame, or if she just wrote because she liked it, and the (posthumous?) fame was incidental? I should look up her history.

I've just been thinking about my own talents, small (or big) as they may be. Sometimes I get sucked into thinking that I need to Make Something Of Myself. When really, maybe just being myself as I am, and helping others as I can, and doing what pleases me, is good enough (or better!).

To be a geek and quote The Lord Of The Rings: "Even the smallest person can change the course of the future." Or, can change somebody's life. Even their own.

To continue on the geeky quote train, Carlos Castenada says, "The basic difference between an ordinary person and a warrior is that a warrior takes everything as a challenge while an ordinary person takes everything as a blessing or a curse." --Don Juan

So that even if it's a Help! Help! kind of day, the challenge is there. Do I take it as a curse? Or do I take it as a challenge? Maybe that's the challenge itself: to face things as challenges, rather than sink into victimhood.

But that's a topic for another day.

Risk: Anais Nin

And then the day came,
when the risk
to remain tight
in a bud
was more painful
than the risk
it took
to Blossom.

I feel like I'm getting there. It's amazing the constant challenge to reasses, be honest with yourself, over and over and over checking to make sure that you're being true to yourself. Or true to myself. I try to avoid the shoulds and then find that I've gathered more new shoulds while avoiding the old.

I don't want to remain tightly held in bud. I want to blossom, fully; to be exuberant and gorgeously flawed.

Walking that narrow edge between safety and danger. Risking too little, then sometimes too much. Growth is painful, no matter what age I am.

Mostly, it's the day-in and day-out task of forgiving myself for being imperfect, tired, uninspired, faulty. What's that new pop psychology phrase? Radical self-acceptance? Right. I'll try.

A Quiet Skin: Laurie Sheck

Thinking has a quiet skin.
But I feel the break and fled of things inside it,
Blue hills most gentle in calm light, then stretches of assail
And ransack. Such tangles of charred wreckage, shrapnel-bits
Singling and singeing where they fall. I feel the stumbling gait of what I am,
The quiet uproar of undone, how to be hidden is a tempting, violent thing—
Each thought breaking always in another,
All the unlawful elsewheres rushing in.

This feels like an introvert poem, and as an introvert, I kind of identify with it. On the outside, I'm quiet, reserved, thoughtful, calm. On the inside, I can be quaking with fear, intensely angry or irritated, absorbed in observing others, or joyful. But quiet on the outside.

I sometimes wish I were more extraverted; able to express right then what I'm thinking or feeling. It takes time, though. Rarely can I immediately even identify what I'm feeling, or my opinion about something. I need reflection and quietness to sort out how I feel from the tumult of narrative and emotion that runs through my mind. The quiet uproar.

It is tempting to remain hidden. I'm trying to live out loud a little more, speak my mind when I know it, say what I think (when I figure that out). It's scary, but good. I want to be seen -- but only on my terms. Not raw. Not by just anyone.

Love Sonnet XI: Pablo Neruda

I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.
Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets.
Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day
I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.
I hunger for your sleek laugh,
your hands the color of a savage harvest,
hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails,
I want to eat your skin like a whole almond.
I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body,
the sovereign nose of your arrogant face,
I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes,
And I pace around hungry, sniffing the twilight,
hunting for you, for your hot heart,
like a puma in the barrens of Quitratue.

Now, the woman described in this poem does not sound like my T (the least arrogant person I know). But I'm missing her all the same.

I had a dream last night about someone dying. I don't know who. Me? Someone else? A child? I don't know. But I woke up feeling sad. And then, as T rushed around getting ready to leave for the week, I felt even sadder. I tried to put on a brave face (which I'm supposed to be so good at), but as she stepped out the door, I flung my arms around her and cried, "I'm so sad!!"

And as I walked back up the steps to the house, I wanted to run back down to the street and hug her once again.

I know I'm supposed to put on a brave smile and I know it's only five more months and I know it's all in preparation for something better and I know I shouldn't make it worse than it is... but it's really no fun. It's no fun for her, working so hard, in pain, away from home. And it's no fun for me, left at home, wandering around the house by myself, trying to do something useful with my time.

Katie the kitty has heard my thoughts and has crept out from the bedroom on her ballerina toetips. Have you heard of a daimon? Have you read The Golden Compass? Katie is T's daimon, I'm sure of it. It's comforting to have her here.

Pefectionism

Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor.

-- Anne Lamott

So, in an effort to not be oppressed, I am easing up on my poem-a-day self-imposed structure. Let's call it, a poem (or two, or three) a week.

This week, I'm taking (another) break. I've got to go gather some inspiration.

Daffodils: William Wordsworth

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed--and gazed--but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

OK, now this poem falls solidly in the category of 'too flowery for me', but it is daffodil season and they are my favorite spring flowers, so...

People have always tried to somehow merge my name with 'daffodil' to come up with a clever nickname. It never works.

When I was a kid, we used to color the water in the daffodil vase, to see the daffodil blossom streak with blue, or orange. A good science project for a kid; probably not so good for the flowers. But fun to see.

It's definitely spring here in the Bay Area. I haven't bought any daffodils yet, but Trader Joe's usually has them 10 for $1, so I should get some soon.

Another daffodil memory: in my hometown, there are a lot of daffodil farms (or maybe they're just farms that grow daffodils in the spring). Anyway, lots of roadside daffodil stands pop up around this time. All different kinds. It was always fun to stop and pick some out.

Welcome, spring. It's too warm here for snowdrops and crocus (apparently) but not for hyacinth and daffodils and tulips. Time to make a little room in the budget for some cut flowers to brighten up the house and bring spring in.

Where The Sidewalk Ends: Shel Silverstein

There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight
To cool in the peppermint wind.

Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black
And the dark street winds and bends.
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow
We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And watch where the chalk-white arrows go
To the place where the sidewalk ends.

Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
For the children, they mark, and the children, they know
The place where the sidewalk ends.

Did anyone else have to memorize this in elementary school?

I was reminded of this poem when I took a nice after-dark walk by the Alameda beach, and stopped to swing for a while. I went down a slide a few times and couldn't stop giggling.

It was dark, and softly warm. I thought of that 'peppermint wind' line, only in this case it was 'night-blooming jasmine wind', which I think is nicer anyway.

Good to get off the beaten path (of my life) and get lost on a swing set, and think about such important things as how high you can go, and how best to hop off without breaking an ankle.

From "Having It Out With Melancholy": Jane Kenyon

6 IN AND OUT
The dog searches until he finds me upstairs,
lies down with a clatter of elbows,
puts his head on my foot.
Sometimes the sound of his breathing saves my life --
in and out, in and out;
a pause, a long sigh. . . .

(a selection from "Having It Out With Melancholy")

I'm in bed with a bad back right now, trying to breathe myself out of the pain. Feeling a lot of empathy for Terri, who feels this many times a week. I chose this selection because of this small furry being, here in bed with me, who keeps putting her soft paw on my shoulder, looking at me with searching eyes, breathing and grounding me. Thank you, Miss Katie.

Pain and comfort. That seems like one wheel of life that keeps coming around and around, in all our lives, doesn't it? I woke up this morning just fine, got up, stretched, and instantly was in pain. I have a bad spot in my back from an old horse-riding accident. Usually, it's just fine. But once or twice a year, it acts up. This pain is somehow related to that spot - somehow, it's weakened or I slept wrong or something, but it woke up and decided to spasm and now my entire upper back and neck are locked in a painful grip. I went to work and got a few things done, hoping that it would relax. Instead, it got sickeningly more painful.

So, I'm home, trying to find comfort. I'm in bed with a heating pad and the electric blanket cranked up, and the heaters on, trying to get my body to relax. I have pain medication. But mostly, I have a soft bed, a quiet and tidy house, and a snuggly little creature giving me love. It makes me want to cry with gratitude, that even in the midst of this icky pain, I have access to such wonderful comfort.

Katie the cat has 'saved my life' many times while Terri's been away, and I know she's saved Terri's many times over the course of her 14-year life so far. She is elderly, arthritic, sick with failing kidneys, grumpy and persnickety often -- but she is also an angel kitty. She is soft like a little bunny. I've never met a more cuddly, snuggly kitty. You can literally wrap your arms around her and fall asleep snuggled up to her (when she's in the mood for it, which is often). She will seek you out and 'ask' to 'hold paws', and she knows when you're sad or in pain, and tries, in her little feline way, to comfort you.

She and I have gotten to know each other over the past years and now I feel very bonded to her. I feel a deep responsibility to take very good care of her, as she does for us.

When she's in pain from the arthritis, I imagine she must feel something like what I'm feeling right now. All you want is comfort, and peace, and love.

In the midst of pain, I am blessed to have these.

Spring is like a perhaps hand: ee cummings

Spring is like a perhaps hand
(which comes carefully
out of Nowhere)arranging
a window,into which people look(while
people stare
arranging and changing placing
carefully there a strange
thing and a known thing here)and
changing everything carefully

spring is like a perhaps
Hand in a window
(carefully to
and fro moving New and
Old things,while
people stare carefully
moving a perhaps
fraction of flower here placing
an inch of air there)and

without breaking anything.

I can feel spring coming! Literally, the air smells like flowers. I'm not sure what plant we have to thank for that, but it's lovely.

A perhaps hand, placing odd and familiar things here and there. I wish I'd planted bulbs last fall. I may have to buy some, though they fade so fast. Daffodils and hyacinths and snowdrops and tulips and crocus... I think spring flowers are my favorite.

A perhaps hand that comes carefully out of Nowhere. Isn't that just like it? Winter is slogging along (here in the Bay Area we really have nothing to complain about but still), and then all of a sudden, a shift. A few blooms, some new grass, a few flowers were before there weren't any. A different quality to the light.

I took a walk last night by the water. We're so fortunate to live so close to the water, it's just across the street. Anyway, sun setting and birds settling, bobbing gently on the glassy water, reflecting the sunset colors. I walked through the part of the park which is usually brown and soggy or brown and crisp. It was lush and green, that deep Oregon grass-green that I miss so much. I realized that I kind of love this park. I've lived close to it much of my time here. I love all the little creatures in it, and the grass when it's green, and the water and the view of SF.

It was really nice to realize that I have attached. And then I realized that part of the reason I won't attach, generally, to places anymore, is because it was so painful to leave Oregon, that I'm afraid of attaching here, because I don't know where we'll ultimately land. I might just have to risk, and love, and attach, and grow some roots. For my own sake - so I can feel at home.

It was good to realize.

This Is Just To Say: William Carlos Williams

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

This is just to say, I'm back!

I love how simple and full this poem is. I think this is one of those 'high school' poems that you get in English and all the kids whine about how stupid it is. But I kind of love it. It's so simple, tender, joyful. It's the kind of note I'd leave for my sweetie. "Hi Sweetie... I'm sorry I ate the rest of the peach cobbler... it was so wonderful, please forgive me!"

I've been in a big re-reading phase. I think it's an attempt at getting at something within myself. Reconnecting somehow to some previous inspiration or energy. I wish I had my old AP English textbook... wonderful poetry in there, I'd love to reread.

It's nice to reread things you've read long ago. I just reread 'I Never Promised You A Rose Garden." I remembered some of the names, some of the feelings from the book. You know those feelings you get from certain books, some that linger? It's nice to feel those. It's like scent - you never quite forget them, and they instantly transport you back to a previous time.

I can't wait for plum season. I'm going to make a plum tart, and eat plums for lunch. It's time to get back into fruit-eating after a long winter of mostly veggies.

Poetry Vacation

I'm taking a one-week vacation from posting on this site... Check back on March 5th!

Under the Harvest Moon: Carl Sandburg

Under the harvest moon,
When the soft silver
Drips shimmering
Over the garden nights,
Death, the gray mocker,
Comes and whispers to you
As a beautiful friend
Who remembers.

Under the summer roses
When the flagrant crimson
Lurks in the dusk
Of the wild red leaves,
Love, with little hands,
Comes and touches you
With a thousand memories,
And asks you
Beautiful, unanswerable questions.

Such beautiful language.

We had a deep red rose growing in our backyard when I was growing up. My dad used to tell the story of how it first grew at the first house he and my mom bought, and then when they bought our house, they dug it up and moved it because they loved this rose so much. It did smell wonderful... and was a perfect deep magenta - not really red, but magenta.

This poem makes me think of sitting out there on summer nights, listening to the wind in the trees, listening to our quiet small-town neighborhood. When I was in high school, sometimes my boyfriend would come over and eat dinner with us, in the backyard. Then we'd sit in the grass, under the mimosa tree, playing with plucked grass, and who knows what we talked about.

I loved the way late summer at my house smelled. Lots of roses. Fresh gardening, preparing for autumn. Cut grass. Fresh peas. The first of the apples falling. Hot baked earth, cooling in the evening air.

I used to take long nighttime walks, looking at the stars as I walked the one mile out to the 'country'. I loved, loved, loved that late summer evening breeze. Standing on the bridge over the creek, listening to the water compete with the rush of rustling leaves. And then, walking on the old road to the fields, and smelling the late-season hay growing.

"Hope" is the thing with feathers: Emily Dickinson

"Hope" is the thing with feathers—
That perches in the soul—
And sings the tune without the words—
And never stops—at all—
And sweetest—in the Gale—
is heard— And sore must be the storm—
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm—
I've heard it in the chillest land—
And on the strangest Sea—
Yet, never, in Extremity,
It asked a crumb—of Me.

Oh, Miss Emily. So many dashes for such a little poem.

I have to puzzle out the ending. Hope never asked a bit of me... hope is free for the taking? You can take as much hope as you need and never owe 'It' a thing? Maybe.

What about offering hope to other people? I guess that's sort of a roundable equation, however. "Hope" doesn't care if you give back or not. Mostly, it just wants to be wanted.

(...I have a hard time with this whole 'Hope as a Being' concept)

Hope certainly can be a little fluttery thing that keeps you alive, however. It carries an awful lot of power for something so seemingly lightweight.

What are some places in your life where you've lost hope? How did you find it again?

Danse Russe: William Carlos Williams

If when my wife is sleeping
and the baby and Kathleen
are sleeping
and the sun is a flame-white disc
in silken mists
above shining trees,-
if I in my north room
dance naked, grotesquely
before my mirror
waving my shirt round my head
and singing softly to myself:
"I am lonely, lonely,
I was born to be lonely,
I am best so!"
If I admire my arms, my face,
my shoulders, flanks, buttocks
against the yellow drawn shades,-
Who shall say I am not
the happy genius of my household?

Who's Kathleen?

More on this poem later. I don't know why, but I feel happier having read this.

-------------

OK, a few more thoughts about this poem, which has stayed with me like a little warm light.

I love the lines, "I am lonely, lonely, I was born to be lonely, I am best so!" It doesn't sound lonely at all, to be so happy with oneself. To dance wildly, admiring your crazy, joyful, silly lonely self. It just sounds so happy.

I'm reading this as a celebration of self, even if your true self is best 'lonely'. Best all alone. Sometimes, it's like that. Sometimes I feel like I'm at my best when I'm alone. Then you've got an audience of one... and is that one person worth a damn fine show? I'd say so.

I Didn't Go To Church Today: Ogden Nash

I didn't go to church today,
I trust the Lord to understand.
The surf was swirling blue and white,
The children swirling on the sand.

He knows, He knows how brief my stay,
How brief this spell of summer weather,
He knows when I am said and done
We'll have plenty of time together.

Kind of sums up my dilemma about church in general.

I want to go to a church, because I like churches and I want a community, and I'd like to learn more about a spiritual life.

But me and God (The Divine, The Universe), we don't need a church to talk. I don't think God's there any more than S/He's anywhere else (in the forest, in the grocery store, in my heart).

I feel closest to God when I'm out on a beautiful day, when I'm in a deep forest, when I'm home and the lights are down and I'm sitting quietly with a book and tea. I rarely feel close to God at church (and I've been to lots of different churches... maybe that's my problem?), unless it's when the choir sings, and especially Christmas songs. I always tear up and can't sing along because I start crying.

I figure whatever Divine Spirit there is, is present anywhere. Some people find it in church. Some elsewhere. I wish I could find a church that feels like a spiritual home. Or a synagogue. Or a temple. I don't really care where, I'm not attached to a particular spiritual path (again, maybe that's my problem). But I'd like to find a place where I felt just as close to God, or maybe just a place where I feel like the channel is open, as I do out in nature, or in my quiet house, or singing with joy in my car.

And since our stay is so brief, why not find ways to be with the Universe, with Divine presence, wherever you are?

Finland: Robert Graves

Feet and faces tingle
In that frore land:
Legs wobble and go wingle,
You scarce can stand.
The skies are jewelled all around,
The ploughshare snaps in the iron ground,
The Finn with face like paper
And eyes like a lighted taper
Hurls his rough rune
At the wintry moon
And stamps to mark the tune.

I don't know, is this poem nonsense? However, I chose it because tonight I'm going to see an old friend who was in Finland with me, and because I well remember my legs wobbling and face tingling around this time of year!

It really was beautiful, though harsh. One of my favorite memories is riding my bike home from a night out with friends, at around 2 or 3 am. It would go like this (many nights like this): After riding the bus for about 40 minutes to my small town up north from the city, I got off at the little service station (in the middle of nowhere) and unlocked my bike. It's perfectly quiet. There is no one around, no cars, just snow and forest. No lights. It's probably around 10 below zero. I'm wearing longjohns, jeans, legwarmers, two pairs of socks, an undershirt, a sweater, a scarf, an ankle-length coat, two pairs of gloves (one thinner inside the thicker), an earwarmer and a hat. I have about a 2 mile bike ride ahead of me. I ride right down the middle of the highway; there aren't any cars at this time of night. I ride past the quiet, dark, snowy forests, and suddenly across the sky blooms an undulating curtain, lit like the Emerald City -- the Northern Lights. I stop, right in the middle of the highway, and watch for a few minutes, even though I'm freezing, even though it's 3 in the morning. I can't start riding again until I get my fill, until they start to fade.

Finland was an exercise in living day to day, experiencing every moment as it was, since we knew each moment would only come once. We only had a year. We had to live every single moment IN the moment. And we did, by and large. The year in Finland was rough, really rough. But it was also filled with extremely beautiful moments and deep, deep friendships.

I'd like to go back, but I can't decide: winter or summer? Winter is what I remember most, but summer is the best time to go. Also, I'd definitely want D'Arcy to come. It would not be the same without her.

So, tonight I see Darren, one of my close friends from that year. We'll remember Finland. It was almost 15 years ago. I almost can't believe that.