Closer

Every day brings me closer to the end of the academic year and of saying goodbye to another bunch of great students, all of whom I will miss greatly, as always. I do not know yet if I will have a job next semester, but it seems likely I will have at least one class to teach--which works just fine for me.

This has been, beyond a doubt, the most difficult teaching year for me, these months after my sister's death. It takes a long time to integrate something like this, and I look forward to a summer of reflecting and trying to incorporate this loss into my psyche. I feel as if I have been walking around with my body and mind twisted in slightly wrong directions all year. It is the old path everyone travels, from shock to numbness to anger, then finally, at some point, it becomes part of the fabric of life.

The Great Wind-Up Towards Summer

Yes, it's true--soon it will be summer, my first summer off in a year. I am planting both simple (eg. easy to grow) flowers in my garden, and slightly more ornery and mysterious things (heirloom tomatoes again, corn, and Swiss chard, and flowers from obscure packets my friend Mysteria--not her real name--gave me), and of course many roses. My lilac bloomed with fountains of gorgeous flowers, though they have drooped a bit in the heat. It is am emblem of my devotion to my garden that I get up early to water, to be in keeping with the watering restrictions in my littlecorner of the world.


At any rate, summer is peeking over the horizon and I am feeling very happy about it all!

Kathleen Flowers

One of our latest writing group members, a wonderful poet and a lovely person, Kathleen Flowers, died of cancer on Easter Sunday. She was 44. I did not know she had passed away and read about it today in the Santa Cruz Sentinel. I am sorry I did not know her as well as I wanted to; she was in our group for an all-too-brief time, and on this earth too regrettably brief as well. I am glad for the handful of nice talks and emails we had; she was a deeply loving and loved person. I took her photo tonight and placed in on the altar my African dance teacher always creates each class; she put the photo in a pair of carved angel wings for the class.

Here is one of Kathleen's poems:



The Joke

The skull throws her head
back and out comes a scream,

not a reckless scream, but more
like she’s laughing, laughing at herself,

at this small life that ends
when we wake ourselves.

Out of the black chasm, out of her mouth
fly roses, crosses and gold

coins. She cannot stop
laughing.

Never Judge a Book By Its Cover

Click on the title to this post to see a very good lesson in this.

Apology

I want to send a large apology to friends, colleagues, students, commenters on this blog, my faithful readers, even my kids--it is nearing the end of the semester and I feel I must cram into my students' craniums every shred of compositional wisdom that ever was or will be. I must begin teaching MLA citation big-time, over and over. I have told my students I would rather clean the catbox than teach MLA citation. But there you have it. If you don't know what I am talking about, you don't need to know. I will be under a pile of grading from now until May 22nd, so I may not be as attentive to emails or reply to comments. Such is the life of college instructors at this time of year. I promise to be more responsive when school lets out. I am not teaching this summer--I plan to dance, write, and work in my garden.

One woman came up to me and very sweetly said that she remembered me from many years ago, when I was very ill with lupus (actually came close to dying of it, but she didn't know that) and walking with the help of a cane (I had horrific bursitis in my hip them and could not walk without pain, so the cane helped me immensely to take steps). I have forgotten those days (especially today, when I did a full aerial spin, feet completely off the floor, landing easily and surely as a cat).

It was good to be reminded at how far I have come and how much work it took to get here, even though I honestly don't think of those past days much anymore. Dance and yoga were my paths to healing. I fully believe now that I will not die of lupus like my sister did, that my body wants more to be well than it does to be sick.

More Haitian Dance

I took a class with Blanche Brown, a revered teacher of Haitian dance (who taught my regular teacher). I don't think I have ever met a dance teacher with her incredible warmth, presence, and, for lack of a better word, power. She*kicked*my*butt. She corrected me 18 million times, it seemed. Over and over, 'till I got it somewhere in the ball park of the right steps. She told me to feel the drums, to respond to them--I've never been corrected so many times in one class! She told me that now I had a chance to unlearn everything I knew about dance, that my mind was telling my body this was much harder than it really was. It's like she took one look at me and knew exactly where my resistances were. And of course, everything emotional came up--not because of her corrections, of course, but as I danced and tried to break through my hesitations, all the old feelings came up that plagued me from elementary school through college and beyond, that I was awkward, stupid, not even worthy of the degree I sought, worthy only of betrayal and being made fun of, of being rejected and treated like I was "less than". Those, of course, are the feelings that need to come up and go away in order to give over to the body and the dance. I wonder if it happens for everyone.

Been Away...

Because I was sick and then busy, I have been away a bit. Life has been full of queries (yes, I still send them out, even though I have many agents looking at the book now), sending out poems to litmags, dance, and--most importantly--planning and planting MY GARDEN! My lilac is just about to bloom, despite the rain

According to my calendar, tomorrow night is a "pink moon," According to the Farmer's Almanac, this is because the herb "moss pink" grows in abundance this month. I prefer to think that this is the time when the Pink Umbrella Man takes his moonlight stroll.

Goodnight!