Writing, Spare Time, and Sadness

Nothing on my writing to-do list got done today. That's life--I spent a nice afternoon with my younger kids, eating sandwiches at Zoccoli's, the local Italian deli, and signing my daughter up for summer school. Tomorrow my daug er and I are taking a basic beaded jewelry making class; I've opened up an Ebay store and hope to sell some things on it (yes, this is another thing I do--I do basic knitting and crochet--I picked those up due to a long bus commute to and from San Jose State--I can sew very basic clothing, and I make quilts, though I can't seem to get the organization together that I had in my twenties and thirties to do these things--perhaps because I discovered in my forties that my body needs nine hours of sleep a night to function properly. Plus, bellydance--The Big Hobby--does take up a lot of time. Plus, teenage kids who don't drive need to go places. Still, I have a beautiful quilt in the works, what I hope will be my marriage quilt one day). It is called a Jewel Box quilt, made of multicolored squares surrounding one large turquoise blue square in each block.

Onto another news item: I got a very concern-making email from a fellow MFA-er, that a professor of ours (who taught mythology and a fabulous course on William Blake) is very ill with heart trouble and in the hospital. I am so afraid he is going to not make it, even though he has had many of these scares before--he is so fragile-looking and feels like a sack of bones when I hug him (and I do hug him, and his beautiful wife). I am going to go try and see him in the hospital this week. He has the most brilliant mind of anyone I know and, when I got past the fear of his considerable intellect, I found the kindest heart in him. I have several elderly friends and I am terrified this summer of losing them--one woman is the closest I have ever come to having a functional mother and losing her will be like losing a parent.

So, I have made a decision to visit all my elders this summer and love and enjoy them. I know it sounds like Pollyanna, but there's something to be said for keeping the heart open and being willing to love, to be vulnerable even though these people may not be in my life very long. And I'll be old one day, too.

Well, on and on--I'm starting to see that this blog is fertile ground for ideas I can use later. After all, no word really goes to waste--they are all seeds, all potential.