CESL!

Well, I'm suddenly immersed in my month long certificate program at the Center for English as a Second Language at the University of Arizona, and I do mean "immersed". Suddenly, my days are scheduled with classes, lectures, observations, practicum, homework, readings, and of course the ever ubiquitous computer rooms. I go home, have a glass of wine, briefly escape into one of the familiar magical worlds of Ursula Leguin Earthsea or maybe the ever troubled landscapes of Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover......and I'm out like a light.

I have to admit, I'm having a great time with it! The instructors are fantastic, my classmates, who range in age from early 20's to late 60's, are wonderful and interesting people all, and my mind is daily opening to new vistas of linguistics, language comprehension, teaching methodology, and other cultures, that I never imagined. Perhaps what I'm enjoying most is to sit in these classes observing these young people from all over the world talking, sharing, discussing. Weaving of worlds, weaving of understanding........lovely to see.

It's good to LEARN. In fact, it's a great joy to learn. Learning will keep you young. Guaranteed.

I'm going to give a presentation next week (PowerPoint) about SPIDER WOMAN at Dinnerware Gallery here in Tucson. Here's the info about the event:

Thursday, July 30, 2009
IGNITE Tucson -
5 minute presentations by Tucson Artists.
At The Screening Room, 127 E. Congress.

Postcards from Forever

THE DOLL'S STORY


This is a true story.

Towards the end of his life, Franz Kafka, who suffered from tuberculosis, took to walking in a park near his home. He became friendly with a little girl of about ten, and they often walked in the park together. One day, he found her crying.

When he asked her why, she told him she had lost her favorite doll. Kafka replied that she hadn't lost her doll - the doll had just gone on a journey, and was having adventures. And in the weeks that followed, whenever Kafka met his young friend, he would tell her all about her doll's travels, the places and people she was visiting. It became quite a travelogue.

Shortly before he died, Kafka bought her a new doll for the little girl. But when he gave the new doll to her, she became upset. "She doesn't look the same!" she cried. "Well," said Kafka, "that's because she's been traveling, and she's changed. People always change when they have adventures."

Many years later, when Kafka's friend was much older, she found the doll he had given her, packed away in a trunk. And she discovered a little note, hidden beneath her pinafore, that she had never noticed before. It said:

Everyone you love
will go away
and come back again
to love you in another way.


With thanks to Carl Hammerschlag, M.D.

Everyday Poetry: Old Photos

Florence at Griffith Park, 1928

Girl and Horse, 1928

by Margaret Atwood

You are younger than I am, you are
Someone I never knew,
you stand under a tree,
your face half-shadowed,
Holding the horse by its bridle.

Why do you smile? Can’t you
See the apple blossoms falling around
You, snow, sun, snow,
listen, the tree dries
and is being burnt, the wind

Is bending your body,
your face ripples like water
Where did you go?

But no, you stand there
exactly the same,
you can’t hear me,

forty years ago you were caught by light
And fixed in that secret place
where we live, where we believe
nothing can change, grow older.

(On the other side
of the picture, the instant
is over, the shadow
of the tree has moved.

You wave,

then turn and ride
out of sight through the vanished
orchard, still smiling
as though you do not notice)

Florence at 92

Everyday Poetry: Are we alone?

This was my beloved Grandmother Glen, who I only knew as an old woman. I like to think of her with her long red hair, riding her horse through the immensities of the Nebraska grasslands in August, endlessly dappled with native sunflowers and Black-Eyed Susans. When I visited her grave in 2005, I planted some perennial "Susans" there.

That trip to Dewitt, Nebraska is one of my favorite magical stories..........worth retelling here.


In 2005, I had a summer residency in Connecticut. Enroute, I stopped at a rest stop in New Mexico for a lunch bread. Sitting at a picnic table shaded from the hot sun, I saw something shiny on the ground, and investigating, found a pair of expensive looking, elaborate pliers. It seemed wasteful to just leave them there, so I threw them into the back of my car, and proceed with my long trip.

Somewhere around Missouri, I got the idea of taking a northerly detour and trying to find the grave of my grandmother. I knew that she had been buried in a small town called Dewitt in Nebraska. She died when we were overseas, and my father had flown out to bury her. I realized that no one had visited that grave in almost 40 years. I didn't even know if Dewitt still existed.

But Dewitt did still exist, not too far from Beatrice, and I found the graveyard, and was glad to finally see the landscape my grandmother had infused my childhood imagination with. After paying my respects I took a day to learn something about this little town of about 3,000 people. It turned out that if you weren't farming in Dewitt, you probably worked at the tool and die factory, which had been established in the 20's by a Swedish immigrant, and was famous for it's patented "Vice Grip".

You can probably see where this story is going. I drove on to Connecticut, unpacked my car when I arrived, and discovered the pliers I had completely forgotten about. In the side of the handle was the legend:

"Vice-Grip: The Original"

Everyday Poetry: Ancestors

Florence's Hands

I am not at Brushwood this year, celebrating the ritual cycles of Sirius Rising as I have in previous years, but they are on my mind. I've been having fun looking at old photographs I've inherited over the years.

Here are are a few of my own contributions to the "Ancestor Mound", offering gratitude to

those who made my life possible through the threads of their own lives. One of these days, I'm going to put their stories down.......or at least, my imaginings and intuitions of their stories.

Here is my maternal Grandmother Helen, who died before I was born. How do you look at an old photo of a young life (in the height of fashion for her day) full of the dreams and fears of being so young.....and realize as you look, that life is already over, the story spun and re spun, and somehow, I am a part of the continuum, I carry that story forward whether I realize, respect, or know it at all.....and in some way that I will never understand?

All I really know about Helen is that she was a twin, she grew up in Los Angeles, and had she been born in another situation or another time, would probably have been an artist. In all her photos, Helen always looks sad. I think, like the tight, uncomfortable garments she had to wear, she may have felt terribly constrained by her life, never free to fully express herself, never free to dance. Perhaps, in some way, I've lived what she could not.

How can we not feel tenderness, looking at old photos, wondering at these stories?

Everyday Poetry II

Now,
The Journey is the Reward

Cozad, Nebraska, September, 2005. While enroute to Arizona, stopping in a coffee shop, eating pie, and gazing out the window.

Everyday Poetry

The Barbed Heart
Takes Refuge

In a hidden Grove
of Palos Verdes
Trees


(Tucson, 2009)