The Eggs of Summer: Camp, Cooking Class, Santa Fe Poetry Reading

I’m marking summer by kid camp, for sure, as mothers of littles do. First year all three of mine are old enough to go to Junior Lifeguard Camp and adrenaline-crazed enough to attend back-to-back sessions! Out they trundle, reeking of sunscreen under the Coronado June gloom mist. Back they come under blue skies to litter every inch of the house with sand, sprawling their sun blonde limbs across the living room rug. Fridge door opens and closes like a windmill, shelves emptying faster than we can replenish them. Even the broccoli!

We are still celebrating my first poetry book’s release, November Butterfly (Saddle Road Press, November 2014) so I’m reading in Santa Fe at Garcia Books in August with poet friends Barbara Rockman and Robyn Hunt. Here’s a facebook page for the event:  Facing Forward, Looking Back: Poetry Reading. Then I’m off to attend A Room of Her Own Foundation’s Summer 2015 retreat at Ghost Ranch as the Marg Chandler Fellow (an honor).

Here’s a poem for you from the new poetry manuscript I’m writing based on an Illinois commune I lived on during my childhood. I wrote “Cooking Class” when Tweetspeak Poetry put out a call for poems on the theme of blue jeans back in April. At the mercy of universal bad timing usually reserved for the opening of car doors (into those of adjacent cars), I had just sent my only blue jean poem into circulation.

Tweetspeak (via Twitter) introduced me to a writer named Amy Billone; thanks to some mutual “egging” on of one another, we both managed to draft poems you’ll find in Tweetspeak’s e-book, Casual: a little book of jeans poems and photos (available for free during National Poetry Month, 2016, or if you want a copy sooner, you can become a Tweetspeak supporter at the $15 level, details for the e-book Casual here). The book is edited by L.L. Barkat, cover image by Susan Etole.

Cooking Class, Illinois, Mid 70s

Along her immaculate counter: silo

of red-handled sifter, bright order

of silver spoons, lemon bales of butter

softening in late winter light. In cupboards

her husband the carpenter built, bars

of Baker’s Chocolate, dried figs, quartered

apricots and Mason Jars of brined harvest.

A good cook puts up her hair, wears

apron, stores flour in freezer to keep

Boll Weevils out, uses shells of her egg

as a tool to separate yolk from white.

She also wears dresses, I learned,

when for donning jeans, she informed me

she no longer wished me to babysit. She cited,

over the phone to my mother, the effect

it might have on her son, the kind of wife

he might choose, the man he’d become

as I chased him on my hands and knees round

living room’s glass table she refused to move

when he was born. He’d learn, she’d said, he’d learn

soon enough, where he stopped and she began.

I love that writing prompts have the power to take us into the labyrinth of memories. You never know which one will light up. Try it—just write “blue jeans” across the top of a blank page—and let me know what happens.

Reflecting back on the situation of the poem--50s values prevailing in the 70s--I can see that I emerged relatively unscathed emotionally from being fired for wearing jeans. True, I loved the little boy and the babysitter snacks rated. I’d lose out on some pocket change.

But there was a hidden gift, a form of ferocious love us firstborns covet. My mother slammed down the phone and raged to my father in the next room while my body tingled with collateral adrenaline. Seconds later she stormed in and said, “You are not going back there. Ever. No one tells my girl she has to wear a skirt.”  One of her finest Mother Bear moments.

Related Links:

I solicited a beautiful post by Amy Billone at Mother Writer Mentor about the writing of her blue jeans Haiku for her son, My Baby Boy’s Jeans. 

All the photos in the post are by my poetry movie collaborator Robyn Beattie.

AWP 2014

Ruth Thompson of Saddle Road Press (with Tania)

Just a quick note to say I’m so very excited to be at my very first AWP ever; I’m here in support of Saddle Road Press, A Room of Her Own Foundation, and Catalyst Book Press. Here’s a photo of the lovely Ruth Thompson of Saddle Road Press. She is my editor for November Butterfly, scheduled for November 2014 release (poetry). We are at table P7; would love to see you there where you'll find us talking up all the Saddle Road Press books, including the forthcoming Body on The Wall by Michelle Wing.

I am overwhelmed by the choice of panels; flew in yesterday in time to help Ruth set up the table and attend AROHO's reception with Hedgebrook for the announcement of an amazing new award for women playwrights, shepherded into being under the careful guidance of Ellen McLaughlin. Here's a link to a post on AROHO's website, What if Shakespeare had a Sister.
 

And here’s the view from my room—I’m staying on the 25 floor, with space needle in view; artwork on the cover of my journal is by my childhood friend Michelle Hallinan. More as we go...

Truth or Dare, Sculpture Gardens, and New Perhaps Maybes with Liz Brennan

Detail from Bryan Tedrick's Space Cowboy

Finally! Breaking a two month blog stall…and I’m blaming…summer. Summer with all three children at my side, diving into the pool or paddling away from me into the ocean. And one trip to ER for a concussion. Two 10ish-year-olds alone in the living room. A mattress from their sleepover standing on end, one party supine on floor beneath the mattress. Picture the second party launching off the couch and ricocheting his body off the mattress so it lands on top of the child on the floor. The result: “foamy” vision (my son's words), near loss of consciousness, temporary loss of memory regarding the events leading up to the near blackout.

Truth or dare? the doctor asks my son. Yes, he tells her, a piece of information he didn’t share voluntarily with me til now. She calmly informs him many children his age (and younger) have died from Truth or Dare, lists the most popular culprits (choking, inhaling toxic substances, drinking too much of just about any liquid). She places her hand over her solar plexus, reminds him to listen to his gut.

“If you are ever dared to do something either your mother or I would not think is a good idea, you just don’t do it. And you live. Ok?” commands the doctor. He nods. Then proceeds to fail the brain test she gives him. She puts him on a month-long activity restriction to mitigate second-blow trauma: no last week of junior life-guard camp, no competing in the championship, no reading, no homework (“why couldn’t this have happened during the school year,” he gripes), no texting, no video games, no chores, no contact sports, no surfing, no concentrating, you get it…

Add to the above a non-stop stream of neighborhood children ringing the doorbell--a blissful state of affairs for my children after so many years in the woods without a friend in a ten mile radius. A bit of a shock for hermit poet mom (yours truly) but the commotion, according to my husband, is good for me and keeps the long-term poetry brooding from taking too many Keatsian turns or any turns at all (for a zine that takes essays on your favorite poem that takes a turn, check out Voltage Poetry, edited by Kim Addonizio and Michael Theune). Anyway, I’m taking my turn next week when I head off to A Room of Her Own Foundation’s 2013 Ghost Ranch soiree where I’ll be teaching Transformative Blogging: Inquiry via Mask and soaking in the hours of presentations given by the 100 or so women writers attending the retreat.

Summer travels, too, contributed to the blogstall…A trip up north to the redwoods in late July replete with soul friends and the art/writing infusion I so much needed fills me with joy, starting in San Francisco with my brother and his wife, soaking in the art of their home (much of it my brother's). Cruising the book shelf, I find Cynthia Giles The Tarot: History, Mystery and Lore, which my sister-in-law kindly allows me to borrow. Understandably-- I hope--my blogging pace here at Feral Mom and at Transformative Blogging has slowed to a crawl…and with Giles book in hand, my heart turns towards 2014’s Transformative Blogging tentative focus on the tarot.

Thriving on the former home turf meant time with Liz Brennan, recording new movie readings of Perhaps Maybes outside in her garden, persevering despite a crossfire of sunbeams, the sweeping cries of a hawk, the nefarious grinding of several of her landlord’s gravel trucks creeping up the driveway. We switched places and shed sweaters to make it appear as if we’d recorded on different occasions, making the most of our time together with cold peach teas and hot blackberry cobbler Liz topped off with ice cream. The fruit of our labors:

Translation (with sunbeams)


The Guest (with hawk) 

I even wrangled in a quick porch chat with my sculptor friend Sandy, her upcoming trip to Italy threading its way through our conversation. Thanks to my bootlegged Cynthia Giles—which mentions Niki de Saint Phalle’s Tuscany based sculpture garden of tarot—I have a future trip to Italy to plan towards. My father and his wife (my micro-movie collaborator Robyn) took us to the local sculpture gardens of Paradise Ridge Winery…where we reveled in the sunlight pouring its shadows through the massive metal lace cowboy hat of Bryan Tedrick,  and Bruce Johnson's beautiful bee tribute, Five Elements.

I was sad to find the Poetry House missing (due to vandalism), remembering a visit six years prior in which I carried my seven month old son on my hip through the tiny tea-house like structure. This visit, we lingered til the kids grew hot and cranky, tangling for a coveted seat on the bottom leg of the three-dimensional letter E of the LOVE sculpture (Laura Kimpton & Jeff Schomberg), each letter comprised of beautifully rusting sheets of metal punctured with rows and rows of bird-shaped cutouts...through which you can see birds flying away on the reverse side. Robyn took much better photos, but here's one of mine.

And one early morning, my husband and I parceled out the kids, rose and slid the kayaks into the Russian River, gliding through the faint wisps of morning fog, the pale grey trunks topped with lone turtles, the dusty blue of a Grey Heron watching us approach and pass, passing as part of his world, proving we all belong by not flying away. The water so still I watch my husband's paddles meet his double's paddles, the mottled cliffs doubling themselves too, a second sky floating between our kayaks. We pass the Bohemian Grove property, waving to the guard keeping lonely vigil over cliffs my husband's feet have climbed on more than one occasion over the years, off-season, for that spectacular plummet into the river.

Following a mini-meltdown when I return to Coronado (homesickness, my Aunt Rose assures me), Mary Allen (who blogs at Harnessing Time) throws cards for me long distance and the reading—especially the Princess of Disks and The Queen of Swords--mirrors back some of the push/pull I feel returning to the blue sunlit skies of Coronado. 

We use the Thoth deck—which should really be referred to as the Crowley-Harris deck, since its artwork was created by Lady Frieda Harris—in the same way we see Pamela Waite’s name appearing in reference to the Rider deck. Most of the time, Mary and I use the Crowley-Harris deck, but refer often to the pictorial images of the Rider-Waite for a balanced synergy. I love that both decks exist due to male/female teams and feel the resulting artwork and imagery is stronger for the dual visions behind them.

I relate the Princess of Disks with her feet in the roots of the trees to my ever present love for the northern California redwoods. And the Queen of Swords, high on her blue throne in the clouds, to my new Coronado life. The queen is crowned by a child’s face, sword down low, pointing earthwards as she attempts to not only take advantage of her new aerial position but stay connected to what she learned in the woods…and in her right hand, a bearded mask. She’s unmasking. Which feels appropriate in a way as I head to Ghost Ranch to work with women bloggers, where we will write, make masks, and dialogue with the masks as a way to clarify blogging goals and focus.

In the meantime I’m delighted to learn that tarot garden sculptor Niki de Saint Phalle spent some years in San Diego, that if I rummage around maybe I can find the sculpture that supposedly graces the port of San Diego with its half male/half female face. Even as I miss the quiet green glades of my former acre of redwoods, in Coronado, it seems to me the sky remains perpetually bright and blue, the brash white of sailboat sails far below the Blue Bridge portioning out the harbor where by night my husband dives with his students. To the right lies the tiny rind of land where we live, and just beyond, the hills of Mexico...a new landscape, not yet fully explored. In time, I will undoubtedly love it as much as the woods.

Additional notes:

For a lovely post about tarot and writing exercises, including one we did on the Sea Ranch retreat, see Barbara Ann Yoder’s blog post, Writing The Star.

See Notecard to a Nursing Mother: Get thee to a Sculpture Garden...with Baby for a closer look at that trip to poetry house with my seventh month old on hip (hosted at Mother Writer Mentor). We are ever questing for posts by other mother poets, mother writers, father writers too, on all aspects of parenting and writing.

AROHO Speaks, Writer to Writer: Interview with Jan La Roche

A Room of Her Own Foundation is gearing up to accept applications for its 6th Gift of Freedom Award. The most recent Gift of Freedom Award winner, Summer Wood, (author of Wrecker) speaks about the award on She Writes this week here.

Here’s the latest gem in our series of interviews celebrating A Room of Her Own Foundation's Summer 2011 Retreat (from the interview team: Lisa Rizzo, Marlene Samuels, Barbara Ann Yoder and yours truly). In the following interview excerpt, writer Jan La Roche turns her poet’s eye on a brief history of photography and explores how the metaphors of photographic process lend inspiration to her work.

Jan La Roche

Can you describe for us what you’re currently working on?

For the past four years I have been working on a manuscript titled, Vernacular. It is a title with two meanings. Most people first think of this word associated with language currently being spoken in a region of the world. Being a photographer who has studied art history and photo history as an undergraduate and as a graduate student, I first learned the term vernacular as a turn of the twentieth century reference.

Kodak introduced the Kodak #1 camera in 1888 with a 100 exposure roll of film inside it. Americans went wild shooting snap shots of everyone and everything around them. Simple everyday moments of life in pictures were done for the pure joy of something new without restrictions of art trends, commerce or advertising. Alfred Stieglitz, Georgia O’Keeffe’s husband, started the Photo Succession and Pictorialist movements in rebellion to the random pictures of the masses. As an advocate of the aesthetic, he made photography into an art form.

My poems are written for the pleasure of discovery. I never know how they will turn out until written on the page. My spiral notebook is a playground where all ideas run free. Margins have more points and additions scribbled in. The surface of the page is covered with possibilities. It all hangs out there until transcribed on the laptop into stanzas. The process is similar to pre-digital photography because back then I knew what I was trying to capture, but didn’t know if the picture was successful until printed and scrutinized for detail.

Over the years I have added more poems to Vernacular that pertain to different aspects of the photographic process such as when I managed a one-hour lab in the ‘80’s, “loads of film piled up/on my left like linguini.” When I described using a camera that “memoirs light” and “sees what is invisible,” I transformed a technical object into a magical art form. In the darkroom tray “an idea floats on water” and those pictures “outlive their biological cameras.” Another poem talked about conducting light as if it were music in an orchestra. The photographic poems emerge when the muse develops another idea. I cannot rush this collection, it would show. As it continues to grow, each poem is a nuance of photography that was, or is, a part of my life. Read more here.

AROHO, Synchronicity, and an Interview with Marlene B. Samuels

Photo by Lisa Rizzo

When I applied to attend a Room of Her Own Foundation’s Summer 2011 Retreat for women writers, I did so because of the conference’s promise of bringing together a group of writers for an uncommon experience: every writer would present as a teacher, every writer would participate as a student. Drawn to this non-hierarchical setting, in which beginning as well as more established writers would mix without pretension, I took a deep breath, and applied.

I set myself the goal of reading work by as many of the attending writers as possible. On my initial working list of 49 authors, I located seven titles at our library. The first one I randomly grabbed to read was The Seamstress: A Memoir of Survival, by Sara Tuvel Bernstein with an afterward by her daughter, Marlene B. Samuels.

My relationship to the Holocaust started as a child when I felt empathically drawn, like many young girls, to Anne Frank, The Diary required reading for the“Girl’s Club” I joined with 3 other 10 year olds in Illinois. But the connection felt eerily deep and immediate.

At that time, I began to write poems fixated on the image of butterflies drawn by survivor children on camp walls (the images continued to haunt poems years later in graduate school and beyond). I have had vivid recurring dreams about the Holocaust over the course of my lifetime. Wether those dreams were simply a byproduct of dipping into the field of collective memory or wether they were past life experiences, I have had a connection I can’t explain (and I’m not sure that connection needs a frame).

My night time dream experiences merged with waking life the night I finished The Seamstress. I found the memoir simply and beautifully written, explicit and revelatory (I posted a mini-review here at She Writes). While drifting off to sleep that night, I had the physical sensation of opening in layers like a cocoon; the places on my shoulder blades where wings would be tingled, like wingbuds. A weight lifted out of my body at that moment, and I accepted the cellular metaphor as a gift.

I was not surprised, then, when I arrived at the airport to take a shuttle to Ghost Ranch for the AROHO retreat, and just before the doors closed, in stepped a vibrant, lively, black-haired woman, smartly dressed, who asked if she could sit next to me, did I mind, she was actually booked for the later shuttle, but she thought, what the heck, she’d made it in time and might as well get on this shuttle since there was room.

“I’m Tania,” I said, and “you are?”

“Marlene Samuels,” she replied with a familiar accent...back East? Chicago?, charming, settling in beside me. I was in awe—and our journey as friends began, ignited by a rich conversation about her mother’s book, The Seamstress, her role editing and reshaping it, the twenty plus years bringing it to the publishing table. That set the bar for the remainder of the retreat, and the synchronicities and connections burgeoned over the next ten days of the retreat. I am very honored to repost Marlene’s interview here. Marlene’s interview was conducted by Lisa Rizzo and originally appeared on both Lisa’s blog, Poet Teacher Seeks World and will appear shortly on the AROHO Speaks, Writer to Writer website.

AROHO Speaks, Writer to Writer: Interview with Marlene B. Samuels

Marlene B. Samuels

Thinking back to the 2011 AROHO retreat, can you tell us about an idea, exercise or conversation that had either an identifiable impact upon your writing habits or became a finished piece of writing or one in process?

There were so many incredible moments and conversations it’s really tough for me to isolate a single one but what did make a huge impact on me is the passion with which each woman approached her writing. I was moved by the observation that even the most accomplished participants still expressed some self-doubt. To me that was very refreshing!

It’s noteworthy that we all struggle with the importance of being perceived as serious writers. We each struggle to find that space and consistency for our writing but there’s no precise formula. Kate Gale’s comment – that we schedule the various responsibilities in our lives and meet our commitments yet fail to follow suit with our writing - that was especially poignant. All too often, women put others’ needs ahead of their own writing schedules as though somehow writing isn’t a legitimate use of their time.

Bhanu Kapil’s direct questioning of total strangers really influenced my own work. Her method of querying them as the means by which she could pursue her writing project encouraged me to begin a project I’d been stuck on for about two years. Until hearing Bhanu, I’d been unable to muster the nerve to approach strangers. She was a true inspiration as well!

Is there one specific moment or event at the retreat that sparked an insight or shift in how you perceive either your work or yourself as a writer?

Yes, the evening readings altered my self-perception. Reading my work helped me perceive myself more seriously and hence, as a professional writer instead of someone who’s reluctant to say, “I’m a writer,” in response to the question, “What do you do?” Before the retreat I felt like an imposter if I claimed to be a writer. Somehow, it seems that as women, we have a misperception that unless our writing appears on the New York Times bestseller list or in The New Yorker or is reviewed by Oprah, we can’t claim to be writers. It seems most of us struggle with that but - my gut feeling: it’s a much bigger issue for women.

Is there a specific woman writer who inspires/d you? If so, can you tell us something about why?

Tania Pryputniewicz was amazingly inspirational – the mere fact that she committed to attend in the face of her own doubts, that she demonstrated such a unique approach to her poetry, and that she gave such a unique and creative presentation to the entire group inspired me. She discussed the collaborative process, an approach to writing I’ve never really considered. It’s given me a new view into the creative process, almost like a child being given encouragement to draw outside of the lines.

Bridget Birdsall’s one-on-one spiritual consultation with me – something I was really suspicious of but also curious about – was great fun, not to mention that her insights were exceedingly encouraging. Her strength of character and her intuition are also reflected so honestly in her own writing. There are so many others but I’m guessing the space of this interview wouldn’t accommodate my rave reviews.

How would you describe your typical writing day?

I spend a lot of time in approach-avoidance activities, that time wasting stuff, as I try to get organized. When I was in graduate school we used to refer to that as “pencil sharpening”! I have a terrible time actually getting started on the writing process each day because I tend to take care of all my other responsibilities - phone calls, bills, whatever else distracts me. But if I don’t do that first thing then it’s very tough for me to stay focused.

Afternoon seems the best time for me, when I can spend two to four hours writing. I’ve noticed that just in the few weeks since I got home from the retreat, I’m much more committed to my writing time. It feels really good and that in itself is very reinforcing of my writing commitment. I’m certain it’s the result of embracing the concept that I really am a writer and it’s my legitimate real career.

Can you describe for us what you’re currently working on?

I’m actually working on three things, each in a different genre. I’m completing a short story collection that I’ve been working on for years entitled, The Mental Health Poster Child. It began as my memoir but has evolved as a sequel to my mother’s memoir, The Seamstress: A Memoir of Survival. After her death I rewrote and edited when Penguin Berkley agreed to publish it. In addition, I’m co-host of a culinary website and its blog, www.expendableedibles.com . Both are progressing toward an “ethnographic” sort of cookbook. My third project is a sociology book based upon interviews with baby-boom generation women. That project really draws upon my training as a serious research sociologist but incorporates my more recently honed passion for writing creative nonfiction.

Is there a specific question you’d have liked us to ask and if so, could you answer it?

Actually, yes! The question I’m surprised no one asked – one I personally asked many of women during the retreat, “What influenced you to attend the retreat?”

I’ve never been to a writers’ retreat before, only to writing workshops and conferences -courses at University of Iowa Summer Festival or University of Chicago Writers’ Studio, that sort of thing. I’d followed AROHO for many years; read about the retreats, and vacillated between wanting to apply yet worrying I’d be out of my league. After reading the bios of women who attended – a huge diversity, it was obvious that I needed to attend. I decided that, unlike workshops, what I needed most was emotional and spiritual support for my goals. That’s an often neglected component to being a productive and confident writer. At some point, writers need that kind of support and connectedness with other writers more than they need instruction in the writing process.

Marlene B. Samuels: I’m an independent research sociologist, writer, and instructor and teach research methodology and sociology. I earned a Ph.D. and M.A. from University of Chicago. My research focuses upon changing American demographics, adoption issues, and currently, decision-making during life transitions. My writing encompasses three genres: sociology, nonfiction, and food.

I co-authored The Seamstress, my mother’s Holocaust memoir, wrote an academic book about career success plus short stories, essays, and food articles. My writing has been published in Lilith Magazine, The Chicago Tribune, University of Iowa Summer Anthology, Story Circle Journal, Long Story Short and others.

Links:

Website: http://www.marlenesamuels.com/

Blog: http://marlenesamuels.blogspot.com/

Website: http://www.expendableedibles.com/

Blog: www.expendableedibles.com/blog

Mother Teresa Meets Lady Diana



Photo by Robyn Beattie

I’ve had Mother Teresa on my mind ever since I discovered writer Liz Brennan four years ago. Liz keeps a jewel of a blog, each post a wisp of haiku length reflection, titled Perhaps, Maybe.

Liz is the primary reason I’ve been able to keep writing the last four years; we meet weekly to lend one another books and discuss drafts of our poems. Every once in awhile, I have the pleasure of reading Liz’s Mother Teresa prose poetry. A construct of Liz’s imagination, this alternate Mother Teresa struggles as a single mother, attempting to be saint of the mundane whether she’s surviving an exchange with a bad clerk at the post office, eating noodles from her take-out container while driving, or sprinting to intercept the meter maid.

In turn, I’ve subjected Liz to my drafts of She Dressed in a Hurry, for Lady Di (along with a number of other personae poems) until mercifully the poem was published at Salome Magazine and parked at The Mom Egg in its micro-movie version, leaving Liz free to move on to dissecting drafts of Nefertiti.

This summer, while attending A Room of Her Own Foundation’s Summer 2011 retreat for women writers, I had the opportunity to get closer than ever to Mother Teresa through Mary Johnson’s spiritual quest memoir, An Unquenchable Thirst: Following Mother Teresa in Search of Love, Service, and an Authentic Life. Johnson, after serving 20 years as a Missionary of Charity, found reasons to leave the sisterhood. In Unquenchable Thirst, she lets us in behind the scenes with the real Mother Teresa.

Which brings me back to Liz Brennan’s Mother Teresa poems (one of which recently appeared in ZYZZYVA, hardcopy only, sorry--I'd love to give you a link to her poem). At one point in Unquenchable Thirst, Johnson describes a meeting between Lady Diana and Mother Teresa. Liz and I, with that hopeless kind of hyper-synaptic, associative observation that tends to dog writers, were tickled the subjects of our individual poems, Lady Diana, and Mother Teresa, met between the covers of Mary’s book, in real time, once upon a time, not so long ago.

On a more serious note, my review of Unquenchable Thirst appears here on the AROHO Speaks website, as well as on Mary Johnson's site where she hosts a salon and invites us all to join a thriving discussion focused on the book (with changing topics, most recently, on faith and sexuality).

Why Every Wife Could Use Her Own Hmong Tribe (and a Thundershirt)

I have watched women all over the world weave over examined myths and cautionary tales about their marriages, in all sorts of mixed company, and at the slightest provocation. But the Hmong ladies did not seem remotely interested in doing that. Nor did I see these Hmong women crafting the character of “the husband” into either the hero or the villain in some vast, complex, and epic Story of the Emotional Self (p. 37)—Elizabeth Gilbert, Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage

I’m sitting between two strangers, tears streaming down my cheeks, on a Southwest airlines flight. Fifteen rows back, my husband’s likely mildly irritated he lost his A seat status, maybe rummaging around for his free drink coupon. I’m surreptitiously wiping the tears away, aware that my sunglasses offer ridiculously thin cover for the way I’m melting down in public.

I’ll be deplaning in Albuquerque alone, my husband will fly home to California to kiss our three children and proceed with his two-city, two-job frenzy while caring for the kids, which accounts for why he forgot to book me home from the wedding we flew to the night before. Which means I’ll head to the high desert with wedding attire sans materials for teaching and presentations I’ll need for the eight day AROHO women's writing retreat I’m scheduled to attend at Ghost Ranch. My first week away from the kids in 10 years—my first passionate attempt at re-entering the writing world with others of like mind: A Big Deal.

As I work to stuff the upset threatening to burgeon into full body sobbing, an image keeps appearing in my head of the Thundershirt I saw an ad for on our flight the day prior—dogs wear them, and autistic children. Without an ounce of disrespect or humor, I’m considering ordering one (for the comfort of straight jacket minus confines of institution) to help me withstand the maelstrom that’s become the norm in our household.

I figure if I’m worried that this Thundershirt idea is a sign I’m losing it, I’m still ok enough to not lose it. Barely--a familiar vertigo coursing through my adrenals…the usual over-exertion, over-giving, over-analyzing. I’m in my 40s, I’m not a victim, and I don’t care to put a label on my husband or myself...but I do desperately want to move forward together, simple and productive like yoked oxen.

For now, the oxen are rear to rear and kicking, no yoke in sight. I feel like Ferdinand the Bull on the page where he sits on a bee (a family favorite, Ferdinand, with its droll illustrations that convey so much with such simple strokes, and for the subtle humor: corks hanging from the cork tree, the mother cow’s tender worry levitating still towards her massive bull-child).

By the time the stewardess brings my ginger ale, I’m thinking, so what, the husband forgot to book me on his flight, so what we can’t use the companion pass, our itinerary for the weekend risky from the get-go: a wedding in Chicago Saturday night, a return trip to California to repack, a return flight for me to Albuquerque at 3 am between Sunday and Monday.

And to make matters worse, two minutes before heading into the wedding venue, my husband received a text informing him that one of his San Diego roommates went down in a helicopter that crashed (taking with it 22 lives). Our delayed anniversary date fell apart as we tried, unsuccessfully, to deal with the sorrow of those lives lost while toasting the marriage of my beautiful cousin and her groom.

In Albuquerque, my husband buys me a tiny Yin-Yang necklace to help assuage my feelings of invisibility, 3ds our need to balance our male and female ways of meeting our days. In my room at Ghost Ranch, I find comfort in the image seconding itself already in the form of the tiny round mirror over my dresser. By crouching down low, I’m able to capture the half black, half white image.

In the small blogging group I signed up to facilitate, when we sit and write to the images we photographed for the day, I write, “Half black, half white, still arriving, a pale echo of the yin yang, surreal, my husband gave me to help me cross out of anger about being forgotten. There remains more light than dark, two fan blades extending into the dark. The border’s dimples, pearl deep perforations, decorate but do not fully cut open or apart the holder, frame, of mirror. I am not in the picture yet, nor desire to be. I am still arriving.”

It took four more days to fully arrive. Surrounded by a phenomenal web of women writers, my own emotional Hmong Tribe, how could I not come out of the marriage’s dilemmas? I shelved forgiving my husband for engaging in the present, integrating a new definition of “husband” Elizabeth Gilbert posits in her book Committed after observing the way the Hmong women of Northern Vietnam spend their days supporting one another, without the least expectation that their husband be everything to them. Their days, rooms, and routines are full of sisters, aunts, grandmothers.

Gilbert sums up one grandmother’s response to the question, “is your husband a good husband?” : Her husband was neither a good husband nor a bad husband. He was just a husband…As she spoke about him, it was as though the word “husband” connoted a job description, or even a species, far more than it represented any particularly cherished or frustrating individual. The role of husband was simple enough, involving as it did a set of tasks that he man had obviously fulfilled to a satisfactory degree throughout their life together,---as did most other women’s husbands, she suggested, unless you were unlucky and got yourself a real dud (p. 41).

(For the record, I wouldn't trade my husband. And what would my job description look like as wife, were he to write it? You have to read the rest of Committed to appreciate the humor and context here. But I loved that Gilbert goaded me to recalibrate, reconsider, how much unecessary pressure I might bring to bear on every nuance of my interactions with my husband. Certainly being a writer means everything gets scrutinized metaphorically, metaphysically, long into the wee hours of the night in the chambers of my little mind when I'd be better off dreaming my way to solutions.)

Gilbert rightly hints in the quote above that you can feel the vast psychological chasm between this kind of an answer (to the question, "is your husband a good husband?") and the one you’d get from an American wife at a cocktail party, or say, in my case, a writer’s retreat. But we weren’t talking about our husbands, we were busy writing our own answers to Bhanu Kapil’s list of questions that inspired her book of poems, The Vertical Interrogation of Strangers. Or listening, by moonlight, from the sunwarmed stone ampitheatre benches, to twenty-five women writers reading from their work, cactuses at our backs.

Or following Elizabeth Kenneday after breakfast down the trail on her Photo Stroll titled Illuminations, learning how to see. Rim lighting--morning sun wicking along the outlines of the tree’s leaves. Underlighting: otherwordly, unnatural, she said, for sunlight to radiate from the ground. Specular: blinding, off the mirror’s rim.

Announcing The Collaboration Hub

Check out my latest project, inspired by AROHO's summer 2011 retreat. I've posted the text of the Mind Stretch Presentation I gave at the retreat here at my She Writes blog, as well as taken up the challenge of hosting a new group called The Collaboration Hub (for AROHO retreat attendees, She Writes members and anyone brave enough to find us) where collaborataive pairs or those looking to pair and collaborate over the course of the coming year can expect to share support, conversation, questions, resources, and more. Wish us luck, or better yet, join us.

AROHO Retreat 2011: Home Away From Home at Ghost Ranch

I am reveling in the harvest of this year's work that has brought me to Ghost Ranch in New Mexico this week, my heart overflowing with the simple, transcendent power of the weave of synchronicities. Having just newly returned to teaching English at the Santa Rosa Junior College Fall semester 2010, I have been struggling with getting my public personnae up to speed, and I couldn't have had a more welcoming and inspiring experience than the one I've had so far with A Room of Her Own Foundation.

I specifically sought out AROHO's summer retreat because of the way it was framed and offered: as a give and take experience, every woman writer participating, sharing, presenting, receiving. I sensed that the venue resonated with exactly where I find myself on my "writer's trajectory": open, willing to learn, willing to challenge myself, and willing to give back what I have learned as well.

All of my expectations have been exceeded. I knew that in offering to present at one of the Mind-Stretch sessions, I'd have to pull myself together and do my least favorite thing one must do as a writer (for me anyway): speak into a microphone with composure, grace, and with luck, a sense of humor. I managed to get through my talk (Female Power in the Face of Adversity: Collaboration as Excavation) and presented the photo-poem montage Robyn Beattie and I made for Lady Diana.

But more importantly, my notebook is full of ideas from the other 16 Mind Stretch presentations; I have seed ideas for the next five years. What a gift. Can I just say thank you, thank you--to the web of family at home caring for my three children, the Siberian Husky, the new kitten. And thank you to AROHO for its existence, to every single member of the staff, to every single woman who came this summer (and to those participants who came before). I'm so very honored to part of this bloodline.

AROHO Reading Diary #3: Wrecker, by Summer Wood

Here it is, summer....and all three children home, the new pup still to train (give up a month of Saturdays?! I know, Jeannette, I'll give in and traipse us to town for an obedience class here shortly, or pay the price for life). So I admit, we've been out at the beach, eating fruit, boogie boarding, watching the pelicans draft off one another, ogling the real surfers.

I've dedicated summer to a submission blitz and to reading the work of the women writers I'll soon get to meet on retreat in August. This latest reading diary looks at Summer Wood's novel about the raising of an abandoned little boy, Wrecker. Check it out over at my She Writes blog:

http://www.shewrites.com/profiles/blogs/aroho-reading-diary-3-wrecker

And if you missed it, a mini reading review of Storm of Terror, A Hebron Mother's Diary by June Leavitt: http://www.shewrites.com/profiles/blogs/aroho-reading-diary-2-storm-of

The Seamstress: Reading Diary#1

As mentioned in an earlier post, I’m looking forward to attending A Room of Her Own Foundation’s August Women’s Writing Retreat (still accepting applications here). A Room of Her Own Foundation (AROHO) offers hands on networking support to women writers--from serious grant support (check out their Gift of Freedom Award)—to sponsoring a number of writing contests and retreat offerings throughout the year.

In addition to rubbing elbows with a diverse score of writers, I will be presenting some photo poem montage work (the most recent--Nefertiti on the Astral--currently up at Prairie Wolf Press) and facilitating a small writing group titled, “The Exquisite Now with Feral Mom, Feral Writer” during which we’ll generate writing based on daily photographs, keeping the blog schedule on track, no doubt posting on the oddity of the week’s extreme quiet (shifting from our three child, one puppy, four feral cat, chainsaw wielding husband household to a room and bed of my own).

I’ve challenged myself (August bearing down) to read as many books as possible by fellow retreat attendees and have posted the first of these bite-sized reading diaries over at my She Writes blog, starting with a look at a holocaust account by Sara Tuvel Bernstein titled, The Seamstress: A Memoir of Survival (read in full here).

A Room of Her Own Foundation 2011 Writers’ Retreat, Ghost Ranch NM

“...designed not so much to teach you what you don’t know (you already know a lot), but to discover new connections, forge new paths, and offer you plenty of time to write.” –excerpted from the site…to read the rest:

http://www.aroomofherownfoundation.org/retreat_2011.php

I’m very excited to announce that I’ll be attending the 2011 A Room of Her Own Foundation retreat at Ghost Ranch, New Mexico this August as both participant and presenter. Who could resist this line-up: Marilynne Robinson (Home, Gilead, Housekeeping), Mary Gordon (The Company of Women, Final Payments, Circling my Mother), Bhanu Kapil (The Vertical Iinterrogation of Strangers, Incubation: A Space for Monsters, humanimal), Ellen McLaughlin (Days and Nights Within, Iphigenia and Other Daughters, The Trojan Women), and a growing list of participating writers.

I will be presenting a mind-stretch session on the process of making photo-poem montages, consulting on poetry manuscripts and facilitating one of the daily small writing groups ("The Exquisite Now with Feral Mom Feral Writer"). I’m a little hard to be around here at home, because I’ve sort of already left…(despite clear evidence we are only now on the verge of February)….ecstatic about the daily hike to and from my summer retreat room...anticipating the inspiration hangover I’ll have after spending a week with so many powerful minds. I believe they are still accepting applications…hope to see you there.