Nothing Fancy

Hellooooooooo!
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echo
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Yeah, so about this ghost town here. My bad. My intention was to write here often. I figured it would be a good way to practice, given that I fancy myself a writer. I guess that's a bit of a stretch since a writer, according to traditional convention, typically...writes. But hey, I'm writing now, am I not? And this is because I complained about my own lack of blog posts to a friend who blogs and asked for an assignment. She obliged, as follows:

Your assignment is this: find three general categories of activity or thought in which you engage fairly regularly (you like food, could be food, or parenting, or existentialism, or candy, or movies, or presidential history. It doesn't really matter. Whatever floats your boat) - make headings out of them - now write no more than one paragraph about the latest instance of each. Repeat on a set schedule (every other day). Rules and structure can be very useful in a creative endeavour.

So this is what I will do now, at least until I come up with some other sort of inspiration on my own, assuming that such a thing may happen someday.

Okay, so category number one. Humm. Let's call it:

Readin' and Writin' and Suchlike

I just finished The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx, which, as might be expected of a Pulitzer Prize winner, is a damn fine novel. Just started reading Barbara Kingsolver's The Lacuna. Also reading a book by Joseph Sestito, called Write for Your Lives: Inspire Your Creative Writing with Buddhist Wisdom, which I happened upon in the local authors section at my local library. I'm hoping to win bonus locavore points for this. As for writing, you're looking at it. Not much of a paragraph, this, but I'm going for quick and dirty today.

Next topic. Yes, I suppose food floats my boat, or at the very least, keeps it from sinking. Thus:

Good Eats

Today I had lunch at Lemon Grass with my friend Sandee, the managing editor for The Funny Times, where I have worked off and on in various roles for over 25 years. I had Chicken with Thai Basil. Quite good. Good lord, this is ridiculously boring. It needs some spice, I think. Try this: I was daintily nibbling on a jalapeno pepper when all at once, a flying zombie vampire hobbit dressed as Abraham Lincoln...aw, screw it. That one's been done to death. I'm having chicken soup for dinner. Might make some Paleo biscuits to go with it.

Two down. I suppose the obvious choice for category three would be:

My Adorable Child

My adorable child hates to read. This really irks me. And apparently, yelling at him and telling him that he's going to LOVE reading someday, dammit, is not going to help him like it any better. Go figure. For now I'm looking for books with only one sentence per page, as this seems to keep him from getting overwhelmed. I can tell he really does want to read, he just finds it difficult and doesn't want to do all the practice it takes to get good at it. Just where in the hell he picked up that attitude, I can't begin to imagine.

There. Done. Not pretty; nothing fancy. But it's a start. Or a restart, anyhow. More to come...

I think.

Forest, thirty years later

Thirty years ago today, my first son, Forest, was born. He was brain damaged at birth and died two and a half months later. I'm not saying this to elicit your sympathy. I don't need or want a new stream of condolences. Been there, done that...a long time ago. 

  

 Not that I no longer grieve, but it is a timeworn, world-weary grief, smoothed and muted. Filtered, like sunlight though a thick canopy of trees. 

 

The sorrow at the loss of an infant was, for me, not so much the grief of loss anyway, more the grief of never knowing and forever wondering. What if he had lived all these years in that severely brain-damaged body? What if I, or the others involved, had made different choices in my pregnancy or labor? What if he hadn't been brain-damaged at all? Who would he be now? 

 

What would my life be like with a 30 year old son? I can only imagine. I doubt I would have become a midwife. I doubt I would have had the wonderful six year old son I now have. And I'm happy in my life now. Would I be as happy if Forest were still here? Happier? 

 

 Once the past is past, it becomes the only possible thing that could have happened. I can tell myself it was fate; it was meant to be; see the silver lining. I can say it was a disaster; proof of a nonexistent or uncaring God; lay blame. I've done all these and more. It's all stories. Here's what I tell myself 30 years later: nothing. I don't need conjecture or meaning. It doesn't matter why. Thirty years is a long time. Dust to dust.

Some might find this odd, but I don't wonder where he is now. I don't wonder if he is in heaven, or he's been reincarnated, or his death was simply the end. Because about the only thing I do know is that I don't know, can't know, will probably never know. I don't envy the certainty of those who “know” what happens after death. There is a certain peace in reconciling to the unknown and unknowable too.

And isn't this the grief of life as we grow older as well: never knowing what might have been? The big “What If?” What if ... I had picked a different path, a different partner? ...had been or not been there any given night? ...had said yes one thing, no to another? The road not taken which has made all the difference.

 So was Forest the road I didn't take, or the one I did? I traveled so briefly with him but it's clear to me that I ended up on a very different path because of him. I don't know why he came into my life or why he left so soon or if he had a purpose in life or if I do. I don't think these are even the right questions to ask. It's just...well...here I am. A little sad, but at ease. Rooted and wrapped in my life. Standing in the light of this day and feeling grateful for everything.

 

April 27 - July 9, 1982 

 

 

 

I drew this from the top photo because I wanted a picture of him without the medical stuff
 

 

I wrote this five years later, 4/27/2017

My first son, Forest, was a surprise. Unplanned. Born 35 years ago today. I was 21 years old. His complicated birth and his death 73 days later, that was also a surprise. I didn't plan for this grief, this unlived life, these unanswerable questions that I mostly try not to ask.

No one knew Forest, truth be told, not even me. His brief life was played out in hospital rooms, not dandled on the knees of family and friends. His father is long gone, his sights set on Jesus so hard there's no room left in his vision for mere mortals.

A surprise, a bright golden bubble set aloft and soon burst, leaving only reflections. Even his cemetery stone has disappeared.

My new boy was as planned as can be, but he is a surprise too. He surprises me daily with his continued existence. Every morning I pause and listen until I hear him...little brother, waking to life.

 

 Someone asked me for a favorite memory:

Tough question. He was brain damaged at birth, and spent his whole life in the hospital. He always had the feeding tube in, so he never smiled or cried. He had a rough go of it, poor child.

I do fondly remember the day this picture was taken. He was at UH, and I lived on E 115th, a five minute walk to the hospital. We were allowed to take him for walks down to the courtyard. (At that time they had a lovely outdoor courtyard where the atrium is now. It was SO much nicer then.) Anyhow, we went down to the courtyard, and then snuck out of the hospital and went home. We spent about an hour there. The photo was taken in the backyard. It was really nice to get him away from the hospital for that brief time.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A  friend, poet Bob Drake, put together a book of poems for me and Forest's dad, Rocky. Some were his own, some he gathered for us. I read and appreciated these quite a bit in the early years, and I still take it out now and again. Here are the ones Bob wrote. He also built Forest's casket for us, which is referenced in the third poem. :

 

The only photo I have of the coffin.

And here is a poem I wrote several years later...

There Was Death

There was death

in his whiteness

in his quiet breathing

that afternoon when he stopped fighting

There was death

and I watched it

settle into him

and I wished I could go there with him

but instead I rocked him and sang him a song

and I told him

It's okay to go now

because I could see that death

could not be wiped away

like tears

And later

when he was gone

I cradled an empty body

just to be certain

stroked cold skin

just to be sure

he was safe

Not fighting for another breath

Safe now

from the weary miracle

of life

O Rumi, Rumi, where art thou Rumi?

I posted a little Rumi poem to my Facebook page yesterday, because it felt right for how I'm feeling these days:

“Forget safety.

Live where you fear to live.

Destroy your reputation.

Be notorious.”

― Rumi

Afterward, I started thinking how much I've always loved Rumi and how I really ought to own at least one book of his poetry. Who would have thought such a simple idea could lead me so far afield?

Before I go any further with this story, let me make a confession: I know very little about poetry. I am not educated in poetry. But I've been immersed in it since I was a child. My dad read to us: from AA Milne to ee cummings, Robert Frost to Robert Service, we got an earful of the stuff. All four of us kids can probably recite The Cremation of Sam McGee from memory to this day.

I loved the stuff. By high school I was writing it too. Later, I embarked on an English major at CSU, but had to drop out within a year due to other life commitments and I never got to take any poetry classes. Which is all just to say that I'm approaching my subject today with no more than a beginner's mind and an abiding love of words, not any particular expertise.

So, back to Rumi, aka Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī, aka Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī, aka Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Balkhī, aka Mevlānā , aka Mawlānā. Rumi was a mystic Sufi poet who lived in Persia (now Tajikistan) from 1207 to 1273. He wrote in the Persian language, which is the heart of the issue I am facing as I begin to wonder which book of his work I might like to buy.

What I have just discovered, neophyte that I am, is that quite a bit of what we English speakers think of as Rumi's work, is best referred to, not as translations of his original words, but as “poetic interpretations.” Inspired by his words, but not at all true to them. Coleman Barks seems to be the most prolific of these interpreters. Most of what I have read and enjoyed of Rumi's work has been though Barks. This news is disheartening to me. I love what I have read. But it is not true to Rumi? How am I to feel about this?

I go to the library. I take out books translated by Ibrahim Gamard and Nevit O. Ergin. I reserve from other libraries Rumi translations done by Kabir Edmund Helminski and Arthur John Arberry. I may add to this list as I learn more.

So this is the task I have set out for myself. Read, compare, decide. Or maybe don't decide. As yet, I don't know how I can. I have so many questions and I would be ever so pleased if anyone who has an interest in this topic would respond in the comment section. The very idea of poetry in translation from other languages has got me all hot and bothered now. Can it be done? This is poetry we're talking about, not an instruction manual for a toaster oven. Can it really be done? If it's a literal word for word translation, it loses its poetry. If it's a poetic interpretation, it loses its roots. Is the resulting poem, in either case, still attributable to the original author?

Rumi, in some cases, was translated from Persian to other languages and then to English. And this being about 700 years ago and all the lost context that entails, it just seems very nearly impossible that the resulting works can come close to the original intent, or carry traces of the original “soul,” if you will. On the other hand, I am unlikely to learn Persian. If I want to make  contact with my beloved Rumi, what else am I to do?

Feel free to also talk about poetic translations in general. Same principles would apply, I think.

Thanks for reading. I look forward to hearing from you all. I'm off to dive into these books now....

Breaking in

Have you noticed something different about me lately? Well, yeah, I did henna my hair, but I was referring to this. Right here. Ta-da! I have a blog now. I've suddenly become a Person With A Blog. I think it looks good on me, don't you?

So I'm going to start you off with a story, because this particular story will explain the name of my blog. Plus it's a good story.

When I lived in Seattle in the late 1980's, I frequented a little coffee shop called Espresso Roma. I had a lot of studying to do; they had free refills. So I spent a lot of time there. It just so happened that I read a book of James Wright's poetry around that time, and I fell in love with his poem, “A Blessing,” in particular, the last three lines. And one day, I wrote those lines on Espresso Roma's bathroom wall:

Suddenly I realize / That if I stepped out of my body I would break / Into blossom.

I signed it “JW.”

Well, it must have been a week or two later that I returned and found that someone had written directly below those lines, in tiny, perfect, print:

I'm out, Broken, Blossoming.

TC

And I fell in all over love again. With words, with poetry, with TC whoever he or she was, with the whole of everything. 

It's surprising, isn't it? How a small, seemingly pointless, action can make a world of difference? How a few words, placed just so, can step you out of wherever you were and break you into blossom?

I guess that's why I'm here, wearing my freshly pressed blog. I hope you enjoy it. Stop by again, Okay?

A Blessing   by James Wright

Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,

Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.

And the eyes of those two Indian ponies

Darken with kindness.

They have come gladly out of the willows

To welcome my friend and me.

We step over the barbed wire into the pasture

Where they have been grazing all day, alone.

They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness

That we have come.

They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.

There is no loneliness like theirs.

At home once more,

They begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness.

I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,

For she has walked over to me

And nuzzled my left hand.

She is black and white,

Her mane falls wild on her forehead,

And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear

That is delicate as the skin over a girl's wrist.

Suddenly I realize

That if I stepped out of my body I would break

Into blossom.