writing – Made for Ordinary Time

February 25, 2019February 25, 2019

Poetry Challenge Update

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We are heading into the final days of February. I realized yesterday that I have done a lousy job letting anyone—even Mary—know how I am doing with the poetry challenge. To everyone’s surprise, especially my own, I feel like I’ve done really well with this.

I’ve read a least one poem a day. I’ve read a few chapbooks, and a collection of poems. I’ve come across some new (to me) poets, and revisited some old favorites.

Yeats Keats and Shakespeare Langston Hughes Nikki Giovanni Mary Oliver Shel Silverstein

Seamus Heaney Maya Angelou Edgar Allen Poe Kazim Ali Anne Sexton e.e. cummings

Ocean Vuong…

I’ve touched base with a bunch of my poet friends. (Seriously, guys, for someone who proclaims to have rid her life of poetry, I have a LOT of poet friends! It’s pretty great.)

I’ve even looked at some of the poetry I wrote in a course I took with Joanna Penn Cooper and revised a few pieces. (They still need a LOT of work.)

Some things I’ve learned:

Like my taste in music, which is VERY broad, my taste in poetry is all over the map. (I’m MULTI-FACETED people.)
Poetry is part of how I learn about someone and about their culture—how individuals and how their people handle their big emotions and big events (births, deaths, weddings, etc.) shows up in their poetry. I had forgotten what a beautiful way of engaging with others. I’m glad I remembered.
Turns out I never really swept poetry out of my life. As practical and efficient as I have become, I have in fact kept a steady stream of poetry in my soul that reveals itself in my teaching, in my prayers, in my dreams.

Where is the poetry in your life? What poems do you hold dear?

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January 7, 2019January 7, 2019

Accepting the Challenge to Create

Skyline view of the Boston Public Garden, oil pastel by Kristen Allen

In the beginning, God created a writer. And it was good. Still, the writer was convinced that she could not draw, paint, or sculpt. Visual arts were not a gift meant for her to enjoy.

By and large, I suck at visual arts. I have some challenges with spatial relations, and getting things out of my head onto a canvas or drawing pad rarely works out. It’s just not my jam. I am a Word Girl through and through. I even dream in narrative. Seriously, most of my dreams have an off-screen narrator telling me what I am watching.

As my husband was putting our Christmas decorations away in the attic, he came across some boxes that needed repacking. As luck would have it (or the Almighty Creator willed it), he found the only art portfolio I have ever assembled. It was for the drawing class I had to take in order to get my final three fine arts credits to graduate with my BS degree. Oh, I dreaded that class. I hate sucking at things, and here I was paying an obscene amount of money to suck at something that someone else was going to judge and assign a grade to.

The class was life-changing. The professor, Iris, was a quirky, earthy-crunchy, painter-teacher-spiritualist. I could not help but love her. This was a summer course, so she had some liberty to do some unconventional things—like have the class meet at a different location around Boston each week. We went to the Arnold Arboretum, the Boston Public Garden, the top of a campus building in Porter Square in Cambridge, and we even took a boat out to Thompson’s Island in the middle of the Boston Harbor, one perfect summer day. (You may know the island as the site for the film, based on the Dennis Lehane novel, Shutter Island.)

Slowly, but surely, throughout the course, my perception of the lofty “ART” changed. I found that I began to look at the world differently. First I started noticing details, then color, light and shadow, texture. I began to see in pictures, not just in narrative.

The most remarkable change was when I was sitting under a tree, by one of the abandoned school buildings, on Thompson’s Island. I realized that I had started thinking about WORDS differently. I was seeing narrative descriptions in terms of color and texture. Words began to have a flavor. A new phrase would swirl around my mouth like the first taste sample from a bottle of fine wine. I suddenly understood toddlers’ compulsion to repeat a word or phrase incessantly, a preschooler’s delight in reading the same story over and over.

That class was a very long time ago. I still suck at drawing and painting. I still cannot cut a straight line. I still am not a visual artist.

I am a writer.

I am a writer who has a better understanding of the gifts that paintings, drawings, statuary, pottery, needlework are. I am a writer who is looking forward to seeing—and experiencing—my visual artist sisters’ and brothers’ view of the world for a bit. I’m a writer hungry for some new colors, textures, flavors.

November 18, 2018

Signs of Hope: The Convivium Conference

We’re sorry we’ve been a bit absent lately! Read on to discover why…

Kristen and I had the joy of presenting at the Convivium conference: Terra Incognita last weekend in Pittsburgh. We pushed down our nerves, faced our fears, and spoke publicly on what it is to read and write (and be dragons) as crones.

While I was happy-dancing over the chance to see Kristen again and to finally meet a number of our writer friends in person, I was not expecting the overwhelming light, love, and hope that the entire weekend offered. We heard poetry, and listened to some of our favorite authors speak. We indulged in long, slow conversations about art, music, and literature. We forged new connections, met new colleagues, and made new friends while taking a deep breath of air outside of our usual whirlwind lives.

Then we returned to the real world. But we returned changed, ready to create and spread beauty in the face of hatred and nihilism. We cannot say thank you often or loudly enough to Convivium. If you have the chance, check out their literary journal, classes, and conferences.