DEPLOYMENT - DAY ONE

I seriously can't believe my last blog post was in July, 2011. Where have I been??

Keeping busy, I suppose. I'm still teaching at the community college, still living in Colorado Springs. And, for the second time since I've lived in this town, I'm saying goodbye to my husband so he can fight in a war I have never considered honorable or justified.

We spent the past few weeks prepping pounds of paperwork and setting up our own personal support networks. Most of you know I'm not a huge fan of the "army wife" social scene; I keep to myself or I'm glued to my phone so I can talk to my family in Washington state or my friends in Georgia or Texas or Oregon. That condition of never feeling quite at home follows me to every city I live in, but I remember feeling that way before I married Tom. As a teenager, I used to glamorize the idea of living in a new place every year, of never settling down. I was going to be an actress and live in New York at least once. As soon as I started studying literature, acting went out the window but my wanderlust just concealed itself in a quieter, less obnoxious costume. I started feeling the pangs of homesickness, the lack of familiarity, and the drawbacks of constant relocation. I became comfortable in Eagle River, Anchorage, Vancouver, Atlanta, Columbus - as soon as we packed up to leave. I left hard-earned friends, jobs, and writing groups behind to find myself in a new place with my books and pets to comfort me before Tom's next deployment began.

This morning, at 2am, Tom left for a month of training before his third tour in a combat zone. He'll return for a short break in March, then I'll see him again by Christmas, hopefully. This tour will be, I think, his most challenging.

We remain very different people who have created the only kind of successful marriage I can imagine. Tom's job is important to me only in that it makes him feel happy, needed, confident, and self-aware. Tom is, by himself, a role model and my closest confidant. My job and my writing have a tendency to become (sometimes not-so-fortunately) my identity while he is gone. I overschedule myself and doubt my own work as I practice much too late at night. I back into a safe routine of loneliness and quiet chaos. I clean. I read. I run. I go weeks without being touched or touching others. I sometimes wonder if I'd be in the same profession if I had a husband who was around more, at home for dinner every night and never shot at - my poetry, my second chapbook in fact, is grown from my experience as a sort of pacifist married to a soldier. What would I write about?

I wrote this earlier this morning, and I'm posting it here because I don't have any intention of sending it out to journals. I can't see it successfully reaching beyond my close friends and colleagues and family and acquaintances. I've been working hard with my poetry students this semester on writing what is not created for publication but for exploration of the craft, what is experimental and part of understanding the text we read, what plays with personal experience and the capacity of the imagination.

I've missed you guys. You're such good listeners. : )

DEPLOYMENT: DAY 1

Skip mass.

Start laundry.

Find the six words he wrote

on a yellow post-it:

I love you, See you soon.

Tape it to the kitchen wallpaper.

In each room

locate his most visible

belongings,

the blue mountain company hat,

green plaid jacket,

a stray flathead screwdriver

and his keys to your car

on the dining room table.

His sewing kit,

a maroon fleece patted with dog hair

and a pair of heavy gloves

on the sofa,

coins on top of the TV,

a fog-colored waterbottle

with his battalion logo scratched off,

the Swiss Army knife

he got from a real Swiss officer,

the expensive and flavorless chapstick,

uniform receipts

crumpled between the toaster

and a bunch of green bananas.

Pour out the rest of his coffee creamer,

put the half-eaten ham sandwich

and his Chinese leftovers

down the garbage disposal in pieces.

Switch the laundry.

Two issues of Popular Mechanics behind the toilet

and three different books about the same war

on the windowsill

of the guest bathroom.

Take down both your towels

at the same time to wash.

Blast his toothbrush with your hair dryer

before sealing it in a plastic bag

with his razor and shaving cream

under the sink, away from dust.

The mug with two sips of tea left

on his nightstand,

an empty water glass.

Move your own stack of books

to his nightstand,

put your pillow on his side of the bed

and his on yours.

Dishes in the dishwasher.

Towels in the hamper.

Place everything small enough to fit

inside the wooden box

with his name carved into it.

Its lid should close completely.

Hang his jackets in the back

of the coat closet upstairs,

return the screwdriver to its hook

on the garage wall.

Switch the laundry.

Fold.

Answer one pressing email,

replace the pen by the phone,

slip his books back into

his bookcase, the only unalphabetized one

in the house.

Use up the rest of the all-purpose cleaner

on doorknobs, countertops,

the garbage can lid, refrigerator handle,

stovetop, sinks, the wine cart.

Rinse the bottle and recycle.

Sweep and vacuum around the dog.

Write.

From your desk,

staring straight ahead,

notice the beer bottle

that’s rolled underneath the armchair

in the living room.

Imagine yourself

pushing back from your desk,

standing and walking

from one room to the other

in his slippers,

lifting the couch and setting it

on a temporary angle

while you retrieve the bottle,

two nickels and a penny.

Write.

STRENGTHS & WEAKNESSES

Isn't it funny how all writers have strengths and weaknesses within their own craft? I spent this week teaching my poetry class about surrealism, using both visual (Magritte) and literary (Breton) art to explain my explanations. Funny, because some of the poems I loathe more than any other pieces of literature are explorations in surrealism-- they can so quickly become obscure for the sake of obscurity. In a way, psychoanalysis and the Jungian theory of our unconscious using familiar images and symbols to communicate deeper meaning from the shadowed parts of our minds is... annoying. Just tell me what I need to know. I don't want to connect the dots; I want to see the resulting shape.

It's been a struggle, I think, for my class to go outside what is real and in front of them. I wouldn't necessarily call that a weakness. But it's a struggle worth going through, certainly. In my poems, I enjoy staying outside of what is real. I venture inside realism every now and then, unfortunately, to write war poems and what I call "lady poems" that scratch the surface of how fascinating gender really is. But in the end, realism isn't where I get my high. Letter-writing goldfish, rats gone sailing in umbrellas, and women who grow gills are more stimulating; I write a good poem with one small surrealist twist and I'm on cloud 9 for, oh, I dunno, 48 hours.

Teaching the class has made me realize that my students and I share an opposite, and similar, struggle. I suffer from not feeling comfortable inside what is real. My writing has become, to me, the most beat-up pair of jeans you've ever seen: worn at the knees, wallet print on the back pocket, burn holes, scratches, busted zipper, ripped hems, and about three thousand pockets, each holding something worthless.

At first, that sounds romantic-- limited to the imagination. But, these days, I see it as unproductive and fearful. Poetry that tells a reader what is happening in front of them is powerful. Poetry that is real is powerful. Poetry that gives you the object without making you follow clues is powerful. And sure, I acknowledge the argument for imaginative / fantastic / surreal poetry leading us to new thought as well. I just wish I could write everything. And well. Poets who can grab true grief (or love, or passion, or oppression) by the neck and wrestle it onto the page astonish me.

If anything, I can spend this semester learning from my students, rooted in their personal experiences and unafraid of exploring it with language. I can gulp the fresh air that comes with forcing them outside their comfort zones too. Maybe I'll write what's real when I'm older and I'm more familiar with what it really is.

Right?

Here's a prose poem from today's scratch work:

READING JANE AUSTEN WITH MY YOUNGER SISTER

We put our books down and rifle through the game drawer. Sorry is missing the red and blue men, Monopoly is ridiculous. Let’s play marbles, my younger sister says. Inside the leather pouch is a stick of chalk probably fifty years old, yellow-white, and a lot of pearls, bluish-white. They skitter out of the bag like mice. My sister picks one up to shoot. Maybe we shouldn’t, I say, These are pearls, not marbles. What do you mean, she asks, positioning herself lower to the ground, on her belly, a sniper on the slope of a ditch. They’re pearls, I say. I grab some from the undrawn ring. You’re cheating, she says. What if they were Mom’s? I say, hoping she won’t shoot. These are marbles, she says, They’re glass, They weren’t Mom’s. I snatch the pearl she’s about to shoot with and smash it with Jane Austen’s anthology. There is a sound of breaking teeth. I lift the book slowly and both of us, on all fours, stare at the powdered white. It’s glittering because it was glass, my sister says. I say, it’s glittering because it was worth so much.

MOBILE LEARNING ENVIRONMENT

Tom and I have done a lot of traveling in the last month. We flew to Indiana to visit my mom and her husband in Indianapolis (a city that's sort of surprisingly fun), Pennsylvania - Dutch country - to visit Tom's extended family, and in the past two weeks we've hosted my sister and niece from Washington then my in-laws from Alaska. The in-laws leave tomorrow, and we'll finally have a house that might be kind of almost quiet.

(a peony in downtown Indianapolis)

Today, we divided most of our time between the car, driving to Great Sand Dunes National Park, and walking outside, playing in the Arkansas River on the way home, throwing Flynn's ball, and strolling through Salida. It's 9:39pm now, and I've been ready to crawl into bed for the past three hours-- at least.

(Tom, me, and our bully of a dog, Flynn, at Great Sand Dunes NP)

However, I noticed that my blog has been neglected as of late. So, here's a poem I wrote today. Hope you read it, enjoy it, and tell me you enjoyed it. In the morning.

MOBILE LEARNING ENVIRONMENT

You said hey

I wonder if ants

dream about

Jacob’s Ladder

not the one

from the bible

but the flower

they’re so beautiful

the flowers

not ants

and I said

get a load of this

pickup going 90

with a Jetta chained

to the hitch

and is that a go-kart

on the Jetta’s roof

That sounds like

the start of

a really bad joke

you said

Ants probably dream

about the bible

as much as we do

I said

A pickup,

a Jetta

and a go-kart

walk into a bar

you said

...

NAPOWRIMO DAY 7 POEM

On Wednesday, Tom came home after his morning PT session and we made breakfast before I left for work. As we sat at our dining room table, Tom suddenly slapped the front page of the newspaper in front of me, blocking my view of peanut butter toast with a fantastic article. "Abby. You HAVE to read this," he said.

And I did read it. And I cut it out and kept it too.

Here's a picture of Luna, the jumping cow. Her owners, a family in Germany, were unable to give their daughter (Regina Mayer) a horse, so Regina decided to go riding on one of their cows... and she taught Luna how to jump.

(photo from Spiegel Online)

I admired what this article captured so much, it influenced my poem for Day #7 of NaPoWriMo. Of course, this wasn't all that influenced it... I started to notice how often I have heard of the surreal or unthinkable taking place, and it's usually happening in modern Germany. Just a couple Christmases ago, Tom and I were staying up late in a friend's living room in Morlaix, France, watching a TV special about how a German man claimed to be able to tell people's fortunes by placing his hands on their naked butts. You've heard of palm-readers? Germany goes one step further by producing a butt-reader. (Our French friends shook their heads and laughed that night, muttering "Only the Germans.")

It all made me wonder whether modern-day Germany was sneaking into the rest of the world's wildest dreams at night, then managing to make a profit off of our off-the-wall thoughts. Why don't we wake up and try out the weird ideas ourselves? It's a valid suggestion... and I have ALWAYS wanted to ride a cow.

SO MANY TIMES I HAVE DREAMED

Napowrimo day #7

So many times

I have dreamed

of accomplishing

the extravagant.

Bouncing on

a small green

saddle atop

the knobby spine

of a dairy cow,

while bystanders

with faces like

flashbulbs look on.

So many times

I have dreamed

of jumping

on my steed

over painted logs

and beer crates,

of landing

on a bed of

newspapers.

So many times

I dream of sailing

through bluish

pastures frosted

with dew

only to wake

and hear it has

all been done,

just last week,

in the German

countryside.

...

HAPPY NAPOWRIMO!

Welcome to National Poetry Month, a time when all the closet-poets around you suddenly make their presence known by writing one poem per day for thirty days, complete with fanatic revisits to old author-favorites, nervous breakdowns at 11:53pm when a poem still hasn't emerged, the joyous discoveries of new poets and their publications, and a frenzied sort of appreciation for poetry as a craft. Our eyes may be bloodshot and we're speaking in tongues (Ah! Dactylic hexameter!) but we're totally safe, I promise.

I started this period of designated writing time after a month that left me feeling as if I'd endured enough stress to keep my list of creative prompts flowing. Tom came home from Iraq. We've begun this dance (for a second time) that involves complicated steps around living with a partner after living alone for a year, the twirling of occasional mood swings and the quick rushes of celebration.

Then there's been the little things, mostly around the house, that have kept me ridiculously busy. Spring Break was filled with papers to be graded. Flynn ate one arm of the couch (literally. She ATE. IT.) which kept Tom up for one night, sewing for my sanity. A panel of our backyard fence blew over in a windstorm. Stuff like that.

I've more or less been caught in a dry spell when it comes to writing, surprisingly. As I've scrubbed or repaired or graded or driven up and down I-25, I've had imaginary glimpses of a familiar book cover on my reading shelf: Woolf's A Room of One's Own. I can't help wondering if I'd really be able to come up with anything to write if I had guaranteed peace and quiet-- or whether I'd be bored out of my mind without the distractions to write about.

But right now, I'm sitting at my dining room table, and if I lean to the left to see around the vase of half-wilted roses and daisies (they still smell good) I can see my neighbor, Tim, lying on his back in his front yard, tossing a tennis ball up in the air for Louie, his Boston Terrier (Flynn's nemesis). Tim's an older guy, and he's been out raking for the past couple hours as I've worked on class stuff and cleaned up the house. One minute he's filling a garbage can with yard debris from the last windstorm; the next minute he's on his back, side to side with Louie, both of them exhausted from play.

And there might be nothing poetic about it. And I'm learning to get okay with that. I've noticed I've opted out of living in the moment several times before in order to observe the facts, the imagery, the details of a situation. I haven't developed the talent (yet) for multi-tasking in that way-- observing and living, simultaneously. So for now I'm observing.

Tonight, just before I go to bed, I'll check my memory for anything that stuck, and I'll write a poem that stands just as much a chance of being trash as it does for being submitted to a journal. I'll read some William Carlos Williams to console myself in my lack of words. I'll read some Ron Padgett to laugh at myself. And I'll go to bed tired.

SILVER

Napowrimo day #1

I like the color silver

but tonight

it is a boat too small

to carry my thoughts

and myself together,

a shallow dish

placed on the lip

of a river.

It trembles in the current

as it balances

a load of moonlight,

some cigarette ash,

a letter written in pencil.

...

THIS GUY’S WIFE

Napowrimo day #2

I could never tire of looking

at this guy’s wife,

this guy big as a house

and his wife

like a Porsche parked in front

of him,

he says honey I can’t open

this damn beer

so she says give it here

and the beer is passed

between the two,

catching the bronze afternoon light

which flashes like a candle

blown out

in an upstairs window

across the street.

...

THE IRONY IS NOT LOST ON ME

Napowrimo day #3

The flower shop three blocks from home

sells orchids and cacti and ladyslippers

but won’t be open long on account of its inventory,

solitary blooms looming over sculpted pots,

ogling clientele with orange and yellow eyes.

They pull away from their painted green stakes.

But we can walk there from here

so we do, and we each pick out a cactus.

I say I need something hardy. You say

you want something easy on the eyes.

Cacti are difficult to kill, easy to ignore,

and some of them have dusty pink petals

that burst from the tips of pale tendrils

to touch their neighbors lightly, blind.

You pick the kind that flowers,

I choose a squat, silvery one with spines arranged

on half-moon leaves like teeth. Walking home,

I say our family is growing. You say

my cactus looks impatient.

...