Come to the Pond

Mornings at Blackwater

~Mary Oliver

For years, every morning, I drank

from Blackwater Pond. It was flavored with oak leaves and also, no doubt,

the feet of ducks.

And always it assuaged me

from the dry bowl of the very far past.

What I want to say is

that the past is the past, and the present is what your life is,

and you are capable

of choosing what that will be,

darling citizen.

So come to the pond,

or the river of your imagination,

or the harbor of your longing,

and put your lips to the world.

And live

your life.

from Red Bird: Poems by Mary Oliver (Boston: Beacon Press, 2008), p.57.

~With a nod to Third Story Window where I read this poem in my blog wanderings this morning.  It fed my soul, so I'm sharing it with you in honor of April and National Poetry Month.

And now I'm going out on this warm afternoon in search of a pond.

Soul Sustenance

Lots of stuff going on over here, and because I've come to think of you all as friends of a sort, even though I've never laid eyes on most of you (with the exception of two or three), I feel like I want to tell you all about it.  Isn't that how it goes with friends?  When stuff happens in your life, your thoughts immediately turn to those people who help support you, hold you up when the crappy things happen and lift you even higher in those moments of triumph? Right now, two of my BFF's are out of touch one on vacation in the Desert, the other taking up residence in the Far East. So as the circumference of my real world network narrows, I feel even more drawn to all of you in the virtual world. Here's the deal - yesterday, I resigned from my job.

For those of you who know how much I hate fear change, you'll appreciate the kind of cataclysmic event this is. My 10 year anniversary at this company will occur next week, so for the past 10 years I've been working in the same small office.  I started out at the very bottom rung of an (admittedly) very small ladder, but have worked my way to a nice, upper management spot within this quite successful and growing company.   It's a good job, as part-time jobs go, and the people I work with are amazing - there aren't a more supportive group of women anywhere.

So why leave?

The 10 year thing is key for me, I think.  It was 10 years into my job at the high school that I began to get the itch to move on, that "been there done that" feeling that made every day, every rehearsal, every concert, a struggle.  If I'm honest, I've been feeling that way  here for more than a year or so.  I started out in this job as a medical technical writer (of sorts) but have since become "head of the department" which really means I do a lot more paper shuffling than writing.  I've been able to handle it mostly because it was routine and easy and I could get it all done with a minimal effort.  And because when my husband lost his job in 2009, we really needed every bit of extra income we could get.

But in the last six months, business has taken a decided upswing.  And that's all great - we've put some significant time into creating new marketing materials and a website, which I was really excited to be involved in.  The effort has paid off, and the business is growing by leaps and bounds.

Which means I have LOTS more paper to shuffle.

Recently, I turned 55 years of age.   I don't want to shuffle paper anymore.

Many years ago, every Wednesday night, I would trip down the basement stairs at my piano teacher's house.  I'd take my seat at her Baldwin grand piano, and she would settle into the dining room chair placed just slightly to my left.  She would lean back against the chair, close her eyes, smile, and say "alright."

Then I would start to play. Perhaps it was Beethoven (the Piano Sonata #3 in C Major) or Chopin (Fantasie Impromptu or Waltz Brillante in E-flat).  Once, for a very long period of time, I was working on the Brahms Rhapsody in D minor (a bear of a piece for a tiny girl with short, stubby fingers!)

When I finished, if I was very lucky and if I had practiced very hard, she would sigh deeply and say, "That feeds my soul."

Feeding the soul.

Perhaps it's selfish and unrealistic in today's world to hope that your job will also feed your soul.  How lucky am I to work where I'm not only paid well, but respected and valued?  How happy do I really expect to be?  It's a JOB, after all - shouldn't I just suck it up and look elsewhere for soul feeding?

Well, maybe.  But then again, I'm 55 years old.  How much time do I have left for soul feeding?

So I took the leap, hoping and trusting that the universe will provide me with the right opportunity, as it has done so generously in the past.

My dear husband wrote me a very nice note today.  In it, he said he was proud of me for taking this step, and he encouraged me to take some time to think about what I wanted to do, knowing that he would support me in whatever decision I made.

Friends, those words fed my soul.

For it is with the grace of God - and the people who love us and stand by us- that we move forward in life, and do those brave and daring things that give us sustenance, that allow us to grow and change for the better.

Thank you all for listening -it was good talking with you.

Recipe Book

When you bake a cake you have ingredients: sugar, flour, butter, baking soda, eggs, milk.  You put them in a bowl and mix them up.  But this does not make a cake.  This makes goop. Writing Down the Bones, Natalie Goldberg

In the small notebook I carry around, I often scribble down ideas for personal essays or blog posts, perhaps a word or phrase, maybe a reference to a magazine or newspaper article.  Sometimes in the local cafe or coffee shop,  another patron sparks my interest - perhaps their appearance, or their manner intrigues me, and so I make note of that, thinking they might appear in a story or poem sometime down the road ( when I have time to "really write").

This collection of ideas and thoughts become like a recipe book for my writing.  Combined with structure and grammar, they are the ingredients for the stories I'd like to tell. But putting them all together into an edible product is not as simple as methodically placing them onto the page.  They need what a cook might call a binding agent, something that links them together -  the focal point of what you're trying to say.

Your writing recipe also requires flavor, something to spice up the goop of ingredients you've stirred up.  Spice comes from the details - saying your father liked cars is bland and ordinary.  Saying that he spent every Sunday afternoon washing and waxing his powder blue '57 Chevy, rubbing it tenderly with soft, worn out cotton t-shirts, creates a much tastier sentence.

Look through your writers notebook (of course you have one by now, right?) and make a list of all the ingredients you've jotted down.  Is there anything that binds them together, a common thread which you might use to link some of these ideas into a coherent piece of writing?  Are there ways you can add more details to spice up your ideas?

Foundation Garments

When I was a very little girl, I was simply fascinated with my mother's girdles.  If you're younger than 40, you might not even know what a girdle is.  Women in the 1940's and 1950's referred to them as "foundation garments."  They were like a huge pair of rubberized underpants that squeezed your stomach and hips into a nice, smooth shape.  (For you younger women, think of industrial strength Spanx.) You really had to work to get into a girdle, wiggling, pulling, and straining, shifting your weight from one leg to the other until you got all your various rolls of fat smooshed into place. Sounds pleasant, doesn't it?

I got the biggest kick out of watching my mother put hers on every day - and yes, she wore the thing every day, under the housedress that cinched in at her waist and flowed out in a puffy skirt which fell just above her ankles.  My mother had a nice figure, and the girdle supported her in all the right places, so her waist looked tiny, her stomach nice and flat, and the folds of her voluminous skirt lay gracefully around her hips.  I have to admit, they did great things for the shape.

Girdles came to mind because of the book I'm reading - No Ordinary Time, by Doris Kearns Goodwin, a history of the "Home Front" during World War II.   Goodwin, writing about the various shortages and rationing during that time, notes that most American women were happy to conserve on foodstuffs, and nylons, and gasoline, and whatever else it took to support the Boys overseas.

But they drew the line when it came to their girdles.  You see, girdles were made largely of rubber, and rubber was in very short supply because the Japanese had conquered the rubber producing countries (Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines.)  According to Goodwin, when this rubber shortage threatened the continuing manufacture of girdles, a "public outcry arose."   The government gently suggested that women "grow their own muscular girdles through exercising."  Women countered that "neither exercise nor any other known remedy" could restore aging muscles to the "their original youthful tautness."  Journalist Marion Dixon argued that "without proper support from well fitted  foundation garments" there was no way that a woman over the age of thirty could "stand erect or do any physical work" without tiring.  "Certainly Uncle Sam would not want women to wear garments that would menace their health or hamper their efficiency, especially during wartime when every ounce of energy and effort is needed," Miss Dixon concluded.

Believe it or not, the government caved.  The War Production Board deemed girdles to be "an essential part of a woman's wardrobe," and, as such, could be manufactured despite the rubber shortage.

Score one for foundation garments.

Although I was fairly intrigued by girdles when I was five years old, by the time I was a teenager,  I was plenty happy to forgo the whole foundation garment experience in favor of panty hose ~ although my mother was scandalized by the whole idea (which was, of course, part of their appeal.)

But I did wear a girdle - once.  The dress I picked out for my bridal shower  had a straight skirt and was very clingy.  My mother suggested it would look "so much nicer" if I wore a girdle underneath it.  I agreed - admittedly, I had put on a bit of weight at that time and could benefit from some smoothing out in the figure department.

I suspect she was hoping I'd be converted and take to wearing foundation garments under my bell bottom blue jeans.  But let me tell you dear reader, the four hours I was squeezed into that girdle were the most miserable four hours of my short life to date.  I came home from the bridal shower, peeled off that rubberized torture garment, and stuffed it into the trash can.   Since that day I can happily say the most constricting foundation garment I've worn is control top panty hose, and I only wear those on rare occasions.

The rubber industry is safe as far as I'm concerned.

Cutting the Cord

During this trip to Florida we've been spending time doing some "housekeeping" things, preparing to leave the house for what will likely be a more extended period of time as the uncomfortable Florida heat and humidity begin to take hold.   We came down this particular week largely to help facilitate the transport of my son's car from here to his new home in Texas.  Unfortunately, due to some very poor customer service on the part of the transport company, that may not be happening.  You can imagine what he has to say about that, having been without his prize Pontiac GTO for the past four months ~ and if you can't imagine, you can read about it on his blog.  But we also had a small roof leak which led to some water damage in our third bedroom, so we've been getting that fixed up too. The other day, after a trip to Home Depot, we stopped at Publix to gather provisions for the week.  It's hot here already, and we discovered straight away that the air conditioning in our car wasn't working.  Windblown and sweaty, I hurried inside the nicely chilled grocery store, and reached into my purse for the grocery list.  As I rummaged around inside it, I realized my cell phone wasn't in its usual pocket.  I groped around at the bottom of the bag - no phone.  I upzipped all the zipper pockets on the outside of the purse and looked inside.

Then I searched all those places again, more frantically this time.

Nothing.

My mind raced back to the time I last used it - outside the Home Depot, where I was sitting on a bench and talking to my mother.  I clearly recalled putting it back inside my purse when I ended the call.  (In spite of my last post, I still remember some things!)  But what if it slipped out and fell on the sidewalk outside the store?  We'd have to drive all the way back there in the hot, windy car and look for it.  And what it wasn't there?  My monkey mind raced ahead - I knew I wasn't eligible for a new phone until April 10, because I was thinking about getting an iPhone and had recently logged into my Verizon account  to check my status.  A mere 10 days away- but I couldn't live without my phone for 10 days, especially here  in Florida where I don't have any other means of communication!

Panic set in.

I wheeled my basket up to the front of the store where J. sat in the little cafe to wait for me.  "My phone is gone!" I cried, with nearly as much fear as if I were announcing the loss of our firstborn child.

Looking back, I'm appalled at the intensity of my reaction.  But it proves something I've been feeling for quite some time - I am much too dependent on my technology.

Granted, society fosters this dependence, with the proliferation of electronic information, the convenience of being able to communicate instantly and from anywhere, and the expectation that you will take advantage of this ability.  My husband and I text each other on a regular basis, many of my friends text me, and in fact, a few of my younger friends hardly ever call but communicate almost entirely by text.   I've had eleven emails from my office in the past three days, even though I worked extra hours before I left to insure that all the essential things were done and/or covered in my absence this week.  Luckily, no one has called me (in fact, that would have been the one good thing about losing the cell phone- no work calls!)

The other day as I contemplated life without a cell phone and realized the grim level of panic that possibility incurred, it started me thinking more and more seriously about cutting the cord on my technological dependence - not just the cell phone, but the internet too.  Too many hours have been frittered away in aimless internet searching, following one link after the other, restlessly scanning pages and videos.  On days when I've made a concerted effort to stay off the internet until an appointed time when all other activities have been completed, I'm amazed at how much more productive I've been.  It's not just a matter of the time consumed, it's also the attention involved.  Perhaps younger people are better equipped to handle the fast paced, fragmented cyber world ~ my aging brain is clearly suffering under the strain.

I'm not naive enough to think I can completely sever my connection to technology.  But I can take some serious steps to wean myself from what's become a compulsion an addiction. Here's my experiment:  I'm changing my home page from Facebook to the local newspaper.  I'm removing Facebook and Twitter from my bookmarks bar and placing their links in a separate folder which will require three steps to access.  I will not use the internet for personal reasons on work days until I've finished at the office for the day - and this will be a difficult test, because I have to use the internet for work reasons.  And finally, I will completely unplug on Sundays, and will use the computer only to write.

As for my  phone - it had fallen out of my purse onto the floor of the car.  And since I'm admitting my electronic addiction, I'll tell you exactly how far I've fallen dear reader - I kissed my cell phone.

So I think when April 10 rolls around, I'll just hang onto my two year old phone with its tactile keypad, no data plan, and 100 texts per month.   That should suit my new dialed back lifestyle just fine.