Dec
8
2011
I was speeding home and glanced at the mountain across the mile wide river. The sun was resting on top of the mountain. I looked again and it was gone. It was a brief look at dusk–one point in time I almost missed. How much of life is that momentary–here today, gone tomorrow? All we can do is keep our eyes open for those special moments. You never know when they come along. This was one such moment.
Dec
5
2011
Life is always a question of balance. First it gets tipped one way. Then the other direction. You go back and forth. The same thing happens internally in your body. The term is homeostasis. One example is your blood sugar. The level in the blood stream goes up and down. When it reaches a certain low point your appetite is activated. You eat and your blood sugar goes up. How quickly depends on what you eat for different types of food are metabolized at different rates.
A person has to have quiet moments to analyze the direction he/she is going in their life. There is a reason one of the commandments is to observe the Sabbath. God does not need to rest. Humans do. One day a week they need to get off their treadmill and rest and reevaluate their life. Does the person have to do something different in their life–go in another direction. You can go faster and faster but get no where. Life is always a question of balance.
Dec
5
2011
Every poem I write is pared to the essential. That was the one lesson I had to learn over and over in my two years of creative writing. The beauty of a written piece is always what is left out–the empty spaces. I had to look at my poems repeatedly to see what was necessary to say. I do not have to say something directly if it was said already even if was only said implicitly. Some teachers may use the statement, “Show don’t tell”. This is very difficult to do since it is my own work. It is hard to view it objectively. Of course, a good editor helps this process. It is very common for a beginner to resist this process. Everything they write they think is “gold.”
I am a little luckier than most: my wife is a fine editor. I do not hesitate to change something if her advice is on target. If her criticism is right, I will make the necessary changes. Your instincts have to be accurate. If a line (or a phrase or a word) can be taken out and the poem still stands, it was not necessary. Sometimes the opposite is necessary: you need to add something. There may be ambiguity you don’t want or maybe you want it there. You, also, may have to rearrange some lines. Your piece is not coherent. The reader can’t follow the poem easily. What are you trying to achieve with the piece? Sometimes that is not an easy question to answer and may determine the changes you make. You always have to make the decision when to leave the poem alone (and come back to it later) or whether it is even worth working on. Every word has to count.
Dec
4
2011
The primrose finally bloomed. They like the cold weather and I have been checking the bed of primrose for several weeks. Sometimes they will bloom twice a year. And there it was today: one yellow flower. I was excited about my discovery. I will keep checking the bed of flowers to see whether more bloom and if there will be another color of primrose. There are only five plants in that bed. We will see.
Dec
4
2011
My clothes must breed in secret in my closet. I had no idea where this blue shirt came from. I was looking for something to wear which was warm. And there it was. I had no idea where it came from. It is not that I have mountains of clothing. I don’t, although I have to say my closet is relatively full. I have on occasion given away clothing. In fact, our “jacket” closet was overflowing until we gave away some less worn clothing. Now I can find articles of clothing easier. I don’t have to struggle to find and pull one coat out of there. Every once in a while I find something in one of my closets and I have no idea where it came from. As I said, the clothes I have breed while I am not watching and there it is–one of its grown children usually a different color and shape. We will blame it on genes.
Dec
4
2011
“Tilla”, one of our four dogs must have cut through the leash again. He does not forget: at least twice when he was he younger he was punished by my wife by being put on a leash for hours tied to the table. We now only had one good leash left. Four leather ones he had chewed through. I temporarily had the leash tied to the post for I was treating all four dogs for being sprayed by a skunk. After I lathered the solution on them I had to rinse it off. They would never stand for that so I had to have them tied down while I was spraying them with the hose. I had left the leash tied to the post and forgot about it. He didn’t. I simply had to laugh. He did it again.
Dec
1
2011
The latest crisis was a skunk in our yard. Our four dogs were harassing it and producing a racket. My wife screamed “Get the dogs in!” They all came in immediately. She said one of the dogs was sprayed in the mouth. “Pax” threw up twice in our living room. Meanwhile my wife called the police, then the game commission (was busy with deer season) and someone else who gets rid of animals for a living. Of course, she had to leave a message on their machine. The next thing she called “Bark Of The Town”, who usually grooms our dogs, for an emergency appointment. He told us what to do but he no longer cleans dogs sprayed by skunks.
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