tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27599564800399773012024-02-20T16:18:59.167-08:00The Wheel"A Wheel Turns Whether It Knows Where It Is Going"sasqihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09151683656756008988noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2759956480039977301.post-64178990412520795672011-03-17T09:05:00.000-07:002011-03-17T09:06:36.413-07:00Jury Duty / Jury SelectionJust spent five days watching a jury get selected for a criminal case. I was among the last seven left in the courtroom when my name was called, so I got to listen to well over 120 people respond to hypothetical questions about the case and sitting on a jury. It was like an exercise in ethics, combined with a very serious job interview, and I left with immense respect for most of the people who participated, as well as for the jury selection process. It’s a huge responsibility--my sense of that deepened immensely by actually watching the process unfold.<br /><br /> <br />I was excused for cause, because of a very strong opinion I had which was related to some of the evidence deemed admissible in the case. I left the process wishing that more people who expressed their opinions might be considered--at least a little more seriously--for a jury of one's peers. I think I would have made a good juror. But I also did wonder whether I was the right juror for THIS case, and I wondered that aloud--and I respect that right that all parties involved have to attempt to choose a group that is fair and impartial. I probably wasn’t right for the job, and I think the process determined that fairly.sasqihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09151683656756008988noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2759956480039977301.post-46443737617881214872010-11-07T19:37:00.001-08:002010-11-07T19:37:32.964-08:00KatzenjammerNot-quite-waking from a dream you prefer<br />the horn section is overpowering the string<br />and one of the trumpets keeps out of key.<br />Dread as if everyone has walked on <br />to their own lives, and left you behind.<br />the way your cat, pacing at your ankles, <br />soothes you, suddenly makes you retch, too.<br />All this forward-looking, new beginnings,<br />punctuation of earthly orbits, too much attention<br />to the yawn of the fruit bowl and how to placate it,<br />the way your lover wants you but you<br />can’t find the horizon, the dizziness borne<br />of diving from heights has imprisoned your libido<br />and on a day like New Year’s, that always<br />surprises you.sasqihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09151683656756008988noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2759956480039977301.post-43021020088256565822010-11-03T13:43:00.000-07:002010-11-03T13:47:04.783-07:00Lint-bustingOkay, I haven't hand-picked the lint and cat fur off my office chair yet, but I am discovering more methods to procrastinate than I was previously aware of. If you haven't checked out the recent article about procrastination in the <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2010/10/11/101011crbo_books_surowiecki">New Yorker</a>, take a peek. It makes me wonder what I actually think I'm avoiding when I let my brain wander all over the place.sasqihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09151683656756008988noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2759956480039977301.post-24347462301038640832010-11-02T11:56:00.001-07:002010-11-02T12:03:08.033-07:00Welcome to NovemberIn November I'm accompanying those people out there participating in National Novel-Writing Month but I'm implementing my own Poetry-Writing Month. Really as a tool to put poetry-writing into an even more increased pace and rhythm...and taking advantage of the group mentality of the month-marathon. My own "daily requirement" instead of being comprised by word count is to generate one new poem each day and to work on one revision. It's not clear to me yet what I really mean by one new poem, since they are not poems when they first come out, but I sometimes think I know what material is the beginning of a poem, and what is just the work to get there. Perhaps that is one thing I'll learn from this exercise.<br /><br />I copied this poem yesterday into my notebook because I am being enamored by Kay Ryan and am sure I can learn from her compact lyric wisdom.<br /><br />Cloud<br />by Kay Ryan<br /><br /><br />A blue stain<br />creeps across<br />the deep pile<br />of the evergreens.<br />From inside the<br />forest it seems<br />like an interior<br />matter, something<br />wholly to do<br />with trees, a color<br />passed from one<br />to another, a<br />requirement<br />to which they<br />submit unflinchingly<br />like soldiers or<br />brave people<br />getting older.<br />Then the sun<br />comes back and<br />it’s totally over.sasqihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09151683656756008988noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2759956480039977301.post-26590727416522979402010-07-01T15:47:00.000-07:002010-07-01T15:48:46.385-07:00On getting the line right"A line will take us hours maybe; <br />Yet if it does not seem a moment's thought,<br />Our stitching and unstitching has been naught."<br /><br />From 'Adam's Curse', Yeats.sasqihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09151683656756008988noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2759956480039977301.post-11833780541453066912010-01-28T09:47:00.000-08:002010-01-28T09:56:35.122-08:00Small Thoughts About Giant Gifts, On Your BirthdayDear Jamie:</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Today is your fortieth birthday. I miss you, and I ache to be able to celebrate you in the spectacular fashion you would have deserved. But I have been struck this week by how much faith I have in your love for me and your other loved ones. What I mean is that somehow the knowledge of how much you loved us <b>buoys</b><span style="font-weight: normal;"> me, and that feels like some great fortune. And I wonder about the future: what will happen to this sensation of feeling your love around me, so easy to reach right now? Is there some way to hold onto it, since you're gone, and that becomes more and more true each day? I know nothing about how to answer those questions. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">But it's your birthday <b>today</b><span style="font-weight: normal;">, and I feel truly lucky to know that you loved me the way you did. So my birthday gift to you is to try not to waste an ounce of it: to love myself as deeply and as loyally as you loved me, and to try and share those qualities of love with the people in my life. My gift, too, is to keep on nurturing the creative spirit in me which you helped kindle and spark for almost 20 years. And finally, to do the best I can to bring out these giant gifts of living in my own loved ones. Happy Birthday, Jamie. And thank you.<br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Love,<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if supportFields]><span style="'mso-element:field-begin'"></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>CONTACT _Con-3F01ECC11 \c \s \l <span style="'mso-element:field-separator'"></span><![endif]-->Farnaz <!--[if supportFields]><span style="'mso-element:field-end'"></span><![endif]--></p> <!--EndFragment-->sasqihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09151683656756008988noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2759956480039977301.post-59354828054363026792009-10-27T19:42:00.000-07:002009-10-27T19:45:03.253-07:00On Teaching, Daily Life, Keeping OnAfter being away from normal routine this weekend—on a "writing retreat" that was silent, too—I am noticing that normal routine in some way feels easier than before the weekend. I don't know if that has to do with just getting distance from the way the everyday mundane things have a way of weighing me down, or if it's because my partner is gone and I still have all this space at home for another kind of 'retreat', or if there's something not quite as nameable that comes from even a little respite. On the other hand, it's just kind of horrifying how quickly the noise and business and distractions fill in space when I let it, and that's what happens—some of these so-called chores are just distraction, hubbub, and empty activity.<br /><br />My students this fall have humbled me; most of the 20 people in the Kresge Core class that I'm teaching have arrived at UC against unbelievable odds—a handful are the first in their families to go to college, some are spending their weekends back home caring for family farms or disabled siblings, others only learned English when they were 8, 9, 10, and still feel sort of stuck between two universes. Today one young woman had been present and engaged during the whole class, asked me a good, clear question when we were finished at the end of class, gathered her things, and by the time I was out the door a few minutes later, she was on her phone on her balcony, crying almost uncontrollably to the person on the other end. I remember how it was to be that age. I remember and I don't always want to, although I still feel that I was lucky because of the friends -- some long lost, some still in my life -- I met at UCSC that helped me make sense of a world that had suddenly and radically gotten much, much bigger. Some days when I am not totally hoofing through a lesson or racing to catch up with my own assignments for my students, I know I strive to be that person to some of them.<br /><br />*****<br /><br />I found this little list poem this weekend which I wrote in June.<br /><br />Things I Have Put My Faith In<br /><br />Barack Obama<br />The genuine good of my colleagues<br />My sister's ability to take it one day at a time<br />(My sister's faith)<br />Friends' shoulders and embraces even when I feel I have nothing to offer in return<br />My cat's nine lives.<br />My lover's longevity (and his faithfulness)<br />His faith in me.<br />The soil around my home and its health, in the face of acute disease.<br />The green thumb I got from grandfathers I didn't know.<br />Four distinct seasons<br />(which need):<br />People in the U.S. committing to sacrifice for others, or the seasons are history<br />Poetry<br />My friends' commitments to bring creativity into this world.<br />Touch<br />My lover's hands, even when he's gone.<br />Friendship.sasqihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09151683656756008988noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2759956480039977301.post-69573003287068133002009-10-26T17:16:00.000-07:002009-10-26T17:23:31.451-07:00"My body knows things my brain has no idea about""My body knows things my brain has no idea about"<br />Title from a line by Heather McGowan in The Duchess of Nothing<br /><br />(Note: I don't think of this as a "finished poem", but rather as riffing off the line mentioned above. But nor do I think only "finished" things should be shared--it's all about keeping the wheel turning). <br /><br />My body knows things. <br />Like: how to pet the cats<br />What to do with the root-bound plant<br />And how hard to shake it<br />How the soup will taste and <br />Why it should taste that way—<br /><br />I am like a Volkswagen-sized leatherback turtle,<br />Climbing out of the tide and up the beach where she was born,<br />Finding a spot in which to bury her eggs—<br />Hundreds of them, ping pong ball size—<br />Some of which will hatch babies that in turn<br />Will have to figure out where the ocean is<br />And how to make it there<br />Scuttling across sand in morning sun <br />Hoping to escape a predator's hand.<br /><br />I am like the albatross, courting, clack clack clacking<br />In a dance of fidelity, catching the female's eyes<br />And convincing her to partake, to dance back,<br />Two coquettes, unending their mating ritual<br />For minutes upon minutes upon minutes,<br />Somehow knowing it needs to last <br />In order to mean something lifelong.sasqihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09151683656756008988noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2759956480039977301.post-90764358177500584822009-08-24T11:39:00.000-07:002009-08-24T11:40:43.147-07:00On FriendshipMaybe we'd been born<br />With a room in our hearts emblazoned<br />With the other's name.sasqihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09151683656756008988noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2759956480039977301.post-41453213258390019662009-07-24T07:33:00.000-07:002009-07-24T07:39:20.534-07:00She Is Who Wakes Me<span style="font-weight: bold;">She Is Who Wakes Me</span><br /> <span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;"> A Poem inspired by Jane Hirshfield's "Imagine Myself In Time"</span> </span><br /><br />Twenty years on, facing old age<br />who will my young self be?<br />What will she look like when I look back<br />from future mornings? The quality<br />of those mornings, a hidden mystery—no telling now<br />whether I'll find birdsongs, or birds.<br />Looking at old age, when it's closer at hand,<br />will I remember the way words matter now:<br />guardians of my heart, gates to others'?<br />Maybe one loss will follow another,<br />and widowhood will be less sudden.<br />Or I will walk naked into a sunny morning, forgetting<br />how cold the world still is at dawn.<br />I wonder if my older self knows how<br />to enfold time, piling years<br />onto her current moment,<br />now to then, then to now.<br />Saying, "it is only ever now,"<br />so that neither of us can utter a reply.<br />She already knows about me. Time folds.<br />She is who wakes me, today.<br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">I started writing this poem in June but has evolved quite a bit since, and it felt time to share it with more people. It feels like it tries to capture a sentiment (or series of sentiments) that are close at hand for me this summer. If you read it and have any associations with it, or want to provide other feedback, please do! </span>sasqihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09151683656756008988noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2759956480039977301.post-67588206458671297592009-07-07T19:53:00.000-07:002009-07-07T19:55:50.921-07:00Laughter, After<span style="font-weight: bold;">Laughter, After </span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">(On "Faith Healing")</span><br /><br />One can hear the phrase "Faith Healing" as the healing of wounded faith (as in: faith, healing). Or as the way faith, like nothing else, heals. I guess that it does. This way: I sit on a porch and I stare at the ocean, believing that this is time well spent. I understand our whole lives together hover above a small area of the Pacific and I stare. I listen to the family of quail looking for food on our porches, and it is literally a family: mother, father, and a very spotted baby. I am giving myself time, on a Sunday, a day you left, and have none left of. I trust that this is what I need and I listen to the quail, and I hear you say, about the baby: That. Is. So. Cute. And I am grateful for your voice in my ears. So my faith gives me gratitude which leads me to tears of what can only be called joy. So it has happened again: faith led to time led to gratitude led to tears led to joy. I am not past-tense healed, but I am healing. You are healing. Me. Despite the paradox. I bless you for being the wound and the salve simultaneously. Render and mender. Woe-er and Sew-er/Sower. Tearful and cheerful. Latitude/gratitude. Attitude/platitude. Food chewed. Mood-lewd. Quail-wail. Laughter, After. You are cracking me up, and I am back to real joy, and if I weren't writing these words in a roomful of people there'd be real tears, too.sasqihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09151683656756008988noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2759956480039977301.post-3401774853445021912009-07-05T16:59:00.001-07:002009-07-05T17:01:31.116-07:00Remember<span style="font-family: georgia;">Corn ears unfurling.</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">What did the babies look like?</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">Memory fleeting.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">June 29, 2009</span>sasqihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09151683656756008988noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2759956480039977301.post-85405038894807530582009-06-29T12:33:00.000-07:002009-07-05T17:01:14.611-07:00Reasons<span style="font-family: georgia;font-family:arial;" >I am starting this blog because on May 17 of this year, I lost my best friend Jamie to sudden, acute myelogenous leukeumia (AML). There are hundreds of facets of my life that feel affected by this loss--our shared love for our gardens and our homes, our shared appreciation of a good fig and a great olive, the way I turned to Jamie at every crossroads in my adult life and gained perspective, and on, and on.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;font-family:arial;" >One passion we shared was for the written word -- for the power of poetry and language to enhance, shape, give meaning to and sometimes make sense of a life, our lives. Over the past 2 decades, we had shared the particular journey, challenge, obstacle course, of staying connected to language and our own words while living in a world that doesn't always nurture that. Once, I came up with an exercise which involved sending other several lines of poems on a postcard that asked for the other to fill in lines as pairs to the first lines, without worrying about final narrative or sequence. The point was to respond to language with more language, and to let the process continue for a series of postcards. I recently found the collaborative "product" transcribed in my computer , and will post it at some point. Another time, Jamie created a website where we could each post short poems or writing in response to assignments we gave each other or ourselves. Again, the aim was to provide a context for writing, and then to provide some forms and an audience in each other to nurture these parts of ourselves. We didn't publicize that website, although it's still public and available.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;font-family:arial;" >The line about the wheel (in the title of this blog) comes from the collaborative postcard poem; I don't know anymore who wrote the line, but it seemed to speak to my need to let the ink move on the page (I still start poems with ink, and edit and revise later with a keyboard). I do not know what wants to be written, these days, but I do know there is language for the emotions I feel and the experiences that I'm inside (and that feel like recursive lessons in my own voice, since Jamie's death). So I am building a place to write more, and a place to write freely, about grief, friendship, love, and anything else in my heart and mind. I am certain that I wish Jamie was still in my audience; she was my first reader when I was working on a poem and wanted to start seeing how it sounded in the world. I had been working on a poem named January (her birth month) late last year; I wish I had shown it to her. Creating this spot here is one act of nudging myself a little further, taking a little more advantage of the time I have alive, demanding that I experiment with sharing writing sooner, rather than thinking there will be time for it to reach others later. It is also an attempt to relearn about audience.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;font-family:arial;" >I keep turning, not knowing.</span>sasqihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09151683656756008988noreply@blogger.com1