Writing what feeds me

I finished writing a sonnet today. It took me a couple of days of wrestling, but I finally settled into a piece that worked relatively well. I was pleased with it...for a time.

Then a friend posted something about his own process as he labors at composing a piece of music, and I looked at my feeble, barely adequate, "lovely" (what a pallid descriptive!) poem and saw it for the mediocrity it is. There is no light in it. Sigh.

Honestly, I wrestle with writing. It tasks me and I argue with it and the words tangle up into massive snarls behind my eyes until all I can do is communicate in terse blandnesses, all flavor leached away in the mental stew. That being said, writing poetry feeds me in a way that other writing absolutely doesn't. There's a satisfaction in a solid line, the way it rings when the longing and the language come together. There's a joy in searching for the line that I cannot quite find. That sounds odd, I know, but that act of stacking words up into ideas and tearing them away again until I hit just the right pattern...that's fun! The moment of finding, when I write a line and shivers stalk across my scalp...that's fun too, but not the same way.

Anyway, I am going to put that sonnet right here:

Had I but wit and words to speak my heart,
I'd shout your praises to the listening sky.
I hear your velvet-gravel voice and I
Must melt and burn, but words far from me dart
Just simple syllables in fits and starts
Fall from my tongue. Struck dumb when you are nigh
I cannot tell you how your twinkling eye
Does warm my soul yet tangle up my art.
But there are times we sit in silence warm,
Full sweet. The stillness shared by our like minds
Eliminates the need for empty speech.
Then, I don't fear that I am lacking charm.
Your life and mine the tie of friendship binds,
So without words our hearts speak each to each.

By Mary Dedwydd verch Gwallter
04/06/16

It is a mediocrity, lacking in almost every way, but the journey still happened, my soul was still fed. I will celebrate that at the very least, and come back to write more tomorrow. I will wrestle, and maybe find what I seek and maybe not, but the wrestling alone is worth it.

Fathers Day ambivalence

So, things that make me grumpy, but I'm trying to recognize that it's not about me:

Today is Fathers Day. Today, I wished my sweetie a happy Fathers Day and specifically thanked him for being there for my kids and for giving them a good example. No big deal, right? Except that we've been together nearly 10 years, & this is the 1st time specifically thanked him for taking that role. So, kind of a Big Deal, for me.

His response: Meh. I am conflicted on Fathers Day because of my father who was a giant steaming pile of manure, so whatever, I don't really care. (I may be paraphrasing a bit, but you get the sense.).

I'm mature enough to bite my tongue and not jump his case on the phone (go, me), but the Mother Monster is awake & riled. She's thinking, "Fine, if that's how you feel about it, see if I thank you again or make myself vulnerable that way again. If that's how you feel about my kids, then you and the horse you rode in on can just..." You get the idea. Mother Monster is grumpy.

On top of that, I'm trying not to be hurt that, once again, I tried to say something nice and did it wrong. Some days it seems like no matter what I try to do or say, it will be the wrong thing. This is why remarrying is not likely. If I can't figure out, after 10 years, how to give a compliment or a gift that will be received well, I'm just hopeless.

On the other hand, I have just enough rational brain cells left to know that his response is not about me or my kids. Its entirely about his ambivalence toward his own father. I get that. Today (& Mothers Day, for other reasons) is one of those days that ends up repeatedly scraping up old memories and hurts until he just feels like one big, open wound. When you feel like that, there's not really anything that anyone can say to make it better. All you can do is cave up and endure the day, and all his loved ones can do is be there in silent reassurance.

So, I'm biting my tongue and growling over here out of the way. Maybe we will talk about it another day. Maybe we won't. Maybe we will talk about part of it, but not the whole. We will see. Thanks for listening, anyway.

DOMA struck down

At least in part... Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that it is unconstitutional for the federal government NOT to recognize same sex marriages performed in states where those are recognized. Yay for correcting government overreach. They did not say that states had to recognize marriages performed in other states... but for today, that's OK. Baby steps. Next we wait to hear about Prop 8 from California. *crossing my fingers *

Online portfolios notes from class

Can be many things:
1. Proof that work was done
2. mentoring tool (evaluate, collaborate, add to & take away)
3. migrate to a career portfolio (digital resume that is dynamic & demonstrates your actual skills & experience)

Goal: online platform that can upload a variety of media that demonstrate student mastery
-- identify a purpose and develop a padlet over the course of the school year that shows purpose
----- single area - good for comparison - creates a platform for discussion

doc app: makes your phone work like a scanner - take a pic and convert to the preferred file and organizes it into a folder  http://docscanhd.ifunplay.com/ (right now for iphone, developing android)

Padlet - www.padlet.com
- drop & drag
- double click & zoom
- keeps track of the order that things are uploaded
- not compatible with every platform, but with most (what it isn't compatible with, it downloads to your computer & you open it that way)
- can handle audio files & video files, also ppt, prezi, pdf, & docs
- single wall, NOT multiple pages
- can get email notifications of modifications
- can make private (varying levels of privacy)
- with an account, can name walls for ease of access (finding)
- works with lots of different browsers
- everything autosaves unless you delete it.
- can be used for collaborative projects

Resources:
California Learning Resources Network - common core

Post event let down

Had a very pleasant war (Potrero), but I am trying to decide if I want to write a nice, warm friendly letter to a friend about the experience or if I want to wander into the dark for a bit.  See, the thing is, I spent the weekend camped with my sweetie.  We spent quality time together.  He let me cook for him (this is a BIG DEAL) and generally spoil him a bit.  This was something I've been needing to do...yah, it's weird, but it made me feel like more than simply a passive recipient of the relationship.  I got to participate and share equally.  I went shopping and got foods that everyone would enjoy and that he could eat.  I packed the camper and set up a comfortable camp, a place to relax and just enjoy the days going by.  Other than specific tasks that HAD to be accomplished during the event, I pretty much stayed in camp, mostly with him...and the whole thing was a beautiful fiction.  I really enjoyed pretending that I had a right to take care of someone and that he had the right to take care of me, but it can never last for more than a day or two at most, and even then only off in a quiet corner where few will notice.  Where our relationship is right now is about where it will ever be and it's no use pretending that it will ever be different.  I know this.  I knew this going in.  I'm still sitting here after my very nice, very fictional, weekend feeling utterly depressed and alone. Sigh.  I set myself up for this, and I don't get to be mad at anyone else about it either...which stinks.

At some point, I need to figure out why I do this, because you see, this is a pattern in my relationship life.  When I look back at the people with whom I have been involved, really none of them were able (for varying reasons, sometimes due to circumstances in their lives and sometimes due to circumstances in mine) to have a full and complete relationship with me...and I chose that.  Invariably, I get into relationships that are inherently self-limiting (or I would make sure that they were so).  At some point I need to investigate what little broken bits inside my head are telling me that I can't have (or don't really want or don't deserve or whatever) a full relationship.

Otherwise, I foresee several more depressing "day after" experiences in my future.  

Vincent part six

1883 (At least through the end of August)

So, in 1883, Victor has been immersed in his art to the exclusion of everything else, it seems. Yet he hasn't lost that quick sympathy that makes his family so nuts.  He loves that which is worn and bent and nearly broken by life.  He can be so utterly myopic when he's talking about his current obsession, but then he looks at something (usually someone) that everyone else dismisses, and he really sees it (or him or her), and that redeems him from all of the requests for money and wild fancies...at least to me.

Victor Hugo says: “Par-dessus la raison il y a la conscience.” [Above the intellect there is conscience]; there are things which we feel to be good and true, though many things remain incomprehensible and dark in the cold light of reason and calculation. And though the society in which we live considers such actions thoughtless, or reckless, or foolish, or I don't know what else - what can we say once the hidden forces of sympathy and love have been aroused in us? And though it may be that we cannot argue against the reasoning which society usually employs, against those who allow themselves to be led by sentiment and to act from impulse - arguing is not the principal thing, and he who has kept his faith in God sometimes hears the soft voice of conscience; then one does well to follow it with the naïveté of a child, without saying more about it to others than can be helped. - Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, The Hague, c. 11 January 1883

Perseverance is the great thing in love, once it has taken hold of us. That is, if the love is returned, for if it is decidedly not returned, one is literally absolutely helpless.- Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, The Hague, c. 11 January 1883

In early February, he caught a cold and was feeling very dreary, that life was "the colour of dishwater". I understand this feeling completely just at the moment. I should also probably not listen to "Bookends" while reading Van Gogh's letters.
Suppose a man experiences a disappointment through a cruel injury to his love, a disappointment so deep that he is calmly desperate and desolate - such a condition is possible, for there is something like the white heat of steel or iron. Feeling that he has been disappointed irrevocably and absolutely, and carrying within himself the consciousness of it as a deadly, at least an incurable, wound, and yet going about his ordinary affairs with an unruffled countenance... would it be inexplicable to you that a man in this condition should feel a singular sympathy, involuntary and unintentional, for somebody he meets who is deeply unhappy, oh, perhaps unhappy beyond redress? And that, notwithstanding this, that sympathy or love or tie should be and remain strong? When Love is dead, is it impossible for Charity to be alive and awake still? - Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Anthon van Rappard, The Hague, c. 7 February 1883

I tell you this because you spoke of disenchantment; no, no, it is true there is a withering and budding in love as in nature, but nothing dies entirely. It is true there is an ebb and flow, but the sea remains the sea. And in love, either for a woman or for art, there are times of exhaustion and impotence, but there is no permanent disenchantment.
I consider love as well as friendship not just a feeling but also a positive action, and as such it requires doing things and exerting oneself, and exhaustion and impotence are the consequences.
A sincere and true love is a blessing, I think, though that doesn't prevent occasional hard times. - Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, The Hague, 11 February 1883

In his letter of February 20, Vincent complains about the harsh light that new buildings let in, and it made me giggle a bit. I think he would _hate_ our modern, high powered, high definition everything.

I believe such things are true, the influence exerted by a good person is sometimes far reaching. Curiously enough, it has been compared to leaven. Two good people - man and woman combined - with the same intentions and object in life, actuated by the same serious purpose, what couldn't they accomplish!
I have often thought of that.
For, by co-operating, the power of goodness is not just doubled, but multiplied many times, as by involution, to use a mathematical term. - Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, The Hague, c. 21 March 1883

I even find something animating in the thought that one works in one direction, the other in another, yet there is still mutual sympathy. Competition, when it proceeds from jealousy, is quite a different thing from trying one's best to make the work as good as possible, out of mutual respect. “Les extrêmes se touchent.” I do not see any good in jealousy, but I would despise a friendship which did not call for some exertion on both sides to maintain the same level.- Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, The Hague, c. 21 March 1883

We are surrounded by poetry on all sides, but putting it on paper is, alas, not as readily done as looking at it. - Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, The Hague, 21-28 March 1883

I believe that the more one loves, the more one will act; for love that is only a feeling I would never recognize as love. - Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Anthon van Rappard, The Hague, c. 8 May 1883

Look, man has no stauncher friend than his duty, and though at times it may be a rough and stern taskmaster, as long as one works in its service, one will not easily become a bankrupt. - Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, The Hague, 3 June 1883

This year has been incredibly difficult financially. Throughout July and August he speaks of debtors knocking at the door and of he and his small family going without food and feeling weak and faint. The stress over money worsens his depression, which comes out now and again in his letters. With it all, he remains firmly committed to his art, refusing to simply create watercolors that may be adequate, instead pursuing some internal ideal. It's infuriating to watch, but it is how he has always been - determined to make his own path.

Music and our house

So, I have been realizing lately (or maybe recognizing, since it's a thing I already knew) how very omnivorous our household tastes in music really are, and further, how much we celebrate music around here. I mean, ok, my daughter, Twinkie is in band, so there's that, but what I mean is something more than just supporting our local teenaged musician crowd. If you were to sit around our house for a day, you might see the Nephew (Mr Perfect Pitch, curse him) stroll by humming a bit of "Stars" from Les Miserables, while in the bathroom, you'd hear Cupcake singing kids songs to the boys. If the littlest boy, Squidge, happens to be in the living room watching "She-Ra" on Netflix, you'll hear him singing the theme song in his best two-year old lisp. In the kitchen, one of my girls, likely Twinkie, will be belting out a range of songs from the Eurythmics to Michael Buble with admirable enthusiasm. Then Boogey or I might wander in, humming one song (Sinatra) or another (Taylor Swift) under our breath. That's what I mean by celebrate. See, we're always enjoying and joining in song. We aren't musicians, far from it, really. Aside from the Nephew, the rest of us are possessed of fine, strong voices, but a sense of pitch that is best described as approximate. My mother always decribed it as "Making a joyful noise".

 Something else that happens in our house that I have been told is unusual is our tendency to burst into joint choruses with minimal provocation. This happened the other day when Twinkie's new boyfriend Timmy was over for a first visit. The kids were watching "Fellowship of the Ring", folks were wandering back and forth, and someone made the comment that I am the one in charge around here, the master of the house. Immediately, Cupcake and I leapt out of the kitchen with "Master of the House/Keeper of the zoo" to have Twinkie and Boogey join in with the next two lines of the song (from LesMis)"ready to relieve 'em of a sou or two/Watering the wine, making up the weight/ picking up their knick-knacks when they can't see straight." All, sung at the top of our lungs. Carlos/Timmy's eyes grew to dinner plate size at this, which led Twinkie to giggle and assure him, "Oh, we do this all the time. Watch this." And she came out with the opening lines to "I Have a Dream" from "Tangled"
 Twinkie: I'm malicious, mean and scary
Cupcake: my sneer could curdle dairy
Me: and violence wise my hands are not the cleanest
Twinkie: but despite my evil look
Boogie: and my temper
Cupcake/Me: and my hook
All: I've always dreamt of being a concert pianist /Can't you see me on the stage performing Mozart /Tickling the ivories till they scream

 At this point, we dissolved into helpless giggles at the terrified look on Timmy's face. It was just a picture. He didn't know what he had walked into, but I'm pretty sure he was praying to escape it as quickly as possible. The thing is, this happens all the time. One of us will start a line, and the rest of the household joins in. We've gotten Baby Bear (the older of the two boys) into trouble in pre-school more than once because he'll start singing some of the songs we sing, but his pronunciation is...not as clear. But this is a way that we share joy. If we're really feeling relaxed, and a really good swing tune (or Latin) comes on, then the singing transmogrifies into dancing around the living room until we're all giggly and out of breath and dizzy from spinning 'round and round.

 Friends and visitors are frequently sucked into the musical moments, and frequent visitors are often relaxed enough now to start songs on their own, knowing that our little gang of backup singers will likely join in. It's one of the things that I enjoy about home, that we feel safe enough to just enjoy, without having to worry about how we sound.