Rat's Country: " Standing on the porch..."

Standing on the porch the first day of the rest of my life, thinking it is sunrise, realizing it is sunset.

Rat's Country: "I hate having to climb steep embankments..."."

I hate having to climb steep embankments. The clumps of grass come loose in your hands and your shoes fill with dirt. You wonder how you got there, in the wrong shoes, ungraceful, undignified.

Dwelling on Myself

Dwelling on Myself

I am the dwelling.

Sometimes a hut, seldom a castle,

often a house under construction,

walls removed, a wood floor taken up,

revealing the debris of a life,

mostly rat shit, I might add.

Sometimes a treasure,

a porcelain button, a doll's leg.

Dwelling on myself.

I spend too much time

going room to room

dreaming about paint

and perfect furniture.

To leave this house is to die.

I understand that.

Rat's Country: " If I had other lives to live..."

If I had other lives to live? I'd be a stern judge throwing people in jail, left and right. I'd be a queen with access to a guillotine. I'd be a tiny mouse in a tiny hole in the grass, somewhere in England, living a short, frightened life.

Rat's Country: " Blocking the door I want to open..."

Sometimes I block the door I want to open by stacking tables and chairs in front of it--sometimes even the couch. I cry in frustration, " That door is impossible to open!" My journal helps me see what kind of furniture I'm putting in my own way.

Rat's Country: "Why I Like Reading Thomas Moore..."

That's why I like reading Thomas Moore (Care of the Soul) so much. He says over and over that this is the soul's journey: the blocks, the detours, the rubble, scree slopes, the long boring stretches between Reno and Lovelock. Accept that and see the mystery in it.

(Well, he doesn't actually mention Reno and Lovelock, but metaphorically speaking...)

Rat's Country: "It seems to be part of a new cycle of change"

It seems to be part of a new cycle of change, starting with the whining, complaining, grieving about the status quo; the slow move to action; the sudden rewards of an action taken; then the slow, cautious creation of a new pattern. When the new pattern is established, it is hard to remember all the hard psychological work and all the resistance that was overcome getting to the new mental place.

Rat's Country: " What habit do I have..."

What habit do I have that gets in the way of my creativity? Procrastination. Postponing, putting off, waiting until later. I'll write later. I'll write when I'm fresh. I'll write when I can start at the beginning, not in the middle. I'll do it when I'm clean, when the day is new, when I have the right materials, when I've done everything else.

Rat's Country: " These problems come up..."

"These problems come up, have to be solved, assembly-line issues. Here comes a problem, fix it quickly, move it along the beltway, get on to the next problem. That is what is so great about my summer. I slowly stopped production until the problem factory practically went out of business.

rat's Country: "I want to get my words plain..."

I want to get my words plain, like William Stafford does, and western, but not like a tooled belt, more like a curbed bit: clean, simple, useful.

Rat's Country: "How easy it is..."

How easy it is to bash myself again and again, like a child whacking a doll against the side of a car.

Rat's Country: "I feel like a weak patient..."

I feel like a weak patient who is being carefully walked down a hospital corridor by a sturdy, competent nurse. the weak patient part of me is surprised that I require so much trained attention.

Rat's Country: "These writings..."

These writings have been a sanctuary for my soul’s sidewinding journey through deserts. The journal has been the rock I’ve hidden under, the hole I’ve disappeared into, the puddle where I’ve dipped my forked tongue, the saguaro where I have found shade.

Rat's Country: another series

"Everything in the mind is in rat's country...nothing is lost, but it can never be as it was. You will only find the bits and cry out because they were yourself."

Loren Eisley, All the Strange Hours

I chose "Rat's Country" as the title for observations and images culled from my journals over the years. I started to collect them on my Adobehouseartists webpage. Now I am going to "cull the culls" and post my favorites here, especially when I have no poems to offer.

Deer Hunting, Pomo Way

Deer Hunting, Pomo Way

for William Oandasson

Sit on your spot

Wait for the game

Don’t shoot the first deer (one)

While hunting singing a chant

Once you kill a deer

You sing a different song.

Tabula Rasa

It's Sunday. I am a blank slate. This is not fun.

Artists Week Journal

It’s Not Over Til It’s Over

Artists Week ends today. I think that by this time next year I will be working on a clearly-defined writing project. This year, just staying at my desk at least a couple of hours each morning and doing the Photoshop workshop in the afternoon has been my job. The Photoshop tutorial was a challenge. Nothing is more difficult for me than to be patient with myself when I am first learning something. I want to go friggin’ out of my “Beginners Mind”! Usually, what I want to do is clean something. That’s why I said to James late Thursday afternoon, “I’m sorry but I must go to town to buy paper towels.” (That’s a 104-mile round trip.)

Every week is Artists’ week for my friends here. I love being around them. It takes a village for so many things in life, including art. I am planning on ending the week the way we began: good food, vin ordinaire, great conversation.

Artists Week Journal

Be Here Now

I was awake at three this morning, finishing, eat, pray, love, the book Susan lent me (thank you, Susan) for this trip, and certainly a good book for Artists Week –for lots of reasons---but when I told Joan and James what I was reading, they both had violent reactions of distaste and disdain. I said, “She writes beautiful sentences.” I didn’t bother to defend the author as being both funny and wise, my favorite combination in people, including both of them.

Anyway, this is one of my favorite passages:

“I keep remembering one of my guru’s teachings about happiness. She says that people universally tend to think that happiness is a stroke of luck, something that will maybe descend upon you like fine weather if you’re fortunate enough. But that’s not how happiness works. Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings’ (the italics are mine). “And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it…If you don’t, you will leak away your contentment. It’s easy enough to pray when you’re in distress but continuing to pray even when your crisis has passed is like a sealing process, helping your soul hold tight to its good attainments.”

Artists Week Journal

Randomness and Frozen Charlotte

In a desultory conversation the other night, both James and Sid mentioned finding tiny Victorian dolls called “Frozen Charlottes” somewhere in Tuscarora. Lucky finds because the dolls are no bigger than the tip of a finger.

I had never heard of a Frozen Charlotte. Have you? Hooray for Wiki. Hooray for being on line in Tuscarora. After reading about Frozen Charlottes, I know there’s a poem embedded in the tiny emblem and the cautionary tale of female vanity.

My point is that the bit of conversation was itself a shard found on an evening’s verbal rambling. It was a random, lucky find. We’ll see what it turns into.

Artists Week Journal

If You Can’t Sit Still

After dinner the first evening of Artists Week we were in a circle in the yard, still drinking wine and talking. I said, “What do you know for sure?”

Gail said, “Who are you? Oprah?” She’d had her quota of Pound Hound Red by then.

“No,” I said, and repeated the question, “What is one thing you’re certain about? It can be a small thing. I’ll go first. I’ll never own a yellow car.” We went from there, responses ranging from the trivial, like mine, to the touching response of Vivian: “I’ll never let a year go by without being in Tuscarora.”

This morning I am asking myself, “What is the one thing I know for sure about writing?” I have taught composition for over twenty years. I have what seems like a lifelong yearning to be a “real writer.” What do I know for sure?

Writing requires the ability to sit on your butt for extended periods of time and on a regular basis. (Okay, I know Hemingway stood and typed. It’s a metaphorical butt.)

Artists Week Journal

Power Pole Perspective

On my early morning walk down to the turnoff to the Midas Road and back, I was inspired to write this couplet:

Power Pole Perspective

From a red-tailed hawk's point of view

A mouse is more interesting than you.

Artists Week Journal

Truth and Beauty vs. the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

A rousing argument around the dinner table last night about the aesthetics of ugliness. This morning James read me a quote from the book he is reading by painter Agnes Martin: "The sentimentality of my furniture destroys the perfection of my floor."

Artists Week Journal

CAUTION

"I see there is a piece of art here that I hadn't noticed before," James said. He was sitting in front of the shop drinking a cup of tea as I entered the yard from my morning walk. "It's that mud flap." He nodded toward one of the abandoned trucks in the yard. "Look at the elegant serifs on the word "caution" and the way the rubber has aged and crackled." By that time we were both squatting beside the flat tires, admiring the beautiful mudflap. "I think it should go on a wall in the house," he said.

"I agree," I said.

Artists Week Journal

God as Department Store Santa

I am in a department store sitting on Jehovah's lap and he says to me, " So, little lady, what do you want from the next ten years?" I catch his wording. Unfolding my wish list, I see that it is blank. That is one of my greatest fears: that I fritter away the next ten years.