Category: journal entries
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Retro Classroom
This photo is of a classroom down the hall from the room where I teach freshman composition. The glass beakers and vials caught my attention, along with the walnut cabinets and brass handles.
My room has a black laboratory table in front of a chalkboard. The table acts as a barricade between the students and me, which in my high school teaching days would have provided a modicum of relief. Their wooden desks rest on metal bases that are bolted to the floor. One boy, who is quite thin, complained that his seat was too small.
The laboratory table has a sink with running water. After class one day, a girl turned on the water to see if the faucet worked, and it did. An instructor who used to teach English in this room told me the first thing he would do upon entering the classroom was to turn the water on and wash his hands.
There’s a smell of damp air ducts and old linoleum. The building used to be a parking deck. The inner ramp where the cars would drive is now a walkway.
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Southern Snow
Everyone loves to make fun of how the South shuts down after just a few inches of snow, but believe me, you don’t want drivers like me on the road when there’s slush and ice. I’m the first to admit I would be drifting all over the place.
Schools have cancelled classes, which means most parents are in despair from cabin fever. But my son and Film Critic (a.k.a. my husband) are “stuck” in Chicago at a four star hotel near Lakeshore Drive. There’s about four inches of snow, but the city of big shoulders can handle that kind of dusting.
I’ve spent my free time watching Mad Men, knitting, walking the dogs, fine tuning my syllabus, and checking Facebook status updates (most of which are either complaints, boasts, or rants. No offense.)
There’s nothing like being snowed in and alone with the dogs to make me realize that human contact rates much higher than social networking. The former is a soufflé, the latter a thin broth.
And I haven’t done a lick of poetry writing. I do have an idea for a poem, but I’ve let myself give in to the suspended reality of the snow days.
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Lazy Morning Turns Into Afternoon
The holiday guests have moved on–Ballet Lady (a.k.a. my mother-in-law) has gone back to Florida, and my sister and her daughter have left to visit other relatives.
My morning began at 11:30, and now, an hour later, I’m drinking coffee and watching the dogs destroy Santa. It’s fine by me. Santa gave himself in effigy to the dogs, and they’re only doing what comes naturally to them.
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Icicle Stones
We walked around the outdoor mall today with my five-year-old niece. Since I have two boys, I rarely get to shop at frou-frou places like Justice, a store that sells frilly skirts, lacy T-shirts, ribbons, and, as my niece pointed out, bras for teenagers!
Shopping holds little allure for me, but it was fun to see my niece so thrilled to be in a big girl store.
I bought her a lamb called “Wooly” and a collection of glitter bath sprays that smell like cup cakes and cotton candy. Yum!
My sister, an artist, pointed out the icicles in the fountain, which is shaped like an octagon.
The blue and white ice in the afternoon light makes me think of hope and fresh life. (River of Stones, December 28)
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Baltimore Art Dreams
We arrived in Baltimore last night, dropped off Freeboarder’s portfolio, and ventured into the cold to eat at an Indian restaurant, Freeboarder’s first exposure to this cuisine.
We had poori, vegetable biryani, and a few different curries. An aromatic, spicy meal for a dark, windy night in a new city.
And now we’re at MICA, an art school that was founded in 1826. The students are all standing in different lines to have their art portfolios reviewed.
MICA is hosting a National Portfolio Day, and over 50 schools have come to review portfolios. The students have big dreams that someone here today will tell them they have what it takes.
Freeboarder is in line to talk to The Cooper Union, one of the hardest schools to get into–if you’re accepted, you pay no tuition.
So of course the lines for this school are the longest, and the art is phenomenal.
Some of the parents are quite crabby with their kids. They’ve obviously invested a lot of money already in their children’s art, judging from the size and quality of some of the canvases I’ve seen.
I’ve found a quiet corner where I can study for my poetry final, but all I really want to do is eavesdrop and take pictures.
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Dream 2
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A man is filling a hole with very white sand. The opening looks like the hollow a stone makes in the moment it hits a body of water.
Every time he shovels sand into the pit, he sinks deeper, as though the circle were swallowing him. He begs the hole to have mercy on him, and to my surprise, it listens to him.
In a sudden burst of energy the man plants a tree with human feet in the spot where he had been filling the hole.
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Frozen Socks and Eliot
The frozen socks have been a big hit with Red and Duffy. They chew on the knotted socks until the socks thaw, and then they play tug-of-war with them.
This morning they ran in circles through the kitchen, living room, and dining room, and now they’ve gone to their separate corners to chew on fresh, frozen socks.
With the house now quiet and the world calm, I’ll return to reading Eliot’s 1920 Poems. Randy Malamud’s critical introduction to The Wasteland and Other Poems has been big help in my understanding of the collection. There are so many seemingly random allusions that I was scratching my head in bewilderment.
I’m thinking of writing my research paper about this question: does the anti-semitism in Eliot’s poems contradict his application of Buddhist philosophy?
What would Red and Duffy say? They’d probably tell me to stop running in circles, chew on a frozen sock, and then take a nap.
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An Office with a View
My office looks out onto rat’s alley. Yes, I’m alluding to The Waste Land, but there really are rats down there. They must like the vat of discarded fast-food grease next to the parking deck.
But there’s a view, with natural light. And the air conditioning works. A huge improvement on last year’s basement office.
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Dali and Poetry
I visited the Dalí exhibit again, this time with a poet friend who hosts the radio show melodically challenged on WRAS. Her program broadcasts on Sundays from 2:00-4:00 in the afternoon, and features poets reading their own works, along with music that enhances the show’s theme. One of the more recent playlists highlighted poems about birds, or poems that include birds. I intend to tune in this Sunday.
It was fun to walk through the exhibit a second time. At my friend’s suggestion, we used the audio tour as we progressed through the halls, and we ended up finding out a lot that would have gone unnoticed had we merely meandered along on our own. One interesting aspect the curators brought out was how Dalí experimented with how he applied his medium to the surface–he used a loaf of bread, his mustache, a rhinoceros horn (which he equated with the unicorn, a symbol of virginity), and an octopus. He also shot paint pellets out of a gun, a technique he dubbed “bulletism.”
I also found out why he was kicked out of the Surrealist movement: with Marcel Duchamp’s blessing he included a painting with religious iconography in a Surrealist exhibit, a theme the surrealists rejected. So he was ousted. The title of this exhibit is Dalí, The Later Works, a time period that until recently has not been admired by art critics, maybe because of the religious nature of the pieces. I did read, however, that Dalí declared himself a “Catholic without faith,” and that he did not believe in miracles.
I’ve already written two drafts of poems in response to his paintings. This summer has been very contemplative for me. I’ve been reading After by Jane Hirschfield and studying Buddhism, meditation, yoga. All the mind work, plus lap swimming, to calm my inner waters.
Even though I want to be at peace, I’m very drawn to the zany world of Da Da, Surrealism, and dreams. I keep thinking that if I remember my dreams and explore the images the meaning of everything will fall into place. A pretty illusion.
Balanced On the Edge 