small change

gray monday

I was quite taken with the sudden brightness of morning light a few days ago. A rare morning that wasn’t shrouded in the usual summer fog. Even through the dusty window, the light seemed to promise so much sparkle, so much heat, and obviously, the light itself by which to banish shadows.

 

This morning was cool enough for me to turn on the furnace briefly. The fog hung heavily from the skies, dulling the horizon, as well as the view of the garden from the window. For the better part of the day, the weather seemed perfect for Churchill’s black dog to romp in the doldrums. The nasty beast has been sniffing around our house lots lately, and though I have a pretty good stick with which to send it running with its tail between its legs, not everyone in my household has the kind of experience I have had with playing dog whisperer to these unruly hounds.

The sunset, laced with fog, was everything that the morning couldn’t be. Bright and colorful, even if still tinged with a hue of melancholy. Not for me that odd hue, because what I saw was only the brilliance of the sun that was still here. I had no other choice. It’s easy to be an optimist under duress. To be blind to the night. To see the artless light.

likeness

This week’s prompt from Big Tent Poetry was to write a poem using elements from our favorite poems. Easy enough, or so it seems. The trouble is that I don’t have a favorite poem. Or favorite poet, for that matter. My allegiance to text wavers, and I go hot and cold over authors often enough to make me into a philological philanderer.

An exception to this wandering through wordy wonders has been my lasting fascination with the work of Louise Glück. Maybe it has something do with what we share: a common thread of brooding through Hungarian ancestry.  So, for this week’s prompt, I wrote a poem inspired by her use of the colloquial and her recourse to dialog in lyrical poetry, which, by definition is meant to be a soliloquy of sorts.

After I wrote my poem, I thought how preposterous of me, or rather, how parrottish this might sound. This inspired the second poem, in which I imagine her response to my effort.

The mediator

I wish our hearts came equipped with their own larynx.

A boom box for the murmur of the eddy-riddled river.

It’s this constant nonsense, what you call
poetry that keeps you from seeing

things as they are. Wouldn’t it be

simpler to just talk about what’s on your mind?

Of course, if our hearts had their own larynx

they ought to have ears. How else

could you get them to hear

the mud-addled churning in the riverbed?


Dressing your words isn’t going to help,
you know. It’s just that somewhere

along the way as you clung to a sense

of composure you lost heart.

*  *  *

Amanuensis

I love your work, your every word

strikes a chord in the spared chambers

where I write from the heart. I want

to hit the same high notes that come

to you so naturally. They say

imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
      

I wish you wouldn’t do that, even if      

you can’t be yourself.

sands

On Sunday, after a delectable brunch at The Tavern at Lark Creek, we headed, along with the masses, to Stinson Beach for a change of venue and some much-needed sunshine to blast the small front of shadows that have been darkening the collective mood of our household the week before.

The sun, surf, and sand were ashimmer with light, and while this lifted my spirits, the unbearable lightness of it was still weighing heavily on some of us. Still, I managed to snap a few photos, bringing the beach home with me, so that I could linger in light, at least in spirit.

 

 

Though the foggy mornings have returned to the coast this week, I am happy to report that sunshine is in plenty of evidence once again in our household, at least as far as moods are concerned.

food matters

For the next month or so, I have to give up gluten, dairy, tomatoes, lemons, oranges, grapefruits, limes, pineapples (all foods that contain citric acid), and the most tragic of all, chocolate in order to identify the worst culprits implicated in my allergies.

Even before the skin and blood tests and before going on this elimination diet, I suddenly had this inkling (well, the runny nose and itchy eyes might have been an obvious clue of their own) that I may be allergic to chocolate. Chocolate has been a staple of my ever-changing diets all my life. Staple is too mundane a word for it. The small squares I indulged in daily have been little bits of sweet heaven for the taste buds. I have splurged on the best of the dark stuff, buying the organic dark kind that contains more than 85 percent of the delectable beans the way wine aficionados have been going about their business of rooting out the best for their wine cellars.

Overall, I happen to be the kind of person who tends to see the glass half empty, so the challenge here is one that goes beyond my gut. But then, it’s been common knowledge lately that the gut is a second brain, so the dare is on to make this “brain” not only less reactive, but also smarter so that it can help send the kind of messages that will also help the eyes see the glass half full. Like seeing this limited list of foods as an endless opportunity for creative cooking.

So given the above mandate, I don’t know why I wanted to throw a wrench in the deprivation works by attending the Marin Homegrown event at Studio 333, an art gallery in Sausalito on Saturday. This was a gathering for off-off Broadway foodies. The organizers describe these gatherings that take place in the SF Bay Area as a place for “culinary wizards” to showcase their magic, or in more prosaic terms:

The Homegrown Marin Market is a unique culinary club that serves as a launching pad for new food businesses, as well as an opportunity for those cooking just for enjoyment to share their creations with others.

I didn’t get to sample many of the foods, but here was a lot for the eyes to digest in what the gut couldn’t have, not even a beguiling taste of it. Since I forgot my camera, I can’t share these visual delights with you.

I did come away from it all, though, filled a plenty with ideas for my small experiments with granola and living foods bars. I was also a little more emboldened to be more than a taster at the next homegrown market…. Which means, that if I want to turn that dream into something more than a passing fancy, I better get busy in my culinary lab!

Fringed

The prompt for July 16 from Big Tent Poetry was “to write using a hidden code” along the lines of steganography, “a form of ‘security through obscurity’ in which a secret message is sent via an innocuous medium –– an image, a letter –– and decoded using a method known only to sender and recipient. The beauty is in the message being truly hidden in plain sight.”

Since I consider all lyric poetry a form of “steganography” in that the secret message of every poem is always in plain sight, there to be gleaned in every element, from structure to tone, I don’t think a key to the meaning of the message is necessary. Should you be looking for one, you need nothing more than to suspend your quest for certainty, at least for the type that can be had in the bargain basement of prose.

Fringed

The dusked hour when the tangled jasmine in your garden turns a muddy white and gives up a sorrow-sweetened scent is also the hour when the moon, caught in the dawn-bleached skies, turns the color of cinders.

Who is to say if this not the tinctured ash of the flower calcified, the spirit that revives an impossible past? Who is to say if this is not the fire about to catch its stride, or, having had its day in the sweep of flames is now spent?

Make light of the matter then, as if you were an alchemist whose heart of gold has finally turned, transmuted in the still.

playing with memes

Hmm, I would have never guessed, but apparently

I write like
David Foster Wallace

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

Was not expecting that.... The strange thing is that, apart from some essays of his that appeared in various publications, I haven't read his work.

malapropos of grit

Here is my first ever response to a prompt from Big Tent Poetry. This week’s prompt was about “changing a word relationship,” going the way of Mrs. Malaprop on one of the words to help revive their meaningful romance ... well, at least that is my take on it.

Gut

Let your lips be pillared pillows

on which to lean your hard-churned words

that tumble on, hapless heap of clowns

though they may be, it’s what you got,

the proofed pudding, even if it turns

sour on your arched tongue, go ahead,

this is what it’s about, just grin and bare it.

tables

Whirls, the kids at the table fit for their size, in play, and the sound of their voices, unsettled chords in shifting keys. Through the dusty screen of nostalgia, it’s all light now, diffused and the heat, only a faint prick on the heart. The table, honey-hued, was meant to stay in neverland, set for the children’s children, and so on. 

Too busy minding dreams, I lost track of things, those tangible bearers of the aforementioned dreams. The table sat through seasons in the abandoned playhouse and turned dark. Then, one day, when a child of mine, fully grown and weathered by his own seasons, set about to make a golden thing of his own from one of his dreams, the table was there to serve him.

Ironically enough, what he made, while he ruined this table, was another table, one that carries with it its own light. 

 

But he is not ready to table his dreams in the thing itself, like his mother, who unable to quite let go of both things and dreams, commutes between past and future plans, all the while missing the wonders of “here and now.” Nope, that child of mine is ready to let this child of his go. It is up for auction, as a donation, at The Crucible’s fundraiser event next week.   

taste of honey

I haven’t had much time for writing posts these last couple of days, but I did snap a photo of the sunset (wit my Droid phone camera) on the path by the Corte Madera Creek as we took the dog for her evening constitutional after dinner last night.

Moments like these, with the setting sun brushing the landscape a brilliant amber, the color of honey, amplified by the billowing fog over the coastal ridges is what make me happy and content to call California home.

my day in crumbs

We had plans to go to the fair yesterday, but my younger son was put out of commission by a nasty combo of symptoms that were similar to the ones that felled my earlier last week. So we had a quiet Fourth at home, with most of the carnival color and fireworks taking place once again in my dehydrator. Just in time for the holiday, my raspberry, ginger, and lime granola finally dried to perfect (well to my taste, at least) crispiness. It took 2 days of dehydrating, but now I have about 3 quarts of sweet nuttiness, some of it hidden, strategically, so that it will last beyond the week.

  

I am about to make another batch, experimenting with different ingredients and taste combos this time. Since the dehydrator was empty yesterday, I threw in some sliced and marinated onions, making for an alternative to fried onion rings.

But we still had steak for dinner!