An Old Passion Revisited

Kelle Hampton's blog is one which I follow religiously for, well, several reasons.  Not the least of which is the fact that it has some of the most beautiful photography you will ever see.  And it's a pleasant design.  And the writer thereof loves easter peeps.  The list goes on.  Basically, it's really great and you should check it out.  This post just showed up today and rang so true with me, so here for you to enjoy is what remains to me of my ballet days (sorry it's kind of long):

One Thirty-Eight Second Solo

Mother took her to gymnastics class

and her four-year-old eyes loved

the old second story studio

hidden away downtown.

Mother took her to gymnastics class

and her eight-year-old eyes despised

the spotless new studio and body-pierced teacher

in the modern rec center.

That summer, she bought a ballet-slipper backpack.

That fall, she did an arabesque in the house,

flinging her arms wide and knocking out her sister’s front tooth.

Mother got the message.

Mother took her to ballet class

and her nine-year-old eyes adored

the new mirrored studio and brown-haired teacher.

She watched the last ten minutes of her sister’s gymnastics class

thrilled that she was now a ballerina, no longer a gymnast.

That year she choreographed and performed her own duet

to the brand new Titanic theme song.

Then Miss Dana stopped teaching ballet. She cried.

Mother took her to ballet class

and her eleven-year-old eyes loved

the old, mirrored, second-story studio

hidden away on the north side of town.

Prima ballerina instructors expect a lot,

even of small girls.

Mother picked her up from ballet class

and her twelve-year-old eyes cried

because teacher shouted at her

for not pointing her toes.

But she knew it was impossible

to become a real ballerina without shedding tears.

Flat feet were her curse,

and she would overcome.

Fourteen – she learned the feeling

of stretching her arch to the fullest,

of pointing as hard as she could,

of rising high on her toes.

Her feet still held her back.

Fifteen – she caught a glimpse of teacher’s bare feet.

Her first thought was of the witch in Hansel and Gretel.

No normal person had feet that gnarled.

Those feet looked like her own feet felt after a long day of practice.

Sixteen – she was reprimanded for having chicken arms,

but teacher said she had potential for grace in those gangly limbs.

Seventeen – She was allowed to practice

once a week on Pointe shoes

and teacher asked her to demonstrate the Pas de Bourree Tour Jete

since she had such graceful arms and legs.

Eighteen – she danced alone on-stage,

realizing Teacher’s and Mother’s pride,

while her blue eyes shone

in that thirty-eight seconds of victory.

An Event

On Friday I gave a public reading!  Okay, okay, so it was me and 18 other people, but still.

There's an event at my school every year called Pen and Pigment which is a collaboration between the Creative Writing and Art departments.  Basically, we poets write a poem and the artists create a work of art and then we trade our pieces and write another piece based on the other's work.

This year, the art was typography, so all of the pieces had letters or numbers incorporated in them.  When I received my piece to write on, I couldn't believe my luck.  You see, ever since I wrote that poem about Grandma and Grandpa in my National Red and Pink Day post, I've wanted to write about Pop, my grandpa on Mom's side who died when I was thirteen, but I have such limited memories of him.  The piece of typography that I had been given was a number 4 turned into a sailboat and my Pop had a sailboat named Escape IV (after the first three Escapes of course).  I was thrilled.  And, since I wanted my poem to have lots of details about the same thing, I decided to use the Sestina form.  many poets consider the sestina a very frustrating form, but I love it.  To me, writing a sestina feels like solving a puzzle.  A sestina is a seven stanza poem in which you use the same end-words in every stanza, but in a different order.  The last stanza is called the envoy and traditionally houses the "turn" of the poem.  Sestinas were originally in iambic pentameter (ten syllables per line with an unstressed, stressed, unstressed, stressed rhythm).  However, over the years, they evolved and now they are permitted to have more or less syllables per line.  I love writing them with traditional rhythm (more puzzle fun), but had too much to say this time to restrict myself to that.  So, since you missed my fabulous reading at which I was literally shaking and sounded slightly like I was about to cry the entire time, here is (one of) my (favorite) poem(s that I've written so far):

Latitude

I’m never sure how much I actually remember

and how much I’ve learned from the pictures we

pull out now, almost every time we get together.

I know I remember the smell of cigarette smoke

and the feel of the stubble on his chin when he hugged me.

And I remember standing on the prickly grass, anxious to get on his sailboat.

I only remember going out on his boat

a few times.  I don’t really remember

the feel of the tiller, but I know he let me

steer it from his lap on those days when we

sailed it far from the flames and smoke

of the refineries.  I remember when we were all together,

even though I know we weren’t always together.

There were times when he went out on his boat,

or went to the Yale Street Pharmacy to smoke

and have coffee with his friends, but I only remember

the long lazy days at the house when we

gathered around to eat seafood.  He instilled in me

a taste for good food which makes me

wish I knew how to throw ingredients together

and make something delicious like he did every time we

visited.  He was always in the kitchen or on the boat.

As hard as I try, I can never remember

him being anywhere else—except on the patio where he smoked

his Camels.  I still recognize that smoke,

the Camel kind.  The scent of it takes me

back to when I was seven.  When I smell it, I remember

the times when we were all together

though now I know his mind was probably on his boat.

while his feet were on the table. We knew we had his love, but we

also knew he loved the bay and Escape IV more than we

ever could imagine.  I think if the house had gone up in smoke,

he would have been thrilled to live on his boat,

a lifestyle that wouldn’t have fit me

then.  Now I wish we’d gone out on his boat together

more often.  The last time I remember

being on the bay was in a different boat.  I watched the shore until we

left it behind.  I remember wishing I could ask why he ever decided to smoke

as the wind blew his ashes back around me.  We were on the bay, but not together. 

I Love This Day!

I drink Dunkin Donuts coffee.  (I didn't know what smooth coffee was until I discovered it.  Seriously.
     Move over Starbucks.)
I drive past a lovely house that has been writing a poem in my head for a few days now.
I can't find a space in the parking garage, so I go to the Kroger parking lot, park in a random spot and chat
     with Kae for 20 minutes.  Lovely and soooo refreshing!
I pump gas and revel in the crazy wind that chills me slightly even in 70 degree weather.
Did you notice that?  It's sunny with a high of 75 around here.
I drive through the garage and still can't find a spot . . . But the radio is playing AWESOME music for me.
I go to the park and swing for a while.  (Have I mentioned how much I love swings?  After my first car
     accident, all I wanted to do, and exactly what I did, was go to the park and swing til the tears stopped.)
     While I'm swinging, I observe three generations of a hispanic family interacting.  So sweet!
     Una Abuela, una Mama, y tres hijos . . . Listening to their little chatter is a great spanish review, but
     eventually I become concerned that one of the many toddlers playing around me (the hispanic family are
     by no means the only ones playing today) might run under my swing; I'm swinging much too high to stop
     in time if one of them does.  I slow down - let the cat die, as my Aunt Kandace used to say (What a
     horrible phrase!) - and head back to my car.
Back in my car, I put on the rest of my make up - I'd started in line for the gas pump earlier.
I marvel at the pretty swirl of shimmery granules that rise in a dervish when I open my eye shadow and
     another poem comes to me.

I've got six hours of work ahead of me with a quick bagel at 5.  (Potato Bagel with Cream Cheese from Einstein Bros. = my new favorite.)  But right now I'm listening to "Say Hey (I Love You)" and loving life.  Ahead:  Phone dates with two besties.  One tonight and one tomorrow.  Oh, and a day at home tomorrow with absolutely nothing going on.  It's shaping up to be a marvellous last weekend of this detox, which, by the way, did not turn out as I expected, but possibly even better.
The Lord has taught me much about myself in this month.  Not all of it pretty, but all of it necessary.  I never realized how legalistic I can be sometimes . . .

And, to close out this post,  I received an award from Abigail!  Thanks!

Here is how it works:

 

1. Thank and link back to the person who gave you the award.

2. Share 7 things about yourself.

3. Award 8 recently discovered great bloggers.

4. Contact the bloggers and let them know about the award.

Step one complete.  On to step two - seven things about me!

1.  Every time I see a girl with perfect curls, I stare at her (for probably too long) and try to calculate if I could possibly get my hair to do the same.  I just love curls!

2.  I don't use the term best friend liberally.  I just have a lot of best friends.  Three nearby and three distant.  They don't all know each other either, which is kind of weird.

3.  I love the sunshine.  I seriously could not live somewhere like Alaska where you have to go without it for long periods of time.  It's an addiction.

4.  All I want to be, ultimately, is a wife and mother.  I don't think I'll ever give up writing or photography, but I'll be fine if I never get published.  It's not what I live for.

5.  Music is just about on the level with sunshine for me.  And in case you're wondering, no.  Rap, screamo, heavy metal, and hard rock don't count for me.  Give me guitars, pianos and voices.

6.  I'm a secret ham.  I love performing.  I still look back longingly on my ballet and show choir days.  Give me a pretty dress and an empty stage and I will sing and dance my heart out.

7.  I want a big big dog one day.  Like English Mastiff big.  But I know that's a big dream, so I'd settle for a Great Pyrenes, an Irish Setter, or even a Whippet (cute little things).  Can you tell I intend to never live without a dog?

And, step three.  I'm not really sure what it means to choose "eight recently discovered great bloggers", but I only follow about eight blogs anyway, so here they are:

1. Kelle Hampton

2. Meghann

3. Jennifer

4. Christa

5. Allie

Okay, so that's five.  All I've got . . .

Happy almost weeked everyone!

National Red and Pink Day

Seriously, half the people on campus are wearing red or pink today, and some are wearing both.

Good things:
People are randomly handing out long-stemmed roses like they're going out of style.
It's a lovely day - sixty degree weather that reallty makes me wish I'd put on a dress this morning . . . but
     not a red or pink one.  If you're not firmly convinced Texas has the craziest weather in the world yet,
     check out the post I wrote four days ago compared to this one and then check back next week.
Finally found peppermint tea on campus . . . and apparently started a trend in the Starbucks line.
A story and two poems have come flying at me out of the middle of nowhere in the last week - right when I
     was feeling devoid of ideas.

Now, on to what I really want to say.  For the last several years, the whole drama of being single on Valentine's Day has really bothered me.  The fact is, the people who complain most about it are the young ones like me who have their whole lives stretching out like a broad road in front of them.  It's one day out of the year and people make such a big deal out of it without looking at the bigger picture.

Let me tell you a story.

Once upon a time there was a young woman who fell madly in love with an older man in the army.  She was 15 and he was 22.  This was during World War 2 and eventually, he was told he was going to be shipped off to Germany soon.  She refused to let him leave the country without her.  Somehow she convinced the Justice of the Peace that she was sixteen and left America in a steamship bound for Germany with her new husband two weeks before her 16th birthday.  She never looked back and never regretted her choice.  They lived happily together above a saurkraut shop and didn't learn much German, but they took enough black and white pictures to fill up a small red-patterned "Fox Photo" album.  She gave birth to her first child in Germany and then they moved back to Houston, where they had their next four children and became pillars in their community.

That young woman and the man she left everything behind for were my grandparents.

I have never seen any couple love each other like those two did.  They taught me everything there is to learn about loving someone no matter what.  It was obvious to all of our family that they loved each other in every word, deed, and look that passed between them.

Today would have been their wedding anniversary.
But Grandma lost Grandpa four years ago.

Thinking about the way she hurts today makes me upset at people like me who can complain about their singleness.  So go love on someone like my grandma today and take the time to realize and bask in the things in your life that do bring you love and consistency.  I've found mine:

Grandma’s House

Those porch chairs have always been the same green.

Stationed under the patio cover,

They never fail to greet me in the spring.

So many memories that front porch brings –

drinking hot tea with friends from all over.

Those porch chairs have always been the same green

The glass door, also, has always been green.

There, Grandma and Grandpa always hovered.

They never failed to greet me in the spring.

Then, together, we did our favorite thing –

Grabbed our swimsuits and ran for the river.

Those porch chairs have always been the same green.

The woods around the river were a screen

that hid our secret world by the water.

They never failed to greet me in the spring.

I couldn’t come on that day in late spring

when Grandma buried Grandpa, her lover,

but the porch chairs will always be that green.

They never fail to greet me in the spring.