Surrounded

I left work rather abruptly after my diagnosis in January. I loved my windowless office at the university; it was my first work office of my own. Sure, I’ve held other jobs but none of them came with a space to call one’s own. The small room in the less traveled hallway meant that I was on my way to what I’d longed for: a life in academia.

I moved out on a weekend when no one was about; I didn’t think I could speak to anyone without crying. I didn’t want to have to talk about cancer or my treatment. The first cancer diagnosis was hard enough; the second was distressing and heartrending because this time I knew what to expect. I knew I’d have to give up teaching for the immediate future; life would shrink to treatments and doctor visits. Goodbye students, office, friends at the university, peace. I threw everything in storage boxes and we brought them home and put them in a closet. My books, my notes, my lesson plans, paperclips, highlighters: everything.

Now fall is here and I’ve been organizing. I opened the closet and began to sort through my papers. I went to the old office downstairs and brought up my poetry-writing papers and found all of my Army -wife- volunteering paperwork. The three stacks of belongings feel like evidence of three different lives. I have always had strong boundaries between different aspects of myself. I imagine that this is good for focus. When I am writing I am consumed by it, when I teach I am dedicated, when I volunteer I am committed, when researching and thinking critically: riveted.

You wouldn’t think that sorting through pens and papers and binder clips would elicit so much emotion. But the task has been a challenge for the emotional weight. I must be an imagist. Objects carry meaning for me. Manila folders: writing classroom and the flood of my student’s faces. Binder clips: reading final portfolios with my peers in graduate school. Notes and books: the pleasure of learning something new. A poster of a Monet painting: the moments when graduate school was overwhelming and I sat and stared into the painting to find peace. Sticky tabs: the excitement of marking pages of poetry as I planned my classes and the nervousness of standing in front of 30 strangers and declaring my passion. A small collection of floppy disks: the editors’ meetings and the informal conversations about poetry with my poet friend Dennis. A red chair, a bowl of silk geraniums: the silence of my office early in the morning before students as I prepared for the day.

Sometimes it is hard to breathe, but I have been making headway. I am preparing everything for the future and for the opportunities that the future must certainly bring.

Poem Most Recently on my Mind

When I Consider How My Light Is Spent
by John Milton

When I consider how my light is spent,
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest He returning chide;
"Doth God exact day-labor, light denied?"
I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need
Either man's work or His own gifts. Who best
Bear His mild yoke, they serve Him best. His state
Is kingly: thousands at His bidding speed,
And post o'er land and ocean without rest;
They also serve who only stand and wait."


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I have been thinking about times of crisis recently and what the purpose of crisis is in a life. Certainly there is a wake-up call sensation that occurs when a person is plunged into a situation out of their control. I think about how I'll be remembered by my children, will they know without a doubt that they are loved by me? Will they remember only the times I grouched? I remember those days, I take them to heart:

February: 8 a.m.
by Amy Unsworth

Barely daylight, and I have been cruel
to two of those I love: the child who would not find
his coat, the dog who would not brave the cold.

What poison rises before the sun, bitter and dark
to mar the beginnings of the day? Already, I’m
on my knees, begging, for grace, for sunlight

to pierce, to break, the cover of clouds,
to shine down on us all: the boy waving curbside,
the dog returned to dreaming, my curtained heart.

I wonder if Milton knew, in his struggles documented above, how much of a comfort his poem would be to others as they too struggle to attend to the simple yet difficult task of waiting. I often subscribe to the "make it so" school of thought. Set the goal, make it so. But at times like this, when the doors seem firmly shut, I wonder if it isn't all for a reason I cannot yet comprehend. I feel as if the universe demands that I stand and wait. And so I listen to the words from centuries before to find some wisdom there. And breathe. And wait.

Blowing out the lights

It seems this year is a year of letting go. With my diagnosis in January, I had to give up the teaching that I love for the time being. And now Three Candles, where I've been an editor these past few years under the direction of Steve Mueske, is taking down the shingle as well.

I should think opportunity, more creative time, more free space. But, I'm feeling like the last person left at a party, blowing out the few candles left before walking aimlessly out into the night.

It's been a good party. That I can take with me.

Another's Skin

I'm reminded today (again) that we can never know what it is like to live in another's skin. We try hard with poetry at times to make that deeper connection with others, yet still, still we cannot know. We that remain can only speculate.

There's rosemary, that's for remembrance;
pray,love, remember: and there is pansies,
that's for thoughts.

Our world is smaller, and poorer, today.

In his words, here.

At the Summer's End

I'm finding it hard to believe that the last post I made was in June. The summer has flown by on the wings of parental responsibility. Yes, I have three boys. And two of them are now taller than me.



When summer does come to the end, I feel a bit of relief. The heat has killed many of my herbs, yet the bindweed and Witchgrass flourishes. I am ready for the school supplies in the aisles of the stores. The promise of lined paper and freshly sharpened pencils. I think Roethke got it wrong in Dolor. But, his is the office and the institution. Mine is the schoolroom and the artroom, where crayons still wait in their green and yellow boxes in twenty-four shade of possibility. And watercolors in their plastic trays evoke the shades of the sea and the skies at sunrise. I am ready for the routine of early morning coffee and lunch-sacks, backpacks, and yellow buses. I am ready to return to my books and poems and the clean promise of white paper.

A new room of my own.

Thanks to my husband, I have a new office. The old spare bedroom which was painted pale pink is now revised and wonderful. The walls are skysail blue and the trim white. The bulk of my poetry books are rescued from the depths of the basement and are at arm's reach. I'm hoping that inspiration will, too, soon be within grasp. Many of my favorite things have been gathered from their scattered locations: my collection of white pitchers, my framed print of an Asian inspired hydrangea, silver picture frames, my grandmother's delicate end tables, my collection of blue-based images I've amassed over the years. There are windows as well. One frames the blaze of the sunset and the lavender humming with bees and the other overlooks the prairie flowers I'm coaxing along. I feel as if I can breathe here.

Visiting Hours

It is officially summer, the reading program at the local library is in swing. I've bundled the kids off to collect an interesting assortment of books to keep them reading. My stack was bigger than theirs however as I picked up books that I know I must have read but can't remember reading (Atwood's A Handmaiden's Tale). I was sorely disappointed by the ending and felt furious about the "Underground FrailRoad" which one of the speakers so blandly jokes about. I also picked up (and have read already, as grad school does teach one to read full steam) her novel The Blind Assassin. And Willa Cather's My Antonia with its passionate view of the prairie life and the grand American Dream of owning and working the land.

Also, Gary Snyder's Axe Handles which I remember reading and enjoying the title poem and the poem about the deer and soy sauce, which as I check is actually titled "Soy Sauce."

The Best Day The Worst Day by Donald Hall was a bit harder on me. I haven't been able to read his poems that deal with the loss of Jane (Kenyon) and the prose account was wrenching in that I can relate perhaps too closely for comfort. Not the best book to read during the week I'm getting my chemo treatments, but sometimes it helps to hear how others have borne what at times seems unbearable. I haven't had The Worst Day, the one where it all comes to an end and hope is snuffed out like a votive candle in the wind.

I still trudge off to the appointments and the blood draws and hide under the covers when the drugs draw a pall between me and this world. Other days, life continues as normal, there are no visiting hours, there is no hall pass, the family must be fed, the dog let in and out. The ants visit. The grackles make their nest near my window and wake me before daylight. At times, I am crepe paper in the rain. Other days, hard clay.