I am a writer who does not write.
That is probably one of the worst things to be.
But not so anymore.
I wrote 2000 words tonight on my WIP. I am going to try to write something everyday. It is time to start new essays, and new book proposals. It is time to be a writer again. It is time to practice what I preach. To boldly go where no writer had gone before: the middle school lunch room.
Actually a lot of writers have been there. But they have never been in the mind of a chronically ill twelve year old girl who is so sick she misses her eighth grade year. That is somewhere nobody but I has been. That sentence sounds ungrammatical, but I assure you that it is.
It is also one in the morning and I need to go to sleep.
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Another of the Reasons I love Rumi
CRY OUT IN YOUR WEAKNESS
A dragon was pulling a bear into its terrible mouth.
A courageous man went and rescued the bear.
There are such helpers in the world, who rush to save
anyone who cries out. Like Mercy itself,
they run toward the screaming.
And they can't be bought off.
If you were to ask one of those, "Why did you come
so quickly?" he or she would say, "Because I heard
your helplessness."
Where lowland is,
that's where water goes. All medicine wants
is pain to cure.
And don't just ask for one mercy.
Let them flood in. Let the sky open under your feet.
Take the cotton out of your ears, the cotton
of consolations, so you can hear the sphere-music.
Push the hair our of your eyes.
Blow the phlegm from your nose,
and from your brain.
Let the wind breeze through.
Leave no residue in yourself from that bilious fever.
* * *
Tear the binding from around the foot
of your soul, and let it race around the track
in front of the crowd. Loosen the knot of greed
so tight around your neck. Accept your new good luck.
Give your weakness
to one who helps.
Crying out loud and weeping are great resources.
A nursing mother, all she does
is wait to hear her child.
Just a little beginning whimper,
and she's there.
God created the child, that is, your wanting,
so that it might cry out,
so that milk might come.
Cry out! Don't be stolid and silent
with your pain. Lament! And let the milk
of loving flow into you.
The hard rain and wind
are ways the cloud has
to take care of us.
Be patient.
Respond to every call
that excites your spirit.
Ignore those that make you fearful
and sad, that degrade you
back toward disease and death.
A dragon was pulling a bear into its terrible mouth.
A courageous man went and rescued the bear.
There are such helpers in the world, who rush to save
anyone who cries out. Like Mercy itself,
they run toward the screaming.
And they can't be bought off.
If you were to ask one of those, "Why did you come
so quickly?" he or she would say, "Because I heard
your helplessness."
Where lowland is,
that's where water goes. All medicine wants
is pain to cure.
And don't just ask for one mercy.
Let them flood in. Let the sky open under your feet.
Take the cotton out of your ears, the cotton
of consolations, so you can hear the sphere-music.
Push the hair our of your eyes.
Blow the phlegm from your nose,
and from your brain.
Let the wind breeze through.
Leave no residue in yourself from that bilious fever.
* * *
Tear the binding from around the foot
of your soul, and let it race around the track
in front of the crowd. Loosen the knot of greed
so tight around your neck. Accept your new good luck.
Give your weakness
to one who helps.
Crying out loud and weeping are great resources.
A nursing mother, all she does
is wait to hear her child.
Just a little beginning whimper,
and she's there.
God created the child, that is, your wanting,
so that it might cry out,
so that milk might come.
Cry out! Don't be stolid and silent
with your pain. Lament! And let the milk
of loving flow into you.
The hard rain and wind
are ways the cloud has
to take care of us.
Be patient.
Respond to every call
that excites your spirit.
Ignore those that make you fearful
and sad, that degrade you
back toward disease and death.
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Shoes, and Ships, and Sealing Wax
I dreamed of shoes last night.
They were beautiful. Loafers with a square toe, leopard skin with pink bows. Wow, what a shoe. I don't know if they really exist. The first part of the dream was not so beautiful. I was going to a friend's house for a function. On the way there I got a phone call from said friend's husband. "Hey, you will have to drive we don't have gas and we spend a lot of money on you anyway, so it is your turn to spend some money." and then the call ended. I was in shock. Had I been unknowingly draining my friends? Was I a burden to them? Money is tight for me and for them. I tried to call back, but no answer. (This is funny because I rarely talk on the phone while I am driving; what is more funny is that I began to try and text him back and express my sorrow and hurt at his comment. I never text in the car.) I was having trouble texting and driving at the same time (wonder of wonders) and I got hit by a semi. As I am thrown from the car all I can think about is that I am leaving this world in deep debt to my friends and family. Then out of nowhere I was wearing these amazing shoes. I began to think dying might not be so bad if I left this world in such style.
And then I woke up.
Can you say "Anxiety Dream"?
They were beautiful. Loafers with a square toe, leopard skin with pink bows. Wow, what a shoe. I don't know if they really exist. The first part of the dream was not so beautiful. I was going to a friend's house for a function. On the way there I got a phone call from said friend's husband. "Hey, you will have to drive we don't have gas and we spend a lot of money on you anyway, so it is your turn to spend some money." and then the call ended. I was in shock. Had I been unknowingly draining my friends? Was I a burden to them? Money is tight for me and for them. I tried to call back, but no answer. (This is funny because I rarely talk on the phone while I am driving; what is more funny is that I began to try and text him back and express my sorrow and hurt at his comment. I never text in the car.) I was having trouble texting and driving at the same time (wonder of wonders) and I got hit by a semi. As I am thrown from the car all I can think about is that I am leaving this world in deep debt to my friends and family. Then out of nowhere I was wearing these amazing shoes. I began to think dying might not be so bad if I left this world in such style.
And then I woke up.
Can you say "Anxiety Dream"?
Monday, January 10, 2011
New Thoughts for the New Year
A. I hate Black Board. For those of you unaffiliated with the Academic world, Black Board is an electronic component of teaching that is basically like a really low tech blog for educational file sharing. Blergh. I have been trying to get all my classes set up and just finished organizing power points and files. So I was already to upload and . . . a little box pops up . . . . we are experiencing technical difficulties. Would you like to wait for these websites or kill the pages? I press wait. 5 seconds later.. . same box. This happens four times. So I go all the way out of my browser. Start fresh, new clicks. Same thing. Yes, actually I would like to kill the pages, and my browser, and several other nouns that may or may not be people.
B. I wish I could figure out a safe way to write on my laptop while enjoying a long hot bath. Seriously electronics and hot water should be able to mix without producing a electric shock that will fry more than my brains. Writing and the tub are two of my most relaxing tools to fight stress. Imagine combining them. Writing in the tub is very problematic, even with pen and paper. Water soluble objects. Paper likes to disintegrate, ink runs, the humidity hurts even spiral bound notebooks.
C. Technology. Yup. It has me in its clutches. Even I who don't text when a real person is in the room, I who turn off the TV when a breathing entity calls--not on the phone, in person. I think all the critical thinking that I advocate to my students is starting to get to me. Maybe technology is taking us over, or we are letting technology take us. Maybe Google is getting ready to take over the world. I know they will read this, hi Big Brother Google; it's Blogger after all. So do I go off grid? No, I write a blog about it. Hum.
D. Life is funny. Sometimes when we are trying to do what we have been asked to do, and want to do, and have put so much work in to do--we have to wait. Yes, seconds, minutes, hours, days, months (cringe), years (sigh). Does that mean that the time spent waiting is a waste of time? That all depends on what we do while we are waiting. Do we take that time to take deep breaths, become introspective, connect with others that matter most to us, read a good book? Or do we sit around and plan various nasty things to do to those people and things that make us wait? Do we question our worth if what we want to have happen doesn't happen? If what we wanted that we don't have makes us less valuable as people or teachers or parents or women or men, etc.? Sometimes the things that seem to be a good idea and really what we think would help us most, are those things that are the most dangerous to us. Sometimes we have to do things one at a time instead of at the same time. And sometimes the value of those things and moments in time become the sweeter for their separateness. And they become more valuable and precious for the amount of time we have to wait for them one at a time. Sometimes we think too much and make things harder for ourselves when all that we are asked to do is just take it a day, an hour, a minute, or a second at a time. Those heartbeats are not undervalued. Those breaths are not disparaged. Those thoughts are not pointless. Those feelings are no less precious.
Sometimes being a lily of the field is exactly what we are supposed to be.
PS. I hate the word "things". It is so ambiguous. I preach against its use in all of my classes. But for once it has fulfilled the measure of its creation. Fill in the blank with the things in your life. Change all the us's and you's and we's to I's, me's, and mine's and this is really about me. no really.
B. I wish I could figure out a safe way to write on my laptop while enjoying a long hot bath. Seriously electronics and hot water should be able to mix without producing a electric shock that will fry more than my brains. Writing and the tub are two of my most relaxing tools to fight stress. Imagine combining them. Writing in the tub is very problematic, even with pen and paper. Water soluble objects. Paper likes to disintegrate, ink runs, the humidity hurts even spiral bound notebooks.
C. Technology. Yup. It has me in its clutches. Even I who don't text when a real person is in the room, I who turn off the TV when a breathing entity calls--not on the phone, in person. I think all the critical thinking that I advocate to my students is starting to get to me. Maybe technology is taking us over, or we are letting technology take us. Maybe Google is getting ready to take over the world. I know they will read this, hi Big Brother Google; it's Blogger after all. So do I go off grid? No, I write a blog about it. Hum.
D. Life is funny. Sometimes when we are trying to do what we have been asked to do, and want to do, and have put so much work in to do--we have to wait. Yes, seconds, minutes, hours, days, months (cringe), years (sigh). Does that mean that the time spent waiting is a waste of time? That all depends on what we do while we are waiting. Do we take that time to take deep breaths, become introspective, connect with others that matter most to us, read a good book? Or do we sit around and plan various nasty things to do to those people and things that make us wait? Do we question our worth if what we want to have happen doesn't happen? If what we wanted that we don't have makes us less valuable as people or teachers or parents or women or men, etc.? Sometimes the things that seem to be a good idea and really what we think would help us most, are those things that are the most dangerous to us. Sometimes we have to do things one at a time instead of at the same time. And sometimes the value of those things and moments in time become the sweeter for their separateness. And they become more valuable and precious for the amount of time we have to wait for them one at a time. Sometimes we think too much and make things harder for ourselves when all that we are asked to do is just take it a day, an hour, a minute, or a second at a time. Those heartbeats are not undervalued. Those breaths are not disparaged. Those thoughts are not pointless. Those feelings are no less precious.
Sometimes being a lily of the field is exactly what we are supposed to be.
PS. I hate the word "things". It is so ambiguous. I preach against its use in all of my classes. But for once it has fulfilled the measure of its creation. Fill in the blank with the things in your life. Change all the us's and you's and we's to I's, me's, and mine's and this is really about me. no really.
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