january 26
Overcast, cold and still.
A hundred yards ahead,
a coyote crosses the road at a lope,
stops on a rise, looks back,
runs on. It is less like
the shape of an animal running
than the shadow of something flying.
When I get to the place where I saw it,
no tracks in the snow.
-ted kooser
The truth is, I feel a little bored today. The “Julie and Julia” book is rather boring. I suppose I’m just not there yet. She's funny but I'm not connecting. She’s lovable and goofy but I’m just not interested. I like Catherine Newman so much better- and Anne Lamott and Carolyn See. But this woman, Julie Powell just doesn’t grab me.
So I’m trying to think of what and who does grab me. I suppose who I love, really, are the poets who also write prose. It seems all the fiction writers and memoir writers that fascinate me the most are also poets. I wish I wrote more poetry. I think I just feel daunted. I did write it in college and I know how to do it but when I sit down to do it, I just feel out of steam. I feel all used up. All my vague ideas rollicking around in my head are all used. They’re not, of course but it seems like that. After I stopped writing poetry for a small creative writing class, a huge block moved into place.
So’s I have a plan. It’s been a back burner for awhile but I think I might pull it out. One of my most puzzling interesting authors is Frances Mayes. Not only is she a writer but also a poet and she did write a book on poetry. And I do have it. I need to pull it out and start reading it. It’s a good heavy solid book and I just need to spend time with it. I also want to spend time with Ted Kooser’s book on making poetry (which I also have), I just need to find it in my car. Ted is such an enjoyable writer that I tend to cruise over his mechanics of poetry just to read about his life stories. If you haven’t read his “Local Wonders: Seasons in the Bohemian Alps” you should because it’s a very precious little jewel. I need to re-read that too. It's funny, smart and everything is cut up into little fragments- just what I like. Complete thoughts and scenarios in about a thousand words or less.
So I was lucky enough to have Hollywood make a mix for me. And is it one of the best mixes, I've ever heard. Well, I should say so far. Because I've only listened to four tracks. And have replayed them over and over. I'm slow sort of listener and like to savor my music and then move on with time. Anyway, it's a fabulous mix and I look forward to the time ahead as I slowly listen to everything and think it all over.
I have to say though…it's odd listening to a certain sort of music anymore. I loved it when I was in college because I resonated with it so well and I still love it. But the resonation isn't there anymore. I think there's a song on there from the group Xiu Xiu's La Foret and they're really tight and really good and they have that sound. I'm trying to think of another band that has the sound of I'm thinking of but I'm not quite sure- it's a feeling that runs under lots of bands, and bands that are very different from each other. Like at the drive in and radiohead and Death Cab (sometimes) and Pinback (at times). There's the tight feeling that comes from good music but under that, there's a turmoil. A tight sharp turmoil. Very pretty, very well done.
And while I still enjoy that sound, my heart isn't there anymore. And I find that somewhat of a shock and almost odd.
Now that I have the time and the love to be at home and do things, I find that these things are helpers to the condition of myself. Knitting, drawing, gardening, writing, cooking- all these things, which I do nearly everyday and improve in every day, all these things mend, resolve, evolve the state of myself.
And the turmoil…it just seems to pass away. I sit on a bench and draw a teahouse, using brown and green pencils and the inward grind slows and relaxes. I cook with green and red peppers and they come out wonderfully- things loosen inside. Break down and come apart and I eat in rest. My words march along swifter and smoother and everyday they march, my seedlings in the kitchen break through the soil and start to grow, just all these things, everyday, they change everything. Everytime.
**There is perfection nowhere but everyday there is improvement. I think that must be the life of an artist- this improvement. This ascension. I don't want perfection. I just want to improve. And that is possible everyday.
Near the edge of Fabyan is a place. There is Fabyan with its wild orderliness, it’s sculptures, grottos and garden and then there is this place.
For good or bad it was there. Founded in 1894 by a woman- an Illinois State School for Girls. Certain sorts of girls. Immoral girls and unruly ones. “The bad ‘uns.” Maybe.
Maybe not. Girls from all over the state were placed here. They worked as maids during the day or did hard labour and then were locked into tiny cells at night with bars on the windows. Locked into a room at night after doing back breaking work. Rooms wide as far as you can stretch out your arms. Cells for bad girls.
And so girls died there. Some were taken back to their original homes but some were not. They weren’t wanted. Maybe there was no money in the family to get them back or maybe they were simply a disgrace. Maybe there was no family. So these dead girls and some of the dead babies that these girls had were put on a small plot on the property. Some were marked, some weren’t. They weren’t deep graves but they were put away. Names and dates and nothing else. Telling a story. A story. The property sat still forever. In 1979, the old buildings were shut down and the property sat and sat. I drove past as a little girl and always looked quizzically at the rising hill it was on. It rose up over the Fox River with the road nestled between its slope and the River and I always wondered, “What is up there? It looks so abandoned.” And it was. Till a few years ago when someone bought the old school farm and turned it into a housing development for the wealthy.
The wealthy? They drive out of the entrance in SUVs. They drive out of a place that was surrounded by a chain-link fence and barbed wire. A place that let you in and did not let you out. And at the bottom of all of this flashed a river, heading away.
The buildings are gone but the developer let the cemetery stay. Who knows? Maybe it is protected by some sort of oddball conservation effort. Conserving grief? Pain? Aloneness? Despair? Death?
Ahhhhhhhh, but the rich live all around it.
Even ivory towers cannot mask oppression in the soil.
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