How To Like It

So, here's the big damn deal (Maggie says that phrase sometimes and I think it sounds like poetry). My blog has gotten boring (to me). b.o.r.i.n.g. Boring. Fucking boring. Hahahaha. I forgot how much I like to swear. I'm a happy swearer. I only really cuss when I'm feeling good. Or silly. Or for wild emphasis. And to give myself credit, and to let y'all know how responsible I am, I do not swear in front of children or nuns.

I've read over the first year of this blog and it was MUCH more busy and interesting. Oh, and guess what, I wasn't working. La-de-da, I was being creative every day. Or, taking care of my beautiful mom. Or, in a crummy relationship with a scary man. So, in a nutshell, I was motivated a lot to live, to create, and to go do things to get out of the house. My life has actually improved a LOT since then. There was quite a bit of upheaval and grief. But I also had bunches of time to paint furniture and write. Maybe someday I'll have more free time, but maybe I won't, so I guess I better start being fun and interesting again in a hectic world so I can write better blogs. Maybe I should just start being fun and interesting again whether I write a blog or not. I always said I WAS NOT going to be the blogger that writes about when I'm having breakfast (THAT'S for Facebook. Hahaha) so I need to get to work.

(Boring. Really? Am I overthinking? Is it boring to me because it's MY stuff and so retelling it seems redundant? Is it my own self-doubt that barges in? Is it that no one ever comments so I don't even know if anyone is READING my boring content? Is it from being told as a child donotbragorinflateyourself so as a result I cannot find my own life worthy enough to be written down? Do most people think too much?)

I love when someone has their ipod on with headphones in their ears and they sing out loud by accident. Actually, I like to do that myself too. I have the worst voice EVER and it's fun to sing when I have earphones in because then I CAN"T HEAR MYSELF. Other people around me look panicked and embarrassed, thinking, omg, she doesn't realize she's singing and it sounds so HORRIBLE but folks, I know. Believe me, I know.

i LOVE teaching poetry. I think that could be my calling. I just don't get to do it much. Budget cuts at the community college leave me with one class a year, whereas it used to be one class every semester. And I'm pretty ensconced in Flagstaff (happily) and even if I could get a swell job teaching somewhere else, I don't want to move anywhere right now. So, I teach it when I can. I think I'm pretty okay at it. Here are a few real comments from anonymous students that showed up in my evaluations....Divine makes me smile at the clouds and Jill is an amazing teacher and really great course and I'm going to take this beautiful class again because Jill has great in-class exercises and assignments and I feel like a poet and my very favorite, Jill is nice and pretty and fun and I like her.

I did not have to pay those students very much at all to say those things.

But I don't think it's my calling because of those comments. I just LOVE it. I feel like it's a mix of making people feel safe and letting them express themselves and being creative all at once. When I'm teaching poetry I feel exactly right. Slightly giddy. In control of lightness. Able to guide with intuition. It's very cool. AND I get to introduce people to good poems......

How to Like It

These are the first days of fall. The wind
at evening smells of roads still to be traveled,
while the sound of leaves blowing across the lawns
is like an unsettled feeling in the blood,
the desire to get in a car and just keep driving.
A man and a dog descend their front steps.
The dog says, Let's go downtown and get crazy drunk.
Let's tip over all the trash cans we can find.
This is how dogs deal with the prospect of change.
But in his sense of the season, the man is struck
by the oppressiveness of his past, how his memories
which were shifting and fluid have grown more solid
until it seems he can see remembered faces
caught up among the dark places in the trees.
The dog says, Let's pick up some girls and just
rip off their clothes. Let's dig holes everywhere.
Above his house, the man notices wisps of cloud
crossing the face of the moon. Like in a movie,
he says to himself, a movie about a person
leaving on a journey. He looks down the street
to the hills outside of town and finds the cut
where the road heads north. He thinks of driving
on that road and the dusty smell of the car
heater, which hasn't been used since last winter.
The dog says, Let's go down to the diner and sniff
people's legs. Let's stuff ourselves on burgers.
In the man's mind, the road is empty and dark.
Pine trees press down to the edge of the shoulder,
where the eyes of animals, fixed in his headlights,
shine like small cautions against the night.
Sometimes a passing truck makes his whole car shake.
The dog says, Let's go to sleep. Let's lie down
by the fire and put our tails over our noses.
But the man wants to drive all night, crossing
one state line after another, and never stop
until the sun creeps into his rearview mirror.
Then he'll pull over and rest awhile before
starting again, and at dusk he'll crest a hill
and there, filling a valley, will be the lights
of a city entirely new to him.
But the dog says, Let's just go back inside.
Let's not do anything tonight. So they
walk back up the sidewalk to the front steps.
How is it possible to want so many things
and still want nothing? The man wants to sleep
and wants to hit his head again and again
against a wall. Why is it all so difficult?
But the dog says, Let's go make a sandwich.
Let's make the tallest sandwich anyone's ever seen.
And that's what they do and that's where the man's
wife finds him, staring into the refrigerator
as if into the place where the answers are kept—
the ones telling why you get up in the morning
and how it is possible to sleep at night,
answers to what comes next and how to like it.

This poem is by Stephen Dobyns and although it is set in the fall (and it's close to winter now), I find it so beautiful and honest. In class we can spend a bit of time of this poem, figuring who/what the dog is, why the line breaks are where they are, and what other things the poem is saying to us. Where the poetic language lies. And simply, what we like and don't like. Don't you just love shine like small cautions against the night? Wow.