The Walk

Sometimes it takes binoculars to look at the up-close and find something new.  Suzi and I make this walk everyday.  But here I am on day six of my 7 day challenge and in looking for something outside of myself to write about, I decided to change my point to view to someone else's.  

Hers.

See that narrow-eyed stare she's giving me?  That her "You never listen" look.

Today I listened; this is what I heard.


The Walk

My walks come in blocks,
one half mile around,
I drag along a human

who's a little tightly wound.
She scuffs.
I bound!

So much grass to water,

trees to sniff,

and fire plugs to explore.

Here a couple toadstools

not here the day before.

She doesn't even smell them,
her plastic bag in hand.
(Did I mention she's deranged?)
She's making a collection
of my deposits on the land.
(I told you, she is strange).

Any dogs out today?

WOOF! WOOF!

I call them out to play.
BE QUIET,
barks my anti social human,

SHUSH.

I pause, to shake it off

and then salute another bush,

pulling forward

nose to the ground,
one half mile around.

I should be walking

When life becomes a blur, about the only thing to do is buckle your seatbelt and wait for the ride to stop. That's when you stagger away, slightly dizzy, searching for a focus point.

Since my last post I visited Shanghai, North Dakota, Texas, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Virginia, Florida, Connecticut and various points in OH.



I met great kids, poet of all ages -- pre-school and up, up, up.



wrote with them,



celebrated their images, words, and performances,



had a new puppy born into the family, (video starring Lili, cameo by Suzi, videography and production by Michael) made new friends, tested the limits of old friends, and finished the page proofs on two new books. The third set of page proofs is arriving by mail next week. I argued strenuously but self-consciously about cover art and what would print to fit in the books. The struggle to balance what I feel is right and remain likable thrashes within me like those submerged plumes of oil in the Gulf, immeasurable, deep, and not easily dispersed.



This past week was my Sunday. I rested. I biked a little. Gardened a little. Walked a little. Started a rag rug out of old T shirts and didn't think much at all.



I did not drive a car (grocery, bank, post office all easily accessed by my bike) and spent too much time listening in horror to news about the oil volcano in the Gulf.



I'm so far behind in this blog, I don't even know where to start with catching it up. My lap top was stolen a couple of weeks ago and there went most of my pictures from Korea and Shanghai along with all of my teacher presentations and one picture book in process. Sigh.

I sit here trying to reconnect with my writing, blog, friends and think, I should be walking since I eat too much when I'm stressed. Which means that this past spring cost me four pounds.

The grandkids are screaming next door, birds are grousing about it, and puppy Lili is growling in her sleep under my desk, Michael is in his biking gear. Enough with the resting. Time for that walk.

The Love Song of Stephanie Lufkin

Maybe the sun was out that day. Or maybe Dennis Cox looked at me at lunch. Or maybe that was one of the 47 days I was dismissed early to have my braces adjusted. Probably it was a lesson that my teacher presented more than once, but drizzled out my ear after the quiz. Platelets. What are they? What do they do, exactly?

Given the fact that I managed to avoid science classes entirely after ninth grade biology (except for that astronomy class in college, an apocryphal amalgamation of math and science still capable of giving me night terrors), it is not surprising that a year ago if you had asked me what a platelet was I would have responded, "that's something in the blood, right?" I didn't connect platelets with clotting, the lack of platelets with brain bleeding or the true meaning of apocryphal.

Michael and I stayed with Debbie and Guy Cartwright in Phoenix last week while we attended IRA. Old friends of mine, new friends to Michael. Guy's daughter Margaret fought ITP in her childhood and like most kids, eventually outgrew its threat. He told us she got to a point that she could sense when her platelets were getting low, she'd be rushed to the hospital for an infusion. Because of other people's generous donations, platelet transfusions had been available for Margaret to help her out of crisis.

As Stephie faded from our midst last May, the hospital waiting room swelled with grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, neighbors -- all of whom would have willingly opened their veins to help her, but by then, after three days in the hospital, it was too late. Today, Stephie's picture is on the front page of the ITP Foundation site and while we are all proud to see her there, we wish she were back here, singing along with Kelly Clarkston and Hanna Montana and cartwheeling across the living room.

I tagged along as my cousin Billie Holbrook donated blood last week and if you know anything about the blood suckers at the Red Cross, you know they didn't let me get away without giving a pint. I hadn't donated in years, I'm embarrassed to admit. And I had never given at a full service facility where they also take donations of platelets, a slightly more complicated procedure that takes 70 - 120 minutes. I had myself tested and it turns out I'm loaded with the things -- 273,000 per microliter. To put that in perspective, Stephie's level was 2,000 when she was admitted.

The Red Cross called me today to give me the good news that I am a viable candidate to donate platelets, which I will do for the first time next week because although it may be too late to help our Steph, it is not too late to help others.

We have all learned so much these past nine months. Learned about heartache, love, family -- and the blood that binds us together as human beings. We are continually and simultaneously propelled and stricken by the love song of Stephie. We want every person who ever zoned out in biology class to know and understand the importance of platelets.

LOST EMAIL

What I want to do is blog about what a fab time I had at Granny Camp and visit with the Ohio Writing Project at Miami U (very cool), but first a bit of Grumpy business. I have been on hold with my email server for a total of 80 minutes today -- after the first 25, no you need to talk to the business server, no your email box is too small, we'll make it bigger, no you'll have to call back, no you need to talk to us when you are in front of your home computer, no, you need to talk to . . . oh, you get the picture.

Bottom line, all email I received or Kelly received at Kelly@saraholbrook.com, between Sunday June 22 and Thursday, June 26 has been lost in cyberspace and I am not happy about it. The server changed servers, or some such thing, and poof. All my email that was hung up out there has gone away.

Please, if you sent me an email and you read this, please resend.

What a pain!

The Story of Stuff

Last night Michael and I were up at the mall (again?) and he remarked, "isn't it amazing how this season just gets people to go out and buy stuff? Look at this place." And it is. I'm a victim myself. Stuff. Lots of it. Piled in the aisles, marked up and marked down. Shoppers elbow to elbow sniffing around for bargains. Occasionally and more recently, this is really beginning to nag at me. And I admit to being a lifelong shopper, a just in case, you never know what you'll find, store cruiser. But my visceral discomfort is disrupting my natural internal browser -- I can't even look around with guilt free pleasure any more.

I wrote a poem, Don't Bury Me on Brookpark Road, sometime in 2001 after the President told us to go shopping after 9/11. Excerpt:

When I’ve punched the snooze button for the last time,
I don’t want to wind up pew-wedged between the honk and wheeze
of Mr. Donut and Mr. Muffler, across from the pawn shop,
marooned at the crossroads of more. More billboards, more tacos,
more mattresses, nail shops and temporary stops on this path to the land fill for
rental cars, wastebaskets, and girls baring a** for more.
More cat beds, more tennis racket teddy bear welcome signs,
collectible designed for ease in obsolescence.

When the non-transferable terms on my desk drawer
of lifetime warranties run out, don’t plant me beside this
hurried stream of humanity, its pace accelerating frantically
as it tapers into the purchase of today at crazy low prices, guaranteed to satisfy
(for six months or ten thousand miles whichever is lower) . . .

Which is a pathetic place to be in life -- not buried on Brookpark Road, but walking around the mall mentally quoting myself from five years ago wondering why I haven't been heeding my own words. Which reminded me of this little 20 minute video that I stumbled across, that is so succinct and precise, it is a poem in and of itself.

http://www.storyofstuff.com/

There are a lot of amazing observations in the video, but the one that smacked me the most firmly is how happiness goes down as advertising goes up. It is as if our entire media culture is producing generations of malcontents. I'm a poet, so I was born a malcontent, but I hate to see the rest of the planet pushed in the same direction. What fun is that?

Well, apparently, not much if the commercials for antidepressants are to be believed. They are almost as scary as their warning labels. Michael point out one drug advertisement to me the other day that lists "urge to gamble" as a possible side effect.

I think we all must have this affliction -- we are all gambling wildly with our futures every time we buy more of this stuff. The other day we walked into Walgreens to get a prescription and up and down aisles of stuff that no one needs. I mean no one. Plastic flowers, flashing greeting cards, synthetic garlands, all harvested from -- where? All going where?

My new year's resolution is going to be to think harder about purchasing stuff. I'm going to write that down and tuck it in the same pocket as my credit card. We'll see if that works better than just feeling guilty.

Worm Food

Last July I bought an indoor worm composting system from Worm Firm. http://wormfirm.com/id1.html Not just any worms, mind you, red wigglers, the Rolls Royce of worms. And fat and juicy looking squirmlies they are. It quickly became apparent that we had so many kitchen scraps, we would need two bins, so I bought another. We feed the worms veggie and fruit scraps, no pasta, meat or bread. Worm Firm, I should say, is owned by Michael's ex-wife and her husband Jonnie, both Brits and much more eco-conscientious than I will ever be.

So, after 6 months, it has now come time to harvest the worms. Or really, to harvest the worm castings and save the worms to garbage down more garbage. Or really really, to harvest the worm poop, which is what a casting is. Before you run to grab a clothes pin for the nose, be aware, this process doesn't smell. I mean, I've been pawing through worm poop for the past hour (in rubber gloves, mind you). At first I was one finger at a time tentative, but before long, I just dug right in.

The harvesting process means to turn the worms out on a plastic sheet, angle a goose neck lamp down at one corner and all the worms will gravitate towards the heat. Then you scoop up the squirming worm ball and transfer it to new shredded newspaper bedding with some veggie scraps, apple cores, coffee grounds and enough of their old castings to make them feel at home. Most of the worms followed the crowd within an hour, some however obviously have ODC tendencies and were reluctant to move toward the light. The little baby worms were (naturally) rebellious and happy to be left behind to party hearty with their baby friends unsupervised.

At first I was exasperated, stupid worms. I started to transfer them one at a time. And then this kind of calm realization came over me that you just can't rush nature. That even though this task was on my to do list for today, it might take more than one day for the worms to migrate.

Here's what else I've learned: Worms love watermelon and cantaloupe, they can dispose of the rinds in a matter of days. Teamwork. Avocado skins, not so much. Peanut shells, not at all. They want to make nests in the corn cobs, and if you don't pulverize the egg shells, they nest in those too. Apple peels go quickly, onions not so fast, leeks they have little taste for. And all of our kitchen scraps, piles of it, tupperware bin full every other day or so, has been reduced to maybe a bucketful of what looks like peat. Very rich peat. In the process of their munching, they produce something called "worm tea" which is the best fertilizer there is. I put that liquid gold in milk cartons for the flowers.

So, when I complete this harvesting, I'm going to put the castings outside so that the dirt can get a taste of Cleveland winter and will be ready for the garden in the spring. There are a lot of other things I suppose I could have done with my afternoon, but I have to say, playing in the dirt, smelling it, feeling it between my fingers while the icy winds were blowing outside, was not only a comfort, but a lesson in the patience of nature.

Where is Suzi?

Here's a hint -- we were at Dempsey Middle School in Delaware, OH, a very happenin' place. Only insiders, however, can tell where Suzi is in this picture. For more information on Dempsey, follow the link above.

Okay, these were the best prepared students for a visit that ANY author could hope for. Here you can see the student body (and me) congratulating two of the winners of the poetry contest. Raucous applause! The judges for the contest were AP English students at Hayes High School -- how cool is that for peer review?



At a different assembly, tech students presented me with books that they had made where they chose cool graphics to go along with poems that they had written based on my work. They took the first couple lines of one of my poems and developed the poem on their own, kind of like using sour dough bread starter. The responses were creative, honest, thoughtful -- taking my poems to the next -- and more personal -- level. Here's just a sample chosen at random -- all the writings were very cool.

Wrong

I'd rather starve myself
Or pay a million dollar fine,
or serve a lengthy sentence of the solitary kind.

I'd rather sky dive
or do fifty pages of homework
or get thrown out of Wal-mart
Cause my little sister bit the manager

Than to say I'm wrong

Holbrook/Dawson

One final idea (also with an assist from the tech teacher) is displayed on the bulletin board in this final picture. Media Specialist Karen Hildebrandt is pictured here beside power point slides that the students created in computer class. Why not combine a poetry lesson with power point instruction? Now, look carefully and you will see Jesus' notebook, from Sheldon ISD outside of Houston now proudly hanging on a bulletin board in Delaware, OH. Poetry does indeed bring folks together, building bridges!


Big big thanks to Karen for all her hard work getting the kids and the staff jazzed in advance. Lots and lots of work. And thanks to all the teachers for seeing that poetry can live outside of language arts class.

But . . . but . . . but . . . where is Suzi?

The Dogs Ate My S.O.S. Pads!

This is a picture of Hector (big dog) and Suzi (little dog). They come from totally different hoods. Hector is from East 185th Street in Cleveland and has a lot of what you might call street smarts. For instance, he was homeless and looking for a place to hang out and when he saw a Home Depot he must have thought that that was the place to shop for a new home, because we met when he chose my leg out of all the other shoppers to lay his wet nose against while I was shopping for wingnuts, hence his name: Hector Wing Nut Rodriguez. He is a kind and gentle big brother to Suzi, who came from the other side of the tracks so to speak.

Suzette Creme Fromage is her full name, or Suzi Cream Cheese. (That name came from a Frank Zappa song as a suggestion from Michael and it fits perfectly). Also, Suzi was my mother's name. She has a long pedigree of champions, is only 4 lbs and believes she is not only a princess, but boss of the house and probably the world. Her breed is a papillon. Papillon is french for butterfly and that fits because she has butterfly ears and she thinks she's all that because of them. The word is that this is the type of dog that Marie Antoinette carried with her when she lost her head.

But as a perfect example of how different breeds, from different neighborhoods, indeed different countries, with different pedigrees and expectations do indeed have similar tastes, they conspired against the authority (me) pulled a box from under the cupboard and gleefully started sharing a meal this morning while I was brushing my teeth. All very understandable.

But S.O.S. pads?

To the woman in the blue dress

To the woman in the blue dress walking in front of the empty strip center store on Route 20 who did not tie back her auburn hair letting it fly behind her like a lacy cape -- to the woman who led with her chin and whose smile was reflected in the way she swung her canvas bag timed perfectly with each stride -- to the woman who chose to defy the gray sky with a dress the color the sky could if it were Greece or Italy or some place besides Cleveland -- to the woman in the hip grazing, long blue dress with stars bursting from the cotton, in the dress that was slit to the knee but no further -- to the woman with crinkles in the corners of her eyes who did not require footnotes, who gave today's potential a slight-handed, encouraging nudge without even looking -- to the woman in the blue dress -- thank you.

Dedicated teachers from Afghanistan. 

Ajax and his new window on the world. 

Ajax

Ajax is an unusual name for a dog, but Ajax is unusual. He is asleep under my desk, slept in the bed last night, cuddled up to whomever he could get close to on the sofa all yesterday. The cats are a bit snitty about his arrival, but Hector is taking it in grudging stride. Undoubtedly, Ajax must feel some resistance, but he seems to be tenacious about fitting in.

We took a walk this morning and when the leash brushed one ear, now partially healed 3-4 weeks after his mutilation by some mean man in (we think) a baseball cap (since he is afraid of Michael in a baseball cap), he yelped in pain. Doctor Becky says he has been patient about the treatments to his burned ears, never once nipping at her as she routinely cleaned and medicated him over the past weeks. She speculates that lighter fluid of some kind was first put on his ears, the extent of the burns was so severe and localized.

In Greek mythology, Ajax was a rival of Hector's, but then Ajax traded his belt to Hector for his sword. Unfortunately, it was this belt that was later used to drag Hector to his death, which tore up Ajax so much that he fell on his sword in fine ancient fashion. Hollywood rewrote the story (like that wasn't dramatic enough?), making Hector the one who done Ajax in, so to speak.

We will attempt to re-write the story one more time, only this time Hector and Ajax will live as comrades side-by-side, happily ever after.

just thinking

I thought about exercising today, but I didn't get rolling. I thought I woke up with a head cold, but it never really took control. I thought about reading Don Quixote, but I didn't get to it. I thought about cleaning the kitchen, but -- same story. Maybe I just needed a day to think. Or maybe the cold was in my vessels if not in my nose, turning my blood to sludge so that I couldn't move.

Tomorrow all five grandbabies will be here AND a new dog arrives. He is a charity case from Michael's sister's vet clinic. Some evildoer set his ears on fire. He is healed though somewhat fringy in the ear department and looking for a good home. Hector, our rat terrier mix, a stray I picked up at Home Depot (where else does a smart, homeless dog go to find a home?) has been missing his Boston Terrier buddy Mike since about this time last year. We have not met the new dog and are hoping for a happy, smooth transition, which hardly seems likely with 5 kids under the age of 6 in the house. Whew.

If today was a day for thinking, tomorrow looks to be a day of chaos. My Uncle Bill told me we should always rest when the battle is far away, so we have the strength to face whatever is coming. Something triggered a slow down in me today.

Now, I'm thinking maybe that was a good thing.

Buffy the Beetle Slayer

Living in the house we have Hector, the rat terrier who would roll over in submission for a butterfly, Spike the cat who is all white, deaf and clueless, a lizard who (I have heard) eats crickets raw (some things do not have to be seen to be believed) and Buffy, the fluffy gray and white beetle slayer.

The beetles are an inch and a half long, residents of the backyard, kin to grubs, shiny and black as my dad's old Imperial and positively prehistoric looking. They cling with velcro tenacity to carpet, socks (ohmygod) and little cat feet, which makes them fun playmates for cats, which, it is well known, like to bring their playmates home.

Before anyone considers this a sad story, please note that Buffy does not KILL the beetles. She brings them in the house and plays with them until she gets bored and then abandons them, whereupon they make an immediate beetle line for the back door, retracing Buffy's steps as if they'd dropped breadcrumbs. So far, they have turned up in the laundry room/closet, the bathroom, the bedroom and other places one might otherwise feel safe without shoes. One even attempted to set up camp on my bedside table last night along with all those books I have been meaning to read.

I want to write a letter to Dr. Phil or Redbook -- the headline on the subsequent advisement on the can-this-relationship-be-saved article would read, Can Owner Accept This Cat's New Relationship? Subhead: Will Cat's Clinging Coleoptera Break up this Happy Home?

Did you know that there are more varieties of beetles than there are plants? Why would you? Why would anyone except desperate cat owners scouring the internet at 4 in the morning for answers to a fundamental question . . .

Why do we keep pets anyway?

Packing

I have trouble packing to go to Toledo. Tomorrow Michael (my partner in life and poetry) and I head to Bangkok, Vietnam and Sumatra. Here it is snowing, there it will be in the 90s. Guess I won't need those mittens. One day will be lost in transition. Someone will be living that day somewhere, but those of us on the plane will skip over it. I will be taking a laptop for communication, a great improvement over the telephone given the 13 hour time difference. But what else to take? My bedroom looks like hurricane central and my office is in little stacks. How many books do I need for such a long flight? That's the question most pressing today. I took four with me for an overnight to Toledo, I'll be gone two weeks. Exponentially, that's too many books to carry, but what if I run out of reading material? What if I am not in the mood to read the books I chose? I'm moody when it comes to books. Below is a partial list of books I've enjoyed reading so far this year:

And If I Perish by Evelyn Monahan, Rosemary Neidel-greenlee. This is the story of WWII nurses sent to the front lines in gingham and saddle shoes, landing on the beaches with soldiers in Africa. I read it with total fascination knowing my father had been tended by such brave women when he was a tank commander in Africa and Europe. The book is fascinating, the only mystery is how come it took so long to come about.

The Known World by Edward P. Jones. This is a work of fiction you would swear is fact, it is so well told with detailed flash forwards where we learn which character will ultimately have a grandchild who becomes a judge, which character will wind up free and living up north. Set in pre-civil war Virginia, it describes a community which was founded and functions on the backs of slaves – a time when even some freed blacks owned slaves, a fictional world so real as to now feel “known” by the reader.

The Center of Everything by Laura Moriarty. Loved the young adult voice in this book. The voice was a careful observer, not terribly judgmental, just watching and muddling through. If there is a female counterpart to Catcher in the Rye, this may be it. Book was given to me by a teacher at Colorado Academy when I was there and it made my trip home on the airplane fly by (did I just say that?). Evelyn’s two best friends fall in love with each other and make a life changing choice that leaves her alone with her dreams. At the end of the book, I wasn’t exactly sure where Evelyn would wind up, but I figured she would get to where she wanted to be. Over the course of 300 or so pages, she had really become somebody.

On the Death of Childhood and the Destruction of Public Schools : The Folly of Today's Education Policies and Practices by Gerald W. Bracey. This is a book every parent should read. While many of us wonder about the benefits of the recent testing craze, Bracey has the data to back up his belief that these tests (while a reality) are not doing our kids much good at all and in fact are helping to make them more docile and less curious. US students as it turns out read better than kids in other developed nations except Finland (which btw does not support retention as a motivational strategy). He points out that while our math scores may lag behind a few other countries, our scientists win more Nobel Prizes, a fact he accredits to an interactive educational system as opposed to one where kids are just on the receiving end of a fire hose of facts.

That’s it for now – I think I did a pretty good job of putting off the cyclone in the bedroom. Guess I have to face up to it now.

Today, Cleveland. Tomorrow, the inside of an airplane. Saturday missing in space. Sunday, Bangkok.

My latest title.