Confession: A little loneliness.

Confession: Little doesn’t work as an adjective for loneliness. It”s kind of like being a little pregnant. Either you are or you aren’t.

Confession: I want to erase any title of  poet as applied to myself and replace that word with reader. Being a good reader is my new aspiration. I thought that thought long before my last rejection, by the way. Reading is what I aspire to. And taking good notes. See what a slippery slope that is? The run up and run down to the apex is slippery.

Confession: Belief in an ultimate point on a line or an arc is like belief in God.

Confession: The theoretical proof of one single point is explainable. God is a spoof.

Related posts:

1. Confession Tuesday
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3. Confession Tuesday

But I am making progress. I started small, with my bathroom drawers. Tossed old sunscreen, lipsticks, perfume samples. (I haven’t worn perfume for about 10 years, when my sense of smell got sensitive.) Put all the fancy soaps in one drawer (I actually use them, gifts from a friend, but I have a deep stockpile — I think she forgets she gives me good soap nearly twice a year). Lotions & potions find the other drawer. Cleaned the medicine cabinet.

It began by not ignoring the  partially emptied lotion bottles anymore, the kind that still have “good stuff” in them, but beyond the reach of the pump. I removed caps & apparatus, placed bottles on their sides, where I was compelled to finish them off and recycle the containers. I’m nearly down to one lotion bottle again.

It started by wanting to de-junk, de-clutter. It started because housekeeping is usually a good way to cleanse the head, especially when it’s raining. It started because I have a little more time these days, being underemployed. It started because, “if not now, when.”

When my husband retired 18 months ago he gave over this desk to me, and we placed a smaller one on the west side of the office for him. (This is south facing — to my front yard. An old rhoady is in the background.)

The intent was to move my school-desk from upstairs (I graduated two years ago) and  make the bedroom more bedroomy again. Well, now I have two desks, each equally disorganized, each covered with “stuff” I need to find a home for or get rid of.

It’s challenged by my mother getting rid of her junk — so now I have a bunch of childhood “treasures” I don’t want to have out in the house, but I don’t have the heart to get rid of, yet.

An acquaintance once gave me a great hint about the “mother gifts” one doesn’t want to use or have have sitting “out” but that, if not seen on a visit, would hurt Mom’s feelings: Put them away 95% of the time, and bring them out for the visit. I have a storage box in the attic filled with such things. It’s time for a new box. And perhaps one day I simply give the whole box to a charity — it would already be a box packed and ready to go.

Slow work, but the house is getting de-cluttered. This desk, my desk — shown in it’s crazy, in the middle stage — now has a horizontal wood grain that is visible over 45% of the surface.

The upstairs desk is a mess, but I have my sights set on it this week & weekend. The weather is still bad, Mark is driving to see family in Norther California over the long weekend, and I will get that desk undone, too. I’d like to replace it with a new custom bookcase — but that will have to wait for funding. I can at least move all my writing projects to one place and create some open space.

Nothing is better than junk.

Ha! A revealing sentence, don’t you think?

After the desk comes the attic — a project complicated by a kitchen remodel many years ago. I had gotten a start on going through it, but a bunch of kitchen stuff got relocated during construction and so it is a big mess, too. Bigger, actually.

After the attic comes the pictures. 15 years worth of photos.

And then the outside shed. (Maybe my husband will do that one.)

All plans are subject to interruption by good weather and the joy of hiking and gardening. And maybe getting back to full-time work. (There is a boss-hint the summer could end up being busy; we”ll see how it plays out.)

I better stay on this cleaning binge as long as I can.

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I’m taking January’s advice to someone else: confess to one thing that made you happy in the last week — confessions don’t always have to be about the tough stuff.

Funny enough (or ironically), it is sometimes hard for me to confess the good, happy-making stuff. But I’m stepping up to the challenge.

Big Tent Poetry made me happy last week. We had a lot of participation both in posting poems and in responding to each others’ poems. In fact, I am still giddy over all the visits and comments I got. Not that I need to make anything over the idea than it is just nice to have connections with new and familiar poets.

Carolee and Jilly made me happy, too, because they are the central reason Big Tent is a party.

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The end of a crazy April is a good time to confess to a few things:

~~ I offended a relative about 18 months ago with something I wrote for a now-defunct 365-day project (I had no idea they read anything I wrote). As a result, I got self-conscious.  I’ve stifled some parts of my blogging voice. It’s smart to remember Stoney Moss is a public area, even if  few readers come around. That said, why bother blogging if not to say something? I’m still confused by the whole thing.

~~ I miss my blogging mate, Whirling Dervish. Part of this blog seems like a museum now. Or part of my house closed off for some reason. I stop “seeing” the space, and yet it is strange and full of echoes, too. Sometimes I want to “remodel” but am not sure I am ready to.

~~ My NaPo poetry has sucked more this April than usual. Ok. It sucked more than last April, and might be “better” than the year before. The daily micropoems help, although they are not all that “good.”

~~ I joined a Goodreads poetry discussion group and am behind on my notes about the books I have read. It reminds me oF my only “F” in grade school — I read more books than anyone in my class, but because I forgot to write them down I didn’t get credit. Now, I am not aiming to win any prizes for this group — but I get a little tired of not following through.

~~ I’m excited about the Big Tent Poetry project. But I am still sad about Read Write Poem. I just am. It is hard to walk away from something that had consumed so much of my energy since 2007 (the end of). But I am thrilled about Big Tent Poetry, because it will be way more fun, and take a little less time — allowing me to work on my own stuff more.

~~ I got an invitation to read poetry that has me tingly in excitement and apprehension. I am thrilled beyond words. And nervous, too.

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2. Confession Tuesday (deb) NaPoWriNoMo
3. Confession Tuesday (deb)

I didn’t go. Didn’t want to. Didn’t  go.

But, I saw another notice in the local paper this morning, or maybe it was yesterday. I went to practice tonight, and I found a fit.

Yippee!

Serious but not intense. Non-audition. Nearby (six mile commute & on the west side). Classic choral arrangements, but not stodgy. Mixed voices; young and old singers. They’ve started on holiday music, and one is my very most favorite of all, “The Holly & the Ivy,” (2) and there’s a great spiritual (new to me, from a Seattle men’s chorus) and a swing tune that uses the tight harmony skills I learned in my last group.

So if you are in Portland around the holidays, head to The Grotto on December 18 19th (8 PM). I’ll sing holiday songs for you (along with 30-35 others).

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(1) Another little factoid: I sang this song, and played it on the guitar, too, in Catholic folk mass when I was in Junior High. I sang it, and played it on the guitar, too, when I went through my period of fundamental Christian religious ecstasy from 17-23 or so. I’m done with this song.

(2) This even though English holly and ivy are noxious plants in the Pacific Northwest and hateful (the ivy is drowning the forests of Portland). I still love the song. Always have, always will.

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What do I want? A non-denominational and non-audition mixed group (because I am not “in voice” and couldn’t pass an audition at the moment) with a medium commitment level, because I spent nearly every extra-curricular hour I had on my last chorus and I just can’t do that now and try to write consistently.

Tall order. And then I saw an announcement that intrigued me. I went the first meeting a couple of weeks ago and was happy to see a lot of people in the room and really liked the values (peace & justice) they put out with their mission statement and goals for the year (sing at nursing homes & prisons, somewhere four times a year, don’t meet in the summer). So far so good.

But then they started the warm-ups and the songs were taken right out of girl scout camp and I nearly left the room when they sang Kumbaya. Seriously. I just don’t think I can do this. I’ve told myself I will check them out for a month (I skipped last week because I had a prior commitment) and see if that was just a bit of culture shock and if I can treat Kumbaya as any other nursery rhyme (ack, my attitude) and let it be only a warm up.

Ironically, I also set myself up as a nut-case renegade by my attire, for I wore this tee-shirt to the first practice:

And didn’t think about the bloody leg sticking out of the dog’s mouth until we were randomly walking  through the room singing to each other and shaking people’s hands. Something like a musical kiss of peace (which I always abhorred when I was a churchy kind of gal, years and years ago).

Every once in a while people ask me what the difference between a chorus and a choir is. Googling for truth doesn’t seem to help, so I am dredging up my old recollections, faulty as they might be:

A chorus doesn’t usually sing in churches, a choir usually does. A chorus usually consists of similarities (women, men, children, etc.) and a choir can be a big mix. But there is no clear textbook definition.

And where this adventure might lead is not clearly defined either. Sometimes I set myself up for disappointment, and sometimes I end up loving things that were very (extremely) difficult to do, initially.

Sometimes I can trust my gut reactions, sometimes I can’t. And unfortunately it is only hind sight that can tell me which way something went. Think of me tomorrow night.

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Mark tells me to try to laugh, to find the humor — without being cynical — in the stuff my mom and dad talk about. I suppose the good thing about not recalling that you have said the same thing, to the same person, over and over and over again, is that you don’t feel bad about it. But I have always, ever since I was a teenager, worried over repeating myself. I’d rather be mute than repetitive. I’d rather not disclose than risk the insult of forgetting the person sitting across from me has heard it all before, and only last week.

I’m not one for ritual. I tell myself I get bored, but perhaps it is really a lack of patience, of attentiveness, of curiosity. Perhaps disliking repetition and ritual are closely related. Perhaps it’s my need for novelty over sameness, a perversely modern leaning, and only that. A lack of cultural solidity — I don’t have the farmer’s or hunter’s mind that relies on comparing nuanced differences on a cellular level.

But then why do I adore the natural world’s minute detail if I cannot tolerate repetition? Why can I look at every sky or flower fresh, as if it were the first I’d ever seen. Truly, others find me daffy in my attention to these things. I do have the farmer’s or hunter’s mind. I don’t have the gossip’s.

If I were to indulge in repetition I would only want to be a scientist testing hypothesis or gathering information, or an artist working through a series to some culmination. Those rituals of discovery can lead to truths. I am not sure that retelling stories — or rather events, for stories have their honored place, and are needed by persons and societies — over and over illuminates or expands the truth.

I am harsh.

This is why I cannot be a religious person. I despise sitting quiet, mulling over daily life, unless it is nature’s and possesses fur or scale or leaf.

What do I know today? This event: I know that my mother prefers Safeway’s deli case bring-it-home-and-heat-it-up pizza to any other; that it is both hot and delicious and cheap, all for less than $10. I have heard this fact at least six times in the last two years, every single time the subject of pizza comes up.

I don’t care. But neither do I care to talk about the things that matter to me, with mom or my dad, other than about birds, or the pets, or the color of the leaves changing in the trees. I’ll talk about relatives, but not relatives of friends I only barely know.

I’m not a natural story-teller. I don’t have the gift of gab. This is the depth of my lovelessness and selfishness. My art’s lack, my heart’s lack.

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I got some great news about a new poem the other day. Actually, it was good news times two. The poet whose work I used as the epigraph left me a great message. Humbling in it’s generosity. It made my day, and then not too much later the poem got placed somewhere. (I am a little worried about publishing something that fresh, but can’t resist.) I am still a happy writer. Cause I got another rejection sometime last week.

My mom (and Pop, too) loved her digital photo gift. 175 pictures of pets, Mark, me, hikes, flowers, everything I could think of that she might like.

The folks are coming for a 2-week visit end of August that I am looking forward to and already freaking out about. They drive 1,500 miles so stay long enough to “make it worth their while.” Mostly they park their RV in the driveway and hang out and visit. Visit as in “visit.” They can barely stand to navigate from Arizona to Portland, and won’t  adventure far on their own, as in drive anywhere further than the corner market. They “visit.” Shoot me if I get like that. Please. Love them. But shoot me. I mean it.

There’s a poem in “visit.”

I’m back to work nearly full time and getting paid a consulting salary (a little interrupted funding still, most times, but good to have anyway). I’ve lost the luster of career-love, though, and have a terrible work ethic. Sometimes I think it is one more manifestation of middle age. Or maybe a few serious hobbies I’d rather spend my time on have taken my creative focus and I could give a shit about my “career.”

Ok. ‘Nuff.

Find other confessors, here, at January’s. And soon, very soon, you’ll be able to enjoy a different kind of confessional, where you can confess in secret, behind a little screened window. (I’m gonna do it.) Yep. Look at what Read Write Poem is bringing on next! Fabulous stuff.

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2. I signed up for poetry post card month. I am such a joiner! I have cards collected, in part anyhow, but need to gather them up and make sure I have 31 in hand. (You can sign up, too, if you want to. Here‘s a description of the project with a link to the sign-up. Oh, and read the rules.)

3. I have written a couple of poems lately. I have not written a couple of poems lately.

4. I got two rejections recently, one for a group of poems, one for a group of flash fiction pieces. Yay, me.

5. I finished Angle of Repose and Wintering: A Novel of Sylvia Plath last week. I finished Age of Innocence this week. It’s a strange combination with which to intersperse and read in fragments. I think I enjoyed books more when I read one at a time. I’d like to be a better reader, but then I read blogs like slow reads or porous borders and I am convinced I am a four year old watching the big kids dance tangos while I skip rope, happy to get three or four or ten skips in a row.

Other confessors are over at January’s blog. I think.

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My pen is still; where are strange bus riders & talk? — Oh — it’s commute hour.

“Underemployed” needs a better word, something poor, with less syllables.

My toodoze drift aimlessly — coughs, kin visits, late gifts, take charge of time.

It’s enough, today, to let the keys stutter, to let l-e-t-t-e-r-s alone.

Anticipate: To hold your breathe and wonder, perhaps, if it’s your last.

* * *
17 syllables. All I can manage today. Other confessions are, as always, or usually, or occasionally, at January‘s. (I am fine, don’t let my “anticipation” alarm.)

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I upgraded the blog. Didja notice? It’s okay if you didn’t. Subtle changes, mostly.

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Stoney Moss is a (Facebook) Networked Blog. Add me, if you don’t mind.

Related posts:

1. confessions version 07.07.09
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