tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22531832568005891042024-02-07T04:00:16.858-08:00Alchemy Storyworks- Rose Arrowsmith DeCouxRose Arrowsmith DeCouxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05784417321168052601noreply@blogger.comBlogger31125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2253183256800589104.post-74661180930395056772012-01-28T17:48:00.000-08:002012-01-28T17:50:29.314-08:00Ten Stories in Ten Minutes<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; "><i>An exercise from "Writing Down the Bones," by Natalie Goldberg</i></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></span></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">1. Mango People</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The Mango People* pulled faces at her, the women pulling up their skirts--show yours, show yours--but she wouldn’t. All around her were half-naked brown women and their hair was black and curly--show us yours, show us! They implored, always dancing and moving their eyes this wya, that way.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">No. She wouldn’t. Even though all the friends of the future were over there, waving their saris and showing everything. Only she was alone like that and only she was wearing all of her clothes and still ashamed.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">*in Hindi, “ahm loag,” meaning “common people” literally translates to “mango people.”</span></i></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></span></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">2. The Moon & Venus Go Walking</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The Moon and Venus go walking on a sky beach. The water rushes in after their footsteps, like children trying to catch them, as they walk on like two women who are still young but not uncertain about things the way women so often are.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Their bodies are large and beautiful. They each give off light and so it seems they are one body rippling down the beach. If you asked them they would let you join them, but they talk in murmurs that sound like the waves, or by thinking which sounds like the wind. You can hear them here, all of the time.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></span></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">3. Two Lights Walking</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Two lights walked down the beach, both right at the water’s edge which meant their straight line kept on moving. They were drunk with it, and the moth as large as a hummingbird with a great furry body and black wings was drunk with them, and everyone could read an e.e. cummings poem with eyes closed and feel that much more alive.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></span></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">4. Grammatical Deconstructionist</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">She deconstructed sentences with a pick-ax. She wore a helmet most of the time, (a pinkish-orange). Whe did yoga on 34</span></span><span style="font: 8.0px Times; letter-spacing: 0.0px"><sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">th</span></sup></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> street to keep in shape for it. It was a job for life.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></span></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">5. Palm Trees</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">All the palm trees were fakes. No one ever looks, said the manager. Who has time to water? Put up a sign that says “no climbing, snakes,” and they pay for a cocunut shipped from Columbo. The secret, he said, leaning in, is to always put one of those little umbrellas in the drink.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></span></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">6. Get Me Out of Here</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Get me out of here! shrieked the woman in labor.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">You? cried the child--What about me?</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></span></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">7. Universal</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">It was a tadpole and it could be anything. All it had to do was think of its name and the changes would begin. If it thought </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">tree,</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> then roots and leaves, acorns or cones. If it thought </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">hula hoop</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> then it was all color and roundness and spinning and children playing. If it thought </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">oyster</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> there wasn’t long to go. It could think </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">railway station, rutabega, picture book, oil lamp, fireball, grain of sand, crucifix, lovers’ kiss.</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> Any of these things-- they all began at the same place of the universe.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></span></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">8. Change</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">If only there was a fire, she thought. That would spice things up a bit. </span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Her nails were longer than necessary and she always changed the paint. Now she thinned it with kerosene and made a trail through the apartment.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I don’t hate anyone, she told the cops in her mind, I’m just tired of things always staying the same.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Kerosene and sulfur made a delicious smell.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></span></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">9. Rhinoceros</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">She could not be waiting any more than if she had a sing to carry: “Mr So-&-So”; from “Here to there.” Did she want spare change? A ride to Denver? A supportive husband? World Peace?</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">“Rhinoceros,” she wrote in squeaking black marker on her neatly trimmed square of cardboard. That should do the trick.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></span></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">10. Alone</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">She was afraid of being alone but that’s what she always wanted, and then one Christmas, he gave it to her. It was wrapped up in a medium-sized box--her very own alone suit so she could be with people and still be totally alone.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></span></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">-Rose Arrowsmith DeCoux, </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">9 Jan 2012</span></p>Rose Arrowsmith DeCouxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05784417321168052601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2253183256800589104.post-14617696848527860602011-12-27T22:21:00.000-08:002011-12-27T22:24:19.783-08:00Sauna<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">Now I’m picturing the sauna and coming over across the hill--no snow, I think, but the lake goes back and forth between open water in fall and frozen black and smooth in winter.</span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I see snowflakes begin to fall--I </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">love</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> that deep, pervasive, natural, holy and wholesome quiet--of </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">no one</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> being on the lake--that’s an amazing feeling and hard to fully understand here where there is no true wilderness in my mind--hmm--interesting meaning without the comma. </span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The feeling of walking through the </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">cold</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">--I do miss that kind of cold--not cold indoors but a right and natural cold outside. The layers tucked in correctly and generally feeling I am in the right landscape--by dressing like that, with big boots and the long johns and wintergreen pants, the base layers and thick sweater, the good hat and mittens and scarf-- I feel at peace with the landscape.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">That hill, short as it is with all the new growth. The bare brown of the landscape. the sauna puffing smoke steadily up--the awareness of skin because I will soon be naked and sweating in a glorious, womb-like warmth and then running down the ramp and jumping into the lake. I like all that texture: the weight and fit of the well-worn and broken-in clothes, not dressing for fashion but feeling very good and healthy as a form of beauty, simplicity. I like the texture of the landscape and all its roughness and spikiness that really can be soft like spruce needles or when covered with snow. Then the feel of cedar on bare feet, the feel of air on skin like hot breath. I like the way the steam circles the sauna interior like a slap that is longed for. I like the relative darkness of the sauna, the glow of the fire when stoking it with wood rough in the pile, how cold the air at the bottom is, how hot at the top. The sting of the hot, dry boards on the wall. </span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">After the plunge the amazing sense of oneness with the cold that is suddenly not </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">colder than</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">, only </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Cold</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">. Lungs tasting sweet air and mixing hot and cold air, snowflakes falling, aching cold in ankles and feet making me step in place and eventually run back up the ramp. The absence of shame, the sensation of real cleanness, and then the delicious, forgiving absolution of returning to the warmth, the thirst for water, wringing out of saturated socks and bare feet on wood again. I would be married in a sauna by steam and cold water if I could.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">-Rose Arrowsmith DeCoux, 28 December 2011</span></span></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><i>This was written in my <a href="http://www.thearistsway.com">Morning Pages</a>--three pages of stream of consciousness written first thing in the morning everyday. It is rare that I share this writing because it's a form of meditation (and most often a lot of griping). I've edited very little because I like the MP feel it has. It's written about the sauna on Dominion Island at Wilderness Canoe Base, where I lived from 2008-2011 before moving to India.</i></span></span></p>Rose Arrowsmith DeCouxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05784417321168052601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2253183256800589104.post-52186918630308481432011-12-05T22:22:00.000-08:002011-12-05T22:23:17.981-08:00Musical Theatre Drama<p style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; text-indent: 36px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Times; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">I want to write about musical theatre camp the one summer I went, but it was such a height of drama, actor ego, teen angst and hormones that I still feel completely ashamed and horrified thinking about it. Nothing terrible happened. I didn’t get my period by surprise or trip while saying ‘hi’ to some cute boy--what really makes me squirm is remembering one conversation.</span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">This was the summer before 11</span></span><span style="font: 8.0px Times; letter-spacing: 0.0px"><sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">th</span></sup></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> grade; I wasn’t a little kid and it wasn’t a campy camp. I’m well-versed in summer camps; I’ve attended journaling & juggling camp, science camp, Swedish camp--you name it--even two days of painful vacation bible school. This was a camp with some prestige, one I wasn’t at all embarrassed to tell my small-town, non-camp-going friends about. After all, I was about to transfer to a residential arts high school in September for theatre.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I love theatre, I love acting, I love the magic of creating new worlds, but around actors I have become insecure, and it all started that summer. There was, and is, an edge to everything. Every conversation could and would turn to your list of credits, and that was when the real drama began.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">There were maybe eight of us, all including ourselves in the Cool Crowd, all playing our parts. I especially remember Zach, who was zitty and obnoxiously gay; the guy with purple Converse high tops and a matching beret on his long, curly blonde hair who was clearly and unabashedly and, yes, theatrically in love with me; and Christian, who was tall and thin with prominent cheekbones and an on-and-off pretty face who I ended up going to high school with but who I never could like after this conversation.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">We were lounging in a practice room one afternoon between dance and music rehearsals. I suppose we were sprawled on couches and eating junk food. As it had to with a room full of a critical mass of high school actors, the conversation turned into a competition.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The thing about these nasty little battles for the top of the heap is that they are always veiled. This one started with an off-handed remark, probably a complaint, about a show someone did, as in, “God, the costumes were awful when I was Tommy in </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Brigadoon</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">!”</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">That was all it took. “Oh, I know what you mean! When I was Dorothy we had the worst props master and Toto was a ceramic dog and broke halfway through the show!”</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The ante upped, the lights were on. The leading role was a bored and exquisitely nonchalant artiste who couldn’t care less if anyone knew how many Oscars were in her closet (there were five, by the way), or who else his agent had repped back before they were a hotshot in Hollywood (Brad Pitt, since you asked).</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I watched this game, this dance, with mild curiosity. I had gotten a whiff of it before, but only briefly. I was a small town talent--I got a lot of leads in the plays and there was some cattiness but everyone pretty much accepted their roles, both in the plays and in school life, and expected it.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The pitch rose--Christian, lounging in an armchair with her legs dangling glamorously over the side, tossed her wavy dark hair over a pale shoulder and murmured something about Shakespeare. Maybe her joining the fray was what did it--maybe it was the sense that I would be left behind if I didn’t jump on this ride. I flipped my own hair (much longer and straighter and blonder) over my tan shoulder and said, “Well, my brag story is that I was Maria in </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">West Side Story</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">.”</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The room went cold. Only my admirer in his purple beret managed to make eye contact with me, and only for a moment. Christian fixed me with a look of utter disdain. Only now, a dozen years later, do I wonder if it was because I broke the rules. I acknowledged the competition when the game was to win by pretending you weren’t trying at all.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I never felt truly comfortable with actors after that. I was always suspicious, always waiting for the game to start again with a hooded, venomous drawl-- “I remember when I was…”</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I left the glitzy proscenium theatre, finding other, purer forms of performance for myself. I still love the stage, the smell of the woodshop and the costume room, the cakey feel of the make-up. I love the magic--I just don’t like the drama.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">-Rose Arrowsmith DeCoux</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">28 November 2011</span></span></p>Rose Arrowsmith DeCouxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05784417321168052601noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2253183256800589104.post-49900641743446417162011-12-05T21:56:00.000-08:002011-12-05T21:58:33.182-08:00The Sock Goblin<p style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; text-indent: 36px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Times; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">The Sock Goblin was hungry again. Things had been rough since the tall boy had left in the early fall. When he was around the Sock Goblin didn’t even have to dig in the dryer, he could just pluck a few stinky tube socks off the floor and go right home to his nest on the hot water pipe. And now it was cold outside--this was the favorite season of sock goblins everywhere and why there were so few of his kind down in the warmer climates. He had heard they ate shoes, but he couldn’t imagine it himself.</span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Now there was only the middle-sized girl and the small boy. The girl kept her socks rolled in pairs in her top drawer, rarely leaving anything on the floor, or clean laundry on her bed. It was a high climb to reach the top drawer and hard to push open from the top of the dresser. Then there was the problem of missing socks being noticed right away. If he had to steal them out of a drawer he preferred one that was a heaping mound of single socks--one so full the drawer hardly ever closed completely. Then he could just stick a bony hand inside, rummage around with his eyes closed as if fishing on a riverbank, and pull out a surprise. He was good at guessing the quality, size and material with just a touch and it was a satisfying game he played with himself. </span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">No, just thinking of the neatly ordered drawer of paired socks lined up by pattern and color made him shudder. He would no sooner take a matching pair than he would eat a piece of cheese or step out the front door.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The small boy was careless enough with his socks, but his feet were still small, and his mother was always hurrying after him and picking up his dropped articles. The Sock Goblin sighed. It was going to be a skimpy winter, he knew it.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">It was midday and he was hungry. His raid last night had been cut short when the mother suddenly appeared in the laundry room and started folding things. He had had to dart out before she realized she had dropped one of the girl’s socks, and then hid, breathless, while she searched all over for it. It was a slap in the face when she pulled one of the big smelly tube socks out from under the dryer. How had he missed it? She put it in the washing machine with the rest of the load and left the matchless lace-fringed sock on top of the dryer as a reminder to look harder tomorrow.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The Sock Goblin was so hungry he actually thought of climbing up and taking it--then he shuddered. What was he coming to? No self-respecting sock goblin would even consider such a thing! He, like all his kin, knew immediately if the lone sock in question was mate to one he had already eaten. These orphan socks were left where they lay.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The Sock Goblin peered out of the laundry room. There wasn’t any point in even checking the lint trap after watching the mother clean it out last night. He would have to go into the big house. He darted across the floor to the kitchen because it offered the best view of the living room. With another quick scan he dashed behind the couch. He could hear the mother upstairs and the sound of water, but he couldn’t let himself get lazy.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">He crawled under the couch and clawed with his long fingers between the cushions. Nothing but coins and some Chapstick--he threw it out in disgust. For a moment he thought his luck had changed, but the woolly thing stuck behind the end table was a mitten. The Sock Goblin studied it. His stomach growled but he just couldn’t do it and he wedged it back where it had been with a sigh.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">He covered the whole room, even flattening himself and scrambling under the rug, but all he got for his troubles was a piece of old candy and a mouthful of dust bunnies. he spat them to and they scowled at him, rolling off and muttering and cheeping to each other. He grumbled back--what choices were left to a poor sock goblin in hard times like these?</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">He was in the play room when the doorbell rang. He froze and listened--he could get out through the floor vent if he had to, but it was a tight squeeze and there were likely to be more territorial dust bunnies at its entrance.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">He cocked his wide head and perked up a leathery, pointed ear. There was a voice he didn’t recognize. The mother was talking and then another voice. The Sock Goblin crept out and peeked from behind a potted fern. What he saw made him go almost limp with delight--he had heard stories about such things when he was just a young goblin and his grandfather was still alive, but he had never hoped to experience such a thing himself.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Standing in the entryway was a boy with long arms and legs that gave him away as a guaranteed sock-dropper. but his skin was olive-tan and his clothes and shoes looked different from those of the house family’s. The Sock Goblin listened, still hardly daring to hope, but then he heard them, those words every sock goblin dreams about: Foreign Exchange Student. The Sock Goblin nearly swooned when he heard the next word: Italy. He rubbed his bony hands together and grinned with wicked delight. The wind had certainly turned--he would have a fine winter, feasting on the exotic flavors of fine Italian merino, [silk and cashmere].</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">-Rose Arrowsmith DeCoux</span></span></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">29 November 2011</span></span></p>Rose Arrowsmith DeCouxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05784417321168052601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2253183256800589104.post-72278050800862275012011-07-16T12:25:00.001-07:002011-07-16T12:25:49.292-07:00Sex & Fireworks: a poem<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">Sex &</span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> Fireworks--</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">the slow build, the</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">patience of</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> anticipation.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Darkening sky &</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> only silhouettes, bodies</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> lit in flashes,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> appreciative</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> oohs &</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> ahhs.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The Grand Finale</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">comes in under 15 minutes--</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> no one</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> is disappointed--</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">lawn chairs & blankets,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">bugspray &</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">the perfect spot,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">all the preparations</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">only added to</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> the simple satisfaction--</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">the show delivered,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">building from</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> slow to fast,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> small to big,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">finishing off</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> with a string of brilliant</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> sound & color</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">too fast to follow, each</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">explosion interlacing</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">with the next & </span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">lasting longer than</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">expected.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Then-- silence.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Dusky dark blue sky</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">luminous from within,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> trail of floating smoke</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> carried elegantly away</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> by the wind, then,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">cheers--</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">tasteful applause</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> for expectations met,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">for a flamboyant expression</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> of the American Dream.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Then--</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> cars start up</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> chairs are folded,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> lights turn on,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">the magic is over;</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">everyone goes home to their beds,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">sleeps well</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> all through the night,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">arms around</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> the ones they love.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> Happy</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">4</span></span><span style="font: 8.0px Times; letter-spacing: 0.0px"><sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">th</span></sup></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> of July.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">-Rose Arrowsmith DeCoux, 4 July 2011</span></span></p>Rose Arrowsmith DeCouxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05784417321168052601noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2253183256800589104.post-87782011974499742062011-07-16T12:23:00.000-07:002011-07-16T12:24:16.749-07:00Gyspy Earth: a poem<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">She cried at the sink</span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">when we left-- but we</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">were relieved.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">A week of</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> working through our demons,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">family standoffs &</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">miscommunications.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">On to the next town</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">with our yellow gypsy caravan!</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Set up our tents &</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">put on the show,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> bright colors & </span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> sleight of hand</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">dazzling everyone, even</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> ourselves-- then,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">pull up the stakes</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">& go again.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Eventually</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> the wheels will appear</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> to stop.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Our travels</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> will appear to be over,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">the horizon</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> within our reach.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">But still the world turns,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> spinning in her gypsy skirt,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">orbiting the ancestral fire</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">attended by her sisters,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> dancing with the gods.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">She rests in</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> her own rhythm, </span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">tsunamis</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> earthquakes</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> fires</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> drought--</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">they don’t stop her because</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">living is moving,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> only death</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> lies still,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> & only for a moment, then</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">the worms rise up,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> pall bearers to</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">a worthy grave.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The earth reclaims her own,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">buries & renews</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> herself,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> gathers up her people</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> travels</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> always</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> on.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">-Rose Arrowsmith DeCoux, 4 July 2011</span></span></p>Rose Arrowsmith DeCouxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05784417321168052601noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2253183256800589104.post-57261212386323970612011-06-23T20:21:00.000-07:002011-06-23T20:23:30.930-07:00What Repeats: a poem<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">Home </span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">is what repeats--</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">same door</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">same keys</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> dropping into the same</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> blue dish,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">same fingers finding</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> light switches</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> in the dark.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Same sounds out the window, same</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> portion of horizon--</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I repeat.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Me & my husband</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> & son.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">We repeat.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Suitcases & </span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">t-shirts (two)</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">shorts & pants</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">notebooks &</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">bedtime lullabies.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">These are the constants now--</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">different kitchens</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> hallways</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> night lights</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">sunrises;</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">new dishes & spoons</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">& rules for living--</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> clean up here,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> relax there.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Bring your own groceries;</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">eat grandma’s hot dish.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">What’s the lesson?</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">If I remain steady now,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> sane & on course</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">with every little inlet,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">every reef of coral</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">forcing a tack</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">& constant vigilance;</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">If I am learning</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">to captain by feel,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">keep my eyes on the stars</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">who are constant travelers, too</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">can’t I go anywhere?</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Do anything?</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Be</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> anyone?--</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">In all our travels</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I return to my inner course,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">my own Golden Compass,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">having faith in it</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">because it speaks to me,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">truer every time</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I listen well.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">--</span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Take a depth charge!</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">--</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The voices call out </span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">from their posts in the darkness.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Wind propels us,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> the breath of God.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Angels, then--</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> is that who climbs the rigging,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">helps mend the sails?</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Bails water out beside me</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> down below?</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> As good as.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The rope comes up, </span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> silent & slick</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">on its oiled pulley--</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">the reading confirms it,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> what the map</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> the compass</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> the stars</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> have all been telling me:</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> I am not alone.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The ship sails on</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">with me at the helm</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> when the watch is mine,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">but also when I sleep--</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Who steers it then?</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Who do I trust</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> never seeing their faces?</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Wind,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Waves, yes,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">but even more--</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> Friends.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Sail on,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> sail on--</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">home repeats,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">tomorrow waits.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">-Rose Arrowsmith DeCoux; 23/6/11</span></span></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><i>I'm thinking a lot about what "home" means during this nomadic couple of months before we move to India. Read more on our <a href="http://www.arrowsmithdecoux.blogspot.com">family blog.</a></i></span></p>Rose Arrowsmith DeCouxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05784417321168052601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2253183256800589104.post-67457576091413232542011-06-20T16:06:00.000-07:002011-06-20T16:07:24.381-07:00Bean Field: a poem<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Bean Field</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The Sun looks down with </span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">equal interest</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">on woods & prairie,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Minnesota & India, on</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> my childhood</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> my future, on</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> Thoreau’s bean fields.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Give up--he says--</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> not only the first fruits</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> but the last; Trust</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> as the woods do</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> to the squirrel; Rejoice</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">in the harvest of seeds</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> for the birds</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">though your own granary </span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> stands empty.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">But what shall I do as I wait?</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Make the earth say ‘beans’</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> instead of ‘grass’--</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">again I must ask</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">What is my grass?</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Which are my beans?</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I stand, now,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> with hoe in hand</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> not knowing </span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> which end is up or</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">which plant be friend</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">or enemy.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">What am I sowing here? Or</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> what am I meant to tend,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Seeds having been long sown,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> broken though their small husks & </span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">reaching green & </span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> unhesitant into the light?</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">My child</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> of course. But</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> he is so </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">old</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">!</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">16 months &</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I think</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> he doesn’t need me.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Not truly for sleep or milk</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> he can get both food & rest</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> from another.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I am as an old farmer</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">watching the big machines</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">do the work that once was mine,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">shared with horse &</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> simple plow taking</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> many days & </span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">leaving me tired</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> & satisfied.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">What now?</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> Progress leaves me behind</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">not wanting</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">the noisy diesel but</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">feeling ashamed</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> of my patched dungarees.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Beans, beans--</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I seem to have traded them</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> for a cow,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">traded house & home</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> & mother</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">to a strange old man</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">who knew my name,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> who made me believe.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> Now they have grown up!</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Towering above me,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> these bean-dreams</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> that seemed so</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> innocent & small!</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">They sway</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> carrying scents of curry,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> sounds of strange music,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> clinks of gold--</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">do I dare?</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">This is my harvest--</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> a ladder into the sky,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> a green & verdant journey</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">to another world.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">-Rose Arrowsmith DeCoux</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">20 June 2011</span></span></p>Rose Arrowsmith DeCouxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05784417321168052601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2253183256800589104.post-4063133238250924722011-04-23T20:27:00.001-07:002011-04-23T20:30:13.783-07:00Moonflower<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijG694-K3tUWkJ8H4MypPP5lOUf8geW0zrnm5bicxDq_b4kOOGgyL1-h8-JLLP1F5N6g3INFpD_hCRiby6m8KcF3wVj8NmihY821t3aN_LhYgZgXY-G2gY350j5QRxTT-x9kQK5LvmTYDn/s1600/moonflower+and+moth+by+anita+munman.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 245px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijG694-K3tUWkJ8H4MypPP5lOUf8geW0zrnm5bicxDq_b4kOOGgyL1-h8-JLLP1F5N6g3INFpD_hCRiby6m8KcF3wVj8NmihY821t3aN_LhYgZgXY-G2gY350j5QRxTT-x9kQK5LvmTYDn/s320/moonflower+and+moth+by+anita+munman.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5598986838784781362" /></a><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">She stood by the climbing moonflower vine as the light faded from the sky. Her eyes were still puffy and red though it had been two hours since she’d last cried--her final sobs reaching their peak as she crossed the bridge and saw the beginning of the sunset, red, over the city.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Now she was waiting the way she always had, barefoot, outside and alone, waiting for the night to swell up around her and bring her comfort. As a teenager she had run out through the empty field where her grandfather’s cattle had once grazed; the grass was thick with clover and springy under her feet. When </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">they</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> were arguing she would stand in her pajamas until the cold of the dew made her legs tremble with shivers, until the moon rose up and the moonflowers opened.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">She had rented this house because of the expansive plant at its southern corner. The minute she drove up the gravel drive and spied the great, fat buds “like swirls of soft ice cream”* she had known she would pay whatever the landlord asked. In the end, it had been a good price and it had been a good place for her. An empty outbuilding nearby had become her pottery studio and what had seemed to most people to be a passing whim--a few extra credits her senior year of college, was now close to becoming her vocation. She had made the jury cut and had a tent booked at the Stone Arch Bridge Art Festival later this month. She should be throwing pots now, she knew, but she didn’t move. The dark settled in around her. She waited.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">They had had an argument--not anything very different from any others, but this time he was more insistent, or she more stubborn--she wasn’t sure.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">“Marry me,” he had said. “Damn it, Ava, be sensible and marry me!”</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">She couldn’t say for sure what had made her say no--made her flat-out refuse instead of being coy and tactful. But then he had made some off-hand remark about her pottery, about how his recent promotion would provide them with more than enough and she could “keep her hobby” at least until they had children. That had made her angry, but she was old enough to sense that it had only scratched the surface of something deeper. She hadn’t expected to snap at him, but then wasn’t surprised when she did. She watched, as if from over her own shoulder as the argument turned from catty to heated. In the height of it she had closed her eyes and thought of this moment, outside, barefoot, waiting for the moonflowers to open, and it had brought her back to the meadow outside her childhood home. Her eyes had snapped open then.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">“I will never marry you, Ricky!” she had said with such venom and certainty that her boyfriend-of-three-years’s jaw had dropped slightly open and hung there, gaping.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">“I’ll go spend fifty bucks on a vibrator and another fifty on a bottle of wine [throw all the dame pots that I want] and get on with my life!”</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The fight had only escalated after that, of course--how could it not? They had never spoken to each other that way; those words would have stung anyone.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">“I was just so tired of dealing with his--” she whispered to herself in the dark, then stopped. A flutter of wings rushed by her head and she opened her eyes.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The moon had come up without her noticing. It was behind her and, thin though it was, it illuminated the enormous buds so they nearly glowed. A second sphinx moth whirred past her ear, loud as a hummingbird, and Ava saw the first flower open.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">It did not unfurl or open delicately. The six-inch pearl-green petals snapped apart like the smacking of a pair of lips released from the furtive embrace of the long, hot day. A light breeze swirled the air and, “Oh, God,” she groaned with pained pleasure: the smell.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">She stood there until well past midnight, unaware of the passing of time, thinking of nothing but the moonflowers, counting them as they spread themselves before her, one, two, three, sixty, </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">eighty</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">! She was giddy with delight, drunk on the lushness of it all--their rich perfume swathing her, the sphinx moths beating the air, brushing against her until her skin, her whole body was humming! She swayed and hummed a silent melody, she stepped out of her bitter sadness, she drank in dew through the soles of her feet.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">At last when the last moth had moved on--flown to the rich and drooping lilac bush beyond the drive, she shook her wavy head, turned her face up to the million stars.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">“Thank you,” she thought.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Though it was early summer and the nights were still cool, she left her bedroom windows open to the south. Alone in her double bed in her simple white nightgown, with the hoot of owls, the steady chirrup of courting frogs, and the mixture of lilac and moonflower floating in the window, Ava fell asleep.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The night was her lover and she was completely content.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">-Rose Arrowsmith DeCoux</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">*quotation: Jenny Andrews, </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Garden Design</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">, May/June 2010, “Plant Palette”</span></span></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">photo by Anita Munman: Moonflower & Moth</span></i></span></p>Rose Arrowsmith DeCouxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05784417321168052601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2253183256800589104.post-32991829191304436262011-04-23T14:35:00.001-07:002011-04-23T14:38:26.496-07:00The Golden Courtier<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrcxZjzVIrw_EjqedNyqK8c9iVFmx16CgEwqQJmy2QWoe_G_76xgaUdNJANqyolUlTkbjkSOjrqru9QCmpedVseGPbof5ZdKYWiN8Br6KM6nPxMRkmsqqEYYgR3pZpsn9TKjKShoOOEDA0/s1600/golden+courtier+mum.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 197px; height: 132px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrcxZjzVIrw_EjqedNyqK8c9iVFmx16CgEwqQJmy2QWoe_G_76xgaUdNJANqyolUlTkbjkSOjrqru9QCmpedVseGPbof5ZdKYWiN8Br6KM6nPxMRkmsqqEYYgR3pZpsn9TKjKShoOOEDA0/s320/golden+courtier+mum.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5598896110634717362" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">“Oh, my,” she said, shaking her head so that the thin-stemmed feathers on her hat quivered. “This is simply mind-boggling.”</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The two women, the older in her Sunday hat, the younger in black pants and jacket with an orchid-purple scarf knotted at her throat, stood in the entrance of the greenhouse. Damp, warm air swirled slowly around them, inviting, but the gray-haired woman stayed where she was, gloved hands clasping her purse.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">“They’re just flowers, Mom,” said the younger one.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">“Oh, no,” said her mother. “Mums.” This she breathed as if the very word was a perfume from long ago, from a younger, more vital time in her life.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The daughter shook her head, then stopped herself, her brown hair rustling silkily against her neat jacket. Her voice was softer this time, “Let’s just pick out the displays, all right? We shouldn’t be late.”</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">This time her mother allowed Rebecca to take her hand and lead her slowly down the far left aisle. Her feathers quivered anew as she turned her head left, right, left, right, and Rebecca thought how much she looked like a little bird: eyes bright, head cocked, lips parted.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">They walked past the standard daisy-style flowers--Rebecca had to squint to read the names. Her townhouse was filled with hardy green plants like ficus and palm and jade--plants that no one expected to burst into bloom. She didn’t consider herself a gardener, but then, she didn’t consider her mother to be one either, though Vivian could nurse any bedraggled houseplant back to life.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">“Sing to them, dearie,” her mother had told her once when she came to reclaim custody of a Christmas cactus the orange tabby had gnawed to a pitiful state. This was before Dad had gotten sick. Rebecca had put a hand on her hip and said, “</span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">really</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">?” expecting her mother to laugh at her own joke, but Vivian had only raised an eyebrow and pursed her lips in a distinct, mysterious way that was entirely out of character and said no more. Some years later, when Rebecca had found the bags of fertilizer out in the tool shed, after they had moved Dad to the home and she and her brother, Kevin, were helping clean up the yard, she had clucked at her own gullibility. While she had never gotten the nerve to actually sing to her plants, she had allowed herself to hum along to the radio when the classics came on, glancing self-consciously at them where they sat in the big windows that looked out over the city. Anything more than that and she would risk being reminded of the cello still in storage in her mother’s upstairs hall closet, and guilt and failure would settle in like mist. Easier to just bring the plants to Mom’s house like wayward grandchildren and leave it at that.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">“Look at this, Rebecca.” Her mother’s voice, still soft and rapturous, pulled her back and she instinctively took a deep breath in, feeling the living, fertile moisture fill her lungs. She turned.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Vivian was fingering a bloom bigger than her hat. Its scalloped petals curled over each other, forming an almost-perfect sphere of orangey gold.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">“A Golden Courtier,” said her mother with that same faraway whisper that Rebecca had never heard before in her life.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">“It has to be this one.” She touched the petals once more, tenderly, then, with a small sigh, like a child who must leave her longed-for favorite doll in the toy shop yet another day she returned the little gloved hand to her purse. “I’m ready,” was all she said, but her voice, though soft, was direct now and Rebecca was startled to have her mother’s eyes meet hers, all the dreaminess gone out of them, a touch of her tiredness from the past three years showing in them again.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">“Are--are you sure, Mom?” she asked. “Don’t you want to look at these?” She swept a hand past the thistle and quill mums with their thin petals and wild colors; her mother was already shaking her head, sending the little feathers bobbing resolutely.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">“All right,” Rebecca sighed. “How many?” She waved a garden boy in a canvas apron and work gloves over and he loaded the plants onto a wagon and into the back of her SUV. Rebecca paid with a card, scribbled her signature. Vivian was already belted and ready when she got to the car and started it up.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">They pulled onto the highway in silence. When they reached the first crossroad, Rebecca cleared her throat. “Everything ok, Mom?”</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">An almost imperceptible nod. “Oh yes, I’m fine.” And then, “These will be perfect.” Just a hint of that dreaminess returned, a ripple of youth flowed over her face once more and then was gone. Rebecca thought of how much of her mother she would never know, and they drove in silence the rest of the way to the funeral.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">-Rose Arrowsmith DeCoux</span></span></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><i>p.s. Inspiration comes in many forms... in this case, a Garden Design magazine!</i></span></span></p>Rose Arrowsmith DeCouxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05784417321168052601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2253183256800589104.post-46323918270479132022011-04-13T09:40:00.000-07:002011-04-13T09:42:07.617-07:00Delight in Spring<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFRGrmgBsVXrVHsTbJ6d4MWU3tbddhZUaSBHoR1eF2ZX4XVPSp8WOWLRLjkWaF_0TAZ9uLQ5nED1tPi8rrs3dtT1bIFpTKAiLZ1s817H7wPOqyGiO3xYU31N68WqdLk_jbMv0QvEiYeJNQ/s1600/Photo+on+2011-04-13+at+11.31+%25232.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFRGrmgBsVXrVHsTbJ6d4MWU3tbddhZUaSBHoR1eF2ZX4XVPSp8WOWLRLjkWaF_0TAZ9uLQ5nED1tPi8rrs3dtT1bIFpTKAiLZ1s817H7wPOqyGiO3xYU31N68WqdLk_jbMv0QvEiYeJNQ/s320/Photo+on+2011-04-13+at+11.31+%25232.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5595109309649075842" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span><p style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; text-indent: 36px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Times; "><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I’m sitting outside facing east, facing the still-bare trees and beyond them, Lake Superior. Cars hum by steadily on the road between, but I don’t see them because the tangling bushes are thick together, even without their leaves.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">A pair of crocuses have begun to open, near the house, well-protected from the wind but in the full force of the sun. It’s April and the sun is hot and the wind, cool. </span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Flies buzz and are still confused after their hibernation. I heard a robin yesterday for the first time this year and didn’t recognize it. It wasn’t until I saw a flash of rusty red breast that I guessed it. More are trilling their throaty songs now, “chirp, chirp, chirp, chirrup!”</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Wind sweeps through the red pine, balsam and spruce. Chickadees squeak. I don’t hear any incensed red squirrels, but it’s only a matter of time. They are territorial and aggravated by “love” this time of year.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The grass still matches the rather tired brown of the deer who wander freely into the yard, but upon closer examination there is green beneath the dead stuff.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Ennis played outside for the first time yesterday. Of course, we’ve gone on walks since he was born (and before that) in all sorts of weather, but yesterday, still in his soft winter boots, I set him down on the asphalt driveway and waited.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">He waited. He stood, solid, unmoving, looking around with a half-grin, his eye brows furrowed in the sun. At last he took a few steps, but it was sitting on the lawn that delighted him</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">He picked up spruce cones and blown down sprigs, handing each one to me with pleasure. When I showed him how the dry aspen leaves were so light I could blow them from my palm with a puff, he giggled with surprise and delight! He handed me leaf after leave and laughed to himself again and again. Then he clutched at clumps of dry grass and tossed them in the air. (When I told him that spruce cones are only food for squirrels, if he didn’t understand he at least obligingly enjoyed them without eating them.)</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The ravens are calling. I learned yesterday that crows don’t stay here through the winter, and that the raven’s tail is pointed while the crow’s tail is flat. I have seen them flying, all black but for the strand of nest material they are bringing home.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">All these animals (and insects) make their homes anew in the spring. Maybe they return to the same tree or nest, but still they are rebuilding, reinforcing. Perhaps we miss the newness and renewal of this season by staying inside our same old houses and apartments, only finally packing up the Christmas decorations in preparation for the chicks and bunnies of Easter.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">But a good ten minute meditation in the sun on someone’s back deck makes up some of the difference. Out in the hum and chirp and caw of spring all the old wonder and appreciation comes back, like a long-frozen mother tongue. We respond to the sudden, cool wind with a shiver, to the warbling bird with a cocked head, to the wonderfully bright sun with a squint. We pick up spruce cones, we touch the dry grasses and see the new life pushing up beneath them, we delight in the day, in the earth and the sky, in spring.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">-Rose Arrowsmith DeCoux</span></span></p>Rose Arrowsmith DeCouxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05784417321168052601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2253183256800589104.post-52459042115400191712011-03-04T21:26:00.000-08:002011-03-04T21:30:48.855-08:00The Big Hurrumph Takes a Honeymoon<div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times; font-size: 12px; "><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">“Don’t steal my dessert!”</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">* or “</span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Let there be space in your togetherness.</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">”**</span></span></div> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I haven’t exactly said either to Jay while traveling, but of course actions speak louder than words. In any case, I didn’t bicker with him over our dessert of fresh, quartered, naked figs served by candlelight on the French Mediterranean and garnished with just-as-fresh raspberries. We were on our honeymoon. Not that that meant we were fully compatible travelers yet.</span></span></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">When we first met (out in North Dakota, made almost exotic by our fascination with each other) we spent the last of the four days up late talking at a Perkins. (Again, our enthusiasm provided all the necessary charm). Though we hadn’t kissed or even really flirted yet, we planned our world travels together excitedly, I promising to take him to Prague and around Belgium, and he vowing to show me India.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">That was October. By March we had been engaged for three months and I had invited him to join me on my trip to England to visit my granny in Leicester and meet my great-uncle Peter and his family in Manchester. Jay is Irish by heritage, so we added in a train trip through Wales and a ferry ride to Dublin (and then took a night buss across the country to Ennis, the hometown of his ancestors).</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">It was a full trip, made up of both the new and familiar. We had home cooked Belgian dishes with my granny but spent more time exploring skin than the nearby village (which I had seen many times before). Then, on to Nottingham and uncharted territories of both place, people and, to my surprise, self.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">By the time we got to Manchester, I was so surly I could hardly stand myself. Or </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">understand</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> myself. I loved traveling, I loved Jay--what was wrong with me?At Nottingham castle he climbed ivy-covered stones and swung like a kid from</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">the long metal railing going up the drive. I took his picture only to mask my annoyance. When I posed outside of Grumpy’s pub my scowl was heartfelt and a relief.</span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">So, after meeting my relatives I finally begged for a chance to split up. We each photographed the city independently, and I felt much more friendly when we reunited at the fountain by the train station. But I also felt like a bad dog who had snapped at the leash and run off for the day and now, at dinner time, had snuck guiltily back--covered in muck and trying to appear winning and penitent, but not regretting a moment of independence.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">That night we took a walk after supper and found a Gilbert & Sullivan play at a small theatre. Afterward, in an attempt to bridge the gap with my rather silent fiance, I made up a story on the spot as both explanation and request for forgiveness. It went something like this:</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Turkey Lurkey and the Big Hurrumph were out walking. Turkey Lurkey was so happ</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">y! “Look at the sunshine! Look at the swans! Look at the red telephone booths!”</span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">“Hurrumph. Hurrumph, hurrumph,” said the Big Hurrumph and looked at nothing.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">“Oh, let’s go to that cafe!” cried Turkey Lurkey in excitement.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">“Hurrumph,” said the Big Hurrumph and shuffled by.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">“Ok, ok, I know--let’s go to that museum! Or to that theatre!”</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">“Hurrumph. Hurrumph!”</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">No matter what happy little Turkey Lurkey suggested, the Big Hurrumph refused, settling deeper and deeper into the gloom, until at last it spread to Turkey Lurkey and he grew quiet.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">They walked in silence for a while. And for a while longer. Turkey Lurkey didn’t point out the funny mail boxes or the double-decker buses. He didn’t suggest they get cornettos and walk through the park. The light began</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">to fade but Turkey Lurkey didn’t seem to notice anything. The Big Hurrumph started to miss all his cheerful chatter.</span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">“Hurrumph?” said the Big Hurrumph hopefully, looking over at Turkey Lurkey from under his shaggy eyebrows.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Turkey Lurkey didn’t look up.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">“Hurrumph, hurrumph?” said the Big Hurrumph again, opening his mouth into a tentative, craggy grin.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Turkey Lurkey only sniffed.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">“Hurrumph!” cried the Big Hurrumph. “Hurrumph, hurrumph!” He hopped up and down and pointed at the mail boxes. He pointed at the swimming swans. He pointed at the tiny cars going the wrong way down the narrow roads.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Turkey Lurkey straightened up a bit and looked warily at him.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">“Hurrumph, hurrumph, hurrumph!” he shouted madly. He grabbed Turkey Lurkey’s hand. “Hurrumph, hurrumph!” and he started to run; he started to skip as hard as he could. Turkey Lurkey dragged along in amazement for a moment, then a grin broke out over his face and he kicked up his feet, too, and Turkey Lurkey and the Big Hurrumph skipped crazily down the street until at last they came to a little cafe spilling light out onto the cobblestones and they ate chocolate eclairs and lady fingers and drank Irish co</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">ffee and got whipped cream mustaches and laughed and laughed, though the Big Hurrumph’s laugh still did sound mostly like “hurrumph.”</span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Jay and I walked in silence for a while after I told that story, me still with the guilty-hopeful-naughty puppy look. We both knew which one of us was which in the story. How did he feel about a future spouse like that? Turns out, the same way Turkey Lurkey felt about the Big Hurrumph. We held hands the rest of the way home.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Sometimes I am still the Big Hurrumph, but at least now I know it, and he knows it and we don’t feel so doomed about taking precautions: allowing me time to explore alone. Because for whatever reason, that is how I still think of travel. Maybe it came down in my blood from my solo-traveler mother. Maybe it’s my artistic nature or my oldest sibling nature or the fact that though I’m very socially capable, I’m actually an introvert. Regardless of the reason, our trip to England taught me that no matter whe</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">re I travel or with whom, (and no matter how much I love either) I must take a half or full day to myself by Day Three to keep the Hurrumph at bay.</span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Still, I romantically mused that this need for </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Me Time</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> wouldn’t apply to our honeymoon. I was wrong, but thankfully we recognized the tell-tale signs right away. Jay left our little hotel for the morning and I wrote in my journal on the balcony looking out over the residential part of the city and the sea beyond. With much less fuss than the first time we resuscitated our enjoyment of the Cote d’Azure. We walked to the beach and bought a parasailing ride in a double-harness parachute pulled high up over the waves by a skipping speed boat, the rest of the world far below us and the two of us dangling our feet and holding hands in complete delight. We swam and do</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">ve, we watched old men playing bocce ball. We ate crepes and read aloud to each other on the sand. That night, after a day full of both time alone and time together, after a rich meal and a bottle of mellow wine, we savored the co</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">mplementary freshness and simplicity of our tender figs, our thin-skinned raspberries, and we began to learn how to do the same with ourselves.</span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span></span><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-nnn7Xac_jtkoK4Q-4MUyC5oBGbaIoMWOis6PMe5JRkB9v6k4M_3WuIZelHwFXuc-3TNzIp0jOyZpANN8_Ck3fYInrJRWxUuPlkpCHg9pqZ7-A7Mqh1xDEespveZ6oh_exvCTBGEBiHoX/s320/Photo+on+2011-03-04+at+22.44+%25233.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5580463342518782610" /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">*from “The Art of Travel” by Alain de Boton</span></i></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">**from “The Prophet” by Kahlil Gibran</span></i></span></p>Rose Arrowsmith DeCouxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05784417321168052601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2253183256800589104.post-63180922887811336602011-02-27T13:19:00.000-08:002011-02-27T13:22:11.302-08:00Persephone's Descent<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7nG8Ri8CfnjCPHxObjOoVBTqLJYpvK1oPLy2E3JnjXU5xCDnlmcUDrG1gcCYqnSr6VvqnsxawwyD8yW8nx8rLpUJSttHVz96UB9xvhJBWe5Ll-2Zn3ykCo6vFqVsOhfR4F5C-eBhoB0vG/s1600/pomegranate.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 210px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7nG8Ri8CfnjCPHxObjOoVBTqLJYpvK1oPLy2E3JnjXU5xCDnlmcUDrG1gcCYqnSr6VvqnsxawwyD8yW8nx8rLpUJSttHVz96UB9xvhJBWe5Ll-2Zn3ykCo6vFqVsOhfR4F5C-eBhoB0vG/s320/pomegranate.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5578482603990230338" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span><p style="text-align: left;margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; text-indent: 36px; font: normal normal normal 14px/normal Times; "><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">When Persephone went down into the earth, down into the underworld on the back of Hades’s big, black horse, she was terrified and thrilled. He was easy to hate and love, easy to blame.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">But what did she find down there? First strangeness, then sameness that bored her to agony and tears, but then--she took out her glass eyes and bent low, saw the lichen growing on the bare rock, eating slowly away at it, crumbling it to earth without counting the hours by a clock. Down in the unchanging dimness she finally, gradually began to stop looking for the sun or stars to tell her what to do or where to be (or even where she was). She stopped looking for her mother, she settled down inside herself and even the whisperings of minor and more cunning devils fell away to the shadows and she heard them no more than she heard the wind. She found solitude, she found darkness, and one day at the table with Hades, her host and husband, he offered her a pomegranate.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">It was roundish and bulging, already cracked open so that its burnished skin seemed illogically dull compared to its fruit.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The seeds were wet but held their moisture to themselves and, unlike in the tender fig, each one was its own little orb; each one sat, pressed snugly into the protective white pith, further armored by the dull red-black sheath. Here was a marriage proposal like none she had ever received, and even though by all standards of the upper world she had already lost herself and her name to Hades, he sat and looked at her across the black table with his black eyes, waiting for her response.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">And she saw his eyes were not only black, but dark like the earth around them, veined and flecked with bronze, gold, pewter, copper and many-colored stone. She saw that the hell she had thought herself in was in fact a womb, the house of the Mother. That her captor was in fact her guide and deliverer and the three-headed dog that guarded the gate back to the upper world was not a beast to keep her shut in away from the light but her own three-headed instinct, her own tripartite goddess self who knew this was the time to learn the truth of shadows and no longer be afraid.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">So she looked at Hades the way she had learned to look at the lichen and fungus, taking out her glass eyes and using instead her womanly touch to know what to do. He was no longer thrilling or villainous--only steady as the earth, strong as the three-headed dog. He smelled like the deep moss, like the cracks in the stones that ran too deep to fathom.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The pomegranate, cracked in two, glowed, gleamed against all the blackness as if it were the central fire for this kingdom--this subterranean domain of the Earth Mother. Persephone, with her pale arms translucent as mist after so much time below reached out one now-virginal, naked hand and plucked one, two, three, four, five, six seeds, watching Hades steadily, easily as she did. Neither of them changed their expressions, but a depth came to the room, a mixing of cool air from very deep caves with that of the upper channels. Everything felt damp, as if there was a fog. But the air was clear, and so were her thoughts--or rather, her thoughts were silent, watching like the guardian dog.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The pomegranate seeds reflected deep pink off her white fingertips. Quickly, easily, she brought one to her mouth, almost tossing it in.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The flavor burst out tart and dry and sweet--a shock, and without her glassy eyes the air seemed to have called forth glow worms--the room glimmered as with a pulse, but Hades’s eyes remained as two still, deep rock pools, reflecting almost nothing.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">In went the second, the third, the fourth, the fifth. Each one stung her mouth with a release--of sadness, agony, fear, terror and forgotten names. Each one brought to mind an aspect of her upper world life and, it seemed, erased the bitterness that had stained it until she felt refreshed, until her mouth and cheeks were vital red.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The rock walls hummed around her. The basalt, the lime and sandstone, the magma, the slate and silt and gravel all reverberated within her body, breathing with her or she with them.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">She felt her hips shift, widening slightly, she felt her breasts relax from their high perch and settle like sphinxes with utter confidence in the knowledge of their riddles. Her shoulders also dropped, in fact every part of her descended and deepened; within she widened as a subterranean river widening the crevasse in a deep rock.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">She knew her own mossy places, her own earthy smells, her own delicate undersides like the crinoline frills of mushrooms; in short, she knew her own weight and gravity, her own interconnected life-giving strata, her own perfect decay and renewal--she knew her Self.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Persephone popped the last of the six jewel-red seeds onto her tongue, and then with her mind and her heart and every mossy, craggy underworld part of her reclaimed self, she knew Hades.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Though Demeter wept to know her daughter had eaten of that vivid truth-teller and was no longer free to remain in the world of sun and harvest all year long, Persephone did not mourn. She had mourned already, long before the fruit; she had tasted that bitterness and known that hunger, and she had planted seeds of her own finding within herself.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">She passes now, each equinox between the upper- and underworlds, taking nothing with her from either, standing unafraid while the three-headed dog sniffs every part of her. She has nothing to fear; she carries nothing more in the crossing than her own true self.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">-Rose Arrowsmith DeCoux</span></span></p>Rose Arrowsmith DeCouxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05784417321168052601noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2253183256800589104.post-57303493638372550092011-02-04T12:44:00.000-08:002011-02-04T12:56:48.253-08:00Swearwords, Ouija Boards & Other Lessons From Grandma<div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 133px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEwTmdifsQYbARo1fPSAEFFpSVMdiJonwHZZlJUhYSEfCPXS6TIEyKOzQUw7SFFSz-1nQtPgIrr2PFxcEvqVTUtGn6J2xuYt-2N7fW4taVQPyhzv_fsclQZcFwG1v5N5ZbbsEuX0ZIUaWH/s200/ouija+board.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5569940416547200754" /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">I was in </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">elementary school--maybe only second grade, when Grandma stopped me in the hallway at her house and explained that “you can say ‘blue smoke’ or ‘purple cow,’ but only God is holy.” I was confused bec</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">ause saying those apparently sinful phrases had felt so satisfying. “Holy smoke!” I </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">exclaimed with great enthusiasm. My classmates all smiled when they said them. No one else looked like they felt bad or guilty. I twas a hard idea to reconcile, but of course, I stopped saying it. Grandma hadn’t threatened eternal damnation or even a spanking or a mouthful of soap, but her somber, certain tone must’ve brought to mind the sad-eyed painting of blonde-haired Jesus, and I never wanted to disappoint anyone.</span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"></span></span></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">Grandma was also the one who banished, with just a few words, the coveted ouija board. My sisters and I had all wanted one--everyone had one back then--and our atheist-agnostic neighbors (the ones who let us stay up just a little bit later than bedtime and allowed candy and pop) gave it to us for Christmas. Josie, Abbey and I had summoned up a dozen spirits there on the sunny floor of the playroom in our pajamas before Grandma found out. “That’s a tool of the devil,” she said, again not menacingly, not trying to scare us--just telling us the matter-of-fact truth about life (and the afterlife). I think she told us to burn it, but we hid it under the couch.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Though we kept it, every time thereafter, fingertips on the little plastic triangle, I’d feel my hands moving of their own accord and wonder if she was right. The risk of really communing with the devil took some of the fun out of it.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">There was another time when I played, “Sand, Cement and Water” in her presence that ended with a fake demonic possession, praying and wailing to God and me once again left feeling confused about how something that had been so fun (and that I was so good at) could be bad.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">(We were all in a station wagon coming back from our A.W.A.K.E. multi-generational theatre performance. I told the “Sand, Cement and Water” tale to a boy about my age, eleven or so. This was of the same era as “Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board.” I told the story of how the boy was knocked unconscious, only to awake to feel a circle of skin and bone being cut out of his forehead. His captors then proceeded to fill him up with sand, cement and water, sand, cement and water, until he was as solid as a rock and couldn’t move. I had discovered my skill at this at summer camp, embellishing the gruesome tale and using a hypnotic rhythm as the sand, cement and water filled his body, layer by layer. If it was done right, and I was one of the best, the subject would be unable to move for at least twenty seconds after the story was completed.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">So, I did this to a rather obnoxious boy while we drove through the darkness, massaging his temples and ignoring my Grandma’s comment about demons and evil spirits. Everything went as planned, but the boy got mad that it had worked on him and begin to thrash around, muttering gibberish and rolling his eyes back in his head. The other family in the car was a religious home-schooling mother and son who immediately began to pray, then weep and beg Jesus to call the demon out of him. The other girl started crying, too, even as I insisted he was faking it. When he finally quit it, I smacked him and started to cry myself. I think I only did “Sand, Cement and Water” once or twice after that, but as with the “holy smoke” and the ouija board, I never enjoyed myself again.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The last time I swore in earshot of my grandma--the only time--I was in traffic and suddenly afraid I was about to crash into the car in front of me. “Holy shit!” I cried with my cell phone pressed against my cheek. I immediately tried to backtrack, explaining to her what the situation was. In that same, simple way she countered my “I hardly ever swear,” with “you shouldn’t swear at all.”</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">But this was a few years after a life threatening accident and recovery that gave her the mantra, “it’s not my job to judge people--God judges people. It’s my job to love them.” I was older now. I had more wayward cousins who did worse than say “holy shit,” so I didn’t feel so bad.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Except, I sort of did. But this time it was clear to me that it was because I </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">agreed</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> with her. I shouldn’t say holy anything. Even if I don’t believe all the same religious creeds as she does, even though I keep this to myself so she won’t worry about the state of my soul or our reunion (or lack thereof) in Heaven, i do believe that the Holy exists, and just like I wouldn’t stomp on flowers or throw a painting in the mud, I shouldn’t smear shit on whatever this Holiness is, not even if I’m about to be in a fender bender.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Do I really worry that playing with an ouija board or saying ‘sand, cement and water’ are invitations to the devil? I don’t know. I didn’t do either of them with bad or harmful intent. But that uncertainty is what made me stop, and what has stopped me since. Grandma may be old and outdated, but she may also be right.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">So I just say “Jeez Louise!” I let “shit” stand alone. And when I make my art, I try to tell not stories of how we die, but of how we live.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></p>Rose Arrowsmith DeCouxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05784417321168052601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2253183256800589104.post-23242525970434852192011-02-04T12:41:00.000-08:002011-02-04T13:05:48.478-08:00Emilia's Storm<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQFQbO3F_KK1ejbrPdU8LBvi5se2pHCmm1eLXJbfMOPSKEocZWoOBEkItKh7XJV0dr6oUPmRU-wM88DwW4-f0CZW4j65bmWfMYnHcyeDRremn7kLTU5SA1aGlowDpPf6ES1-_qWv34gnyc/s1600/Kevin+%2526+Tracy+visit+June+28+09+36.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQFQbO3F_KK1ejbrPdU8LBvi5se2pHCmm1eLXJbfMOPSKEocZWoOBEkItKh7XJV0dr6oUPmRU-wM88DwW4-f0CZW4j65bmWfMYnHcyeDRremn7kLTU5SA1aGlowDpPf6ES1-_qWv34gnyc/s200/Kevin+%2526+Tracy+visit+June+28+09+36.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5569943321320955970" /></a><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Her gray, sun-strained eyes stared straight ahead</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> as she looked out across the lake. The lake was gray, too, a high wall of clouds cutting over it but not yet blocking out the low-angling sun.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">We had come up for the weekend and everything had been a little off. It was looking like rain the whole way here, but when I asked her if she wanted to turn around, spend the weekend in my apartment in the city, she just shook her head.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">She hadn’t been back since--and I was interrupted from my brooding thoughts about whether or not she even knew I was with her by a roll of thunder. It made me jump and for the first time since we had made our plans, I saw her relax, as if she had been coming back here for this, as if she had been waiting all morning for it.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">“Jesus!” I said. “That surprised me.” I swished my drink around so the ice cubes clinked against the glass. “Where did </span></span><span style="text-decoration: underline ; letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">that</span></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> come from?”</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">“From that,” she said simply, pointing into the heart of the clouds that were growing darker. The wind picked up suddenly, tossing the tops of the feathery white pines on the other side of the lake, slapping the water from gray to white and then rushing at us as if to blow us off the dock.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">“Jesus Christ!” I said, slapping a hand to my hat. “Emilia, I’m going in.” She didn’t respond--just hugged her knees and stared out as if she were waiting for what would come next.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">“Emilia--” but I knew that posture, that look. I sighed very slightly and then cursed again as the lime toppled off the edge of my glass and into the lake below. “If there’s a tornado I’m coming to get you. Don’t make me carry you in...please.” I could hardly tell if she had even heard me, so intense was her gaze--like a cat I once knew who would get that same look sitting at the edge of a field for hours, waiting for the mouse to think it was safe and reappear.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">She sat out there as the rain came down--I watched all of it from the picture window up in the old cabin on the hill, jumping back from the glass whenever the lighting flashed. The water beat against the house and I decided to go get her, but the intensity, almost </span></span><span style="text-decoration: underline ; letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">anger</span></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> of it drove me back inside.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">“Christalmighty, it’s her lake--she can do what she wants!” I kept on muttering arguments with myself as I poured more gin and tonic water into my glass.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I peeled off my now-wet shirt and went back to the window. The tv showed the heart of the storm poised over us. I could hardly see her when I looked out again--the sky was a [wash] of wind and rain, and the sun was long gone.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">When the lightning flashed again I saw her caught as if by a flashbulb of her former life. She was standing spread-eagled on the edge of the dock--arms out and head tilted back. When the flash came again I saw that her mouth was open wide, eyes screwed shut, as if swallowing the storm or screaming.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I paced the decades-old carpet and flipped through the handful of channels until at last the hail drove her back in. She burst in through the door as it pelted down like a broken pearl necklace. I held out my arm to pull her in, but she stood there in the doorway looking wild and triumphant with the storm hurling its stones at her back. Her hair was plastered to her head, her clothes stuck to her body, but the flatness was gone from her eyes, as if she had swallowed the lightning, and Emilia, as I had known her long ago, was back.</span></span></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">........................................</span></span></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Italicized first line come from "The Great Gatsby." I learned this trick at a writing group--to open a book and pick a sentence as a starting point or inspiration.</span></i></span></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></i></span></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 36.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 19px; "></span></span></i></span></p><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><i><p style="text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; text-indent: 36px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Times; "><span style="letter-spacing: 0px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">27 January 2011</span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; text-align: center; text-indent: 36px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Times; min-height: 14px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; "><span style="letter-spacing: 0px; "></span><br /></span></p></i></span><p></p>Rose Arrowsmith DeCouxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05784417321168052601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2253183256800589104.post-62518117674988348362011-01-30T08:17:00.001-08:002011-01-30T20:17:13.905-08:00[Love Letter to Myself/Soul Wife]<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">24 January 2011</span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I want to write</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> a letter</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> to you,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Self--</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> can’t think of who else</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> I love</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> so dearly,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> who else</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> I’m so out of practice</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> saying that to.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I want</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> to take you out</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> someplace nice, give you</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> roses,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> like a first boyfriend, know</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">this folded letter</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> warm on pink paper</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> will stay with you forever,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">your first profession</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> of love.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I want</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> to buy you a ring.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">One that sparkles</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> with true intent.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">You’ll wear a </span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> white dress & I’ll</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">love you like I</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> never have--</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">come home early</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> to kiss you</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> hold you, hold you</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> to feel the gravity between us.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">So long</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> I have been absent--</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">busy busy</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> with unImportant Things,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">working late at the office</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> grading papers</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> grinding myself away--</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">forgetting</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> that the love of my Dearest</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> measures my worth;</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> that success is not</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> what I believed it to be &</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">staying home,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> turning in--</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">this is where</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> wealth is found:</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">with you</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">tending to this inner garden,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> giving you glory</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> in our own house--</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">You,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> my faithful little SoulWife,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">packing my lunches</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">all these years,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">waiting, like a mother;</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">At last</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> I will come Home.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">-Rose Arrowsmith DeCoux</span></span></p><p></p>Rose Arrowsmith DeCouxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05784417321168052601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2253183256800589104.post-40077536413908504212011-01-30T08:16:00.000-08:002011-01-30T08:17:14.392-08:00[Ganesh]<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">23 January, 2011</span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I like Ganesh,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> Remover of Obstacles--</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I love him, even--</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">the first male diety</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> I have truly loved</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> because</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> he’s an </span></span><span style="text-decoration: underline ; letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">elephant</span></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">--</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">He’s not</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> my absent</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> temperamental Dad,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">or any helpful surrogate--</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> no,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">he is Ganesh,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">big & thick & strong,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> slow-breathing</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> calm, steady but</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> fierce!</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Elephants</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> can move trees,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> haul caravans,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> trample forests,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> but</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">they eat grass,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> nuzzle their young</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> spray fountains of water from </span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> their trunks.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> Ganesh,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">you have freed me</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> from my own</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> limited God, saying</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">we do not speak</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> with the same words but</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">still I understand you,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> still you love me.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">It is easier to trust</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> an elephant</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> with my problems, easier</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> to ask & ask</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> & not feel guilty or</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> ashamed.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">And Ganesh just works away,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">tearing up the choking vines there,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">digging new trenches for clean water here,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> never tiring,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> never sighing with</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> unvoiced complaint.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I am not lounging in the shade--</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> no,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> I am loving him,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">watching,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> as a child, & when</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> he pauses to look up & out</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> at the horizon</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I pat his trunk,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> run my hands over</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> his smooth, hard tusks,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">feel the roughness of his legs,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> touch, gently, his feet.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Then he curls up his trunk</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> & I lie back,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">held in a swing</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> my hair hanging down</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> brushing the grass</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">looking up</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> at the blue sky as</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">more & more light</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> comes through.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">-Rose Arrowsmith DeCoux</span></span></p>Rose Arrowsmith DeCouxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05784417321168052601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2253183256800589104.post-34534949183032733482011-01-30T08:15:00.000-08:002011-01-30T08:16:22.731-08:00[Fox Tracks]<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">19 January, 2011</span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">A walk alone</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> in the company of</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> fox tracks</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> snaking</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> this way & that,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> hugging</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> the shore.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">My snowshoes</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> like clydesdales</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> plowed the snow</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> fishtail crosshatch</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> in my wake.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I walked into </span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> the wilderness, into</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> the descending dark</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> far enough</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> to think of wolves</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> & feel afraid.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">But, homeward bound,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> heart attempting to hammer</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> I was stopped</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> overjoyed</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> at this:</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> melon-gold moon</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> blazing behind black pines,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> clouds turned</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> periwinkle &</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> honey.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Into the night,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> into the night</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> we went,</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> the fox tracks</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> & I.</span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times; min-height: 14.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"></span><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">-Rose Arrowsmith DeCoux</span></span></p>Rose Arrowsmith DeCouxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05784417321168052601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2253183256800589104.post-71915070985182272192010-11-27T08:52:00.000-08:002010-11-27T08:54:07.122-08:00Consider ChocolateI’m writing poems<br /> (& ignoring the dog)<br /> because otherwise I’ll eat chocolate.<br />I could do my yoga,<br /> I could,<br /> since this is the first sunny November day in forever<br />be outside & be<br /> good--yes,<br /> a good, good person.<br />But instead I’m a <br /> (practically)<br /> unpublished writer<br />who is still in her long johns but<br />no pants<br />moping around the house<br />not really doing anything.<br />Some days these things just happen.<br /><br />I tried “21 Jumpstreet”<br />but, as always,<br /> the ending felt lacking,<br /> my artistic idol<br /> not at his best.<br />Just thinking about that<br /> has the chocolate calling to me<br /> from the fridge<br /> (which is where we keep it),<br /> or, there are the ginger snaps I made<br /> chiming in<br />from their green bin just on top.<br />If I had friends, I would call them,<br /> I think,<br />If I didn’t have a child--<br />but I don’t think like that.<br />I had one and lost one once,<br /> so I don’t play that game--<br />chocolate, yes,<br /> alternate universe, no.<br /><br />Skip back instead to safer things--<br />my figure, my handwriting,<br />what to do with the dog if we move to India.<br />Stack up the unstarted projects<br />like dirty dishes in the sink--<br /> hey--<br /> wasn’t this place clean 3 days ago?<br />Think then ignore thoughts on babyproofing,<br /> scrapbooking<br /> Christmas shopping.<br />Flip mental channels<br /> watch the infomercials<br />wonder what you usually do<br /> at 3 o’clock<br /> (Good God, it’s 3 already?)--<br /> (Good God, It’s only 3?)<br /> in the afternoon.<br /><br />Look outside.<br />Think about laundry,<br /> the defective, strobe light dryer.<br />Consider,<br /> since your husband took the beer,<br /> Chocolate.<br /><br /><br />-R.<br /><br />p.s. I must admit I ate chocolate 15 minutes later anyway...Rose Arrowsmith DeCouxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05784417321168052601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2253183256800589104.post-19807004409771565872010-11-17T10:14:00.000-08:002010-11-17T10:16:02.644-08:00Fear of Cooking10 October 10<br /><br /> I’m here to tell you about things I am afraid of, and, weirdly, (at first glance), cooking comes to mind. Not cooking, really, but baking--cooking can always be salvaged, or maybe I’m so scared of cooking (note the completely unused Mediterranean cookbook from last Christmas) that it’s buried even deeper.<br /><br /> I am afraid to bake bread. Afraid to-- I don’t know-- make terrible lemon meringue. In an alternate life I could be a cake decorator yet I have used my frosting gun twice at most. I love it, I treasure it, I leave it in the drawer.<br /><br /> In my family, food is a big deal, and it can involve a lot of self-flagellation. The shortest explanation? My paternal grandmother is Belgian--actually-from-Belgium-Belgian. “Cheese, Wine, Food--the French have the best!” she exclaimed, waving a pointer finger in the air to punctuate each item.<br /><br /> When my husband met her for the first time we were at her home in England. She was in the kitchen making lunch for us when Jay suddenly leapt to his feet as if a fire alarm had gone off.<br /><br /> “What? What’s wrong?” I asked. He started for the kitchen, “Shouldn’t we see if she’s ok?”<br /><br />I just stared at him, trying to figure out what he was talking about--then I noticed it--vehement, pained mutterings in both French and English, something including, “Oh, God! I don’t know” with a heavy accent of self-criticism.<br /><br /> “What, that?” I asked. “She’s just cooking.”<br /><br /> Just cooking. My granny makes some of the best food I have ever eaten--she can’t help it. But there has never been a meal (that I know of) that has been prepared without anguish or eaten in joy, and that’s too bad, especially because it’s hereditary.<br /><br /> When she came to visit recently I was astounded to see my normally top-of-the-heap (and-in-a-nice-suit) dad waffling and supplicating about some store-bought rotisserie chicken. he is a fabulous cook--something I never knew as a kid--but even his pork chops with deglazed sauce and cream and mushrooms served with white wine cannot warrant praise. Say, “Thanks for supper, Dad, this is really good,” and he’ll lift his shoulders and eyebrows, tip his head side to side in a deflecting way that somehow communicates that it could be much better but isn’t too bad but nothing to feel good about oneself over and it will do for the moment.<br /><br /> This is not the same as the Midwestern oh-gosh-it-was-nothing response to praise. Midwesterners feel embarrassed to be put in the spotlight, especially for anything they made themselves. They are likely to demur to someone else’s recipe (found in the church cookbook) or to God Himself (“well, we just had such an amazing bumper crop of beans this year..”). I know how to deal with that. And anyway, they weren’t going for a blue ribbon in the first place--honorable mention is just fine with them. Is the food hot? Good. Is there enough for seconds? Yes. Is ever inner crevice filled in with the universal binding agent cream of mushroom soup, so much so that dessert and coffee require leaning back and stretching a bit? Then the meal was a success. There is no talk anticipated on the nuance of spices like nutmeg or paprika. Ketchup is a spice here. Vegetables and jello are an acceptable food combination. This is not High Art, this is Lake Wobegon, stick-to-your-bones in January food--there’s no pretense.<br /><br /> But the French--or in my case, the French-speaking Belgians. Though a simple dish of pasta, butter, salt and nutmeg may bring the eater more joy than edible poetry, there is also so much to fall short of. While Minnesotans don’t even think of striving for culinary perfection, my people can think of nothing else. Nothing else, that is, except the impossibility of such a goal--and the only possible response to this dichotomy is shame.<br /><br /> That is what the raised eyebrows, lifted shoulders, ducked and tipping head is--the acknowledgement of failure to be perfect--failure to do justice to the worthy fungus, the supple lamb, the elegant fettucine. The God/Lord of Belgium is clearly disappointed, but He, like us, has accepted this as his lot--a life of failure and disappointment.<br /><br /> So I am caught between two peoples--one who does not know of G______ chocolates in the shape of swirling sea shells, and the other who does but who can never fully enjoy them. The Minnesotans who know that nothing may be wasted, the Europeans who know that nothing may be mediocre.<br /><br /> So I have never made salt water taffy. I have never baked brioche but I feel shame at not having done so. I can bake an amazing pie and some killer gingersnap cookies, but rare is the moment when I eat my own meal and don’t tip my head and think, “next time...a little saffron.”<br /><br /> My beautiful color-photo cookbooks loom like Oscars--what I want more than anything and ridiculously out of reach--because how can I make bread (brioche, no less, and use eight eggs) and risk it falling flat? How can I ice a birthday cake when there is the chance it will look like a five-year-old was at the frosting gun? To make a mistake at food is the deepest embarrassment, far beyond that of a bad performance on stage where no leftovers will remain to taunt me. So I put my efforts into the short-lived and later-intangible opportunities for success.<br /><br /> But though I scorn the all-accepting hot-dish, at least I can make tea. My youngest sister is afraid to even boil water.<br /><br />-R.Rose Arrowsmith DeCouxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05784417321168052601noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2253183256800589104.post-26279178012847780652010-10-13T15:23:00.000-07:002010-10-13T15:29:30.930-07:00Mask & Movement Retreat November 5-7<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4yKjLcXxRyG41iSBvj3hKYhVxhZc6DrHi7xwFJc0NHFuvym92rzonMTVnUqLnf3IVgV0bknr9AbS2WRa53aPZ-YysscTrw_8tUGWU2kSah5kGFAQBo2JzTIZUlNFji5tOSGJML1kmhtae/s1600/Petra+Mask+white+background.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4yKjLcXxRyG41iSBvj3hKYhVxhZc6DrHi7xwFJc0NHFuvym92rzonMTVnUqLnf3IVgV0bknr9AbS2WRa53aPZ-YysscTrw_8tUGWU2kSah5kGFAQBo2JzTIZUlNFji5tOSGJML1kmhtae/s320/Petra+Mask+white+background.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5527660914415623490" /></a><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Mask & Movement<br /></span>North Woods Weekend<br /><br />Retreat to the North Woods and discover the many characters that reside within yourself! Mime and mask maker David Braddock, and character-storyteller Rose Arrowsmith DeCoux lead you through casting a plaster negative and positive of your face and using modeling clay and papiere mache to craft a unique, dynamic mask with techniques used in the commedia style. In this three day weekend you will also work on filling the form: using movement and story to explore musicality, depth and weight to bring your new character to life. This workshop is highly participatory and collaborative and is fitting for both veterans and novices.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">November 5, 6, 7<br />Wilderness Canoe Base, Grand Marais, MN<br />$150</span><br />Includes six meals, two nights in comfortable group cabins, and all instruction and coaching (materials additional cost)<br />Please arrive by 5pm November 5th (supper at 6pm).<br />Retreat ends after 12:30 lunch on November 7th.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">About the Teachers</span> <br /><span style="font-style:italic;">David Braddoc</span>k is a renaissance man of the theater; he has studied mime and physical theatre styles and techniques with international artists including the likes of Marcel Marceau. He has co-founded Giant Step Theatre for youth, and lent his versatile voice to the radio waves. He has trained in both the Decroix and Lecoq styles of mime and is experienced in Commedia style mask making. <br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Rose Arrowsmith DeCoux</span> is an international storyteller, character artist and teacher. She has developed characters and story-programs for museums, history centers, festivals and schools since 2001. She lives at the edge of the Boundary Waters and is featured on WTIP’s North Shore Weekend telling the Saturday Morning Story. <br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">About Wilderness Canoe Base</span><br />Wilderness Canoe Base (WCB) is located at the end of the Gunflint Trail, on Fish Hook and Dominion Islands in Seagull Lake at the edge of the Boundary Waters. WCB includes hiking trails, newly constructed cabins with homemade quilts (four bunks to a room), wood-fired sauna and plenty of open water for paddling.<br />Mask making will alternate with movement, with time also allotted for enjoying the remarkable quiet of the wilderness. Leave your cell phones in the car--there’s no reception here!<br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Located 55 miles from Grand Marais: 12477 Gunflint Trail, Grand Marais, MN, 55604<br />WCB is a Lutheran site, but there is no religious focus to this retreat.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">What to Bring</span><br />Bring comfortable clothes for movement and “painting clothes” for casting the mask negative (a somewhat messy process).<br />November in Northern Minnesota is unpredictable, so remember what your mother told you and bring clothes for fall and wintery weather. Bring a sleeping bag; quilts and pillows are provided but sheets aren’t. And don’t forget your swim suit--Saturday night will include a sauna and polar plunge for those who dare!<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">How to Register</span><br />Email Rose Arrowsmith DeCoux (rose[at]rosearrowsmith[dot]com) with the following information:<br /> <span style="font-style:italic;">Name<br /> Phone Number<br /> Address<br /> Dietary Needs<br /> A Note About Your Interest/Experience with Mask and Movement<br /> Workshop Requests</span><br />Make checks payable to “Alchemy Storyworks.” A minimum deposit of $75 and the above information will complete your registration. You will receive a confirmation email from Rose and a paper copy receipt on November 5th. Full balance and materials fee (approximately $15-$30 depending on number of participants) must be paid upon arrival.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Questions</span><br />Contact Rose with questions pertaining to <span style="font-style:italic;">Payment</span> and <span style="font-style:italic;">Wilderness Canoe Base</span>.<br />Contact David with questions pertaining to <span style="font-style:italic;">Mask Making</span> and <span style="font-style:italic;">Movement</span>.<br /><br />Rose Arrowsmith DeCoux<br />H (218) 388-0181<br />rose[at]rosearrowsmith[dot]com<br /><br />David Braddock<br />C (612) 644-0522<br />daveb383[at]gmail[dot]comRose Arrowsmith DeCouxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05784417321168052601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2253183256800589104.post-23898155856419520672010-10-11T08:59:00.000-07:002010-10-11T09:14:56.729-07:00On TV: The Tomte & The Troll on KMOT<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBYCxlztQq-0zGiave4Z1R2dwnaXd4Qb-2ao_8AsmlZ2fQKDKQN6_M978DgzR4PvSia7cOkDgH-cOZgMniIPj49oMe06fAwbX3RHsUcv0SMiIH-yjhqC9HhYVuZRSPLlX2gVJKzBcRoZjP/s1600/Tomte+%26+Troll+headshot+09.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 235px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBYCxlztQq-0zGiave4Z1R2dwnaXd4Qb-2ao_8AsmlZ2fQKDKQN6_M978DgzR4PvSia7cOkDgH-cOZgMniIPj49oMe06fAwbX3RHsUcv0SMiIH-yjhqC9HhYVuZRSPLlX2gVJKzBcRoZjP/s320/Tomte+%26+Troll+headshot+09.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5526821426405693522" /></a><br /><a href="http://www.trolleriplayers.blogspot.com">The Trolleri Players</a>, (David Braddock and I) shared "The Tomte & The Troll" for the third time at the Norsk Hostfest and in North Dakota schools. This was my tenth year and David's seventh at the festival, and though I feel I'm an old hand at it now, this was my first year traveling with a baby. My seven-month-old son, Ennis, was fantastic! (Worthy of his own tv spot, really.) While David and I performed for hundreds of elementary students, my sister, Abbey, entertained the little guy. While I walked the festival on stilts as Alfhilde the Tree Spirit, or as Tomte Kajsa the Good Elf, Abbey and Ennis looked at the booths and listened to traditional Scandinavian music (and not-so-traditional country music, which the festival is also known for--this year included Alan Jackson and Vince Gill as big ticket entertainers, as well as the Temptations).<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1Rqgh-HJaVBbuI5Ggyo1Sh7HVXRbI8CPpfmEn5RwLox51bpiEGaCRDQPCqu0xUyK2lXCdrB1SR-0a9A64bwBJzT0FlkWhMQzAFxAbRB2mOnVf62CI_MP4FvGZdOWb8O845yhsohwK4oDx/s1600/Best+Alfhilde+for+promo+09.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 238px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1Rqgh-HJaVBbuI5Ggyo1Sh7HVXRbI8CPpfmEn5RwLox51bpiEGaCRDQPCqu0xUyK2lXCdrB1SR-0a9A64bwBJzT0FlkWhMQzAFxAbRB2mOnVf62CI_MP4FvGZdOWb8O845yhsohwK4oDx/s320/Best+Alfhilde+for+promo+09.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5526821420597217074" /></a>KMOT, the North Dakota NBC affiliate station filmed our <a href="http://www.kmot.com/News_video.asp?news=43316">program</a> at Longfellow Elementary School. You can also <a href="http://www.kmot.com/news_stories.asp?news=43316&yr=">read about it here</a>.<br /><br />The Tomte & The Troll:<br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Tomtes and Trolls are as old as the dawn of Scandinavia… and they are sworn enemies. So how is it possible that Tomte Kajsa and Thorkelson D. Troll are friends? <br /><br />Hear the stories, straight from the fairytale characters themselves; stories that will amuse you, bring you closer to your heritage, and maybe even save your life! Kajsa and Thorkelson will tell you all you ever needed to know to outsmart a hungry troll, and take you back to ancient beliefs of Sweden and Norway on a charming, enchanted adventure.<br /></span>Rose Arrowsmith DeCouxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05784417321168052601noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2253183256800589104.post-36514040389785177972010-08-11T22:01:00.000-07:002010-08-11T22:04:57.114-07:00Moira of Iseldel: Preface[SYNOPSIS]<br />Moira is awakened from a decade-long state of slumber to find her family, captured and perhaps killed long ago by Ragnar’s soldiers. When sets out to find them, she soon discovers her quest and responsibilities are much larger; as she learns she is both a Rememberer and a Binder with the birthright of Fire, one of the four forces that brought the world into being, she is drawn closer to Ragnar, an evil man with the heart and power of the Ice Giants.<br /><br />She journeys with Shep, a beast of mysterious origin, into the Land of Spirits where she finds the Book of Remembering. At the port city of Lirea, Andrius, on a quest of his own, joins them. Their joint destinies become clearer, taking them across Iseldel and back, until at last they must face Ragnar himself at the edge of the world. Moira or Ragnar must join the two halves of the world together again to gain power of the rejoined land, but neither knows what they will find on the other side.<br /><br /><br />[PREFACE]<br /><br />There is still a grove of fig trees on a side street near the city center of Lirea. The town itself is built upon a hill, everything crushing down to the port where ships with sails from every coastal province are docked. The smell of the wharf, of damp and salt and rotting sea plants and fish inhabits the city. It has always been this way.<br /><br />A merchant arrives to open shop as the sun comes up. He is dark-skinned with a fine, smooth black mustache. The wrinkles by his eyes are from smiling, bargaining with customers and raising eyebrows high. He does well, shown clearly by his generous waist and the way his silk trousers hang in rich folds. He is a fig seller. He was born outside the city in a hut no bigger than a thimble. When his younger brother arrived in the world, out went Marishi Reb to seek his fortune and grander accommodations.<br /><br />“Oh, Mr. Reb and his fig trees—The fig trees,” people say. They say it knowingly at each other’s houses for tea, strong but paled with milk and sweetened with dark sugar. The word travels from ship to ship that enters the harbor and those who do not know of the fig trees step onto land and go in search of them. Even the Seer can no longer claim as many visitors as the grove of fig trees that sprouted and sprang so mysteriously out of the stones in the center of Reishi Street.<br /><br />On this morning it is cloudy to the east, but the wind is carrying the gray away. Lirea is waking, half in shadow and half in sunlight. The sounds of the people begin like a flock of starlings in a tree—first only one branch of roosting noisemakers feels the warmth, then the next and then the next. The air is jabbed and stitched in an improvised garment by the sounds: doors, blankets, creaking cart wheels, coins against pockets, street vendors crying out, the storks on the temple roof flapping and settling, sailors and dock workers and the heave of muscles against crates, breakfast being made, sugar stirred into tea, the same tea slurped hastily and the day begun. Lady Morning puts on this crazy cloak and welcomes her gypsy people to another day, another life, another story.<br /><br />“Figs! Figs!” Marishi Reb is looking fine today. He runs a thick hand over his black hair, thinning now, but his mustache more than makes up for that. A woman walks up the cobblestones with a little girl in tow. A child rests on her hip.<br /><br />“Figs for the lady—good for the complexion and for keeping a happy husband!” She does not stop. Marishi Reb claps his palms together. <br /><br />“Good for children, for growing and clever thinking in the school house.” The little girl, barefoot, turns to look back at him.<br /><br />“Good for even the youngest—sweet to make him good-tempered, rich to bring good fortune, savory for interesting character. To eat a fig each day before speaking, before dressing, before the day begins is to have good luck, good love, great happiness.”<br /><br />The little boy in her arms is leaning out to the side, out of his mother’s hold, looking and listening to Marishi. They have stopped nearly underneath a fig tree. The child tilts his fair face up. There is a fig, ready, ripe, plump and within arm’s reach. A smile plays at Marishi’s lips beneath the fine mustache. His silk trousers ripple with the breeze coming up off the harbor. “Go on,” he seems to say, “yes, yes.”<br /><br />The boy reaches up one hand, quickly, and the fig is plucked from the tree; the branch sways as he lifts it to his mouth. <br /><br />“Antony, no!” His mother lets go the hand of the girl and reaches for the fig.<br /><br />“No problem! No worries—it is gift from the trees. I only tend them. I do not own them—who could own these trees? They are for all people, to help with the remembering. I do not charge for figs. Once I did, but not any longer.” The woman sets the child down. His sister, seeing him bring the purple-brown fruit again to his face and bite the tender surface hesitantly plucks one of her own. The woman’s face is furrowed, questioning.<br /><br />“But you must make a living like the rest of us. If we do not pay you, how will you survive?”<br /><br />“Oh, madam, you must be a stranger to this city! I do not charge for figs, though once I did, it is true. The very first tree in this grove came from one of my figs one day years ago. What I ask money for is for the story. It is a good one.” The woman does not move, but she does not reach into the purse tied about her waist. Marishi Reb is not deterred. He rubs his palms together and stands taller.<br /><br />“I will tell you first. If it is worth a coin or two…” he pats the bag of coins in his pocket. “If not…” he holds up his hands, “you go on your way. You will have only given me a morning of your listening ear.”<br /><br />The little girl tugs at her mother’s dress, she looks at the man. The boy is too young to wonder about the story, but he is happy playing with a stick in the cracks of the cobblestones. The woman nods her chin once, and Marishi Reb begins.<br /><br />“This was back in the time when the battles were lost—the beginning of the Dark Time. The capitol was taken, the people forgot; even here in Lirea—the fig trees bore [no] fruit [and times were hard for a fig seller]…But that is not the story I will tell you.<br /><br /> “This is the story of Moira…”Rose Arrowsmith DeCouxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05784417321168052601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2253183256800589104.post-72635879462507557162010-08-11T21:56:00.000-07:002010-08-11T22:01:17.611-07:00Florence Nightingale Finds LoveThe VA hospital was different than she expected—for one, no one saluted her when she came in. Where were all the handsome, wounded soldiers waiting for their Florence Nightingale?<br /><br />“Well, shit!” she said. It was her favorite expression and it conveyed so much with only the slightest change of tone, the hand on a hip or a raised eyebrow—as in, “Well, shit, don’t you look good tonight?” That wasn't how she meant it now.<br /><br />She sighed. What a way to spend her Tuesday afternoon. She flicked a piece of lint off her jacket with a flamingo pink fingernail and let her gum have another round before spitting it in the trash next to the weak coffee, white powder and dented Styrofoam cups.<br /><br />She cleared her throat at the counter and tossed back her hair without meaning to—it was another favorite habit that had become as inseparable as “well, shit.” Besides, if the handsome, wounded soldiers came in, she had been told more than once down in Reno that she had a very pretty throat.<br /><br />“I’m here to volunteer,” she said. <br /><br />The woman at the counter was black and maybe twice her age—calm and unimpressed by her pink fingernails.<br />“You’re gonna hafta fill out these forms—and put some gloves on those,” she said.<br /><br />Bernice stopped and looked at her. “Gloves? For what?”<br /><br />“Bedpans,” said the receptionist. “We need a whole lot of bedpans changed.”<br /><br />Bernice took the clipboard and the blue gloves that did not match her its-almost-Easter outfit at all (pinks and lavenders—blue just threw the whole thing off).<br /><br />She rolled up her sleeves and followed the orderly down the hall and spent the rest of the day “elbow deep in asses” as she planned to tell Iris, who was the one who put the insane idea into her head to come here in the first place.<br /><br />It was the second to last room and she was ready for the day to be done. Her hair clung in wisps to her forehead but she didn’t dare use her hands for anything until she found a bucket of bleach to soak them in.<br /><br />“Well aren’t you a regular Florence Nightingale?” said a voice, handsome before she even looked up.<br />Her heart seized, one eyebrow raised, a blue-gloved hand alighted on her breast and she breathed, “Well, shit.”<br /><br />February, 2008.Rose Arrowsmith DeCouxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05784417321168052601noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2253183256800589104.post-29865871438092150292009-05-01T13:44:00.000-07:002009-05-01T13:47:17.312-07:00Rubber Boots: Then & NowWhen I was a kid—about eight years old, I’d say—I got stuck in the mud wearing a t-shirt, underwear, and fuscia rubber boots. It was spring, and I could not resist.<br /><br />Our land was primarily clay. I don’t know how things went when my parents actually farmed our small field, but the lowest part of the yard could never absorb all the rain that fell, and, after our ice rink melted, we had our own wading pool.<br /><br />And so, one Saturday morning, my younger sisters, Josie and Abbey, and I went out to play in the mud. Our dad yelled some sort of warning but spring was in our ears and we didn’t hear a thing.<br /><br />We ran, we splashed; we certainly soaked each other kicking the brown, ankle-deep water. It was only a matter of time before we industriously churned the giant puddle into thick, creamy mud.<br /><br />The water clouded and thickened around us. The mud was caramel-colored; the same color as our house. It had a tantalizing suction and made an immensely satisfying sound when we pulled our boots out. We pumped our feet faster, marching in place and nearly falling over, laughing at the indecent noises we were making.<br /><br />At last, tired, we stopped, still giggling. We were soaked. Our clothes were all various tints of brown. Life had never been better. Until we tried to move.<br /><br />The clay had sealed around our feet and would not let go. We each tried one foot and then the other, nearly toppling over with the effort it took. We were <em>stuck</em>.<br /><br />We were also too far from each other to lend a hand, and too far from the somewhat drier ground to hop out of our boots and still be allowed to walk barefoot in the house. Emboldened both by our silliness and our fear, we shouted in unison for our dad.<br /><br />He came out of the house like a thundercloud—like a just-released-from-its-cage lion of March! He must have been watching the whole thing through the window. He stormed over to us and grabbed us, one under each arm like sacks of potatoes, and pulled us straight out of our boots!<br />He dumped us, unrepentant but chastised and quiet, back at the house. Our boots remained in the clay—pinks and fuscias in the thick toffee mud.<br /><br />“I hope you’ve learned your lesson,” he said. “Those boots can just stay there until you can get them out yourself!”<br /><br /><br />On Tuesday, I bought myself a pair of rubber boots—black; the largest candy-pink pair was just a bit too small. On Wednesday I wore them out for a walk with Jay, hoping for puddles and muck. Since the road was disappointingly dry I was perfectly well-behaved for the first half of our walk, looking at moose and deer tracks, inspecting the silver crop of pussy willows. But on the way back…<br /><br />Jay asked me how my boots were for walking, and there was, perhaps, a hint of smugness in his voice. I had been wearing my new boots nearly non-stop for the last twenty-four hours. He was wearing his new and very comfortable running shoes. My socks kept sagging and my boot tops thwacked against my legs. Rubber boots do not “break in” quite the way running shoes do.<br /><br />“They’re <em>great</em>!” I exclaimed with exaggerated enthusiasm. “It’s a good thing I wore them,” I continued, slopping down into the ditch that had become a small, gravelly stream.<br /><br />“My feet would be totally soaked without them!” I stomped and squelched, heading straight for an especially gooey part.<br /><br />“You’re going to get stuck,” he warned. I just smiled. There was no way. I was bigger, smarter, and my boots were taller—they were made for this!<br /><br />“Oh, really?” I grinned triumphantly at him as I pumped my feet up and down in quick, sloppy staccato…and nearly pulled my saggy-socked foot right out of my boot! The flashback was instantaneous!<br /><br />“Help!” I cried. The dry bank was too far away—I would have to dive out of my boots and walk home with dirty socks! Or worse, I was going to get hauled out and carried home under someone’s arm like a sack of potatoes!<br /><br />But Jay, more like the lamb than the lion of spring (which is one reason I’m so glad I married him), reached out his hand. With some careful tugging and foot flexing, I escaped, boots and all. He shook his head and smiled. We walked on, staying on the solid, dryer high ground.<br /><br />But somewhere—in a time and place that does not seem very far away when I feel the thwack thwack of rubber against my shins—Spring’s messiest child calls to me. I can still see a pair of size five boots in all their glorious pink, standing proudly in the mud. And I, thankfully, have still not learned my lesson.<br /><br />April 23rd, 2009Rose Arrowsmith DeCouxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05784417321168052601noreply@blogger.com2