Watermark

Breaking

A dear friend -- my rock -- is in Rangoon. Somewhere.

My once-hefty 15-year-old cat, Spike, is diminishing, diminishing, diminishing.

Little Lucy is limping.

I try, try to be in the moment. Only the present moment.

But something inside is breaking.

Boo. Hiss.

It is possible to do everything right -- to get the flu shot, to eat your fruits & vegetables -- and still get the stomach flu.

It is possible to recover from the stomach flu, only to come down with a cold.

It is possible to write with the stomach flu, as one's head is clear.

It is probably possible, but very difficult, to write with a stuffy, slow head and watery eyes.

It is unlikely that I shall attempt something so difficult.

Super Tuesday

 

I'm recovering from some unpleasant virus -- but the timing is good. Here's my plan for tomorrow: sit in front of the television, watching cable news and sipping comfort food.

Yes, I know that being a political junkie isn't the healthiest of lifestyles. But, if one must be a political junkie, this is an excellent time to indulge.

Sadly, poems rarely emerge from this sort of activity.

But, we shall see...

Today's Gratitude

 

Today I am grateful to the anonymous neighbor who shoveled snow away from my garden gate. Whoever this was also (optimistically) shoveled a clear spot next to my car, and a path to the bird and squirrel feeders.

The sparrows and squirrels thank you, too. That's what she's saying up there: Thank you!

I'm also grateful to Niki, who brought me homemade tuna casserole with baby peas, just the thing for a snowy day.

This is a season in which one must be grateful for having cause for gratitude.

Opacity & Transparency

Click for larger image

Angry Little Girls comic posted with permission [Lots more here; go see!]
Via Grab and Stash, which I found at BlueBlog

When Watermark was only a few months old, in May 2004, I requested a review from The Weblog Review.

Wendy began by saying:

As the weblog begins, Watermark tests out the blogging waters - how much should be revealed? Will readers get what's being posted? I'm sure those questions come to the minds of many bloggers at they jump into the realm of online diaries and such. The author and creator responsible for this weblog manages to quickly accomplish the feat of finding her comfort level of sharing.

And so I thought I had.

Over the years, as my blogging skills and preferences have evolved, I've received other reviews from these folks (if you're interested, you can see them here, and here.) Some of the observations I liked; some I didn't. Some suggestions I took on board; some I dismissed. Some I initially dismissed, chewed on for a long time, and then implemented.

But it was the recent review by amusings that unnerved me.

This is a thoughtful and thorough review. She clearly spent a lot of time and care doing it, and offers generous and useful observations.

Also painfully perceptive ones:

Sharon struggles with isolation, confesses and discusses repeatedly what it is like to be in pain, unable to go OUT and socialize, and how the internet is her way to stay connected with the world. Not just with the world of peers and poets, but just with all human contact. It is an amazing thing to realize while reading her journal what a life without socialization might be like.

She says she looked at my other sites, including Abide. Perhaps she saw it there?

I thought I was hiding this.

I thought you didn't know.

It terrifies me that this is what you see.

eMail confusions

On the second of this month, a friend sent me an email:

well?

So I shot back (ok, I didn't shoot it back; I sent it yesterday):

no.

you?

& he responded something along the lines of:

I'll try to decipher this later.

At which point it occurred to me that his first email might not have been an inquiry into my state of health, but a simple question:

are you there?

So I sent this, which I post here so we're all up-to-date:

allow me to elaborate

you said: 'well?'

which i interpreted thusly: 'are you well?'

and so replied: 'no, i am not well. but then, i seldom am. however, i am presently less well than is common, and focusing unduly on same.'

and i then inquired, accordingly, into your state of being: 'and how are you?'

but this interpretation may be a consequence of my current tedious preoccupation with unwellness.

i shall now desist speaking in latinate

i am here.
i am unwell.

you?

I'll be back soon.

Monday

Every few years I reach an awkward milestone -- an age I think of as my mother's. I reached another of those yesterday, on Mothers' Day.

Fifty-nine. Isn't that my mother's age? My grandmother's?

How did this happen?

How did I get here?

Unexplainable

There has been a sudden and unexpected death in my extended friendship network. This was not someone I was close to (though I liked her very much) but someone close to people close to me. Such a loss, at such a time...

Wha....? Where'd she go?

Well. I seem to be taking an unanticipated blogging break.

Cathy thinks I've been abducted by aliens.

Mary tells me she's been contacted by several folks who wonder where I am.

I'm here; I'm just not here. Various things converged to take me away from the Web. Personal and financial crises (all better now -- don't send money); a drawing class that seems to have quite successfully moved me into nonverbal mode; and a return to the interrupted project of organizing my house for life as it is now, instead of how it was.

Also, there is something I need to write about (privately) but I don't want to. And I've learned that, if I won't write what's pressing, I can't write anything. Sooner or later, I'll give in.

I thought I might have a snapshot poem today, but -- not yet.

 

5 Things You (Probably) Don't Know About Me

Ryan tagged me with this Internet meme. It's hard to think there might be much that readers of my blogs, or my About page, don't already know about me, but let's see what I can come up with:

1. My favorite movies are The Wizard of Oz and (brace yourself) Rocky. My favorite books are Alice in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass (my beautiful childhood set sadly lost in the flood) and Four Gated City, by Doris Lessing. My favorite music is Bach: The Goldberg Variations, but I'm also a fan of Jane Siberry, Kate Bush, Ani DiFranco, Philip Glass, Annie Lennox, Nina Simone ...

2. Among my many (sophisticated) collections -- art, artifacts, baskets, crystal candle-holders, books and music, dishes and chandeliers -- is a small collection of large teddy bears. I did, however, have to gather them from several obscure and forgotten places for this portrait:

Yes. I'm 58 years old, and I still have teddy bears. Wanna make somethin' of it?

3. I'm fond of cats.

Oh, you knew that already? OK then.

3. I'm quite good at the verticals: though I lost some IQ points with the onset of this illness, I can still reach pretty high, and can sometimes drop deeper down than others do -- or than most would even want to -- but I'm not so good at the horizontals: human relationships, the good and necessary skills of small talk and social niceties. I used to be better at this, when I had energy to mobilize to that end. Now I'm nearly hopeless.

Thinking, reading, writing: Pass.
Relating: Incomplete at best.

4. Speaking of grades -- for much of my life, I suffered severe writer's block. When I finally got to The Evergreen State College, I arrived with a GPA of something like 3.5 -- with three or four F's on it. The F's were incompletes from instructors who trusted that I would, eventually, get around to writing that paper, which I never did, and the I's morphed, over time, into F's. An Evergreen prof suggested a contract that allowed me to complete all assignments verbally, since I would not write -- and so I graduated.

I think that, for me, to write is to tell the truth; and there were truths I was reluctant to face. Once faced, the writing gates opened.

5. Umm... Oh, I don't like nuts in things. I like nuts -- cashews and peanuts, anyway -- I just don't like them in things. No nuts in my cookies, or brownies, or ice cream. Nuts in Thai food -- that's OK. Maybe it's just nuts in sweets?

Maybe it's just weird.

Now it's your turn. I get to tag five more bloggers, and they each tag five, and so on -- until we get where we may already be, and almost everyone has done it.

I tag Prairie Mary, The Quiet One, Ample Sanity, Chasing Daisy (if you're up for it, if it's distracting -- otherwise, just ignore this), and Wulfgar! If any of you have already done this, well -- hey, I'm busted.

Happy Tuesday.