Working with Wet Wood In the Wet Wood

 

I was out in the woods behind my house, and I came across a lot of branches and roots scattered about. Everything is so wet and broken after a week of rain and wind. As I was looking at the variety of shapes and sizes of branches and how they interacted with each other, a deer wandered across an open space and into the shadows of the trees its feet silent on the soft ground. Like a creature from a dream, it moved slowly and continuously disappearing as it went under the trees.

I gathered some branches and carried them back to a flat open space behind the garage in back of my house. I remember what Andy Goldsworthy said about the work keeping you warm when it is going well. I can’t say objectively how it went, but I did not notice the cold and wet while I arranged the branches. I worked for almost an hour and as it was getting dark snapped a few pictures of my progress. I will work some more tomorrow. The branches are light and brittle. I expected them to be more water logged. I am thinking I should call it “Brittle Wood Weaving.” It is far from finished and some other name might occur to me. It is pleasant work almost like meditation when I am absorbed in it. Taking the pictures in the half light was frustrating though and made me almost forget how natural the rest of the experience was. Process is experience and product is documentation of the experience. The experience was good. The rest is not important.

A New Month / A New Novel: NaNoWriMo

Two years ago, in November,  just after I started my blog, I wrote 50,000 words that almost came together as a novel. That was my first NaNoWriMo experience. It was good to find out that I was capable of putting that many words together around a mostly coherent, semi-cohesive story. I still work on making this blob of words into a form that works as a novel, and it is still in the cat herding, jello nailing stages. Most of the pieces are there and moving toward a conclusion that has yet to materialize in a workable form.  I struggle cheerfully with it now and then like a 50,000 piece jigsaw puzzle sitting on a table off to the side of part of my mind that writes. I have consolidated the scattered pieces into 4 or 5 main groupings that still  need to be connected in the middle and finished off in satisfying way that has yet to appear.

Last year I made a half hearted start at NaNoWriMo, but my life was too stressful and overwhelming at the time. I never really got started. This year I am fairly stress free thanks to a great new job and feeling of optimistic creativity to go with it. So I am embarking once again on the journey of 50,000 words. This also will fulfill one of my goals for 101 in 1001, writing the first draft of a new novel, killing 2 birds with one novel (these are strictly metaphoric cats, birds and jello; no real animals or gelatin products will be herded, nailed or killed in the making of  these novels.)

Today I am off to a good start. I will be posting my efforts as pages, but I warn you they will be rough and skip around some as I will write the pieces of the story as they inspire me. Each piece should be between 1000 and 2000 words and may be posted in batches. I will appreciate any feedback or ideas as long as they are thoughtful and constructive. I will try to maintain my once a week pace for blog entries this month, but the novel will definitely come first.

 

 

Another Year, Another Journal, and a Dream Poem

The year contained in this journal has been like last of a long struggle. I have finally reached surface from the dark, chill of abyssal depths. I am still adjusting to the light and air, but things are coming into focus. I have a new job that allows me to be an effective educator which reduces my stress and lets me be more positive and balanced in my creative moments. I am, as usual and forever, battling my negative moods, but I have relieved at least one source of distraction. As I start a new journal I feel it will be filled with less with stress, and more with wonder and possibilities.

From an observation of my work as a teacher of dreamtime children.

“Field Concerns for Medical Gladiolas.”

Her voice followed

the  butterflies of her hands

dancing  up the curve of her

experience

and away into the future

“That’s what my teacher called it.”

The distant butterflies transformed

bright leaves drifting back

loosely settling

in her lap.

It’s been a while!

My life has been experiencing some glitches and internal rewiring due to some very positive changes. I am now one month into my new position as a coop preschool teacher of the paperwork free variety. I document by photos and conversations, and I am in charge of the program, but not the administration. All I have to do is develop relationships with children and parents and provide a safe stimulating environment that responds to their needs as individuals and encourages social interactions. I am very good at these things. Parents who put their children in this program are aware of our policy of child centered, play oriented learning so I don’t have to sell them on my philosophy and style. And best of all I do not have to do social service work and spend half of my time writing down what happens every day. We just do things. Mostly I inspire, observe, set limits and provide caring and conversations.

Now that I have transitioned into my new schedule and dealt with all of the feelings that come with the change of community. I did not move, but I left some friends and comrades in arms at my Head Start job and some families that I had grown close to. Whenever I make these transitions I go through a period in which my priorities fly up in the air, and I am not very good at juggling. I tend to be a one task at a time person. So writing remained up in the air for a while. Now I am feeling the rhythm and have started to catch all of my flying priorities. I even wrote a poem though I am not sure why it has such a strangely fatalistic tone. I am feeling very positive about most of my life even though things get a little overwhelming at times. But hey when a poem comes in from wherever they come from, I just write whatever comes through.

One More Day

Another chance to move

about in this small space,

Sweep a corner clear,

Chalk an outline of where

I will fall

With small

Adjustments that amount

to millions of still frames,

most of which I will

forget,

keeping only the ones that

mean the least,

flat, transparent images

unable to hold feeling,

as if they belong to someone else,

who is like me,

but seen from a distance,

flickered movements strobed

onto my mind screen,

an eyeball, a razor, a black-bearded man in a

tutu endlessly repeated,

infinitely varied,

until all possibilities are

exhausted.

A New Calender To Fill Up

This is the cover from my calender from July 08 through July 09. This year was a mix of many ideas and moods a lot of them frustrating and disappointing. I am now just one month into a new calender, and have yet to put a blank sheet on it for doodling (no long boring meetings). Already it has been eventful. I have quit my old job and as a result I got to finish my August with circus camp, which was totally inspirational. I got to meet a one armed juggler and family counselor who juggles bowling balls, and I get a few days off before I start my new job this week. A job that I hope will give me a lot more inspiration and joy. last year had some dark and desperate times almost all of them job related. I am hoping that the change I am making will make a huge difference in my creative life. It is already having a good effect on my outlook. Thursday is my first teacher in-service and potluck meeting with parents. For once I am not dreading paperwork days and multiple days of meetings in which I have to listen to the word from on high and not so high. I am in charge of the preschool, but I aim to invite children and parents into a learning collaboration. I think in this new coop school setting it will be possible. I know this year will be full of challenges and adjustment, but I am really looking forward to working with children and families and not having to prove that I am doing something by entering data and checking boxes. My documentation this year will be photographs and works of art, language samples and videos. The challenges will be how to cram it all into a tiny classroom and the time that I know will seem to short for all the ideas we want to explore.