Tag poetry

Time and Quiet

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Sometimes I need quiet to free my brain of daily distractions to put pen to paper or fingers to my keyboard. There’s certainly a lot to distract us as we search for good news amongst the mostly bad news about COVID-19 that is on TV, social media, and in newspapers. The reader will see a few random “quiet time” photos from my collection in this blog to break up the text.

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In retirement, I work two days a week and live alone. Before the recommendation to shelter at home, I’d spend my workday breaks running errands and/or meeting friends for lunch. On other days, I attended volunteer organization meetings, planned dinner parties, and went out to local bars and restaurants to hear live music and eat out.  Nearly everything is now canceled or closed. The State Department just announced that US citizens should not travel abroad during this pandemic and everyone abroad should come home. I canceled a trip to Ireland planned for the end of this month.

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This blog entry is a celebration of the enforced quiet many of us are experiencing due to our time at home. There’s a real benefit to social distancing. I wrote copious journal entries in my adolescence. After I started college, studying took all my time and I let it go. During graduate school, I read The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing.  I credit that book to a personal awakening and renewed interest in writing. A new job, then children, again put the idea on the back burner. A painful divorce eleven years ago freed me to consider writing again.

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I read an article recently that likened writing to a form of worship. I’m more inclined to think of it as a daily meditation or therapy. Writing with a writing group helped me recover from divorce. I established a daily writing routine that I continue to maintain.

The writing group’s monthly meetings keep us all working to bring new work to a shared critique. I’ve made longlasting friends in the process. As a decidedly nice side-benefit of my writing time, I’ve published poems in journals, magazines, and anthologies. I’ve published two chapbooks and a full-length poetry collection has been accepted for publication.

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My take-away from enforced solitude, listen to the quiet and allow your inner voice to guide you forward.

Growing Up on a Farm

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My poem, Farm Sale, tells about the day my parents held a farm sale, prior to their move from farm to a house in town in 1982. The poem was published in The Sea Letter Journal 

farm sale_Jim

The photo is blurry because it’s from 1982, taken on a tiny point-and-shoot camera and because my hands shook watching my parents’ lives auctioned away. Many people from the community came to the sale. Cars and pickup trucks lined the road that March day.

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I also took some pictures that day of the pasture where I spent a lot of time day dreaming during my adolescent years.  Those photos are clearer.  I took more time and steadied my hand to photograph the waterways I loved.

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Mom liked living in the town they chose.  Dad missed the farm.  He missed the cows and working in the fields.  He passed away two years after moving to town.

Timing

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Milkweed flowers begin to open

When to prune and when to let go

Mowing for Monarchs 101
7/27/2019
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Gardens, lawns, fields, roadsides, right-of-ways all provide vital habitat for monarchs and other pollinators. How we manage this habitat must be done with care to help protect our monarchs!

by Rebecca Chandler
Garden Educator, Naturalist and Ethnobotanist

So many things depend on timing. I am reminded of this by the radio in my sewing room that reliably turns itself on at 8:00 am every day, runs for a few minutes, then shuts off. I’ve tried to re-program it without result. I’m writing this from my office, a floor above the sewing room, where sound carries surprisingly well. I could turn down the sound, unplug the radio, or, gasp, read the radio’s directions, but I’m leaving it alone because the alarm has a role to play in my day.

As the author of the Mowing for Monarch 101 article states so well, we can manage our green spaces to promote butterfly life. I believe we can manage our time to create a more peaceful life, and we can support each other during good times and bad.

This year there’s some monarchs, a few yellow swallowtails, and a flamboyance of painted ladies in my yard. They draw nectar from lilies, phlox, swamp weed butterfly plant, and asters that are just coming into bloom. When I stand still in the garden, they light on my shoulder and in my hair.

Swamp weed butterfly plant loaded with butterflies

There have been multiple articles published recently recounting the benefits of gardening where we get our hands dirty. This one is a good example, https://gardeninggonewild.com/13-reasons-why-gardening-is-good-for-your-health/. Another example is my poem, Garden Therapy, published in Nebraska Life Magazine this month http://www.nebraskalife.com/July-2019/July-August-2019/

Time spent outside away from social media is good for young and old alike. Ordinarily, I’d be outside taking care of pruning, harvesting, or mowing on a sunny August day, rather than writing this blog. However, it’s one of those 90 degree days with high humidity that makes it feel close to 100 degrees. It’s as if Mother Nature is having a hot flash and just wants to be left alone. I’m happy to oblige her and let go.