Drew Myron's Blog, page 40

Finding meaning, making art

Every journey is about finding.

Judy Kleinberg is an artist and writer who has created over 1,000 found poems.

"Browsing through magazines for images, I noticed 'accidental' phrases that were created through the happenstance of page layout," she says. "My process is all about finding that unintentional syntax and combining small word chunks into poems."

Join us at 3 Good Books, where Kleinberg offers reading suggestions on the theme of finding.

 

Pigeons, pork chops, maybe

In the Pacific Northwest, where I live, all about me is floods, landslides, and endless wet. For days that wear like weeks, we've been saturated in rain and gray. And gray is more than weather.

Against Gray

Mold. Mice. A tough porkchop.
The angry ocean.

Old carpet.
Seagulls, pigeons, worms.
Trash can. Concrete.

Seattle. Portland. Dusk.
The pull of sadness.
Worn cedar siding. Wind.

Mullett, tuna, catfish, dead fish.
The words maybe    almost.

Black and white photos dimmed with time.
Late night television of my youth.

Oatmeal. Gravel. Cigarette smoke. Dust.

Old man eyebrows, wiry and wandering.
Women who’ve given up.
Oyster shells. Fog.

The flu. A murky x-ray.
Loneliness is a shadow.

Mornings without my glasses.
Bullets, battleships, steel.
Mushrooms. Sweat stains. Dirty socks.

Barbells. Knife. Wrench.
Clenched jaw.

Dirty dishwater. Sideways rain.

In the distance, you.

- Drew Myron

What I'm Giving: Books!

In a gift giving frenzy?

As I do every year, and much to the chagrin of my nieces and nephews who would prefer a fat wad of cash, I'm giving books.

Books always fit, and rarely offend. Books are best to both give and receive (though cashmere and sea salt caramels are strong contenders, but enough about my wants).

Feel free to borrow my gift list and make it your own*:

MEMOIR (without the annoying me-me-me)

Bettyville
by George Hodgman

A gay man returns home to take care of his strong-willed, elderly mother, and the results are both very funny and very touching. The New York Times says "it works on several levels, as a meditation on belonging, as a story of growing up gay and the psychic cost of silence, as metaphor for recovery."

 

MOTIVATIONAL (without cloying platitudes)

The Best Advice in Six Words
edited by Larry Smith

We've come a long way since the first book of Six Word Memoirs. Book after book, the best-selling series works so well because creating six word snippets is both challenging and fun, and can deliver a delightful mix of  messages amusing, sharp, touching and sad. (Have you written your six-word memoir? You can see mine across this website header: Push words. Pull light. Carry balm.)

SPIRITUAL (without dogma)

Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner & Saint
by Nadia Bolz-Weber

A tatooed, female, recovered alcoholic joins with homeless, gay, and transgendered friends to start a church. This is not fiction, this is faith. The kind of religion that is inclusive and real. Now a New York Times bestseller, Pastrix is described as "a book for every thinking misfit suspicious of institutionalized religion, but who is still seeking transcendence and mystery."

 

YOUNG ADULT (without vampires or zombies)

The Way Back from Broken
by Amber Keyser

At last, a novel that understands teen readers are hungry for complex characters and deep material. In this compelling and poignant novel, a 15-year-old boy grapples with the grief of losing his baby sister. The author "takes the reader inside the pain of loss," notes a book reviewer, "making it personal and ragged in all the best ways, so that each step toward healing builds to a life-affirming and cathartic conclusion."

ILLUSTRATED BOOK (sorta story, sorta comic)

Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened
by Allie Brosh

It's been out two years but I'm just now getting to the lovefest for this sharp and amusing illustrated book. "Funny and smart as hell," says Bill Gates (yes, that Bill Gates). NPR, Goodreads, Library Journal, Elizabeth Gilbert and 3,000 Amazon reviewers love this book. And now, you can add my (not at all powerful) name to the list.

 

FICTION (literary, but not overly crafted)

Elegies for the Brokenhearted 
by Christie Hodgen

I like my fiction deep and dark, and Elegies for the Brokenhearted delivers. Melancholic and deftly written, the novel tells the story of one woman's damaged and difficult life through a series as elegies — aching and insightful laments for the dead. Original and absorbing, this is the best book I read in 2015 (though as usual I'm late to the launch; the book was published in 2010).

 

 * I have numerous caveats for my reading pursuits. But don't fret, it's the thought that counts. Unless you give me a cookbook, to which my response will always be, "Can't we go out for dinner?" 

 

 

Thanks Giving: Illness, usefulness, being

One of my best days lately was talking with a woman who cannot speak, listening to a woman who cannot hear, and dinner with a friend who said, “I only cry in front of you.”

___

For most of the past year, I’ve willingly moved toward sickness and death. Life recedes at every turn, among family, friends, and at work. There’s no shortage of pain, this we know.

___

When we visit a friend in the nursing home, my kind and compassionate husband can’t wait to leave.

Is it the smell, I ask? (They all smell, even the good ones. Because, well, incontinence stinks).

Is it the sight? Elderly people aren’t pretty. The beautifully elegant and aging Katherine Hepburn is like a unicorn, a myth. The rest of us sag, spot, wrinkle, shrivel, and smell.  

No, he says, I just don’t know what to say or do.

Without action, he’s restless, wants to fix. I know the feeling, though I’m spared this anxiety because I rarely feel equipped to fix anything.

Still, what seems the most obvious action is also the most difficult: show up, without resolution, avoidance, distraction, or cheer.

___

use·ful
   ˈyo͞osfəl/
   adjective
   1 :  capable of being put to use; especially :  serviceable for an end or purpose <useful tools>
   2 :  of a valuable or productive kind <do something useful with your life>

My every prayer: make me useful.

___

Years ago, I began working with teens in a writing group. Many of the young writers struggled through lives complicated by abuse, neglect, drugs, alcohol, and more. I had no experience in social work or teaching. Even writing was more instinct than education.

Expressing my anxiousness, a good friend offered the best advice: Just show up. Be present.

She was right. The teens have now grown up and on, and I still whisper those five words to myself.

I’m not an expert in health care, psychology, or, really, anything. At the nursing home where I work, I sometimes turn into a strange version of myself. My voice rises in a cheery rush, an effort to fill the uncomfortable space. But I’m trying. Some days I visit with a woman who talks in gibberish. We don’t need words. We sit in the sun. I hold her hand, and she smiles.

I’m trying to be quiet, to sit still, to be.

___

What I’m learning is the span between sickness and death is a long, gray, murky mess. The definitive moments are few. You do this and this and that, in a zigzag, with no direct route. Sickness is cloudy and slow.

Few of us die suddenly, peacefully, easily. It’s not death that unsettles me, but the rocky road to get there.  

___ 

We should write about this, my friend says.

She's in the mire of caregiving, watchful of every change in a disease robbing body and mind. This is not the life she imagined. Together, each in our own way, we’re seeing many ends.

But what would we say? Illness is ugly. Aging stinks. We don’t want to see the unpleasant end. And when we squirm with discomfort, we don’t want to realize that we’re not as magnanimous as we believed.

___

You can brighten a life, I tell a prospective volunteer. But not many people want to visit the darkness of dying, even if a visit would light up the lonely. 

It takes so little to help another. This is a fact both comforting and sad.

___

At the nursing home, or in the hospital, time slows and I’m in a protected envelope in which every moment matters. Most days I feel lucky to be among people who trust me enough to let me see their fear and loneliness. I’m trying to say that every small gesture is worthy of effort. And those gestures are largely unseen, and that seems the most honest and true thing I can do.  

___

But let’s not get dramatic; I’m holding a hand, not curing cancer. I’m admiring a necklace, and noticing new socks. I’m discussing the chicken dinner, and gushing over a fresh manicure. I’m pushing a wheelchair, not because she can’t push herself but because it gives me an excuse to chat and smile, to be of use.

___

I didn't expect to laugh so much. But I'm giggling with Betsy, who is telling me about her absent children and no-good man. And I'm laughing with Sylvia, who is sneaking a smoke. And I'm silly with Ellen as we bumble to secure her jacket that is all zippers and sleeves.

"I'm no good at this," I mutter.

"You're learning," she says, patient as Sunday.

We laugh at our mutual inability. We are giddy about nothing at all, and in nothingness we share an everyday ease.

___ 

Happiness doesn’t come in the way I expected, writes Samantha Harvey, not a massing of good things over time, but a succession of small, strange and unowned moments.

___

Unexpectedly, gratitude gathers. My thankfulness is a messy pile of autumn leaves. In this decay, there is much beauty.

 

 

Thankful Thursday: Crazy Fallen World

These are difficult days for gratitude. The days are short, the skies gray, the heart heavy.

And yet, of course, we must make room in the mire for thankfulness, to keep some safe and tidy spot for our gratitude to grow.

Praise our crazy fallen world, writes Barbara Crooker, it's all we have, and it's never enough.

I often reach for Crooker's reassurance, and learned recently that her gratitude is hard-earned, which makes her beautiful poems even more illuminating. You can learn more about Barbara Crooker on the 3 Good Books blog.

Praise Song

Praise the light of late November,

the thin sunlight that goes deep in the bones.

Praise the crows chattering in the oak trees;

though they are clothed in night, they do not

despair. Praise what little there's left:

the small boats of milkweed pods, husks, hulls,

shells, the architecture of trees. Praise the meadow

of dried weeds: yarrow, goldenrod, chicory,

the remains of summer. Praise the blue sky

that hasn't cracked yet. Praise the sun slipping down

behind the beechnuts, praise the quilt of leaves

that covers the grass: Scarlet Oak, Sweet Gum,

Sugar Maple. Though darkness gathers, praise our crazy

fallen world; it's all we have, and it's never enough.

— Barbara Crooker
  

It's Thankful Thursday. Gratitude. Appreciation. Praise. Please join me in a weekly pause to express appreciation for people, places & things. What are you thankful for today?

On Sunday: Love that line!

  Praise songs were being

sung slightly off-key by suburban

moms dressed in matching outfits.

And since it was a worship service

and I'm a clergyperson, I had to try

to pretend not to be horrified."

— Nadia Bolz-Weber
from Pastrix: the Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner & Saint

 

Thankful Thursday: Your heart opens

 

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It's Thankful Thursday, a weekly pause to express appreciation. Please join me. What are you thankful for today?

On Pop Culture

I’m a 'regular' person

with a normal job,

             so I believe poetry

             can be relevant

             and appreciated

             in anyone’s world."

—  Shawnte Orion

Shawnte Orion's work is quick-witted, irreverent, and peppered with pop culture references and clever titles, such as, Love in the Time of Hand-Sanitizer and Unable to Surface for Air During Shark Week.

At 3 Good Books — a blog series I host — Orion shares his favorite books on the theme of Popular Culture.

To read more, go here.   

Oh, the chatter!

reminder • no 6 in a series - by drew myron

Reminder, a series by Drew Myron

No. 1 - Note to Forgetful Self

No. 2 - What's Your Trick?

No. 3 - Secrets of the Slim

No. 4 - What I Don't Know

No. 5 - The Myth of Patience

 

Misreading: These small jolts

Am I moving too fast, or thinking too slow?

Another batch of misreadings has accrued:

Garbage Sale
actual sign: Garage Sale
But, really, isn't garbage refreshingly honest?

Point of Internet
actual sign: Point of Interest
Imagine my disappointment when the historic cabin had no wifi.

Now Hiring EVIL Teachers
actual ad: Now Hiring ELL Teachers
This, I discovered, stands for English Language Learners, so bonus points for this "teachable moment."

Let You In
actual lyrics: Let you win.
For years — yes, years — I've loudly and proudly sung along with Macy Gray. Last week, I realized the words to one of my favorite songs are not: Let you in, let you in, let you in. The actual lyrics are: Let you win, let you win, let you win.

I cannot abide. I prefer my version, and will continue to croon incorrectly: Let you IN, let you IN, let you IN . . .

The great thing about misreadings is the gift in the shift of perspective. These small jolts lead to questions, wonder and wanderings. What if? How about? This is the stuff of story and poem. These shiftings are just what we need to nudge us awake. When you stir the mind, the pen will follow.