Elizabeth Dutton's Blog, page 10
September 1, 2012
and I do
I’ve been working on a poem about pilgrimage (complete with references to tidal detritus!). It’s about 3/4 on the page in its earliest form but needs a lot more molding. I took a break to read some older stuff of mine and found this lost child. Enjoy.
[the title of this poem is the sound of the guitar in Led Zeppelin’s “Tangerine”]
Car windows down.
At 75
the air hurts coming through,
an unending slap.
The car is old, my paternal grandmother’s.
A Catalina,
sounds breezy and romantic.
It isn’t.
It’s tan.
It’s hot out,
the highway is melting.
I want to slip in,
not return.
Dive down, look for something else,
maybe the real Catalina.
Not really.
I’d been there before –
it was all white people
in shorts and with neat haircuts.
On the dirt road now,
soft air brings in the smell:
Oak trees
Bay leaves
Dust
Dry grass
makes THAT smell:
California.
The radio is all tin
treble.
It takes tapes,
eats them, too.
Neil Young said that
Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere.
And then it was.
I pull over,
dust like a fan behind me,
the Catalina a giant tan peacock
screeching through this
central valley
this heartland
this no man’s land.
In the trunk, a cooler
Full of melting ice and sweating cans.
I hang my hand in the freezing spike,
Come up empty.
The sky is honey now.
Looking at those rolling hills makes me sleepy.
I don’t know what I want.
August 30, 2012
pieces in place
I’ve started teaching full time at the local community college, which is complete bliss. Everything about it is wonderful — something I feel I should write down somewhere as a reminder for those days that are more trying than others. It is a sometimes overwhelming honor to be a part of someone’s education. I feel lucky. I am also teaching a modern poetry class later this fall at Coker College, a gig that feels nothing at all like work. In addition to all that, I am still working on the novel-to-screenplay conversion and the second novel. And the biggest bonus? I come home each day to a very loyal and loving blond bear of a dog.
Writing + teaching + dogs = complete happiness.
I suppose it’s the doom and gloom Irish Catholic upbringing in me that half-expects this elation to end rather brutally, rather quickly. This sustained happiness…can it last? Do I deserve it? Let us all please hope so.
And during those moments each day when I count these blessings, when I think of how pleasing things are and can be, I hope that every other person feels this way, too.
August 20, 2012
the here, the now, the past, the future
One of the toughest things to do is focus on this moment right now.
Right now, my right now is clouded with worry about what comes next. Things I can’t control. Decisions out of my hands. To combat this, I have been diving into projects I can control. I am adapting a novel I wrote into a screenplay. This process is sometimes so overwhelmingly wonderful and challenging and new that I find myself totally giddy. Then I start to remember collaborations and ideas and things past and suddenly I am lost in the world behind me. This is no better than fixating on the things ahead. So back to the here and now. For now.
There are some things I have come to really understand about myself as I obsess about the future, pain for the past, and attempt to stay rooted in this moment:
I adore adore adore words. Oh, I love them and savor them. I love conveying ideas with words. I love being cryptic with words and much as I enjoy being completely clear. I love teaching. This runs a close second to writing in terms of fulfillment of the soul. I am unrepentantly corny (see previous sincere sentence). I am impatient. I am unable to stop loving, no matter the result. This isn’t too good, but so be it. I don’t regret a thing. I am both scared of and excited for the future. My head and heart rarely agree. I really want to be liked and accepted. I feel much better when I am working really hard on something. I have to stop wondering what could have been. I love adventure. I really really need to stop spending so much time inside my own head, because it is making me (more) bonkers.
Here’s to living right here and right now. Here’s to open hearts and good fortune and new adventures.
July 24, 2012
don’t throw your hand
I have spent much of my life being that kid in “Parenthood” (the movie, not the tv show) who freaks the fuck out when he loses his retainer at the Chuck E. Cheese style pizza place and his parents wonder where they went wrong and how this kid is going to ever pull himself together. (Although, to be completely honest, animatronic performing animals and skee ball games kind of encourage a loss of reason and promote total freak outs. At least in me.) That kid is me, with family watching overwhelmed and irritated as I melt down time and again. Intellectually, I know this is ridiculous and that I can get my act together and relax and let the universe unfold as it should. But my intellect sometimes flies out the window, and there I am sweating out a panic attack in the produce aisle at the supermarket. At least the kid in Parenthood had a trigger — losing his retainer. My anxiety comes from very real places, but mostly out of nowhere.
I prefer happiness and love and calm over fear and panic and worry. How do I promote the good and release the bad? Lists, my babies. Lots of lists.
awesome:
people who make other people happy
new ideas, especially when they materialize in the shower
growing gourds
being right here
not giving a toss what others think about me
letting go
non-awesome:
fear
doctor’s appointments
attachment
sweaty panic attacks
*****
super awesome:
lots of love to all of you
xo
July 14, 2012
tell me everything
awesome:
battery operated lanterns
tomato festivals
pomegranate iced green tea
Julian of Norwich
wanting to run off to the English seaside
non-awesome:
heat exhaustion
tv campaign ads
indelible worry
not being able to run off to the English seaside
July 1, 2012
keeping distance
This love of life makes me weak at my knees.
In the dead of night, when it’s just me and the frogs and the critters that feel safest in low light, everything seems clearer. Last night I realized the importance of distance. Perspective. I am taking my new project back to its roots and making it really mine. Sometimes I feel I am a person without a real place to call home. Not that I don’t have a lovely roof over my head. But I am an exile. An expat. I think the place that roots me just doesn’t exist anymore and I intend to bring it back, if only on the page.
June 28, 2012
Halo, Indonesia! Aku cinta anda!
1,033 Reasons to Smile is now available in Indonesia! I hope it is enjoyed throughout the 17,508 islands. Should you find yourself in Jakarta, please pick up a copy. I have to say that the cover of this one fascinates me. I look forward to my inevitable Indonesian celebrity status.
*****
1,033 Alasan untuk Tersenyum ini sekarang tersedia di Indonesia! Saya harap hal ini dinikmati di seluruh daerah 17,508 isiands. Harus anda menemukan diri sendiri di Jakarta, kumohon, angkatlah salinan. Aku telah untuk mengatakan bahwa sampul yang satu ini mempesona saya.
Aku berharap untuk yang tak terelakkan selebriti indonesia saya status.
June 18, 2012
bueno/no bueno
es bueno:
kumquat coolers full of mint and juice and ice
train trips
not taking things seriously (my specialty)
agates
wide-legged linen pants
anything automated
slow realizations
the smell of basil plants in the sun
big ass (not big-assed) dragonflies
frozen yogurt
rivers
fond memories of good times, even those later smudged out by bad
es no bueno:
the passing of my 17 year old Skye terrier, Wallace (oh, I loved him so)
visiting a big city and feeling a million years old
mosquitos (permanently on the list)
fleeting moments of regret
Guy Fieri
businessmen in suits who answer their cell phones “hey, bro”
the creepiness when electronics “fix” themselves
May 30, 2012
weird is rad
awesome:
cleanin’ up real good like
adventures and opportunities
brown rice and quinoa
linen
memory foam pillows
braids
savoring words
non-awesome:
mosquito bites
missing the ocean
the lonely life
May 21, 2012
no room for the unadventurous
Art, like life, is messy business.
