Haiku

Rain on the burn scar. Salve on the wound. Burnt trees pull the fog around close.

Haiku

The sun just set. Full
moon rising. Tell the Buddha
I'm enlightened now.

Cat on my yoga
mat. Is she a distraction
or my wise teacher?

Zorro in the frost;
in his winter coat. I think
he wants some coffee.

On my day off, I
can't find my favorite gel
pen to write haiku.

Haiku

The full moon tells me
it's August, but the clouds tell
me it's October.


Even though the leaves
aren't turning yet, I can tell
they are very tired.


I write haiku in
my head. I forget to write
them down on paper.


Will the cognac help the
haiku? Or will the haiku help
the cognac? We'll see.

And Ask Many Questions Like Children Often Do

One of the political blogs I read is Andrew Sullivan. On Sundays, he often just posts poems, videos and links to other blogs about God and religion. I kinda like that. Like a blog Sabbath.

Since I like that, I thought I'd do the same.

I have a great affinity for religions, but I practice none. I consider my self agnostic, at best. An atheist heathen, at worst. Are pagans the same as heathens? Not sure, so I'm possibly a pagan, too.

I'm drawn to the rituals of religions, the disciplines of them, the art, the music, even the costumes. But the actual beliefs that support them all I find empty and hypocritical. Like a learned historian who cringes when politicians mangle history and spit on what they should learn from it, religions are steeped in mythology and the stories overlap and repeat themselves over and over to the point I can't take them seriously.

I know faith is supposed to transcend all that. But it just doesn't for me.

That doesn't stop me from seeking God. I think I look everyday. Is that praying? Don't know.

I do see God in the wonders of life. Nature, music, art, the relationships people have. I think God lives there and in all the spaces in between. This requires no faith on my part. Nor does it require a religion to support it. It just is. And that mystery is also God.

That book and movie "Eat, Pray, Love" was fun and all, but it got on my nerves because the woman was basically a rich, single woman who had the luxury of leaving her life behind and travel the world to go find herself. Whatever. Tell me the spiritual journey of a working mother of four then I'll take you seriously. Tell me the spiritual life of a guy who has to work two jobs to support his family. Those are stories I'll believe. Show me where they find grace. Show me their beliefs when they're exhausted at 11:00pm.

Anywho, I am strongly attracted to religions. I like books and movies about nuns. Or any female in any religious sect. I wish they had convents for part-time agnostics. Like the Army Reserves. Serve one weekend a month and two weeks a year. I'd do it in a heartbeat. I'd take a vow of silence and sweep floors and wash windows and go to vespers and all that jazz.

Nulla Dies Sine Linea

So Carla is pissing me off.

I've been thinking, with taking the summer off, I need to start writing again. More on that thought process in a minute. Just when I'm gathering my fortitude to begin again, Carla starts blogging again and gets on her high language arts teacher horse and spouts off about the discipline of writing everyday. Here's some of her garbage:

Lower your standards until you can write.
Don’t correct error.
Writing is a visual art.
"Fail. Fail again. Fail better." Samuel Beckett
Finish. Submit. Many have talent. Some begin; few finish.

You can read all her garbage here on Carla's Blog.

Here I am writing again.

I always have many grandiose ideas heading into summer. Not many materialize. It's all good. I have come to the place that whenever I have time away from work, my goal is to relish that time if for no other reason than it's not work.

Let me explain. No, it's too much, let me sum up. (Obscure movie line for $200, Alex) I do love teaching. I especially love teaching art. I consider all my fellow teachers to be another family. And, God help me, I even like those little bastards I teach. I don't love them. But I like them. Imagine, if you will, every person you had to deal with, all day every day, was someone who was trying to lie, manipulate, groom, steal, put one over on you and, in general, do you dirty in some way. Imagine the exhaustion of having your guard up every single minute of every day. This is what's exhausting about my job. Teaching is a piece of cake. I can do that blindfolded with one hand behind my back. The spiritual space (if you'll allow me to wax philosophical for a moment)that these kids live in is dark and full of pain. And they'll take any opportunity to offload it on anyone within reach.

I need a rest from that.

I need to breathe non-recirculated air.

I need to feel the sun on my face.

I need to clean my house.

This brings us back around to writing. When I think about my time off, my focus has shifted from grandiose plans to daily aspirations of balance and enjoyment. My days are fulfilling when I look to balance all activities. No matter how much I like watching X-Files re-runs or working in the garden, I usually regret doing either of them ALL day. If I allow a little time for different things, the day just seems more full and happy.

Good Lord, that sounds SO bourgeois!

Oh well, you'll get over it.

Writing is one of these activities that balances my time. I've fallen off the writing wagon. The reasons are various and don't really matter much.

It's summer now and I'll write about the sun on the pines and the sweet lilacs blooming along the driveway and the hummingbirds and all other things that don't want to lie to me.

No Enlightening Haiku

My favorite new mom/redhead/substitute teacher/fellow book lover, Jackie, told me in no uncertain terms that I needed to blog again. She said "enlightening haiku or book reviews". Well, the weather hasn't changed enough for any haiku to come visit me so I'll get caught up with a few book reviews. Hopefully, I'll be able to write enough to keep her satisfied. Pushy redheads.

I'll start with "Born to Kvetch" by Michael Wex. This is non-fiction about Yiddish. You're asking,"What? You can't read a nice book about English? You're breaking my heart!" My inner Jew loved this book for two main reasons. First, the author is a teacher and translator of Yiddish and knows the language inside and out, including regional dialects,differences in accents, and slang. Second, he's extremely funny. So even though the subject had the potential of being a history lesson from hell, it more closely resembled a stand-up comedy routine. I'm a total geek for languages and I make no apologies for loving this book. P.S. Jackie, I own it if you want to borrow it.

Next, we have "Great House" by Nicole Krauss. This writer is married to Jonathan Safran Foer, my favorite from "Everything is Illuminated" and "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" which is being made into a movie.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close the movie.

Anywho, must be interesting at their house. But I digress. "Great House" was hard to read for me. Krauss is an amazing author in that she can express very complex and lengthy thoughts, emotions and ideas without resorting to pretentious vocabulary. I admire that greatly in an author. I don't need to know you know how to use a thesaurus, for crying out loud. Tell me the frickin' story. So that aspect of the book was really enjoyable for me, reminds me of Margaret Atwood and her profound ability to move you through time so effortlessly. But the story Krauss was telling didn't quite grab me hard enough. It was several stories and characters and time lines that shared the common inanimate character of a large desk. While I didn't need her to wrap up every story line in a neat package for me (in fact, that would've made me angry)I did need a stronger thread to connect all her stories. I do still like her very much, I picked up "Great House" because I read her "History of Love" last year and liked it. So if she publishes again, I'll bite.

Next, we have "How to Be Good" by Nick Hornby. He's one of my recent favorite authors with "Juliet, Naked", "A Long Way Down", "Slam", and (Carla will kill me because I still haven't read "About a Boy" and "High Fidelity"). You'll recognize some of these titles from movies. His books make very good movies. And you can envision Hugh Grant in every one of them. "How to Be Good" is about a middle-class family in England (Hornby is British and writes very much in a British voice, one of the reasons I like him)where the dad/husband has a spiritual epiphany and decides to quit work and only do humanitarian work. This means sacrifice, not only for him, but for everyone. The kids are resentful they have to give away toys and games and extra computers, the wife is REALLY resentful when he invites his new spiritual guru to live with them and starts inviting homeless people to live them as well. She's a doctor and struggles with the question "Don't I do enough good already? Am I not a good person doing what I'm already doing?" It has a some funny moments and very touching moments between the husband and wife as they struggle to deal with the changes that a life together brings. What would you do if your spouse suddenly thought whatever you were doing wasn't good enough? Good in the big picture of Good. Not just that the house wasn't clean or the trash didn't make it out on trash day.

Next, "Elizabeth the Queen Mother" by William Shawcross. This is the official biography of The Queen Mother. I read it after seeing The King's Speech. As an official biography, it's a little dry. Quite a bit of it just reads like an itinerary. But parts were interesting like she was the first non-royal to marry into the royal family. All those crazy royal families in Europe all married each other. Heck, Queen Elizabeth II is third cousins with her husband, Prince Phillip. It used to be law that you had to marry another royal, but right before The Queen Mother's time, they changed it. Granted, she was Scottish nobility, Lady Elizabeth Bowes Lyon, but that's different than royalty. So just that one step away from royalty made her like a breath of fresh air up in that crazy tree. I like The Queen Mother because she reminds me of my Grandma Linsday. They were born a few year apart, come from different universes(although that branch of my family is extremely British), but for some reason it just makes me think of her a lot. When you're a kid, you love your grandparents, but you don't really think about them and the times they lived in and the experiences they had. Not until you're older and have a perspective on history do you appreciate that and then, typically, it's too late to talk to them about it.

Lastly, the book I'm currently reading, "Eleanor of Aquitaine" by Alison Weir. I guess I'm on an Anglophile kick. One of my favorite movies is "The Lion in Winter" with Peter O'Toole and Katherine Hepburn as Henry II and Eleanor. Those crazy royals were even crazier back in the Dark Ages. They all married each other, but had strict rules about how closely you could be related to a prospective spouse. They frequently ignored these rules, had the Pope sign a dispensation to sanctify the marriage, and then when the marriage didn't work out like they'd hoped (no male heir was produced, loyalties changed, they wanted to kill each other, etc.)they would just say "My bad! We're too closely related! We're sinning against God! Quick! Pope! Annul us!" And the Pope would and crazy new branches would ensue. Eleanor was queen to two different kings in two different countries, had ten children (officially), and was Queen Mother to three kings and two queens. She outlived all of them except two. During the times she was actually allowed to rule, she was very wise and fair. She had no qualms about advancing the prospects of her children, although some of them she never saw past their infancy as it was common practice, especially for girls,to be betrothed as toddlers and go live in the household of the future spouse. I like Eleanor. She learned quickly how to function in a world where girls were used as property. Any girl, even queens, could be kidnapped, imprisoned, raped, have children taken from them at any point in time, have marriages arranged and dissolved without their knowledge or consent, and be restricted from about 90% of worldly activities. Her youngest son, King John, was such a horrible king that the rebellion that created the Magna Carta happened under his rule.

So, there you go, Jackie. Hope that's a nice grown-up distraction from your world of all things babyish.

Haiku

Stuck inside stupid
training. The geese outside have
no pity for me.


Dark skies in my rear
view mirror. Clouds up ahead.
Here...a bit of sun.


Writing haiku, I'm
not really listening. I'm
a bad student.


Iridescent clouds
at dawn. I really shouldn't
look while I'm driving.