tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-136421662024-03-12T00:51:46.086-04:00Jenny HillWords For People Who Still ReadJenny Hillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02689476109430471814noreply@blogger.comBlogger450125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13642166.post-46508294017700351252023-08-10T16:53:00.002-04:002023-08-10T16:54:16.142-04:00Delight Leads to Wisdom<div style="text-align: left;">The day Richard Aston died, I was teaching a poetry session to reluctant teens at a YMCA summer camp. I was about to recite a poem and asked the group, "What does it mean when we say we <i>know something by heart</i>?" One kid said, "You remember it." Another offered, "Your heart never forgets it."</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />Richard was a regular participant in and a great supporter of the Northeast Pennsylvania poetry scene. I met him in the mid 90s, when I began to attend poetry events through the Mulberry Poets and Writers Association. Richard was a sage. Grey bearded and bespectacled, he was a man with a scheduled rotation of professorial clothing. In winter, he wore a thick, orange cable knit turtleneck. When he spoke, he sometimes stroked his facial hair in thought. I often saw him reuse the same paper coffee cup at events. Seeing him drive for the first time I realized how much he valued the contents of his head, because he wore a helmet as he navigated the Wilkes-Barre roads in his little fuel-efficient car. He spoke to me many times about how he conserved energy in the home he and his wife lived in, the house his father built many years ago. He took great pride in his ancestry, having come from a long line of skilled masons and craftsmen. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />People who only did a surface scan of Richard missed his brilliance and likely categorized him as an eccentric. Richard was a quiet mentor to many coming up in the NEPA poetry scene. His ability to stand in front of any audience, big or small, and recite his work always left me in awe. Where was he holding all of those lines -- were they knitted into that sweater? Written on the inside of the recycled coffee cup? I think the day I realized that Richard's poems were living inside of Richard was the day I learned what the power and responsibility of committing a poem to memory to share it with an audience was. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />Vision + language + electrical impulses + heartbeat married to rhythm of language + the vessel of sonorous and singular body + breath and voice = <i>poem delivered in true spirit to an audience</i>.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Richard was curious about nearly everything, and approached his interests with poetry and scientific inquiry. He said to me once, "Delight leads to wisdom." I wrote it on a scrap of paper that hangs over my desk as a reminder to stay curious about everything -- to turn over stones, to inquire, to find delight in little things. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />He encouraged my writing, and often nudged me to attend the poetry festival in West Chester that he attended each year. He was at many events at Paper Kite, starting with the ones we held in a pottery studio in Kingston, and the mansion on South Franklin in Wilkes-Barre, and finally in our own studio in Edwardsville. He was ever-present, and truly present at readings. He paid attention when people read their work. He listened, then stuck around to discuss what he'd heard. It is impossible to know how many people he supported in this way, but I suspect it is a very large number of people indeed.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />The last time I saw Richard was in Lancaster at the Ware Center for the Performing Arts where I performed a one-woman show titled <i>Alonely</i>. He and his wife Marcia drove all the way from Wilkes-Barre to attend, and had plans to stay overnight. After the show I went out into the audience and Richard gifted me with one of his poetry scrolls. I spoke with him again during the pandemic. He asked me for a video of the show to study. He was still thinking about it. I was sorry I didn't have one to give to him.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />I couldn't make it to his poetry reading this spring with the Word to Word reading series. I regret that I missed that opportunity to see and hear him one more time.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />So on the day Richard died, I recited <i>Valentine for Earnest Mann</i> by Naomi Shihab Nye to a group of impatient and unruly teens gathered in the Group Exercise room at the YMCA. As I assembled the vision, language, electrical impulses, heartbeat and rhythm of language, vessel of singular and (tired and exasperated) sonorous body, breath and voice, and began, some of the kids laughed and talked as I spoke. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />"I have to stop," I said. "I can't do it. I can't recite this poem right now." I looked the chattiest kid in the eye. "Maybe if it's quiet, I can." </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />I began again. I tripped up on the words. I delivered most of the poem, and like a hobbled runner I made it all the way to the end. The kids didn't know anything was missing, but I did. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="long-line" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #343434; display: inline-block; font-family: "poets electra", Georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 17.6px; margin-left: 32px; text-indent: -32px;"><i>Maybe if we re-invent whatever our lives give us</i></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="long-line" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #343434; display: inline-block; font-family: "poets electra", Georgia, "times new roman", serif; font-size: 17.6px; margin-left: 32px; text-indent: -32px;"><i>we find poems. </i></span></div></blockquote></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I will remember that moment, my skipped beats and recovery, all the teenage recalcitrance in the room, as the one when Richard made his exit from this world and entered the next. I hope he saw my foolish humanity in trying to remember what I thought I knew <i>by heart</i>, and took delight in it all. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">--</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Some of Richard's writing can be found in <a href="http://www.ncsociology.org/torchmagazine/v892/Aston.pdf" target="_blank">Torch Magazine</a>. His collection of poetry, <a href="http://foothillspublishing.com/poets/" target="_blank">Valley Voices, was published by FootHills Publishing</a>. </div><p><br /></p>Jenny Hillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02689476109430471814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13642166.post-69652685806882833362023-07-30T07:47:00.004-04:002023-07-30T07:47:28.481-04:00Complaints DepartmentI'm the most honest when I write letters to friends. Is it a fool's errand to write here? It's a bit like picking up the phone and talking when no one is on the other end. A pretend conversation. Zero connection. Surface activity. <br /><br />I'm over summer. Yesterday I saw a <i>Lycoris squamigera </i>(what a name!) in front of my window and thought "Good! Summer will be over soon." I didn't think "Oh, how pretty!" I was just relieved that this pale, leafless trumpet was here to herald the start of fall. Let us harvest whatever survived the deer browsing in the field and let the leaves shrivel and drop.<br /><br />A beautiful white hair just fell out of my scalp. Lots of the brown ones are letting go too. I'm thinning out. Shedding.<br /><br /><i>Lycoris squamigera.</i><br /><br />A couple of 20-somethings re-enacted a video game on the stage yesterday when I was helping their friend find something in the shop. They narrated what they saw and collected in the game when they play it online. There was no imagination. They never asked if they could be on the stage, just assumed it was ok to move chairs around while saying, "This is where you pick up the battle axe."<br /><br /><i>Lycoris squamigera</i>. They are known as the "surprise lily" for showing up unannounced, foliage-free.<div><div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: small;"><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /></div></div></div>Jenny Hillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02689476109430471814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13642166.post-88596374515818784802023-07-13T08:21:00.008-04:002023-07-13T08:56:39.120-04:00Diminution and Amplification<p>A few years ago I bought a t-shirt at a zine fest. On the front was the message "I will not make myself smaller." The shirt was a light green color, and had an image of a plant on it. The bold message spoke to me. "Hell yeah!" I thought to myself, "I won't make myself smaller!" I wore it once and then donated it to a thrift shop. The message was dishonest on me, a woman who juggles her wallet, pocketbook, and several loose bags to make a quick getaway and not be in anyone's path at the grocery checkout. I am almost always making myself smaller, so I won't be a bother. My body is large. I'm tall and towering and stalk-like. My feet are a size ten, to hold up the height so I won't topple in a stiff wind. I am worried I am blocking you with these words. Let me grab them real quick and dash off over here, ok? So sorry.</p><p>Oops. I lied! There are more words, because there's Pointy Mary, Rita Poem, Chintz Davenport, Tom Mato. Pointy gets what she wants from you. Fill out this form, in triplicate. Pointy wanted to wear that t-shirt with the message on it, but it wasn't red, it was green, which is a very unflattering color on her. Rita will tell a man who has just spent fifteen minutes talking down to everyone at the table that he has just wasted everyone's time with his shit wits. Chintzy adores the spotlight, and takes it wherever she finds it. She orders Manhattans and wears bright red lipstick. Tom is male and can report on anything from poison ivy to dead mice and people will listen and comment.</p><p>When I am complimented for something -- an act of kindness, a performance, a poem, a meal, those accolades go to the audacious parts of me. Last week I received a glowing email from a stranger, and the day before yesterday I was told after a performance, "We're so glad you could make it this year! You're our favorite." I don't know what to do with these compliments, so I imagine them as trophies I hand over to all these larger, and somehow more deserving, parts of me. Jennifer is happy to stay out of your way, in her closet with a notebook and pen. When Chintzy, Rita, Tom, or Pointy take the stage, Jennifer stays in the wings. </p><p>I'm not sure how to explain this, with all these points-of-view. Who is writing this? All of me. Hello, hello, hello, hello, hello.</p><p>I like Manhattans because they taste like the smell of an old dresser. Call me Jenny or Jennifer or Jenn while I sip one, but you're going to have to order for yourself because I don't want to muscle my way through the crowd at the bar. I got here early to avoid it. There's no way I will get the attention of the bartender. How dare I interrupt? They look busier than an octopus hanging laundry. </p>Jenny Hillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02689476109430471814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13642166.post-83152585966741623682023-07-03T08:09:00.003-04:002023-07-03T08:19:58.655-04:00An Experiment<p>Yesterday I sat at my desk in the afternoon after clearing this room of extraneous books, and I hand wrote three pages. It felt good to just be slow, to observe, and not feel pulled by any thoughts of "I should read that book by the person I'm only vaguely acquainted with, and then post my review of it as a dazzling reel." Not that I've ever done that, but the thoughts exist, and they are as intrusive as ticks.</p><p>Now I have a laundry basket full of books that will go to a little free library. There's the book about how and why we laugh, one all about how and why we read, several rhyming dictionaries I keep telling myself I'll deploy in a workshop someday (never happened in 23 years of teaching), some young adult literature that was great winter reading, some poetry, novels I hung onto with aspirations to read but never did, a quirky gift book, and books I purchased for some reason I no longer recall. Oh, and a two volume set of Shakespeare quotations I think I've referred to exactly twice. They are a lovely reference for a true scholar. I hope they find them.</p><p>No one will ever read what I wrote yesterday, or know what I saw, because it's all in my handwriting. The three pages are the equivalent of one of those puzzle boxes. Beautiful to look at, but difficult to solve. I can't explain how freeing it felt to write like this again. No expectations whatsoever. No pressure. No feeling of simultaneously writing and editing for the purpose of fitting into some social media limitation. And I recognize now that my clearing of books was a letting go of the words of others so some of my own might rise to the surface. I've been surrounding myself with walls of books, building a fortress to hide in. I cut out a few windows yesterday.</p><p>With that said, here's a list I made this morning of some of the good things about my writing, which is for the consumption of others, because I felt the need to type it, and be accountable for something other than one sad, metaphorical, perimenopausal, self-referential sentence. See<b> Jennifer Hill:</b> <a href="https://jenniferdunnhill.blogspot.com/2023/07/the-fog-blog.html" target="_blank">(The Fog Blog)</a>. </p><p>This experimental list can also be read with the title, Self-Portrait at 54. Is there anything that <i>isn't</i> self-referential in some way? We are all drawing our own likenesses into our copies of the old master portrait.<br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Good Things About My Writing</span></p><p style="text-align: left;">Full of images</p><p style="text-align: left;">Spins a sense of whimsy, playfulness</p><p style="text-align: left;">Poetry rich</p><p style="text-align: left;">Elevates the daily</p><p style="text-align: left;">Mostly honest</p><p style="text-align: left;">Introspective and extroverted</p><p style="text-align: left;">Strives to be universal</p><p style="text-align: left;">Fills a lot of notebooks no one has seen</p><p style="text-align: left;">Has been published, performed, shared</p><p style="text-align: left;">Is both memorable and forgettable</p><p style="text-align: left;">(I even forget some of it and I wrote it.)</p><p style="text-align: left;">Unfinished, fragmented</p><p style="text-align: left;">Part dream, part real</p><p style="text-align: left;">Symbolic</p><p style="text-align: left;">Direct</p><p style="text-align: left;">Values paying attention, sensing, feeling</p><p style="text-align: left;">Verb driven, loves movement</p><p style="text-align: left;">Feminist</p><p style="text-align: left;">Spiritual without being didactic</p><p style="text-align: left;">Is not the news</p><p style="text-align: left;">Thinks of others</p><p style="text-align: left;">Plays with structure, word sounds and shapes</p><p style="text-align: left;">Listens and gathers</p><p style="text-align: left;">Speaks up after listening and gathering</p><p style="text-align: left;">Finds contrasts/similarities in the collected, turns them over</p><p style="text-align: left;">Appreciates and honors brevity</p><p style="text-align: left;">Appreciates and honors saying/showing more when it is called for even when it is a struggle</p><p style="text-align: left;">Leans into discomfort, jumps into the icy pool</p><p style="text-align: left;">Adores the parenthetical, the footnote, the secret, the hidden seeking to be discovered</p><p style="text-align: left;">Often cheers or connects with people</p><p style="text-align: left;">Believes in the power of language and emotion and the language of emotion</p><p style="text-align: left;">Has been around for many years and is gaining some wisdom</p><p style="text-align: left;">Is no longer trying so hard to be seen, just wants to be better at seeing </p>Jenny Hillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02689476109430471814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13642166.post-21283915033729315042023-07-02T09:29:00.003-04:002023-07-03T07:08:31.569-04:00The Fog Blog<p>Greetings from the inside of an echoic drainpipe. </p>Jenny Hillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02689476109430471814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13642166.post-79325539144815624872023-06-18T08:05:00.000-04:002023-06-18T08:05:08.891-04:00All Walking Is Falling<p>Laurie Anderson says all <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxeK-KYvibc">walking is falling</a>. All day long we put one foot in front of the other, fall a little, and then catch ourselves. We take it for granted that we'll just stay upright as much as we'd like.</p><p>My early morning thoughts as I walked down the hallway were about the slice of carrot cake I had the night before -- the dessert treat of the week -- a three layer, carroty, raisiny, <i>pecans instead of walnuts! </i>marvel that I savored while streaming the second act of <a href="http://www.complicite.org/productions-home.php" target="_blank">Complicite's production of <i>Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead</i>.</a> </p><p>I decided not to turn on the lights in the stairwell. "Ten out of ten I would eat that cake again," I thought. Then cats with puffed alarm tails swirled around me as I rubbed my knee from my seat on the floor.</p><p>My last thought before missing the last three stairs wasn't an erudite one about the meaning of boundaries, or our connection to nature, or human cruelty, or anything from the play the night before like the image of a woman opening the door to the forest -- <i>how beautifully lit she was as she exited her story</i>! </p><p>My last thought before falling was a sexy one about a cake slice. <i>Was that some zucchini in there? </i></p>Jenny Hillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02689476109430471814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13642166.post-54523847668089928532023-04-18T07:27:00.006-04:002023-04-18T07:27:55.441-04:00Disconnected<p>Disconnected has the word <i>connect</i> living inside of it. An anti-kangaroo word. This m<i>or</i>ning the sun sp<i>lash</i>ed mercurochrome across the trunks of trees, high<i>light</i>ing the fl<i>our</i>ish of green.</p><p><br /></p><p><i>Connect </i></p><p><i>or lash</i></p><p><i>light</i></p><p><i>our</i></p><p><br /></p><p>That's the poem.</p>Jenny Hillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02689476109430471814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13642166.post-31840233727670525562023-03-16T07:28:00.001-04:002023-03-16T07:28:21.677-04:00Pocketwock<p>He was a good duck, if a little avoidant and non-comital. In fact, it was perphaps his side-eyed consideration of situations that kept Pocky earth side for so long. He was part of the "Original Gang" of eight ducklings that arrived here by post in February of 2020. Two of those ducklings died early on; one of a respiratory condition, and the other trampled by siblings. All of that original crew were named after our childhood words for objects and ideas. "Pocketwock" was Helen's toddler way of saying "pocket watch." I sometimes called him Pocket, because he seemed like a true pal, the way a pocket is always there for you, to hold what your hands must let go. Pocky was all brown, a chocolate runner duck, and his partner, "Cawcoff," named for Helen's toddler word for "washcloth," was one of the most vocal ducks of the bunch. </p><p>I've learned that spring is a terrible season for ducks on a farm. While the weather warms, and trees bud, the foxes have their kits, and they need to be fed. They are fed at the ongoing Duck Parade Buffet, which happens at dusk on the apron of the pond. Foxes are bold. I've shaken my staff at their glowing eyes and they do not startle. I have some respect for them and their abilities. Their determination. Everyone wants to live. I just wish they were vegetarian.</p><p>Bisti (Bistigetti -- my father's childhood way of saying "spaghetti"), is the last of the Original Gang. Last night he wouldn't go into the run. He kept vigil just outside it, looking for Pocky, who never showed. He knew the pattern was upset, and that his last sibling was gone.</p><p>Now they are a dozen ducks, the last one a memory of my father, and the rest named after favorite foods, performers, and childhood tv shows: Bisti, Pip, Marceau, Tati, Great Zuccino, Moderate Zuccino, Mr. Rogers, Hatchy Milatchy, Kewpie, Yuzu, Tadpole, Pickle. </p><p>I like to think of Pocky, Cawcoff, Sardine, Tot, Tomato, Potato, EB, Mushroom, Clo, Binder, Moonlight, and The Lizard of Oz, as all having packed up their bindlesticks to go seek fortune in New York City, the farm life no longer big enough a pocket to hold all their dreams.</p>Jenny Hillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02689476109430471814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13642166.post-11764461214542442822023-02-04T07:31:00.002-05:002023-02-04T07:32:10.129-05:00The Outgoing Tide<p>A few days ago <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/03/books/linda-pastan-dead.html" target="_blank">Linda Pastan died</a>. I discovered her collection of poetry <i>Aspects of Eve</i>, on the shelves of the 800s in the Kutztown University Library in the early 1990s. I sat on the floor and read it all, memorizing "Mini Blues," which I carry inside of me like a bell that sounds in the outcast moments of my life. When I felt lost or sad, or not knowing what I was doing at college (I was a fine art major taking creative writing classes and was in a constant state of beloved melancholy), I returned to that spot on the floor of the library and grounded myself with her poems. The book was always there for me the way poetry is, the way we expect it to be. It was there in the same way we assume the poets we love will be alive and writing, keeping up their rituals, carrying their notebooks everywhere, giving readings.</p><p>In the past few months I began re-reading Linda's poems, first with the collection <i>Carnival Evening</i>. I read a few poems each morning, the same way you might allow yourself a few chocolates from a fancy sampler. Every poem was delicious, activating, oxygenating.</p><p>I found her email, and sent her a letter of thanks. It was time. I wasn't sure how old she was, but did it matter? We owe our mentors, especially the ones who don't know they have helped guide us. We owe them our sincere and specific gratitude. She replied:</p><div><blockquote>Thanks so much for your generous email! Sometimes I forget that there are actual people out there, reading my poems!</blockquote></div><div>Her reply came within a day. I was surprised and delighted by it. It made me feel better about poets, and the poetry world, which I have distanced myself from in the past few years. I have been reading, and writing, but quietly. Hermetically.</div><div><br /></div><div>I purchased copies of her older books, and her newest book, <i>Almost an Elegy</i>. I shared poems with my friend Maggie, who then shared a video of Linda giving a <a href="https://youtu.be/nxAXKOUBavI">reading </a>a few months ago. Her reading is elegant and natural, with an intention to the order of the poems, and she talks at the end about submitting work to magazines in a way that gave me some hope. I still have the reading open in the tabs on my browser. It's been up for weeks, there for me when I need to hear her words in her voice. A gift.</div><div><br /></div><div>When reading "Away," from her newest collection, I recognized a symbolic connection to her poem "Mini Blues," from <i>Aspects of Eve</i>. It felt like the joy in discovering a tadpole, or a fossil of a shell, from my childhood spent exploring in the woods. Here was an evolutionary connection, a whisper sent through a very long telephone line. She was a master of metaphor, and of condensing and paring down to the essentials to expose feeling:</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Mini Blues</b></div><div><br /></div><div>Like a dinghy</div><div>I always lag</div><div>behind, awash</div><div>in somebody else's wake.</div><div>Or I answer </div><div>the low call</div><div>of the foghorn,</div><div>only to find </div><div>that what it meant</div><div>was keep away.</div><div><br /></div><div>- Linda Pastan, from <i>Aspects of Eve</i></div><div><br /></div><div><b>Away</b></div><div><br /></div><div>In the small craft</div><div>that is my body, I am</div><div>ready to take off</div><div><br /></div><div>from the shore,</div><div>waving goodbye</div><div>to the faces</div><div><br /></div><div>I've loved,</div><div>not sad exactly</div><div>but anxious</div><div><br /></div><div>to catch</div><div>the outgoing</div><div>tide.</div><div><br /></div><div>- Linda Pastan, from <i>Almost an Elegy</i></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Jenny Hillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02689476109430471814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13642166.post-68470384526813192352023-01-07T08:59:00.003-05:002023-01-07T13:09:42.144-05:00Bloom's Taxonomy<div style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><p class="p1" style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><i>The students will describe flowers they have seen.</i></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The seed catalogs arrive daily, illustrations of zucchini and melon, photos of giant peonies. Hope. I throw them in the trash, then remember my preschool art class — maybe they can collage a garden, paste cutouts of roses on top of canceled roses. Their vision is the sky that lives in the ocean, one I wish I had, or remember having once, which is why I return, although this job won’t pay for even an hour of planning. The time clock app I punch on my phone allows the instructor to check in just fifteen minutes before class begins — the corporate idea of enough time to conceive a project, set up tables and chairs, gather supplies customized for students, and create a welcoming atmosphere for anxious toddlers.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><i>The students will discuss animals in the ocean.</i></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">This week the class huddled around me as we read a book about the sea, and cut paper fish to glue onto flat, blue oceans.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><i>The students will imagine and draw how their flowers will bloom.</i></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I ordered too many seeds from the catalogs last year, romanced by glossy photos. A whole garden I purchased withered, some seeds, as they waited in the house, were gobbled by mice, the tomatoes we planted starved by drought.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><i>The students will observe how to plant a seed.</i></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Out of the 600 sunflowers I planted in concentric circles, a dramatic vision, six made an entrance, all separate from each other as if they were angry from an underground argument. The others were perhaps too old to sprout, or eaten by crows who watched as I planted on a rainy day in April. My fingers went white and numb.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><i>The students will select their seed and plant it.</i></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">This year, I’ll plant sturdy, reliable zinnias. It takes two months for the carnival of colors to spin in wheels of ecstasy. A whole field becomes a tribute to Peter Max, the sixties and seventies, childhood birthday parties, sprinkles on ice cream, a glitter covered crown for bees and butterflies.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><i>The students will predict how long it will take their seeds to bloom.</i></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">A few weeks from now my preschool students will press real seeds into dirt filled cups to take them home, watch and tend, or neglect. A real lesson. I will dream about it, analyze, prepare, produce the supplies, cancel the plan, decide to cultivate it, then mark each cup with a name. Who owns a daisy?</p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><i>The students will cope with whatever does not grow.</i></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><i><br /></i></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: Georgia; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><i>The students will hope.</i></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p></div>Jenny Hillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02689476109430471814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13642166.post-86091973442549306692022-12-31T18:00:00.005-05:002022-12-31T18:09:28.269-05:00If You Let It<p>It's the end of the year, if you haven't noticed. I moved into my writing room to cool my face down. For the past hour or two I sat and read in front of the fireplace, and my left cheek blazes with a shaming blush of sluggishness. I haven't exactly been slothful because I hauled in the firewood, folded some laundry, made a salad, and put away all the holiday decor. I was a verb this morning. There's tension in my neck and shoulders, a tightness in my foot. There's that light orb of grief, an ornament that rests in my chest, ready to break during any season. My head is an unkept office space. My whole body has much to say, outside of calendrics. I possess a body chemistry that rejects time. Watches stop when on my wrist. </p><p>I do like this time of year in spite of its expectations, sales, announcements, exclamations, proclamations, and resolutions. I feel the contrasts build in me like a cloud cover. It's a quiet drear among the glitter: to be more, do more, wrap everything up and move ahead, to get beyond, to rise above, to have it all figured out and together. Have you seen the aisles of empty plastic containers, ready to be filled with what we want out of sight? Once you've hidden Who-You-Once-Were, you can set your table with the gleaming flatware of I-Know-What-I'm-Doing-Now. </p><p>I know what I'm doing now, which is writing this while red cheeked and feeling the collywobbles caused by a robust handful of chocolate almonds. I haven't made a list, or drawn up a plan for anything else I wish to share. I have nothing for you. Were you expecting anything? I just have now. The dog across the road barks into darkness and fog, there's one light on in the neighbors house, and if you let it, the sound of rain as it hits the porch roof could be mistaken for a clock. </p>Jenny Hillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02689476109430471814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13642166.post-29950707122424326582022-12-20T07:05:00.009-05:002022-12-21T06:49:28.758-05:00All Day Duende<p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-size: 14px;">A duende is an elfin figure of folklore. I think of duende as a feeling, a cross between fidgety passion and contemplative inspiration. Frederico Garcia Lorca's vision of duende includes irrationality, earthiness, an awareness of death</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-size: 14px;">, and a diabolical touch. That fits.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-size: 14px;">In Spanish </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-size: 14px;">duende</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-size: 14px;"> originated as a contraction of the phrase </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-size: 14px;" title="Spanish-language text"><i lang="es">dueño de casa</i></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-size: 14px;"> or </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-size: 14px;" title="Spanish-language text"><i lang="es">duen de casa</i></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-size: 14px;">, effectively "master of the house." The duende of various cultures get up to all sorts of tricks, masquerading as leaves and woodland creatures who then prank women by pulling down their skirts and pinching their bottoms, or they pop down chimneys and lurk in corners to create havoc in the home. The chimney entrance sounds familiar. Is Santa duende? Because the whole season, this stretch from the end of October through about mid-February (as soon as I can smell the ground again) is intense All Day Duende for me. The rest of the year is All Day Duende for me too, but with the sun's varied satires.</span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-size: 14px;"><b><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Moon Appears</span></b></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-size: 14px;"><i><span style="font-family: inherit;">by Frederico Garcia Lorca</span></i></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> At the rise of the moon</span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">bells fade out</span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">and impassable paths</span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">appear.</span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #202122; font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;"> At the rise of the moon</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #202122; font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;">the sea overspreads the land</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #202122; font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;">and the heart feels like an island</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #202122; font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;">in the infinite.</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #202122; font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #202122; font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;"> No one eats oranges</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #202122; font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;">in the full moon's light.</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #202122; font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;">Fruit must be eaten</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #202122; font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;">green and ice-cold.</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #202122; font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #202122; font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;">At the rise of the moon,</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #202122; font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;">with its hundred faces alike,</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #202122; font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;">silver coins</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #202122; font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;">sob away in pockets.</span></span></p><p><span face="sans-serif" style="color: #202122;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></span></p>Jenny Hillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02689476109430471814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13642166.post-66695887510666935892022-12-18T07:48:00.004-05:002022-12-18T07:50:39.255-05:00Tricksters<p>A few mornings ago I looked up from my desk and saw a raccoon hop up from the road onto the stretch of grass in front of my window. It was raining that day, and its fur was sodden. It walked right up to the house like it had important business by the Japanese quince and the linden. Then it disappeared. It was right near the house and I lost track of it. This is the magic of raccoons. They are shapeshifters. When they visit, they are here to teach you to be vigilant, or persistent, or clever in your dealings.There's a lot of folklore surrounding them. When we visited Japan I fell in love with the sensual depictions of tanuki. Tanuki are more of a cross of a fox and a raccoon. I prefer the cheerful and benevolent rogues they turned into to their original forms, which were said to possess humans and haunt them.The rogue tanuki is a partier, with a large belly and scrotum, and usually a bottle of sake at hand.</p><p>The animals around here have more business than I do, scribbling and dreaming at my desk. The owl knows when there's the business of a loose duck, the fox knows spring dusks by the pond are her best business hours, the deer keep a quiet business of traffic across the fields, stray cats have the business of frog and field mouse hunting, the rats keep a hippity hoppity duck feed business.</p><p>My business hours are 5 a.m. to about 4 p.m. now, when the light shifts into night. I crack open a can of corn, put on muck boots, a giant, black sweater that makes me look like an ominous wooly worm, and lead the duck parade to safety. The business of the raccoon, the weasel, the fox, the owl, thwarted once more by the cleverness of chicken wire, hardware cloth, and hope.</p><p>The Raccoon Whisperer, a retired veteran in Canada who feeds raccoons hot dogs, is raccoon and human business transaction at some of its best.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Ofp26_oc4CA" width="320" youtube-src-id="Ofp26_oc4CA"></iframe></div><p></p>Jenny Hillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02689476109430471814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13642166.post-62101766433996432732022-12-14T07:24:00.002-05:002022-12-15T07:04:03.391-05:00Views From the Windows of My Mother's House<p>Kitchen</p><p>A stretch of green yard with a concrete sidewalk on the left. A 100 foot tall (or so it seemed) Norway Spruce that dropped torpedo pinecones we loved to throw at each other. The garage where Dad kept his car washing supplies, and the upper room full of hats, costumes, props, and a filing cabinet with our childhood drawings. The parking pad with Mom's car next to the garage. The gate with a closure Dad made that was difficult to open and close when it rained. The long garden of perennials Mom planted along the chainlink fence that separated their yard from the Gehr's. Tammy, Mr. Gehr's tiny dog, sniffing the edges of the fence. The alley beyond the garage.</p><p>Dining Room Gehr's Side</p><p>A porch with a square table covered in a black and white checked tablecloth in the summer, topped with a tiny blue vase with choreopsis and speedwort from the garden. The patchwork pattern of the Gehr's asbestos shingled siding, and their dining room window, curtained in 1945.</p><p>Dining Room Other Side</p><p>The first floor apartment porch of a reclusive woman who lived there for decades. She had an exotic sounding name I can't remember now -- Florence, Lorraine, Yvonne, Eleanor? A man visited her regularly, who she claimed was her brother, but Mom figured to be her boyfriend. When he arrived, he'd pee facing the garage on that property, an action we could see from Mom's kitchen window. His suspenders ran up his back like crossed train tracks. </p><p>Living Room</p><p>The brick porch with a blue painted ceiling, a cherry tree, a lavender bush, and a stretch of State Street with a line of large Victorian homes. Most of the neighbors were unknown. The road was a wide river that wasn't crossed too often. </p><p>Bedroom Porch Side</p><p>The upper floors and roofs of houses, the midsection of the Norway Spruce, a zigzag of powerlines, the sky. This porch is where we watched the fireworks each year from a bench swing that hung by chains from the ceiling. Dad installed it.</p><p>Bedroom Other Side</p><p>The rental property with the reclusive woman. A long staircase leading up to the second floor apartment, which changed tenants often. More often than not, there was a pile of moving boxes and leftover, unwanted items on the porch.</p><p>Bathroom and Guest Bedroom</p><p>The second floors of all those expansive Victorian homes across State Street. The tops of trees, the sky. This was a view you only saw if you were brushing your teeth at the sink in the bathroom and happened to turn and focus your attention through the sheer white curtains Mom hung above the two little shutters on the bottom of the window. Or if you were making the bed in the guest bedroom with the blue striped wallpaper and matching comforter.</p><p>If there were windows in the attic and basement (there must have been), I never looked out of them. The basement was Dad's stained glass workshop, so my focus was on what was being created there when I was in it. The attic was filled with childhood toys, books, costumes, dead birds, and holiday decor. I can see in my mind's eye where the light is coming from up there, and I never walked over to it, afraid of dead birds or squirrels.</p><p>My memory of this house asks for more. It is the season of <i>more, please</i>, until I am stuffed to the tear ducts with nostalgia.</p>Jenny Hillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02689476109430471814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13642166.post-28631922038282265812022-12-12T08:52:00.014-05:002022-12-13T06:10:42.878-05:00A Reconnaissance of Cats<p>This morning I woke up thinking about cats, as the newest one in our family wiggled her way from the bottom of the bed to perch directly on my chest. It's hard not to think about cats when you have one breathing on your chin. I made a mental list, and discovered I've known and loved fifteen cats in my lifetime, not counting the ones who lived with my parents or friends.</p><p>Spooky</p><p><span> A black and white wilding of a cat, she was a first cat memory of early childhood. My sister named her. I don't remember much about her except a story of her clawing Dad's back, an event which didn't go over well. She was in and out of the house, and when we moved Mom worried that she'd not be able to find her way back to the new house. She put butter on Spooky's paws, following an old wives tale that if the cat licked it off she'd also taste the dirt of home, and know where she was meant to be. Spooky must have tasted the roof in that butter because she spent a lot of time on the roof of our newly built home in the winter. Our icicles were yellow. </span><br /></p><p>Pip</p><p><span> Pip and Pyewacket were a sister and brother pair who found us as kittens in our early teens. Pip was Kristen's cat. A black and white cat, similar to Spooky, I remember her sleeping on Kristen's bed, devoted. Later, when Kristen went off to college, and Mom and Dad moved, Pip found her favorite spot in the new house was in the onion basket on top of the fridge, a perch she used to swat at people as they walked by. Surprise! </span></p><p>Pyewacket</p><p><span> A tiger striped male, Pyewacket was really the first cat I called my own. He was a friendly cuddler; a rollicking fatboy. He enjoyed playing with chipmunks outside, which I didn't like to see. Once he got into a ground bee nest and was stung multiple times, and panted like a dog as we took him to the vet. Pye heard all my teen dramas, sadness, and dreams. I couldn't take him with me to my first college apartment. He became an escape artist when Mom and Dad moved to Ephrata. </span><br /></p><p>Poem</p><p><span> A calico female I got at a pet store when I was in college, Poem was a tiny and elegant cat. As a kitten she was acrobatic, and leapt onto bookcases and mantlepieces. My grandmother Romayne was amazed by her energy. She accompanied me through college, and my early marriage. She was the cat who sat in my vanishing lap as I was pregnant with Helen, and she was Helen's first cat. We brought Helen's little baby hat home from the hospital so she could meet her through scent. She slept next to Helen's cradle and watched over her.</span><br /></p><p>October</p><p><span> Mom used to say "The fur fairy threw up on October." I'd never seen a tweed cat before, but that's what October was. She was like the jacket of a literature professor. Thin and clever, she enjoyed eating spaghetti noodles directly out of the pan in the kitchen, and once sunk her teeth into a tube of ground turkey. She didn't like it when I went away on weekends though. She'd drag her butt across the carpet of the apartment, and I'd come home to poop trails. Mom and Dad took her in when I couldn't keep two cats, so she ate spaghetti at their house, and enjoyed the morning ritual of feeding the African frogs. Mom had her trained to the sound of a music box. She'd open the lid right before she fed the frogs, and October would run in to get her treat of frog food.</span><br /></p><p>Mouse</p><p><span><span> Mouse showed up one day on Buttonwood street, in the little patch we called a backyard. She was grey and white, and longhaired. A lovely fluff of a cat. Bewitched by her floofiness, I let her in, and she caused havoc. She was a storm cloud who found her way to a friend in Reading.</span></span><br /></p><p>Edna</p><p><span><span> Edna and Albrecht were adopted at a Reading shelter when Helen was two years old. As kittens they slept with her on her toddler bed, all curled up at her feet. They were her cats, even though I claimed Edna, and Joe claimed Albrecht. Edna was the sweetest, most tolerant female cat. The color of a latte, with faint stripes and spots of white on her chin and paws, she was beautiful in a simple and subtle way. Helen used to dress her up in doll pants, and she would walk around with a rankled look on her face. She curled up neatly on laps, and loved every visitor. In her later years she had a neurological event (a stroke, maybe?), and we took her to the vet after finding her stumbling around on the stairs. She recovered, and was with us a few more years. Her fur was as soft as a rabbit.</span></span><br /></p><p>Albrecht</p><p><span> An orange tiger male, Albrecht was named after Albrecht Durer, Joe's favorite artist. In his later years, he grew enormously fat, and loved to sleep in Helen's "critter heap" of stuffed animals. He blended in well, but he snored loudly, giving his location away.</span></p><p>Mango</p><p><span> I adopted Mango from a Wilkes University student who found herself with a litter of kittens. It was Helen's birthday, and this cat was a birthday gift. Mango was formally named Mango Toodles Kaucher Caraballo, a collective decision of Helen and her best friend, Alex. I remember bringing Mango home, and driving over the Market Street Bridge to discover that she had escaped her box. She climbed up onto my shoulders and tried to sit on my head for the rest of the drive. Mango was white with orange spots, and shorthaired. She was similar in temperment to Edna. She enjoyed sliding around in the hallway in a shoebox, a game we played with her often. She accompanied Helen into her young adulthood and moved with her a few times, including back into our home for awhile, a "home from college" visit.</span><br /></p><p>Stella</p><p><span> Stella was the half sister of my mother's cat, Miss Havisham. Both of them came from a woman in Ephrata who fed all the feral cats in the neighborhood until they were friendly and less fearful of humans. Stella and Miss H. always retained a bit of the feral in them, even when they found cozy homes. Stella's thrill was discovering baby rabbits in the basement and bringing them up into the hallway for snacks. I still don't know how she did it. When we moved from Edwardsville to Lancaster, she was spooked, and found her secret hiding spot in the basement. We left food and water, and Helen brought her to Lancaster later. Then she became Marissa's confidante. </span><br /></p><p>Lucy Bob</p><p><span> An adoptee from the SPCA by way of PetSmart, Lucy had a gravelly, old lady meow, as if she'd spent a long time smoking cigarettes and drinking whisky. On our way out of the pet store with her, some guy heard her meowing from the carrier and said, "Good luck with that." She hated the litterbox, and only pooped next to it. She was cuddly, and chubby, and had no troubles with her roommates, Edna, Stella, and Mango, and Muninn. I have a photo of myself at Christmas one year, sitting in a chair, covered in all five cats. Bliss.</span><br /></p><p>Muninn</p><p><span> A beautiful black male cat who found us by way of our friend Jack, Muninn was half of a pair of cats Jack had for years -- Muninn and Huginn -- named after the Norse ravens. Muninn didn't like living with us much. He didn't like being away from Jack. First he was first rehomed to Jack's mother, and then to us, where he had to live with four other cats, and none of them were Norse Gods. </span><br /></p><p>Steve</p><p><span><span><span> Steve was the only male kitten from a litter born on the rainy day porch of one of Helen's coworker's uncles. When I went to visit, all the females hissed at me, but Steve peered up from his spot under a glass topped coffee table. When I picked him up, he purred. He's an all black ragdoll cat with long fur that mats in the summer. He gets a regular "lion cut" when he mats, which makes him look a little silly, but it's more comfortable. Steve loves all of my costumes. When he hears the closet open he's right there, ready to admire (lick) feathers, and chew on tulle. He gets the same giddiness around Christmastime when the decorations and wrapping paper come out. A lover of water, he drinks from the sink, and will also have a sip from your unattended cup, thank you very much.</span> </span> </span><br /></p><p>Ozgood</p><p><span> Oz found us by way of the "Kitten Bush" here on our property which we think blooms once or twice every couple of years. I found him in the shed one morning, meowing behind the tools. A tiny, male tabby, he stayed outside for awhile, getting used to us and our schedule. He loved the farmstand visitors and people asked about him. He joined me for hoop practice in the barn, and played with everything I was working on. When it got cold, he came inside and was an indoor/outdoor cat, until he brought poison ivy oil in on his fur. Now he's indoor only, and is the friendliest and possibly the smartest of our cats. When Stubs joined us, he welcomed her like a big brother. When she escaped recently, scared by a power outage, he went outside to look for her. A hero. He's also a great mouser, which is helpful in an old farmhouse. </span></p><p>Stubs</p><p><span> Dan heard her meowing behind the rhododendron last year. "I think the Kitten Bush has bloomed again" An all black stump of a kitten, she was truly feral. It took me a long time to woo her with food, and I spent a lot of time sitting on the cold patio. Our neighbor helped too by bringing his stuffed mouse on a string, and coaxing her into play. On Thanksgiving Day last year,she walked right into the kitchen, and never looked back. We call her Kettle Bell, Stubby, Gremlin, Bunbun, Bowling Ball, and a host of other in-the-moment nicknames, and recently Dan said she looks like a whiskey barrel on four thumb tacks. She's short of stature, but has some heft, and plenty of independent attitude. She's the cat I wake up to every morning, because that's when she gets fed. </span><br /></p><p>If you're up for more cat stories, you can check out <a href="https://microcosmpublishing.com/catalog/books/7045" target="_blank">Cats I've Known: On Love, Loss, and Being Graciously Ignored by Katie Haegele</a>. </p>Jenny Hillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02689476109430471814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13642166.post-87165800016328546402022-12-04T09:41:00.005-05:002022-12-04T09:41:45.463-05:00A Few Typewriter Poems<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhU5lCrGzrRhRDJMrRQ8isboITIyq3ZpYBcQYW18ysRqTeSUoGnUGM7cBUZohXaj6FLouuAthvBBM8jGQ1RAED3PxgbeBAc8uv-Z8Lkdv-s96jxnpgEA8f_s_qNwrcPxHthlu-ghwu5-9SaW8ukEWE3hELHg8KS-BlXoSFA-WonQ54lmFxEgg/s4032/haiku.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhU5lCrGzrRhRDJMrRQ8isboITIyq3ZpYBcQYW18ysRqTeSUoGnUGM7cBUZohXaj6FLouuAthvBBM8jGQ1RAED3PxgbeBAc8uv-Z8Lkdv-s96jxnpgEA8f_s_qNwrcPxHthlu-ghwu5-9SaW8ukEWE3hELHg8KS-BlXoSFA-WonQ54lmFxEgg/w480-h640/haiku.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><p><br /></p><p>Bare November trees</p><p>slip on wigs of grey clouds</p><p>lunch ladies at dawn</p><p><br /></p><p>Woodpecker on oak</p><p>taps to find what feeds her</p><p>Royal typewriter</p><p><br /></p><p>Alcoholic friend</p><p>sends a text at 2 a.m. --</p><p>the only light on</p> <p></p>Jenny Hillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02689476109430471814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13642166.post-8360841019341071832022-11-28T07:00:00.006-05:002022-11-28T08:18:18.613-05:00Unrelated and Related Fragments About Ownership<p></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Everyone has hauled out their holiday decor overnight, and now each home dances with projected snowflakes, or an inflatable chicken dressed as Santa bobs in the wind by their front door. Yesterday I found myself in the wonderblitz of Target, considering lights. You can buy them by strings of 200, coiled on large plastic spools, for $28 each. I'd need at least three to cover the tree by the barn. That's a lot of money for something that is impermanent. I decided to not buy anything for the holiday and dig around in the attic when the mood strikes. Then I bought thirteen dollars worth of toilet paper and left, but not before taking a slow stroll through the makeup to ask myself, "Do I care about this anymore, either?" The answer was no. I do not, but part of me wants to. The sparkly part.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />I tested negative for Covid yesterday morning. It's been a long two weeks of feeling taken over. I'm still coughing and tire easily, and toothpaste tastes fusty instead of minty. When no extra line appeared on my test I had the impulse to call my mother to share the good news. She would wonder what I'm talking about, gone long enough to have never heard the word "Covid." </span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />When I was unpacking the toilet paper, I noticed a man was standing by our newly sorted shed, his red umbrella popped like a mushroom in the rain. I pointed him out to Dan, then I saw the man punch numbers into his phone, and Dan got a call. For the next few minutes Dan politely explained that the shop is closed for the season, and yes that information is on the website, and today is Sunday, we live here, we're closed. It is obvious we are closed. The property is under a good deal of construction with a path being replaced by the house, so there are pallet piles, large stones, and heavy equipment in the driveway. The barn is closed, the farmstand is zipped up. There are no signs saying we are open. But this man was insistent in his need to shop, to browse, to consume. When I saw his wife step out of our shed, I was stunned. Who just stands in a total stranger's shed as if it is a bus stop? They sat in their car and kept Dan on the phone with questions for a long while, saying they would place an online order and then Dan could bring it out. Then they spent more time browsing on their phone, and must have decided that it was just too much to bear. They left without any announcement or fanfare. In spite of my frustration with people who act this way, the hostess in me hopes they noticed the charming ducks, dibbling in the mud by the pond.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />I looked up William the Conquerer to read about him right before I fell asleep, just because his name popped up in my head like a real estate ad while I was walking down the hallway to the bedroom. I didn't realize he ordered the compilation of the Domesday book, <span style="background-color: white; color: #202122;">a survey listing all the land-holdings in England along with their pre-Conquest and current holders. Adelina Joculatrix is listed in the Domesday book. She was a jester and owned land, unusual for women. I wonder if anyone ever showed up in her shed, demanding to be entertained. I wonder if she kept ducks.</span></span></p><p></p>Jenny Hillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02689476109430471814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13642166.post-3505235340395652462022-11-25T06:42:00.002-05:002022-11-25T07:19:34.879-05:00The Physical World<p>The soul straddles time and the infinite. The soul resides in that untoned flap of upper arm. The soul, your soul, if you believe you have one, exists with all the other souls that have ever and will ever exist. The soul is immeasurable and also changeable. Your soul lives in rain and snails and tree roots. The soul frolics as a rat under straw. The soul dozes like a lowercase l. The soul is yellow, no, red, no, it's the color of that feeling you get when you peel back several layers of wallpaper and find you are holding a handful of palimpsest. The soul, your soul, found mine in all the noise of the world, all the static and yawping, and like two magnetic tricky dogs we snapped together. Even though you don't believe in souls, I sure like yours, and how it insists on the scientific, the known, the physical. The soul is theory. The soul is hypothesis. The soul is part dendrite and mitosis and the bedroom light switch. The soul loves its body and doesn't want to leave it, but when it does please leave a window open or cut a hole in the ceiling, because the soul is not all magic (that word it digests), and is given to clumsiness. This soul isn't a professional soul. It's new in its oldness.</p>Jenny Hillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02689476109430471814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13642166.post-24885685141399284612022-11-24T07:10:00.004-05:002022-11-24T07:11:39.777-05:00Not One Braided Narrative from Goody Pensmith<p>Yesterday I rhymed "maneuver" with "leftover" and it was as forced as a piece of sky puzzle piece jammed into the bottom left corner. I have a note on my desk that says "braided narrative," and I have all the interest in writing one that I have in the following suggestion on the same note: </p><p><i>20 lines where each uses three of the words beautiful, ridiculous, beautiful</i></p><p>Past me, a real Goody Pensmith, wants me to write these ideas out. Current me has all the brain energy of a test pattern. It's past midnight and everyone is asleep.</p><p>There are plenty of Goody Pensmiths online, encouraging other hopeful writers, sharing prompts, asking open ended questions so they'll get engagement and follows and fans. The equivalent of carnival barkers, shouting at a public that reads less and scrolls more.</p><p>Beautiful, ridiculous, beautiful.</p>Jenny Hillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02689476109430471814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13642166.post-72877535723114384562022-11-23T07:29:00.007-05:002022-11-24T07:12:07.902-05:00Passing By<p>The greying fence that once wound around the corner of our property is gone now. Every morning I looked out at it, close range, from my writing desk. There was not much reason for it. What was it keeping out? What was it holding in? I decided we'd have more light, and I'd get a better sense of the gardens around the house without it. The wood could be repurposed into a wood shed, and possibly an outhouse. My argument was sound, and so the fence is gone and we have a wood shed. </p><p>My morning view has improved. I see the sunrise slap the sides of trees, the frosty grass of the field across the road, and I wonder who is awake in the neighbors house when there's a light on. I also see traffic up close. Yesterday I saw a driver cut someone else off, and the victim gave the offender a solid middle finger. Not a flash, not a flicker, but a switched-on-for-good <i>fuck you</i>. Some drivers who stop at the corner notice me and my little green lamp. This morning there was the older man in the black pickup who shamelessly stares as he makes the turn. His head is fixed like an owl. Yes, someone lives here, and yes, she can see you passing by on your way to work.</p>Jenny Hillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02689476109430471814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13642166.post-24106200101116830642022-04-01T06:48:00.005-04:002022-04-01T06:52:46.611-04:00All of a Sudden<span style="font-family: inherit;">This morning I started a sentence in my journal with "All of a sudden," and I remembered a moment when I handed my mother a story I'd written. I used the phrase a lot in my story, but I wrote it "all of the sudden." My mother corrected my usage. "It's all of <i>a</i> sudden, not the." I was stunned, and a little confused. What difference did it make, really? A. The. They were both articles, signifying a noun up ahead. Was sudden a noun? An adjective? I learned the phrase was an idiom, which sounded too close to idiot for me. </span><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;">All of a sudden was a favorite phrase of mine, and it still is. As someone who feels like everything in life is happening all at once, it works. All of a sudden, my pen ran out of ink. All of a sudden, the ducks were in the road. All of a sudden, my fake mustache peeled off and fell into my coffee with a fuzzy plorp.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;">Everything is a surprise with all of a sudden. An unexpected delight (or not).</span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;">It turns out we've been using "of a sudden" since Shakespeare first coined it in The Taming of the Shrew. "<span style="background-color: white;">Is it possible That love should of a sodaine take hold? (antiquated spelling alert!)</span><span style="background-color: white;"> </span><span style="background-color: white;">Sudden has been used as an adjective since the 15th century, and it was once a noun, too, meaning "that which is sudden." Today the noun form is obsolete, except in the phrase "all of a sudden." </span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white;">What a gem! </span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white;">All of a sudden, the word sudden is no longer a noun.</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;">All of a sudden, thanks to Mom, a memory, and the internet, I know a little more.</span></div>Jenny Hillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02689476109430471814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13642166.post-43740820569902227112022-01-25T06:45:00.001-05:002022-01-25T06:48:57.876-05:00Crone Bone<p>I am teaching third graders, over Zoom, how to actively listen. "Make eye contact. Be generous with your attention."</p><p>Will they use this skill in their futures?</p><p>I am heartbroken today, for a variety of reasons, but the main one is I wish to have conversations, to connect with people in a meaningful way. Even this blog isn't a conversation. It's just me moving my scattered thoughts from head to hand to a public room behind many other public rooms that are discotheques of language paired with images and video. Be witty, be clever, engage with quick quizzes -- whatever it takes to keep the viewer's (reader's?) attention for a full 30 seconds. Everyone is jumping up and down in those rooms. I feel trampled in them, bumped into, rattled. My head pounds from all the dippy filters and polls. The audio files that everyone uses for their videos homogenizes messages, plays them on repeat, while filters make faces melt into sameness, too.<br /></p><p>I will not be a part of wherever this is headed, which is why I keep returning to this quiet space. Eventually I think I will stop writing for this empty room, too. I keep telling myself that this short attention span communication is leading to something new and exciting, that future generations will be prepared for what is needed to survive, to create. But this sort of talk just feels like the happy surface nonsense you say while your gut feels the deep rumblies of doom.</p><p>Books may be a thing of the past.</p><p>In defiance, I am reading as many books as possible and writing lengthier work no one will ever read. </p><p>I am a chalkboard filled with words everyone just wants to clear off so they can go clap out the erasers.</p><p>I am the typewriter that no one knows how to use. <br /></p><p>Where do I feel the heartbreak in my body, no one asks? My jaw, my neck, the weight of my suddenly ponderous legs, my empty gut, a deep tightening in my ribcage. I hold my breath too much. </p><p>No one cares, and self-pity is ugly, so here we are. I mean, here I am, a crone with her bones, trying to divine.<br /></p>Jenny Hillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02689476109430471814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13642166.post-49434401683345602722022-01-24T07:05:00.002-05:002022-01-24T07:05:24.919-05:00Some Sunday Images<p>On my way to a friend's house yesterday I saw a porcupine by the side of the road. I've never seen one "in person" before. It was armored, showing off its boundaries. They prefer the safety of forested areas, which I was driving through, but it must have lost its way and been anxious to see cars instead of understory.<br /></p><p>While at my friend's house, I spotted a fox in her backyard, twice. She has chickens, and like me with the ducks, is on alert. The second time she went out to shout "like a wild woman," I realized the brownish blur I saw was her neighbor's dog.</p><p>So, did I see a porcupine? Or was it a discarded, upturned scrub brush? If I believe I saw a porcupine, did I see a porcupine? Such is the way of thinking for those who wear glasses. Our visions are questionable.<br /></p><p>That same drive produced for me a number of images I enjoyed, questionable or not. The first being a sycamore, trimmed to stubbiness for the fault of growing by a powerline. The tree had put its energies into growing a branch that curled around the powerline without touching it. A brilliant and childlike defiance.</p><p>Can we talk for a moment about setting words </p><p>v</p><p>e</p><p>r</p><p>t</p><p>i</p><p>c</p><p>a</p><p>l</p><p>l</p><p>y</p><p>?</p><p>It makes them difficult to read. Still, businesses put up their banners and flags that announce what they are selling inside with each letter stacked on top of the other. I guess it has to do with economy of space, but I wish we'd stop setting words in this way. When read from behind, which is possible with most of these banners since they are printed on thin fabric, the reader has to sort out letterforms that are backwards and up and down. Funhouse signage. In a way, my brain loves it, and rises to the challenge, but does it in ways that can be unsettling and revealing. Yesterday's sign announced a WINERY. Read from behind, and vertically, I saw MISERY. My eyes only caught the last three letters of the word, and filled in the rest of the spaces it saw with MIS.<br /></p><p>How many words end in ERY and have three letters at the start that might announce a business? BAKERY. EATERY. Even CELERY would be a better choice than MISERY. The CELERY store.</p><p>On my way home I stopped at my daughter's apartment to drop off some Girl Scout cookies. Her apartment had that Sunday quiet about it. A pot of soup gone cold on the stove, books and art supplies on surfaces, cozy slippers cast off on the floor. Her heart wasn't Sunday quiet though. We had a conversation about boundaries, red flags, what we will allow in our lives, what we hope for the most. I told her about the porcupine I saw, or thought I saw. A vision, I see clearly now, of all those things we were going to discuss.<br /></p><p><br /></p>Jenny Hillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02689476109430471814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13642166.post-37650247767635592992022-01-19T07:24:00.004-05:002022-01-19T07:24:46.309-05:00Good Morning<p>January is all about long shadows and blue light. The bodies of trees, the reflection of light on lingering snow. Lines everywhere. Angles, angles, angles, not that far from angels.<br /></p><p>The woman in the room next to me at the dentist had a laugh like a goat calling out. She found the weather hilarious. We'll laugh at anything at the dentist, just to be liked. There's a lot of forced comedy in the dentist's chair -- one of the most vulnerable places for a human -- leaning back with your mouth wide open. The gateway to the body. Anyway, she sounded like a goat, which I found funny, not false.</p><p>I don't like wind. I want to be pals with it, but it just messes with my internal equipment. It throws me off balance, makes me eat my own hair, slaps me in the face. I try to find the positive in it the way you try to seek the kindness in a bully. "It spreads seeds," or "It has other moods, like breezes, which you like, and look how it makes the trees dance," but when it's cold and I'm lifting 50 lb. bags of feed, we're not chums. Sorry.</p><p>Which brings me to meditation. My hands are in my lap. and I am paying attention to my breath, and then the instructor's voice tells me to let all the negative thoughts go. It's like being faced with a plate full of marshmallows, and being told not to eat any. Marshmallow gorge fest. I don't even like marshmallows, so I'm not sure why I went there with that image.</p><p>GMO seeds are "brokenhearted seeds planted by a brokenhearted people." - Rowan White. </p><p>I love the word brokenhearted, because you can turn it inside out and it still means the same thing. Heartbroken. Of course, you have to lop off the -ed ending, but you get the idea. It's like a really disappointing reversible jacket.</p><p>Is there anything better than eight puppies for a mood lift? I saw eight puppies with the mother dog yesterday and was so delighted. Everyone at that vet's office was smiling, including the dogs.</p><p>Mustard is good brushed on cauliflower if you roast it. I added some dill. That's my recipe for the day.</p><p>I wish I had deeper thoughts, but you get what you get.</p><p>When I write the word "the" I give up on it after the letter t -- the "he" looks like someone stepped on it.</p><p>A book I ordered arrived yesterday from Thriftbooks, so late I forgot I ordered it. "One Hundred Poems From The Chinese." Kenneth Rexroth's translations. I think we had this book at Paper Kite at one time, and sold it. I was never into the Chinese poets when I was younger. Their stark images and humor speak to me now as I hear doors closing behind me.<br /></p><p>Coffee is cold. This was worth it.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Jenny Hillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02689476109430471814noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13642166.post-78022368946569791722022-01-07T07:03:00.004-05:002022-01-07T07:03:54.214-05:00Snow <div style="text-align: left;">Snow celebrates the unseen — bird footprints, fox tracks.<br />Snow celebrates the edges of things — curved branches, </div><div style="text-align: left;">the tops of fenceposts, distorted diamonds of chainlink.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />Snow spotlights the holy dry weed standing in the field alone.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />Snow celebrates quiet — slows all human traffic, alters schedules, </div><div style="text-align: left;">changes moods, puts the kaybosh on sound, shuts off lights.<br />Snow celebrates coldness — it packs itself </div><div style="text-align: left;">into the ribbing at the wrist of your glove, </div><div style="text-align: left;">the ankle of your boot, reminds you of the warm pulse inside you.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />Snow celebrates longing and impermanence </div><div style="text-align: left;">as the building material for snowmen, </div><div style="text-align: left;">and wishful, ramshackle hideaways during snowball fights.<br />Snow pulls its comforter over graves, reminds the dead </div><div style="text-align: left;">and the living of the celebration of rest and spirit.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />Snow celebrates newness, cleanliness, and chaotic order </div><div style="text-align: left;">in a show of snowflakes, and endless white surfaces.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />Snow makes it easy on the hawk, but hard on the chickadee.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />Snow celebrates without knowing it is a celebration. <br />Beauty has a lack of awareness of its supremacy — </div><div style="text-align: left;">its message of brevity: <i>celebrate now</i>.<br /></div>Jenny Hillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02689476109430471814noreply@blogger.com0