Big Ups

Lately, there have been glimpses of summer. I swear I'm not imagining it. I wore a t-shirt today...and a long-sleeved shirt...and a fleece vest...and a coat. And even though the wind fingered its way down through each and every layer like some handsy pervert, I felt the pleasure of the sun on my cheeks. My inner Veruca Salt was saying, "But Daddy, I WANT it!"

The trouble is, nicer weather brings anxiety. I rue my hibernate-in-winter tendencies. Sure, at the time, it feels good to hole up in a warm place. At the time, I feel no shame huddling under blankets like a grandma.

Add to that, my boyfriend perfected the art of hot chocolate. We've become, in fact, hot chocolate connoisseurs. Over the winter months, he has served up cocoa in all its sexy variations. It's been a kama sutra of chocolate hotness, as it were. Never was it made up of water. Once it was made with chocolate soy milk. Mainly it was made with cow milk, which I remembered, after a long stint of vegetarianism and anti-dairy, was good, even though I sometimes had to fight the mental thought of it tasting "cow-y," as if I was sucking at the cow's udder. I shuddered at the very thought of it, but that thought was fleeting.

I think I lost all judgment because of the accoutrements: the powdery marshmallows (much like the blue diamonds, yellow moons, green clovers, and red hearts in a box of Lucky Charms), the real marshmallows, the marshmallow fluff. This was the boxed, packet-o-cocoa but elevated to elixir status. Food of the Gods status. Youth serum.

Those were halcyon days. Alas, most good things cannot last. It began to unravel (as did I) as my boyfriend and I traveled back home after our weekly grocery shopping trip. The drive runs parallel to a path where people RUN and BIKE and wear tank tops and short shorts, and their arms aren't flappy like mine. Their thighs would not best be described as thunderous. In short, they are fit. I found myself thinking out loud about riding my bike along that path. This led to my boyfriend talking about joining the gym.

Before I knew it, I was crying. I was crying for the devil-may-care winter days when it's okay to carb load when there's no marathon in sight. I was crying for the formerly fit self who used to run five miles a day. I was crying because I have been paying for a year for a gym membership I've rarely used (I considered it a fat tax). I was crying because I knew the party was over. The fat lady had sung. I was crying because the fat lady (a.k.a. Aretha Franklin) is no longer fat.

As my poor befuddled boyfriend groped for the origin of my sadness, I found myself saying that it had to stop. It was a funeral of sorts. I was crying and unpacking the groceries we'd bought and mourning the purchases. Bye bye pesto and smoked mozarella potato chips. Bye bye deli cheese. Bye bye grease. Bye bye delicious coffee creamer that has absolutely no cream in it.

We didn't have our cocoa night cap that evening. The mood was somber. In the same manner that the Zen master wonders if one can hear the sound of one hand clapping, I wondered if I could cook and still eat.

So it begins. Soon, one cocoa-less night will lead to another, and before I know it, I won't miss it. Maybe. Let's not get crazy. I'm aiming for baby steps. I just have to keep reminding myself that eating healthier always leads to exercising, and those things lead to sleeker Wendy. And sleeker Wendy is sexier Wendy, the Wendy who seems to build herself up each winter only to whittle away at herself in Spring. I wouldn't say it's like the phoenix who rises out of the ashes--it's more psychosis than symbolic.

But oh I do love the rising. The rising is incremental. In so rising, there will be many days when I am not enough: not thin, no model, not statuesque. But then it happens. The curves begin to disappear from where they shouldn't be, thus emphasizing the curves in the correct places. The sun whispers to my skin, and my skin listens. I burn. I bronze, which is kind of statuesque. I shed my clothing like a snake sheds its skin. Mentally, of course. Mentally.

Mentally, I am the woman who walks past constructions sites and brings about wolf whistles and non-politically correct sexist pig commentary, which I, in fact, dig. In actuality, I really only want one construction worker thinking I'm hot, and so I'll shed winter mindset, one day at a time, sweet Jesus (or because my boyfriend is an atheist who does not want people to say, "God bless you" when he sneezes, he should insert "Good luck" here).

Tomorrow I'm taking up a friend on her offer. She teaches kick-boxing. On my second official day of spring break, when there's no earthly reason to get up early, I will be clearing the dancing sugar plums from my head by playing kicky punchy. And I will walk my dog which will hopefully turn to running with my dog.

The Ipod is ready. Fresh batteries? Check. Motivational music? Check. And I won't be alone. Black Keys are coming along. Michael Franti will be there. Shaggy will be there, singing "my" praises:


"BIG UP" - SHAGGY
Now this one dedicates to all the women that I please just big up for themself
Them the man them know say that the flush a bomb extra buff and rough
Shagsman and Rayvon is one new brand 'bout to become number one
Watch this

[Rayvon]
And you fi
Big up, big up
All of the women them big up, big up
All of the girl them big up, big up
All of the women them big up, big up
Whooey

See me go
Watch it go cop
Teaching it please stand up, please
Viva Apache full of pure make-up
When she walk pon street a whole heap of man big them up
Big up, big up
Gal you're fat and you're buff

[SHAGGY]
Gal you're fat and you're buff, expensive and rough
A put your hand inna the air and just big up
Gal if you're fat and you're buff, I know your comfort
Put your hand inna the air and just big up
Gal if you're fat and you're buff, another virgin bluff
Well put your hand inna the air and just big up
Gal if you're fat and you're buff and you're buffer or dapper
Put your hand inna the air and just big up

Say wa
Jump and skin out 'cause you know I say a sexy
Shout it out 'cause a you have the vinery
Bawl it out you big thing and healthy
We brought you up a man we called so leave I man me
Your hair style man it look well fancy
Tell the all of them say you have your man a ready
Your face a look like fi vow a night monkey
Hid no pain, top just like Apache
Come, come take it from the one named Shaggy
Tell the world you big thing and healthy

Fat and you're buff, expensive and rough
Well put your hand inna the air and just big up
Gal if you're fat and you're buff, I know your comfort
Put your hand inna the air and just big up
Gal if you're fat and you're buff and you're buffer or dapper
Put your hand inna the air and just big up

Well I don't want no man tell me woman no nice, ey
And I don't want no man tell me woman no sweet, eey
Don't want no man tell me woman no nice, woman no nice
Don't want no man tell me woman no sweet, ey

Well you fi
Big up, big up, now your poom-poom shorts
Big up, big up, now your body lick shirt
Big up, big up, now your catwoman-suit
Big up, big up, mini-skirt look cute

So me say Brooklyn man helped me big them up
And a Manville man helped me big them up
And a New York man helped me big them up
And Flatbush man say helped me big them up

And a big up yourself because you're fat and you're buff, gal (Big up)
Tell them say that you're fat and you're buff, gal (Big up)
Tell them you are the god of buff, gal (Big up)
Tell them you're expensive and rough, gal (Big up)
Tell them say that a you confess, gal (Big up)
Tell them say you're the virgin bluff

Fat and you're buff, expensive and rough
Well put your hand inna the air and just big up
Gal if you're fat and you're buff, I know your comfort
Put your hand inna the air and just big up
Gal if you're fat and you're buff and you're buffer or dapper
Put your hand inna the air and just sight, aha

Watch it go cop
Teaching it please stand up, please
Viva Apache full of pure make-up
When she walk pon street a whole heap of man big them up
Big up, big up, big up
Because you're fat and you're buff

Shagsman girl man she fat and she buff
Rayvon gal man she fat and she buff

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, ey
And me don't want no man say I fi work Angela
Oooh, oooh
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, ey
And me don't know King Kong, what if she know him, ya
Oooh

Big up, big up, now your poom-poom shorts
Big up, big up, now your body lick shirt
Big up, big up, now your catwoman-suit
Big up, big up, whooey

Raw Materials

raw [rɔː]

adjetivo

1. crudo(a) (food, silk); sin refinar (sugar); en bruto (statistics)

• to be raw -> estar crudo(a) (meat, vegetables)
• raw materials -> materias (f pl) primas
• raw recruit -> recluta (m) novato

2. agrietado(a) (skin)

• to get a raw deal (sentido figurado) -> ser tratado(a) injustamente
• to touch a raw nerve (sentido figurado) -> dar en lo más vivo

3. crudo(a) (weather, wind)

The Artist as a Young Woman

I'm talking about little Frida--she
of la casa azul she
of the unibrow she
of the disappearing leg she
before she was the "ribbon around the bomb."
She was once just a girl rubbing elbows
with revolutionaries she
pre"naive" art. She
not yet the eye of the storm she
not yet ground zero or the trailer house where
the most damage is done she
before she was Mrs. Diego i.e. shadow she
not yet his fuck you very much muse she
not yet a wife yet a lover to many. She
before she was an accident she
not yet the broken one she
when the womb might still hold she
pre bed ridden she
when mirrors weren't a friend she
who might have wielded a scalpel
instead of a brush she
who could swim in colorful skirts
not to hide her uneven legs but because
they were pretty. This was before she
parted her hair perfectly before she
sprouted flowers before she
courted parrots and black cats
of skulls and ripe fruit. This was before she
was the hunted the easy prey when she
wore her heart inside her blouse when she
hadn't yet cultivated a green thumb,
the ability to groomed jungles. I mean she
who painted monkeys which were not symbols
of lust but merely cute she
who drew stick trees and unicorns like
any other she. This was before the perpetual
self portrait before the ball and chain
before chasing the pain. This was youth
before she had five rings if we gauge a life
the way we measure a tree's growth. The she
not a half century, almost. She at life's entrance
and not in the end writing in a diary
hoping the exit was joyful. I mean she
who was too young to hope she'd never return.
I mean the she whose mouth
would be too small for too many pills.
I mean the she whose bed was messy
and filled with dreams still and not
whose death bed became
a tourist attraction.

--W

My History of Fire

What qualifies me to talk about it? Perhaps it is the fear of it--a fear I have for no good reason. If only my fears were reasonable. There weren't any childhood fires. That's not exactly true. If memory serves, there were conflagrations, but they weren't of the actual sort. Let's just say, I never got burned.

Sure I played with it. Who wouldn't? It's so beautiful, burning like anger, burning like hunger. Burning like. Burning like.

Burning like a burning, if you know what I mean.

Sometimes I held the magnifying glass. Other times, I was the ant feeling the heat.

Most of the time, however, I played it safe. I kept it contained. In the stomach pit. In the fireplace. A letter charred and sifting to the sink's bottom.

But we don't always burn our letters in sinks. Sometimes you need a forest. Tender tinder of trees, swaying, and a breeze to help it along.

That's not my story.

In order, here's what I knew to be true: Pine pitch chews like gum. You can't wield the axe; you can only look at the axe. It's your job to stack. Don't bother a sliver; it will work its way out eventually. On the mantle, there's a starburst clock that radiates its own heat. The Sunday paper may be thick, but it's the daily doings that catch best. If it isn't old enough, it will smoke. Pull the damper out, or it will smoke. You can buy powder that teases a rainbow from fire. When the electricity goes out, the fire is the only God you pray to. Chimneys eat smoke and send it skyward, so long as it burns clean. The smoke will break from the house like an SOS. There are things that look like smoke but aren't, like the queen bee and her minions who abandoned their meadow boxes. The fire smelled like honey for awile. The volunteer fire department will burn the chicken coop down and then fight it for the practice.

And then you grow up.

Fires are few and inbetween. You live your days in front of a furnace. Forced air heat. Forced.
You romanticize it. In your mind, the campfire blazes, and every ember pop is an opportunity. You think you love the one who can build a good fire. The skies grow dark every summer. You can't breathe. You're told not to go outside. You are in a valley, and you are fully engulfed with the idea of being swept away by fire. But the fires are burning miles away. The lingo is acres, helicopters, buckets, retardant...and then it's gone.

The fires you know now are the stuff of 6 o'clock news. They are neat. The fires fit tidy between sports and weather. Hardly anyone ever dies. You light candles with an apparatus that may as well be a third arm. It keeps the flame far from you. Fire comes in a jar, sits obediantly on the wick, and sizzles out when you're sloppy with the bath water. You don't know when you felt a burn last, and because the mind likes it and knows it more than the skin, you fear it.

Your heart beats faster when something on the burner begins to smoke. The alarm sounds, and you beat it with your open palm and scream, "Shut it! Shut it! Shut it!" How do you extinguish it? Salt? Throw a towel over it? Water? Water and oil don't mix. Don't give it air. Yet it's over before you need to choose. It's always over before your knowledge is tested.

And what of that fear that makes you go back and check over and over the burner that is always
never on?

--W

Maya Angelou said anger is fire.

Winston Churchill invoked fire when he said anything that attempted to fly should be set on fire.

Thomas Jefferson used fire as a means of talking about war and being tenacious about defending ourselves: "If our house be on fire, without inquiring whether it was fired from within or without, we must try to extinguish it."

Benjamin Franklin realized that what makes a home is "food and fire for the mind as well as the body."

He also found fire a necessity in terms of finding a life partner: "Never take a wife till thou hast a house (and a fire) to put her in."

"Words are only painted fire; a look is the fire itself," said Mark Twain.

"As soon go kindle fire with snow, as seek to quench the fire of love with words. " --William Shakespeare.

Mae West said, "A man can be short and dumpy and getting bald but if he has fire, women will like him. "

"Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice." --Robert Frost

George Washington said, "Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master."


"Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire, called conscience. " --George Washington

Napoleon knew of trial by fire. He said, "When soldiers have been baptized in the fire of a battle-field, they have all one rank in my eyes."

Emily Dickinson used fire as a means of describing poetry: "If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry.

T.S. Eliot knows that history and its ghosts speak louder than the living: "The communication of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living."

"We all live in a house on fire, no fire department to call; no way out, just the upstairs window to look out of while the fire burns the house down with us trapped, locked in it. " --Tennessee Williams

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin said, "Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for a second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.

"To learn to read is to light a fire; every syllable that is spelled out is a spark." --Victor Hugo

Oliver Wendell Holmes said, "Through our great good fortune, in our youth our hearts were touched with fire. It was given to us to learn at the outset that life is a profound and passionate thing. "

"Every idea is an incitement... Eloquence may set fire to reason. " --Oliver Wendell Holmes

"Time is the substance from which I am made. Time is a river which carries me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger that devours me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire that consumes me, but I am the fire. " Jorge Luis Borges

"Love is a fire. But whether it is going to warm your hearth or burn down your house, you can never tell," said Joan Crawford


"So, like a forgotten fire, a childhood can always flare up again within us." --Gaston Bachelard
Gaston Bachelard

"To cause the face to appear in a mass of flame make use of the following: mix together thoroughly petroleum, lard, mutton tallow and quick lime. Distill this over a charcoal fire, and the liquid which results can be burned on the face without harm." --Harry Houdini

"Eating coals of fire has always been one of the sensational feats of the Fire Kings, as it is quite generally known that charcoal burns with an extremely intense heat." --Harry Houdini

"Fire has always been and, seemingly, will always remain, the most terrible of the elements." --Harry Houdini

"I'm cautious about using fire. It can become theatrical. I am interested in the heat, not the flames." --Andy Goldsworthy

Shoots and Ladders in a Candyland World

In 1943, Abraham Maslow came up with his hierarchy of needs, and I was introduced to it in an educational psychology class. At eighteen, I had no idea how I was to use the data in order to be a better teacher. At 35, I see it less a teaching tool and more a tool of introspection. It can be an enlightening and scary proposition to sit down and take inventory of which of your needs are and are not being met.

Maslow divided our needs into five categories: physiological, safety, love/belonging, esteem, and self-actualization.

Basic needs are the tangible ones. In a story, they'd be the showing and not the telling details. They'd be the props on the theater or movie set. Sort of. The most basic requirements are those that allow us to survive. They allow the body to function properly. We need air, water, and food. We need clothes for our bodies and a roof over our heads. And, interestingly enough, Maslow placed sex in this category. Of course, he meant the basic sex act--the sort needed in order to perpetuate the species. Nonetheless, he drew criticism for placing sex as just as important as the air we breathe.

If we think of Maslow's needs theory as a ladder, then the next rung is safety. Safety is equated to predictability. We want things to be consistent and fair. We are drawn to the familiar and are scared by the unfamiliar. This safety applies to all areas of life: personal security, financial security, health and well-being, and protection against accidents and illness. When we are young, we cling to blankets that are special to us. We cling to our mother's leg and peer out at strangers. When our mothers serve cake, we get mad if the slices are not even. We get angry if someone doesn't play by the game rules. As adults, we are supposed to be better at this. I might be stuck here, to some extent. I still cling to the familiar. I build a world and know how it works and am off kilter if something or someone doesn't act as they generally do. I get angry with the world and cry "No Fair!" to no one's ears in particular about all the atrocities in the world. But it is what it is, and you either adapt, or you are stunted--left behind.

After those two levels are reached, we want to be loved and feel like we belong. We work to establish friendships. We value family. We crave intimacy. We begin our search, if we are monogamous, for The One, the one we want to spend our days with. We start to join groups and clubs. Or maybe take our place as one sheep in a flock at a particular religious gathering. Maybe we play on an athletic team or at the very least fervently follow a professional team. Maybe you join a gang. When we go to work, we don't just go to do our jobs but find ourselves seeking out relationships with co-workers. At the very least, we want someone to pass the time with, to joke with, to gossip to, to commiserate with. At the most, maybe we get real friendship or even a mentorship.

Maslow broke esteem down into 2 types: the type that others can give you and the type only you can have (i.e. self-esteem). So does your identity rest on the need for status, recognition, fame, prestige, and attention? Maslow labeled that "low" esteem, as opposed to the "high" esteem--the ability to gain strength, to be competent, to master, to be independent, and be self-confident. Of course, Maslow saw the two types of esteem as interrelated. Neither, it seems are healthy in and of themselves.

Finally, there is self-actualization or realizing your full potential--becoming what you are meant to become, whatever that means. Maslow said that full potential varied from person to person. Maybe it's your gift to be a damn good stay-at-home mom. Maybe you're meant to be a painter. Or a waiter. Or a teacher. Or a construction worker.

The trouble is, we can spend our whole lives trying to figure out what we want to be when we grow up. And then we are grown ups and still wondering why life doesn't feel right. Well, Maslow would probably say that, in the board game of life, you've got to lose a turn and go back to START, or at the very least, he'd say that you have to be honest about whether your other, "lower" needs are truly being met.

That said, Maslow acknowledged that there are people who actively operate in phenomenal ways at the higher needs levels, despite the fact that their most basic needs aren't being met. I'm fascinated by his concept of metamotivation. This term describes the motivation of people who go beyond the scope of basic needs and strive for constant betterment. You've encountered those people, right? Throughout my life, I've met people who, as my grandmother would have said, "don't have a pot to piss in," meaning they were poor. They had no money, no things, or at least none of the things those around them had. Yet, they seem happy, content even. Or maybe they are the fighters of the world--the scrappy ones--the ones who ignore the hunger gnawing at their own bellies in order to fight for the basic freedoms of others.

I look at the colorful depictions of Maslow's pyramid and am reminded that it bears a striking likeness to the food pyramid. I realize that's not an accurate comparison. In the food pyramid, the highest point are those things we should avoid--the things that are abundant and tempting yet which will kill us. In Maslow's pyramid, the highest point is something we should strive for, though seemingly very, very hard to reach. The bottom rung for both is building blocks--the origins of energy. And of course in both, there is the murky middle ground between bottom and top. In that murky middle ground, most of us struggle. We cheat. We take more than we need. We starve ourselves, both physically and metaphorically. Or perhaps we act mechanically, treating our bodies and minds like a machine. We abide by the serving size but the goal--the perfect dress size or the enlightened mind--remains out of reach, either by a hair or by a mile.

Linguistically Limited

Recently, as a getting-to-know-you activity, and because the students are getting ready to write an identity essay, I asked my English 101 class to write a Six-Word Memoir. This isn't my brainchild. Ernest Hemingway's version is probably the most quoted. Though his wasn't memoir, I think the idea was that you could embody all the necesary elements of fiction or story in six words: "For Sale: baby shoes, never worn."

The online magazine, Smith, continues to provide a cyber nest for those who feel compelled to try to encapsulate their experiences. While the entries aren't pouring in as they initially did upon the launch of the project, they still trickle in HERE. And the newest entries seem to have morphed from trying to capture a lifetime to trying to capture artistically the moment or the day.

There have even been books published which compile the 6-word offerings of the everyday Joe as well as well-known writers. And you certainly can find the cinematic versions online via YouTube.

These are the versions I came up with:

"Vintage girl in
the modern world"

"Wore her heart
on her sleeve"

"She always noticed
the little things"

"She taught; they
taught her more"

"Yoga mind even
off the mat"

"For art she
purposely made messes"

"Collaged mind
collaged heart
collaged soul"

"Hummingbird heart
Eagle eye
Ostrich body"

"She whispered often
to the animals"

"Poet at heart
not on page"

Some have described the six-word memoir as like Postsecret, but with less angst. I see them as freeform Haiku. Or perhaps they fit the bill as A River of Stones material or perhaps the abbreviated version of Three Beautiful Things projects. Ultimately, they are impractical, yet I'm tempted to continue this as a daily project, perhaps an art journal project. I think it would be beautiful to look back on 365 of these little bits in which I tried to sum up what resists summing up.

...So, which six words would YOU choose?

On Waking to Robert Burns

I woke this morning thinking about Robert Burns. I don't typically have these literary awakenings, but I went to bed knowing that my friend, Nancy's birthday was the next day. And I kept thumbing through the filing cabinet that is my brain, remembering a snippet of a poem I'd once read in which the poet addresses a Nancy.

By morning, I'd found the missing file: Robert Burns. Don't get me wrong. That particular folder is a thin one. I may be an English teacher and a lifelong lover of poetry, but Burns never did it for me. In fact, the folder held the two poems that everyone--poetry lovers and non-poetry lovers, alike--knows: "O My Luv's Like a Red, Red Rose" and "Auld Lang Syne." And of course commercialism is responsible for us knowing those two poems when appropriate to the season. The dust is shaken off the first poem around January in preparation for its use for Valentine's Day. And we know the second and sing a version of it on New Year's.

At other times of the year, poor ol' Robert Burns sits waiting in the tissue-paper thin pages of literature anthologies, only read by Scots, students who are made to read it, and by scholars.
So why doesn't Burns enjoy the rock star status that Billy Collins enjoys? Hmm. Well, of course modern man and woman are anti-rhyme, unless said rhyme comes in the form of a Hallmark card or a song trapped in one's Ipod. But I don't think that's the only reason. If I had to guess, I'd say cynicism disallows us from relating to most of what Burns has to say. We are a culture that disbelieves in true love, and we are at a Patriotic low.

No matter what our romantic status, we resist something that says love is like a rose or a tune. Ick, we say. And we are a culture that quits when the going is good. We are a culture of throwaway marriages and divorces done via website, so why would we believe, as Burns wrote, that someone's love could last "Till a' the seas gang dry...And the rocks melt wi' the sun!"? The cynic comes out when reading the last few lines of the poem:

And fare thee weel a while!

And I will come again, my luve,

Tho' it were ten thousand mile!

We say, "Ah ha! Of course you can love her that much because you aren't even with her. You are 10,000 miles away!"

If you read Burns, you know he loved the ladies. Let's just say there are many bonnie lassies who didn't escape Burns's attention. The modern day thug would be labeled a playa if he was caught thinking about multiple ladies and their fairer qualities. There's Jean, who has made Burns' speaker love the West because that is where she lives. Incidentally, this makes me think of my man, who though he is from the East, is often caught saying the West is the best, though his reasoning has nothing to do with me and everything to do with The Doors' "The End." This Jean of Burns's takes up all his mind: "But day and night may fancy's flight/Is ever wi' my Jean." Flowers and bird song remind him of her.

Maybe we resist Burns because we have never had that experience. We have never been so infatuated that every damned thing leads our thoughts back to a particular person? I'm not THAT cynical, especially being 7 months into a relationship. I can't say that I think of My Man when I see flowers or when I hear birds singing, but I suppose there are modern-day versions of that because, let's face it: I'm not exposed on a daily basis to flowers and birds. My triggers are decidedly more urban: NFL football commercials, can openers, seeing a truck that looks like his, tie-dye, bacon. It is those things, not birds and flowers, that trigger a smile and a warm feeling in my belly.

Modern man and woman could not get away with some of Burns's poetic actions. For instance, his actions in "Mary Morison" are the modern-day equivalent to stalking. I'm not sure any of us really remember the idea of admiring someone from afar. What, with all our modern-day love warfare, we simply go forth and conquer. We add someone as a Facebook friend. We text someone. We subscribe to online dating services and write ads that read as recipes for what we want in a partner. Or, if we are me, we walk up to the fellow we are interested in and admit that we've been eavesdropping on a conversation he was having with someone else. We say, "Why would someone choose to live in Moscow, Idaho when one has previously spent the rest of his life in Connecticut?" Come to think of it, maybe I am not that different from Burns. Burns's speaker admired Mary Morison from afar. He spies her from her window and thinks just being able to see her makes him rich. She is gold! I feel that way sometimes--like I've won the lottery.

Even if you are a scrooge, miserly about the idea of love, at the very least I guess we can hoist a glass Burns's way regarding his celebrations. He celebrates the friendships of men. He celebrates women. He celebrates past and future. He celebrates country. He celebrates love won and love lost. He celebrates arrivals, and he celebrates departures. He hoists his share of glasses. "We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet," is his motto, and that cup filleth over with the four important things: "Peace, enjoyment, love, and pleasure!"

Wait! Aren't enjoyment and pleasure saying the same thing? God damn, yes! Cheers to hedonism. Raise a glass to the idea that this writer didn't listen to his inner editor and erase one of those words. There is room in life for enjoyment and pleasure both!

It doesn't take long for me to like Burns. Don't tell any of my colleagues, but I like to conjure him much like Mel Gibson. I'm not talking crazy Mel Gibson of late, the one who spews racial slurs and the one who allegedly knocks out his woman's teeth. I'm talking Braveheart Mel Gibson. I like to imagine Robert Burns astride a horse and screaming, "They may take our lives, but they'll never take our freedom!"

I suppose what really gets me is the idea of this macho man who marches off to battle. His speaker is not afraid to die for what he believes: "By Oppression's woes and pains!/By your sons in servile chains!/We will drain our dearest veins,/But they shall be free!//Lay the proud usurpers low!/Tyrants fall in every foe/Liberty's in every blow!/Let us do or die!"

Yet for all that warrior swagger, he is also the poet touched by the little things--mice and daisies turned over while plowing. Burns helps me recognize the type I like: the gentle giant. His poetry is testosterone-filled yet every bit as much filled with the awe part of Bush's "shock and awe" war sensibility. He is pleasantly surprised--moved--by the things most wouldn't notice.

I raise my cup of Joe this morning to those barbarians who let themselves succomb to love and all the other "wee beasties" in the world.

TO A MOUNTAIN DAISY

ON TURNING ONE DOWN WITH THE PLOUGH, APRIL, 1786

by: Robert Burns (1759-1796)

I




EE, modest, crimson-tippèd flow'r,

Thou's met me in an evil hour;

For I maun crush amang the stoure

Thy slender stem:

To spare thee now is past my pow'r,

Thou bonie gem.




II




Alas! it's no thy neebor sweet,

The bonie lark, companion meet,

Bending thee 'mang the dewy weet!

Wi' spreckl'd breast!

When upward-springing, blythe, to greet

The purpling east.




III




Cauld blew the bitter-biting north

Upon thy early, humble birth;

Yet cheerfully thou glinted forth

Amid the storm,

Scarce rear'd above the parent-earth

Thy tender form.




IV




The flaunting flow'rs our gardens yield,

High shelt'ring woods and wa's maun shield;

But thou, beneath the random bield

O' clod or stane,

Adorns the histie stibble-field,

Unseen, alane.




V




There, in thy scanty mantle clad,

Thy snawie bosom sun-ward spread,

Thou lifts thy unassuming head

In humble guise;

But now the share uptears thy bed,

And low thou lies!




VI




Such is the fate of artless maid,

Sweet flow'ret of the rural shade!

By love's simplicity betray'd,

And guileless trust;

Till she, like thee, all soil'd, is laid

Low i' the dust.




VII




Such is the fate of simple Bard,

On life's rough ocean luckless starr'd!

Unskilful he to note the card

Of prudent lore,

Till billows rage, and gales blow hard,

And whelm him o'er!




VIII




Such fate to suffering Worth is giv'n,

Who long with wants and woes has striv'n,

By human pride or cunning driv'n

To mis'ry's brink;

Till, wrench'd of ev'ry stay but Heav'n,

He, ruin'd, sink!




IX




Ev'n thou who mourn'st the Daisy's fate,

That fate is thine -- no distant date;

Stern Ruin's ploughshare drives, elate,

Full on thy bloom,

Till crush'd beneath the furrow's weight,

Shall by thy doom!

TO A MOUSE

ON TURNING HER UP IN HER NEST WITH THE PLOUGH, NOVEMBER, 1785

by: Robert Burns (1759-1796)

I




EE, sleekit, cowrin, tim'rous beastie,

Oh, what a panic's in thy breastie!

Thou need na start awa sae hasty,

Wi' bickering brattle!

I was be laith to rin an' chase thee,

Wi' murd'ring pattle!




II




I'm truly sorry man's dominion

Has broken Nature's social union,

An' justifies that ill opinion

Which makes thee startle

At me, thy poor, earth-born companion

An' fellow-mortal!




III




I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve;

What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!

A daimen-icker in a thrave

'S a sma' request;

I'll get a blessin wi' the lave,

And never miss't!




IV




Thy wee-bit housie, too, in ruin!

Its silly wa's the win's are strewin!

An' naething, now, to big a new ane,

O' foggage green!

An' bleak December's winds ensuin,

Baith snell an' keen!




V




Thou saw the fields laid bare an' waste,

An' weary winter comin fast,

An' cozie here, beneath the blast,

Thou thought to dwell,

Till crash! the cruel coulter past

Out thro' thy cell.




VI




That wee bit heap o' leaves an stibble,

Has cost thee mony a weary nibble!

Now thou's turn'd out, for a' thy trouble,

But house or hald,

To thole the winter's sleety dribble,

An' cranreuch cauld!




VII




But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane,

In proving foresight may be vain:

The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men

Gang aft a-gley,

An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,

For promis'd joy!




VIII




Still thou art blest, compared wi' me!

The present only toucheth thee:

But och! I backward cast my e'e,

On prospects drear!

An' forward, tho' I cannot see,

I guess an' fear!

Mama's Got a Brand New Bag

I recently gave my students a writing exercise in which they are to take inventory of the contents of a small space (a wallet, a purse, a gym locker, a desk drawer, a kitchen drawer, or perhaps their car or glove compartment) in order to see what the contents say about them. Likewise, the idea is to consider what people might miss or NOT KNOW about you if they relied only on the objects.

I'm going to try my best to complete the assignments along with my students. For this exercise, I'll use my purse contents. The purse itself is a beautiful black leather purse my boyfriend gave me for Christmas. He knows I like girly things, and I think it's quite special that he entered into testosterone-deficient atmospheres where such items are sold. I can only imagine the discomfort his big macho self felt when ensconced in purses and perfumes and jewelry.

This purse has two outer side compartments. Additionally, there's more storage on the inside of the purse in one zippered compartment. There are also three "pouch" areas sewn into one side where you can place glasses, a phone etc.

Outside compartment #1, I found the following:
*a Christmas card I was supposed to send to a swap partner (in a Ziploc bag and with postage sticking to the Ziploc bag)
*another Ziploc bag filled with ATCs I made
* two ATC's made by Shawna (for which I still owe her two ATC's in trade)
* Seven self-adhesive foam thingies that I saved from the garbage during a crafting session with my friend, Shanda's little girls. They were making foam gingerbread men. They used the little circles for buttons on the gingerbread mens' bellies. I saw them as something to repurpose. I thought i could stick them to a base, paint each rectangle with a different color paint or ink and use the resulting print as interesting background for art projects.

Outside compartment #2, I found the following:
* Three pens (a Sharpie Ultra-Fine Point, a blue Uni-Ball, and a Pilot Precise V5 Extra Fine in black)
* a package of Eclipse spearmint gum with 6 pieces left
* checks , starting with #2001. It should be noted that I rarely use checks (who does?) but chose to order them. I ordered them via phone. They sent the checks to my previous address, so they never came to me. Thus, this caused panic when the checks never arrived. It caused worry as to where they where sent, who had them, if anyone used them, etc. So, long story short, the whole series was cancelled and reported stolen and a whole new batch had to be made and sent. I haven't used one since the whole drama unfolded.
*silk mittens I bought at the Moscow co-op which were to expensive but I'd coveted them every winter and had recently lost my gloves, so I bought them on impulse. Alas, I suppose my punishment was that I didn't try them on (who tries on mittens?), and they are really large...like sloppy, can't feel my hands kind of big. I've only worn them once as a result. I wonder if I could shrink them. I wonder if I could sew them in....but I'm afraid to try.
*a Moleskine notepad in which I tracked my sales for farmer's market this past summer, in which I write recipes, in which I make lists of books I'd like to read, movies I'd like to see and CD's I'd like to have. Additionally, the notebook contains notes for my first visit to Natalie and concert information on Michael Franti concerts this summer.

Inside Zippered Compartment contains:
* a jar of pistachio golden shea butter by Baublebath.com that I bought at the Women's Work craft fair.
*Lancome Juicy Tube lip gloss
*Revlon Color-Stay Ultimate Lipcolor in Platinum Petal
*eye glasses
* Mucinex pills
*two bottles of Warfarin (2 mg and 10 mg, since I am supposed to alternate taking 12 mg one day and 14 mg the next)
* a barette

In the compartment with three compartments, I have one black bandana belonging to my boyfriend, which I used to tie around my hair prior to Christmas, which I keep intending to give back (sorry honey!)

Finally, in the far reaches of the purse, in the dark, cavernous maw, I found the following:
*one wallet (the contents of which would merit another separate inventory and posting, perhaps...or perhaps not)
*4 Tampons
*1 apple
*1 bag Halls Triple Action soothing cough drops in cherry
*1 bottle Tussin DM Cough and Chest formula (this is contraband, as I'm not supposed to use anything other than Mucinex and a Nettipot to fight my cold, which is currently in its third week)
*a strip of gradebook paper, on which I've written the prompts for an online PAD Poem-a-Day challenge (for which I never wrote a single poem)
*a notepad (with magnetic closure) given to me for Christmas which reads: "The problem with doing nothing is you don't know when you're done." I got it on Monday, and I've yet to write in it.
*an orange notebook with turquoise elastic cord closure which apparently was a free gift with the purchase of REAL SIMPLE magazine. I bought it at Goodwill for 49 cents. I also got this one on Monday, and I've yet to write in it.
*a set of monogram sticky notes that I found in the dollar bin at Michael's. I've lived for 35 years without seeing a use for sticky notes, and suddenly I decided, apparently, that I would need to leave notes everywhere.
* a black and white photo of a family of 4 that I rescued out of the Staple's recycle bin. I have no idea what I'll do with it, but I didn't feel like it should be destroyed.

If I look at the contents in a positive light, I'd say that I'm a woman of many passions. My mind teems with ideas the likes of which require multiple pens and notebooks. I never stop thinking about art: creating it, trading it, selling it.

If you had only to look at the contents, you might suppose that I am the luckiest girl in the world with a boyfriend who treats me like a princess because I am a beautiful smelling goddess, with nary a rough patch on my body and pouty lips that cause car wrecks.

But obviously, things in my world aren't as smooth as my skin. I'm less a goddess and more a pale-faced, pale-lipped sickie and a pill popper whose boyfriend deserves a medal of honor for his sweetness and patience. I was hospitalized at the end of August, where they found a blood clot which they blamed on my oral contraceptives. As such, I was taken off birth control and placed on bloodthinners in two forms: shots administered to stomach fat and pills. My life has changed drastically. In addition to incurring 2 ER visits sans health insurance, I am now ruled by regular office visits to make sure my blood is just right (kind of the Goldilocks and the 3 Bears things: so hard, too soft, just right). It gets thinned. It gets too thin. They thicken it. They experiment. And the Warfarin is poison. It's dangerous and touchy. I have to avoid foods with high levels of Vitamin K. Everything has vitamin K. I'm not supposed to drink, though I occasionally do. It's changed my heating and cooling system. My circulation is bad, so my feet and hands get cold easily, much to the chagrin of my boyfriend who knows too well the feel of ice against his skin at moments when he's seeking heat.

And most recently, Warfarin has compromised my immune system. More accurately, I got sick Christmas Eve, and I've been fighting the good battle since then to get rid of a cold that I would normally be rid of instantly. Normally, I'd either go to the doctor and get a prescription or get an over-the-counter cold medicine. I no longer have that luxury, as everything reacts poorly with Warfarin. Thus, when I felt I was going to die from this sickness and called my doctor for help, she "prescribed" Mucinex and a Netti Pot.

So I eat apples to keep the doctor away. I two-fist the cough drops. I nurse the cough drops and drink the cough syrup in secret like the bum on the street corner with his forty in a brown bag.
The bum description isn't just for dramatic effect either. I feel down on my luck in terms of health, and I use the illness and lack of energy as my excuse for not finishing things. I am a dreamer. I have high aspirations and best of intentions, but the contents of my purse say that I don't often follow through on the things that matter most to me. Empy notebooks are useless. Pen collections are useless. If I want to write, I have to write. Period. The same is true of my commitment to art. If I want to have a business, I need to be more regimented. I need a daily art practice. Though farmer's market is not until May, I need to work NOW on building up inventory. I need to produce things leisurely rather than stressing myself right before deadlines.

All this would discourage me, except the purse reminds me daily that these things are possible. It says I am loved. It says I've got the tools and supplies to do what I want to do. I've got the skills. Now I need to make the time and stop making excuses and START.