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31 July 2006

Live first, write later

Someone--and I'm not sure who, perhaps you?--needs to introduce me to the poet Billy Collins. I've been patient. I've waited my turn. I've written essays about this need. To no avail, dear reader, to no avail. Surely if we put into motion the infamous "six degrees of separation," someone among us can hit pay dirt and connect me to him and/or (with the emphasis on "and") to Johnny Depp. I don't ask much.

That's all to say this: for the first time in 1.5 years, I will miss my weekly deadline to post a 37days essay this Monday.

It was sacrificed to a good cause: a weekend on the coast of Oregon in the most magical B&B ever created and no I can't tell you which one because I pinky-swore that I would keep it a secret, a week of intensive teaching outside Portland in an unairconditioned dorm room and 104 degree temperatures, and now a weekend in Seattle with people who have made me laugh too much and go to Farmer's Markets and eat too many peaches, granola, pesto, blueberry cobbler, arugula salad, stinky goat ash cheese, and carmelized tofu. Not to name names, but if I had to make up some completely fictitious names, I'd say that "David" and "Lora" are to blame for this last bit in Seattle.

Sometimes, I have come to realize, the writing has to sit in the back seat of the car; the living must drive.

In lieu of a 37days essay, I offer a wee bit of a poem from my new best friend (hint, hint), Billy Collins. I'll be back soon. Right after cobbler. I'll end this trip with a glorious train trip home with my daughter, Emma. As you might recall, I love trains.

The Art of Drowning

I wonder how it all got started, this business
about seeing your life flash before your eyes
while you drown, as if panic, or the act of submergence,
could startle time into such compression, crushing
decades in the vice of your desperate, final seconds.

After falling off a steamship or being swept away
in a rush of floodwaters, wouldn't you hope
for a more leisurely review, an invisible hand
turning the pages of an album of photographs-
you up on a pony or blowing out candles in a conic hat.

How about a short animated film, a slide presentation?
Your life expressed in an essay, or in one model photograph?
Wouldn't any form be better than this sudden flash?
Your whole existence going off in your face
in an eyebrow-singeing explosion of biography-
nothing like the three large volumes you envisioned.

Survivors would have us believe in a brilliance
here, some bolt of truth forking across the water,
an ultimate Light before all the lights go out,
dawning on you with all its megalithic tonnage.
But if something does flash before your eyes
as you go under, it will probably be a fish,

a quick blur of curved silver darting away,
having nothing to do with your life or your death.
The tide will take you, or the lake will accept it all
as you sink toward the weedy disarray of the bottom,
leaving behind what you have already forgotten,
the surface, now overrun with the high travel of clouds.

Billy Collins

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Ah, so you were at ________ and _______ in Oregon, eh? :) Our mini-road trip only lasted three days earlier this month, but god it was fantastic to be zooming through our old state of Oregon. Enjoy the train ride home. I'm jealous...of the train ride, not your crush on Billy Collins. :)

With out life, what would there be to write about??? Have a great trip...and take lots of photos... for Emma's photo album...

Bon voyage from another Bolly Colloins fan!

Obviously I meant Billy Collins. [Typing before coffee is contraindicated.]

I'll miss my weekly dose of your writing: insightful, thought provoking, some so sad as to make the tears well, some so funny that I laugh fully and heartily!
But do enjoy Oregon, and the stinky goat cheese! (That creamy, nutty taste can't be beat...)

I could probably have you introduced to Matthew McConaughey; however, I doubt that it would be a very interesting/soul fulfilling experience...
Thanks for writing on so many of the important topics that enshroud the human heart!

I thought I was the only person who planned pilgrimages to meet poets. I am searching for Eavan Boland - a poet whose muse you, no doubt, share.

Good luck meeting Billy!
-joan

The Necessity for Irony
by, Eavan Boland

"On Sundays,
when the rain held off,
after lunch or later,
I would go with my twelve year old
daughter into town,
and put down the time
at junk sales, antique fairs.

There I would
lean over tables,
absorbed by
place, wooden frames,
glass. My daughter stood
at the other end of the room,
her flame-coloured hair
obvious whenever-
which was not often-

I turned around.
I turned around.
She was gone.

Grown. No longer ready
to come with me, whenever
a dry Sunday
held out its promises
of small histories. Endings.

When I was young
I studied styles: their use
and origin. Which age
was known for which
ornament: and was always drawn
to a lyric speech, a civil tone.
But never though
I would have the need,
as I do now, for a darker one:

Spirit of irony,
my caustic author
of the past, of memory,-
and of its pain, which returns
hurts, stings-reproach me now,
remind me
that I was in those rooms,
with my child,
with my back turned to her,
searching-oh irony!-
for beautiful things."

Patti, the word is the Billy will be appearing at the Dodge Poetry Festival in Waterloo Village, NJ held from Sep 28 - Oct 1. I have attended two previously, and he did read at both 2004 and 2002 festivals. The Festival would be a good place to meet him before or after one of his readings. I plan on being there this year. For more on the festival itself: http://www.grdodge.org/poetry/main.htm

Here's to peaches, pesto, and priorities!
Have a wonderful time and many blessings for a safe journey.

Marilyn - ah, the Oregon coast. I'll tell, just this once, that it was the Pana-sea-ah B&B - http://www.panaseah.com - near Lincoln City (gotta love that name!). Tell Bob and Mary I sent you - they are wonderful, breakfast is unbelievable, the rooms are stay-worthy, and there are only 3 rooms, so you don't have to navigate a lot of people at the breakfast table. We didn't want to leave. As for the train ride, well - that's another story. I'll be recovering for weeks to come!

Dan - We have (funny) photos galore! Thanks for the note!

Joy - Pre-coffee writing is dangerous, isn't it? Truth be told, I like the name Bolly Colloins better!

Franky - what a nice note - thank you! And yes, the stinky goat ash cheese was memorable. Made by a delightful Frenchman in Seattle and bought at the West Seattle Farmer's Market...

Grace - I'm thinking that perhaps Matthew reading Billy would work.... ;-)

Joan - I can see that I have some additional reading to do - don't know of Eavan Boland, but I'll definitely check him out...thanks for the hint (and the great poem!) UPDATE: Joan kindly let me know that Eavan Boland is a "she," not a "he." Eavan better, eh?!

Steve - I can resist everything but temptation...hmmm...Waterloo Village in September, eh? Thanks for the lead on Billy's whereabouts!

Joy K - love the alliteration! Many thanks for your good wishes - we're home safely!

Absolutely have a fabulous time. B&Bs are a great way to get a break.

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