February 9

Apparently a day for deep thoughts and poetry

1975

Sundays in Rhode Island have been amazingly beautiful, on the whole. I seem to be always opening up this journal on a Sunday and lying in a sunny spot on our unmade bed, with the laundry basket next to me. Do winters become shorter as we get older? They are not so hard to take, somehow. February is not too far from March, which becomes April before I can blink.

What are my professional goals? It really is hard to say, sometimes. Then an idea possesses me and I’m “sure” that’s it. I never seem to narrow them, just add to them.  I have to write a thing to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts about my professional goals. I want to teach, research, and write. I enjoy meeting people, but only when I have something to offer. I want to know more, and am finding that learning about one area leads inevitably to wanting to learn about others.

1997

Suite Treat was sublime. There was beautiful music, and soooo many good desserts. Today the snow is dripping off the tree and the sky is blue and absolutely clear. A perfect Sunday morning.

1998

Today’s question/prompt: What have I been struggling with and how does it challenge me?

That depends. In the long run, I have been struggling for balance in my life ever since I left my parents’ home, at eighteen. The pull between domesticity and life outside the house has been a real source of tension. Sharing space with others places demands on my time and attention that I sometimes resent. (No matter how much I love my friends and family.)

I find it hard to know what is best for my children. By the time I have figured out the problem, it’s either an even bigger problem, or has solved itself. I can’t always trust my instincts, because they aren’t really “maternal instincts” (do they even exist?) but emotionally-based reactions, based on my childhood experiences. So I find myself trying to keep them from making MY mistakes, or experiencing MY failures or losses, when they aren’t even heading in that direction. I worry that I am not spending enough time with them. I miss reading to them. I missing playing games. I miss making things with them. But they are older now, and prefer being with their friends.

The meditation today called upon the “teacher of my soul”. I instantly thought of Mom. For all our different beliefs, she modeled spiritual seeking for me all her life, and still does in the months after her death. I wish we could have compared notes more, without the emotional baggage. 

What I am especially enjoying about this semester is that all of my teaching is about nurturing curiosity and creativity in my students. By far the most exciting semester I can remember.

2021

So now I have gathered and recorded all my “to-do” items. They aren’t scheduled yet. Mostly I have been knitting. Hats, a scarf or two, headbands. Now socks. My 9” circular #2 needle arrived today, hooray! If only I could knit my life. Oops! Here comes a poem!

Knitting

 Having revised my to-do lists
I return to knitting.

It’s not on the list, but it’s what I have been doing.
Hats, headbands, a couple of scarves.
Now socks, in a lovely soft slender variegated yarn.

I just knit, around and around.
Pointed sticks and a small gesture, over and over.
The results surprising and beautiful.

If I could knit my to-do list!
I’d turn hours and minutes 
Into a useful object, in a splendid pattern.

While my thoughts floated and drifted.

2021

I wrote this after mulling over that "in the middle of nowhere”…"or the middle of everywhere" conversation I posted about yesterday. The idea of the “middle” still fascinates me. Here I am, living in the mid-Atlantic, no longer middle aged, economically middle class (according to the Pew Research Center calculator). My height is above average and so is my educational level. Being a bit of a daydreamer, I feel like I am in the middle of nowhere most of the time. When I meditate, I sometimes arrive in the middle of everywhere. I like to imagine that’s where we go when we die. 

The Middle

The middle?
I was born there.
In the middle of the week,
In the middle of a year,
In the middle of the century.

I lived in Nebraska
With my Republican mom and Democratic dad.
Pop-pop and Mom-mom in New Jersey
Grandfather and Grandmother in California.

It’s not so bad, the middle.
Sometimes it’s the middle of nowhere; sometimes it’s the middle of everywhere.

2022

To Joni

I listen and think.
Yes.
So many sides
To clouds
To love
To life
How did you know, then?

Comment 2024

What is it about February 9 that it brought three poems?