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Text of the page (random words):
ation than i was prepared for this evening illumination of so many things what it might feel like to lose a spouse and miss that spouse desperately the experience of reading your own writing many years after the words were written and realizing that beautiful part of yourself is gone the gratification of taking a stand on a small thing but one that will change each remaining year of your life demanding no one buy you birthday gifts at 90 years old the relief felt no more false gratitude required the energy of those little lies returned to you and just as she gets me thinking about my future i turn the page to find an interview where she is quoted it is very constrictive and destructive to always be living beyond the moment to be preparing so i lean forward resting my right elbow on this book my chin in my hand and look at the wall for a while appreciating what is now poems from the pond posted by denise at 6 17 pm 12 comments labels domestic poetry stories thoughts sunday july 24 2016 on perfect schedules and saint barthélemy design your perfect schedule what would you do say on tuesday at 10 a m or on friday at 3 p m to make your life meaningful what when you really come down to the quotidian details does it look like every day to have time to do good work to spend quality time with your family and friends and to refresh your soul july 24 2016 5 08pm i m in my husband s office hiding from the sun on the desk i m using and therefore awkwardly positioned beside some file cabinets stacked with books i found the questions above somewhere in january of 2015 and although at the time i thought answering them would be worthwhile have put them off until now a perfect schedule there cannot be such a thing but i ll try and pretend there could be such a thing for the sake of this exercise with the hope it will at least move me closer to perfection than i am now let s begin with tuesday at 10 a m okay where am i is this only a perfect schedule a perfect schedule seems as though it would require a perfect setting i have no idea where the perfect setting is located but i once spent several days on an island named saint barthélemy in a beautiful bungalow with a small private pool and room service i was young and impressionable and had read it was a favorite getaway for young attractive jet set celebrity types and that was all i needed along with a credit card i was in it was a long time ago it seems like a different life but i do remember quite a bit about this place especially the general feeling of being there i recall details such as appreciating the bar soap in our bathroom and i don t even like bar soap everything was white and beautiful and impeccably clean there was a boombox and the hotel had a library of cds i borrowed a pile of these cds and settled into our small but luxurious backyard area and was as pleased as i ve ever been on any vacation in my life it was the absence of stress no it was the ability to ignore it unfortunately my companion did not appreciate this extraordinary space as much as i did so i went about my business without him i don t recall really minding maybe there were a few fits of rage but they were small fits very small i had sun i had shade i had music of my choosing i had beautiful food and i had time so much time i ran around the island and did other things with my unhappy companion jewelry shopping restaurant going bar hopping but none of it was as enjoyable as the time i spent in the backyard of our bungalow alone swimming breaststroke slowly back and forth in our small pool while listening to tears for fears general public and the the i recall reading about this hotel suffering hurricane damage shortly after our stay but when i look at the current photographs of the place all of the old memories return it looks the same to me i would not be surprised if a hurricane or two have hit saint barthélemy since then and some special force has protected this magical place it seems impossible for a place to be so perfect and that i would have had the pleasure of staying there at such a young age the whole memory it must be a mirage so my perfect tuesday at 10 a m would have to be spent in that pool on saint barthélemy in its perfect mirage state of course i would have just eaten a late breakfast of fresh bread fruit and chocolate there would be a breeze obviously gentle i d exit the pool dry off with a deliciously soft towel and put on a robe of the same sort climb into my chaise lounge and then i would sip coffee while scribbling perfect paragraphs into my journal yes that would be my perfect tuesday at 10 a m i do believe my life would feel wildly meaningful i know it all sounds rather shallow but i don t usually live this way and when i ve tried it has failed miserably i hate feeling disappointed but no one would be disappointed with this tuesday at 10 a m no one friday at 3pm i would be taking a nap with my husband not the unhappy companion after a perfect 60 minute massage we would have eaten lunch around 1pm something like a delicious cold soup and salad on the terrace the good work would be getting done the quality time with the one i love would be happening and my soul would absolutely be refreshed yes it would all be covered but i m still here at the file cabinet with this laptop pushed up against some books feeling fairly sure this exercise hasn t really helped me move closer to perfection in my day to day life whose idea was this posted by denise at 7 40 pm 6 comments thursday june 30 2016 carnival evening carnival evening 2016 may 22 2016 i let it go for a moment i just sat there my feet warm in thick socks as the wind roared outside and examined all of the details of my new book the silver national book award finalist seal on the front cover and the detail of the henry rousseau painting it was stamped over the small square photograph of the poet s face on the back of the book lower left and the bookmark the person at the shop had tucked inside then i heard the wind again it had gotten louder and i put the book down it was strange i thought the way books sidle up beside weather or is it the other way around i m usually aware of the weather when i m reading a book aware in a way i am not while watching a movie or researching a topic on the internet soon there was only the ticking of the clock and the settling sounds of the cottage the thing i had let go attempted its return the wind growled and saved me i picked up pastan threepoemsthursday posted by denise at 11 27 am 6 comments labels domestic poetry stories thoughts travel tuesday june 28 2016 frickin good path to the beach 2016 there s a lot going on in this world much of it negative 2016 is far from a lull in life changing events and it is difficult not to consider all of the larger implications of these events from a more local perspective i m reading joan didion s book where i was from and she s tracing california s history the tracing is absolutely interesting but not at all uplifting and has me thinking about this state s future and then there is day to day life just the regular stuff the sun rising drinking coffee laundry trying to incorporate learning about an armed robbery in my neighborhood the neighborhood i thought was safe and walking down the street more cautiously remembering to buy dental floss thinking about what we will eat for dinner the sun setting of course there is also the filler silly sort of stuff it s life too robert a barista in my local cafe asks me how s it going i reply good he somehow hears frickin good so he looks at me inquisitively what did you say i said good to make a long story short he laughs and tells me he was a little shocked because he thought i d said frickin good and it was so out of character i smile and my cheeks start feeling hot and probably taking on a pinkish glow as they do when i m embarrassed he tells me i m usually then he motions downward with a flat right hand i assume this means low key how do you know something really fabulous didn t just happen to me he smiles true i sit down with my coffee and think do i want to be the type of person who says frickin good would that person live more lightly in this chaotic world would she have more fun is frickin good a part of me that s hibernating i think it might be it clearly came out more often when i was drinking but i don t want to sink back into that hole i ll just let it be this part of me will climb up and out when it is ready or it won t i can wait i think i can wait i might as well return to didion s california and i do posted by denise at 12 41 pm 15 comments labels stories thoughts wednesday june 22 2016 on not gardening rhubarb 2016 this is what our garden looked like the day we said goodbye we ve given up gardening at least for now there were a variety of reasons we chose this option one of those reasons was the incessant watering required to grow vegetables we aren t really the ornamental garden type during drought months roughly half of each year and the rate in which the freshly dampened soil returns to dusty dry dirt it s downright depressing and seeing it happen in this up close and personal way leaves one wondering if california should truly be the produce paradise that it is gardening started to feel unnatural which of course it is in the true sense of the word unlike nature but there was the promise of fresh rhubarb tempting us so we carried on for a while there were also the logistics of getting to the garden toting garden clothes tools gloves and shoes and then getting back home this was not a backyard project protecting the plants from critters such as skunks raccoons rodents and a variety of birds was another challenge we used bird netting but then began to worry about the possibility of birds getting caught and injured or worse what were our other options building something more stable would we need tools lumber did we really want to tame nature we were having doubts lastly there were community garden politics and community garden gossip to avoid joining in i ll say no more i am well aware that these are issues only a very lucky person can complain about we waited 8 years before getting this garden plot it seems we should be happily dealing with all of the above but instead we channeled bartleby so off the plot goes to the next in line i hope the new gardeners use the plot as long as they find doing so enjoyable and then pass it on to the next people who want to give it a go the truth is that i don t really miss gardening there i ve said it call me fickle i understand it just might be true for now i prefer admiring the not so natural yet beautiful elements others in my neighborhood have chosen to tame eating farmers market fruits and vegetables and crossing the golden gate bridge to explore mother nature s more wild side farewell dear rhubarb i wish you well posted by denise at 3 39 pm 19 comments labels culinary thoughts sunday june 19 2016 hanginaround posy 2016 i was waking up differently than i had just a month or two earlier it was easier i started to think some miraculous transformation had taken place in me then i realized there was simply more daylight earlier in the morning so i sighed felt foolish and moved on i went downstairs washed a few dishes and made a few notes on this and that i did these things while listening to counting crows i began to wonder if they named their band after the behavior of one of their members was duritz a crow counter i hadn t thought about the origin of their name before that day never noticed a bird in their band name yet i d listened to them for years some things just get passed by not purposefully ignored but still overlooked it s not like i don t ponder a variety of unimportant matters on a regular basis i don t know why some things stick in the mind for further exploration and others don t was i paying attention to these crows because i was on vacation and spending much of my time outside with insects and skunks and foxes and birds maybe anyway i found myself particularly tuned in to the song hanginaround and listening to the part about long days with nothing to do and i thought back to telling my dad there s nothing to do here this is a thought that no longer occurs to me the last time i whined such a thing i was probably in my early teens it must be a mindset that recedes with age my 13 year old self would have filled her long nothing to do days diligently rewinding songs such as hanginaround on her cassette tape over and over again until she heard each word writing them all down and memorizing them so she could sing along with the tape in front of her friends appearing as though it all came to her naturally as if those words had never been rewound written down or memorized yes it is true if i find i have a stretch of time with nothing to do now i don t mind i don t blame dad i no longer write down the words to songs but i do still think about them and band names and birds origin of band name i had to look it up posted by denise at 5 46 pm 14 comments labels domestic stories thoughts thursday may 19 2016 fish game quarterly poet s chair 2016 i m sitting in the poet s chair over at fish game quarterly the spring issue of this online publication is out today i ve just learned that my two poems in this issue are fish game quarterly s first poetry offerings i m honored these are not warm and fuzzy poems although one of them is titled peaches but they are dear to me you ll also find photographs from inverness ca a remembrance of prince an essay about space and place written by a former bass player in the band hole digital art a piece about the future of food magazines there s hope even an instrumental track by a trio described as an idiosyncratic blend of dub roots reggae and spiritual jazz traditions this and more are shared by a diverse group of contributors from new york to bali fish game quarterly enjoy posted by denise at 11 12 am 10 comments labels craft culinary domestic 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