Loose Leaf Notes

1. My new line to get people off their phones: Talk to each other like it’s 1995.

2. My favorite new conspiracy theory: Everything’s gonna be all right.  – Seen on Facebook

3. Poets tend to wear berets but they should wear newsboy caps, since they are the world’s town criers.

4. It was a very unusual Thanksgiving. We went to Delaware to spend the holiday with Joe’s 94-year-old mother, but when we got there we learned she was in the hospital with a bad cold that was possibly pneumonia. We broke up our Thanksgiving Dinner-To-Go into small groups, fixing our own plates to warm up, so that someone would be with her at the hospital.

5. She turned the corner, the day after Thanksgiving and we had an epic 3-way Scrabble Game using my portable game that features letters that click into place, making it easy to carry the board from her bed to our chairs.

6. Joe and his mom beat me and his nephew by 100 points.

7. We also saw Polar bear plungers at the beach, a Christmas Tree Lighting and a play at the Clear Space Theatre in Rehoboth Beach.

8. Estella Scrooge: It was a Christmas Carol with a Twist, a musical that was a refreshing modern take on Dickens’ A Christmas Carol and Great Expectations and other Dickens’ novels.

9. The apple pie I brought from The Floyd Country Store was a big hit.

10. I knew we were in trouble when I counted four Grinches in the Floyd Christmas Parade this year. The route was also well represented with Kazim Shriner Clowns who were bound to get in a little trouble. And some clowns were grinches. – More HERE.

11. The real reason that Joe and I wore Santa hats to these holiday events was because we both needed haircuts. – See Making a List and Checking it Twice 2016

12. ‘Please stay on the line’ / is another way of ‘doing time’ / with no human speech / or prospect for release/ with a recording that repeats / with a recording that repeats / ‘All calls will be answered / in the order they’re received’-Read A Hold-Up in it’s entirety  HERE. 

13. A local indoor heated pool would add 10 years to my life.

__________Thirteen Thursday 

I knew we were in trouble when I counted four Grinches in the Floyd Christmas Parade this year.

The route was also well represented with Kazim Shriner Clowns who were bound to get in a little trouble.

And some clowns were grinches.

I could do this whole post on the clowns. They really went to town clowning around and spreading their zany antics of fun. See HERE. 

This one caused a brief traffic jam.

This one stepped up to direct it.

It’s always fun to see a pony in a tutu.

I was happy to see my friend Jason Rutledge of Healing Harvest Foundation participating in the parade.  Jason is a biological woodsman who practices restorative forestry and logs and plows with horses.

The theme this year was Small Town Blessings.

I wait every year for the Floyd County Marching Band to raise the energy with their big holiday sounds.

And for the Old Time music of the Handmade Music School musicians from The Floyd Country Store. Listen HERE. 

The Floyd Democrats did a float this year with a theme of bringing everyone to the table.

My friend Mim, who marched with young actors, passed out candy and invites to a Christmas Spectacular Musical Variety Show at the High School Auditorium December 2 at 7 p.m. and December 3 at 2 p.m.

There was a gingerbread house made by Boy Scout Troop 19.

And firetrucks.

Did I mention Grinches?

And don’t forget Santa!

The whole parade was FAB YULE OUS and this is just a glimpse. I plan to post more pictures to a Facebook album. Coming soon.

I wrote this poem
while on hold for a bureaucrat
with a Lynyrd Skynyrd instrumental
playing in the background
A Simple Man irony
for today’s red tape reality
of phone menu roulette

I wrote this poem knowing that
with one wrong button press
my connection could be cut
and the ‘no more than 20 minutes wait time’
would be added to my sentence

‘Please stay on the line’
is another way of ‘doing time’
with no human speech
or prospect for release
with a recording that repeats
with a recording that repeats

‘All calls will be answered
in the order they’re received’

________Colleen Redman / Poets and Storytellers United

1. Winter Star-  A light in the dark / saves what is lost / anoints the silent night / when the paths of ages cross / When closed hearts open / and wise ways are taken / alignments are blessed / in the age of Aquarius

2. “We are in a birthing canal and will be throughout 2023 and into 2024 and beyond. The big story, the overarching story, the one that spans not just years or decades, but centuries is the story of “The Age of Aquarius.” We’ve been singing about her for forty years, and at last, she is on the horizon. But she won’t—and can’t—arrive until we birth her.” – Janet Connor astrology 

3. “There is a gravitas in the second half of life, but it is held up by a much deeper lightness or ‘okayness.’ Our mature years are characterized by a kind of bright sadness and a sober happiness, if that makes any sense. There is still suffering in the second half of life—in fact maybe even more. But there is now a changed capacity to hold it creatively and with less anxiety. It is what John of the Cross called ‘luminous darkness,’ and it explains the simultaneous existence of deep suffering and intense joy in the saints and mystics—something that is almost impossible for most of us to imagine. Eastern Orthodoxy believed that if something was authentic religious art, it would always have a bright sadness to it. I think I am saying the same of an authentic life…” Richard Rohr

4. “In the second half of life, one has less and less need or interest in eliminating the negative or fearful, making again those old rash judgments, holding on to old hurts, or feeling any need to punish other people. Our superiority complexes have gradually departed in all directions. We learn to positively ignore and withdraw our energy from evil or stupid things rather than fight them directly. We fight things only when we are directly called and equipped to do so. We all become a well-disguised mirror image of anything that we fight too long or too directly. That which we oppose determines the energy and frames the questions after a while, and we lose our inner freedom.  When we are young, we define ourselves by differentiating ourselves from others; now we look for the things we all share in common. We find happiness in alikeness, which has become much more obvious to us now; and we do not need to dwell on the differences between people or exaggerate the problems. Creating dramas has become boring…” Richard Rohr

5. I’m a sucker for things like THIS 

6. And THIS. 

7. Hook up or broke up?

8. Wednesday is the day of the week that most looks like its misspelled. Wendsday makes more sense.

9. Tabs left open on my search bar: How long to quarantine after covid exposure, everything about Sally Hemmings and minimizer bras.

10. I wrote this poem / while on hold for a bureaucrat / with a Lynyrd Skynyrd instrumental / playing in the background / A Simple Man irony / for today’s red tape reality / of phone menu roulette – Read Hold-up in its entirety HERE.

11. “Research has shown that when people get older, they commonly recalibrate their goals; though they might be doing less, they tend to prioritize what they find meaningful and really appreciate it… A decline in openness to experience, then, could reflect someone relishing their routine rather than seeking new thrills; a decline in extroversion could indicate that they’re satisfied spending time with the people they already love.” – From The Curious Personality Changes of Older Age, The Atlantic

12. The Ghosts of Thanksgivings Past HERE.

13. Love Letters to Humanity: A Performance of Conscious Dance Theatre: Radford dance professor, Katie Wells, shares the hardships and triumphs of her spiritual path in a colorful tapestry of dance, words, props and audience interaction. A one woman show. See HERE.

___________Thirteen Thursday

_______Wordless Wednesday_

Katie Wells’s one woman show, Love Letters to Humanity: A Performance of Conscious Dance Theatre, drew sell-out crowds Friday and Saturday at the Floyd Center for the Arts.

It was a fundraiser for InStill Mindfulness, a local non-profit dedicated to cultivating a mindful world for all with kindness, compassion, and caring through education, action.

It’s hard to be human and growth usually comes with discomfort.

“Featured at the International Embodiment Conference, this one-person show weaves Dance Improvisation and Theatre to reveal both the struggle and humor on the search for inner peace in a moving and uplifting performance. Radford dance professor, Katie Wells, shares the hardships and triumphs of her spiritual path in a colorful tapestry of dance, words, props and audience interaction,” the event press release read.

In 2020 I covered Katie’s Love Letters performance for The Floyd Press HERE. The show has a structure but is largely improvisational, so much of it was new to me.

Audience interaction included the weaving together of people with a golden cord, which tied us together but also loosened us up.

I was glued to my seat throughout the show, until it was time for an audience participating ecstatic dance party at the conclusion.  I was so busy dancing with all the scarves that I didn’t get any pictures of that.

The show brought out many emotions, incorporated lots of humor with the peeling of layers and ended on a high note.

I’m such a fan of Katie’s that I will attend any and all of her performances.  She is a beautiful talent. See for yourself.

1. Over the weekend, Joe went camping with a group of inner city kids, and I went to the Taubman Museum to see an immersion art installation. That says a lot about us.

2. The Taubman show exhibit I saw was the work of Caledonia Curry, aka Swoon, a street artist and contemporary of Banksy.

3. Up in smoke?

4. The other thing we did this past weekend is tour the site of the Tuggles Gap mountain wildfire which was deemed a state of emergency by the governor and that was about 2 miles from our house.  We ran into a local forester who explained that the fire was no longer a danger. It had been contained by controlled back burning after digging a fire line road around the fire so as to not give it anything to catch on to. Thanks to the teams from several counties and other states, they didn’t lose any structures.

5. I finally understood the term ‘fight fire with fire.’

6. Magic or miracles? Fairy tales or bibles?

7. The past is an alibi. The future is booked. The present is constant and destiny is the destination.

8. Every rule is excused by some exception and nothing happens without a little friction.

9. “Robert Thurman said that, if we truly understood interdependence, we’d be more afraid of hating than dying. Because hatred travels further than the scope of an individual life. It runs through us like a shock-wave, and if we vibrate along with it, we become it and add our life-force to all kinds of suffering, for generations to come. The vibration of hatred doesn’t care whether you think you’re the oppressor or the oppressed. “Justice” means nothing to it. Once you’re caught in its tremor, you become part of what divides people, blocks empathy, steals hope. This is why the Buddha said we have to make our minds like broken bells, not resonating with the madness around us…” Paul Weinfield

10. “…These days, I’ve really been living in my home. Day after day, I experience all the comforts of home, and more and more, I feel the need to go out less and less. Sometimes even a walk down our long driveway to get the mail can be put off for another day… In a world that tends to define identity by what we do, I’m paring down to my essence. There’s nothing to distract me from the work of being me, allowing the changes, reviewing the sweet nostalgias and exploring the impact of how past traumas have shaped me. It’s work that feels like a luxury… More HERE. 

11.  You said, “Bye honey / I love you” three times / But couldn’t manage / to hang up the phone / “It’s okay / Just pretend I’m sitting / in the chair by the window / You can forget I’m here / and take a nap” – Excerpt from I Put You on Speaker Phone Listen below.

12.  I recorded the Oh Hellos doing Hello My Old Heart at Floydfest 2015 HERE.

13. It’s for you.  

________ Thirteen Thursday

In order to come fully to the encounter with whatever gives ultimate meaning, in order to wrestle with the angel, one must be a free agent, not defined by another, or by cultural imperatives. – Marilyn Sewell, Cries of the Spirit   

These days, I’ve really been living in my home. Day after day, I experience all the comforts of home, and more and more, I feel the need to go out less and less.  Sometimes even a walk down our long driveway to get the mail can be put off for another day.

Recognizing the difference between solitude and isolation, I mark my calendar with things to do, but the markings spread out over each month and are mostly dates to play Scrabble, dates to hear and dance to bands I like, lunch or walks with a friend, health care appointments, and maybe a poetry reading I’ve been scheduled to do. Impromptu activities happen but don’t get written down, time with my grandsons, a conversation or memorable phone call, a bike ride or beach trip with my husband Joe.

Now that the pool swimming, gardening and mowing season has wound down, I find myself cleaning, sewing, reading and writing more. I continue to spend time cooking and eating luscious meals every day, blogging online, following the news, writing poems, watching movies or TV shows I like and soaking up the last of the sunlight on the porch with cup of tea in hand. I do more crossword puzzles, study quantum physics and listen to whole catalogues of music by my favorite songwriters (old or new).

This is so different. After raising two sons, helping to raise two grandsons and providing in-home foster care for a developmentally disabled individual for nine years, I’ve never had so much freedom. It’s a freedom to go from interest to interest and to embody where I live. But for me, this freedom comes with a lessening of interest in some social activities and a lessening of the stamina to attend them.

I miss the part time job I had for 15 years covering local events and writing features for our local paper. I was well suited to it, and it got me out-and-about and meeting people for interviews that I wouldn’t normally meet. I didn’t retire as much as I got “let go” when the paper changed hands, and then the budget was cut in the summer 2021. And now I have time on my  hands.

I remember asking my parents as they were aging, ‘what do you do all day?’ Now I ask myself. I don’t buy into the elder years being the best time of life. It has its pluses but also has loss. Instead of crossing things I want to do off my bucket list, I’m also crossing off things I don’t have to do.  For me, it’s not about living life to its fullest, it’s about living, and that means lots of maintenance, keeping things simple and being present for the small beauties and joys of life.

In a world that tends to define identity by what we do, I’m paring down to my essence. There’s nothing to distract me from the work of being me, allowing the changes, reviewing the sweet nostalgias and exploring the impact of how past traumas have shaped me. It’s time that feels like a luxury.

These past couple of years have been an adjustment, one that hasn’t always been comfortable. But yesterday, I heard myself say, ‘I’m starting to like this.” I have been marveling at my ability to adapt, to slow down, or to stay busy with what I choose to do.

I’ve been hearing my dad’s voice in my head. He was a homebody too, one who liked to say ‘my home is my castle.’  Mine is a cabin on three acres surrounded by woods. We have a pump for well water, a shed full of firewood, a freezer full of venison (thanks to Joe), a large garden and a few chickens.

I used to refer to my home as a humble country abode, but now I’m starting to see it as my castle. I’m rich in privacy. I’m rich in the natural world. I’m rich in all the things that money can’t buy. I’m home, and after living here for 30 years, twice as long as I lived in the house I grew up in, I’m happy to say it’s my favorite place to be.

It takes two

How many are you?

Mirror mirror. There’s a lot of us in here.

Swoon, aka Caledonia Curry, is an artist and an installation exhibit at the Taubman Museum.

Swoon is a printmaker, paper cutter, screen printer, large scale relief creator and street artist with a focus on human connection, social practice and healing trauma. “She was part of a group of artists early 00s, including JR and Banksy, that were committed to pushing the forms and conceptual limits of the Street Art genre.” -Wikipedia

She also works with animation and film, such as with the Sibylant Sisters, an autobiographical fairy tale shown at the exhibit that fascinates and disturbs.

We spent a lot of time listening.

“One of her pieces “Medea,” is a sculpture and sound installation that shares a series of biographical portraits as well as a switchboard with audio clips. The Taubman Museum of Art says the audio clips are gathered from psychology texts and fairy tales. It even included Curry’s dreams and childhood memories.” WFXR.

I can’t think of a more enriching way to spend a day with friends than an art immersion followed by lunch in Roanoke’s Downtown Market.

The show is open till March 10. Don’t miss it!

Moon under my pillow
is a princess’s pea
I cross my heart
and hope to dream

_________Colleen Redman / Poets and Storytellers United

1. I remember asking my parents as they were aging, ‘what do you do all day?’ Now I ask myself. I don’t buy into the elder years being the best time of life. It has its pluses but also has a lot of loss. Instead of crossing things I want to do off my bucket list, I’m also crossing off things I don’t have to do.  For me, it’s not about living life to its fullest, it’s about living, and that means lots of maintenance, keeping things simple and being present for the small beauties and joys of life.

2. When we were kids we believed / we were angels in training / and the wing bones on our backs were proof / We propelled ourselves in dreams about flying / but let no leg hang over the bed.

3. One day the brown chameleon wakes up blue / but I can only change my clothing / shop for every color of the rainbow / and stuff my closet overfull – HERE. 

4. Everything is a hobby now.

5. “Voting isn’t marriage, it’s public transport. You’re not waiting for “the one” who’s absolutely perfect: you’re getting the bus, and if there isn’t one to your destination, you don’t not travel- you take the one going closest.” – Debbie B. Moon

6. We’ve been living out of kitchen boxes since our cupboards have been being repainted. Now we are living out of boxes and suitcases in our cars in case we have to evacuate because there is a wildfire out of control just a couple of miles away.

7. So, what would you take if you had to leave your home quickly for a fire.  I took my money, my lockbox, my files and photos on a hard drive, my toiletries, my medicine, my life book album, a hot plate and few pans and lots of clothes (a small fraction of what I have) because I’m a hard fit and my favorite clothes would be impossible to replace.

8. That exercise reminded me of these lines of a poem, written for my late sister Kathy…  You wanted to decorate the bedroom we shared / with purple gingham curtains and matching rugs / but our mother said we couldn’t afford that / I hung the laundry and imagined a house fire / The clothes on the line were all I had left – More HERE. 

9. Our language is inadequate to describe quantum reality – The quantum world — and its inherent uncertainty — defies our ability to describe it in words. …First, images we build in our minds when we try to picture light or particles of matter are not appropriate. Language itself struggles to address quantum reality, since it is limited to verbalizations of those mental images… Second, the observer is no longer a passive player in the description of natural phenomena. If light and matter behave as particles or waves depending on how we set up the experiment, then we cannot separate the observer from what is being observed.” – From Our language is inadequate to describe quantum reality 

10. A new study reveals a significant disparity in neural activity during face-to-face conversations compared to Zoom interactions. Using advanced neuroimaging, researchers observed suppressed neural signals during online exchanges. In contrast, in-person discussions presented heightened brain activity, with more coordinated neural responses between participants, emphasizing the richness of live social interactions. “Zoom appears to be an impoverished social communication system relative to in-person conditions,” said Yale neuroscientist Joy Hirsch.

11. Linda Fallon, who was a long-time board president for the Floyd Center for the Arts, had the idea for a poetry tea to benefit the Center after attending a 2018 poetry tea party at Fiddlesticks Farm where Katherine Chantal, Chelsea Adams and I read tea poems wearing our high-tea lady’s hats… When past Floyd resident Carolyn (Kirby) Grace posted on Facebook that she had completed a MFA in creative writing and had a first book of poetry published, Linda suggested that a poetry tea with the three of us would make a good FCA event, and it did. More from Poetry and Tea for Thirty HERE.

12. Hey, where ya going, to a fire? See HERE.

13. Not a flying saucer. Watch a flying helicopter drop water over the Tuggles Gap wildfire.

______Thirteen Thursday

Poets rhyme sugar / with teacup and saucer / They alliterate morning / with mug

Linda Fallon, who was a long-time board president for the Floyd Center for the Arts, had the idea for a poetry tea to benefit the Center after attending a 2018 poetry tea party at Fiddlesticks Farm where Katherine Chantal, Chelsea Adams and I read tea poems while donned in our high-tea lady’s hats (See HERE).

She knew that Katherine and I have several published books and had been on a Soulful Aging Tour poetry reading for the past couple of years, reading from our poetic memoirs back-and-forth in different settings, including The Death Class Reading at Radford University, where we were invited to be featured guests at a grief and loss class for counselors.

When past Floyd resident Carolyn (Kirby) Grace posted on Facebook that she had completed a MFA in creative writing and had a first book of poetry published, Linda suggested that a poetry tea with the three of us would make a good FCA event, and it did.

I first met Carolyn back in 2008 when Floyd Press editor Wanda Combs asked if I’d do a feature story on her, a sixteen-year-old opera singer who was making a name for herself.  I traveled out to her family’s farm for an interview and took a picture of Carolyn, her mother and a family goat on the farmhouse porch, which later graced the paper’s front page (See HERE). Soon after, Carolyn began attending the monthly Spoken Word Night (hosted by the Floyd Writers Group that Katherine and I were members of) at the Café del Sol to read poetry, play guitar and sing.

There we were with freshly brewed tea poured in china cups, some sweet treats and an attentive audience of about thirty to hear our poetry. We read three or four poems each from our books in three alternating sets. Keeping with the tea theme, Katherine read a few poems from her first book, A Tea Poet’s Journey, as attendees sipped tea… We shall experience a most delicious time / of words mingled with savoring / deep brown, earthy elixir / Wisdom and aging, blending quite sagely / Hidden gold in every cup…”   She also read from her books Poetic Memoir of a Nascent Senescent and Streaming from the Inside.

I read three poems from each of my poetry memoirs, Packing a Suitcase For the Afterlife, Objects are Closer Than They Appear, and Poems From the Darkroom.  For me, it was fun for me to take a break from Katherine’s and my depth psychology readings on the inner life and even share a couple of poems that brought laughter. When our eyes become / adjusted to darkness / we call ourselves poets / We wear berets / and quit our jobs / fix our gaze / on the faraway / We wait for poems / that fit like skin / We dream them / from a distance / and write them close in…

Carolyn read from her book of sensual poems and lyric glossaries, Grenadine and Other Love Affairs… I have lost my fear / of being left out at sea. I know / that we are all just following / the curves of the continents / with the soles of our feet with / our souls in our hands…  

We had a surprise guest reader. Normia Vázquez Scales, a poet from North Carolina was in town to lead a workshop at The June Bug Center and shared a couple of her poems. In closing, we passed out cards from my deck of tea poetry and a person from each table read a haiku-like poem out loud.

We had a fantastic audience and appreciated everyone who came. We’d love to see more poetry events at the Floyd Center for the Arts.

Post Note: Katherine and I are currently working on a fourth installment for our Soulful Aging Tour 2024, tentatively titled Fairy Godmother’s Midnight and the Art of Archetype.  Our books are available on Amazon and locally at The Harvest Moon, The Floyd Country Store and Floyd Center for the Arts.