13: The Check in Account
1. Everyone knows that Poets are born and not made in school. This is true also of painters, sculptors, and musicians. Something that is essential can’t be taught; it can only be given, earned, or formulated in a manner to mysterious to be picked apart and redesigned for the next person. ~ So says Mary Oliver in the beginning paragraph of her book, A Poetry Handbook: A Prose Guide to Understanding and Writing Poetry.
2. Relationships are like bank accounts. Over the years you can accrue a lot of interest through honest communication and quality time spent together. But if you continue to draw from your investment without making regular deposits of loving interaction you can end up squandering the riches you’ve already earned.
3. Staying current is a good currency to use in healthy relationships.
4. My note taking habit is to separate projects I’m working on by taking notes on one subject in the front of my notebook and notes on another in the back of my notebook. Eventually my notes meet each other in the middle and I know it’s time to get a new notebook.
5. Palin speaks Orwellian HERE. To John McCain’s credit HERE. Although, it should be noted that the flame McCain is trying to put out is one he started and enlisted Palin to fan.
6. There’s a new TV commercial where allergy suffers who aren’t taking the new and improved allergy medication are shown going around with signs on their backs that say “Drowsiness May Occur.” “I want a sign like that too, I said to Joe.
7. I took Joe’s yoga mat outside at night and laid on it in the grass to watch the stars because star and moon gazing brings the poetry out in me. Because poems with stars aren’t like those with cicadas …They don’t cause migraines or push agendas … They open our eyes like brushed on mascara … They flutter and blink … They fall …
8. While participating in a recent Woman’s Dialogue, in which the subject was POWER, I realized that the word begins with a POW and ends with EEERRRR, a hard hitting word with an engine to drive it.
9. Maybe that’s why POWER is so often associated with POWER OVER rather than personal empowerment and the ability to get things done and make things happen.
10. Here’s something I learned this week: You can’t judge an event by what is happening in the moment but only by what happens after it’s over, and over time. Real learning can be far reaching. It takes time to ripple and settle.
11. Since becoming unleashed – retiring from full-time foster care and writing at home as much as I want to – I’ve been living on unscripted instinct, like a creature. It took a couple of years for most of the “shoulds” and imposed structure to fall away. I’m no longer trying to improve myself. I don’t pray for things to be any different than they are. I’m okay with doing just what I find myself doing and with shlelping around in my house clothes writing stories and poetry like a nutty professor in a lab.
12. Not surprising, THIS is my latest theme song.
13. I also learned this: I’m easy to please because I’m already pleased, but sometimes I need to be reminded.
Thursday headquarters is here. My other 13’s are here. View more 13 Thursday’s here.
October 15th, 2008 9:31 pm
Looks like I get to return the visit…
I really like the first item. There does seem to be something innate in those who are creative.
i feel like i know you better after reading these.
Michele sent me and says HI
October 15th, 2008 9:46 pm
A wonderful list, Colleen. I am so gla d you started with Mary Oliver. She is the tonic I needed.
October 15th, 2008 9:57 pm
The thing is, Palin is just not very bright. She may be ok as mayor of a tiny town, or even governor of an unpopulated state, but she just isn’t very intelligent. She and her husband may have been able to sit down at the kitchen table with a pocket calculator one evening to work out the state budget but that just won’t work for the multi trillion dollar budget of an industrialised nation. But I don’t think she gets that. It’s all part of her attitude that she can just keep on doing what she always has been doing, and doesn’t understand that it’s not enough to qualify her to run country. Her attitude is that if she doesn’t know it or just doesn’t understand it, then it doesn’t say what it actually says (hence “vindication”) or else it doesn’t matter.
Go to YouTube and look for John Cleese talking about her. He calls her a good looking parrot — she recites what she has been told to say without understanding what it means.
October 15th, 2008 10:23 pm
I so love that first quotation, Colleen, and I think it is very very true.
I’m still unable to see ANYTHING on YouTube and my computer wozard CANNOT figure it out…SOOOOO, in great frustration…a couple of those links are unavailable to me.
What is the song that speaks for you, my dear?
October 15th, 2008 10:28 pm
Happy TT…I hear you on #5 and here’s my link:
http://www.apooobooks.com/thursday-thirteen-scariest-time-life/
October 15th, 2008 10:48 pm
Very clever list. Happy T13!
October 15th, 2008 10:53 pm
Great list! Definitely food for thought!
October 15th, 2008 11:27 pm
The song is Wild Thing, Naomi. A song like no other by the Troggs. You make my heart sing, Wild thing!
October 15th, 2008 11:42 pm
WOw girl you are living life to the fullest
October 16th, 2008 7:15 am
Lots of good food for thought this week! I don’t think I have the patience at this time in my life for poetry. I have hopes that I’ll return to a state of mind where I can appreciate it eventually.
The hate-mongering is disturbing and frightening. And I’m cynical enough to think that the only reason McCain is backpedaling is that his poll numbers have gone down.
There’s a club we like to go to in San Antonio (didn’t make it there on our visit, darnitall), and the house band is 3 older men. Wild Thing is their signature song, and the keyboard player, who’s probably in his 70s, sings it–he’s an absolute hoot. The whole place ends up laughing and singing along.
October 16th, 2008 7:21 am
I wish I was writing poetry again. I used to all the time but I haven’t in a long while. I don’t slow down long enough to be, I guess. I am always hurrying off to write the next article. I like to think there is some poetry in my articles or columns on occasion but I am not sure.
I am glad you have found the time and lifestyle that works best for you. That is something to be admired.
October 16th, 2008 7:59 am
Number 5 – thank you for confirming that I’m not crazy, because I said the same thing!
October 16th, 2008 9:26 am
Love your theme song!!!
And have you seen this site? http://www.palinaspresident.com.
Hours of entertainment!
October 16th, 2008 9:56 am
Fabulous T13 as usual, but I must admit that #6 is my favorite, since I need that sign too…. *giggles*
…and I definitely have to try #7 some time, though not now since we’ve pouring rain and the fall has come…
October 16th, 2008 12:20 pm
I can relate to #13 🙂
October 16th, 2008 2:21 pm
I like #2. That is so true.
October 16th, 2008 5:16 pm
Sometimes drawing interest from our loving bank accounts is part of keeping the investment alive. Weird, I know, but everyone wants to feel needed sometime.
October 16th, 2008 7:33 pm
11 made me go ahhh and I totally understand 13. I *retired* 7 years ago, but have been working ever since as a full time tutor in a school. I love that job, but now I’m ready to retire for real. I hope to at the end of this school year. Then I’ll join you just shlelping around in house shoes and sipping coffe while doing whatever.
October 16th, 2008 7:49 pm
I like #2 too!!!! xo
October 16th, 2008 10:23 pm
My mother and father, both artists, represented the yin and yang for #1. Mother believed artists were born and Dad believed that artists could be made. Sort of like the nature/nurture debate. I’ll take the middle road – born with ability and then enhance that gift!
October 16th, 2008 10:30 pm
To some degree, I believe we are all artists and that’s what we are here to do, translate the world in our own unique ways.
October 17th, 2008 3:53 pm
I read and loved Mary Oliver so many years ago. How wonderful to see such a wonderful quote.
#10 reminds me of the teaching from Krishna that we must do our work with no attachment to the results. Not only does an expectation of certain results impede our ability to do the work, but we aren’t usually in a position to truly judge the results anyway. Working from the heart and in the flow seems like the best approach. The results do not belong to us.
#11 reminds me of a Zen teaching about eating when you are hungry and sleeping when you are tired. That turns out to be harder than it sounds. Congratulations on achieving so much in this regard!
October 19th, 2008 1:08 pm
So glad I stopped by for a visit. Your TT updates are always inspiring. I love that opened up your list with a comment from Mary Oliver. Thinking of you! XINE
October 20th, 2008 1:22 am
I really love this list. I have been reading in spurts Mary Oliver’s book and love it. Instead of just teaching my students about poetry… I need to find time to write my own. I also love #10. What I have especially learned is that people are on a different learning curve than me. A year later they might come up and say, ” I really loved that idea you shared and I finally tried it.” And of course I loved the song. What memories attached to that song.