Weekend Dish: Secrets

Posted on July 7, 2013 by backyardsisters

dish: The scoop, only bigger
Urban Dictionary

Shhhh. I held up my hand to silence the chattering ladies sitting around a fire in our mountain cabin. It was nearing midnight on a Saturday.

tweeeeeeeet

A faint whistle chirped from down the hall. Leaving the group of women, I felt my way in the dark along the wall toward a closed door.

tweeeeeeet

Yes, the sound was definitely coming from inside the bedroom where a troop of seven-year-old Girl Scouts were “camping” heel-to-toe in sleeping bags on the floor. I slowly pushed the door open, peering in.

“Mrs. Keefe, Mrs. Keefe!” S sobbed. “I’m lost! I’m lost! I need to go to the bathroom but I don’t know where I am. You said if we get lost to ‘hug a tree’ but there isn’t a tree, so I stayed where I was and blew my whistle!” She held up a plastic orange whistle on a lanyard. We’d given all the girls a whistle at the beginning of the trip before heading out on the first hike.

Biting my lips to near bleeding to avoid laughing I helped S to the bathroom, turned on a nightlight, and returned to my fellow Girl Scout leaders around the fire to report that at least one little scout had fully learned her safety lesson for the day.

“If you get lost, hug a tree, stay where you are, and blow your whistle.”

This story flashed back brightly yesterday while having a conversation with my friend, D, the kind of friend who will read poetry because I write it and I’m working on this crazy poem-a-day in July project. D is a brilliant retired high-tech software expert who can speak in acronyms like IT, HRMS, and ISM and know exactly what they mean.

“But I don’t get poetry,” she says. This is a difficult thing for her to admit; she’s really really smart. She’s so smart, in fact, that I’m pretty sure she does “get” poetry, but she doesn’t realize the things she intuitively picks up on are in fact some of the elemental wonders of the genre: poetry’s rhythm, its imagery and word play.

D tells me – in that way of good friends being kind so maybe they’ll lie a tiny bit – that she likes my “One Poet’s Trade” from Day 6. (You can read it here; scroll down to Day 6.) She shakes her head as if trying to dislodge water from her ear. “But I don’t think I get it.”

“What do you get?” I ask. What I really want to know is which tree she’s hugging. I wonder if she recognizes the repetition of sounds, if she notice the two-line stanza structure, if she notices the ways each first line word and second line word are related to each other.

“Well…I hear some T sounds that are the same and some V sounds are the same. And it’s all a list. The list is in two-word order but I don’t know why.”

I nudge a little. “What if I told you that each first word is a tool of some trade? And what if I told you that each second word is a body part.”

She pauses. Thinks. “Then it goes in order from your head to your feet!” I nod.

“But what about the end?” Ah yes, what to make of those last lines? Who is this “you?”

I don’t answer that for her. I invite her to ponder.

And then I have a bright orange whistle of an idea.

For one week only, from July 7 – 14, if you make a $25 donation to the 30/30 Project, “In Honor of Catherine Keefe” I’ll give you all the navigation you need to get out of the woods for Day 7-14 poems. Message me here as a comment in Backyard Sisters, or find me on Facebook. You can pretty much ask me anything: the back story behind the poem, how it developed, the language decision-making process, and what I was hoping the poem would invoke in a reader.

In return you can tell me where the poem succeeds or fails for you, dear reader. As Anne Stevenson once wrote,

The poet needs to reach out to people he or she has not met. That someone will read your poem and say ‘Yes, that is right; I know that, I recognise that.’ I think poetry always has that interior communicable strength.

Here’s to “communicable strength” and divulging secrets. This Backyard Sister is willing to dish.
~ Catherine

p.s. Please note that it takes up to a week for Tupelo Press to notify the poets of donations made in their honor. The minute I hear from the press, I’ll open up to you.

Why do you do what you do?

Posted on June 27, 2013 by backyardsisters

“When did you become a writer?”

The question, coming as it does from an artist at a gallery reception, surprises me. It’s like hearing, “when did you become a fish?”

“I always was one,” I reply, hoping for the simpatico understanding of a creative soul to bridge this non-specific-date-naming response, not an evasive conversational gambit, but a strange truth that still perplexes sometimes. Decoding the world through language is as natural to me as skipping. One of my earliest childhood memories includes tracing the letters of words being spoken, turning them into stories and pictures with my right forefinger upon my left palm.
Meera's Mehndi Sounds and ideas danced upon my hand, to be released later onto the unlined light brown paper of a Mickey Mouse drawing pad. I didn’t plan to be this way, I just was. Most writers I know say the same thing.

It’s this recognition of the magnetic power of some creative pull that frequently leads me to invent new ways to spark leaps in my technique. Learning West African drum rhythms interrupts a rut of a cadence; reading books I don’t understand hopefully sparks new brain synapses and invites new subject matter into my writing. Fifteen hundred pages of Critical Theory Since Plato anyone? There’s a playfulness with these kinds of things, sure, but there’s also a dogged determination bordering on compulsive. I laugh when I see myself in other writers and while reading Christian Wiman‘s Ambition and Survival: Becoming a Poet I found a mirror self in the first few pages. Wiman writes:

When I read Samuel Johnson’s comment that any young man could compensate for his poor education by reading five hours a day for five years, that’s exactly what I tried to do, practically setting a timer every afternoon to let me know when the little egg of my brain was boiled…

I’m not quite as odd a person as I was once on the verge of becoming.

Of course my weirdness waxes and wanes. I may be tipping the balance back toward odd as I begin a new poetry writing project for the month of July.

“Why do you do what you do?” my family wonders.

Why, when it’s summer and school’s out and nothing dictates my days but my own gentle taskmaster self, why would I commit to writing and posting a poem a day for Tupelo Press? I believe in the need for literary presses and, being the editor of dirtcakes, a small press of my own, I know it’s impossible to sustain any sort of momentum and foster good work without readers and backers and contributors. The Tupelo Press 30/30 Project is a nifty little way for writers to forge new work and for readers to discover new writers. It’s a community of writers that opens its hands to invite in a community of readers to share the stories written on our palms.

I’ve got a few ideas of how we can work together through July. I’ll be posting them in the coming weeks. In the meantime, remember that which you love you will spend time doing. That which you spend time doing will attract your energy. That which captures your spirit will shine out from you, and ultimately reflect back upon you. As for me and my attraction to poetry? I defer once again to Christian Wiman’s words:

…in the end we go to poetry for one reason, so that we might more fully inhabit our lives and the world in which we live them, and that if we more fully inhabit these things, we might be less apt to destroy both.

Who doesn’t want to be fully inhabit each precious moment of life?

Stretching and spinning in anticipation of lining up a long dance with the muse,
~ Catherine

p.s. Christian Wiman is an iconic figure in the world of poetry. From 2003 – 2013 he edited Poetry magazine, “the oldest monthly devoted to verse in the English-speaking world.” The depth of his poetry knowledge and ability to articulate the aesthetic strengths of particular poets is precise and sharp, though do know his taste runs to the traditional which sometimes can miff a lover of more experimental verse. Ambition and Survival is a collection of essays to dip in and out of when you need a strong voice in your head to guide your writing practice.

What do you bring to the table?

Posted on June 20, 2013 by backyardsisters

Which way will the creek
run when time ends?
Don’t ask me until
this wine bottle is empty.
~ Jim Harrison and Ted Kooser
_________________________

“What did you notice that was beautiful today?” When J asked me this last night, just as we sat down to dinner, I cracked up.

It’s not a funny question, but rather an example of his dear effort to honor a request I made after breakfast.

“Please don’t ask me at dinner what I did today, or how my day went, ask where I found beauty.” I implored him in the morning as I hustled to my office.

“And what do you want me to ask you tonight?” I called over my shoulder.

“You can ask how my day went. I like to remember what I got done.”
___________________________

Life has always yelled at me,
“Get your work done.” At least
that’s what I think she says.
~ Jim Harrison and Ted Kooser
___________________________

What we focus upon comes to light. My request was part self defense – I always give myself more to do in any given day than I can ever accomplish and then feel bad when I don’t finish. And it was part new strategy; I want to pay more attention to life’s surprises of grace and grandeur hiding in plain sight rather than concentrating only on how I try to unruffle its challenges. I’m trying to adjust the outlook I bring to my day and our dinner table.

What do you talk about at dinner?

I’ve begun asking friends without children at home this question.

We don’t talk, we watch TV.
I don’t know, nothing, what we did that day.
What’s coming up on our calendar.
Funny stuff the dog did.

What did I expect? The better question is, what do I want, what does J want? If gathering around the table is a nightly ritual so important that we set its time, its chef and menu (we trade cooking duty), its location and literally light its candles, then doesn’t it follow that we might also guide its conversational swoops and soars?

When our kids were home we had a standard dinner starting point that inevitably opened doors to conversation that often lasted long past dessert.

What was the best part of your day?
What was the worst?

Trials and triumphs of school and sports, of work and home life and friends trickled out over roasted chicken and broccoli. If friends joined us, they too got pulled into the daily circle, some shy at first to say, but inevitably relaxed enough to tell about a moment that set this day apart.

I eventually bought Chat Packs, those decks of cards with dozens of conversation starters. We played Brain Quest and Would you rather? I still sometimes put little stacks of these cards next to the napkins at dinner parties or spread them around the appetizers at family gatherings.

Am I inherently nosy? Afraid of conversational lull? Maybe yes and yes. But I like to think that even more than that, I really like the idea of getting to know the people I share time with. The worst kind of dinner is one where I don’t learn a single new thing about the ones I pause with at the end of the gift of another day.

Last night I learned two truths. Each day delivers beauty; my husband remembers and honors my requests. Maybe those are really one big truth.

Where did you find beauty today?
~Catherine

p.s. For literary grace and grandeur, you could do worse than getting your hands on a copy of Braided Creek: A Conversation in Poetry by Jim Harrison and Ted Kooser.
1317_lg Treasure what you find
already in your pocket, friend.
~ Jim Harrison and Ted Kooser
__________________________

The book is the best kind of conversation, where no one voice dominates, in fact no one poet takes individual credit for any of the short stanzas. From the back cover:

Longtime friends, Jim Harrison and Ted Kooser always exchanged poems in their letter writing. After Kooser was diagnosed with cancer several years ago, Harrison found that his friend’s poetry became “overwhelmingly vivid,” and they began a correspondence comprised entirely of brief poems.

…When asked about attributions for the individual poems, one of them replied, “Everyone gets tired of this continuing cult of the personality…This book is an assertion in favor of poetry and against credentials.”

Maybe I’ll bring it to the dinner table tonight.

The Young Fathers and the Sea

Posted on June 13, 2013 by backyardsisters

“I believe that what we become depends on what our fathers teach us at odd moments, when they aren’t trying to teach us.”
~Umberto Eco

Fathers play harder than mothers. Mothers stand at the edge of the sea, snapping photos of fathers teaching the children that fun might include being roughed up by the ocean.

I suspect mothers are secretly glad the fathers take this job. Children don’t whine when the broad-shouldered fathers take them out in water well over their head. Come on. You can do it. I’m right here.

The children show off a little. Splash their dad. Swim away from him, then back. Cling to his neck. I want to tell the children how this memory will imprint on their bodies. When they are decades older, swimming in the even deeper waters of life, they will recall a surge of power, an inner rush that feels like being a super hero, a whisper from one strong enough to hold you up. You can do this. Yes you can. Come on, I’m right here.

My father taught me, among many things, to body surf and ride waves with a bouncy rubber surf mat in the olden days before Boogie Boards. We roamed Hermosa Beach, Manhattan Beach, Newport Beach, La Jolla. Family outings and vacations were frequently at the beach, always in the water riding waves on rubber mats.

How did my dad, a boy from upstate New York, learn enough wave riding skills to guide his four daughters through all the surf the Pacific could muster, including the most memorable session of all, riding the June, 1973 epic Newport Beach surf churned up by Hurricane Ava? When I ask my father a question, he responds.

In 1945 Richard J. (Dick) Beachman, Captain, USMC, took me, his ten year old second cousin, into the surf at Pacific Beach, CA. He held class. “I’m going to show you how to to swim out into the surf. How to use this piece of ‘gear’ to catch a wave and ride the wave onto the shore.” What he called “a piece of gear” was a mattress cover he had taken (his term was “I liberated it”) from the U.S. Naval Hospital, San Diego where he was being treated. A Japanese sniper’s bullet went through his left hand as he waved his Marines forward during the battle for the island of Guam in July, 1944.

“First thing you do is wet the mattress cover in the surf so it’ll hold some air. Then, hold the open end toward the wind and let it fill up with air. At the same time tie the open end shut. Now you’ve got a big wet cloth balloon. Quick, wade out into the surf, look for a wave coming in. When you see one, turn your back toward the wave, put your arms and chest onto the cover and ride in onto the beach.”

Dick, my younger brother Kevin and I went ‘surfing’ several times. He always brought his ‘liberated’ mattress cover. But, in time he was discharged from the Marine Corp. Dick and his Navy nurse, Juna, fell in love, were married 62 years and raised six children. The mattress cover went with him, or them — or, maybe, he returned it to the hospital.

Though Dick’ mattress cover disappeared I was hooked on riding waves onto the shore. it didn’t take long to learn how to body surf without artificial aid. I enjoyed the sport for many years; a sport I shared with our four daughters.

There are no photos of the young father with his four daughters in the sea because the picture taking job would have fallen to the mother, a woman unable to swim but determined that her children would learn, love, and thrive in the water. She wouldn’t have taken her eyes off the lifeguard, making sure he was doing his job watching us.

The lessons learned in the ocean have lingered with all the Backyard Sisters, proving to be as valuable in life as in the Pacific.

Respect the ocean. Never turn your back on here. That isn’t the same as being afraid. Respect and fear both have a place in life and the wise know which is which.

Walk behind your children. They learn to lead but know you always have their back.

If your daughter crashes and burns, let her cry on your shoulder for just a minute, then remind her of all the way she succeeds.

It’s OK not to know how to do something, but it’s not OK not to try it.

The thrill of learning something from your dad will linger for a lifetime.

Thanks dad for making it seem like you were just playing hard with your kids in the ocean. I see now what you were really doing.

What memory will you share with your father this weekend?
With gratitude,
~Catherine

Wild thing

Posted on May 30, 2013 by backyardsisters

Coyote yips drift through the open bedroom window sometime before dawn. It’s May’s most consistent night song. Chester’s hackles rise and he growls low. I pull the sheet over my ears.

Chester’s been chased by a coyote three times. These aren’t the lean, mangy, skulking wild dogs of past years. This crop of fat boys trot across the trail. They sit. Cross their legs. Light a cigarette, pinky ring glinting in the morning glare before they chase.

First time it happened, J was walking Chester. He stood his ground, raised his arms and yelled “Stop!” When it was my turn at the wrong end of a coyote chase I did the same. The coyote cocked his head, tightened his silk cravat, emulated the Don Draper eyebrow lift and then slowed his pursuit to a model-like prowl.

Chester bolted, leaving me to walk backwards until I couldn’t see the whites of coyote’s eyes any more. A chilling sweep of goose bumps rose on my neck.

It’s not an option to stay indoors when this is steps from my backyard.

But where there is prey, there are predators.

Last night, I dream there’s a lion with full mane in my house, barreling down the hallway toward my bedroom. I slam and lock the door, lean against the wood which cracks and creaks and splinters against my hand. I call out to J in his office. There’s a lion in the hallway! Shut your door! He’s working on his computer and not paying attention and the lion pounces. I wrestle the lion, wrangle his scruffy neck and heave him out the office window which somehow overlooks a high stony cliff to the sea even though we’re nowhere near the ocean.

I’m sure it’s a dream inspired by recent sightings that frighten me more than coyotes. Yesterday when Chester and I walked, we heard a rustling in the oak grove at the bottom of the hill.

The noise spooked us both, much louder than the familiar rabbit scurry or quail scuttle through dry leaves. It sounded human-size, but stopped as we neared, the instinct of an animal. Chester’s fur ruffled; he hush-growled and we turned heel, Chester wildly scanning the scrub oak lining the trail. To one side stands a solitary oak and within it we heard another great flurry of leaves overhead. I expected a hawk, a peregrine falcon, maybe even the screech owls that have taken up in the neighborhood but the shadow didn’t fly. It scampered down the branches, down the trunk, a shadow bigger than my dog.

It’s been about a month since J and I spotted a mountain lion off the trail about a five minute walk from this grove and a neighborhood association warning came last week.

A mountain lion has been seen in the Dove Canyon area.

The animal was picked up on cameras operated at Starr Ranch Sanctuary.

Additionally, this past week Dr. Don Earl of Lido Animal Hospital treated a greyhound that survived a serious attack from a mountain lion that climbed into the backyard of a home in Dove Canyon. The Department of Fish and Game is aware of the dog attack and has tips on its website should you encounter a mountain lion.

I read the “Keep Me Wild” tips.

If you encounter a mountain lion, do not run; instead, face the animal, make noise and try to look bigger by waving your arms; throw rocks or other objects. Pick up small children.
If attacked, fight back.

I don’t have a great track record with looking big. And I’m an awful thrower. But I sing when I’m nervous and there’s one song that’s on rerun this spring.

This morning, I hurl lyrics, loudly, and yes, maybe dance and air guitar a bit on the trail. Chester didn’t seem to mind, but I might have some explaining to do to the woman who caught me coming around a blind curve. Last I saw, she was backing away, waving her arms to the sky.

With a song on my lips,
~Catherine

Gary Snyder wrote a spot-on poem about sensing the presence of a wild thing.

Piute Creek

One granite ridge

A tree, would be enough

Or even a rock, a small creek,

A bark shred in a pool.

Hill beyond hill, folded and twisted

Tough trees crammed

In thin stone fractures

A huge moon on it all, is too much.

The mind wanders. A million

Summers, night air still and the rocks

Warm. Sky over endless mountains.

All the junk that goes with being human

Drops away, hard rock wavers

Even the heavy present seems to fail

This bubble of a heart.

Words and books

Like a small creek off a high ledge

Gone in the dry air.

A clear, attentive mind

Has no meaning but that

Which sees is truly seen.

No one loves rock, yet we are here.

Night chills. A flick

In the moonlight

Slips into Juniper shadow:

Back there unseen

Cold proud eyes

Of Cougar or Coyote

Watch me rise and go.

Weekend Dish-Summer!

Posted on May 24, 2013 by backyardsisters

I know what you want.
Cherries. Peach juice dripping down your chin. Bare feet. Sandy toes.

You want 101 days of summer.
The countdown officially begins today. 5 p.m. Pacific Standard Time.

What will you do with these 2,420 hours, these 145,440 minutes, these 8,726,400 seconds of your one precious life?

There’s no way you’ll make a to-do list. You want a game.

Remember summer night scavenger hunts? You and your friends split into groups then set out in the neighborhood with a list? First one back with all the loot won? Yeah. You’d like to try that again.

Take a photo of each of the 101 Days of Summer.
Post them on Instagram. Hash tag the photos with #backyardsisters_101days

Ready. Set. Go!

1. Perfect your go-to summer barbecue meal.
2. Learn a new grilling technique. For a great veggie grilling video, click here.
3. Invite a new neighbor for dinner.
4. Eat outside. Every night. Unless there’s thunder and lightening.
5. Eat by candlelight. Every night. Outside. Unless.
6. Sit on the grass with your dog’s head in your lap.
7. Watch fireflies. If you catch them in a jar, be sure to let them out before you go to bed.
8. Learn 5 new objects in the night sky. The free app SkyViewFree uses an i-phone’s camera as viewfinder.
9. Plan ahead to find a dark viewing spot for the Perseid Meteor Shower, August 11 and 12. You’ll catch the summer’s best display of shooting stars. More info here.
10. Make your own ice cream. You don’t even need an ice cream maker. Check it out here.

11. Stay up late.
12. Get up early. Photograph your days.
13. Learn the names of 5 birds in your neighborhood. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology has an amazing library of birdcalls. Link here.
14. Take your morning beverage on the porch, patio, or near an open window.
15. Prop your bare feet on a ledge.
16. Plant one living thing, even in a small pot if you don’t have a yard.
17. Plant something you can eat. A few green onions. Parsley. One tomato plant.
18. Visit a farmer’s market.
19. Take home something you’ve never eaten before.
20. Eat it.
21. Learn to make the perfect margarita or mojito or favorite frozen treat.
22. Invite neighbors over to help you drink it.

23. Visit your mom and dad.
24. Look at photos from childhood family vacations; yours and theirs.
25. Record favorite memories either on video or audio.
26. Visit your children.
27. Look at photos from family vacations; yours and theirs.
28. Record favorite memories.
29. Create a family yearbook of photos.
30. Do one thing that scares you.

31. Swim in a natural body of water.
32. Cannonball into the deep end of a pool.
33. Play Marco Polo.
34. Learn one new water skill: surfing, body surfing, paddle boarding, water ballet moves.
35. Teach your new skill.
36. Pick fresh blueberries.
37. Make a summer fruit cobbler. For the Backyard Sisters favorite cobbler recipe, click here.
38. Eat dinner on a blanket under a tree.
39. Walk after dinner through town or your neighborhood.
40. Listen.

41. Hike a new trail.
42. Learn the names of 5 new native plants in your region.
43. Visit 3 new state parks. The rangers there will know the names of the plants.
44. Take a new friend with you.
45. Volunteer for a park clean-up day.
46. Tune your guitar, your piano, your cello, your drum, your voice.
47. Learn one solid song.
48. Lose your inhibition.
49. Make a campfire.
50. Sing under the stars.
51. Make s’mores.
52. Sleep under the stars.
53. Learn how to remove ticks from your dog. (Same concept applies to humans.) Great video here.

54. Sketch, photograph, or journal what distinguishes your local ecosystem from others.
55. Learn 5 edible plants.
56. Learn 5 poisonous plants.
57. Learn to pack lightly.
58. Learn to clean up after yourself.
59. Learn to read a map.
60. Get lost.
61. Go to a car show.
62. Attend your state or county fair.

63. Submit something: homemade beer, photography, literature.
64. Hold hands on the Ferris wheel.
65. If you win a giant stuffed panda, give it away to a neighborhood kid.
66. Visit the booths with prize-winning pies and jams and wines.
67. Congratulate the blue-ribbon winners. Ask one fine question about their process.
68. Hear an outdoor concert.
69. Watch an outdoor movie.
70. Wait for the Milky way.
71. Visit your local library.
72. Remember summer reading when you were a kid? Check out ten books.
73. Visit an independent bookstore. Buy one thing.

74. Hear a live author reading.
75. Thank the author in person.
76. Perfect one aspect of your craft: Great openings. Killer closings. Trimming the fat from word count.
77. Slow dance under the Full Flower Moon on May 25.
78. Sip strawberry wine under the Full Strawberry Moon on June 23.
79. Dance with abandon under the Full Thunder Moon on July 22.
80. Fish under the Full Sturgeon Moon on August 20. For full moon name meanings, click here.
81. Invite neighbors over for a pancake breakfast.
82. Visit the housebound neighbor who couldn’t come.
83. Bring flowers, or stories, or one of your photos.

84. Call your grandmother or grandfather or aunt or uncle or long lost cousin.
85. Tell them about the trees and birds and stars. Ask about the view from their window.
86. Ask about their favorite summer memory.
87. Remember to return your library books.
88. Lie on your back on the grass and watch the clouds.
89. Swing.
90. Swim again. Again. Again.

91. Travel.
92. Learn five bits of history about one place you’ll visit.
93. Read before you go. You can find a literary companion for more than 20 destinations from Whereabouts Press where the mission “is to convey a culture through its literature.”
94. Attend an outdoor art show.
95. Bike ride. On a beach cruiser. Along the beach if you’re lucky.
96. Learn hello, goodbye, please, thank-you and I love you in five new languages.
97. Learn how to come home.
98. Harvest and eat your one small thing standing barefoot on your own patch of ground, balcony, stone or wood.
99. Cut flowers from your yard. Take some to your neighbor.
100. Send an old fashioned hand-written note, with some herbs or fragrant leaves.
101. Set 5 small items – a shell, a rock, a poem – from your summer on your desk.

Last one done is a rotten egg.
~Catherine

You get what you need

Posted on May 16, 2013 by backyardsisters

Of course you can’t always get what you want. But one Wednesday night in the middle of a perfectly ordinary week you might get this:

Photo credit: Genara Molina, Los Angeles Times

If Mick and his pals aren’t too old to keep rocking, then I’m not too old for my first Rolling Stones concert. It’s not like I didn’t like live music the first time I wore a suede headband with feathers and beads. I sat so close to Elton John at the Inglewood Forum in 1974 that he took my hand and mouthed thank you for the hand scrawled “Elton Babe I love you!” poster I passed over the rail to him. I stayed on my feet all night long for The Who, Jethro Tull, Fleetwood Mac, David Bowie, Neil Diamond, Joe Walsh, and the Beach Boys enough times to be considered a groupie. I’ve even seen Kanye West in concert. But The Rolling Stones? Not so much.

Why now? Falling for those skinny boys from Bloody Old took a long slow burn. Maybe it started at a frat party or a wedding when the fastest way to get everyone onto the dance floor was to blast “I (Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.” Boys shouted the words feeling misunderstood and restless as under-loved mongrels while we girls echoed the lyrics a hey, hey, hey, tipping our shoulders just enough to promise that maybe this would be the night that the “girl reaction” would be satisfying indeed.

When things ended badly “Get Off of My Cloud” gave us the perfect chorus to hitch up our thumbs and sing out at the top of our lungs of a serious need to be alone. If the Stones wanted a little space, “’cause two’s a crowd,” we did too.

Decades pass like dandelion dander and we find ourselves once again in the age of frequent weddings – this time our friends’ children. Any event with music and a dance floor – cheesy New Year’s Eve parties, milestone birthday bashes, charity parties and backyard barbecues – is guaranteed to have a band covering epic Stones tunes or a DJ spinning them. “Brown Sugar,” “Let’s Spend the Night Together,” and “Emotional Rescue” still pack the floor with lip-synching, lyric shouting dancers of our age, yes, but also children and grandchildren who know this music as well as their own. These songs are in our bones the way the ocean is.

I finally had to see The Rolling Stones with my own eyes, had to be in The Honda Center, Section 202, joining the roaring crowd of bleached blondes wearing ripped black and white striped pants and red sparkly circus shoes, of long white-haired ponytailed men in tye-dyed t-shirts, of a pink twirly skirted little girl holding her grandmother’s hand, and strangers on a first date, a dad taking his big brown-eyed daughter to her first concert – He’s the best dad ever! We all wanted to see the original before a man who’s “got the moves like Jagger” is all that’s left.

Watching Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Ron Wood, and the entire cast of characters that create The Rolling Stones “50 and Counting Tour” feels like standing on shore watching winter waves ceaselessly crash toward you. It’s an unstoppable force of nature that miraculously transcends time. I don’t feel so bad now that my rarely modernized dance moves pinpoint, like some sort of carbon dating science, that my teenage coming-of-age happened in the early 1970s. Mick still dances the same too. Footage of Rolling Stones concerts is prevalent enough for the gyrating, wiry, clapping, finger waving, prancing, Jagger to be unsurprising. Yet when you are there miles further away than a TV camera close-up and you can still feel the power of the man then you wonder why you stayed away so long.

As the band tore into its signature concert-closing song, I peeked over at J as he pumped his right fist to the roof of the arena shouting along. “I can’t get no-oh satisfaction.” Our eyes caught. I tipped my shoulder back just a bit and smiled before offering up a little hey, hey, hey to the rafters.

With fuzzy ears,
~Catherine

p.s. Genara Molino, photographer for Los Angeles Times captured far better photos than I could get from my seat in Section 202; view his slideshow here. But, from his fancy spot near the stage, he missed one thing.

A cool thing about arriving early was the chance to watch the spotlight team ascend from the back of the floor seats, right in front of sections 201 and 202. These guys spend the concert suspended by cable providing spots for the musicians.

Object will move before show.

Indeed. On their way to the ceiling.

Dark. Then light.

Posted on April 18, 2013 by backyardsisters

I ran a marathon once…

Today’s post comes from Theresa, the eldest Backyard Sister.

I ran a marathon once. I ran because my life was a train wreck right then and I was afraid if I didn’t get up and move I would never get up again. I ran to learn how to just breathe. I ran to be a part of something larger than me.

I spent months training, long hours alone with my thoughts and the sound of my ragged breaths. I learned to love the smell of early morning and the peace of downtown before shops opened and the sidewalks filled with people hurrying to begin their day. I came to appreciate the soft breeze of twilight and the gentle shapes of nightfall when the world is infused with the last bit of sunlight. Trees, leaves green and then brilliant with fall, and birds with their busy chatter and endless fluttering kept me company. As did my faithful training companion, a middle-aged Jack Russell terrier whose exuberance for life and tireless motion inspired me to keep going many days when I didn’t think I could. I ran in rain and wind and cold and wondered if I was crazy. I discovered that I could struggle with self-doubt or pain or fatigue and emerge still moving, still breathing, still alive.

I ran that marathon, 26.2 miles, each mile an adventure. Through it all, people lined the path, there on a Sunday morning in January for no other reason than to show support for a group of strangers who had an idea they would challenge themselves to do something really hard and were there to accomplish their dream. When I finally came around the last corner, there was a crowd of spectators and runners who had already finished, calling out encouragement and congratulations, helping us celebrate what we had done. I have kept these lessons I learned in my heart – one foot in front of the other, breathe, things get better in time; run after life, even when you aren’t sure where you are going; and there are many more good people in the world than bad.

And so this brings me to the events of the week, the bombing at the Boston Marathon, how to make sense of something so senseless, so purely evil. How to live with the images forever etched into my brain, runners reaching the finish line, the joy of that moment, the cheers of the crowd juxtaposed with the sound of explosion, the smoke and screams, blood and shattered glass. I have struggled with this contrast all week, angry and deeply saddened that someone chose a marathon as a backdrop for murder and tremendously moved by the stories of courage and sacrifice that are emerging. Stories of strangers comforting the injured and saving lives, strangers offering a bed and food to those stranded by the bombing, people who when faced with a situation they never dreamed possible embraced the challenge and ran forward to help. What I have decided is that there will always be good and evil and shades in between, always the overlay, always the pattern, there is no making sense of it, it just is.

I have stopped looking at the pictures and videos because they live in my mind now, the contrast of the horror of the bombing with the celebration of the day. I play them over and over, trying to rewrite the ending like I do when I wake up after a bad dream. And I am starting to see other parts of the picture emerge, I see people bent over the wounded, I see those who rushed in and began the terrible work of saving lives and I am beginning to realize that in the same moment of great darkness is the light of goodness we all contain, in the moment we are most fragile, there is great strength. And I do believe that good always triumphs over evil, maybe not at first, but always in the end, I am holding on to that thought – to ponder more during my next run.

~Theresa

You can read more by Theresa. Her essay “Lessons From Winter” is here.

You are a human treasure

Posted on February 7, 2013 by backyardsisters

Dear One,
Your compliment, so kind, compels me to remind you how much beauty also lives in you. You, of course, the person, and you the word, so small in all the language. “You” can mean the one, or “you” can mean the many. “You” can mean the Angel who I wrote about last May in “Stop this day and night with me.”

Angel returns one morning last week. I open the oak front door to see him standing on the porch. He shuffles his feet, looks at the stone, points to the empty dirt in my new yard and wonders if I need help planting. His eyes are bloodshot, the scent of alcohol sweet in the morning air. He smiles as he gestures toward the mud.

“Would you like me to put in roses? Fruit trees?”

“Let me check with J,” I say, acting like it hasn’t been months and months since he stopped gardening for me, acting like this newly emaciated body clothed in muddy khaki pants, cinched with a black belt flapping several extra inches at the end, might actually be able to dig holes and tamp mud any better than my own. He has a gift, this man who knows exactly how to coax a growing thing to triumph. Should I stand in the way of allowing him to work?

“Can you come next week?”

“Sure, sure.”

I give him J’s number to arrange a day, a time, a price. Angel calls on Sunday.

“I can’t make it on Monday. I’m in the hospital. For tests. Maybe I can come on Tuesday.”

On Tuesday night Angel calls.

“I have stomach cancer. I have an operation tomorrow. I cannot come and plant your garden. Maybe next week.”

You are a human treasure.

Must I know exactly where I’m going when I compose a leading line?

What if I have no idea how the story ends, or how to compose a view for effect, or how to make any sense of muddy paths leading straight into the fog?

Is it an accident, or part of nature’s wondrous plan that the view when looking up

offers much more hope and light than the gaze that meets the ground? Two muddy feet

Yet it’s on the ground where the growing things begin. Salt of the earth. Grounded. It’s the earth we all return to.

When a writer thinks of leading lines, a writer thinks of books, that first taste of a voice which can make a difference in the way a reader sees the world.

I am an invisible man. No, I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allan Poe; nor am I one of your Hollywood-movie ectoplasms. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids – and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.

from Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison

There is nothing worse I think, than the feeling of not being seen.

Even among books, some seem small in stature, insignificant when compared to the legacy of others based on copies sold, appearances on syllabi, or inclusion in the conversation among critics.

Some books, some lives, are at risk of getting lost. I’d like to highly recommend such a book that might have missed your radar. Dominque Fabre’s The Waitress Was New, (translated from the French by Jordan Stump) is the perfect little 106 page gem to reacquaint yourself with what Fabre describes as the, “genuine beauty, genuine dignity of places or people that have been somehow overlooked.”

It’s the story of an entirely undistinguished bartender. It offers a leading line straight to the very mystery of the beauty of the anonymous life most of us exalt in. It reminds us that we must take the time to tell each other, You are a human treasure. And then, we must live as if we believe it to be true.

With all due respect,
~Catherine

Lessons from winter

Posted on January 24, 2013 by backyardsisters

Can I weave a nest for silence,
weave it of listening,
listening,
layer upon layer?

May Sarton, from “Beyond the Question”

I told you once, there are four of us Backyard Sisters. Today’s post comes from the eldest, Theresa, prompted by a telephone conversation.

“I drove in the dead winter,” she tells me one day. “From Des Moines to Minneapolis. And it was darker than dark except for headlights on the highway. And I thought of letters flying through cyberspace, of too many words, like those headlights.

“And I thought of a poem by May Sarton. Then I wrote this for you.”

Theresa’s my hero. She finds a way to quietly approach life, to focus as if each moment, each person, each word matters. I’m happy to share my big sister with you. Here’s Theresa…

“words once spoken, can tear down or build up – but can never be destroyed.”

I wrote that when I was 14 or 15 years old, probably after an angst-producing adolescent moment – and I still think about words a lot.

This 27 ft x 17 ft sculpture, Nomade, is by Jaume Plensa, who “envisioned the letters as building blocks for words and ideas, in the same way human cells form tissues, organs and bodies.” It sits in Des Moines’ outdoor sculpture park.

I too believe that words and ideas form us in the same way our cells give us shape and I believe that we are all the better that words can’t be destroyed or we would have lost our earliest stories.

But one must first become small,

nothing but a presence,

attentive as a nesting bird,

May Sarton, from “Beyond the Question

I also think about how today thoughts can be casually dispatched as quickly as you can type and in a split second be launched at someone or some group and preserved forever in our digital minds.

I picture cyberspace as the darkest of nights, illuminated by flashing lights like lightening bugs and trailing comets, letters strung together careening and whistling to their intended targets.

And then I think about us, how we see this chatter, day and night, incessant words, constant words, bathing our thoughts and I wonder what will come of this, what are we building?

What happens in a world when conversation is mostly visual and there are few pauses between our words? Where are the spaces in our communication now, the opportunities to pause and reflect before answering, or to just sit in comfortable silence with one and other.

Beyond the question, the silence,

before the answer, the silence.

May Sarton, from “Beyond the Question

This amazing technology that allows us to connect instantly is for the most part a gift, allowing families and friends to share their lives in a way never before possible. But like all blessings, it might also be a curse, teasing us into believing that putting thoughts into words without pausing to consider the effect or substituting virtual reality for an opportunity to connect with a real person is the way it is supposed to be.

I have no answers – I suppose when the telephone first became available to most people, there were those who declared it unnatural and dangerous to humanity, most likely by someone like me who tends to think too much… However, quite by accident, I stumbled upon a book, Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other by Sherry Turkle.

Sherry Turkle is director of the MIT Initiative on Technology and the Self and spoke with Krista Tippett about this topic on “On Being” recently. Do you think we really expect less from each other? I’m going to download the book on my Nook and start reading.

You don’t expect me to throw the baby out with the bathwater do you? I’ll let you know what I learn. Until then,

Happy wandering –
Theresa

p.s. Catherine here ~ What would happen if today, this week, this year, you focused on treating the words you release as precious as art, as air? Celebrate silence. Be attentive “as a nesting bird.” Speak and write carefully.

backyard sisters

Saving ordinary moments from the brink of oblivion

Tag Archives: inspiration

Weekend Dish: Secrets

Why do you do what you do?

What do you bring to the table?

The Young Fathers and the Sea

Wild thing

Weekend Dish-Summer!

You get what you need

Dark. Then light.

You are a human treasure

Lessons from winter

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: