I’m still reading Frida’s diary and still finding in it gems and inspiration. The result: There’s a found poem series progressing on the front porch now, word images from the diary replacing one another, walking a tentative path forward toward whatever comes next. Here are the latest two. More are likely to come as I continue to savor this beautiful book.
I write this while waiting for my morning coffee to brew before heading to my desk for a day of work. Today I’m grateful for:
My work week was a busy one, and I got behind in some places, including here. But I did manage to post a little bit of poetry to the front stoop. As a result, today we have a double edition of #frontstooppoetry.
Perhaps because the week was so busy, and perhaps because this country feels so fully dystopian, this rather free-form question spilled out of me on Wednesday. (It got dated Wednesday-Thursday on the chalkboard because it was late at night and I (rightly, as it happens) anticipated I wouldn’t get a chance to replace it the following day.)
Time seems these days to have folded itself; somehow the world seems to be moving simultaneously at hyperspeed and in slow motion. A single day seems to speed by in an unending barrage of extremist news from Washington, yet the long-term passage of time seems excruciatingly slow. How long will it take the coming years to go by?
Add in the fact that the Trump administration is trying to return us to the 1950s or earlier, and my sense of time has turned inside out.
Today, though, I found inspiration in the book I’m currently reading, The Diary of Frida Kahlo.
Frida started keeping a journal sometime in her 40s, sadly near the end of her life, and it’s both written and visual. Filled with casual drawings—almost doodles, really—it’s gorgeous to look at. And the writing is beautiful as well, quite free-form, almost stream of consciousness. It’s more a journal of her thoughts than a chronicle of what was happening in her life. Written in Spanish, the book includes an English translation with notes, so I go back and forth between the full-page color originals and the translation/notes.
This book is beautiful in every way, and I’ve ordered my own copy so I can have it nearby after returning this copy to my library. Meanwhile, I’ve written out several passages as found poems, and that’s what made it to the chalkboard today.
Postcarding
One of the friends I correspond with regularly via postcard wrote to me recently that she’s finding it hard to create art during the Trump Administration. Me, too, my friend—I hear you. Today, though, I found myself able to make postcards for the first time in weeks (possibly thanks to Frida’s diary?). For whatever reason, it was a much-needed catharsis. And I’m ready to share the love. I’m hoping to use these to prompt myself to write to more than the couple of friends I regularly trade cards with. Those friends will get the first, of course, but there are plenty to go to others as well. Here’s a sampling.
It might be in the single-digits outside, but I know Spring is coming. I know this because I have my seed catalogues. I’m putting the finishing touches on this year’s order; the seeds are chosen, but I have to determine what other seed-starting supplies I need. Within the month, I should be waiting for seeds to sprout.
Short of flying to a desert spa, it’s the surest way to get through February.
This year’s order will be mostly vegetables, with just enough flowers to fill the planters on my deck and patio. Even those planters will hold a lot of veggies this year; I’m thinking of some beautiful mixtures of chard and kale and other edible greens, possibly with (edible) nasturtiums.
I don’t mean the metaphorical dogs that are my feet. It has to get a good bit colder than single digits to keep me entirely indoors, and I’m confident I’ll reach my daily step goal today (Though I readily admit to bundling up when I go out.)
But for the hound dogs, definitely too cold. The Puppy will go to the back yard ready for a romp with her brother. But the brother, The Beagle, gets only as far as the 4th step down before turning around and heading back to the door. And so back we all go indoors, as the puppy also doesn’t want to be out there without the brother.
Which makes snuggling on the couch all-important. The dogs snuggle together, and they snuggle with whichever human being will sit with them. Usually that’s my husband, but in the early morning hours, when only I and The Puppy are up, I head to the couch so she’ll have company. And occasionally, just occasionally, The Beagle joins us. He’s the one who snores, ever so softly, ever so sweetly. He also leaks out little moans when he’s awake and we pet him. He’s a talker, and I don’t pretend not to love that.
Reading while snuggling
Indoor days are good for cleaning, cooking, and reading. Not in that order. Today I finished devouring Amor Towles’ The Lincoln Highway: 576 pages in three days, not because I’m an amazingly fast or devoted reader but because the story and the characters and the prose just pulled me through. I’m still processing the ending (no spoilers here) but loved every minute of the read.
Dinner will come from the freezer, where I need to free up space for many leftover portions of a delicious ham-and-bean soup filled with more vegetables than you can imagine. That was dinner last night, along with a pound cake that I made intending to share at book club, only to be reminded just before it went into the oven that it requires several hours’ rest after baking. That rendered it moot for book club, which started 1/2 hour after the cake came out of the oven, so that’s something else that needs me to free up freezer space. This is feeling like an endless cycle.
Yesterday’s book club discussion was about Kairos, by Jenny Erpenbeck, which I found both beautifully written and a fascinating look into East Germany just before the fall of the wall, but perfectly excruciating to read because of the utter toxicity of the relationship it centers on. Thumbs up and thumbs down at the same time, if that’s even possible.
The snow gremlins have been out. Also the snow fairies.
A new winter storm came in last night right about dinnertime, dropping a couple inches on top of the couple that had fallen earlier. We awoke to a snow-covered canine playground in the back yard, and sometime early this afternoon I went to the back deck and discovered graupel—a word I learned only a couple of years ago from a fellow writer and immediately absorbed into my vocabulary because it is both useful and celebratory. I’m not sure I ever saw graupel—basically, snow pellets—as a child, but we see it quite a bit now. (On the other hand, I saw a good share of hoarfrost growing up, and I can’t remember the last time for that. It’s a shame; I remember hoarfrost to be miraculous. Alas, winter is changing. Heavy sigh.)
So yesterday and today, snow, more snow, graupel. And in between, while we weren’t looking, our neighbors shoveled our sidewalk twice. Truth; we have that kind of neighbors.
We do the same for them, actually. When I go out with the shovel (or broom in a light snow), more often than not I clear more than one segment of sidewalk. Usually two or three houses’ worth, sometimes more. I’m already out, it’s a simple enough act of kindness, a gift to both the neighbors and anyone who will walk by, including the mail carrier. And sometimes, like today, they shovel our walk.
This is the way to live in the world. Act with kindness, and kindness is more likely to come back to you.
And so today’s #frontstooppoetry is more thank-you than poem, but it defines this day.
Also…the snow was packable!
This may have been the first truly packable snowfall since we got our second dog a few months ago. She’s Tess, aka the puppy because we didn’t intend to get a puppy. We intended to get a companion for Elwood, the 6-year-old beagle. He’s the one who chose a 10-month-old. Or they chose each other. In any case, she joined the family.
And she is a lover of snow, running and frolicking in it. Today, I threw her first real snowball to her. Suffice it to say her instinct is not to catch. We’ll see if that might change.
But in between doggie play events in the back yard, I came across this sweet, royal snowman while walking through the neighborhood. I’m a lover of snowmen, perhaps a connoisseur. They bring me joy at every stage of their lives, from pristine newness to melty end of life. This one stands out for his crown and his very happy expression.
Yes, grateful
For nice neighbors, happy dogs, snowmen, and the library system that allowed me to walk just a few blocks to get a book I only learned of this morning, I’m thankful. My small blessings are everywhere.
I was walking the neighborhood today, a podcast in my ear as I collected my daily allotment of steps in advance of a winter storm, when I looked down and remembered that it was Valentine’s Day. There in front of my feet was a nearly perfect heart, made of snow and ice. I snapped a quick photo, went on my way, and forgot all about it. For a few hours.
I remembered as I sat over dinner with the husband in our local. And though it be dark outside already, I just finished telling the neighbors about it on my front stoop chalkboard. It’s still Valentine’s Day for another 3 hours, and #frontstrooppoetry is posted for the day.
It counts even when it’s dark out.
What am I grateful for?
I almost forgot to add this! Today I’m grateful for these things and more:
