116

Linguistics of the MFA program:
- I am going to [eat, usually] the [shit/fuck/hell] out of this [foodstuff, usually].
- [This book, music, whathaveyou] is going to rock [or blow, I think I've heard that too] your face off. [yeeouch]

I am learning to not be that prim high school teacher I once was; sometimes, you can find me swearing, openly, in the classroom, hyped up in expressing how much I loved/hated a particular technique in a story/poem/etc. It's not often, but it might slip, if you watch closely enough.

I've been thinking a lot about how I censored myself as a high school teacher, especially after reading Michelle's very vocal post about gay rights and marriage. That part of me, the one who fell in love with a woman at the end of high school / beginning of college has been secreted away for so long. And I know this blog is completely google-able, that people from high school who might have suspected, or my former students who might now cringe at the thought of their former teacher being very comfortable with saying this, and I think I just have to recognize that it's a part of me that needs to exist, alongside my brazen announcements of deterioration of my body (oh, little breast mouse), and there it is. And I know that I also grapple with the fact of my life being easier since the past nine years have been spent loving a man. And this is just how it happened to be; I could have just as easily fallen in love with another woman once my year plus relationship with Jen came crashing down in a most melodramatic way. (Hey, we were nineteen; this is what happens in that angsty part of your life.) There is a certain privilege that I have been allowed because of the way Ryan and my organs happen to be, and I don't think there is fairness in that. And sometimes I try to avoid the topic altogether because I get so violently upset (and also hugely distanced due to my so-called unique position). Sometimes logic doesn't seem to win out in this country's decision making.

I must tell you other things, things that won't get me all tangled up inside, thinks that spark, but in a lovely way instead of the frustrated way.

- I am now The Carol Connolly Reading Series intern at Intermedia Arts, which means I attempt to juggle a great deal of information and put it into the correct slot. I got the position about two weeks ago, and I don't think I mentioned applying or the interview, but here I am, done with my first week, and it has been going well. It's nice to feel connected to the literary community in this way, and I think it fills a need of mine to be useful to other artists as opposed to selfishly pursuing my own. It's a great opportunity, and I'm really excited to be a part of Intermedia.

- I am now a part of the Line Machine blog. It's put together by Josh Wallaert, whose Webster's Daily blog (finding poetics in the dictionary) I have long admired, and Line Machine is doing something similar to what I had been doing in Collectanea, which I failed to keep up with. Anyway, I believe my first post is going up tomorrow, which is fun. A little Wanderlust. I love the idea of community reading--a choral reading, a sharing of what is on the page, a celebration of the art of language.

- My photo from last summer was put on the Shutter Sisters daily click a while back, and a few weeks ago the collective invited it to be a part of a book they are publishing. It's odd to think of a photograph of mine being in a book, but there you are. Granted, it's a blurb book, but nonetheless, the Shutter Sisters are a talented bunch with a solid following. I'm pretty pleased.

This weekend will be spent quietly: Kleenex, some potpourri boiling on the stove (I had forgotten how good cloves and cinnamon smell!), a good book propped in our laps. Cold season is descending; autumn is in full bloom here. Stout carrots are coming out of the garden and raspberries are awaiting transformation with instructional jam recipes.

108

Tuesdays are about doing. My to-do list sprawls in my mind, little tasks slipping away, returning. Cleaning the yard, mowing. My husband wants me to backup old computers as he has his own revamp project ahead of him.

Our furniture has been shape shifting, too. Perhaps this change in vocation simply needs to come with the overhaul at home. Kelly came for a visit this past weekend, and she finally could see some physical changes in my cleaning efforts--a vanished bookcase, and soon, a vanished media stand. Ryan had this gigantic thing he and his buddy Dan bought at Menard's, which has followed us from Winona and has finally been replaced by this more manageable media stand.

Yesterday brought my first class meetings full circle--Mondays involve an evening class called Reading Across Genres. It's all thirteen first year MFAers; it's designed for us to meet the professors and essentially discuss who we are as people who write, how we fit into the writing world.

I'm not sure where that is exactly, and I know I have felt humbled at this luxurious opportunity I've been given. I assume, at some point, this new shape of daily life begins to feel ordinary? I feel a bit unworthy at the moment--this slot that might have gone to someone else, these three years where I'm focusing on writing and not on, you know, paving streets or something of physical change. I've been turning this over in my mind--the way the banker looked at me when I told her I was going to spend three years in the field of poetry. How do you respond to that? That look? What do you say when she tells you some famous, wealthy businessperson is also a poet, so that could be a good defense down the road? (Because, miraculously, I too want a Fortune 500 company to run...?) I think it's always a debate of justification--why should I even feel compelled to justify my choice? Why does everyone in the arts have to justify their choice? (Yes, I recognize that talent must be involved in the equation, and indeed, I have yet to prove if that is so, and I know that money is also involved in that look, but. But.)

Right now, it feels as if this decision I made makes the most sense in the world. I may discount my belonging in the place where I am, but I do not discount the choice. While I had a good place at the high school, I don't regret leaving. My heart feels good because of it.

103

In the great immortal words of one of my former colleagues, You can call me Master. My letter came from the university stating my M.Ed paperwork has gone through. It will take, however, up to four weeks to appear on my transcript and up to two months to receive the diploma (which is why this announcement feels a wee bit anti-climactic), but I have nothing more to do than sit tight and distract myself with new obligations. I can, however, add those three letters to the string after my last name: BA, M.Ed. (In three years, BA, M.Ed, MFA.) You can see the future job competitors are shaking in their boots. You know, ditch digging and whatnot.

The first day of the semester is mildly anti-climactic for me as well: the first day back is tomorrow, but I won't be there. No classes.

Instead, I'll be working on my 13-item weekly to-do list, five of which I did yesterday and the day before. I seem to be saving the harder things for today and tomorrow, it appears. Writing a review, doing homework for the incomplete Brit Lit course I've had for nearly a year now. Things that only I seem to be able to put off for eons. It's a talent, I tell you, this procrastination.

Also, I have added a button for the literary magazine Dislocate in the upper corner of my blog and here:

My husband put it together, since I am technologically inept, though we're hoping to not host the image on Flickr but on the official Dislocate website at some point. Dislocate is the university's national literary magazine (one that accepted a poem of mine a year ago and should be coming out by the end of this month), so if you want to support some local Minnesota creativity, let me know, and I'll send you the code! We certainly want the word spread far and wide.

72

I wonder when it is that our passion in life is indelibly imprinted upon us.

For me, I was seven or eight years old when I'd moved beyond "lady police officer" and "lawyer" as a chosen field (me and the law in my early years--I had a sense of fairness that seems to have slipped somewhat as I grow older) and decided this elusive title of "writer" was what I wanted for myself.

Now I sit and read novels, the smooth covers a comfort in my hands, and I think about the younger characters, their dreams.

I've thought a lot about this crossroads, so much that I'm sure everyone else is sick of reading about it--the word risk something obnoxious, to shrug at. (Here she goes again...) I confess I wonder if I've made the right choice in returning to school, but this little whispering isn't near the truth at all. My whole being knows it is the right choice; it's simply my own nervousness at the opinions of those around me that keeps me saying, "Oh, yes, the security, and oh, yes, retirement..." I don't mention the hot shame I might feel if I betrayed that large part of myself that has existed for twenty years now.

One day, I want to paint poems on converted barns. My own words, etched up permanently somewhere. I've always wanted that for myself. Not just the peace and joy that is the simple method of writing, but to have some measure of success with it. And certainly I'll never mean money in regards to success, since a poet rarely sees that sort of compensation. Instead, something that shows I belong somehow, that maybe these next three years are worth it for all the ones who are secret nay-sayers (oh blessed am I; while I do know about a few in secret, as we can't keep secrets these days, no one has openly proclaimed their thoughts as to the ridiculousness of this venture).

I want to stop telling people I'm getting a degree in poetry and say it in that voice, laugh it off, afraid already of what they might be thinking. Normal people don't do this. It's as if I'm trying to excuse myself before the opinion can be formed; I will tease myself about how I know this isn't career-advancing. (Ah, so what will you do with it after, then?) So much wincing.

My skin has never been terribly thick, no matter how much I may practice with heart bare to the elements. I need to keep remembering how important it is to do these things for ourselves. One day I'll have children, I hope, and I know much of my life will then be about sacrificing for them, and I will do so willingly, happily, but I also know I have to live a life of example. And I want my children to learn to take risks, to chase after those terrifyingly elusive dreams. It's only then that they'll have the chance to catch them.

70: Shake Loose the Sugar

Yesterday and today: it's as if I cannot complete a thought. I start emails, find myself confused and lost in the middle of them, the sugar still floating around a little bit, the heat drawing me down.

My father emailed me a draft of my M.Ed thesis all marked up in red, his comments and suggestions increasing the page count by five. I used to email my literature analysis papers to him all the time as an undergraduate, the shuffle between our computers constant, his corrections and suggestions always in red, between my awkward black phrasings, my stumbling syntax. So now I face this vastness, this fifty three page monster, and I hope to have it completed, to send it off to my adviser, mow the lawn, clean the fridge.

Summers for teachers are so strange. For nine, ten months of the year, we are propelled through our days, weighed down by student essays and planning the next few days, spinning like a top. There's a strange lack of peripheral awareness during the school year, where certain obligations are thrust onto the empty spaces of the calendar: NEA weekend, holiday breaks. And then summer arrives, with a sort of smack into the wall momentum. We've made these lists, in the margins of our planning books or in our minds, turning them over, ranking by importance, and there is a bit of befuddlement. The alarm clock no longer rules the morning, we can read for pleasure, and our partners are somehow, strangely, still leaving for work in the mornings.

Sadly, I'm much better at getting things done when I have only small pockets of time as opposed to these long expanses. I'm not advocating for me to actually have some sort of occupation over the summer; some day, I keep hoping, I will be more productive in this free time. And I'm enjoying the near-book a day pattern I have going, the methodical pull of weeds, slowly discovering what's beneath the piles of paper in the second bedroom. But now, I look out the window at four o'clock, and I know the lawn is growing shaggier and there is still another month left before summer vacation is over, and I hope there is something at the other end that I have to show for it.

On to the thesis. Do you think I'll really, truly submit it tonight? Oh, I hope so.

60: Kelly / Mama

Something I realized last night as I went through the yellow-hued photos from our trip to the northern climes of Minnesota: Kelly is a good mom. And not just to that little wiggler she's holding in her arms there. No, do you see the black and white pooch? And the man holding said pooch? She's a mama to all three of those ones. Oh, and the love that Richard and Kelly have for one another is incredibly true, incredibly sweet, and he has a good heart, which, to me, is the number-one-most-important-thing in a companion. But Richard is also the single most distractable person (aside from myself, of course) I've ever met, which, I think, brings out the mama in Kelly.

Above: an image of the family, as it is now, just before Christian turns one month, preparing to settle in for a family photograph. None of them turned out well (the photos, that is--the Nelsons are always gorgeous), but I loved this one for its expression of peace within chaos.

Speaking of peace within chaos, I am now winding down on my second draft of my M.Ed thesis. I'm hoping to turn in the final draft early this week, then start the paperwork to graduate. Weird.

56: Pinball Thoughts

I'm so caffeine'd up right now, I am shocked I don't burst in cancer pustules on the spot. Have you ever had so much [Diet Coke] that your eyeballs feel as if they are swimming in your head? I'm reminding myself of those dinosaur books, the one with the wiggle eyes. I've decided it's entirely appropriate to have an Office marathon and snort and giggle into another bottle.

Indeed, the first draft of my painful M.Ed thesis has been written.


Storms are rolling around in the sky; we've had thunder and lightning in the morning. I am used to this as an evening affair, a shocking wake up call at four am, a stumbling about, slamming windows shut, our pajamas backwards, our dogs wiggling at this mid-night surprise.


I feel a need to thank Shari, who recommended Rebecca Solnit's Wanderlust to me. It begins:

"Where does it start? Muscles tense. One leg a pillar, holding the body upright between the earth and sky. The other a pendulum, swinging from behind. Heel touches down. The whole weight of the body rolls forward onto the ball of the foot. The big toe pushes off, and the delicately balanced weight of the body shifts again. The legs reverse position. It starts with a step and then another step and then another that adds up like taps on a drum to a rhythm, the rhythm of walking. The most obvious and the most obscure thing in the world, this walking that wanders so readily into religion, philosophy, landscape, urban policy, anatomy, allegory, and heartbreak."


Drawing my attention, in the news:
- Kay Ryan has been named U.S. Poet Laureate. I am woefully unfamiliar, but this will change soon.
- My own copy of the controversial New Yorker arrived this morning. I'm still woefully behind.

It's all about woe these days, isn't it? Or rather, how woefully I exist in a literary world.

34: Past, Present, Future Tense

For the past three or four nights, I've been having high school dreams. Dreams I'm back in front of the classroom, where I've engaged the students in a large group discussion, where I'm answering questions, where Old High School and Local High School's structures and students have intermingled. In some dreams, I have met with the principal and agreed to the .2 position of teaching ALC freshmen again; while I will miss this routine, I cannot imagine taking on that in addition to being a full time graduate student and TAing as well. It's been weeks since the school year ended; I wonder why it's haunting me now.

In turn, I've finally begun to fantasize about the MFA program I will be entering in the autumn. Part of me is so rooted in routine, in creating lesson plans as I drive my car, in feeling confident in one out of twenty of said lesson plans, in considering how best to spend my mornings (sleeping) before the school year begins again. But I won't return to the same room, seven to three. I won't heave desks about the room, a kind of jigsaw puzzle in alignment and cramming forty some sweaty teenage bodies in a conversational position, with enough space for me to wiggle to and from my desk. Land mines. Backpacks. The like.

I'll have a different sort of maneuvering and it feels just like a dream. Is it really happening? Not yet, no, but will it? Is it true? Have I only imagined last winter's waiting game, the torture of running to the answering machine, the way my bowels turned to liquid every time I logged into a forum, wondering if someone had heard from the college I wanted most? (And indeed, the wait list, the period of time when I was certain I had lost, the weighty and highly consequential debate of moving away from my husband temporarily versus a low-residency balance with full time high school teaching.)

Oh, it's true, it's real.

(Oh, M.Ed, I dig into that thesis... and Chris, you will receive a draft soon. xo)

2: arrival

I loved designing this simple space that will be my home for as long as the world allows it. In the sidebar, a photograph of my husband and myself, fresh from nuptials, our rings still sparkling in the sparse Alaskan sun. I love the way the zip line gear has our clothing all bunched up, awkward, and our proud grins--me, that I did it, and him, well, also that I did it. Facing fear (oh, how woozy I get when I look down). How important that is to open up our arms and be brave in this world.

That's what this is about, right? Risk. Perhaps I'm facing my three years of risk. Perhaps it's always about taking risks. Perhaps it's about knowing exactly what risk is.

I also think about what we miss out on because we aren't brave. The whole time I was zip lining, I kept praying for it to be over, but that momentary joy of speed, that flash above the trees--it was worth all the tree clinging and stomach clenching fear. Maybe leaving a comfortable profession will be that too: scary, but good, in the end.


I chose this title because of the layered play on words. Perhaps a certain slant of light was about coming out from that fog of forgetting, my discoveries of the world behind the lens and along the lines of a blank page. Here, I want to explore the layers of sediment, the layers of self, but also, quite literally, my work within the field of poetry. My secondary interest, as I mold the manuscript, will take shape, but right now, I have a renewed interest in the natural world as well as the photographic world. I am compelled to hitch the camera up, to get my hands and feet dirty, to feel the world beneath my fingertips.

But that field can shift, unlike "theteacher" part of my former blog. That is permanent, that label. When I set out, I intended to catalog my experiences as a high school teacher, but the purpose of the blog changed, mainly when I landed on other blogs: Christina and Kate being two of my favorites, for the language, the imagery. For the beyond, thematically speaking. How we don't have to fit one life into a tiny box and put ourselves on repeat. At first, I loved documenting my lessons, reflecting candidly on what went well, what was an embarrassing flop, but then was found out, stilled, grew quiet. What else would a blog be for, now that so much had to be anonymous? The fear of losing my job for writing about my job was fretful; I cringed when we spoke of teacher reflection on post-observation days. I couldn't write about the time when I had to take a moment, let my team teacher take over, so I could cry in frustration in the bathroom because it was all just too much, the musical and the IEP meetings and the committees and the girl who had oppositional defiant disorder and would stream out swear words and taunts and instigations, little bits on the barbeque skewer. I couldn't admit the fear I had when a student of mine was found with a hit list (and the subsequent horror I felt at the bullying that went on in my classroom untouched by the deans and the police liaison officer I reported it to) or the colleague who was fired for what is rumored to be drugs found in his apartment or the other colleague who was forced out for throwing a fit after a basketball game or the other colleague whose contract was not renewed at the cusp of tenure due to incompetence. I never wanted to be found out for whispering about these things or worse yet--reflecting on these things. I did begin, in late winter of my second year, to express the fear that eventually became a job loss due to budget cuts. And I realized then what a comfort a blog can be--of writing, of reflecting, and still more--the breast lump, the musical photographs I was proud of when I discovered the thrill of a Canon Rebel, the way my hand twined in Ryan's (who was alternately called Husband and K before I said fuck it and named him). The first swearing on a blog post. The first time I posted my own photograph, realizing this is it, I can no longer hide behind anonymity.


I don't want to anyway. After all, this is who I am now. And I'm so grateful you've opted to come along.

1: landing

I'm coming in for a landing in this space on June 6th, 11am central time. Yes, that precise. Because it is the moment when I will no longer be a high school English teacher and will officially be, well, between things, but a soon-to-be poetry graduate student. It will be the moment when things truly shift.

Until then, I will be at a certain slant of light, musing on the endings, or suspendings, of a K-12 teaching career.