Still buried under the desperation of the waning days of the semester, but it seems fair to pause a moment to let you know about an amazing opportunity to both help fundraise for a family to put together a accessible bathroom for their six-year-old son (who looks like quite the charmer!) and to put your name in the hat for some amazing artwork from some of my absolute favorite letterpress artists, fiber artists, and on. The link to all the items in the giveaway is here; the donation buttons are in the sidebar.
This is the time of the school year when I do a little flutter kick, make a feeble attempt at keeping my head above water. In my high school swim team days, we used to paddle out to the deep end, hold our flat palms shoulder-height and kicked to keep afloat. This, my friends, is precisely how the last two weeks of the semester feel: today I picked up a heavy stack of research essays to grade and did a limping-along presentation on zuihitsu. Tomorrow I grade, I make phone calls for various medical procedures (I have an HSG in my future; Penelope needs to see a surgeon; Ryan even has a doctor's appointment I apparently will have to make), submit my chapbook to a few presses whose deadlines are fast approaching, consider a final paper, work on putting together a first rough draft of that vague thesis... And breathe in, and breathe out.
I signed up for autumn classes: thesis credits with Trish, thesis seminar, workshop, and a class in the Classical & Near Eastern Studies department on the classical epic in translation, which should fulfill my "related fields" requirement. It's certainly an overload, but my final semester would be incredibly smooth sailing. The coursework and teaching (intro to poetry) will be spread over the five days of the week, with only one extra-long campus day.
In honor of the zuihitsu, but in a more blog-conscious format:
On my bedside table: Daniel Deronda by George Eliot Just finishing watching: Carnivale (season 2, disc 5) Blooming in our yard: a single red tulip, the zestar apple tree, our two crabapple trees Listening to on my commute: The Swan Thieves by Elizabeth Kostova Which makes me want to re-read: "Leda and the Swan" (see below)
I can't believe this, but there are only 2 1/2 weeks left in the semester, followed by my favorite week of the school year, thesis defense week. I love the freedom that hangs in the air--it's also exam week, but at this point, all of my own essays and collections of poems should be turned in, and grades will be complete. The air will be fresh, and I can sit back and watch as my colleagues in year three celebrate their accomplishments, two hour parcels of reading and discussing, the windows in Lind flung open, students sprawled across the mall's lawn, the voice of poetry floating in the sun.
The trees are exhausted with blossoms. If all the bunches on our apple tree became fruit, the tree would sink to its knees.
I've started a little life list to remind me of all the things I want to do before I conk off. I've only just started it, and it's good for me to let it all percolate, let me decide exactly what it is that I want to do with this one wild and precious life.
Finally, one of our favorite wedding gifts from one of our favorite people finds a home. I can't wait to see who else finds a home here.
We haven't steeped anything in the dirt yet, but the dirt is already given us things: the strawberry plants have survived a winter of dog tromping and snow packing, and there is a small swath where the sunflower seeds have produced an incomprehensible tangled gathering. I'm so awful at thinning the seeds: does anyone nearby want some brilliant sunflower plants? We are, after all, known in the neighborhood for our ridiculously tall blossoms.
There is much to do in the dirt this year, and I find myself vowing to be better at weeding, but I have to be honest with myself; it's not likely to happen. For now, Ryan has been better than me: he's been responsible for our first mowing of the season, and while he is on his Sunday call to his parents, he weeds clumps of grass and sorrel, and I think of the bigger, angrier weeds that are to come.
What perhaps makes me the most sad is that this short trip took Penelope out of commission for the weekend (yesterday, Ryan took Z to the bluff in an attempt to calm him before book club; it worked... sort of). Her limp is becoming more pronounced, and I think it's time to call the surgeon.
But to watch these two romping through the creek is such a gift. The delight!
Oh, and I am amused that I caught the very moment when Penny lost her collar in the creek. Gone, gone, a little sacrifice to the water gods.
Tonight, a quiet evening with a good group of girl friends, where we discussed Flow, which is up available on bookswap, and I learned a good handful of scintillating facts regarding that monthly, which I still think can provide great moments of embarrassment and disgust, as the book hoped to convince me otherwise, and I do think my body-bookclub-book my heart belongs to is Woman: An Intimate Geography. So good.
Our book club has expanded in the past few months; for a while it was just me and Angie and Emily holding down the fort, but Chris rejoined, and Meryl folded herself in, bringing her sister (who has "popped!"--and is due in July) Casey along. It's a good six, and I adore these girls a great deal. (Now, if we could only convince that Kelly to join again...)
Happy Sunday evening. Night sounds of laundry and crickets, watching a recorded episode of Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution, trying to finish a young adult novel version of Emily Dickinson's life.
Brian Laidlaw, second place: "The Mountaineer Encounters a Coast."
me, third place: "In Geography" (which is going to get a good, scrubbing edit soon)
Alex Grant: "I Have Seen the Plight of the Dinner Bird"
An extra-special, very big thank you goes out to three ofmy favoritegirl friends, who took time out of their chaotic days to do a little cheering. It means so much. ♥
Things I love: poetry and precise words, kitchen gardens, wildflowers, photography, the natural world, walking in the woods, geography and culture and a sense of place, thunderstorms, yoga, letterpress artwork, knit objects, earth tones, chai tea, little birds, the ocean, wool, thick books to get lost in, ecotones and diagrams, sheep and llamas and goats, handwritten letters, the body (mine and yours).
(click on above image to enlarge)
