Sentry
For weeks, this spider has been standing sentry at the entry way to our home. She has built a web with a 2 foot radius that rises out of lavender plant growing in a wine barrel that sits between the garden fence and the shed. There is one long, thick strand that connects the web to the roof of the shed. To negotiate the walkway to and from the driveway without running into her web, we have to hug the the shed wall.
She is in control of the passage, and we mindfully pass her web repeatedly throughout the day. In this way, she is proving a noble and constant teacher.
I did not know he was gone
as I harvested seeds from
spent love-in-a mist
and worried
that the size of my family
increased the chances exponentially
for injury and death.
The day before a woman,
whom I hardly knew, grasped my arm
with hopeful fingers
when told I had 14 grandkids.
“Do you have a favorite?”
she asked. “Yes,” I demurred,
“ but the favored one
changes frequently.”
She parried,
“My favorite is in coma.”
The day my doctor died,
I sat on a rolling yard caddy
plucking dried seed pods
crushing their bulbous heads
releasing tiny black seeds
into a Cool Whip container
and imagined my loved ones
hurt or dying.
On the other side of town,
the man who had tended all our family ills:
pneumonia and earaches,
rashes and whopping cough,
broken arms and broken leg,
retained placenta,
morbid staph infection,
congestive heart failure,
had died in his sleep.
He had caught our babies,
and told us in a gentle, measured cadence,
“You need to prepare for your mother’s death.”
The day my doctor died,
I collected seeds to sow.
A hot August breeze rushed
about my bare shoulders.
A plastic tub sat at my feet
filled with seeds and crumbled pods,
the fruit of delicate spring flowers,
the propagation of countless
tender encounters.
On August 17, 2010, the Writer’s Almanac reported:
On this day in 1993, Random House offered Colin Powell $6 million for My American Journey — the largest advance ever for a celebrity memoir — and it became the fastest-selling book in the publisher’s history. Since then, the largest advance for an autobiography — and for any book ever — was for Bill Clinton’s My Life (2004), at $15 million.
I have to say I find this bit of information nauseating in its inequity. I angers me as much as the response to Dan Brown’s The Symbol, a truly lousy book that received all kinds of advance press and sold like wild fire the minute it came out. I’m surely envious as my first book has barely cleared $2000, but beyond that I know that talented writers, prize winning authors like Geraldine Brooks and Joan Didion, are not making this kind of money. Women especially are rarely afforded this kind of recognition. I wonder of Hillary and Sarah received such huge advances for their books?
Yes, I’m ranting and fuming. I realize a simple blog post is not sufficient to rectify this inequity, this lopsided, capitalistic appraisal of a good story. However, I could not contain my frustration nor access any equanimity in response to this phenomenal idiocy.
My recourse will be to go to my local independent bookstore and buy a well-written, worthy book by an obscure author, preferably a volume of poetry, for poets are the most under-appreciated, under-valued, under-paid writers of all. Want to join me?
On August 10, 2010, we paid off the mortgage on our home!
I’ve heard that in the 1950s, people used to have mortgage burning parties to celebrate the pay off date! We went to Baskin Robbins for hot fudge sundaes.
The moment was sweet and deserved a delicious acknowledgment. It had been a long haul though not the 30 years that are so often part of a home mortgage deal. We bought the place 10 years ago, in a moment of necessity AND impulsive enthusiasm. We planned to stay no more than 5 years. The interest was exorbitant–14.9%– but in the moment we ignored the significance of that number. Soon however, we began trying to refinance. That proved impossible for a number of reason, the primary one being we had sneaked into our mortgage during a tiny window when getting financing to buy a mobile was relatively easy. But that window slammed shut quickly, and by the time we were ready to refinance, there was no one lending. It actually took us several tries to realize this was the case. We have 3 files labeled: refinance with the year we applied. Once we got so close we could taste the relief, but it bombed.
Three months ago, we knew we had to do something. We are on a fixed income with barely any discretionary money, and we were pouring money down the bottomless well of interest, getting no where fast. We came up with a plan to sell our house and use the equity to pay off the loan and buy a mobile of lesser value. It was that decision that launched us into a wild ride that included many side trips–talking with trusted advisers and researching a myriad of options. Once we started to think more creatively, the solution emerged. We took a giant leap that admittedly involves some scrabbling on the other side, but we are singing joyfully and hopefully.
The mortgage is paid, and in one year, we will have also paid off our credit card debt. We have to work hard for one more year to manage the choices we made, but we are not giving our money to the interest monster any more, and our house is OURS! We’ve fallen in love with it again and look forward to the rainbows that so often appear in our meadow.
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