poetry and smash books

I am having so much fun over here in the land of poem it out and smash books and cheese and my mother's cooking that I wanted to check in with you in a video today.

Notes from the video:

I talk about how I am using yet another Smash journal (this time the "mod black" smash folio) to catch all of my ideas and inspiration about poeming. (And I share a peek at the new HUGE Smash book you can find here.) Best prices on the new large ones might be at Michael's with your big coupon of the week (oh and I want to share that I get the weekly coupons by email and just learned that you can just open the link to the coupon on your phone and they can literally scan your phone!).

I read a poem by William Stafford (and a short excerpt from an interview with him) from the book The Answers Are Inside the Mountains: Meditations on the Writing Life by William Stafford. 

*****

And after several emails asking me to share book and journaling recommendations, especially poets/books to begin with when one wants to really become friends with poetry, I decided to do two things:

1) Begin a new series of posts about some of my favorite poetry collections and poets and books about writing and poetry. Look for the first in this series next week.

2) Create an Amazon store to have a place where you can easily go and check out the poets (and a few other god things) that I recommend. There is a section called "Poetry: Start Here" that lists the books I think might help you fall in love with poetry. There is another ever-growing section of the books of poetry I turn to again and again. (And as a writer, I feel really moved to say: Consider buying your books from your local independent bookstore or checking them out of the library.) And just to be totally clear: If you do buy through my Amazon store, note that it is part of the Amazon affiliate program, which means I get a small commission of your purchase. Next week, I will share a bit about the dream I had in my 20s of opening up a bookstore called "Curled Up (With a Good Book)" and how adding things to this simple Amazon store feels a teeny bit like choosing books to fill that fictional bookstore.

May your day be full of lightness and moments to just rest. Thank you for visiting my corner over here...

Liz

PS speaking of poetry, have you seen what Maya Stein is up to? oh my goodness how that woman inspires me.

PPS if you are new to my corner of the blog world and want to find out more about my wholeness practice and how the Smash journals are helping me with it, check out this series of posts on journaling.

creating space for joy

i opened my eyes (my heart) and took this photo . lake superior, april 2012

My daughter is discovering ways to move sand with rocks and sticks as she plays with her grandparents along the shore of Lake Superior. I stand at the water a few feet away, eyes closed, stomach and heart holding a few heavy pieces of this life. I listen to their laughter, the lapping water, and then for just a moment I hear only my breathing. 

I take a few deep breaths right here, feeling my feet beneath me, the sun warming my body, and the wind gently holding me. I focus on the space I create with each breath. Space inside me. Space around my heart. And with an exhale, I let pieces of what I do not need to carry slip out of me and sink into the earth.

Seeking a tactile reminder of this moment, I open my eyes and take a photo of a woman standing in the quiet joy that is creating space to move out of her head and back into her heart.

*****

Slowing down and noticing my breathing is one of my access points to joy. When I quiet the chatter in my head by sinking into the moment, I am gently pushed to see the beauty of simply being here. I notice the world around me, and my senses so often guide me to joy. And when I open up to joy, I feel myself mending and shedding the pieces inside me that no longer serve.

But it is a practice, this seeking joy stuff. It is something I have to cultivate and create space for. Coming to the page and writing about the moments where I find it (and documenting those moments through photos) help to remind me to listen to what I know and to keep on practicing.

*****

This week, Jennifer Louden, Marianne Elliott, and Susannah Conway have invited a few people to share some thoughts on creative joy. (Thank you ladies for asking me to play along as I love this topic!) The three of them are hosting a retreat on this juicy theme in June with workshops in writing, yoga, and photography. (Retreats about joy are a very very good thing!) Find out more about it here. And if you tweet, check out the #creativejoy hashtag this week.

she had a really (really) good day

here

glimpses of a toddler dinner

Last night, I dreamed an owl stood guard atop the wardrobe in the room I am sleeping in in this house across the country from my home. I keep thinking about her standing there (surrounded by a few small hopping swallows that had snuck in with her), and I see her orange beak and regal, certain presence.

Tonight, as I sit with these new rhythms and textures that surround me, I will close my eyes and ask her to come again in the hopes that she will guide me as I find my way.

(Ellie and I are tucked inside my mom's gorgeous new home that she and her partner Steve built in Northern Wisconsin. We are staying for a bit so Ellie can sink into some good time with her grandparents and I can work and maybe even rest. Looking forward to sharing more from here.)

five (really) good things

the buddha in the messy garden (playing in Swan Dive)

It's been a while since I've made a list of good things, and as things feel a bit busy as Ellie and I get ready to travel to my mom's for a while this week, I thought it might be fun to write in a list today. Might do it every day this week in fact.

1) Picnik closing this month has me pouting a bit over here. But through Viv's Swan Dive class, I discovered PicMonkey and am having a wee bit of fun. (And spending time with Viv and her kind, inspiring teaching style makes me so so happy.)

2) I attended Rachel Cole's Well-Fed Woman Retreatshop in Seattle this Saturday. Rachel is so genuine and real and open-hearted in person, and I really enjoyed her workshop and her approach. And I can't stop thinking about this question: What are you truly hungry for? It was a new lens for me to use to look inward and unpack things a bit in there. Good stuff. She has three more cities left on her tour (Chicago, Minneapolis, and LA), and if you live near those cities, you should get thee to her workshop!

3) Ali's 52 Creative Lifts newsletter is full of juicy goodness every week. Last week, she wrote about the idea of thinking about your creative army. LOVE THIS! You can read it here (and then be sure to sign up for her newsletter here so you don't miss any of these inspiring must reads).

4) The students in Poem It Out are inspiring me so much with the poems and poem notes they are writing in this course. And I am having so much fun sharing my love of poetry with them. (As in I am basically dancing over here as I share this content with them. I.love.poetry.)

5) And if you would have told me three years ago that watching a 22-month-old little girl find 12 plastic eggs each filled with two M&Ms would be just about the most fun a grown-up girl could have on a Sunday morning up much earlier than she had hoped to be...well...maybe I would have believed you but I don't think I would have ever known that it would make my heart feel so big. 

*****

Every now and then I make a list of five (really) good things. Sometimes I make this list just because I want to make a list (like today) and share some good things. But often times I do this practice because even on the days when there seems to be more crappy stuff than beauty, the beauty, well, it is still there. And finding it is how I keep my heart just a bit more open these days...

here

now: neighborhood children giggle and yell and run under the peeking through grey sunshine as i sit cross-legged in the middle of my bed wrapping wire around beads and stringing them together to soon be sent across the sea to become a talisman of words another wants to hold close to her heart.

yesterday: a cafe full of chattering, eating, meeting people, i weave between the tables trying to find a place to call my own where i can sip this mug of chai and write and remind myself that i do know what step to take next even though the uncertainty sometimes slips around me like a cloak i don't remember buying in a dusty flea market another lifetime ago.

the day before: when she refuses to get in the car, we walk along the sidewalk passing storefronts and cars with "you have to hold my hand" said aloud on repeat, and then we turn and do it again because she has no need to understand the stacked up inside my head to do list that includes "picking up the taxes" on the line right after the doctor's appointment we just completed.

just keep writing...

a little over a year ago, i wrote this short poem and shared it in this space:

today,

as i sit inside the missing

spring brings with her each year,

i pretend all of who you are

has arrived by chickadee wing

and your chosen path

is to slowly blow open

each petal of the crocus

As the rain falls while I write and answer emails from women who are opening their hearts to healing through creativity and sharing their stories, my own stories keep coming up and for some reason I thought of this poem.

Spring is all about my grandmother. So often as a child I would visit my grandparents in South Carolina during spreak break. Almost everything would be in bloom. And she would constantly comment on every single blooming plant we would see in their yard or driving in the car or walking by the lake. She was always chattering about the plants and the trees and the birds...and now I see she was always teaching me.

She died on a day in April seven years ago. And when I stepped out of the airport in South Carolina and stood on the curb waiting for my mother, I was forced to see that everything was in bloom. Everything. Purple. Red. Yellow. Orange. Fuschia. Light pink. Dogwoods. Azalias. Violets. Tulips. Redbud. Everywhere. When my mom drove me to the funeral home, I felt almost blinded by all the color that was such an over the top contrast to my cracked and starting to feel like it was crumbling heart.

When I returned home after her funeral, I didn't really notice Spring and how it gave way to Summer in my corner of the world. I was in the deep well of grief. But somewhere in that well, I found myself tumbling across a blog and then another one. And a bit of light started to get in. I started to carry my camera with me. I began to take notes about what I was seeing in the world. And the grief was thick. But I kept practicing yoga and taking photos and writing so I would not drown in it. And light kept coming in to those cracks in my heart that somehow did not crumble.

Almost a year later, I found myself somewhat bewildered that Spring would arrive without my grandmother's voice telling me about the flowers she had found blooming during her morning walk around her yard. Yet, Spring returned. And those flowers still bloomed across the country in my grandfather's yard. On the anniversary of her death, Gramps and I talked about how much we both missed her, and he told me the lily of the valley were almost ready to bloom.

On a day in March the following year, I remember sitting in the leather chair in my home office, looking out the window, and thinking about how the tulips were just pushing upward outside in my yard. And the missing hit me so hard I couldn't breathe for a moment. I just sat there with my heart hurting and my brain remembering. And I heard the chickadees singing in the cherry tree outside and this image came to me: Perhaps all that she was that is scattered in the world...scattered because of each breath, each conversation, each life path that crossed hers, each person that her children and grandchildren touched...that all of who she was is now part of the spirit that reminds each tulip and crocus and dandelion to bloom. 

I had the thought that perhaps she has just become part of Spring. Maybe she even is Spring now.

I sat there in that chair and wrote this poem:

On this day,
when the sun slips through the gray
and I hear the tulips push upward,
I know this:
Though I ache to lay my hand in yours
and walk around your yard
listening
as you name each stretching green shoot,
you are happier dancing in the wind
whispering
grow, grow.

Today, as I sit here in a coffee shop writing as the rain falls and the tulips begin to bloom because Spring has arrived again, I am thinking about how this image of my grandmother reminding Spring to begin keeps finding its way into my writing and my poetry. I am thinking about how this image is like a prayer that is helping to stitch my heart together in the way that life does because we make the choice to keep paying attention and living and noticing how simply brilliant it is.

And as I sit here thinking about how Spring has returned again, I am thinking about how I am here doing this work, living this life, because I spent time in that deep well of grief and found my way out through breathing and noticing and sharing the stories and listening. And I kept walking the path, and with each turn there would be someone else standing holding her story like a lantern saying, “Me too. I know. Yes. Me too.” And I found my way. 

I sit here watching the rain and wanting to get so damn mad at Spring for appearing again and reminding me of the deep missing, but I can I hear her whispering “grow, grow,” and so I just keep writing and finding my way.

over here poeming (and artfesting)

I'm having one of those "oh my goodness I am so lucky" sort of days as I am tucked into a quiet I am the only one around living room in a bed & breakfast in Port Townsend watching the rain roll in across Puget Sound as I work on the Poem It Out ecourse.

This trip was a bit unexpected (in a very welcomed way) and here I am with a day and two nights at the B&B before I take Mindy Lacefield's workshop at Artfest on Saturday and then head home. While I am here, I am connecting with friends who are here for Artfest or live nearby and through it all I am coming back to center through laughter and companionship and solitude and words. 

The truth is, life is full of so much that isn't said in a blog or in a Facebook status, and I really needed this time to just take care of me. 

Today, I am surrounded by poems and prompts and am actually dancing with excitement about this new class. I suppose one might even say that today I am in fact poeming it out over here. My current favorite collection of poetry is called What Have You Lost? edited by Naomi Shihab Nye. This book is full of laugh out loud poems and poems that take my breath away with their exquisite sadness. I am soaking up its inspiration...

And you? What are you up to over there in your corner of the world?