A Renewal of Sorts

As I have been rediscovering the world of Blogging, I just remembered this abandoned Blog of mine. Galatea—A place where I hope to create, and share, art in a living form. My art has taken a back seat these past three years as my life whorled through a roller-coaster ride that was all together ill-suited for artistic endeavors. First I was in too deep a depression from losing a boyfriend, my job, and my home to be able to find the inner artist. Then I was too busy putting it all back together. Now I find I am busy moving it forward. I am now married, working a wonderful full-time job and working on my M.Ed. Life is busy and wonderful, but missing art. William Stafford once said “there are writers who write and writers who have not yet made the time”. I hope to remember that statement and start to make the time. This blog should help. I also hope to increase my knitting activity and post beautiful pictures here to share, as well as my cooking expeditions. I hope you enjoy my blog. And I hope this blog helps me to be creative again. Until next time, -Heather

Back in Black, Iron Man 2 cut loose from the noose

I am just sitting down to my computer after watching “Iron Man 2”. I have to say that the movie scores monstrous points for its use of Russian accents on a totally bad ass villain and Robert Downy Jr. is still as hot as ever. But, when it comes down to cinematic delight, I was taken aback by its hyperbolic portrayal of Tony Stark from the original “Iron Man”, and that is no mean feat.

The movie was rushed, staged, and had too many villains and super heroes for my taste. I was antsily tossing in my seat throughout the first half of the film, but the second half regained the pick-up intensity that I enjoyed in the first film. The action scenes were both good and bad, the dialogue witty, but wanting…

I definitely want to give the movie a second viewing before I pass true judgment upon it. I believe that watching a movie on a Monday evening in a shabby movie theater (though the tickets were free) after a long day’s work and nearly comatose from a large dinner has its effects on my ability to enjoy a movie to its fullest. Over all, though, I’m pretty sure that this will be added to my collection of AC/DC action packed movies that make for productive knitting afternoons.

My thoughts after reading William Stafford's "You Must Revise Your Life"

I realized this week that I am a writer. William Stafford has helped me to come to this conclusion. I may not have had many publications, but I have been able to express myself through words on the page in ways that have moved myself and the few people with whom I have shared my poetry. Writing is my outlet for the abundance of emotion floating around in my psyche; it is my medium for communicating with loved ones when I feel that my verbal articulation is sub-sub par. It is how I am able to find the true value of my experiences when they seem lost to me. Because I love to write, and write because I have to, I am a writer.

William Stafford’s book You Must Revise Your Life is a beautifully crafted guide to the writer that I have been searching for my whole adult life. Its pages are filled with the most spiritually fulfilling chapters that explain what life should be like for a writer—without actually telling the reader what to do. His tone is fatherly, his presence wise, and with the turn of every page I felt the desire to cultivate my own writing as a tribute to his brilliant words.

As the title of the book suggests, Stafford does make the claim that writers need to change their lives in order to produce effective writing. Some may already have the right attitude, and perhaps they are the ones already publishing their works. But for many, I believe they fall into the same traps I did, they had their eyes on the wrong prize. In the chapter titled “ A Witness for Poetry” Stafford writes “Instead of trying to achieve satisfaction by fitting society’s hurdles I think that the artist is the one who has chosen another kind of satisfaction that is so much interiorized that it never fails.” (65) The prize that many people seek is publication and formal laudation. The true prize should be the satisfaction of expressing yourself through your poem as you are writing.

The desire to be published is so strong for the general mass that students try to write what they think will get them an “A” and teachers encourage students based on what they think will be publishable. Stafford’s teaching theory is far removed from this philosophy. As a teacher, he preferred to be regarded as a peer. He didn’t write comments on his students’ papers other than marking weaknesses and strengths that the students could later revise themselves. Through this method he would help guide his students towards developing their own voices.
Stafford believed that writing was organic. He believed that if you listened, the words would come together that were necessary to complete a thought. He describes writing as “ seek[ing] its own form…how a phrase when you speak it or write it begins to call up another phrase, or how a word suddenly finds another word that its syllables like to associate with. (21) Because of the magical nature of writing, the meaning of a poem need not be formulated before beginning the first line. Colors may emerge in your poem with now significant reason to you, until you look back and realize that it is the color of the flower sitting outside of your window.

As a teacher, Stafford wrote his book as a guide to fellow poets. His notion that the prize is the actual act of writing and the publications and awards are merely by-products is profound and inspiring. His philosophy that the meaning will find its way through your pen gives hope to the many opening lines that appear to have to direction and are never given a chance. You Must Revise Your Life is a book that should be read by anyone struggling with the decision to write and by anyone faced with a classroom full of hungry eyes awaiting instruction. I knew when I was 12 that I was a writer. I have written many poems, a few short stories, and numerous essays. Since reading this book, I have made the leap and revised my own life. I am now finally able to face the world as a writer and a lover of language.



Here is a poem that I wrote while reading this book:

Upon Reading William Stafford’s “Yellow Cars”

I listen gently to the rain—I
always have a pen on hand
but not always paper.
The thoughts flow quicker than
I can understand them, emotions;
raw and un-expressed.
I read of a yellow car, I see it drive by,
I turn my head and find that I am happy.
The rain hits softly on my third story window—
I wonder how the ground feels
underneath your feet as you walk to our door.

Rocking my World

I was on my favorite knitting website, ravelry.com, when I entered into a forum that a friend of mine told me about. The group is for people with wrist problems who love to knit. I was so excited that I might be able to find a simple answer there for my wrist problems by the resident specialist and veteran knitters. Boy was I wrong. I am now convinced (I doubted until now) that I do not have carpel tunnel. What I may have, however, is a gluten intolerance. That was not at all what I wanted to hear. I have taken the advice given to me, and I have been on a gluten free diet now for almost two weeks. The days go by slowly; the memory of warm, baked, gooey pizza is slowly fading from my mind and I wonder if I am just beginning to be paranoid about my eating habits have been all wrong, or if I am really a having a breakthrough regarding better health.

I have been doing massive amounts of research on nutrition related health issues, most of it grueling and contradictory. But what I begun to learn is learning about health concerns is no different from writing a research paper or essay. There are many sources on the internet; all with their own personally, politically, and financially charged motives for writing their articles. I have found that personal blogs, with no medical background to back up their findings, are just as important and relevant as WebMD or any other source of medical information. Combining our unique bodies with our physicians personal philosophies (yes, physicians all have their own belief systems that sway the opinions of their practice) it is sometimes hard to know is something is being over looked. I love my PCP, but I cannot count on her eyes alone to detect everything that may be wrong with me. Between the two of us, we never made the leap that perhaps my leg cramps, wrist pain, asthma, etc. were all related let alone that they could be caused by a gluten intolerance.

Perhaps I’m jumping the gun. I may not have a gluten intolerance after all. I may simply be putting myself through a torturous routine for nothing. Some days I wish that at the end of all this (6 weeks or so) the result is positive. If it is, I may have to continue with a limited diet, but then my over-all health will improve. Other days…well lets just say that I really love food, and I really love to cook. This has been an interesting challenge so far, and this is the first time that I have been able to stick to a diet for more than two days. I have to say, I am rather proud of myself for being able to watch as everyone else eats fried calamari, gravy smothered chicken, grilled cheese and pasta salad . I’ll keep you posted on how it goes. Until then, I am working on an essay about William Stafford and his book You Must Revise Your Life. It is less demanding and exacting than the tone of the title suggests. I look forward to seeing how my thoughts work their way onto the page.

Meditating on a few words

Writing poetry can sometimes be a form of release, and other times it can simply be a practice of meditation. I say meditation because so many people have suggested that I learn and when I work on my writing I notice that my thoughts are in the center of my mind, exactly where they are supposed to be while meditating. When I write, the world loses its grasp on me and I temporarily move into the ether—finding my path as it is laid before me by the Muses. As I begin to write, the words before me create emotions that I did not always know were there, and when true metamorphosis occurs, they become full sentiments carrying with them the ability to speak to people without ever needing to know who I am. I wish that I had the skills to create such full metamorphoses and watch, as Pygmalion did, my art and love come to life and be my partner for future creations. For this reason, I have begun to set aside time to practice meditation, as suggested, and to write on a more regular basis. Only with practice will my skill grow, and only with humble mastery will I ever achieve the quality of writing that is able to live and breath on its own.

Here is poem that I wrote a little over a year ago, and have just now come back to it. I wrote it late in the night, alone, and trying to find a place of solitude and comfort in my head. I struggle with the title, and perhaps a few lines, but more or less, I feel very strongly about this one.


Without

I am writing in third person
because I have forgotten myself.

She walks along the shoreline,
the moon in full orb,
swelling her body into a natural pool.

Sometimes I cannot remember
what was a dream and what was real.

Alone on the beach
she watches the night Jasmine bloom,
the fragrance reminds her
of a perfume she once wore.

I lie awake at night dreaming;
my reality lost, my body numb,
senseless and aware of the whole room,
naked and cold.

Through Khaos comes Eris

Last week Isaiah I and had the pleasure of getting our bedroom painted. We picked out the color several weeks ago, a brilliant slate blue called “greyhound”. With the prospect of a freshly painted room, and no longer having to live with walls painted a 25 year old pink, we embarked on the journey of disassembling our entire bedroom and implanting into our living room. Thus the war of the roses began. As our apartment grew more and more chaotic our sense of sanity began to wane until we couldn’t look at each other without exchanging battle-ready glares. Even our cat, Ogden, was expressing his unease by crying all day and attacking our feet. Two nights into the mess, and two nights before Valentine’s Day, I thought for sure that we were done for. The pressure of life was breaking us and we could not recognize how deeply our outer stimuli were affecting our moods and our affections for one another. When Valentine’s Day came around, and I had already put in two 10 hour days of hard-rocking retail work, I just wanted to run my car into a very firm building so that I could take a vacation from everything in a room where no body could talk to me. When I left my house, I was in tears, I couldn’t stand looking at my boyfriend, my cat had become a man-eating tiger, my apartment still looked like a high-class dumpster, and I loathed the idea of going to work. When I can home, though, Isaiah had spent the entire day putting the furniture back together and had a beautiful spread of take-out Thai food waiting for me on the coffee table; my favorite place to eat dinner. At that point we began talking—not yelling—and we realized how much a well groomed home could affect our demeanors, even the cat’s. Life since then has been back to normal. Our relationship is better because of the hardship of the weekend, and our room is more beautiful than I had hoped. I continue to desire more renovations of the old place, but my apartment is really becoming a home. It’s amazing how, with worldly order, strife subsides and inner peace blossoms, and my cat goes back to a toe-free diet.

It's a Chronic Life

The most unusual side effect of chronic pain is that, after having it for long enough, you no longer notice that it’s there. That is until you have a temporary period of release. But even then, when it comes back, you think for just one moment “this is a normal feeling”. I have had chronic wrist pain for 10 years now, which is amazing because I am only 24. Eight years ago I had surgery, which helped more than I could have hoped for, but I still have pain almost everyday. Some days it’s just a little pain, perhaps a 0.5 on a scale of 1-10. But other days, like today, it will go up to an 8. Rarely since the surgery it will be at a 10. Over the years I have willed myself to accept the pain, just as I accept the fact that I have asthma. Neither health issue should get in the way of me living my life. They do, however, create setbacks. I run slower than other people, I cannot travel as far, and I cannot always hold my pen with grace or knit a row with even tension. It is said that the first step of recovery is acknowledging that you have a problem. Well, I may never be rid of my wrist pain, but coming to terms with it has helped me to learn how to live with it. Life with chronic pain can feel like it’s long, but it’s really too short to make it your focal point.