While my daughter was at piano ...

Photo by NezTez, Flickr Creative Commons

Shoe Shopping

Why can’t

new shoes choose

me, like my old dog 

at the pound: come press

against my shins?

Silver sandals smirk

at my shabby

loafers; plum pumps sigh

as I pass. So many puzzles

here: Do red flats go

with jeans? Do canvas stripes

go with me? Who

buys such dangerous

wedges? I try nothing 

on. Next door: solace 

at the office supply. Here 

are pens: time-tested Bics, 

retractable PaperMates, 

a new model called InkJoy 

tied to a string

for sampling. Green

rollerball claims

me with gloss

body, soft grip, fat

physique. In the streetlight,

I open it, draw spirals

on my sole, smell

the tip. Later, I use

it to write

a poem.

It fits.

Stephanie Parsley

February 21, 2012

Always With Love

For my birthday in August, I bought myself pens and a new notebook, which I wrote in for a week before setting it down, until now, more than three months later. Today I read the first entry and found it worth sharing, if only with myself and any other lost, post-transition writers who find themselves wondering if they ever were a writer, and if they'll ever be again.

Happy 44th birthday to me -- new pens and a notebook -- and so long I have been away. Even standing in front of the pens at Office Depot made my torso tighten, as though I could select the wrong instrument, when the whole point is that any pen, any paper, will do as long as they are moving together in this way beneath my right hand.

In my left arm, a baby girl nurses. Last night I thought she would suck the life out of me, that each additional 10 minutes of sleep I lost to her restlessness was 10 minutes off of my very life. She was awake much of the night. At some point, I became at peace with her wakefulness, put a loving hand on her belly, snuggled her to me, and we slept. Now, it is well near 9:15 at night again, and it is late for a baby to be up, and she has napped little today, and it seems like I'll never get my life back.

But I know from experience -- from the 13-year-old girl in the next room -- that it will fly, the time, and that one day this sweet one will mouth to me silently as I enter the school she is exiting with friends, "What are you doing here?" and not in a happy-surprised sort of way but in an are-you-insane-coming-near-me-in-my-public-realm sort of way, followed by such time in the car, in our private realm, when she will complain of needing new jeans today, and would I take her to Chick-Fil-a before her piano lesson. Oh, time, you are the trickster.

As I write this, I am surrounded by piles of dirty clothes, boxes and boxes, and disgruntled animals -- cat rolling on my bed, dog sighing beside me on the floor -- and more boxes, full of the clutter we've accumulated in the American fashion. It is overwhelming.

But in the back of this new-to-us house, near the hot kitchen, lies an office-y room in which I shall set a table and a chair and some books. I will go there each day and work. I will ask, and pray, and hope, and write, and revise. And I will know that it is what it is, this life, so hilly and uneven with its high highs and low lows, but always with love. Love. Well, most of the time at least.

Art Arises From the Ordinary

Winter squash bread. Photo by: Stephanie Parsley.

My highly poetic friend, Nancy Bo Flood, wrote an impromptu Hello poem last week to our online critique group. With Nancy's nudging, others replied with their own Hello poems, really just a quick glimpse into their lives at that moment. These were fun to read. Here's a word-photo of my weekend trip home to North Texas ... and then back to the big city. Thanks, Nancy, for the creative inspiration!


Home calls,
but when I get here:
couch, rugs, halls
all dust and dog hair.

Wash and vacuum,
good enough,
skip the bathrooms,
get Christmas up.

Snuggle warm,
bask in glowing
'til Sunday morning's
goodbye, going.

Try one! Pause and take a word picture of what you are doing, thinking, feeling. Then send it to a few friends and encourage them to share their own. Art arises from the ordinary.

Window Watching



Photo by: mark falardeau

 


 












Condominium Windows at Night

Blessings to you in your soft white kitchen,
and to you in the next one over,
synchronized women
pouring water,
spreading butter,
washing hands.

Blessings to you, shirtless man,
placing your white, white towel
on its hook beside two other
white, white towels.
I'm sorry you saw me watching,
but I was walking my dog, looking up,
and your window shone.

Blessings to you of the darkened room and
tall bed shadowed blue with evening
news.

And to you of the incandescent
Christmas tree in early November.

And to you sitting alone at the ornate table.

Blessings to you of brown couch and bare feet,
stretched legs mingled with white poodle.
And to the sleeping poodle, too,
blessings.

Blessings.

© 2010 Stephanie Parsley

Dear Dallas

Dear Dallas,

Nearly a decade has passed since I fled

your potholed streets and stony store clerks.

I'd buried a daughter and a marriage here,

and I didn't look back.

A new town welcomed me, all warm-red brick 

and tall live oaks thick with dove.

There, church bells rang out hymns

four times a day. My daughter played

with neighbor kids until dusk.

Random old people struck up

conversations in the grocery line.

It was impossible to be lonely.

I married and began to laugh again,

grew stronger, stood taller, felt safer.

But now, against my will and

because of it, and to do what is right

(because that's what I do),

I've come back to you, Dallas.

My first week here, I wore my shell

and invisible weapons,

icy stare and shoulder chip

weighing me down.

Yet you are somehow softer than I remember:

Gentlemen hold open doors,

receptionists call me by name,

you are filled with people who are just plain

people.

Sure, I expect the bottom to fall out of my car soon
because of your bumpy, neglected streets,
and that blonde woman in the Mercedes
cut me off in the carpool line this morning,
almost side-swiping a teacher-on-foot in the process.
But the teacher smiled and mouthed, "Thank you,"
when I stopped to let her cross in front of me,
and the AT&T guy was nice enough yesterday.
Of course, he'll bill me for that.

Photo: nthomas76207

Laurie Halse Anderson's WFMAD

Write fifteen minutes a day for the whole month of August. It's that simple. Blogging doesn't count. Just write. Don't resist, criticize yourself, or question your work or your progress. It's time to write. I'm doing it. Why don't you come too? Thank you, Laurie Halse Anderson! I can do this!

Hammock Time

She's been waiting for a storm to come ever since I brought a hammock home last month. Her desire: to swing on the front porch during a big rainstorm.

Today after lunch, thunder tapped its toes somewhere off in the distance. She checked the Weather Channel and confirmed that a big red blob of a storm was coming our way. We rushed to our positions on the porch, she to her hammock, sandwich in hand, and I to a chair nearby. The sky was gray all around. Lightning flashed now and then, and a few big thunderclaps made the cat meow to be let inside. Enough fat raindrops fell to dot the sidewalk, then evaporate. We waited.

After 20 minutes or so, she ran back inside to check the Weather Channel again. Alas, that big storm had just poof! disappeared. These things sometimes happen in North Texas. Still, we relished the reprieve from 100-degree heat and ate some watermelon on the porch, she in her hammock, I in my chair nearby.