New Project: Triptychs

After several months of travel on and off and other obligations, I am now nestling back into my "real" life. Regular activities are starting up again now that it is season in Fort Myers, and I have renewed energy to pursue personal projects.

One of these projects is reading through old journals, saving only the important stuff (like the list of books I read or my impression of a concert of trip) as a way to purge all the things nobody else is going to give two hoots about. I had worked on this project during the pandemic, but have never returned as journals continued to accumulate. So I began in one dated July 2018. 

Phew. My life as a teacher was all consuming! It wasn't until I got to November 2018 and I read through the notes from the Sanibel Writer's Conference that I felt something opening up.  I found suggestions like this one: every day, make a list of 5 images to use in your writing. Another was make a list of ten words you come across and drop them into your writing.

I decided to combine these two ideas and I'm listing a total of ten, combination images and words, each day and then creating a poem the following morning. This is my new way of attempting to do my daily poem, which I have tried quite unsuccessfully to resurrect after falling off of it for many months.

In the part about my teaching, I came across an idea of a readers response in 15 words. It can be created like a diamond. I had used this with high school students, and was considering bringing it to my middle school readers, although whether I did or not is hard to know. I decided my project would be to use the 15 word diamond idea and create Triptychs by writing 3 of them from the images and words.

This has breathed new energy into me. The combination of these simple items accomplishes many things I need as a writer -- inspiration, dedicated awareness, and commitment. All my attempts to jump start myself in the past seemed to have failed miserably. In many ways, I was falling back on old ways, and it no longer worked. I needed something new.

I wrote my first Triptych on Friday, and followed with two more over the weekend. These are the ones I am presenting here, along with images that inspired me. I hope to get to the computer more often to post these, although I won't do all of them. Probably just the ones that hit!

Enjoy Triptychs #2 and #3

My Saturday Morning

granola crumbs on a plate

coffee in a souvenir mug

wisdom seeking journaling

fragile prayers

music

blue yellow read orange green

fish bubbles jellyfish coral

brighting painted pot

many colored

celosia

moorhen in the soft grass

sidewalk with little hills

wreath adorned flamingo

neighborhood walking

treasures

My Sunday Morning

Sunday morning on the lanai

clouds like watercolor mountains

Jupiter and Mars

repeated prayers

peace.

Sunday morning at the beach

tide out, wind blowing

tree sculpture shadows

leaf dewdrops

peace.

the singing crows all around

secure in the unknown

chant delicate reminder

I am

peace.

embers

 ...embers lifting from a fire.

--Ross Gay "Yellowjackets"

Today I decided it's time to get back to grabbing a line from something I've read and writing something related. I have a notebook specifically for that purpose, but don't get to it daily as intended. I wrote a short poem from the prompt above and thought that was it.

Then I read a chapter from Terry Tempest Williams' book The Glorians. The chapter was called "Dewdrops" and it was about taking a course in Japanese calligraphy. As I read what she wrote, the difficulties she was encountering, I felt I could relate. I had some of the same issues with Zentangle, something I tried and tried and had just about given up on.  Fortunately for me, I have an awesome art friend who is certified in Zentangle, and eventually I found my way, with her help, to how Zentangle works for me. The last two sessions provoked work I was so proud of they are still hanging on my refrigerator!

One of the things Terry mentions is the instructor said: One breath, one stroke. I liked that. 

Then I had this idea to use breathing to make a piece of art to go with the poem I had just written. Focusing on the idea of one breath, one stroke, I took a fine liner and a few brush pens and the next thing I knew, I had a simple creation. 

embers

lifting from a fire

thoughts

of something random

yet connected

that emerge

little fires

we have never

quite put out

Nature Sings

[Speaking of dandelions] They are little beacons of the it'll be okay, and if they had a soundtrack, it would be "O-o-o Child."

Ross Gay from his essay "Truly Overnight Sometimes It Seems"

I had a plan today to get back to Six Mile Cypress Slough, somewhere I haven't been since May, and decided I would go despite the 92% humidity. Right before I left, I read the Ross Gay essay noted above and I immediately knew I had a purpose: find plants that are singing a song.

Entering the slough, I felt an incredible amount of energy. I haven't been walking enough, so this felt like a real treat. Yes, it was muggy, but nothing I couldn't handle after living here for 26 years.

A Red Maple tree was the first to show up with a song:

Sing, sing a song

Make it simple to last your whole life long...

I walked deeper into the slough, and the next to sing out to me were a collection of Resurrection Ferns growing on the side of a Cypress tree. They were singing:

We are family
I've got all my sisters with me...

I walked the rest of the slough, 1.3 miles in all, and got back to my car dripping with sweat. I was feeling super inspired by this trip, and on the way home, I started thinking about the songs that were showing up. And that's when I realized there was a clear connection between them.

First, Ross Gay mentions "O-o-h Child" by the Five Stairsteps, one of the many songs that got me through my first year without Jim. I wrote about it on this blog post from October 18, 2024. 

https://helenbluespace.blogspot.com/2024/10/up-n-down.html

Next, I thought about the Carpenters' "Sing a Song." Not one I often think about, and when I do, I recall my brother Richie's 4th grade class singing it at his funeral in 1975.

Finally, "We are Family" of which I have no real personal connection. However, I remembered my friend Melody telling me that when she got together with her three sisters, they would sing this song. Sadly, Melody's sister Beth made her transition this past week.

Then I knew what was happening. Jim, Richie, and Beth are our angels and ancestors. They are always with us and as a reminder, sometimes nature sings their songs.

Voice

The louder the wind howled, the stronger their voices became, until their singing seemed to soften the blow of the storm.

-Terry Tempest Williams 

I've recently been making my way slowly through a new book by Terry Tempest Williams called The Glorians. If you're wondering what a glorian is, rest assured that it is not a word you would know, as it is one that came to Williams when she was watching an ant carrying a flower petal. She has determined a glorian is one of three things, or perhaps a combination of any of these:

an encounter

a message

anything that reveals the force of life

This has been deeply inspiring to me, and as I read each chapter, I grab onto some kind of message or meaning for me, then I reflect on it. I am about half way through the book, and today I realized I wanted to share what I wrote.

In a chapter called "Wind Song," Williams relates a tale of Harvard Divinity Students making a trip to Utah. One of the places they went were the Sun Tunnels. As described by Williams:

The Sun Tunnels are a remote piece of land art made by Nancy Holt...four concrete cylinders, eighteen feet in length and nine feet in diameter...arranged in an open cross formation aligned to frame the sun on the horizon during the summer and winter solstices.

While the students were there, a terrific sandstorm blew in with winds at 85 mph. The students wanted to stay, so they made their way into one of the tunnels where they sang until the storm called down. 

Combining this reading with the fact that Jim and I were married 40 years ago tomorrow, I wrote the following:

This final sentence (quoted above) spoke to me deeply. 

I sit on the cusp of our 40th wedding anniversary and 

all I can think is that Jim and I always raised our voices together 

against life's storms in order to soften them. 

And now I have found I've had to increase my own voice 

as his is silenced except in my heart. 

I have become the one who has to stand strong, seemingly alone.

But not really.

What We Own

 The world is beyond us even as we own it.

--Jack Gilbert "Winter Happiness in Greece"

This morning I was determined to get to the beach, where I haven't been since Easter. But when I woke up today I was checking weather and found that the air quality is quite poor out there. I opened up my sliders and the heat, humidity, and air full of Saharan dust and smoke remnants from various fires felt stifling. I realized that walking outdoors was not going to be in my best interest. I've already noticed some symptoms of the  Saharan dust in my eyes and lungs, and I didn't need to invite trouble.

My usual routine is to step outside when I first get up and say my prayers. Today I stood in front of the altar I have in my bedroom, a wonderful little arrangement I sometimes forget to honor. Today was a return to what serves me. It's weird how sometimes things are right in front of my face and I fail to notice them. So, of course I had to write about that.

It was a returning back

to things which have sustained me

a beautiful quote from a medieval mystic

a stone pulled from the New River with

 the ancient rune symbol for Courage

my dad's rosary he got at the Vatican

lying across a hunk of brain coral

Jim plucked from the reef at Chemuyil

and so much more

reminding me I have all I need

all the touchstones and words

gentle meaningful items.

How easily we get lost in the beyond

forgetting what we own.

A Moment

 We lose everything, but we make harvest of the consequence it was to us.

--Jack Gilbert "Moreover"

When I read the poem mentioned above, I pulled one line out and thought, hey, I should write a Golden Shovel poem for this. You may or may not know or remember that a Golden Shovel poem is one where each word of a sentence for the end words in each line of a poem.

Today I read another Gilbert poem called "The Manger of Incidentals." I pulled out the golden lines and considered them. I realized there could be a connection between the two. So I wrote the Golden Shovel poem.

We are but a moment. We

love as if we will never lose

what we love, for everything

changes, transforms, but

we are oblivious, willfully blind. We

believe in forever. We make

plans, build things, and harvest

the return joyfully, ignoring the fact of

what may disappear, the

mourning, the grief, and consequence

of loving with a full heart. It

is not foolish, however, it was

the wise way, for this love survives, to

be a moment, a presence, to be everlasting us.

Declaration

 Who cares really what you think about babies, whether you find them a blessing, a bore, a bramble, a key, a window, a door, a wormhole, a wonder, a Whac-a-Mole, a babble, a blather, adorbs or a bad idea...

-Ross Gay "Babies Again (Seriously)"

As part of my journaling practice, I've been reading a selection from Ross Gay's The Book of (More) Delights. I read the essayette (as he calls them) and then I make note of what literary techniques he is using to creatively get his point across. I then use his theme as a prompt for myself, or a try to imitate something I think he is doing that is fun, unique, a challenge, or just plain good writing. The alternate is to use my dissection to write my own poem, which is what I did today.

In today's essay (the opening graces the top of this blog), he does this listing thing twice, where he goes a little off the rails with it. But it is what makes his description of an encounter with a baby being carried on a mother's hip so enchanting. I was coming to the conclusion that I could not do what he does because I don't have his voice.

Then I stopped and thought...well, that is just a ridiculous idea. 

What would I tell my students? Try it. So I did:

I came to the realization
that no matter

how much I study and

analyze the essays

of Ross Gay

I will never be able

to do what he does 

without sounding stupid.

It's because of his voice.

And since I have made this

declaration

in my voice

I will add

that whether you find my

poems delightful, dippy, dopey,

drippy, repetitive, reachable,

rusty, ridiculous, or just fine,

thank you --

     they are mine -- seriously!