Gateway

Red Doors*
by Joe Bueter

The smell some nights

_____ could’ve simply been the marsh.
_____ Or crustaceans and bacon grease.

Once insignificant of sin, like all land,
_____ god visited this friable acreage twice—
_____ once in making, once in audit—

when god did range. Both times were
_____ quick, maybe efficient.

Recently the county painted a bike lane
_____ for the courageous, the driven self-healers
_____ of port-to-port rides, sponsored signs.

Could’ve been their sweat or
_____ the sweet-smelling diesel of barges on the river
_____ or of 3 a.m. truck races passing each red light

of the abandoned Coast Guard relay towers.
_____ Could’ve been the wind from the city

resting here. Could’ve been the two executed men
_____ slowly sinking under the cordgrass and the light
_____ inodorous spiders, who stepped

with their incredible knees
_____ over the metal-blown wounds of flesh and sand.
_____ The smell at night could’ve been all of this.

But not the locks of the new, red-doored condos—
_____ all of them red against pestilence.

*Originally published in Nasheville Review, Summer 2011 issue

A poem by a friend, previously known as Young Joe Bueter or, if you're feeling familiar, YJB.  But since he just had another birthday, this nickname is now stretching things a bit.  In any case, Happy Birthday Joe!  Youth and wisdom both look good on ya.

And...we're back!  I am up knitting, because I knit in the summer and jog in the winter - go freakin figure.  I've been listening to an episode of On Being that Amelia has been talking about for a month.  I promise to give the impression soon that I talk to people other than Amelia.  See?  Here I am talking to a Seahawk.

There are zero Amelia's on this bench

Listening to the episode, Remembering God, I had my mind sufficiently blown open by Christian Wiman's thoughts on religion, community, and the language we use to touch on what is sacred.  What's that?  Some tidbits, you say?  I thought you'd never ask.

On needing to go to church and have specifically religious elements in his life, he says, "One of the ways we know that our spiritual inclinations are valid is that they lead us out of ourselves."

On needing religion, but outgrowing orthodoxy, he says:

"There is some combination of austerity and clarity that I think we as a whole culture are grasping toward and the main movement of the culture is against it [the political parties' trash talk, etc]...but I do think there is this huge cultural grasping toward something that won't be so fru-fru, and slip out of our grasp, and just make us think it's ridiculous, and yet also something that is open enough to engage those parts of us that we don't understand."

I don't really have a good segue back from the marvelous early Texas-Baptist fed heart of this man, except to say, you should probably listen to the whole gorgeous episode.  Knitting alongside it is optional.

In other news, I am finishing up a story for my friend Lukis Kauffman's podcast, The Storied Commute.  Soon enough, you will be able to hear some of my fiction set to pretty intro music, and read by someone with a perfect radio voice.   

It is time to dream!  Then wake and find the kettle. 

Sweet dreams to you and all your sheep,
Kara

 

Snooze - A Dog's Tale

We Three
by Rumi

My love wanders the rooms, melodious,
flute notes, plucked wires,
full of a wine the Magi drank
on the way to Bethlehem.

We are three.  The moon comes
from its quiet corner, puts a pitcher of water
down in the center.  The circle
of surface flames.

One of us kneels to kiss the threshold.

One drinks, with wine-flames playing over his face.

One watches the gathering,
and says to any cold onlookers,
                This dance is the joy of existence.
                                ~~~

I am filled with you.
Skin, blood, bone, brain, and soul.
There's no room for lack of trust, or trust.
Nothing in this existence but that existence.


I am up writing birthday cards and tracking finances.  I know, it is a glamorous life.  Someone has got to live it. 

I was thinking earlier in the day, Where O where has my Rumi gone?  Not the book, but the obsession.  I needed a dose of devotion tonight, and also, I wanted to share this video, which was worth the watch for me (though I totally understand if it's not for you).  

In other (abysmally domestic?) news, we got an air conditioner finally, which is helpful because, as my boss put it today, somehow the difference between 95 degrees and 104 degrees - which we've been hitting lately - is like having a magnifying glass aimed at the back of your head.  On the upswing, I have been crazy relaxed.  It could be that my brain has melted, but as I swing languidly on the porch and nod stupidly as my husband converses with me, I am reminded of the slower pace of hot climates, and how sometimes, in North Carolina, all that is called for is iced tea and conversation - all agendas can wait. 

I have little to no agenda right now, anyway.  It may be self-preservation; lizardlike, I perch in place, praying for October to get here.  In the meantime, I plunge lettuce into cold bowls for washing and spritze rose water on my face and move only when provoked or when due at work.  Life is simple.  Hot, but simple. 

I wish I had more to tell you.  Oh, wait!  I do.  My friend Amelia and I started a blog called Grizzly and Golden.  You can see us goof off here.  

With this, I leave for the tucking-in hour.  But first!  I shall visit that most perfect room in the house, a place with two faucets that pour forth glorious icy waters, the room with peppermint oil and peppermint toothpaste, where my dog naps while anyone showers - you better not need privacy around a border collie - the room with the window that opens to the alley where the lilac bushes, long past bloom, staunchly hold back the dust until autumn. 

Polar bears and Frozen Coke-ly yours,
Kara

Working Hands

Dad's day card, 2011

My husband, like many people in his family, has enormous hands.  His dad is a carpenter, and his uncle, who also farms, makes dulcimers.  His mom, who has fine, delicate hands, makes the fluffiest loaves of wheat bread I've ever eaten, and she used to make bread for the local grocer when Tim was little.  Watching her knead and shape dough is like watching a potter at her art.  There is nothing quite like the busyness of her hands fluttering over the dough, shuffling flour over its surface, propping it up and then smashing it down gently, over and over, a hundred soft movements working the yeast through the flour and years of experience into one loaf.  She does it casually, never carelessly.  It is an incredible thing.  It is like watching something being born, and I find myself holding my breath at the end of the counter, marveling at her expert nonchalance. 

When I go to Tim's childhood house, where this bread is made, I feel like a Lego clicking into place.  Not because I have a lot in common with rural Ohioans, though I have a bit.  And not because I am fully seen and accepted for who I am, though I probably am.  I feel like I am home when I step onto the slope of my in-laws' land because I feel the sort of pace that can only be set by industrious human hands.

Last week, when Tim was out of town, I picked up a favorite book, Nikki McClure's Collect Raindrops - The Seasons Gathered, and read through its pages.  I wanted to visit its advice for celebrating the summer season, but I became most enamored of its introduction.  McClure writes:

Every year since 1998, I have printed a calendar noting the month-by-month change in orbit.  My first calendar offered small and quick gleanings with every month.  The calendars have now evolved into detailed, yet sparse instructions on living life where our hands matter.

 

I became obsessed with the phrase where our hands matter, and thought about all the ways I use my hands that make me enormously happy: baking pies - rolling out the buttery dough on our scrubbed counter top; writing letters to my friends - inking envelopes and pages with whimsical stamps; knitting - sitting up in bed as Tim snoozes or tucking needles and yarn into my backpack for an airplane ride.  Ever since I came across that phrase, and revisited McClure's images of the ways our hand-made impulses connect us as people, I keep thinking of the simple ways I craft little hobbies, and the sheer joy these pet projects bring.

This is the simple beauty I embrace these days.  

With love,
Kara


       

Woody, Waylon & the Un-named (Bird)

The Uses of Light
by Gary Snyder

It warms my bones
               say the stones

I take it into me and grow
Say the trees
Leaves above
Roots below

A vast vague white
Draws me out of the night
Says the moth in his flight -

Some things I smell
Some things I hear
And I see things move
Says the deer -

A high tower
on a wide plain.
If you climb up
One floor
You'll see a thousand miles more.

It's time to change the pictures on my site, I know.  It's freaking hot in Colorado - no snow at this altitude anyway, and half the state has been on fire for some weeks.  I find myself addicted to ice cubes, air conditioning, and sitting on my porch.  When the day has finally calmed down, I tether my dog to the railing.  While he acts as sentry for the entire neighborhood, scanning the sidewalks and peering into shadows for any cats, I sit on the porch and swing.

Today I write for three reasons.  The first is because I re-discovered this week that I sort of lose my mind when I put chores before writing.  Tasks rise up monstrously, and I lose perspective on what makes me happy.  The second is because I listened to Arlo Guthrie on npr's American Roots yesterday.  He was talking about his dad, Woody, on whom the episode centered, and what he said was so wonderfully heartening.

I have to paraphrase, because it's dangerous to transcribe a radio program, and also because I've been looking for the section of the two hour episode for the last 30 minutes, and I can't find it.  If I remember correctly, Arlo was speaking in reference to the evolution of his father's song, This Land Is Your Land, which was originally a satire of God Bless America before it was embraced by the country as a champion song for democracy.  Arlo says (something like) "Presidents come and go...but the people endure, and I think my dad would be proud to remind people how important it is to be a person, and do something without waiting to see what other people are gonna do about it." 

It sounded better when he said it.  It was exciting enough to drop my dishes back into the sudsy sink from whence they came and run to the drawer for a pen.  And as I scribbled, trying to capture Arlo's words, I thought, yes, yes - it is our essential selves, our existence as people, that matters - that binds and informs us, and knits the meaning of our lives into something we can hold.

And finally, the third reason I write is to circle back on the mind's ability to lose the heart's focus.  I heard Leftover Salmon's version of Waylon Jennings' Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way on the way home from a swim in the Poudre River this morning, and ran inside to blast it.  Here is Waylon for you, and (bonus!) Johnny Cash introducing the clip, as a reminder to stay close to the home of your heart.  Enjoy, stay cool, and most importantly, keep on being your own bad ass self.

With love,
Kara

A Jet Plane

The River Poem
by Eric Vithalani*

it is always the story, in the river, the moon

destroyed by falling leaves and then reborn.

our canoe, black, is the waters, and i see through

the spanish moss a purple martin’s script

derived and diving and ducks under a concrete

bridge where the words mi corazón se detiene

por ti, alondra are painted. what does it mean?

she asked. detiene is stops. corazón is heart,

i say. this morning we sat at the kitchen table:

she copied a recipe and i finished a crossword.

the black pens, uncapped, on top of the notepad,

left alone for the cat to knock to the floor. we

tear the seams of the water and i remember

my grandfather’s story of the snakes falling

from cypress branches into flat-bottom boats.

*First published in Sliver of Stone

Photo courtesy of Harmon Conrad.  Courage courtesy of Heron.

Today, I read an article called How to Know When You've Made It As a Freelance Writer on this site.  I don't currently have freelance ambitions, but I do have a zeal for keeping in shape as a writer.  (Could you tell?!?)  I liked the article because it talks about something I've been experiencing lately - that the only one who can legitimize you, and truly let you into the clubs of Arrival, Good Enough, and Big Hot Stuff, is yourself. 

My husband used to joke, when we first started dating, that I legitimized him.  He is a quiet person, a little shy, and somewhat mischievous-looking.  (Returning a library book one morning years ago, he was once famously mistaken by the homeless men waiting out front as one of their own.)  When we started dating, my cheerleader-notch friendliness apparently complemented his shyness.  People who previously skirted around him now sought him out. On my end, Tim brought a little mystery to my life.  When I started dating him - a man five years younger than I, who felt no need to impress others, and did not compulsively shake hands with people or bend over backwards to make friends, as I did - my life got a little more interesting.  The slender shoot of poise rose in me, and I calmed down a bit.

That's sort of neither here nor there, except that I do believe Tim and I do legitimize each other in certain ways.  More importantly, our love for each other legitimizes us, because in order to show up for each other, and care sincerely and listen and be present fully, we have to first show up for ourselves. 

I used to love a line that the character Lester Bangs' says in the movie Almost Famous: "The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what we share with someone else when we're uncool."  I quoted it in a letter to a friend once, and she latched onto it, and wrote it back to me years later.  I had completely forgotten about the line when I re-read it, and was delighted that I had once offered it up.  Being in her company at my friend's wedding recently brought this quote flooding back to me.  I had the realization that I wasn't as clueless as I usually recall, that my younger self had had inspiring heat, and had taken care of her friends well.  These are good things to realize.  

But I still feel like I have to learn the maxim behind the Lester Bangs quote almost every day - that who I am is someone I have to stand by, no matter how cheesy or uncool I feel, no matter how eager beaver or sentimental I may appear to others.  It's taken me a long time to realize that just because I'm not everyone's cup of tea doesn't mean I can't be my cup of tea every single day. 

Today, a friend asked how she could take steps to develop deeper intuition.  This friend is a young woman who reminds me a lot of myself, and all the good qualities I used to carry around on my sleeve when I was first making my way in the world.  I could only tell her the way that my own intuition has developed - by taking my heart's hand, over and over, and tuning in, listening to what I find there, and taking action based on the information I've received. 

Whether we are artists, architects, or business analysts, this is our job every day, as human beings.  It is our calling, and our right.  And yes, it isn't the easiest job in the world, but without stepping up to the challenge of it, we can miss out on what we are here to do.

It is late and boiling in our little bungalow tonight.  Tomorrow morning, we fly to see my family at the beach in South Carolina.  In addition to some free A/C, I'm hoping for pelican sightings and sleep-filled mornings. But I will settle for anything the ocean gives me.  I just want to be in the company of her shells and scavenged loves.  And to hug my mother.  It is a craving so palpable, it's an ache.  I have one more quote before I dash, though, and it comes from Gay Hendricks' The Big Leap.  I have recommended this book repeatedly, I do realize (so shut up about that book already, Kara!).  But seriously....maybe you should read it? 

In honor of leaning in to your deepest dream, that whispers away all day beneath the clamor of other messages:

"The universe will teach us our lessons with the tickle of a feather or the whomp of a sledge-hammer, depending on how open we are to learning the particular lesson."

That seems a little harsh, now that I look at it again, as if our tragedies are our fault.  But I do believe that our tragedies are invitations to deeper awakening.  This quote makes a lot of sense to me, because I have learned - through many years and many walloping mistakes - to keep a constant eye on the weeds that grow along the path to my heart.  It is easier to correct overgrowth in passing-by snatches, than to clear a whole month just to get a grip. 
 
So off I am to bed.  Here is to the titles you choose for yourself - Writer, Chef, Best Friend in the World - and to believing in them (because they are true).

With love,
Kara
  

Swinging the Hammer

For Tony

When you ask for a sip 

of the holy water I carry 

in my backpack like an offering 

to a minor god, tucked 

beneath the bird bones, 

gray and splintered, that rattle 

when I walk – 

sweet broken flight – 

I look at you, 

cat at the window, 

a coming-home sister 

who can’t arrive too soon. 

You were the rust 

on the side of the house, 

pink-washed blood 

on my spring-lace blouse.  

Now here you are, 

second birth. 

This roundness of family 

is wilderness itself. 

Our lungs billow 

with what surrounds us: 

alpine wind, teeth 

sharpening in the woods at night. 

We fear what others think: 

that what surrounds us 

has lost its holy pulse. 

But home stretches out before us, 

cord after cord of forgotten wood. 

We draw our lot in prayer. 

Tonight, in so many winds, 

the songs we sing 

tumble down the mountain. 

We peer to the well below, 

giddy with the sudden volume.

Some time ago, when I was at a loss with how to make the leap from at-home writer, miserably not producing, to full-time happy person, I had a nice long chat with my friend.  He followed up on our conversation by emailing me a list of viable professions.  If I remember correctly, one suggestion on the list was becoming a tennis instructor. 

I have to say, both my forehand and backhand are pretty awful.  I can whack the ball over the net - and more often over the fence - but my tennis game survives not because of skill or practice but more  out of sheer love for running around.  I would make a lousy instructor.

When I recently came across a summary of Gary Paulsen's pre-writing work career, it reminded me of my friend Lukis, and all my friends working day jobs that sometimes make us want to scream.  And it made me think of that list my friend emailed me, and how right he was in some respects, shooting from the hip to nail a career path.  Ultimately most of his proposals were pitiful matches for me, but his spirit was right on: it doesn't much matter. 

Happiness is an inner game, one to pursue recklessly.  It can be tempting to not allow yourself to play this game.  It’s easy to look foolish, and for some reason, it’s really easy to doubt yourself, and to give up on the big goals before you reach them.  But, as long as I am active and actively learning, I don't care what I am doing: I am on the right path. 

At one time, I thought I had to be a Serious Writer.  But that thought – and practice - was making me miserable.  I am quite happy scooting around my office job now, and this morning read the advice that perhaps, instead of asking your art to support you, it’s more fruitful to support your art.

I have been taking a step back from all the pressures I have put on myself in the past few years to produce artistically.  I realized recently that I was acting as though I had something to prove – to others, ostensibly, but I think, more honestly, to myself.  I’d rather have something to explore than something to prove. Besides, I was producing a violent environment internally, one that was impossible to thrive in, and therefore impossible to productively create in.

I told my girlfriend, who is an artist, a musician, and an accomplished new doctor (who just got married in a radiant, Fitzgerald-worthy wedding this past weekend), that I bought a sewing machine recently.  Maybe she was just distracted (it was her wedding day, after all), but I found her understandably lukewarm reaction to this information reminding me of how, at one time, I would have thought that spending my free time on anything but writing was a complete and profligate waste of it. 

Now I feel deeply that the quality of my writing comes from my experience as a woman, and that, as a woman, my interests are varied, strange, and sacred. 

So, whatever your intuitive whisperings are, I hope you are listening to them, and taking sweet seconds (or whole weeks) to dance with them.  Let their messages wind themselves in your hair, take their arms hastily about your waist.  Let their secrets lead you through the barrenness of ego's caution, to the comforting thicket of your own wild and beating heart. 

And, if you are swinging a hammer, or learning to retrieve your sanity during your child's nap hour, or going crazy writing your second book, know that we are all in this life together, and that we are all doing more than all right.  And that I'm right here with you - knitting a blanket that stretches on like time itself, stumbling to my yoga mat and following my breath like the song of my old sleeping dog, gazing out of windows, lighting candles, holding out hope that there will be enough time, enough courage, enough connection, for us to make our way toward one another, and to share what we have found along the path. 

In study of beauty, and darkness, and the magic of untangling the deep, stirring dream,
With love,
Kara

Poem, Wind, Slippers, Light

Loving the Flesh
by Todd Davis

Last night I lay beside you, unable to sleep,
and read the stories written on the cells by one
who long ago breathed into dust, shaped flesh
from earth and deemed it good, who set me
in the boat of my mother's womb rocking.
How could I imagine a heaven without
these legs, these arms, this heart that beats
inside the cage of my chest, blood pumping
outward like the first days when sap rises
to meet the warmth of some late winter sun?

Tonight after dinner as we spoke to one another
in that careless, sleepy way we do when the children
have left us with nothing more than our love
and its weariness, you told me that the things
of this world were far too heavy for you to carry
into the next, that you hoped one day death
would be a move toward something better, like leaving
an old house with no more than a backward glance.

But what of the pear, I said, whose perfect skin shines
in the basket by the window, and what of Christ
who could not leave this earth without his love
for the woman who drew water from the well,
without first cooking fish for those he knew
could never hold fast: Cool breeze of morning
coming onto shore, bread warming hands
that still ached from holes not yet healed, fire
burnt down to a circle of coal and ash.

Now going up the stairs to our room I think
about how tomorrow morning the rabbit will leave
his den, how the early light will move against the far wall
and we will wake to each other's body, how you will allow
me to kiss the top of your head, line of scar near the corner
of your mouth, the narrow bone of your shoulder blade
that peeks out from under your gown, your breasts
that tip away from your chest, like our minds when we forget
that we would not know a soul if it were not draped by skin
and muscle, by tendon upon bone, by artery and vein entwined.

I've been thinking about vulnerability again (always) and I started to write this to confront my driving desire to hide, to disappear into the surroundings around me most days.  But as soon as I write the word, invisibility, I think of writing's ability to make the invisible visible - to hold up to the light that which wants to hide, to bring the intangible to form.  Ah, language, you old goat.  I have loved you for so long.

My father gave me a beautiful journal when I was in college.  (It was actually an elaborate day calendar, a business accoutrement some associate had given him.  My father, being my father, had no use for such a heavy thing and passed it onto me.)  I remember writing little poems into it, propped on the top shelf of my dorm room bunk.  The leather, the wide pages, and the poems I tried to chase, come back to me now.  I was writing in snippets for a lot of my life, but college pulled my obsession with language straight through my veins.  I was hooked.

Over the years, I have learned that many famous writers started first in ministry, or wanting to be priests, shaman, healers, and - to quote a Ritter lyric - other 'portals of prayer.'  I was ecstatic to see this information, confirming as it did my own experience.  I once considered applying to seminary schools, drawn to the idea of devoting my life to religion. 

Now I know that art, and life itself, is my playground for religious exploration.  Someday I may find that a church once again supports this mission, too.  For now, the candle at my desk holds my flame for love, as do my friends who write with me, each of us seeking the deep river that flows beneath us all.    

Okay.  I digress.  As much as I love the practice and secret power of writing, there is also the next stage where the foundational writing is finished, where the monkish hours of formulating identity, love, and words, turn to stagnation if the inner chamber doors are not opened.  And this, I believe, is where visibility comes in. 

Two months ago, I checked Stephen Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People out of the library and, as I do with such books, left it sitting untouched on my shelf. Finally accepting that I was not up to the charts located inside (there are diagrams, people! lots of quadrants and triangles with arrows pointing around them.  It's intimidating, like a stock's annual report.  On the other hand, a lot of it could have been ripped straight out of a book about the chakras.) I started to return the book.

When I started to return it, however, a passage presented itself to me.  It said:

Well, shoot.  I can't find it now.  Let's just say it said something like: 'Recognition is one of the biggest needs we have as human beings.' 

I read a similar sentiment in a book called The Healing Wisdom of Africa, this time written about in the context of the societal need for elders and mentors.  It was put this way:

'No matter what culture you belong to, certain personal situations and social relationships are inescapable For example, common to everyone is the recurrent feeling of needing to expand and to grow. Similarly, you cannot help at certain points in your life feeling the need for the emotional, psychological, and social support of others. Everyone needs to come into some kind of visibility, and some sort of recognition...Where a mentor invites the genius of a youth to come out of its hiding, an elder blesses that genius, thereby allowing it to serve efficiently the greater good.'

Ooh, I really love that line: 'an elder blesses that genius, thereby allowing it to serve efficiently the greater good.'  Yum, yum. 

And while this isn't exactly why I am drawn to old people like a moth to the light, I love this idea of being initiated, and of using one's genius for the greater good.  I try to do this every day.  And though I fall short some days, it is this greater good which calls the monk into her cell - so that she may return and share what she has heard, what she found whispering faithfully, generously, in the quiet and the dark.  We must go in - metaphorically, physically, or merely psychically - to find our truths.  But once we find them, the power - and responsibility - then shifts to bringing them out, in whatever way is appropriate: a letter to a friend, a phone call to a beloved, a difficult conversation, a work of art. 

Every step we take is a work of art, when we bring this sort of understanding to it.

Finally, here is Josh Ritter singing about this very idea in his song, Lantern.  It's what I aim to do here, for you, and for me as well.  Because this kind of light-work may very well be what we were invited to these bodies to perform.

With love, and hope for our collecting wisdom,
Kara