Month: August 2008

The Hawk

~ towles ~ 2 Comments

On Andrew’s birthday, August 9th, he took Ivy on a walk. Down at the end of our street, smack dab in the middle of the city, he saw a curious sight: a hawk – imposing, regal, haunting – circling above. As Andrew came closer, the hawk did, too, settling on the exposed limb of a scraggly tree just a few feet away; minutes later, with Andrew and Ivy looking on, the bird swooped to the ground and crushed an unlucky chipmunk in his great, greedy talons.

This summer, Andrew and I have both felt a little like that unwitting chipmunk. Our bad luck started when Ivy had an inexplicable seizure in late May, followed, a week later, by Andrew’s dad‘s very serious intracerebral hemmorhage (a sort of stroke). Then, just when the dust had begun to settle, Ivy threw us for another loop: last week, her body went into toxic shock from something (we know not what) she ingested, almost killing her. (Thanks to our fantastic vets, she survived!)

We feel Someone must want us to learn something from all this hardship, from our hearts breaking and mending, only to be broken again. We are becoming softer people, which is not to say that we are more fearful, but that we are just more aware of what a writer-friend of mine would call “preciousness,” the sweet, poignant internal reality of all things. (I envision here a Caramello.) We are also more acutely aware of the necessity for gratitude in easier times; in retrospect we are able to see our blessings most clearly.

Tomorrow, we leave for a much-needed vacation. My brain is full of Things to Do, which makes me feel anxious and distracted, and I wonder if it wouldn’t just be easier to say we’re going on vacation and stay at home. But we need the break, and once my feet hit the sand the Things to Do will feel, miraculously, more manageable. I know this from experience.

Still, since the hawk showed up again this morning, and because his presence haunts me, I did some research. Not unlike the robins in our yard who preceded Claire’s arrival, the big, wild bird in our neighborhood holds a lesson for us, too: Equated with wisdom and power in the Native American tradition, the hawk is seen as a messenger, a protective provider to his young, a creature that teaches us – via its keen eyesight – to pay attention and be close observers. In the Christian tradition, the hawk is also often interpreted as a symbol of power, though rarely is it the sort of influence that’s gently or fairly wielded. The bird’s name, in Middle English, means “to grasp.”

Andrew and I don’t need a hawk to tell us to use what power we have for good, but we do, I think, need to pay better attention to the small things, to see clearly that which we have been called to protect and that which we are being urged to see in sharp-focus. More than anything, we need to be reminded to grasp onto the things and people and great possibilities within our reach, to hold on tight to that which nourishes our bodies and our souls.

I’ll pick up the blog again with more frequency upon our return. My prose is in need of some serious rest and renewal. Thanks, as ever, for reading …

Advertisement

Yellow-Bellied

~ towles ~ 7 Comments


The Wizard of Oz
Originally uploaded by twm1340

Because I have made all you faithful blog readers privy to my inmost thoughts – the anxiety and joy associated with having Claire, the ups and downs of the literary market (my literary market in particular) – it seemed only right that I share the following shocking news with you:

An agent is interested in taking me on as his client.

For those of you arriving late in the game, I’m not talking about a secret agent, although that would be pretty cool, too, but a literary agent – someone who will be an advocate for me and my writing with editors and publishers in NYC.

All of this happened very suddenly. A conversation with friends over dinner turned into a book idea, which turned into a one-sentence, would-you-be-interested-in email to JW, which turned into a “YES!”, which turned into a couple of phone calls, some research and more positivity. And, just like that, something clicked into gear and started rolling.

Nine months ago, I would have felt nothing but pure joy upon receiving the news that an agent liked both my writing and my idea enough to take me on as his client. Six months ago I would have happily traded my screaming (hungry? gassy? disoriented?) newborn for at least a few hours alone among the stacks with a pen in hand (or even just alone … anywhere).

But now the wailing newborn is a grinning, giggling, milk and honey scented, pink-cheeked wonder. Now, I do not mind that she wakes me up in the middle of the night, or that she dictates my schedule, or that she is more trouble than the family dog. I’ve fallen for her, and that makes the decision to take on a new project – especially a big new project with a real agent attached – somewhat complicated, somewhat hard.

I did not expect this conflict any more than I expected JW to be genuinely interested in my idea. It appears I have been selling everything short.

And then another call came today: after months of piecing together childcare that would allow me a couple of days to work (or get my hair cut), the preschool I loved at first glance notified me that Claire was off the wait list. Some yellow-bellied mom backed out of going back to work (and who could blame her? She, no doubt, has a pink-cheeked wonder too!). So now I’m the yellow-bellied one, and the onus is on me to follow through with the thing I’d set out to do all along.

The synchronicity of these two events cannot be a coincidence. I am hesitant to agree to both, hesitant to drop either, and, upon closer analysis, recognize a crippling common denominator in this conundrum: Fear.

Oh, Fear, my little friend. He begs so many murky and unanswerable questions. But I have been around long enough to know that fear is a bad reason to say no to almost anything (except eating oysters out of season and other obvious dangers). I should try to say yes to both – just try – and recognize that nothing has to be permanent.

When taking on anything new there is so much uncertainty, so many trails to blaze on which there will be the inevitable doubling-back, sure footing that leads suddenly to quicksand, straight, sunlit paths that turn precarious, circuitous, unpredictable.

But isn’t that life? If I am to teach the pink cheeked wonder boldness, I must proceed.

Poetry Reading

~ towles ~ 2 Comments

One of my favorite professors once compared a poem I’d written to the work of Mary Oliver; it was and continues to be the best compliment I have ever received about my writing, and I often return to it when I am feeling un-writerly.

I don’t write much poetry anymore (my intensity has waned since my college days), but I love to read it and am grateful for the light it gives to the world. I thought it might be nice to end the week with a few good poems. Enjoy!

The Hug

by Tess Gallagher

A woman is reading a poem on the street
and another woman stops to listen. We stop too,
with our arms around each other. The poem
is being read and listened to out here in the open.

Behind us no one is entering or leaving the houses.

Suddenly a hug comes over me and I am giving it to you,
like a variable star shooting light off to make itself comfortable,
then subsiding. I finish but keep on holding you. A man walks up
to us and we know he has not come out of nowhere, but if he could, he would have.

He looks homeless because of how he needs.
“Can I have one of those?’ he asks you, and I feel you nod.
I am surprised, surprised you don’t tell him how it is –

that I am yours, only yours, etc., exclusive as a nose to its face.

Love – that’s what we’re talking about. Love that nabs you with “for me only” and holds on.

So I walk over to him and put my arms around him and try to
hug him like I mean it. He’s got an overcoat on so thick I can’t feel him past it.
I’m starting the hug and thinking. “How big a hug is this supposed to be?
How long shall I hold this hug?” Already we could be eternal,

His arms falling over my shoulders, my hands not meeting behind his back, he is so big!

I put my head into his chest and snuggle in. I lean into him. I lean
my blood and my wishes into him. He stands for it. This is his and he’ starting
to give it back so well I know he’s getting it. This Hug. So truly,
so tenderly, we stop having arms and I don’t know if my lover has walked away

Or what, or if the woman is still reading the poem, or the houses – what about them? – the houses.

Clearly, a little permission is a dangerous thing. But when you hug someone
you want it to be a masterpiece of connection, the way the button on his coat
will leave the imprint of a planet in my cheek when I walk away.
When I try to find some place to go back to.

An Afternoon in the Stacks

By Mary Oliver

Closing the book, I find I have left my head
inside. It is dark in here, but the chapters open
their beautiful spaces and give a rustling sound,
words adjusting themselves to their meaning.
Long passages open at successive pages. An echo,
continuous from the title onward, hums
behind me. From in here, the world looms,
a jungle redeemed by these linked sentences
carved out when an author traveled and a reader
kept the way open. When this book ends
I will pull it inside-out like a sock
and throw it back in the library. But the rumor
of it will haunt all that follows in my life.
A candleflame in Tibet leans when I move

Genesis

By Anthony Abbott

The swinging Lord, that master maker
of cool chords, shifted in his empty
heaven and said, “I need me some music,”

So the sky was full of music
and he declared that it was good

And then the equally androgynous Lord
said to herself, I need some light
to fill the fragrant fingers of the night

So the waters shone with light
and she declared that it was good

And when the light and the music played
together the stars wept for the beauty of it
And the swinging, singing Lord said

I need me some people to praise
this thing that I have made

The Lord thought long and long about what
sort of people might be the purest praisers,
what sort of people might truly see the light

And he made man, with his cunning brain,
and he made the zebras and the elk
and the swift running antelope for man

to wonder at. And she made woman with her
imagining mind and her long, limber dancing
legs and her eyes that saw the color in the light

And when the man and woman had been crafted
The Lord declared that it was good

Then the man heard the light in the woman’s eyes
And the woman saw the music in the man’s mind
And the music was the silky manes of violins

And the light was like the laughter of clarinets
and the glitter of guitars. And the man and the
woman moved to the measure of the music and swayed

to the gold and amber brilliance of the light.
And they knew that the sound was neither his nor hers
nor like anything that ever was before.

And the Lord saw what they had made

And behold it was very good