how it is.

Today, I took my general unwillingness to spring from the bed in the morning and joyfully get about the day's business to a new level (that was a long modifier in the middle there, sorry about that!). Which is to say that I didn't get out of bed until NINE O'CLOCK. From this, I hypothesize:

1. I am carrying around a massive sleep deficit and will not be arising early for weeks and perhaps months to come.
2. I am a lazy brat.
3. both (a) and (b) above.

Well, be that as may be, I arose in a cold, quiet house. (I did open my eyes enough to chat with the historian a couple of times. I'm not a barbarian.) I worked out. I showered. I ate pancakes. (The first pancakes of summer!) 

We have a young friend living with us for awhile. He's a musician. He's working on composing some new songs. I heard some epic drumming from downstairs, because he can and does play multiple instruments. That drumming helped me

1. write notes for two new poems
2. consider a few things I needed at Target (a new trowel, gardening gloves, pruning shears)
3. call the appliance repair guys so they can come fix my washing machine, which has been doing this weird stop-in-the-middle-of-a-cycle for about two years now, so, you know, now seems like a good time to get that taken care of

I also used the drumming to motivate me to

1. load the dishwasher
2. put away a vast amount of clean dishes and other stuff that had been hanging out on my counter for awhile
3. straighten up my laundry room, because I don't need that appliance repair guy judging me like a judgmental bastard

The quiet: the people, it is a blessed, blessed balm to me.

Soon, I will take up what I believe is my big project of the summer, which has something to do with religious language. Maybe archaic and religious. Anyway, why this is a language I keep returning to--I am going to investigate that. The quiet seems like a good locus for a project like that. I will return and report. Maybe. Or maybe I will just keep it to myself, like a novitiate who has taken a vow of silence.

Quiet.

I've been thinking about quiet, maybe because I'm kind of hungering for it. Once you get a taste of quiet, as we did in Idaho, if you truly need it, it's hard to live with noise, real or metaphorical.

Today, I worked from home, which constituted a long spell of no noise. I made a quiet breakfast. I worked in my Canvas course and responded to emails from students and colleagues (a kind of noise, let's be honest), but I also revised a poem and worked some more on a new poem. I graded (much less noisy than emails). I added some notes to a document that's a precursor to my promotion file.

Milky Way Silhouette, by Ben Coffman. Part of a series of astrophotography
taken in places with clear skies and no light pollution. From Twisted Sifter.

I took a short break to close my eyes. I could hear the fan whirring overhead, and the speed of cars far away.

By Alex Scott. Part of a series of photographs of L.A. freeways
when there are no cars, typically between 2 and 6 a.m. Also from
Twisted Sifter.

I heard my son come in. After a minute, I got up to go talk to him. He had a box of doughnuts. He and his friend had driven to the nearest Krispy Kreme. He set two on a plate, one for me and one for the historian, and after a brief mom-quiz about what the plan was, the plan being both big and small, he was off.

That's what it is: even as you long for quiet, there's still the coming and the going, the surge and ebb of beloved people and the work of the world, and here and there a little moment to pay attention to stillness.

Bird life of Idaho.

In Idaho, we love several things:

1. the journey up, as we leave behind, for at least hours and most happily days, the things that press us and worry us.
2. the georgian vista, as I once said grandly in a poem, of the high mountain valleys.
3. the blessed, blessed quiet.
4. the quality of the sleep, and the air, and the--again--quiet.
5. the river.
6. the birds at the river.

It's September, and we have been feeling the chill of it--up here, it's maybe fifteen or twenty degrees cooler, sometimes, than in Salt Lake--but there are still birds enough to give us a few thrills.

Flyaway. #henrysfork

A photo posted by Lisa Bickmore (@megastore) on Sep 6, 2015 at 9:55pm PDT

On the bridge at the river. #henrysfork

A photo posted by Lisa Bickmore (@megastore) on Sep 6, 2015 at 9:57pm PDT

The pelican line up. #henrysfork

A photo posted by Lisa Bickmore (@megastore) on Sep 6, 2015 at 9:59pm PDT

It's a blue heron on the #henrysfork

A photo posted by Lisa Bickmore (@megastore) on Sep 6, 2015 at 10:00pm PDT

The blue heron again, on the other side of the river. #henrysfork

A photo posted by Lisa Bickmore (@megastore) on Sep 6, 2015 at 10:03pm PDT

Big Springs at the dimming of the day.

A photo posted by Lisa Bickmore (@megastore) on Sep 6, 2015 at 10:02pm PDT

Quiet.

This morning, the historian went out before I woke up to take a bike ride. So the house was quiet. I made my little breakfast and chatted with my daughter in Scotland--it had been at least two weeks since our last conversation.

The historian came home. We read the paper while he ate his breakfast, drawing one another's attention to this and that article in the Tribune and the Times. I made a list. This is what was on it:

only crucial things on this list, obviously.

Before anyone expresses shock at how behind I am in my television watching (!)(this list isn't the half of how behind I am, just for your information), I would like to point out that I am caught up on my (highly selective) list of housekeeping chores, except for vacuuming, which: it is too hot, in my opinion.

In the mid afternoon, my sons, all of them, were here for a few hours to kibbitz with one another and catch up, and to have dinner. Soft tacos, in case anyone wants to know. Guacamole. Pineapple. It was good. We had a dance party, briefly, to the new Beck song. Then, they all departed at once.

The historian sat out on the patio as the evening cooled, reading a new book. Inside, I finished a detective novel set in New Orleans, floridly plotted and, perhaps, floridly written, although to say 'florid' may be a little glib for what I found interesting in the novel. I've put in a request with the library's robot for the second book in the series. Evidently, I'm interested in this potentially florid yet compelling series, and there you have it. I also started a book I heard about on the radio, when I was out buying the pineapple and some tortillas and a couple of avocados. I came right home and downloaded it.

Now, it's time to read a little more and end the day in quiet, an estimable bookend to the day's beginning. I'm grateful for it.

(little photo project)

Blue.

I had the best day.

First of all, I woke up and the pink roses outside my window arched along their thorny boughs in their full extravagance. Second, I made oatmeal and read the paper. Third, the house was quiet as I contemplated my day. I already had a plan, but I still had time to contemplate it. That's actually the fourth thing: a plan, and time to contemplate it.

I went to school (i.e., work), but first I went to Target (the sixth good thing). My plan, the one I had already made and then contemplated, was to finish printing the full edition of my class's publication. I had six or seven broadsides from each student that had not been through the etching press, and thus had no monoprint upon it. Because the semester (at least for English classes) has not yet started, I knew, or hoped, that the Publication Center would be mostly quiet, and that I would be able to print in that quiet.

Let me pause to say that I have not ever printed all by myself on the etching press. We got that etching press last summer, and it is a beauty, and I have printed with my colleague the inestimable Kat Allred, but I have not done it all by myself. But I really think that, with things like this, you need to have a solo adventure, first of all to summon up and practice what you actually do know how to do, and second, to recognize where you still need to learn.

I got there, and I was right: mostly quiet, mostly alone in the Center. So I began. I retrieved the broadsides with words but no images from my office. I retrieved the linocuts that would be the matrices for the monoprinting. I got out the inking plate and the ink, the brayer and the knife. I summoned up the spirit of Kat and I squeezed some ink--not too much--on the plate. I used the knife to spread the ink so that it was even, then more even, and then I used the brayer to make sure the ink was in a thin, thin layer.

I planned out how to make four prints at a time, using four different matrices on four different broadsides. I worked my way through six or seven prints of each broadside, then moved/changed the matrices on the press bed.

The ink I used was Caligo, Process Blue. It is an indescribably beautiful blue. As I used it, I learned what this ink looks like, and what the subsequent print looks like, when there is slightly too much (very blue, deep deep indigo, and a little blurry), and what it looks like when there is slightly too little (a gorgeous cobalt, a little faded around the edges). I also saw what it looked like when I had just the right amount of ink (perfect).

I made a little over a hundred prints today. I felt my amateurism as I was making them. I felt myself learning. Outside the tall windows of the Center, I could see rain falling. I fell into the spell of that blue and I washed my hands many times with blue soap, to remove the traces of the ink on my skin. Then I started again to take the tattoo of the amateur printer, blue spots on fingertips, as I moved the words to face their inked matrices, turned the crank, the cylinder rolling over it all, and lifted the pages, a little tacky, from their ineffable blue pictures.

Notes from underground.

It's August. Even though I think of August--always have--as still high summer, you can see the end in sight. I have made a note on my little calendar, counting down to school, that says, "*start preparing." That note is more than a week away. School starting is two weeks away. I am putting things off. I am trying to make these days last.

I have, without exactly saying so, made quiet the object of my seeking. Without exactly acknowledging it, I have been unfolding, letting my mind wander. I think that's what the morning out in the backyard is about. This morning I listened to the traffic beyond the field, and a rooster that was crowing rather late, and the breeze, and the wind chimes. That's noise, but it didn't feel noisy. It felt still. Whatever business it contained was far away from me.

My son, the youngest, is leaving for China in a few weeks. "Twenty days," he says, precisely. He'll be there a year, and maybe longer. Without making a big deal about it, I want to be around to help with whatever would be helpful, but also just to appreciate the house, our household, with him in it. The flux of his friends coming and going. The chance to go to a movie or eat something together. I felt the same way about my older son moving to Tempe for grad school. Not that I was crucial to any part of their plans, but I wanted to be there to help, and to have the occasions to be with them. I count it one of the best parts of this summer that I could go with them to Arizona, to help get them moved in and to see their new place, the start of their new life. How lucky that was, to be able to do that.

When I think of this summer, I will remember that we went to Scotland and spent two wonderful weeks there. This is the summer I listened to Daft Punk almost all summer, on and off, in Scotland and England, here and in Arizona. This is the summer I visited my oldest friend in Sonoma County. This is the summer I drove to Arizona with my son and his family and my youngest son as well. This is the summer I watched The Killing and Top of the Lake and Justified. This is the summer I read The Woman Upstairs and Ender's Game. This is the summer I spent time with most of my children and grandchildren. This summer, I spent time with my friends, did some writing, kept quiet time nearly every day.

Between now and when I go back to work, I hope to work on my second manuscript, write a poem or two, and make a couple of video projects. I want to buy and eat more watermelons. I have been eating the most wonderful strawberries from the farmer's market--I hope there are more of those. I want to make a pie, and preferably more than one pie. I hope to sit on my porch every morning and dream a little. I like spending time watching Justified with the historian, and I hope to do more of that. I don't see any reason not to think of these last summer days as infinitely elastic: I want them to extend and expand to contain all the beautiful morning and evening light, the little gray bird that landed on a branch of the cherry tree this morning, the wind sifting in the chimes, the drift of my thought, the culmination of my efforts, and the steady hand of quiet that has sustained and held me all these weeks.

Super quiet low-key Sunday.

As such, it was a great day to contemplate quiet, and how sweet it is. Even boredom, which I did not experience today--sometimes boredom can be a little bit sweet, if it is in contrast to a frenetic pace of activity. Which this past week was.

Today, I read the entire Times minus the business section. And I also read a couple of magazines. Three magazines. And I took a nap, and ate leftovers. I checked in a couple of times on my online course. That was pretty much the long and short of it. What have I learned, you ask, from this quiet, not to say contemplative, day?

Well, I read this, about riding in the Quiet Car on Amtrak. Apparently it's a real thing, which, I know you've heard about the loud Americans and how very very loud they are when they go into foreign lands? But I remember a trip on a train from Darby to London where people talked on their cell phones for hours. So, think about that, so-called "quiet" not-Americans, when you're casting your aspersions about the noisy.

(For real, though: Americans are loud.)

Onward:

I also heard this (okay, I took a short trip to Target) whilst driving to Target.  I am lately fascinated by the connection of the new brain science with cultural observations of all sorts. Is this kind of analysis/synthesis revelatory? or specious? Curious minds want to know.

When I got home, I did a little more searching. Now I kind of want to read this, and this was interesting also. Both are about storytelling, and maybe some connection with brain science as well. But while I was rummaging around on this bundle of sites (they explore the intersection between creativity, technology, and branding, which doesn't sound good when you/I put it that way, but I found a ton of interesting stuff there, so--check them out, I guess?), I found a really excellent article which led me to this new tool, which I can imagine running riot with. It lets you annotate video and images from the web--essentially, a swell tool for remix. I cannot wait to spend more time with it. Maybe I'll have something to post from it soon.

(not) Counting down.

The other day, driving home from the movies:

Me: ...and I just hate thinking in actual, concrete, numerical terms about things, even when those terms are realistic. Like when you say, "You still have six weeks left of summer!"--and I know, there aren't six weeks left, not even close to six weeks--thinking that way just drives me crazy, because it feels like things are shutting down. And I hate that feeling! I would totally rather lie to myself, and say, like, I still have half the summer left! or a lot of the summer left! because it makes me feel like things are still possible. Even when it's not true.

Historian: (drives. He already knows this about me. He is a concrete thinker. He is a realist. It is good for a person like me to have a person like him--in a word, him--around.)

Me: ...I don't necessarily think everyone feels that strongly about it, though.

Historian: (pauses) ...no, maybe not.

Despite my strong commitment to fantasy-calendaring, I am getting real with myself. I am thinking not in terms of weeks but parts of weeks, for cramming in the stuff I want to do before I need to get even more real with myself, and start preparing for classes.

Today was a good day. It was a quiet day. I gathered my wits. I took a bike ride in the morning and then I worked on my photo essay. I thought about the things I want to do over the next fractions of weeks. I tried to get a big picture of my day-to-day, so events won't sneak up on me and give me a rude surprise.

We are putting bags of stuff on our curb tomorrow for a charity pick-up. At the store, I bought cherries and stuff for granola and carrots and Izzys. I mailed a package. I washed the sheets and the duvet cover put them back on the bed. My granddaughter called from Scotland to chat. I worked on my photo essay some more. Tomorrow is a deadline day. Another quiet day, a day on which I will get some stuff done, yo.

In other news:

The historian: Did you know they used to have poetry readings at the Olympics? Not just at the ancient Greek games, but back when they started the Olympics up again, up into the 1940s.

Me: Well, if I were in the Olympics, the best I would do is semi-finalist or finalist. I would never win.

(Whiny, right? But the good news is, the revision and re-titling of my manuscript I did in the spring has paid off, in that this manuscript is now getting a lot of semi-finalist/finalist action. Not actually winning, but closer.)

...and lastly, today nouvelle vague filmmaker Chris Marker died. I already posted this on Facebook, but if you have never taken a half hour to watch La Jetee, I highly recommend that you do. You can watch it here.

Today I rather enjoyed . . .

. . . doing preparatory work for the new semester, wearing stylish sweats all day, having a parcel arrive on my porch, taking Bruiser for a walk in the early afternoon, finding an $8 dress--purple! with sparkly stuff!--at Target, eating pancakes for breakfast and leftover jambalaya for lunch, getting an alert from the library's robot that there were detective novels waiting for me at the library, going to the library, watching The Good Wife, fixing sandwiches for the newly returned son, listening to The National while I worked, making soup for dinner, practicing hibernation whilst watching a little television and reading a little V.S. Naipaul before succumbing to crime. One of the detective novels, that is.

Chilling with Will.

This week, I've had the chance to give the 11:30 a.m. feeding every day to this charming young man: