Monday, November 23, 2009

Sunlight, warm me up
Starlight, bring me your best dreams
Open up my world
Lots of dreams coming to me lately. I had one last night wherein I was feeding four small redtail hawks, raising them, petting them along their heads and backs, watching them grow. Many of my dreams involve animals - in fact the first dream I remember was when I was about three when our family lived in Alaska.
In the dream, I was sleeping in my bed in this little room I had off the living room of our tiny house. A polar bear came into the house and started circling around through the rooms, looking for me. I knew the bear was there and I got out of bed and began circling too, in the same direction as the bear.
We began going faster in a circle, the bear running after me; then it got to be a game. I would run faster than the bear and catch up to him. He'd see me behind him and run faster, catch up to me, and then I'd spurt ahead and catch him again, as we ran faster and faster around the circle.
This dream initiated my quest for connection with the animal and spirit world around me, continuing now some 60 years later. Animals bring meaning and significance to our world, whether cats, dogs, birds, no matter whether domestic, wild or somewhere inbetween. I've gained more from an encounter with a squirrel out in the Colorado mountains than from any number of 'workshops' designed to 'help me sort out my life'. And don't even get me started on the importance of curiosity and humor in our lives, brought to me courtesy of a certain inquisitive pine marten. Even watching the actions and interactions of the cat members of our family lead me to a broader understanding of my own interactions with coworkers, family and friends.
Bears amid boulders
each round, each brown, and each slow-
rocks slower than bears

Friday, November 13, 2009

Back home again and loving it

Cat - swift, smart, alert -
supple tail in the air
soft paw on my cheek
How I enjoy being home again! Even though I'm busy at work now, and looking to get much busier when the 2010 Medicare enrollment period begins this coming Sunday, I get to come home straightaway from work and there's my wife, Karen, waiting in the living room. There are our cats, also waiting for me, including my long-time bud Tanka. He'll be 18 years old this coming birthday in March and he's been a constant companion -- helping me make drums when we lived in Durango, rattles when we lived in Scottsdale -- and the simple pleasure of hearing his purr when he curls up into my lap brings a smile to my face every time.
Karen is still liking her job although there are some challenges. She loves getting out each day, driving to appointments, meeting new people in the course of performing her duties -- and quite frequently is able to reconnect with old friends as part of those tasks, which is a bonus.
And then we get together at the end of the day and that, for me, is the value of making this employment switch. I'll post again after the Medicare season has progressed a bit and let you know how I'm faring. I think now I'm going to get a bite of breakfast before I get to the office.
Tim
Bagels, hot and fresh
Wait just a New York minute!
Schmear, capers, lox - yum!

Sunday, October 25, 2009

Seniors? WHAT seniors?

All spirits listen
when master or beginner
writes one-breath poems
Not much poetry-writing lately, as I'm busy learning my new job. I studied hard during classes, passed the Indiana health insurance licensure exam and have sailed through each required exam of the in-house training sessions. Now I'm "on the floor," on the phones calling out to our current clients and receiving incoming calls from those wishing to investigate other features of our insurance plans.
It's not as dry as it sounds. In fact, it's kinda fun talking with these "seniors," which is our niche market. The company I work for sells Medicare Advantage plans, those Medicare-approved insurance programs which work hand-in-glove with Medicare itself to more fully insure the elderly and other Medicare beneficiaries.
We're licensed, as a company, to do business in 45 of the 48 contiguous states, so calls roll in from all over the country. One minute I'll be talking fast with somebody from New York as though they're on a deadline and three minutes later it'll be a person with a thick Creole accent from Louisiana. One woman offered to cook me crabcakes if I came down to visit her - she lived actually south of New Orleans. Another woman had three cockatiels screeching in the background...actually, she said, it was only one who screeched when she was on the phone and the other two went quiet. "But," she said, "when the Days of Our Lives theme song came on, they all went crazy!"
The Medicare 2010 enrollment season begins 11/15, so I'll be busy from then to the end of March 2010 -- we'll ALL be quite busy -- so my blog entries may be short and infrequent (but I hope sweet, especially the verse). I will try to keep in touch, though, for the benefit of both of my fans .....
Tim
Heading off to lunch
robin with a worm in tow
small feet moving fast

Thursday, October 8, 2009

What's new?

Flash and bang at night
rain falls in slim silver strands
I stand, mouth open
It's been raining pretty steadily for the past two or three days. Some streets hold pools of water half a foot deep, hazards for both drivers passing through as well as people walking past. I am much more insulated from the effects of driving in this kind of weather now that I no longer make the long trek down to Jasper. Yay, again!
My new job is going well....very well. After a week in school being exposed to the information I'd need in order to pass the licensing test and become an insurance agent, we were allowed individual study time. A number of us formed study groups to run through multiple variations of quizzes and mock tests. I sat for the actual licensing test a couple days ago and passed with a wide margin.
That out of the way, our time now is divided between getting a jump on the in-house product training and plugging into real-life phone calls to get a feel for the dialogue, Q & A, and screens experienced by agents already on the job. Both segments of this schedule over the next two weeks is going to be necessary and valuable. But in the meantime, I'm also assisting some of the people who didn't pass the licensing test their first time so they'll have a better handle on what they may have answered incorrectly and a better chance to pass it on their 2nd try.
I think I'll like this job, and not only because I feel I'm going to be good and therefore do well at it. It's a good group of people, very friendly and helpful since they've all been newbees. Now, if this rain would only stop so we can have a little more time in Fall. I just have to get out into Nature before we get locked into Winter!
Sunny wooded glade
squirrels chuckling in the trees
flash of a bluebird

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

...and it came to pass -

In the world of haste
busyness calls out your name
come back to the form
A couple weeks since the last entry... Much has changed. I interviewed well, was offered and accepted the job, so now I'm working in Bloomington instead of 75 miles away. Yay! In fact, I'm about a mile and a half from home instead of an hour and a half. I'm happy, my wife is happy, our cats are happy. I think even my new employer is happy with their decision.
Now I'm being paid to be in class, learning the ropes and regulations. Then I sit for a state test which, if I pass (as I am confident I will) moves me into a phone center and earns me a 17% raise immediately. Presto, my income's replaced -- plus, since I'll no longer incur the expense I had of travelling to the other job, to say nothing of much lower wear and tear on both me and my truck, I'm ahead money, time and stress.
I feel I now will have time to more fully participate in the community events and life I've so dramatically missed this past nine months of commuting. I'm considering volunteering for a YMCA board position, can begin to go to the church mens' group again, and get together with friends here in town. And, among other writings, I can resume my blog and my haiku. And continue with the snailmail round-robin of writing from word prompts with the two friends I mentioned earlier. I just sent them my latest installment, in fact, which was along the lines of a Mickey Spillane bete noir episode. Karen's, as frequently is the case, was quite different in feel as well as subject.
She and I are also mulling the idea of starting a similar writing group here in town, perhaps from among our church circle but perhaps a wider venue than that. I think it would be fun. Actually, as it happens, one of the other new employees at my new job also is a poet although I'm not entirely sure he knew what haiku was when I asked him the other day. His forte is free-verse but hey, creativity in writing is at the core of both. Could be a fun contact to explore.
Good to be alive
in all the golden beauty
this late summer day

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Don't count your jobs before they hatch

Pale three-quarter moon
Nimble deer on dew-wet grass
pungent blue wood smoke
insects wake and stretch their wings
I go to work and wish not
Life is what happened while I was making other plans.... I didn't get moved to the next interview stage for the non-profit I wanted, but in response to the other call I set up an interview with the another company. I have to say, I don't have as much heart for it as for the non-profit, but it would get me back home and I still can look around for another job when things open up in the market.
Karen reminds me to compare how satisfied I am now (very un-) in my current set of circumstances vs how bad could this other position actually be, even if it doesn't really excite me? I'd save all the cost of renting a room down here, all the costs of driving back and forth each week, and the 'incidentals' that help ease the stress of separation from my family and community. All that's going for the current job is habit & lack of presenting opportunity.
I already have generated some excitement for this additional prospect. The guy who called to set the interview told me up front that they really liked seeing the experience I can bring to their position, so -- as they say -- this job "is mine to lose"....by blowing the interview, really not liking the company, etc. I always go into interviews feeling that it's as much about me interviewing the company as it is of me being interviewed. So I'll be packing my list of probing questions to help me figure out what I want to do. I feel better about what this could be and how it would resolve so much of our current stressors.
One bug in my path
mile a day on sixty legs
Go, caterpillar!

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

An Embarassment of Riches -- yes and no...

I think I'm out to about Plan F or G now. My financial advisor ... well, advised me (that's what they do, eh?) to put off for as long as possible my draw from Social Security. She said that even though I'm able and even willing to work part- or full-time now, in my early 60s, that won't always be the case, and how would I feel having to hold down some kind of job in my 70s because I started SS too early? "Hi, welcome to WalMart." Point made.

Activity in several arenas over the past week or so. My son's still up in the air about their plans after their house burned down, so we've been accepting clothing donations to take down to them the next week or two. I got a call last week from a non-profit I'd really be excited to work for and had a job interview yesterday. I think it went pretty well and should hear back from them soon about the final interview - and would be very pleased and excited to work for this group.

While I was digesting that good news, I also got a message from another company to which I'd sent a resume and they're interested in talking to me if I'm still looking. Remember, I've been searching diligently for a replacement job since the first of the year and more casually for months before that and these are the first interviews I've even been invited to. So I'm feelin' good...and will feel better and best when I get the job offer from the non-profit.

I've also become part of a 'writing round-robin' with friends in Mexico and California. We circulate a set of "writing prompts," three random words that must be used in a quickly-written short story, and then we circulate the stories among ourselves. It's a ball. Last week's prompts were basalt, birdhouse and ballerina and one of the women wrote a story that, I swear, every other word started with 'b'. It was literately and literally alive with 'b'ees. This week's are parking lot, marshmallows and envelope. I've got a story going that's very "Guy Noir meets Big Lots." It should be fun.

Hear about the gull
who tried to stand on a fish?
He fell off his perch

Monday, September 7, 2009

House burned down

Smoldering ashes
my house has burned to the ground
opportunity
My son's house burned to the ground Thursday night. No, there's no punchline; it burned down. The only parts left standing were the fireplace, the chimney, and one brick wall. Noone was hurt, they were all out of the house: Adam was on his way home from work and his wife & kids were away at her mother's in Georgia.
One of the neighbors noticed smoke and called the fire department, but told them that the roof already had collapsed into the upper floor. The three fire trucks that came focused on keeping the fire from spreading to the adjoining trees and surrounding forest. I don't know if anybody has speculated what caused the fire, but it sure did a number on the house. My son and his family were pretty much in shock up through Friday at least.
Karen and I drove down early Saturday morning -- to give moral support, to help them review their options, and to take down some clothes donated by employees in my department at work. An obvious haiku would be the one about the farmer having a better view of the moon now that his barn had burned down. My thoughts keep bouncing back to the Chinese glyph for 'crisis' being the same as the one for 'opportunity'.
Certainly we all mourn the loss of momentos, heirlooms, early family photographs and the like, and yet .... what might you do if sent this crisis, this opportunity? Would you rebuild the same style house on the same spot, buy the same kind of furniture, tools, utensils and appliances, step back into the same boxes as before? Or would you give some thought to what else might you be able to do now, and where might you want to do it?
With ample insurance reimbursement, a house could be built again, sure -- but where would you want that house want to be? What would you want to do out of that house? Maybe you'd buy a motor home and travel. Maybe rent instead of buy? Instead of buying the tools you're used to, is there something else you'd want to attempt, try out, do, or be? And then the biggest question of all -- why wait for a crisis to think about these options?

Thursday, September 3, 2009

Deer and elk, continued...

So...here I was at 11,000 feet after a blizzard left two to four feet of snow, depending on where you measured. I had plenty of food and firewood and I knew how to find wild game if it came to that. But I needed to get word to the rest of the group about the results of the storm and see if it changed our plans. Four of the eight of us were meteorologists, so they already knew it had snowed; they just didn't know how much. My old CJ5 was up there with me, too. No top on it, never had a top in all the time I drove it, whether rain, snow, desert heat or a fine sunny day. But it had a strong winch on the front and had gotten me out of some pretty tight spots (into some, too, truth be told) for more than 25 years.

Back in the tent, I gathered items I'd need in case I got stranded on the way out and had to spend the night curled up under the skirt of a fir tree. Making sure my sleeping bag and rifle were secured, that both jerry cans were full of spare gasoline, and camp was "locked up," we set out, me and Grover the Jeep. Having hunted this area for so many years, we'd situated our camp where we knew the snow wouldn't drift too deeply. On semi-level ground at first, I drove primarily on the crests or windward slopes of hills, trying to avoid the lee-side of timber patches so I wouldn't get bogged down in deeper snow.

I figured out pretty soon that the snow would be less than 18 or 20 inches deep if I could see the tops of a certain kind of grass, and that much snow I could plow through. Oh yeah, I'd put chains on all four tires before I left camp, so I had pretty good traction but knew the risk would be getting high-centered...or ramming into a snow-obscured fallen tree or boulder...or churning into a ditch or depression and losing traction altogether. "Follow the grasses," that was my mantra. Man, it sure was beautiful out there in the heart of this wilderness!

I made it to the beginning of the 4x4 trails which I knew, 20 miles later, would bring me to an actual hard-packed dirt county road (underneath how much snow I didn't know). Even in very muddy conditions and with waterholes that could hide a Mini-Cooper, that 20 miles normally took about an hour to drive. But I couldn't risk the actual 4x4 trails because the ruts were snow-filled and Grover's undercarriage would flounder on his belly. Driving mostly on the high-side above the normal jeep road, I could keep track of where I was (the snow really did cover up a lot of landmarks) and I'd also lower my risk of dead-ending at some woods and having to backtrack. Also, I had to make sure that when (not if) I did get stuck, I'd be able to find a good anchor within reach of the 150' winch cable.

And I got stuck for sure, more times than I could count. There'd be places where no grass showed at all and I had no option but to run the jeep full tilt in the desired direction until enough snow piled in front of the grille and brought me to a stop. Then I'd get out, drag the winch cable to the best available anchor (boulder, log, standing tree) and dig & winch myself back to "regular" running. Then do it again, and again, and again. I soon stopped rewinding the winch, just loosely coiled the cable and brought it up over the windshield onto the passenger seat. Nineteen of those 20 miles out to the road took me from shortly after sunup to the beginnings of dusk. But then, within sight of Deep Lake, I ran out of high ground and had no option - I had to jump the jeep off the upper lip of a roadcut and down onto the roadbed five or six feet below. No option.

Jump I did, right into a bed of snow deeper than any so far since it was sheltered by the road bank. Dragging the cable out as far as I could, I wrapped my heavy logging chain around the base of a boulder as big as the jeep itself and hoped I could winch myself to the boulder instead of the other way around. It worked and, after several more similar pulls, I broke onto a section of road blown free of snow (more or less) and could actually drive (more or less) instead of ramming snow until it stopped me.

I passed Deep Lake frozen in ice and snow for the winter and took off my tirechains when I joined up with the plowed forest service road that led down out of the mountains and to the interstate. Got to the nearest town, got a hotel room for the night and called the guys in Boulder. They held a meeting and decided to stick to the original plan - they would meet me at the hotel in two days and we'd see then what the upper road and trails back into camp looked like. If the snow had settled enough, we figured we could plow back into camp and have a fine hunt. And that's exactly what we did.

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Deer and elk and coyotes, oh my!

Warm air and fog
drift along the soft ridgeline
remembering you
Mornings are cooler now, evenings too. Rains visit at odd hours through the day, sometimes accompanied by summer storm's sturm und drang. The grass still green, but not as green as just a couple weeks ago, and on my walks I notice cottonwood and tuliptree leaves beginning to yellow and drop to the ground.
My heart turns to Colorado at this time of year. I love Colorado autumns....aspen, with their brilliant white trunks and limbs and bright gold silver-dollar-size leaves; elk and deer still grazing in the meadows and sleeping on the upper slopes of the high mountains but keeping their eyes on the coming winter. This is grouse season, too, those wily brown distant cousins to turkeys. How they startle me as they launch themselves into the air, bursting from their clever hiding place practically under my feet or next to my shoulder!!
I've spent many many weeks up in the flattops of the Western Slope, 35-40 miles off any known highway and a mile or more from any recognizable Forest Service road. And this season, as the world moves into fall, brings back fine memories of lying in the tall grasses, simply looking at clouds as they drifted west to east, sometimes not that far over my head. I'd listen to and enjoy watching insects, birds and all sorts of varmints as they crawled, flew, hopped, walked, scurried, scuttled and meandered their way in this high-altitude environment. Coyotes would eyeball me as they traversed a clearing with ears, eyes and noses just barely above the grasstops, on their guard lest I prove to be a threat.
One time my father and I went up in October to cut firewood (standing dead lodgepole pines make excellent fires). We planned it for a couple weeks before elk season. In two days, we felled and cut up enough wood to fill a '72 Blazer and the trailer it pulled. When he left to take it back to Boulder and get the hunting crew ready, I stayed in our camp, alone, for the next nine days, "holding the fort" for the hunting group.
I was blissed out. We'd hunted this area for more than 40 years so I was quite familiar with the terrain. I wandered among stands of dense black forest, crossed clearings from livingroom-size up to the area of a small town, hiked 1000' elevation changes several times a day, all just to see what new there was to see. I tracked an elk herd -- 25-odd cows and calves mostly, along with some yearling bulls -- and it was great fun. They'd execute their best groupsneak through the woods while I, knowing their habits, paralleled them from 50 yards or so off that backtrail. I was quiet enough and crept slowly enough that they didn't see me even though they knew I was somewhere close. I trailed them for a whole day, watched them bed down in the evening.
Then, one afternoon about 4 days before the other guys were due, it began to snow. And it snowed. And the wind blew. And it snowed and blew for a day and a half. When it stopped, the ground was blanketed with 22" of snow -- and that was where it hadn't drifted! When I emerged from the wall tent two days later, the world was completely changed - almost totally quiet, and sparkling with millions of points of light. I remember thinking to myself, "This is going to be quite a challenge..... and GREAT FUN!" It was both and then some.
(to be continued)
Bull elk watching me
beige fur and long sharp antlers
just wait for winter

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Green, so many shades,
subtle motion from this breeze
sharp, round and oval
stems, spikes, shoots, vines and pods
why ask more from this old path?
I haven't been doing much walking these last few weeks. One, I slipped at work and wrenched my back; and two, I've been writing this blog and to do that, I have to stay within range of one of the few wifi networks in this little community.

When I do get out, I enjoy the path along the Patoka "River," one of the mud-colored 20-feet wide flows of water they call rivers here. Even though it's clearly not a clear mountain brook, there's always much to see: dandelions, all manners of bugs, rabbits & other creatures, wild grape strangling the young saplings of tulip trees. All of it fodder for thought, and thus potential inspiration for haiku or tanka.

A ring of black ants
surround a centipede corpse,
come to take him home

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

"The End is Near"

Woke to see the moon
last night, didn't know it rained
my feet are cold and wet

I spent quite a bit of time on the phone today: talking to Social Security, talking to my tax preparer, to a temp agency in Bloomington, to my wife. I even got some work done, thankyouverymuch.

Indeed I think the end is near. The missing link -- the only but crucial missing piece -- is a job that earns something in the realm of $15K a year. If that can be achieved working 20-30 hours, great; I'd love the time off during the week. If it means I'd have to work 30-40 hours, I could deal w/ that but would prefer the former. In either case, I do believe I will jump from my current ship and bring all of my Self back to Bloomington. Between the net of such a job and my SS check (even drawing it earlier than full age 66), I'll replace my current income. Side benefits: I'll be back home, among friends and family (Karen and the Kats); I'll experience much less stress than I now do; I'll cut my commute-related expenses by some $400 a month and wear-and-tear on my truck by a minimum of 800 miles a week.

Highest on this list, though, is being back w/ my family. It just does not work for me to live apart for 4.75 out of 7 days of the week, trying to jam everything into Friday evening and the weekend. Maintaining a household -- not to mention the house itself -- can be a challenge when I'm 'on-site'; and maintaining a full and meaningful relationship with Karen is, as MasterCard would phrase it, "priceless."

So I'm bending all my efforts to turn up something in the temp, temp-to-perm or long-term temp field, and have high hopes. I'm also still sending out resumes to jobs posted on several different websites I scour, announcements that come to me from newsletters or friends, and so on....things for which I qualify and would feel good. Something will break soon, I feel it in my bones.

I am home again
a slow walk on a fast day
just what I needed

Monday, August 24, 2009

This past weekend

Karen's family held their 2nd annual family reunion on Saturday. Most folks come from north, up around Indianapolis, but we have to drive up from Bloomington, so it's been held at a location in between.

About 25 people were there this year, ranging from Karen's 81-year old mother to a 3-month old baby...Karen's mother's greatgranddaughter in fact. Not a lot of kids but lots of kid-energy, if you know what I mean...yelling, running about, saying "NO!" a lot, whispering and giggling in the corners. I enjoyed myself and the day was splendid - not too hot, not too cold, surprising for Indiana in mid-August. It sprinkled about for 5 minutes then stopped.

When we got home, there was a card from one of the friends we'd made when we visited other friends who've retired to central Mexico. Chris & Kimberly live in San Miguel de Allende during 8 or so months of the year, and have a cabin on Olympic peninsula in Washington for the summer months. Kimber's young cousin was visiting when we were there last fall and we became fast friends: the card was from her, Hannah.

While in Mexico, we attended Kimber & Hannah's writing group. The process of this group is that one person thinks up 3 words as "prompts" for everybody to write a short story about while you're with the group. Didn't have to be that long, just had to incorporate the given three words. It's best not to overthink it, just write as the story flows out of your imagination. Sometimes the words coax the story out, sometimes you have to put some thought into it. But back to the card: I used Hannah's prior set of prompts to create a single-sentence story. In yesterday's card, Hannah gave us "lilac," "alphabet soup" and "static."

I love it when words have multiple meanings -- static, for instance, has four or five that come immediately to mind. We wrote our stories Sunday evening, and I think both our stories were good. Karen's story was so different from mine, and so funny I laughed out loud! I sent the stories off to Hannah (California) and Kimber (now in Washington) w/ their next prompts: basalt, birdhouse, ballerina. We'll see what next week brings.

Ravens speak Spanish
that far south of the border
What did you think? French?

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Chiaroscuro

Water cascading
over the cliff's stony lip
smiles on its way down

I love the quality of light at certain times of the day. This isn't a "go toward the light" kind of thing, I'm talking about when the sun is at just the right angle and maybe there's a little haze in the air -- not too much, but some -- so that every protrusion and every depression is picked out and cast either in the brightest of light or in dark shadows.

Painters, especially those of the heyday of 16th & 17th century Europe, used this approach to accentuate their works.... a face glowing in light from an unseen window or door, workers out in the haystacked field casting shadows many times longer than their physical selves. Some three-dimensional artists and a few other practitioners create with an eye toward the interplay of light and shadow on their pieces.

But mostly, I notice this quality in the late afternoons. I'm looking out on a field now, with birds the size of crows hopping around talking to each other and catching bugs, and outsized bird-like shadows hop laterally on the ground every time the birds move. A bird in flight between me and sunlight so intense I can see right through most of its wing as it flares to land. That kind of light. I love it!

It rained again today, not a big storm but enough to get me wet as I ran from my truck to the office. Then it stopped. And started and stopped through the morning before the clouds blew on to the east. Ground too wet and muddy to take a walk, sun too bright to ignore, but the day too fine to stay indoors..... what to do, what to do? Guess I'll write about it!
Deep blue cloudless sky
bright lamp hanging up above
it's a wonderful day!

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

and the waters came down

Incredible storms, both last night and this afternoon. Just before midnight last night, I saw repetitive bright flashes through the windows. I thought maybe there was a search or something going on and flashlights were shining all around. But it was cloud-to-cloud lightning, not just heat lightning, and it went on for a long time, accompanied by loud claps of thunder. Not much wind, though.

It seemed to go right over me and didn't feel all that high above my head. Just as it passed over, the rains began to POUR down. I mean pour! Within minutes, the yard was covered with several inches of water looking for somewhere to go. It let up after 15-20 minutes, and then passed on. I heard from several coworkers that it didn't even rain where they live and that's only 10-15 miles from me. Storm cells are like that. My father was a meteorologist for, well, pretty much his entire adult life, and I picked up a lot from him that helps me make sense of the weather.

Inspired by the light show, and in the middle of the storm, I wrote this triptych:

Strobe after bright strobe
illuminates the tree line
my eyes the camera

Flash and bang at night
rain falls in slim silver strands
I stand, mouth open

Flashes receding
and diminishing thunder
this storm has played out

During the day today, I got to thinking of all the creatures -- in the woods, along the creek beds, in the trees and ponds -- and wrote more verses:

Diagonal rain
thunder rolling, lightning flash
crayfish cheer and dance

Heavy rain all day
when it stopped I walked outside
the earth just said "squish"

Magnifying lens
raindrops balance on a stem
which way will you slide?

Peace. Tim

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Writing as a path to Spirit

It's been said that if one writes 12 or 15 really good haiku in their lifetime, they are accomplished in this art. It's mostly traditionalists who say this, although one certainly strives to be good at one's chosen art. The recommendations to acquire 12-15 good verses are: write, write, write. Then revise. Then write some more.

As I'd mentioned in my first post, I've read haiku off and on for years -- decades even -- and I'm sure I wrote a few verses back when, but I never kept them. Everything changed in the Spring of 2008, when I made a nine-month commitment to attend a once-a-month group called "A Year To Live," offered through our church. The group is based on Stephen Levine's book by the same name. Both the group and the book ask you to imagine you have just received a diagnosis of one more year of life....what are you going to do with that year? What unfinished business do you have in your life? Who do you need/want to talk with, visit again? What's necessary to bring yourself to peace and awareness with your circumstances?

Karen and I were one of three couples among the 18 enrollees. The group invited speakers to advise us on end-of-life considerations and options, met in different configurations within our group to discuss "our lives so far," wrote in our individual journals, and then wrapped up with a retreat at a resort in the hills west of Bloomington. Man, did we write! One of our co-ministers facilitated the group, and she suggested haiku as a positive addition to our contemplative tools. That's what really got me into this latest incarnation of writing.

I love to walk in wild places, even when I'm in the suburbs. I find a natural resource area, a bird sanctuary, or even out-of-the-way corners of a college campus. Wild creatures act out their true selves; nature informs my world view. I look around as I walk; I also look within, taking the pulse of my feelings. Many times I fixated on a leaf, a dead twig or log, or an ant walking across my path. But underneath, I was counting out "5/7/5" syllables, turning over words and verses in my head, working my way to the true center of my feeling and a poetic description of what was in front of me.

I used to carry around one of those little voice recorders but it got too cumbersome and distracting. Now I keep a miniature journal in my back pocket. I like pen-to-paper contact. What can I say, I was a journalism major. Sometimes I have 8 or 10 haiku to transcribe to my harddrive's documents folder, sometimes only one or two. Sometimes none, but that's OK too. There's always tomorrow - or tonight - or dreamtime.

I write in my book
an ant crawls across the page
my smallest critic

Monday, August 17, 2009

"Will nobody rid me of this job?"

Here I am, away from my home for yet another week, working in a job I am very willing to give up when I find a replacement closer to home...or one that let's me work from home again. I looked at our finances and know I can't retire yet -- too much 'grasshopper' not enough 'ant' in my past; economy blow-out; failure to adequately plan in earlier years. But in discussions over this past weekend, my wife came up with Plan C (or D, or E, maybe).

I am close enough to full retirement age that I could begin to draw Social Security... which, come to think of it, might be a good thing to get while the gettin' is good.... although my SS check would be reduced since I'm not yet Full Retirement Age. If I continue to work as well, SS sets an earnings maximum (in the neighborhood of $14500 for 2009). Earning more than that would trigger a $1 reduction of my SS check for every $2 I earned over the threshold. Of course, that means I'd still come out ahead since I'd be earning more than the reduction. But there's a catch -- or at least so I hear from the kindly folks @ Soc Sec Admin.

If I tell them I'm likely to earn, for instance, $20,000 while drawing SS, they calculate my reduction up front. That $5500 over the threshold = $2750 reduction = $230/month less, and I could deal w/ that since I'd be netting about $360/month more from the extra $5500. $20K job + SS check <$230> would work. But SSA says they don't send out partial checks -- only full months' checks. So their solution, bless their pointy heads, is simply to not send any check at all until they've withheld at least the $2750 for that year. That would mean no SS check of any size for the 1st three or four months of every year, and $1300 by itself isn't enough to replace my current job for those months, even though I'd be receiving my "normal" SS check for the remainder of each year. There are some more ins and outs, but my brain is full.

Oh, but back to Plan C/D/E which would be to work only up to the SS threshold for earned income while drawing a check. $14500 is low enough that net would be about $975/mo which, on top of an unmitigated SS check, would just about do it for me. So now the search is on for, ideally, a part-time position at a reasonable salary but only for 25-30 hours a week, yielding an annual income somewhere in the neighborhood of the SS threshold. Even better would be the sort of p/t job that I could cut back hours as/if I started getting close to the threshold.

There has to be something out there that fits the bill. Keep the faith!


A catastrophe
but the earth turns and renews.
Oh - make other plans.

Sunday, August 16, 2009

Sunday morning, it rained last night and everything's sparkling with moisture. We're up early in order to help out at our church, Unitarian Universalist Church of Bloomington. We're going to answer questions about and promote our Chalice Circle programs. Some churches call it Small Group Ministry. It's about 6-10 people coming together regularly through the year -- sometimes once weekly, sometimes two or three times a month -- in order to experience and explore 'deep listening' for themselves and the others in the group.

A topic is selected by the facilitator and each person vocalizes their thoughts and feelings about that topic, as they feel ready to share with the group. The task of the person sharing is to come from their heart rather than their head, the better to become known by the listeners. The task of the listeners is just that: to listen. Not to interrupt, not to dialogue, not to engage in discussion. These are not discussion groups; they're intended to develop our skills in listening closely to one another and, by so doing, to understand more fully the place from which another is coming.

Karen and I were in a Chalice Circle our first year in this church. The second year, we each facilitated our own group. And the third year we co-facilitated a group. I think I liked that best, because -- even though we've been together for 20 years -- I continue to learn new things about this wonderful wife of mine. I think we're going to take a break from Circles this year, though, not least because I'm still commuting weekly to and from my now-too-distant job and most of the groups meet on one or more evenings through the month. And in addition, our not facilitating allows another person to accept the challenge that they facilitate instead. And facilitation of such a group is another path to learning about yourself and others.

Short post today, I have to go get ready to leave for church.

Bellies hanging low
dark clouds ripped open...Rain!
How quickly they heal

Friday, August 14, 2009

Ah, a weekend, and I'm back home...cat on my lap, wife by my side, freed from my job for another 2 1/4 days.

I sent out an announcement to a handful of my friends & family, letting them know I started this blog, and have received some good comments -- and some from unknown readers even . Maybe one of the unknowns is a publisher...! Hahahah.

It's growing dusk now, the setting sun suffusing the cumulus off to the west with oranges, pinks and yellows. I love this time of evening. If there are clouds, they catch the last of the sun even after it's started getting dark at ground level; if the sky is clear, extreme slanted rays shine across the atmosphere and create some of the most wonderful shadows. And this is in Indiana. Evenings in the desert are even more dramatic.

I love the Southwest. I've camped and hiked all over the Sonoran Desert, up and down many of the mountains and valleys in Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico, and spent some nine months inside the Grand Canyon over the years (I totalled it up once, just to see), including one period of almost two months solo. I didn't even see another person for close to six weeks -- only when I was within a few miles of Phantom Ranch on the way in and then again on the way out. It was exhilarating, relaxing, strenuous, more than a little intimidating on occasion, and, while I'm no longer in the shape to do it again, I love having done it.

When I checked in at the South Rim ranger station to get my permit and let them know roughly where I would be, they asked the usual questions: when was I starting, what area would I be going to...and when I told them I planned to be down two months, eyes popped up from the desktop. "Two months!?" THEN they examined what trails I'd been on, how many canyon hikes I'd made altogether, how much in canyon backcountry, grilled me on the camping regulations limiting days at any one site and within any single area, and so on. And they examined my 28-kilo pack to see what supplies I was taking.

I had one of the filtering water pumps that had just hit the market and, with it being winter and all, I wasn't too concerned about water. I could (and did) pump it out of catchbasins, creeks and more than once out of the Colorado River. The porcelain filter was supposed to be good down to .xxx microns (I can't remember now) and filtered out not only silt and bugs but giardia cysts and other water-borne triggers. I had a spare filter, just in case. And a spare pair of boots, too, although the pair I wore down was new but broken in. That pair fell apart about 5 weeks in, the stitching a victim to lots of miles off-trail.

Hiking down the only trail really open at that time of year, Bright Angel, I quickly passed from the 10" of snow on top of ice at the rim (25 degrees F, brrr), down through it having become slush about 1/3 down, and then drying mud 2/3 down the trail. The trail was dry and dusty the last 1000 vertical feet. I crossed the river, passed Phantom Ranch and went straight up onto the N. Tonto plateau, heading downriver. I found water sources that Harvey Butchart didn't even have in his extensive hiking notes, including one stream the size of my upper arm pouring out of a notch in some rocks.

This is the land of ravens, burros and deer, smaller varmints, lizards and snakes. I loved it. After camping my way downriver for a week or two, I thought I might be done (even earlier than I'd figured) and began heading back upriver. But the closer I got to that last territory short of Phantom Ranch, the less I thought I was ready to go out. So back downriver I went for another several weeks, making a different circle this time (since I was using only game trails anyway). I finally came out in the latter part of February.

Enjoy the weekend!

Clouds in sky above
new grass, red dirt at my feet
Spirit surrounds me

Thursday, August 13, 2009

I'm separated from my wife...but for only five days and four nights a week. Here's what's happening:

I live in Bloomington IN and work for a company with headquarters 75 miles further south. January 2009, after 2 1/2 years of working from a home office, I was told I had to come to the corporate office to perform my job - yes, the same job I'd successfully been doing from home. Given that mandate there were few choices, and with the economy going into a tailspin, quitting wasn't one of them. So for six months now I've driven down early Monday mornings and back Fridays after work, renting an inexpensive "sleeping room" through the week. Considering the carbon footprint, wear-and-tear on the car, increased potential for accidents or tickets and so on, that made more sense than a roundtrip of 150 miles five days a week.

One of the consequences, however, is that I'm separated from my wife and our cats for a large part of every week.... from my home, my life and our friends in Bloomington... plus I have to try to "catch up" on everything over what now seems to be very short weekends. I do try to stay positive: "I still HAVE a job," "this won't last long," "I'll find something else closer to home."

Karen more-or-less persistently embraces the view that since this has gone on longer than we'd thought, some splendid new thing surely must be coming to me, something far better than I ever could imagine. I love that perspective, and I love her deeply for all her help, empathy and support during this dispiriting situation. And believe me, I can and have imagined all sorts of wonderful outcomes. Whatever comes to resolve this dilemma must be shiny indeed.

Again, as yesterday, I see I've spoken of 'the unknown', 'the mysterious', that force which moves things in the world. I am very willing for that force to reconcile all these disparate parts. Putting this blog out into the Universe is, I hope, pushing the wheel for positive change. What wheel, where it gets pushed, what comes next and when.... now we're back to mystery once more.

Write your heart's desire
and who knows - it may come true -
stranger things can pass
Tim

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

How do I get from here to there?

Well. I never thought I would read a blog, much less write one. I wonder how many sites start out with just that phrase...? But my wife Karen encouraged me to just give birth this blog and see what life it would have and here I am, blogging.

Haiku is the focus of my blog-interest, so each day's post will feature at least one original haiku or tanka.

I've read haiku off and on through the years and always enjoyed the intimacy of feelings, immediacy of thought, and the creativity intrinsic to compressing all this energy into a three-line 17-syllable poem. I've only recently become acquainted with tanka, haiku's 31-syllable cousin (which adds two more 7-syllable lines to the 5/7/5-syllable haiku format). And even more recently have I begun writing my own verse, already accumulating a respectable gallery of poems. I'd love to be published, but my timing seems to be off; publishers I've contacted aren't accepting unsolicited manuscripts. If any publishers read this blog, my work is available: please contact me through a posted comment and we'll make arrangements.

A bit of "coincidence" - eighteen years ago, I named my little Maine Coon kitten 'Tanka'. He's grown into a fine, intelligent orange feline who now is alpha emeritus of our four-cat clan. Life was very much in flux for us when we saw three little kids offering a box of kittens in front of a Durango CO grocery store. Wondering aloud which kitten I might want to adopt, I reached into the box. Tanka shot straight up my arm, perched on my shoulder and immediately began purring. I love mystery. In Lakota, the word 'tanka' bears the meaning "mysterious" or "unknown." For many native peoples, that which is unknown IS mysterious, and mysterious is to be held as sacred.
Life is exciting
One thing after another
Mysterious cat