NaPoWriMo #23
So how and where do you spend your time? How do you come to know the lay of the land? Who are you with and how sound? How do you look (over your shoulder)?
The work is called poetry. Paranoia is a measure of its degree.
Simone White
ANSWERING SIMONE PROBABLY IN THE WRONG WAY
I spend my time mothering a couple small souls and wifeing a partner of twelve years and writing a little and earning a little and yelling a little and reading a little and mostly perhaps moving forward the great but small enterprise of a family.
I spend my time inside a house outside a rural town on the southern edge of the Great Plains, and sometimes inside a small red car zipping from place to place through the landscape, and other times in the commercial and familial places and spaces of this town.
I know this place through the visits and vacations that make up a courtship, I know this place through colonialist eyes, I know this place through the eyes of someone I love, I know this place through the written histories of the dust bowl, I know this place through its newspaper, I know this place through my own five months and three weeks and two days of life here. I know this place through my own fears: insectile, poisonous, predatory, mercilessly hot, and republican. I know this place through the recent months of its drought. I know this place through its gossip. I know this place through the erasing act of one town on the nomadic plains. I know this place through the opening melody of Llano Estacado. I know this place through everyone's desire to escape. I know this place as my home for now, and as a repudiation of Oregon, though I don't mean it to be.
I am with one husband two daughters two parents in law, two siblings in law and their spouses and children (seven altogether), I am with the grown up school friends of my spouse, and their in laws and their in laws kids (many many). I am with the slightly more educated. The secretly liberal and atheist and writerly. I am with those who have left and now returned. I am with those who have made a living off this land, however rapine and water-eating and chemical. I am with those who don't question much (though I do, sometimes, and probably not enough) and with those who feel permanent in this place by right of birth, race, inheritance, water rights, fairly or unfairly the whole lot of it.
I am with those who sound like they belong here (and a few of us who don't) and those who sound contentment, who sound satisfaction with life, who sound familiar and comfortable on a Saturday under the stars with a fire going. I am with those who sound like they live in houses, and house their families, and only one or two corners who fail that test. I am with those who sound their values and who call their children and their dogs with affection. I don't know how we sound. We sound down a tin can if you try the land line.
I look with shade over my eyes because my eyes are weak. I look carefully in case I appear uppity. I look humbly in case I appear too anything. I look proudly in case I appear too anything. I look with proprietary safety. I look with mastery of most of it. I look gently in case my anger has spilled too harshly. I look with one eye for wild dogs and another for scorpions. I look at the sunsets far too long. I look with little desperation. I look at my girl children and try to gauge their safety and their security and their selfness in this strange place. I look at things that are partly new to me, and I try to look myself right into the midst of this life, this place.
.
From this most excellent brief essay: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2014/04/flibbertigibbet-in-a-white-room-competencies/
The work is called poetry. Paranoia is a measure of its degree.
Simone White
ANSWERING SIMONE PROBABLY IN THE WRONG WAY
I spend my time mothering a couple small souls and wifeing a partner of twelve years and writing a little and earning a little and yelling a little and reading a little and mostly perhaps moving forward the great but small enterprise of a family.
I spend my time inside a house outside a rural town on the southern edge of the Great Plains, and sometimes inside a small red car zipping from place to place through the landscape, and other times in the commercial and familial places and spaces of this town.
I know this place through the visits and vacations that make up a courtship, I know this place through colonialist eyes, I know this place through the eyes of someone I love, I know this place through the written histories of the dust bowl, I know this place through its newspaper, I know this place through my own five months and three weeks and two days of life here. I know this place through my own fears: insectile, poisonous, predatory, mercilessly hot, and republican. I know this place through the recent months of its drought. I know this place through its gossip. I know this place through the erasing act of one town on the nomadic plains. I know this place through the opening melody of Llano Estacado. I know this place through everyone's desire to escape. I know this place as my home for now, and as a repudiation of Oregon, though I don't mean it to be.
I am with one husband two daughters two parents in law, two siblings in law and their spouses and children (seven altogether), I am with the grown up school friends of my spouse, and their in laws and their in laws kids (many many). I am with the slightly more educated. The secretly liberal and atheist and writerly. I am with those who have left and now returned. I am with those who have made a living off this land, however rapine and water-eating and chemical. I am with those who don't question much (though I do, sometimes, and probably not enough) and with those who feel permanent in this place by right of birth, race, inheritance, water rights, fairly or unfairly the whole lot of it.
I am with those who sound like they belong here (and a few of us who don't) and those who sound contentment, who sound satisfaction with life, who sound familiar and comfortable on a Saturday under the stars with a fire going. I am with those who sound like they live in houses, and house their families, and only one or two corners who fail that test. I am with those who sound their values and who call their children and their dogs with affection. I don't know how we sound. We sound down a tin can if you try the land line.
I look with shade over my eyes because my eyes are weak. I look carefully in case I appear uppity. I look humbly in case I appear too anything. I look proudly in case I appear too anything. I look with proprietary safety. I look with mastery of most of it. I look gently in case my anger has spilled too harshly. I look with one eye for wild dogs and another for scorpions. I look at the sunsets far too long. I look with little desperation. I look at my girl children and try to gauge their safety and their security and their selfness in this strange place. I look at things that are partly new to me, and I try to look myself right into the midst of this life, this place.
.
From this most excellent brief essay: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2014/04/flibbertigibbet-in-a-white-room-competencies/