On Our Way to Somewhere

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…a poem with notes.

 

In her book on writing and life Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott devotes a chapter to the topic of index cards. She quotes Henry James, “A writer is someone on whom nothing is lost,” and explains that she keeps cards and pens around the house, and a folded card in her back pocket when she goes out. If she has an idea, or sees or overhears something memorable, she writes it down on her card.

Lamott wrote her book in 1994, before we all started using computers and carrying cell phones. And today I take a lot of notes with my iPhone. But I valued this lesson from Anne’s book, and it served me so well for so long, that I usually still carry cards with me. I prefer 3×5 inch cards, blank on both sides, but that’s not important.

What matters is that the people around us frequently say things so profound, without even meaning to, that their words ring like bells for a long time afterward.

One day, my Dad said to me, “The mums are blooming,” and it just stuck. I wrote it down. And when I looked at it again, I thought of that scene in the movie Phenomenon, where John Travolta says to the little boy, “Everything is on its way to somewhere. Everything.”

 

Stories About Us

 

Dad says the mums are blooming
as the tulips fade into summer.
Tomato vines work their random course,
they twine and clutch.

We open the door and go in.
There is a breeze from the open windows
but the day is warm.
What do we become after this?

It’s almost time to stand and go,
drive east against the clock,
keeping low to the land
and finally the sun will rise.

Maybe we should weep a while
first, for everything.
A ritual purge, a chrismation
to purify our souls for high deserts.

After this, we are butterflies
silent among the particles of dust,
there where sunlight falls
into the house in slanted shafts.

Lying on the rug, a child reads stories
to herself, and the stories are all
about us. Outside, an engine strains
to rise and lift away.

 

Creative Commons License
Stories About Us by Kyle Kimberlin is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

 

Here’s the movie scene I mentioned:
http://youtu.be/WYzHuNlSomI

If someone…

Quote

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If someone behaves negatively towards you, it helps to remember that he or she is a human being like you and to distinguish between an action and the person who does it. If counter measures are needed to prevent someone doing harm, it’s always better to do it with a calm rather than an agitated mind. If you act out of anger, the best part of your brain fails to function. Remember, compassion is not a sign of weakness.

Dalai Lama, shared on Google+ today.

The Things People Say

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Someone once said that a writer is a person who observes the suffering of others and decides to take a few notes. Maybe it was me, because I can’t find it with Google. If you know the source of the quote, let me know. Unless it was me, then I don’t want to know.

Anyway, I was in a coffeehouse one day, as far as you know, and I overheard a woman say this to a guy. I imagined what it might portend and wrote this little flash fiction piece. It was originally in third person, but I think first person lends a greater sense of intimacy.

What She Said

“You have no idea how much you’ll miss me.  Just so you know, you really have no idea.”  That’s what she said.

I stood there in the bright sunlight, shielding my face with my hand and watching her where she stood in the shadowed doorway. I was trying to see, for the last time, how blue her eyes were. And I knew she was right.

I could tell you everything, from the first time I saw her in the park with her dog, wearing a pale yellow sun dress, no shoes. And how when I spoke to her, she took off her dark glasses so I could see those eyes.

As long as I can remember, my life has gone in the same direction. I’ve heard it’s possible to turn around, but I keep going the same way – mostly north, into cold country. Until that day in the park, when we stopped to talk about dogs. It was like I clapped my hands and everything changed. Or like she spoke and I believed.

Now everything has changed again, and of course she was right. I have no one to blame but myself.

My pickup was parked at the curb. As I turned and saw its faded green paint, it looked like a friend who knew I screwed up and didn’t care, who knew the roads where I might find hope, food, and a place to sleep.  As I passed in front of it, I felt the heat from the radiator, and I heard her finally slam the door.

Birds singing.  Dogs barking.  Maybe her dog, clawing its way up the back of her sofa to yell at me through the picture window.  A Cessna droned overhead, so I stood for a moment beside the truck to watch it go.  As a boy, I loved to lie on my back in the grass and watch the planes.  The sound of them could push me to the brink of sleep.

Merging onto the freeway, the growl of the engine working through its gears covers every sound but the rush of air.  Sometimes the right thing to do is right in front of you, but its impossible. The mind stands back and begs for time, and the heart defends its solitude.  I hate doing what I did and I know that I will pay for it.  She was right, and this will be a long road to drive all night.

When I reach the coast and see the sun go down in front of me, I’ll have to bear right at the junction and head north.

Creative Commons License
What She Said by Kyle Kimberlin is licensed
under a Creative Commons Attribution-
NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Monsters

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I’ve had this quote sitting in the sticky notes app on my desktop for a couple of weeks. It’s time for it to go, so maybe you can make some use of it.

We must not be frightened nor cajoled into accepting evil as deliverance from evil. We must go on struggling to be human, though monsters of abstractions police and threaten us.
– Robert Hayden

What monster of abstraction most polices and threatens you? For me, probably anything that begins with “the war on …” or includes the word, “warfare.”