llbwritesto.me

You can say that now. Because I felt like writing to you. And you decided you felt like reading.

Writing to You

On Civil War, Windows, and Underground Parking Garages

By

Dear      ,

This morning I read about the Civil War—and the excavation of the Boston Common to build an underground parking garage. Those two go together because the Common is the site of a monument that remembers a regiment from, yes, the Civil War.

For the past few days I have been thinking about war of a certain kind. The trampling of tenderness. I venture to call this abuse.

When you grow up like I did, under the roof of an abusive person, you learn the signs, but still—it is hard to keep your heart intact. At the window, you watch for his return, and you wonder…today, will my heart survive? You learn, from having put your heart out there and watching someone delight in the steady march and tread over it—this is a critical question, this one about your heart.

When they excavated the Common to build the garage, apparently they propped up the monument. Remembrance was atilt. In the article I read this morning, in which a poem is shared that says, “Their monument sticks like a fishbone/in the city’s throat,” I’m not sure what question the poet was asking in his poem. (All good poems, in my opinion, ask a question in their way.) If it had been my poem, I think I would pose: Can we survive if we forget this?—it hurts our hearts to hate.

I am convinced that there are (at least) three ways people may move into the world when they live through abuse. There are choices, and it’s not clear to me how we make them. It seems that either we ourselves become a trampler, or we learn to keep our hearts hidden (even in what are safer contexts, later on), or we decipher the secret, somehow, of how to keep our hearts intact and share them wisely.

Recently, I guided my daughters through a difficult conversation. In this micro-moment of civil war, there were choices arising every few minutes. Trample? Hide? Truly, they wanted neither, but they were in need of tools to guide them in this vulnerable and delicate tussle of their hearts. Afterwards, they joked that I had performed the service of conflict resolution. It was amusing, to all of us. But it is not how I picture what happened.

When children, then young adults, are not given the tools of communication navigation, especially to guide them through tender moments where their hearts are exposed, they can grow up to be abusers, or elaborate manipulators. I call this heat without light. Apparently, this is possible. To have heat without light. But I don’t mean to get literal on this count. What I do mean is that the heart is always firing, desiring. And, in the absence of knowing how to handle that fire, we get all heat and no light.

There were times, when my girls were young, that I did not know how to handle the fire. My heart was hurting, or tired. Maybe I said something meanly off-the-cuff to one of them. On rare occasion, I yelled. Either way, the moment asked of me this: repair. It occurred to me one day that it wasn’t good enough to simply apologize to one girl, had the other been there to witness the treading. On that day, I made a decision: I would always apologize to both girls if they’d both been in the room. Because, this too is true—not only does it hurt our hearts to hate…it hurts our hearts to see others hatefully mistreated. The hearts of two girls were therefore in need of being attended to: the one who had suffered, and the one who had witnessed the suffering.

Though I see no problem with conflict itself (it’s simply an invitation to have a difficult conversation), I believe that civil wars and raging fires—of many kinds—are avoidable. I am not sure they are avoidable when they’re agitated by those who are ahead of us in age and authority, those who aim to generate heat but no light.

Still, I remember those days at the window. And the choices they presented my heart over time—trample, hide, or learn?

Wherever you are today, Dear——, whatever window you are looking through, your heart firing within you, I wish you the power to choose the latter. I, for one, promise to stand beside you—to learn, and invite the light.

As Always,

L.L.

What a Chair Supposes

By

Dear      ,

I wish you were here. The wild roses are in bloom! Yes, a cascade of white blooms has just arrived, maybe as late as yesterday.

And there’s a dark brown Adirondack chair waiting, by the little herb garden. I bought it, because a chair supposes.

It was the catalogs that taught me this. (I’ve somehow got back on their lists and need to get off, but I’ve been reticent now that I understand how I can look at them to find you.)

When you open a catalog like Grandinroad’s, you will see what I mean. These pages create convivial worlds, with chairs. Couches, too. And the arrangement of four plates, or six. A pair of goblets. A table, set out for twelve.

I have given some serious thought to the couches, the plates, some floral rugs, even a fire pit.

But the only thing I have bought was the brown Adirondack chair, and not at Grandinroad, but rather at the local hardware store, where I also asked for a scythe and promised it was not for role playing the grim reaper. (I just like to be quiet when I deal with my landscape. It feels more like a conversation. Though, admittedly, the rather golf-club-like tool I bought in lieu of an absent scythe, is a bit… vigorous! I feel very sporty wielding it to shape the river of violets that have taken over beneath the pear trees, where, with my swing, I am turning them into something more like a lake of violets with edges and inlets. Plus, it makes the fact that I took golf quite long ago, in my college days, feel like it was worth it after all, so many years hence. The teacher of that class, by the way, once owned this house. I wrote a tender poem about him and it inhabits the Winter section in my first poetry book; it pictured him on the blue couch that used to be in this living room, before the room was mine to care for. It was a sad poem, but he was happy I’d come to see him, and I still have the poem, though the couch is long gone.

The reason I settled on the chair (and only the chair), at least for now, is that I know I am a person who would like to simply have good conversation about things that matter, while you drink a cup of jasmine tea I make for you. The little herb garden has flowers this year, which make a very welcoming backdrop for talk and laughter. I thought to put dark pink begonias and white-pink geraniums between the rosemary, sage, and Greek oregano. To the side, beyond the boundaries, I planted lavender and lemon balm. Such a fragrant, lightly-colorful setting.

Here is something I didn’t expect. Sometimes this new chair makes me feel alone. But sometimes, maybe more often than the former effect, it cheers me beyond all reason. After all, a chair supposes. Especially an Adirondack chair. It leans back and says, “Come, have tea with me,” and this makes me think I need to extend an actual invitation. At the thought of this, I picture you there, in the chair. We are happy. We are having meaningful conversation. The currants and the blueberries are looking on, very full. Indeed, the new green pearls of translucent currants are bringing the bushes all the way down to touch the grass, they are so plentiful this spring.

So I’m thinking now that maybe there is something you might want to set out—something that supposes. Two goblets. One chair. A table for eight. I wish that for you today—an Imagination born of simple things you arrange, and then I hope these simple things will encourage you to invite someone (or something) meaningful into your life. Here’s to a cascade of fragrance and fullness—like wild roses, and blueberries clustered above the ferns.

As Always,

L.L.

On Silence, Burnout, and Writing (Anything at All)

By

Dear      ,

Not long ago, I wrote at Jane’s place, and told people I’ve been burned out. I wish I could say it’s completely gone. It’s not. Like I said at Jane’s, “I still haven’t worked out all the details.”

As a high-capacity person, I find it particularly perplexing to feel so “low capacity.” The upside is that it makes me more compassionate in all kinds of interesting ways. The downside is, of course, that I keep hitting the edge of my capacity far sooner than seems logical. Then I feel sad. Then that makes me feel even more burned out. Not a very fun cycle, as you can imagine.

In my notebook, now, is a word map. It’s my possible path. It’s a wager. And definitely an exploration. I don’t recall if the word silence is in one of the little circles (I put all my words in circles, unlike some mappers), but it should be.

In another circle is the word voices. And I’ve been keenly listening to the ones around me. Today, I listened to a 9-month-old boy fussing to his mama in the grocery store. I stopped to chat with him for a moment and got the cutest smile in return. His mom looked happily proud and a little grateful. I was glad to have been privileged to listen to their voices.

So when I say that silence should go into one of my circles, I’m not talking about the absence of sound (though that has its virtues too). I’m talking about the observation of poet Michael Longley, who noted in an interview with Krista Tippett that he’d gone without writing poems for ten years. He thought he might never write another poem. To his surprise, he eventually did. “Silence is part of the enterprise,” he concluded.

When I write to you, it asks of me not to be silent. Some of you help support my writing (for which I’m grateful), and I wonder if it seems odd to you when I am silent, as if that’s not part of writer-me. But it is. For, in silence, I find myself again. I find you. I find the little boy fussing to his mama. Today, I even found a poem.

In another circle on my word map is green spaces and blue spaces. I got the idea from Laura Brown’s upcoming workshop. Every day I am trying to give one of those kinds of spaces as a gift to myself. Sometimes it’s a walk by the river. Sometimes it’s just a walk in the rain. The back porch has beckoned, and amidst its simple setup (folding chair, portable coolers that have convenient cup holders, cement floor), I can watch the greening of my tiny, tiny yard.

I’m not sure if the blue and green spaces will ultimately soothe my burnout, but today the little herb garden, with its sage and oregano beneath the weeping forsythia, brought my heart a small gift of words.

With thanks to Michael Longley,
quoted within

“Silence is part
of the enterprise,”
he says.

It is true.

Here, you know
that the new sage
tastes like earth—
not just any earth, but
yours at the edge
of the little herb garden.

Here, the pine
is in conversation
with the maples,
while the wood-winged bushes
come alive. Here

the “forgeries”
fall away, the fruited
green tea feels like silk
—liquid and full—
that touches every part
of your open lip.

And you write
your first word
in what feels like

forever.

Today, Dear——, I wish for you silence, if that’s what you need. After all, it’s part of the enterprise of being a writer. And, if you’re not a writer, I suspect it’s part of the enterprise of being almost anything that takes a good deal of heart and soul, so I wish it for you. Tip it to the lip of your heart, and soul.

As always,
L.L.

Callie, Energy, and Rocktopia

By

Dear      ,

They are charging $91 a ticket for Rocktopia.

I saw it for free.

“Free” might be the most you’d want to pay for the show. I’m not saying that to be unfriendly. Honest. It’s just, well, a question of energy.

Recently, I published a snippet of author Callie Feyen’s annotations journal. She annotates as part of the writing process, to help her decide: should it stay, or should it go?

Watching Rocktopia for free was a cool thing to be able to do, barring the mundane parts (which were remarkably many) and the just-didn’t-gel parts (which were also remarkably many). Only two songs in the whole production seemed of interest to the people on stage.

Everything else lacked energy. Or it felt like energies-in-conflict.

I kept thinking about Callie during the show. Callie is one of the most honest-with-herself authors I’ve met. Somehow it’s a combination of her personality and perhaps the particular MFA program she attended. When she annotates, she is asking a lot of “Why” questions that get at the question of energy—a lack of it, or energies in conflict. She’s not afraid to do that. It can mean dropping whole chapters (or whole articles), in the end. It can mean reversals. Often, she discovers something she had no intentions of discovering.

Today, I am thinking about me.

Lately, I’ve lacked energy, Dear——. Or perhaps it’s just energies in conflict, within my own soul. I feel like Rocktopia!

The two good sections of Rocktopia seemed completely embodied. Suddenly, these weren’t just singers. They were players of parts, deeply felt. And they were in sync with each other. A common love of the message, the moves, and the sounds made these sections absolutely riveting. The rest could have fallen away.

If I had it to spare, I would have paid $91 to see the parts that the cast loved. They were that good.

Today I am asking myself, “Why?” and “What should fall away?” I am looking to be in sync. It feels like a time of massive change, even though on the surface everything appears to be doldrums.

And you, Dear——? What are you feeling right now? I do wish you the will to annotate your life, if that’s what you need. And, then, the sometimes harder step: to act on your discoveries. Or, if you are just singing along, embodying life with great joy, I’ll sit here in the afternoon sun, looking out over the river, and listen. Together, we could feel free.

As Always,

L.L.

30 Days, 30 Poems Eco-Challenge Merge

By

Dear      ,

Right now I am cleaning the dining room. I mean, I was cleaning it this morning, and I’ll get back to it soon.

If you were here (in my dining room), you’d see me sorting through a stack of handwritten lists and copying them over onto one new list. I make a lot of lists. Things get done. Things don’t get done. I make decisions about what undone things to carry forward. I drop things. I celebrate the finished tasks with a momentary smile.

For the 30 Days, 30 Poems Eco-Challenge merge, I decided I need a list. You might not find this very interesting. Or you might. (I just found it very interesting to see what one of my teammates has chosen to do for the Drawdown Challenge!)

Okay, so here’s my Challenges list. Undone. And done. Maybe once I do some of them, instead of “checking them off,” I’ll add links to where I found resources to help me accomplish them. That could serve as my “done” check mark.

Buildings & cities

• I will spend at least 30 minutes researching other Drawdown Buildings and Cities Solutions

• I will complete an online energy audit of my home, office, or dorm room and identify my next steps for saving energy

• I will spend at least 15 minutes researching heat pumps to see if installing one makes sense for my home/building

Electricity Generation

• I will watch a video about methane digesters (also commonly known as anaerobic digesters)

• I will spend at least 15 minutes learning more about the energy generation potential of Micro Wind

• I will spend at least 30 minutes learning more about the energy generation potential of biomass

• I will spend at least 30 minutes learning more about the energy generation potential of wave and tidal energy

• I will spend at least 30 minutes learning more about the energy generation potential of geothermal energy and consider investing in this technology

Land Use

• I will spend at least (___) minutes finding out if anyone is working on perennial biomass projects in my region and how I can get involved

Food

• I will spend at least 30 minutes researching other Drawdown Food Solutions

• I will spend at least 30 minutes watching videos and/or reading about the environmental benefits of silvopasture

Challenges Already Completed Before The Eco-Challenge, As Part of My Ongoing Interest in Life

• I will enjoy meatless or vegan meal(s) each day of the challenge

• I will use smaller plates and/or serve smaller portions when dishing out food

• I will spend at least (___) minutes learning about the need for more regenerative agriculture

• I will buy from organic and local farmers who have made the decision to not use synthetic nitrogen fertilizers

• I will start a compost bin where I live

• I will spend at least (___) minutes researching the impact of my diet to see how it contributes to deforestation

Dear——, my 18-y-o daughter has chosen just three challenges. You could choose just one, if you want to join us. The number doesn’t matter. It’s about choosing doable things that might interest and inspire you.

Also, I’m going to write poems to go along with my challenges. Being creative feels important as a part of this. My daughter? This is what she made. Video is her art.

Today, whatever challenges you are facing, I wish for you a creative response of your very own. Art, beauty, creativity. This is what helps us stay energized—and hopeful.

As Always,

L.L.

The Heart, Waterfalls, and Making Poems

By

Dear      ,

I truly believe that it all begins with the heart. If our heart isn’t in something, then it’s a wisp, a wish, a passing distraction we’ll never turn into something we pursue with… all our heart.

What do you love? What makes your heart just fill with that inexplicable sense that inspires forward motion?

This year, I read a book that explains, in its way, why we use “heart language” like this—why we say our heart is in something. Or not in something. Or broken. Or warmed.

We say this because our nervous system causes us to literally feel things “in our heart.” This is the seat of compassion, of positive forward motion that can link us to others. At the very least it’s a survival mechanism. I like to think of it, though, as something that makes us beautifully human and capable of kindness, poetry, art, song.

When, the other day, I saw stunning pictures of waterfalls pouring over the sides of melting Arctic ice, I felt something right in the center of my heart. The waterfalls reminded me of magical childhood secrets that were mine in the woods, on the creek, so long ago. I felt a sense of forward motion.

But? I also felt a nervousness that traveled deep into my bones. A feeling of coldness washed through my body again and again, like waves. I could almost feel myself, my own very self, careening off the sides of that majestic, melting, Arctic ice.

And, Dear——, I felt unmoored. More than unmoored. I felt myself falling.

The waterfall picture was in a Scientific American article called Meltdown. The statistics were so sobering I wanted to cry. Best case scenarios place the complete disappearance of summer Arctic ice at just 22 years out. My daughter is about to be 21. In one more daughter-lifetime, the ice will have died, disappeared.

We know only some of the consequent effects, like sea levels rising 13 to 20 feet, which means the loss of Miami, the naval base in Norfolk (VA), large portions of New York City and London and Silicon Valley. There’s Venice to lose, too. And Shanghai. New Orleans (and all that great cooking and culture).

There’s gravity to be messed with. Gravity? Yes, unbelievably, this was first picked up by satellites monitoring the effects of receding Arctic ice. I have no idea what it would ultimately mean to mess with gravity.

I do have some ideas of other effects. All interesting. Some strange. Some perplexing and complex and hard to parse. But must I know any more, understand any more deeply, before I take my artful life and put my heart towards mooring prodigal carbon back here on earth—drawing it down, back home?

Sometimes we know enough to take steps. Sometimes we know more than enough. Sometimes the real issue is that our hearts must be captured by a waterfall—of love, of fear, of vision.

Mine is captured, Dear——.

So I’m going to take a few Drawdown challenges and write poems along the way. I promise to tell you what they are. I’ve written them down. But, for today, I offer a simple poem…

Melting,

my heart is.
Falling.

Careening

over the edge
of what is

and what will
be.

Come with me,
friend.

The sea

is rising,
in a daughter’s dawn
of time,

to meet us.

Today I wish for you vision, Dear——. Not fear, but vision. Make poems with me? And embark on explorations? Let’s put our creative hearts together and bring carbon home.

As Always,

L.L.

Play With Your Writing: George and the Cattle Ranch

By

Dear      ,

Do you ever play with your writing? I mean, simply do something without the pressure of finishing—and just for the joy of trying?

I haven’t played with my writing in a long time, but I wanted to share an older piece with you that was a bit of fool-around-fun. The dialog that starts with the idea of selling things and borrowing money and what might be done with the proceeds is based on an actual conversation I overheard at a restaurant (minor details changed). You can make this stuff up, but why work so hard when life offers you such juicy possibilities?

* * *

“I could make it work. I know I could.”

George tilted his head, thinking hard now, calculating the worth of the Dodge sitting in the restaurant parking lot.

She picked up a packet of foil-wrapped butter and slowly pulled back neat corners. The butter was too warm, so when she went to gather it on her knife, it slipped onto her black lycra pants.

Traci swiped at it, only pressing the mistake further into stretch-cloth. She sighed and reached for another gold packet. But now he grabbed her hand and stopped it, pushing her palm flat to the table before she could get her fingers around the new pat of butter. His own meaty fingers toyed with her wedding ring.

“If I sell the Dodge and your ring, plus everything that’s in the apartment, and we borrow some money, I could make it work. I always wanted a ranch. How hard can it be to raise cattle? Come on, Traci, you know I can do it. You know it.”

She looked down at her unbuttered bread, then off beyond him, to the exit sign at the back of the room. If she could just look straight into his grey eyes. Or excuse herself to the bathroom. Or something. Her hair caught the light so that instead of looking like the vivid red she’d asked for at the beauty shop, it morphed into an odd dark pink that looked unreal.

The waiter came now. He set down a broad-noodled alfredo with peas, for her, and an oversized steak for George, who stabbed his fork into it before she even picked up her own fork. Her bread was still unbuttered too, and would stay that way for the meantime, since George must have taken the last portions while she was looking at the exit sign.

And now it was suddenly too late. She hadn’t looked George straight in the eyes, and her food was waiting, and George was chewing fast and hard.

* * *

On this sunny morning, I wish you a little bit of play. In your writing. Or in your life. Which, often, comes to the same thing.

As Always,

L.L.

Ailing Bees, Energy, and Missing The New Yorker

By

Dear      ,

I’m wondering. Do you know what a skep is? I did not know until Alexander Langlands told me.

He wanted to make one for the bees.

I wanted to go hear Rachel Aviv yesterday and tell you about it here and maybe in an exclusive on Patreon. Rachel has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 2013. I have never been a staff writer at The New Yorker, and I had questions for her.

I did not have questions about skeps or bees, but this is the beauty of reading—it expands. And I know you know this about reading, but I just wanted to say it, because it’s sort of like something else I know you know—listening can expand your world in ways you hadn’t expected. This is why, when Alexander Langlands was talking about bees and skeps, though I didn’t have questions about either of these things, I thought maybe I’d take the time to listen.

Okay, technically, reading is not listening, and I promise I have also been listening in the ordinary way. So last night I went to Rachel’s house—not Rachel Aviv, mind you, but a dear friend who’s been letting me park in her driveway so I can stop getting $30 parking tickets (due to the car disaster, I vowed not to park the remaining car in the driveway until the wayward maple could be trimmed, and The Town has refused to listen to my pleas for a street parking exception due to extenuating circumstances, and it feels very sad not to be listened to and to feel alone and uncared for by The Town, but Rachel graciously let me park in her driveway, and so last night we had tea, and I listened.)

The skep, first made as early as the 8th century (mid medieval times) is fashioned of willow or hazel, or from straw that’s been twisted and bound by cane. It looks like a 60’s up-do you might expect to see on one of the B52s. Just add bees, and you’ve got honey.

If you listen to Rachel, you’ve got honey, too. Maybe if you listen to anyone at all, you’ve got it. There is something strangely magical (or, at least surreal) about concentrating on the voice of someone and listening with every part of your being, not just to the words, but to the sounds, to the person, and the way they are moving and the look on their face.

Rachel Aviv looks kind of intense, while at the same time looking almost medieval (not that the two need be mutually exclusive). Maybe it was the particular photograph and the way her hair and the neckline of her blouse reminded me of watching the show Merlin. She looked like Gwendolyn, but with fair skin and fair locks and maybe blue eyes, though it can be hard to tell eye-color in a black-and-white photo.

It was snowing in the morning yesterday; regardless, I still thought I’d go see Aviv. The day unfolded with more snow and more snow, and then the sun made a late appearance, the roads cleared, and all seemed well with the world. I could have gone.

Alexander Langlands, when I listened to him, told me something I hadn’t known about bee-keeping. Many of the big keepers kind of forget about the “keeping” part. They feed the bees sugar water, which is a sub-par form of energy. It makes the bees sick over time (I’ve been meaning to say, Dear———, sugar will make you sick over time, too), but it means the keepers can take all the honey they want and push the bees to keep working.

I’ve been working really hard lately. Well, I work hard all the time. But lately I’ve been working even harder, to meet some increased demands in my personal and business life. So, after Monday, I was still tired yesterday. My car was at Rachel’s. I did not have energy to go hear Aviv and ask my questions under the gaze of her intense eyes. I am sure I would have enjoyed listening to her, because I’m learning that there’s honey to be found in the act of creating an extra-special keeping-space for someone else’s words.

But.

There is a way in which we can run our lives that is like living on sugar water. And I thought of Langland’s last statement regarding skeps, and keeping, and bees… “The craeft in beekeeping is not in the meddling of the bee’s affairs but in the preparation of their home.”

In my home, there is actually not even one copy of The New Yorker, though I think it is such a cool magazine because it’s been around for a very long time and even Dr. Seuss had a friend there, once upon a time. I thought about this. I thought about the skep I needed, in order to keep writing to you. It did not include going to see Rachel Aviv—at least not yesterday.

What do I wish for you, then? A skep of your own. With the heartiness of a honeyed life. No sugar water. Because I want you to be healthy for as long as you call the 21st century your home.

As Always,

L.L.