Loose Leaf Notes

1. Sometime while working on our garden all day Sunday, I posted THIS video of Joe on Facebook. A friend commented “More Joe” so I posted the below picture.

2. Then I posted this next picture, saying, “I was there too. I was the slave driver but I managed to get my pants all dirty.

3. If those were “before” picture, this is the “after.” I was taking a picture and Joe was taking a picture of me taking a picture.

4. I almost went to the prom.

5. On our way to Roanoke to take our grandson out for lunch and a movie, we stopped at Joe’s office at the Floyd EcoVillage and enjoyed seeing the Event Center decorated for the high school prom that night. We vowed we’d stop on our way back home so I could get some pictures, maybe for the local paper, but we forgot.

6. Our new Australorp girls laid their first eggs. They were little.

7. Don’t poison earth’s apples / Don’t drop bombs on people / Don’t be fooled by a flag / or ruled by a fool / Thou shalt not oppress / or bear false witness / Let love be your compass / Lend your hand – Read Commandments for the 21st Century in its entirety HERE.

8. Just when I think poetry is something no one needs or wants, I get a call from a Floyd shopkeeper friend, saying that someone just bought my book and they want my autograph.

9. And then there is this: Lyrical, mythological and biographical, the poems in Mining the Gold for the Inner Life explore aging as a developmental and universal stage, one that’s been shaped by the blessings and losses of life, and forged from the belief that every labor of love is the whole world’s enrichment. Tourist travelogues of aging, case notes that chronicle life’s hurts and healings, remedies and inner life itineraries, gold to spend and share with others and humor are all contained in this latest collection. Find it on Amazon. 

10. One morning last week, I told Joe I didn’t sleep well. He asked me if he woke me up when he got up early. I answered, “No I was pretty doped up by then with sleep aids, and by dope I mean dopamine.”

11. From a semantic standpoint, there is a strong connection as the dopamine substance is involved in drug addiction mechanisms within the brain.  However, the similarity between the words is pure coincidence. The word dopamine is actually a contraction of dihydroxyphenethylamine, whereas dope comes from Dutch doop, which means sauce (and sauce became drug, etc.).

12. I don’t take a pill for depression. I don’t want to lose the truth or the lesson. Most fear is distortion. Some sadness is golden and sometimes the best singing is blue.

13. The staff shirts at The Green Goat restaurant in Roanoke, where we took our grandson for lunch, read, ‘Whatever Floats Your Goat.’

_________Thirteen Thursday

Every poem is a case note
Every dream is sun for the soul
Every love is a lifeboat
Every life holds a vein of gold

Poetry in my seventh decade: It all started with the idea of writing my memoir, leaving behind my story in verse. Over time, it developed as a healing art for soul work. I wrote as if digging for a natural resource. I wrote until I hit a nerve, a vein of emotion that showed me I was about to mine a truth. The process brought me to the depths of my psyche and the heights of the stars and quantum physics theories.

Lyrical, mythological and biographical, the poems in Mining the Gold for the Inner Life explore aging as a developmental and universal stage, one that’s been shaped by the blessings and losses of life, and forged from the belief that every labor of love is the whole world’s enrichment.

Tourist travelogues of aging, case notes that chronicle life’s hurts and healings, remedies and inner life itineraries, gold to spend and share with others and humor are all contained in this latest collection.

You can order directly from me @ $13, locally at The Book House, The Harvest Moon or The Floyd Country Store or from Amazon. Please consider writing an Amazon review if you liked the book. Thank you.  Colleen Redman

______________________________

Save the Date -I will be reading a selection of poems from the book at The Book House, 132 N. Locust Street in downtown Floyd, on May 25th from 2 – 3:00.

1. We have a legendary fabric store in Floyd with 3 floors of fabric for quilting, garments, bridal, formal, drapery, upholstery and etc. At one time the building was a high school, which is why the building is called Schoolhouse Fabrics and has a large blackboard on the 3rd floor.

2. Remember when we had to raise our hands to speak?

4. Remember when we lived in Hull Massachusetts and danced every weekend while still in high school  at the Nantasket Surf?

5. “I’m thinking about my brother Jim dancing at the Surf in his mohair sweater and the pressed pants he paid me a quarter to iron, and Danny who swayed to music with his eyes closed and a soulful look on his face. Thinking about my brother Joey dancing makes me smile. He needs such a big space to strut around. And like me, my three sisters all love to dance. When we get together, we get up on the first song and don’t sit down until the last. But I wonder how long our dancing tradition will survive? And who will be the last dancer? Read The Last Dancer in its entirety HERE. 

6. It all starts with a flower / doodled in winter / in black and white / and grows into a big bang / of colored scribbles and spirals / an immaculate conception / born from the underworld – Read I’m Drawing on the Blank Slate of This Day HERE. 

7. Twirl Girls, including Yours Truly, Get a  Dead Reckoning @Dogtown  HERE.

8. Maybe I can go HERE next time I visit family in the South Shore of Boston MA. Either that or Alice’s Restaurant.

9. THIS is where I want to go next Easter.

10. We went to an Easter Brunch, and I was surprised to see that my tea was served in a Christmas mug.

11. Joe did better with his Chai.

12. We all have algorithms in our minds. The more we think about something the more we get more of it.

13. Now I scour the news / and read the long stories / They come in like ticker-tape / breaking all normalcy / I want to open what’s closed / and hold the truth together / I want to convince myself / that poems still matter – Read A Literary Journal in its entirety HERE.

________Thirteen Thursday

I’m always Grateful when Dead Reckoning comes to town. Dog town that is.

Dead heads were bobbing and twirl girls were spinning. Everyone was singing along.

Another twirl girl. Yours truly.

The term Dead Reckoning is a navigation term, meaning the determination without the aid of celestial observations of the position of a ship or aircraft from the record of the courses sailed or flown, the distance made, and the known or estimated drift. Sounds about right.

One finger raised is Grateful Dead code for “miracle ticket.”

Part of the fun of a night of dancing to Grateful Dead music is looking at the pictures and watching the video clips the next day.

This Bobby/John Barlow song (Throwing Stones) is a good one for today: And the whole world full of petty wars… Singing I got mine and you got yours… So the kids, they dance, they shake their bones… And the politicians throwing stones …Singing ashes, ashes, all fall down …Ashes, ashes, all fall down…

And shake them we did!

It was a memorial celebration for the ages, held at what Lester’s daughter Barb described as his favorite place, Outer Space, Barb’s popular outdoor café and music venue.

Everyone knew Lester, but some of us, like me, didn’t know him very well. We learned what a one-of-a-kind, accomplished and well-loved person he was.

He even wrote poetry back in the day. His wife (and my friend) Martha read his poem from 1982 called “Wheels.”

Barb sang a very touching original song written for her father.

Other performers who took to the stage with songs written for Lester included his son Tom. Tom is pictured here with his sister Betty.

It was a creative group for sure. Michael Kovick also wrote and sang an original song for Lester, but I only got a bit of it. He (pictured with his wife Kari who also performed) wrote it from Lester’s point of view and sang it for Lester before he passed.

There were stories told by family and good friends.

And a great Outer Space food spread too!

I read the shortest poems first
like I clipped the shortest news stories
for current events class in elementary school

After reading one short story
about an abusive upbringing
told from the perspective of the abuser
I dreamt about a drone

It followed a couple
who tried to hide their animosity
He shoved her boots under a trailer
and yanked her out of view

The next morning my body
bore a low-grade fever
like sap rising and goldfinch hovering
waiting for a turn at the feeder
Spring flowers bloom in clockwork order
But I’ve seen this all before, I thought

I’ve convinced myself
I have nothing more to write
So I watch the birds

The red cardinal
is the only one that knows
I’m watching it from the window
The finches are easily swayed with thistle
and squirrels try to invade

Loose ends are closer together
My eyes can barely guide
worn thread through a needle
The news stories are longer now
and harder to explain
I don’t know what to say

But I’m proud of my photograph
that graces the journal’s front cover
My poem about AI
is on the last page

It says: Let robots cure cancer
and climate change
But don’t let them claim
or plagiarize artists
Don’t let the poets
Become jukebox nostalgics

Now I scour the news
and read the long stories
They come in like ticker-tape
breaking all normalcy

I want to open what’s closed
and hold the truth together
I want to convince myself
that poems still matter

_________Colleen Redman / Poets and Storytellers United/ dVerse Poets Pub 

1. Lizzo performed on SNL wearing a t-shirt that said “Tariffied.”

2. There was a great surprise appearance in the SNL Easter Cold Open. See HERE.

3. ‘I Read the News Today, Oh Boy’ is a song stuck in my head, the way ‘What’s it all about Alfie?’ used to be.

4. I had a dream last night that Mitch McConnell came to my house. He gave me a hug like he knew me from Congress, asked ‘where are the banagrams?’ and then started looking through our drawers, which I didn’t like.

5. I titled the above picture “It’s for you, Joe,” from our 2018 trip to Paris, Italy and London. More HERE. 

6. I call this Girls Just Wanna Have Fun! HERE.

7. Not only do I have a poem published in the latest issue of Floyd Moonshine, my photograph was used for the cover art.

8. Virginia Electric is now on our good dance band list at Dogtown.

9. Paul McCartney wrote the above song after seeing two monkeys copulating in the street while on retreat in Rishikesh, India, with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. He marveled in the simplicity of this natural scenario when compared to the emotional turmoil of human relationships.

10. Speaking of the Beatles…  Listen HERE. 

11. To speed up communication and reduce the risk of nuclear war, governments put in place a “red phone” on 30 August, 1963. In reality, it was neither red nor a telephone but a cable line that could transmit written messages. More HERE. 

12. Studies show that “Nonviolent mass protests are twice as likely to succeed as armed conflicts – and those engaging a threshold of 3.5% of the population have never failed to bring about change.” In each case, civil resistance by ordinary members of the public “trumped” the political elite to achieve radical change. More HERE. 

13. “I’m going to promote myself exactly as I am, with all my weak points and my strong ones. My weak points are that I’m self-conscious and often insecure, and my strong point is that I don’t feel any shame about it.” – Patti Smith

___________Thirteen Thursday

Happy Birthday Mary Wiley!

1. I let myself feel fear. It is useful as a message that something is wrong, and it passes when I allow it. But I also have a strong foundation of knowing that adversity is sometimes an opportunity that shapes us so that we can rise up and grow from it. And, it helps to remember this quote from Rupert Spira: “You are a temporary localization of eternal consciousness.”

2. By sun and seed / will we turn a new leaf? / Can we hold the lost place? / Stand up for the least? / Turn over a stone / and set the record straight / Let the grace of life flourish / Let the world turn in peace

3. Hope at the Book House: Mara was feeling discouraged with her Scrabble game, wanting to quit when Mark gave lent his hand. He drew HOPE from the Scrabble bag for her, and Mara felt better.  She couldn’t play HOPE but played HOP instead and left with a hopeful hop in her step.

4. Am I the only one who had to look up the term “touching one’s forelock” when I read it in a comment on Facebook? The forelock is the lock of hair that falls over the forehead was often accompanied by other gestures of respect, such as bowing or doffing one’s hat. This practice can be traced back to earlier customs of showing submission or acknowledgment of authority.

5. I also had to look up the meaning of h/t: hat tip, as in a shout-out.

6. Then, I was compelled to look up the word phantasmagorical that I saw in a poem I was reading because it’s so phantasmagorical. It looks like a made-up word. But aren’t they all?

7. “Phantasmagorical” means very strange, like something in a dream or a surreal, hallucinatory experience. The word “phantasmagorical,” meaning “having a fantastic or deceptive appearance,” originates from the French word “phantasmagorie,” which in turn comes from the Greek “phantasma” (meaning “ghost” or “apparition”) and possibly either “agorá” (assembly, gathering) or “agoreúō” (to speak publicly).

8. I love plain talk, like when NYT columnist David Brooks said on the PBS Newshour about Trump’s Tariffs: “I think it’s literally the dumbest domestic policy of my lifetime.”

9. My April 5 protest signs are pretty good but my friend Kamala had the best one: Honk if you never drunk texted war plans.”

10. I got interviewed by a reporter at the HANDS OFF protest march in Christiansburg on April 5th. Wondering how he could take down everything I said, I told him he needed a recorder. Then I looked at his notepad and he was using shorthand, something I learned in high school but have completely forgotten. I’m glad it’s still being used.

11. At the protest someone had a sign that said “Foxtrot Delta Tango,” so I had to look that up too. It’s military slang, derived from the NATO phonetic alphabet (?) that is a humorous and indirect way of saying “What the f***?” or expressing disbelief or confusion about an absurd or unexpected situation.

12. Another sign said WTF?

13. “Life is good once you master the art of Deletion. Every day my laptop is full of emails asking for money to do worthwhile, even noble, things, which, if I donated to them, I’d soon be living in a cardboard box in a vacant lot, and so I click on “Unsubscribe” and they go away for a while. Instead, I google “What is the prospect of international peace and understanding?” and find that the U.N. thinks it’s inevitable and dalailama.com says it’s based on compassion and foreignpolicy.com thinks the prospects are not good. We didn’t used to have Google, my kiddoes, we used to sit and worry about these things and now at last clear answers are available. Contradictory, but still.” Garrison Keillor

_______Thirteen Thursday

About 200 marchers joined about 200 to 300 hundred sidewalk protesters at a four-corner intersection in Christiansburg, joining in the April 5^th HANDS OFF protests that were happening in droves across the country.

The energy was high. For two hours, there was megaphone speakers, cheering and chants and horns beeping in support.

Organized by New River Valley Resist and others, there was a good Floyd contingency.

My friend Kamala had the best sign.

I only have two hands but brought five signs, so I gave some to folks who didn’t have any. “No Dictators in the USA” has gotten around (see HERE).

As I ran around taking pictures, I heard my name called out several times.

I was happy to see long-time peace and justice activists Susan Anderson and Kim Kipling, who headed up The New River Free Press for many years. Here’s what I wrote about that in a 2007  blog post: I first met the Free Press community of activists in 1986 when I was new to Virginia and when the Klu Kux Klan came to Floyd. I stumbled upon the march while downtown and was shocked to realize that the Klan still existed, still recruited, and held marches in broad daylight. Uncomfortable and trying to explain the event to my young sons, I was relieved to see a group passing out protest signs and flyers denouncing what the Klan stands for. They were faces from a neighboring town that I would come to know over the years.” More HERE.

I kept running into people I knew. I hadn’t seen my friend Charlotte, a reclusive artist and past Floyd librarian, in at least a decade. “Isn’t it sad that this is what brought me out,” she said. My friend Steve (to my right), who I also hadn’t seen in ages, got a kiss.

The signs speak for themselves.

Our children’s children know the score.

Love was in the air.

I met this man who is running for a seat in the House of Delegates in a nearby district.

I tracked down a Roanoke Times reporter and offered to speak to him on the record. I found him again later so my friend Karen Baker, Floyd Democratic Committee Chair, could talk to him. She said, “Every week more and more people are coming out… It gives them a way to act… peacefully.” She spoke about how seeing so many people willing to speak out might make others brave enough to do so and recalled how the Vietnam War protests helped to stop the war over time.

We all came together and uplifted each other. It was so good later to see photos from my sisters who protested in Massachusetts and those of friends who went to D.C. to make their common sense voices heard.

I have no answer
no explanation for how
a lie takes hold
the more its told

The flowers don’t know
The birds haven’t heard
The children have no world
to compare this one to

Heaven on earth?
Hell too
Who has cast this reality?
Who has solved the sum
of everything?

Who cuts off their nose
to spite their face
when our world ends or mends
by the choices we make?

Some say its flat
Some hold the match
They turn their back
or the other cheek

We all fall with them
on their way down
The innocent and the guilty
Flowers, birds and bees

By sun and seed
will we turn a new leaf?
Can we hold the lost place?
Stand up for the least?

Turn over a stone
and set the record straight
Let the grace of life flourish
Let the world turn in peace

_________Colleen Redman / Poets and Storytellers United /

1. We had to google the word “medallion” as it refers to steak.

2. We didn’t order bacon.

3. We saw something unexpected.

4. We didn’t swing from the chandelier.

5. But we did cut loose on the dance floor later that night.

6. It’s Spring in Rock Castle Gorge.

7. I’m into it.

8. Anybody home?

9. We love it.

10. So we step up.

11. And stand up. More HERE. 

12.  We deserve it. More HERE. 

13. Meanwhile, back to the drawing board. Soundtrack HERE. 

________Thirteen Thursday