When he called to say he’d be home early, an hour away at most,
she hurriedly grabbed the signs of her weekend with passion:
the voluptuously hot-colored glass,
(a spontaneous deviation from her usual blues),
the achingly sharp tools …
the milky white adhesives,
the markers (you are MINE!),
the ubiquitous remnants of joy
left strewn across the table,
the chairs,
the floors,
her clothes…
the Tears for Fears,
the Prince,
the Elton.
Closet closed now,
the sweep of the vacuum,
the stash of memories
now buttoned up,
but only a wisp away
from tomorrow’s
studio time.
Women Writers
With Apologies if You Live in the Northeast
I don’t mean to gloat, but … IT’S SPRING!!!! IT’S SPRING!!!!
No more cold winter nights (we had TWO this year! Horrendous!) or clamoring around the house searching for a blanket — it was just hell, I tell you! HELL!
And now that every potential frost drop has high-tailed it under the cover of your chinny chin chin, we’ve been frolicking ALL over the place. Yes indeed — every hour of the day and night, and I’m like a whole new person now that the “winter” has passed in the south. I even waved to a stranger!
Here’s hoping with all my heart that your spring is hurtling toward you as we speak. And if it’s not your turn yet, it’s headed your way. I promise.
Life and How We Live It
I may have mentioned a few or fifty-seven times that I’ve spent almost 100% of my time for the past five or six or seven weeks cleaning. And I don’t mean sweeping and dusting obsessively — that will never be my goal.
What I mean is that I’ve been digging deeper and deeper into the “I can pick them up and carry them around” bits of my life — memories from across the decades, moments of loss and moments of euphoria, talismans that helped me through various decades depending on my spiritual quest at the time, aches that I’ll carry forever because they were a critical part of my growth, and aches as well that scarred me deeply and took up residence in my soul for far too long.
And yet all in all, it’s been, and continues to be, one of the most healing times of my life, taking me from emotion to emotion as I try to place each into the part of me that will keep me moving forward with wonder and sharing and joy day by day.
Love to All!
The Irony of Life, or Why I Hate Throwing Things Away
A few weeks ago, I decided to take a leap — a big one for me. But after years of “NO, I Might Need That!” I felt in the depths of my soul that it was time to purge, to let go and live happily ever after with what I already have — mostly, to feel lighter myself.
Ohhhhh how very wrong I was. Or right. Or something in between. The truth is that I just don’t know, because purging is not in my wheelhouse. But a week or so ago, something in me changed, and I hit the LEAP button. Had I done a positive thing that would make life easier, or had I just wildly tossed all the supplies that I’ll certainly need on Monday?
And in truth I wasn’t even quite sure what my end goal was, but I was definitely certain that some sort of action needed to happen. How did I know? Honestly, that part remains a bit fuzzy, but I forged ahead anyway, enlisting the help of a friend and going at it Big Time.
So we put on old clothes and sat on the floor for hours and climbed through years of well-stashed “but I might need this!” mosaic supplies, eyeing each piece relentlessly. And then, after filling boxes upon boxes upon boxes of glass and china that I reluctantly deemed “will never be used” … I tossed it. Okay not all of it, but so many boxes that my back still hurts, AND I’ve lightened half of my supplies. What was I thinking?
It’s a funny thing. One day life seems perfect, and the next day you realize you’re only using half of what you’ve collected over the years and maybe you DON’T need it all. And maybe you don’t even know exactly why, but you see the path and it’s calling you. And then I shed my very-long-time way of seeing, and suddenly now it’s hard to remember what I gave away.
And even more surprising, I found myself joyously making art again and planning classes.
So very often it’s the journey that finds us.
Strapped for Time?
So the good news is that it’s 2016 and I’m wandering down an empty lane in Paris on lle St. Louis. I’m thrilled to be here, but a bit anxious. “In Paris?” you ask? Well, yes. My conundrum is worrying how I’m going to meld myself into this fabulous opportunity while simultaneuosly meeting a deadline. Cause, you know — Paris/Work … Paris/Work ….. Yes, time has me by the short hairs, and I don’t like it one bit.
And then I glance up, and in an instant my entire attitude changes and I burst out laughing, my feelings blatantly displayed for all to see. Honestly, how likely is it that someone would have taped up this clock and dropped it onto my path on the very day that I’m (more than) tremblingly overloaded?
Strapped for time — that’s me, and a big THANK YOU to the universe for letting me laugh it out in a big way.
Time is so often a deterrent, isn’t it? We all want more of it, but we’re quick to specify that we want *this* kind of time and not *that* kind of time. More time with those we love, and less time paying bills. More time to learn and create, and less time studying for finals. More time to savor a good meal, and less time standing in supermarket lines. Of course there are a few enlightened souls among us who can make the most of the lines and the numbers and the tests and even find joy there, but mostly we tend to try bargaining. “Dear Time, I will gladly pay you Thursday for a Cheeseburger on Wednesday.” And so it seems we spend our lives racing toward the world we think we want rather than changing the way we experience it.
Is this the way I want to live? Nope. Nope. And Nope.
I want to look at life, live life, and love life in a way that feeds my soul now and forever. Doing so isn’t impossible — the truth is that so much of it is up to us. So change isn’t dependent on time, and time doesn’t always equal change. Look at it this way: If I allot eight hours and fifteen minutes to a flight, I can walk the streets of Paris tomorrow instead of Charlotte. That’s a huge plus, but I wonder — can I *feel* Paris in an instant on any day of any year?
To an extent, yes. But I can also dedicate eight hours to writing a proposal and get absolutely nothing of value accomplished. So the concept of time is pretty wishy washy in my book, and how can I hold myself so accountable to wishy washy?
I can’t, and I won’t, and I don’t have to. I need to step it up. Now.
Let’s say I have ten great years left, fifteen good ones, and five glad-to-be-here years. At 25, I figured I was young enough to feel my way through it, and I did. But forty hit me like a deer in the headlights. And now at 60 (or so), planning my Next Ten Fabulous Years has became high priority, and I’m working it in every direction I can grab. Fortunately I’ve learned along the path that life is pretty much exactly what you make it.
Get going.
And today I plan to look at this giant, banded timepiece a new way: I’m not the one who’s strapped. I won’t be the one who’s strapped. I think it’s time to breathe, dream, plan, work, and grab my joy. Sometimes You Gotta.
Cleaning Day
It’s unusual for me to enter the hell of housework, but sure, every now and then it happens. And this is one of my favorite things about the holidays — the joy of family arriving makes everything fun — even cleaning. I mean, it isn’t raucously fun, but still. At any rate, my life of late has been a whirlwind of washing everything in the house, tossing anything that’s no longer usable, and donating the rest. And then comes the fun part — re-dreaming, re-arranging, re-hanging and, often enough, re-loving.
Yes, the wonderful, mind-altering, fabulous thing happened, and yes, I actually cleaned.
Mind you, when I say I cleaned, I mean I CLEANED — right through the nittiest gritty on the planet. And then another thing happened. A wonderful, magical, mystical thing.
I was hot into ripping off bed covers and sheets and pillows and the errant what IS that? when I saw it. Between the mattress and the box spring, between the feeling and the knowing, between the motion and the act (10 points if you recognize the reference), a small piece of folded paper poked herself out quite nonchalantly. Just a papery flutter minding it’s own papery business. So of course I immediately pulled it out, and with it flew a lilting passel of individually written 20-year-old memories spilled full out and joyously tumbling all over the floor. Some written to me; some written to each other.
And suddenly I was back in those joyous days of artists arriving from multiple states, laughing and creating non-stop, sharing food and ideas and sleeping exhaustedly on every flat-enough service of every room in the house.
Over those years, we made art together for hours and hours at a time, easily filling a day or two with each visit. New friends, old friends, come-and-go friends, love-you-forever friends.
“A security I cannot describe.”
“Pure solace, as it always is.”
“May you have an enchanted and marvelous time in this room.”
“Rest and be refreshed.”
“I find peace being in this bed and with those who live here.”
“Sorry for the scraps — I don’t travel with paper!”
“Rest and be refreshed.”
“Is this bed comfy or what???”
“Workshops, gardens, peace, contentment, beauty, and inspiring art.”
“With each short visit, I’m reminded how it might be to stay with cherished family. Thank you for your friendship, humor, advice, and suggestions.”
And it was, again, bliss, no matter the distance.
Love you forever, indeed. Maybe cleaning isn’t so overrated after all.
* Image above by Pam Goode, taken one night in Ireland.
Beach Poetry
Some days the wind is so merciless
that the few birds venturing out
hasten in their flight,
cursing the rougher movements, the lack of food,
the strain of wings.
Some days the sand blows so briskly that it stings,
minuscule dots of quartz and glass
co-mingling
with the sharper air that
pulls my breath away.
Some days seem ripe for staying in
and lolling here and there on
softer sofas than this.
Yet some days lay splendidly before us,
mingling breath and sea and quartz
into our dreams.
© Pam Goode 2023 (Poem)
Image by Ben Wiid
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre and Bad Shoes
As we hobbled out of the Blumenthal in ill-advised but oh-so-lovely shoes, my 20-year-old daughter said, “I’ll never again in my life see such incredible bodies.”
I’m pretty sure she was right.
Leaving another fabulous Alvin Ailey performance, I couldn’t help feeling oddly surprised that we weren’t flying. After all, we’d just seen irrefutable evidence that humans do, indeed, take to the air in dizzying, boundless, lighter-than-air flight.
The highlight of the evening was Twyla Tharp’s frenetic choreography set to David Byrne’s score in The Golden Section. If you thought Talking Heads was a wet finger in the socket, wait til you see thirteen dancers moving together with exquisite precision, AND performing thirteen separate simultaneous dances. Premiered in 1983, the thrill and adrenaline rush of this piece is as addictive as Ben and Jerry’s Dublin Mudslide.
I was 28 when I finished my last dance class and switched to yoga, knowing that I was never going to be another Twyla Tharpe. Linda Celeste Sims, pictured above, danced ravenously for two hours, her own balls able to eject from the wood floor with muscles as powerful as a spring-loaded board. Me? I struggled to walk two blocks in heels. My wimp quotient is boggling.
Not only was I never going to be a dancer, but I was actually struggling to walk in shoes. And there we were — inching down from the sixth level of the parking garage with improper footwear, the balls of my feet straining in agony on the clutch.
But it was okay — it was temporary, and I had just spent an evening in paradise that I’ll never forget.
Oh yeah, and about those incredible bodies . . . .
I was six when I first slid my pinkies into the much-more-comfortable soft leather ballet flats and learned to lie on my tummy, arch my back, and touch my head to my toes.
I was a young teenager when Edward Villella made it clear that dancers were the most highly trained athletes, their own leaps and relevés far above the ball-tossing hordes.
I was seventeen when I saw Judith Jamison dance Cry, an exhausting and emotional fifteen minute solo that burned her mind-boggling image into the eyes of dancers worldwide.
I was twenty-something when Robert Blake (while he was still cute and crime-free), leaned over toward Johnny Carson and said, “Marry a dancer. Sex doesn’t get better than that.”
Apparently not.
Linda Celeste Sims had danced ravenously for two solid hours, her own balls apparently able to eject herself from the wood floor with muscles as powerful as a spring-loaded board. The best I did was walk two blocks in heels, and I whined.
My wimp quotient is boggling. But I will ALWAYS love to dance.
Pam Goode Writes 