What kind of example am I

Not much of one, at this point, I should say. Some things that have been happening in the many days when I haven't blogged, some good, some not so:


1. I went to New Orleans for CCCC! I don't care that the beignets are greasy and the coffee diluted with chicory. Cafe du Monde is the oldest coffee stand in the world (or so they say)! And I went there with Jackie (and M and F)!

2. I also did yoga while in New Orleans, at Wild Lotus Yoga. The teacher, Amanda, offered a lovely synthesis of flow and alignment.

3. Before New Orleans, I was in Texas. My dad had neurosurgery. The surgery went fine. The recovery and results are still in question.

4. Over the past five months, I've been invited to join three boards (one on campus, two community-based) and one handbook-writing group. It's work I'm very committed to, but it's keeping me busy.

5. A sibling was first diagnosed with a mild heart attack, then just heart problems. We're still waiting for something a little more definitive.

6. The redbuds are in bloom. It's my favorite time of the year, when the trees are almost fuzzy with buds and the purple blossoms startle here and there.

7. C. and I are making a significant purchase. It involves a lot of paperwork. It's making me tired.

8. Much rain. It turns the yard into a swamp. It drives my sinuses crazy, the shifts in barometric pressures.

9. Three siblings, two parents in Texas. Much stress. I'm here in Missouri. Much stress.

10. But, still, much to relax into. Friends. Dinner at R & Z's with Debbie a couple of weeks ago. Dinner tonight. Dinner tomorrow. Dinner next week. All with friends.

It's April, and so it's time

To blog some more. And since it's National Poetry Month, it's time for a poem.

And I offer you John Berryman, specifically a poem I once enjoyed reciting. In my youth, ennui seemed cool. Not only that, but my mother really did tell me she was never bored. And so she reprimanded me if I dared to say that I was.

Dream Song 14

Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so.
After all, the sky flashes, the great sea yearns,
we ourselves flash and yearn,
and moreover my mother told me as a boy
(repeatingly) "Ever to confess you're bored
means you have no

Inner Resources." I conclude now I have no
inner resources, because I am heavy bored.
Peoples bore me,
literature bores me, especially great literature,
Henry bores me, with his plights & gripes
as bad as Achilles,

who loves people and valiant art, which bores me.
And the tranquil hills, & gin, look like a drag
and somehow a dog
has taken itself & its tail considerably away
into the mountains or sea or sky, leaving
behind: me, wag.