Retreat

It's spring break, and I've flown south to visit a friend for a few days and then spend time at a retreat place where silence will give me the space to work on a writing project. Trees are flowering, the air is warm and humid, and it feels like summer.

I won't be online for the rest of the week. I'm looking forward to writing with no distractions before I have to return to my busy life and the second half of my crowded semester.

And it's spring

As everyone had predicted, the snow melted, the temperature rose, and we suddenly got a summer day in March. Boy in Black sent text messages to everyone he knew, including friends home for spring break, and he gathered a gang for a game of Ultimate Frisbee, which we played outdoors on a wet field that was soon churned into big patches of mud.

“It’s like playing in slow motion,” Skater Boy complained after a couple hours of skidding and sliding in the mud. The slower game was fun for me, since usually the young people move so fast that I can’t even grasp what’s happening.

“It’s like everyone’s moving at your speed, Mom,” Boy in Black said jokingly. He’s quick to tease me, but he’s also patient about flicking the disc to me even when he knows I’ll probably drop it.

The sun felt wonderful, shining onto our bare, albeit muddy, limbs. My parents stopped by on their way home from a walk and sat in the sun for a few minutes to watch the game. When they took the time to stroll through the cemetery adjacent to the field, Beautiful Smart Wonderful Daughter said to me, “They’re picking out their plots. Not depressing at all.”

Because I was playing, I didn’t get any action shots of the game, but I did take a photo of Blonde Niece’s hair. She’d just dyed the ends bright pink. A sure sign of spring.

Crazy weather

We've had only 50 inches of snow so far this season. We've barely used the snow shovels. On Friday, spring break began, like it usually does, with a snowstorm, but this might be the last bit of winter weather we see. Temperatures are supposed to go into the 60s today, which means the snow will be gone by tonight.

"I'm declaring it spring," Boy in Black said last night. "Be sure to find your cleats." For him the warm weather means one thing: it's time to play Ultimate Frisbee outside again.

When the zombies attack

Our classroom discussion about Henry David Thoreau somehow led to the topic of what we’d do in a zombie apocalypse.

The young man who brought up the topic has dark, shaggy hair that falls into his eyes. He’s a smart kid who reminds me very much of my own sons, and he listens intently to our discussions. Sometime he’ll just look around the room, as if he’s studying all of us, and I wonder what he’s thinking.

Now I know. He’s planning an escape route. And deciding which of us will get sacrificed to the zombies.

“Seriously,” he said. “Every time I sit down in a classroom, I plan what I’m gonna do if the zombie apocalypse happens. I figure out who in the room is probably going to get eaten, I figure out how I’m gonna escape.”

“The amount of emotional energy we spend worrying about an imaginary event like a zombie apocalypse — well, it’s ridiculous,” said the student with the streaks of purple in her hair.

“Maybe it’s because the real problems on earth — climate change, pollution, peak oil, the big garbage patch of plastic swirling in the ocean— it's all so overwhelming that we need to take a break and worry about something imaginary,” said the student in the green shirt.

“Well, it’s a way to channel our frustration,” said the student with the fuzzy hat. “All these environmental problems and I feel about as helpless as I would feel if there were a bunch of zombies bursting into the room.”

At the end of the class, after summing up the substance of our discussion, I gestured to the window, “My car is parked right outside. I guess if there’s a zombie apocalypse, I’d make a run for it.”

Dark Shaggy Hair  looked at me, and I knew instantly what he was thinking. I was now part of his plan.

“You’re going to grab my keys, push me to the zombies, and take my car,” I said, accusingly.

The other students laughed, but he just shrugged. “Of course. You can’t give me that information and expect me not to take advantage of it.”

It wasn't until the other students had left and we were walking out to the quad that Dark Shaggy Hair said to me in a low voice, “I’d let you survive too. We could BOTH take your car.”

“And I’m slower, so the zombies will get me first,” I said. He smiled.

But still, it seemed like he’d be a good ally. He’s definitely seen more zombie movies than I have. I held up the lanyard that sticks out of my bag. “Here’s where I keep my keys. And my car is over there  -- the black one parked sideways.”

So now I have a plan. In case the zombie apocalypse happens during class.

Woman as Tree

As much as I love Big Creative Writing Conference, I will be the first to admit that I don’t really fit in. I’d rather sleep in a tent than a big city hotel, I get headaches if I spend too much time in windowless conference rooms, and elevators make me feel claustrophobic. Hotel bars would go bankrupt if they had to rely on me as a customer, since all I ever order is ginger ale.

But luckily, my conference friends are grounded, normal people. They hug me. They make me take the time for leisurely meals. They drag me out of the hotel to walk in the fresh air. They tell me about their families and canoe trips and hiking plans. And they willingly take off their clothes when I need a photo for my blog.

“Sure, I’ll do it,” Lovely Maine Writer said without hesitation. We were rooming together. She’d just come in from running and was stripping her clothes off to take a shower.

“How about if I wear leather boots and nothing else?” she asked. That’s the kind of forward-thinking I look for in a roommate. She leaned back against the dresser, put her foot up on a chair. I snapped a few photos. The tough girl pose was great, really it was, but I felt like we needed something more.

“What if we move the table, turn the chair sideways – make kind of a platform?” I asked. “Then we could get your whole body up into the light of the window.”

She helped me flip the heavy chair onto its side. “Here I am, naked — moving furniture,” she said, laughing. “THIS is what rooming with you is like.”

“I wish we could take the photo outside,” I muttered. “I’m always stuck in these hotel rooms, with not enough light. And stupid windows that aren’t big enough.”

I played around with the settings on my camera, trying to account for the size of the window. Lovely Maine Writer was most cooperative. Balanced precariously atop the pile of furniture, she yanked at the top of the curtain to let in more light. I heard a ripping sound. “Hmmm,” she said. “This room. Is it under your name or mine?”

In the end, we settled on something simple. We moved out the furniture, and she did a yoga pose. “It’s called tree,” she said, standing on one leg, curving her arms like branches. The morning light fell across her limbs.

She stood there, without moving, rooted and strong.

Lovely Maine Writer can be as silly as a seventh grader when we’re hanging out at a party. I’ve seen her flirt with an elderly man because his scarf matched her skirt. But she also has the intensity to write brilliant pieces of prose, to edit a successful journal. She can read culinary eroticism one minute and talk about her dog the next. She’s a smart, complicated woman.

She’s beautiful, so any pose would have looked good, but we chose the photo that highlights the aspect of her that I admire the most. She is rooted in what she values. She will do anything for the people she loves, and she draws strength from her time outdoors, whether it’s running in the city or sailing in the middle of the ocean. She is always learning and growing. She is tree, stretching toward sky.

(Readers who want to know the history of the naked photo tradition can check it out here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and  here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here. )

Practically naked

So I was at this conference, watching Famous Slam Poet work his magic on the stage and remembering why I love poetry and people who play with words. Famous Slam Poet is charismatic and charming, and he’s got a ponytail. I’ve been showing students his performances on youtube for years. When the friend sitting next to me lent me her iPad, I sent out a single sentence on twitter, just to sum up my reaction: “So now I’m wondering if I can get Famous Slam Poet to pose naked for my blog.”

I wasn’t serious. But I got replies to the tweet. Mostly, people said things like, “YES! Get him to pose! I will love you forever!” Clearly, I’m not the only woman in the country with a fangirl crush on Famous Slam Poet.

Then one woman wrote, “Uhm, you could ask his wife.” She added the twitter handle of his wife to the conversation, so that she’d see what I’d said. I read the tweet aloud to my friends and we all started talking at once. Famous Slam Poet is almost my age — a grown man. Why would he need to consult his wife before posing for me?

I responded on twitter: “Maybe SHE would pose. That would be even better.” The woman married to Famous Slam Poet replied over twitter: “What’s all this about posing?” I sent her a link to my blog, just so she could see the context. I wanted to make it clear I’m not some weird stalker, but rather a perfectly normal woman who happens to take naked photos at conferences.

I thought that would be the end of the story. With 10,000 people at the conference, the chances of me meeting Famous Slam Poet’s wife were pretty slim. I suppose they would be higher if I actually was a weird stalker, but as I keep pointing out, I’m not.

Then on Saturday night, we ended up at an exclusive party held in the VERY SAME ballroom where Barack Obama watched the election returns. I can’t tell you who threw the party because, to be honest, we weren’t invited. I’d crashed the party with my conference roommates. I’d started out with just one roommate, Lovely Maine Writer, but we offered to let a friend, Mormon Farm Boy Turned Novelist, sleep in the corner of our room, and so we were three.

So anyhow, goaded by a fourth friend, a writer generally regarded as the bad boy of nature writing, we’d crashed a private party, a suite filled poets who had clearly been taking advantage of the free drinks. That’s when I saw Famous Slam Poet. I pointed him out to Lovely Maine Writer. “Hey, that guy you just cut off on your way out of the bathroom? THAT is Famous Slam Poet.”

She’d heard me blathering earlier about how great he was. “The guy with ponytail?” she asked. Next thing you know, she was over talking to him and pointing me out as the woman who likes to take naked photos. That’s one of the things I love about my roommate: she takes initiative.

Next thing you know, I’m telling Famous Slam Poet about the naked blog project. I repeated the twitter conversation, and he laughed like crazy, and then brought me over to meet his wife, who it turns out, is super cool and smart. She’d been to my blog and looked at the photos.

“You should pose for me,” I said to her. I’d changed my goal as soon as I saw her. She was beautiful. 

Unfortunately, my own rules prevented me from taking any photos that night. Although I break other people’s rules quite freely — I wouldn’t have been at this invitation-only party if I didn’t — I tend to adhere to my own rules pretty strictly. The naked photos have to be taken in natural light. And all participants have to be completely sober.

“But it’s not about the photos,” said Famous Slam Poet later in the evening, some time after we’d listened to my friends sing a drunken rendition of “The Piano Man.” He grasped the point of the project right away. “So women tell you intimate stories about their bodies, but the stories don’t end up on your blog. The photo you put on the blog is actually the least revealing thing about the woman who poses for you.”

“Yep,” I said. It’s crazy, but that’s how this project works.

Famous Slam Poet and his wife had to leave the next morning so we couldn’t set up a photo shoot. But it didn’t matter. I got to meet Famous Slam Poet and hang out with him. We got into a long conversation with an 84-year-old Writer who is quite famous himself but who had never even heard of Slam Poetry. I got to see up close that Famous Slam Poet was really as gracious and charming in person as he is on stage. It’s wonderful to meet a celebrity and find out that he’s really as down-to-earth and nice as his poetry would lead you to believe. Whether or not you ever get to see him naked. 

Escaping into the pages

It’s a bit overwhelming, this creative writing conference. It fills two whole hotels — including gorgeous old ballrooms with gilt-edged door frames and chandeliers — and overflows into dimly lit bars, one of which held an arm-wrestling contest for novelists last night. Ten thousand writers (and yes, that’s the real number, not an exaggeration) have descended upon this city. Wherever you go, you will see groups of writers talking, laughing, and checking their cell phones to find out who is going to dinner with whom. But many writers (unlike me) are introverts by nature, and I keep catching glimpses of folks in hidden corners, quiet spots, and any place where they can just take a few minutes away from the chattering hordes.

Dances with literature

One student stretched out stiffly on the classroom floor, staring straight up, her palms flat. “I’m concrete,” she whispered, by way of explanation. Another young woman stood up, stretching her arms out like branches. I sat on the floor beneath her, moving my arm as if it were a snake. Other students moved in, their bodies adding more trees, a cat, a brick wall, a wind turbine, a fountain, a car, even the moon hanging from the sky. One young man rocked his body back and forth, his palms pushing against the air. “I’m the wind.”

It was Interpretative Dance Day in my urban environmental literature class.

I wasn’t sure, as I walked to class, what to expect. The student who had asked to lead the class had said only, “Wear comfy clothes.” I think I’d expected music; for me the word dance means moving to music.

But we didn’t use music. Instead, Dancing Student asked us first to brainstorm some of the themes we’ve been talking about all semester. Then we broke into small groups, and she gave each group time to plan a dance to express a theme.

My group took the theme of relationships and community. “We need to be interwoven,” said Wavy-haired Woman. We decided that touch was important, so we stood with our feet touching, and we threaded our arms together to hold each others’ hands.

“This is too static,” said Plaid Shirt. “Communities are more fluid than this.”

“Yeah, a healthy community means people come and go,” said Dark-haired Woman. So we started moving around, sliding our feet towards each other to touch symbolically, reaching out with hands to form pairs or trios, then moving back.

“Let’s get the whole class involved when it’s our turn,” someone said. “Our dance isn’t over until all 20 of us are touching.”

We’d pushed the desks back, and in the middle of the room, each group performed their dance. My small group kept moving until we’d pulled every student into the middle of the room, all of us touching in some way.

Dancing Student asked us to take one element from each performance and create a dance we could all do together. By then, everyone had loosened up. I could feel the energy rising as even the quietest students in the class chimed in with ideas. I was surprised, actually, at how they kept returning to essays we’d read and themes we’d talked about. I’m not used to dance that involves so much thinking.

We danced themes. We danced parts of an essay we’d read. We danced pollution and development. We danced change, progress, growth. We danced a canoe paddling through a sea of floating condoms. We danced a scene of urban nature, complete with flora and fauna.

 We danced without words or music. And every single student joined in.

The old red barn

When I was a kid, we kept a horse in this barn, an appaloosa. I’d go out early in the morning on a winter day to bring her a coffee can of sweetfeed, a flat of hay, and a red bucket of water that had to be awkwardly lugged from the tap in our cellar. When I mucked out her stall, I’d fill a wheelbarrow with manure to toss into the compost pile, a heap that grew so warm that snakes loved to curl up there on cool spring days.

In the mailbox

A February rain is much colder than snow, and twice as miserable. The hems of my jeans were soaked by late afternoon because I’ve just never learned how to avoid puddles. As I lugged a stack of student portfolios into my office — ah, yes, papers to grade — I noticed a parcel in my mailbox.

Yes, really a parcel! It was an unexpected gift from Charming Canadian Professor Who Reads a Lot. And who, I might add, lives almost 3,000 miles away from me.

Twitter messages are nice. So are text messages and email. And phone calls and skype. But it was just lovely to open a package. My friend bought the book, asked the author to sign it for me, took out pen and paper, and wrote a note to put in the book. The book traveled across the border that runs between our countries, over the Rocky Mountains, across the Midwest, into Snowstorm Region, and finally into my hands.

Despite the stack of papers just begging to be graded, I opened the book and began reading right away. There are some things I just can’t resist: a new book is one of them. He’d send me Charlotte Gills’ Eating Dirt, the memoir of a tree-planter. Have you ever seen those big tree plantations in the Pacific Northwest and wondered who plants all those trees? This book tells the story. I read the first three chapters, totally hooked, before I had the self-discipline to turn back to the stacks of papers I was supposed to be grading.

My friend's note included the instructions that I wasn’t to reciprocate, but instead send a surprise gift to someone else. “Keep the karma moving,” he told me when I thanked him on twitter. I love the idea of choosing a book and just mailing it to a friend out of the blue, with no reason other than reminding her that a shared love of reading can make even the most miserable February day feel like spring.

Hot women

When my Wild Women friends get together, I’m usually the firekeeper, and I take that job seriously, adding logs to the fire every time the flames burn down to coals. At last weekend’s Stone Soup party, I kept the fire burning. Soon the room, filled with women talking and eating, was toasty warm.

I don’t know if it was the warmth from the fire or the intimacy of the conversation or the fact that probably half the women in the room are somewhere around menopause, but it wasn’t long before women were taking off their clothes.

Dark-haired Woman was the first to strip off her sweater. “I’m hot,” she announced, by way of explanation.

“Yeah, baby, you’re hot,” Long Beautiful Hair said.

Dark-haired Woman laughed. “Of course, it might just be a hot flash.”

“Hot flashes are way sexy,” someone else called out. “All those waves of warm erotic energy pulsing through your body—”

“You taking off your clothes?” asked Quilt Artist in a practical voice. She looked over from the kitchen area, where she’d just ladled soup into a bowl. “The light’s just right for a naked photo.”

I hadn’t intended to take any naked photos at the potluck. Honestly. Contrary to what some of my blog readers think, I don’t spend most of my time at social events trying to get folks naked. But the situation was perfect: a beautiful woman taking off her clothes, diffuse winter light shining from the window, and a roomful of women who are so used to my camera that the flow of conversation didn’t even pause as Dark Hair obliging took off the rest of her clothes.

“No group naked shot?” asked Denim Woman teasingly. “We aren’t going to recreate the famous white butt shot?”

“No group shots,” I said firmly. “I think the individual photos are more empowering.” I meant that, actually. The group shots are fun and often silly, but there's something special about the individual photos. Often when I show a woman a naked photo of herself, the first thing she says is, “Wow. I didn’t realize I looked that good.”

So often women don’t know how beautiful they are. The point of these photos is to let them see it for themselves.

(Readers who want to know the history of the naked photo tradition can check it out here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and  here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here. )

February potluck

Fifteen of us gathered yesterday, mostly women who have been friends for several decades. The plan was to make stone soup: we’d each contribute a vegetable, or perhaps some beans or rice, and toss them into the crockpot that was already simmering. But of course, this group of women is never content with just one pot of soup. We ended up with a whole counter filled with food: veggies and humus, several salads, five types of bread, hot bean soup, some kind of stew, and desserts, of course. We can’t get together without chocolate: it’s a rule.

During the early afternoon, we all talked like crazy, cooking and preparing food as we talked, catching up on news. “I caved and bought a puppy,” Dark-haired Woman announced as she arrived. She had photos, of course, on her phone. Gorgeous Eyes brought her sister, who was visiting from out of town. Signing Woman had just returned from an out-of-town trip, so we heard news about her mother. That’s always the first part of catching up: hearing details about siblings, spouses, parents, and kids.

Eight hours later, bellies filled with food, we lounged by the fire, no one wanting to leave. Long Beautiful Hair stretched out on the couch. Some of us piled on with her and some of us sat on the floor. We were still all talking, of course, but at a slower pace. The food and warmth had made us relaxed and sleepy. Sometimes we’d even have a lull long enough to hear the fire crackle.

“I wish we had a whole weekend,” Denim Woman said. We all nodded in agreement. But still, a whole day of friendship and food in the middle of February is something we treasure. It’s enough to get us through.

In the sauna

My feet are cold from about October to March. Even when I’m doing something like cross-country skiing, and my clothes are soaked with sweat and I’ve taken my hat off because I’m warm, my feet feel like I’ve got frozen peas shoved between my toes. None of that glow that comes from exercise makes it past my ankles. When I’m snowboarding, which requires wearing boots that fit very tightly, my feet can get so cold that it’s painful.

That’s why I love the sauna.

It’s just a small room lined with wood and the traditional wood-and-glass door tucked into the women’s locker room. Often I’m alone in there, and I just sit quietly, letting my muscles absorb all the heat. I’ll stretch my bare legs out and wriggle my toes, savoring the warmth. Sometimes another woman will come in, and we’ll exchange a smile, but the space feels meditative, so I don’t talk unless she says something first.

The other night, though, when I entered the sauna, I could hear laughter and chatter. As I shut the door behind me, I could see six young women draped on the wooden benches. “It’s a party,” Curly Hair said. She grinned and moved over to make room for me.

Once I sat down, all heads turned towards Frizzy Ponytail. She started to say something, then hesitated. “Tell us,” prodded the woman next to her. I looked at her and smiled, with just the slightest of nods, the way I do when I’m trying to get a shy student in class to speak up.

She launched into a hilarious story about a Valentine’s Day date that went horribly wrong. Curly Hair countered with an anecdote about a passive aggressive man she’d been dating. “Know how he broke up with me? He posted a picture of his new girlfriend on facebook.”

Each anecdote was met with exclamations, indignation, and then laughter from the rest of the women. They chimed in excitedly, gesturing with their arms, drops of water beading up on their bare skin as they talked, any residual hurt and sadness behind the stories gradually dissolving in the warmth.

Blue-green waters

Cartwheels turn to car wheels

My sons have always been the most talkative late at night, just as I'm about to go to sleep. Shaggy Hair Boy will come into our bedroom just as my husband and I are climbing into bed. "Hey, Mom, want to read over the essay I'm writing? It's due tomorrow."

Boy in Black, who is so nocturnal that he often goes to bed just as I'm waking up, will look at me at midnight, just as I'm about to drag my tired self upstairs, and say, "Hey, want to see this youtube clip?"

So it's not surprising that With-a-Why, my youngest son, came into the bathroom to talk to me last night while I was brushing my teeth. Clearly, the best time to talk to Mom is when she's half asleep and has a mouth full of suds.

But it did shock me when I looked up and caught sight of our images, reflected in the bathroom mirror. I had just spit out the toothpaste and straightened up, automatically smiling at the mirror as I did so. With-a-Why, standing behind me, grinned at the mirror too. Over the top of my head.

That’s right. My youngest son, my baby, is a head taller than me. When did that happen?