Flo

Last summer, while reading the Fort Collins Weekly, I was introduced to a poet, Gloria g. Murray.  I googled her name, emailed her and purchased four of her self-published books of poetry.  She has a wonderful ability to transform daily life into poetry.  This poem is what I’m sharing today:

FIVE AM ANXIETY

at five am
to ease my anxiety
I make tea
sit in the velour recliner
turn on cable TV
catch the weather
the ads for flat abs
and wrinkle free skin
at seventy
and the evangelists
who offer us Jesus
before we’ve even had
breakfast

then scribble out
a poem
on the back
of a grocery list
try to remember
my dream
for my next therapy
appointment

and by now
the sun and the world
are up
the world
I grab on to
like a train I almost miss
until a caring commuter
sees me waving
frantically
and holds open
the door because
dammit
I still need
to get
on

–Gloria g. Murray

Happy weekend, Flo

“Why does one begin to write? Because she feels misunderstood, I guess. Because it never comes out clearly enough when she tries to speak. Because she wants to rephrase the world, to take it in and give it back again differently, so that everything is used and nothing is lost. Because it’s something to do to pass the time until she is old enough to experience the things she writes about.”

This quote was sent to me via email in the spring and I wish I could give the author credit – I have no idea where this quote originated but truly appreciate the words.  I’m trying to remember when I first started to write.  I remember a diary, lost in my parent’s divorce, that mulled over the boys at church camp and the angst of being a teenager.  I was relatively boring (by worldly standards) teenager, striving to be independent through music and religion, so I wasn’t much of a nightmare for my parents.   I was too busy trying to excel at everything, win praise for all I did, to have much time for trying drugs, sex or temper tantrums with my parents.  I’m not sure why I bought that first diary as I have no recollection of anyone telling me it might be a good idea to express my feelings instead of bottling them up inside.

In college, it became a blue composition notebook, with only 1/3 of the pages used, spanning the years of 1982 through 1985.  The writing was often done at Lake Fort Phantom, in Abilene, Texas.  I would head there to find seclusion from my roommates and this was the journal I was using when I moved to Colorado.  Gunnison was my first home after college and I stayed there for 20 years.  This is where I started exploring my writing voice.  Following 10 years of writing silence, in February 1995, in Lake City, Colorado, I met with an unfamiliar group of women for a “Journaling Retreat”.  Through the gentle guidance of Lois Sunrich http://www.storyartsinc.org/ and Carolyn Hull, my voice squeaked and eeked out of me.  Over the next four years of annual retreats, I figured out I could process an “awful lot of stuff” in my writing.  Relationship pain, family issues, abuse trauma.  It all would come pouring out and I could move on.

I guess I’ll write more on this later.  Flo

Hello to everyone, out there in the ether.  I’m honestly not sure I know what “the ether” is but I feel like I’m writing to no one right now and that may just lead to a little jabbering on my part.

I looked up “ether” in the dictionary, and low and behold (one of my oddities, I quote my father’s little cliche’s) I actually do know what ethers means and used it quite correctly in the above sentence.  “Well, I’ll be”.

This is my first blog.  In fact, I haven’t even really read any blogs.  I think I’m a bit surprised to be asked to join and excited at the same time.  There are many times when my writing is just about daily stuff; sometimes needing a prompt to get started, I amble off and am soon trotting or running with the words flying fast and furious behind me.  I typically don’t type knowing or planning what I want to say, so this blogging will be a little different for me, actually trying to have a bit of a focus when I write.  We’ll see if that really happens, or not!

Flo