Journal

Here are the daily questions, thoughts, provocations that get batted around in Lezlie-land:  sometimes wacky, sometimes thoughtful, sometimes shamefully self-indulgent.  Hey! It’s a journal!

How to Hire a Poet

Wednesday, 20 May 2009 17:25 Written by Lezlie Laws

The first thing I do is look at the candidate’s writing. Resumes can lie, but the writing can’t.  So I take the manuscripts accompanying the application, and I just start thumbing through them. Not looking for anything in particular, but just meandering through the pages to see how they feel, how the words look on the page.  The words will advise me.

And if this is the real thing, one of those pages tells me to stop.  It’s a mystery how this happens, and I don’t try to figure it out anymore.  You know the feeling.  The words that you need always come to you if you allow them to.  So a page calls out, and I start reading.  Fast.  Eyes darting through the lines, trying to see how willing these words are to be ignored, how ashamed they are of their own ink.  I read with absolutely no agenda, just a willingness to be turned upside down.

Sometimes the words turn to ice on the page.  Sometimes they float into the ether and disappear.  Sometimes they just stay, solid on the page, staunch and dark and precise, etched into the paper; they stare you down, until they burn through your heart like a laser.  Now we’re cookin’, baby.  I know I’m on to something; I read on.

And the words go to work.  They make you look close at a wound.  They speak for those who can’t be heard.  They push themselves on you, shoving hip against hip, or rubbing up against a breast, or lightly touching the soft, pale flesh of an underarm. They get right in your face, stare you down, and breathe into your mouth--hot, acrid breath. After reading such words, you are flooded with desire; you have to eat exotic food, or dig dirt in the garden, or have rough sex, or pat the soft belly of a puppy.  The senses are raging.

None of these activities is acceptable in a search committee meeting.  But this yearning leads you to the right person for the job.  It’s really quite easy.  Just let yourself be turned upside down.

March Resolution

Thursday, 01 March 2007 00:23 Written by Lezlie Laws

I have this thing about beginnings. I love it that in life we get all kinds of opportunities to start over, to begin again at something. New Year’s Day is a big event to me, a challenge to start a new year with renewed belief in what is possible for me and for the world.

And birthdays are that way too. I try to look at my birthday as the signal to live the way I really want to, to make the most of the precious minutes I’ve been given on this earth. Each year, I write a new mission statement for myself on my birthday.
Those of us in the academic world know that glorious feeling of beginning a new semester. Every semester we get the chance to come together as teachers and learners and construct the mind-expanding experiences we yearn for. We get the chance to leave the failures of the previous semester behind and start our intellectual life over with a clean slate. This semester, I can be smart, I can be disciplined, I can be creative. There’s always the hope!

And think about the seasons! Aren’t they great? I am amazed at how hopeful I get each spring when I begin to refurbish my garden and make changes that will surely delight me and all the creatures that live in my little patch of green. If we’re alive to the beginnings that are always before us, we’ll see lots of opportunities to start over, to do better, to live more fully the way we want to. Right here and now.

So today is the beginning of a new month, and even though March is not typically thought of as a salutary month to make resolutions, I’m moved to do so today. My March 1 resolution: Live Zestfully!

Here’s a little backstory to help explain this March resolution. I’ve been kinda pookey for the last week. In spite of my prodigious health, some virus zapped me last weekend and I’ve been laid low. I even canceled my classes yesterday so I could stay in bed. That’s sick! But I’m thinking this physical illness I’m suffering with right now is a good thing; it’s bringing an old version of Lezlie to an end. In the last few months, I’ve been on an emotional roller-coaster, and I think all those strong emotions have thrown my system into disequilibrium. (Yes, it all started with a love affair, but that’s the topic of another entry.) I’ve been learning a lot, and changing some key notions about myself, and the end of February was an end of a lot of upheaval in my life. Don’t misunderstand: all this upheaval has been good for me. But even good upheaval can take its toll on a mind and a body. And I think that’s the reason I got sick. It’s as if my body just knew that Lezlie needed to slow down and sleep for a while. And that’s what I did.

But now, it’s a new month. I slept blissfully for ten hours last night. I fed Rennie and he slept peacefully in the chair next to me as I sat on the porch and drank some coffee this morning. The sky is glorious Florida blue, and I can feel a good energy rising up in me. And to add to all this goodness, I’ve just read a fabulous review of Jim Harrison’s latest novel, Returning to Earth. That’s what I feel like today: I’ve returned to earth after a short hiatus in love and romance land. It was a great trip, but I’m back on firm ground now, and it feels pretty good.

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For FB

Saturday, 17 March 2007 00:10 Written by Lezlie Laws

 

She wants
to be adored. She won't reveal this to you, but if you could sneak into her heart (if she would ever let you), that is the yearning you would find. And inside that husk of yearning is a seed she buried before she was born. So if by some sly maneuver you get into this heart of hers (which means you find yourself wanting to be there), you would see that seed tended by a Caretaker, someone who knows what she most wants.

You must know this: she has forgotten this ancient seed. Sometimes she dreams about it. Other times, she thinks it's the beginning of a story she made up, something from her imagination, something not real. And when faint memories of it surface, she believes the seed is something that used to be but is no more. A fairytale.

What she does remember is the word--adore. It is an ancient word. It is a holy word. In early morning, when her black sky shifts to slate, she lights a candle; she lifts her chin high, exposing her white throat, opens her mouth, drops the tongue to create a wide cavity, a place that can receive. Ahhhhhhhh-dore. She says the word deliberately. Open, trusting, willing, on her best days she can believe her mouth will be filled with the sweetest nectar, the most potent nourishment. She will be adored.

It is a keen desire, the desire for a word that won't go away, can't diminish, never fades, but persists, and persists with a constancy like the very fist letter: the A--the Alpha. The expression of presence. The assertion of a name. The petition to a god. The A of adore is the first feeling, the first impulse. The mother adores the child. The sun adores the earth. The seedling adores the water.

She desires the word. And once, when she was listening particularly well, Caretaker told her this:

Adore Adonis who allures
who endures in safe and surly havens,
who drags you from your dormancy,
drums you from your cave
again and again,
who admits you to his heart and
fends off the dragon who owns you.
Adore him.

I'm Sleeping With Rennie

Friday, 14 April 2006 00:06 Written by Lezlie Laws

Yes, it's finally come to this. We've moved to a new place in our relationship. Rennie is the glorious, petulant, lean and lanky, blonde male in my life, and this afternoon we slept together for the first time.
     OK, before I get silly, I have to confess that Rennie is a ferral cat with whom I've spent the last eight months developing a relationship. Back in September, when I first noticed this young beauty moving lithely in and around the bamboo canes, he would only eat from a dish I placed in the very back of the yard. And now, after eight months of seduction, I've managed to get him up onto the back porch, eating heartily out of his own bowl, sleeping safely and warmly in his own cozy bed, and daily making himself at home on my deck chairs. But ever cautious, this wild one never lets me venture out onto the porch when he is there. I put his food and water down in the mornings, he hisses and spits at me, and, submissive, I return to the house.  If I veer from this pattern,  he high-tails it for the undergrowth of the nearby azaleas and glowers at me.
     This afternoon, I took a tall glass of tea and a copy of Dorothy Allison's stories out to the deck to enjoy April in Florida. And for some unknown reason (who knows the ways of love?), Rennie decided he would join me there. And so, there we were all afternoon, the two of us side by side in our deck chairs, like young lovers adjusting to intimacy. Rennie on his back, his head tucked under his front paws; me stretched out to the Florida sun, languorous; both of us sleeping our way through a Friday afternoon. Ah love. . . .

A Few Free Hours

Wednesday, 11 April 2007 23:58 Written by Lezlie Laws

I thought today would be Fox Day. Damn! I was wrong.

For those readers not familiar with the Rollins College tradition, each spring, our president places a large statue of a fox in the center of the campus to signal a day of fun and relaxation for students, faculty, and staff. Offices are closed down; students race to the beaches; and faculty take advantage of a few free hours to do whatever it is one might do with a few free hours.

Well, I was convinced today was my opportunity to figure out what I would do with a few free hours, and so I got up early (5:30 a.m.) to confirm on the website that, if I wanted to, I could go back to sleep, or put into action any number of pleasures I have contemplated for this year's Fox Day. For as we all know, anticipation is the true joy in life, and I, like my students and colleagues, have spent not a small amount of time considering what to do when time stands still.

So I consider the possibilities. I could, of course, work. As a teacher of writing, I am never free of having to read student stories or essays. I could tackle the stack of student recommendations I need to write. I could go to the grocery store; since the last meal I ate here at the house consisted of cereal and peanut butter, I certainly need to fill the coffers. And, should go to Costco, too, to stock up on staples. Running low on toilet paper. I could shop for that 60th birthday party gift I need to get for a good friend. I could do the laundry. Clean the bathrooms. Work in the yard. Have the car serviced. Run to the mall for underwear, black shoes, and yoga pants. I could pay bills. I could work on my website. I could call my computer expert and learn some of the subtleties of my computer that I've been saying I would learn before I retire. I could work on the two essays that editors have provisionally accepted and are awaiting revisions. Wow, I'm getting overwhelmed just thinking of all the stuff I need to be doing. Where does it end?

But wait. We're talking about Fox Day here. This is supposed to be a gift of pleasure and relaxation from our beneficent president. The purpose of Fox Day is to take a mini-retreat, to stop a minute in the midst of a busy semester to enjoy ourselves and our community. So reminding myself of that, I turn to other fantasies about how I might spend my Fox Day and consider the possibilities. I could take a bike ride. That would be fun on a beautiful day in April. Haven’t pumped up the tires on my bike in months. I could take my friend who just closed on a new house to lunch. I could get a pedicure, a massage, a face lift! I could read that novel I've been saving for summer. I could make long-distant calls to friends I want to catch up with. I could go to the new nursery south of town and look for the palm I've been wanting for the back porch planter. I could check out the quilt exhibit at the Orlando Museum of Art. Oh isn't this fun? The possibilities for pleasure are endless, aren't they?
But all this still feels very frantic. It's disturbing that I make a list about the manner in which I'm going to enjoy myself once I have a few free hours. What does this say about the way I run my life? First of all, is it healthy that I have to be "given" a few free hours to do what I want? Does it take the president of the college telling me to relax and enjoy myself in order for me to relax and enjoy myself? And secondly, isn't it sad that I have many things I like to do but obviously don't do regularly? And thirdly (and most disturbingly), I'm not even sure if this list of things I might want to do with a few free hours is truly what I would like to do. Even these pleasures smack of the need to "do" something.

If I truly had a few free hours, I mean if those hours allowed true freedom, what would I do? What do I most yearn to experience that for whatever cultural, social, or personal limitations, I don't allow myself to do? If I could clear myself of the should's and the to-do's and the ought-to's, what would I do (with or without a Fox Day proclamation)? It makes me consider the likelihood of "a few free hours." Is it possible to act freely?

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