THREE HUNDRED LEMONS

Yesterday I went to Cash & Carry in Ballard, which I never before knew existed. I needed to buy 300 lemons, and who doesn't? Cash & Carry is a wholesale grocery outlet, but regular folk can go there. It's smaller than Costco and less glamourous. Their main clientelle seems (after my one visit) to be people who work for/own restaurants. I didn't see Tom Douglas or Tierry from Rover's. I kinda don't think the Cash & Carry is pitched to the high end establishments. But they had boxes and boxes of lemons back in a refrigerated room with those flexible swinging doors with the rubber squeegy bottoms and sides and the plastic windows. Each 40 pound box had 115 lemons in it, so I loaded two of those on the hand truck, then counted out six of the 5 lb bags that didn't seem to have moldy lemons in them, put them in a box, and loaded them on top, tipped the thing back while holding on to the front of the top box to keep it part of the gang just like someone who knows what they're doing, and went back through the cool doors to the warm warehouse, piled my boxes onto my enormous wedge shaped flat cart and returned the hand truck to the refrigerated room, again through those doors whose light weight and flapping noise pleased me. Back in the warm room I wrestled my lemon box laden cart to the checkout line. As it only wanted to be pulled behind me rather than pushed in front of my, I finally gave in to its wishes, and then noted that everybody else was using that method to maneuver their carts. This was not Whole Foods, baby.

I would make you ride with me over the Cascades on two freeways for three hours before revealing the reason for the three hundred lemons, but I am a kinder and gentler (and who knew we would ever feel nostalgia for that man?) sort of a writer and will get right to the point, as is so often my wont.

The Gamache family is making limoncello at Lake Chelan as one of our festive Labor Day Weekend activities. We bought the lemons. We are not Italian. I have never been to Italy. However, we did make a smaller (90 lemons) batch of limoncello two years ago, partially to distract ourselves from Jim's cancer, partly because Shawna and Todd had brought some back from the Cinqua Terre (oh I'm sure that was spelled wrong) and it was fracking delicious. Our limoncello made wonderful holiday gifts for our non-alcoholic friends and family members (it contains, in addition to lemon zest and sugar, vodka and everclear.) Off I go now to zest a few dozen lemons.

Those Darned Emotions

Do I have gout? Do girls GET gout? My father has it; my grandfather on my mother's side had it. My ankle is swollen, top of my foot swollen, it aches unto hurts, is hard to walk on. Am I dehydrated? Did I sprain it again? We've changed insurance. I have no doctor. I can get a doctor. I haven't written much unto anything in weeks. Do my fingers have gout? What is gout?

I've begun reading a book called The Wisdom of Menopause. I tried to buy it at two different independent bookstores and then said fuck it and went to Barnes & Noble. I picked up the book and put it back on the shelf. There was a huge photo of the author/menopause guru on the cover. At the checkstand I was embarrassed, as though I'd picked up O Magazine (not Story of O though I would have felt squirmy about that too for different reasons,) or Martha Stewart Living. I also bought a book entitled The Homeowner's Guide to MOLD. Mold is in two inch high letters which look like they have mold on them. The cashier was my age and didn't belabor the B&N club issue, which was a huge relief. I made a crack about adding insult to injury what with my two books and then brazenly carried them out of the store without a bag, though Martha Stewart I mean the menopause book, the wisdom one, was wedged, face inwards, tight to my armpit. I know there's a good unto great replacement for the ugly smelly word armpit but I don't KNOW it. TWOM has it that my brain is altering/has altered - let's face it I stopped having periods two years ago - and that my not wanting to do anything for anybody ever again, wanting to slough (so sorry for the pun) nurturing, being accomodating, etc. is actually developmentally right where I should be. The comforting thing is having this phrased as a phase of growth rather than decline, an opportunity for growth. Yeah, and "may you live in interesting times" is a curse, pardon the pun.

I went to a work meeting yesterday and the average age of the players was half mine. The new hire gave me his card which had a quote on it I wanted to read but couldn't without glasses. He was very very young but wore glasses. I squinched my eyes, it was dark in the room, but couldn't get beyond the name of the source of the quote. He said the quote to me, perhaps thinking I'm vain and wasn't wearing my glasses, having as I had until I was in my forties, no clue that this woman (I) had lost due to age (ing) the ability to focus on small print in low light conditions. I can still do it with good light. Who cares? I have reading glasses, many pairs of them. Which I lose. Which my husband borrows. Which is funny when they're the pink ones with red hearts. But which I still demand be given back to me.

I told a friend yesterday that I have three squirt bottles of Shout! in my laundry room. We both said, "hmmmmm, what could that possibly mean?!" Then I went home and sprayed Shout! all over my new white blouse, where the red filled in circles of tomato based sauce had landed when a mussel lost its muscle in a tussle with me at the dinner table. In public. With my friend. I'm not thinking of the fun kind of shout like the group kind with the song playing. I'm thinking about the angry kind that gets you in big trouble with loved ones. If I speak my mind and live with the consequences I won't have to worry so much about shouting.

I've been working on my work room, not pretending to work on my work room which I did for several months actually years while staring at the computer and wishing the fairies would come and fix everything. I've carried bags and bags of books to second hand book places. Two days ago I took five very full double paper shopping bags full to 3rd Place Books at Ravenna. The guy would have given me twenty something bucks for the little stack he wanted out of the bunch or I could have forty something bucks in store credit. I exchanged the store credit and two dollars seventy cents for W.S. Merwin's Migration, beautiful cover from Copper Canyon Press and Travels in the Scriptorium by Paul Auster. The Times (London) review of oh my god damn it another book by Auster so who cares??!! okay okay says, "No metaphysical writer can make you feel more like you're being read a bedtime tale by a gentle, hang-dog uncle... (elipses the book cover's) There is still a hint of the magical in the everyday events that he chronicles." I need a little babying.

I'm in a developmental stage where I want what I want but don't know what I want.

Cruiser Gamache, May 12, 1996 - June 15, 2007

An attempt at tribute, using words I knew you knew

Okay I will begin to believe you are gone, throw

treats into the box for dane rescue, food, toys,

bed if I can lift it from the living room floor.

Cruiser, I miss you, good girl, big girl, coo coo head,

lover of squirrel, chipmunk, kitty, bunny,

relative of horse and deer.

Down the stairs we walked to coffee,

Up the stairs for mail into the alley of smells.

wait and you would, to leap from the way back

it's our turn and we'd cross MLK to coffee

skeedaddle when the lights had changed

Look and see Gary in the yard next door for

happy circles you loped at a lean.

You could take it and leave it,

you loved the trip to Chelan -

stood for bunnies at Rocky Reach,

horsies along the Teenaway, Buffalo bunched

on Squack Prairie, Navarre Coulee Llamas.

"Horsies" and I watch the rear view for your rise.

Wanna come? We imagined you thought us gone

to puppy park, pet store, Chelan when we left you, said

you can come to your raised eyebrows.

Jim was alpha, Juju your litter mate, I fed, bathed,

walked and kept you, furry daughter.

Auntie Barbara gave you running water from the tap

on puppy sleep overs with Bridgett and Bosch

Nancy never let you in the dining room though you stole

Jasper's bed. Scooter stole your bed, fourteen pounds

of my way you let him have, gentle giant we said

pretty girl. I listen for your jinglies, for your sigh at

my bedside to say outside, pet me, food. I miss running

to flip your left ear from off your head, your flannel

smell, the strong pound of your heart, your tongue-lolling

joy as we discovered street or path.

I'm not a pragmatist, not rational, no animal husband

your soul more optimistic and forgiving than mine

you were always with me in real time, no grudges

you had memory, knew English words,

understood body language better than we do.

I think of canine packs in the wild,

how elders fell behind, how we slowed

to your pace, took our place, let you go.

a shy hi and then a sign off since it's 3:57 and the little triangle warns me there's an outage at 4 - so much for the much anticipated return of my blog posts. The flesh and blood or brick and mortar world has rather had me in its thrall what with the cross world and cross country travel and all the poetry submissions I've been sending, not to mention the dozens and dozens of middle school kids I've seen. Isn't this ultra spam to have me so chattily back between these margins all yackety yack?

Leaving for the country of greece, not the musical or the viscous fluid homonyms, in less than 48 hours and I notice I have not posted for a month - yikes! all the errands come due when it's time to flee: laundry, bank, blog.

I'm crossing this off my list.

6th grade poetry reading veterans today, pre-cupcake ingestion

The poem below was constructed entirely from titles of books in the collection of Seattle Public Library's Central Branch, one of three poems I was invited to enter under sponsoring organization Seattle Arts & Lectures. Selected poems will grace bookmarks the library will distribute to branches to celebrate National Poetry Month in April. Books whose titles were used will be displayed on the 8th floor of the library. I spent a satisfyingly luxuriant amount of time in the library handling books for this project.

Ear Training

Violin dreams
the music of light
the pianist’s thumb
inconsolable
music in the age of Confucius
dancing in the no-fly zone
behind the seen
the adventures of a cello
between salt water and holy water
the perfect wrong note
mending the world

-Laura Gamache

Detail of My Door

Oh how to describe what the yoohoo I've done here. Ahem. A deck of cards, gluestick, and collage pictures, then the idea of dividing my poem "Walking Up To It All The Time" into 52 segments. After I had the cards all pasted, with the lines on them, I went to the photocopy place which was having a mad sale and made giant photocopies (2 to an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet.) The blow ups couldn't make giant cards (unless I paste them to cardboard which I still might do,) so I taped them to the glass of my studio door. I like the playing card size better, but these give me pleasure too.

Life Changing Heading Photo to Arrive Later Today

Meanwhile, I have been restored by a two night stay on a gorgeous farm on Lopez Island with two other writers where lo! we wrote and ate very well and walked and WROTE and communed with each other but only in the evenings because at other times we WROTE! which is to say that I wrote and felt myself a writer writing, a poet inside a poem, miraculously inside the music of a poem, and this is what I wish for every poet. Amen.

The Overhead Projector, A Eulogy

My big worry with being away from schools for this week is that Hamilton International Middle School is going to do away with the pile of overhead projectors behind the yellow do not cross tape in the library before I get a photograph of them.

Overhead projectors work great for displaying a poem on a transparency - want to comment on the poem in writing on the page but not wreck the transparency for the next class? Slip it under the roll of transparent plastic already there and write on THAT. Overhead projectors have always sat on tables or carts, mostly wheeled carts, that put them at just the right height for writing on standing in front of the class.

A few years ago a student wrote an ode to the overhead projector that he read to the class complete with affectionate gestures toward the overhead projector.

My father told me that once at Boeing a visiting luminary was giving a talk, complete with bullet points on a transparency projected on an overhead projector that had a ladybug crawling around inside it. He was far more interested in the course of the ladybug than the course material.

I remember going to a concert in about 1969 somewhere small at the Seattle Center. The dazzling psychodelic light show involved petri dishes of oil set on the glass of an overhead projector. Food coloring out of an eye dropper splashed into the petri dishes projected on the far wall in the darkened room - we saw colors, man.

Objects placed on the overhead projector and projected gain mythical importance.

The group Monochrom recorded, apparently more than once, a pop song called "Farewell to the Overhead" in 2005. Worth a listen for the pronunciation of "photosynthesis" and to annoy your housemates.

Overhead projectors look like prehistoric beings, and now they're going extinct too.

RADISH KING CURES COMMON COLD

Miracle on 45th Street

Last night, I slogged soggily (my dripping nose) to the poetry reading at Open Books (one of only TWO poetry-only bookstores in the US and probably the UNIVERSE.) After hearing the ever humorous, humble and brilliantly bent poet Rebecca Loudon read from Radish King, my internal antiviral attack squad, obviously reinvigorated by the poems, kicked in and, reader, I am cured. Rebecca also read from Navigate, Amelia Earhart's Letters Home, which, from the comma in the title through the very last letter poem, may, and probably was, also responsible for the happy turn-about in my condition. Ron Starr, poet of dextrous text combinations and the mysterious magic square, also had a voice in my recovery, reading from his new book, A Map by a Dim Lamp.

(If you go to AMBADL link and scroll further down, you will find Rebecca Loudon's first and most red book, Tarantella, which, while she did not read from it last night, possesses curative qualities, particularly when read loudly aloud.)

Sugar-soaked valentine love to all from me here at the new blogger.

POETRY READING PREP!!!!!!

Get Ready to READ ALOUD!

Community School Olders’ Reading
Kirkland Park Place Books
Tuesday, February 13, 2007 at 6:00 pm


Get to know your poem:

Read through your poem saying ONLY the vowel sounds (if silent, DON’T say!)
Read through your poem saying ONLY consonant sounds (if silent, DON’T say!)
Circle verbs, imagine those actions, then imagine as you read the poem
Underline phrases that make a picture in your mind (images) and
PICTURE THESE! Picture each image as you read your poem
Say each line of your poem 5-6 times in a row in a loud voice while
moving your whole body (jumping jacks, marching)


Warm up your instruments (your body & your voice):

Stretch your uvula, neck circles, shoulder circles, arm stretches
Tongue twisters:
You know you need unique New York
ToyBoats ToyBoats ToyBoats ToyBoats ToyBoats ToyBoats ToyBoats
Peter Piper Picked a Peck of Pickled Peppers
“Ah” from toes to head
Sing and dance along with the radio in a loud voice


Do:

Dress as you, the poet. Spiff up AND be COMFORTABLE!
Get to know your poem
Warm up your instruments
HAVE FUN!

_________

This is the handout I made this morning to give to 5th and 6th graders who will be reading their poems aloud tomorrow night. When and if I follow my own advice, I give a better reading. I have also discovered that repeating the lines over and over is a great revision tool. Ciao for now.

Petrodvoritz: photo by Todd Lininger

Acronymble at Hamilton Middle School:

Letters: FTFMN

Forgotten Titans follow monkey news.
fried turkey feathers minus nutrition
Friends triumphed, found marginal niceness.

Letters: APAINJ

Assorted painters argued in New Jersey
astonished panthers ambled
into natural Jell-O

Letters: TORPPQ

to order ravioli,
press Pound Q

Territorial ordinary raddiccio
pretended placid quietness

Letters: AILKPI

Abalones incubated licorice
keeping particular "Ikes"

Astonishingly, I like keeping peace indexes

Letters: XDUOW

Expecting disaster, Ulysses
offered wine.

Excellent doodles unfurled odd words.

Xenophobic ducks understood other worlds.

Letters: AUOLGA

Actually, umbrellas open like growing angels.

Letters: AVMVNDL

Authentic Vulcan maps
virtual Neptunian direction lessons.

Aspirin volunteered Monday
victuals never denied licorice.

Are violins made valuable?
Not during Lent.

The coolest thing about the Acronymble Game is that kids (above are MY acronymbles) use their vocabularies in a fuller way than if you say, "let's write something using all your good words." (guaranteed to result in: I like my friend. He is nice.)

Yesterday, the sixth graders wrote credo poems based on Roque Dalton's "Like You". Here is mine:

Like You

Like you, I love to move my pen across the white page
to discover and create my thoughts.

Like you, I lose patience with leaders who do not
hear me, but I keep speaking and writing.

I believe poetry is meaningful as a way of life.

I believe your walnut skin, olive skin, pink skin,
ebony skin is a beautiful part of you and
that what we have in common runs deeper
than the shapes of our noses and lips,
the differences in our age and outfits.

Like you, I love my life and feel joy in my senses.

Like you, I am upset by unfair decisions
and distressed when someone I love is ill
or dies.

I believe we can do better by this earth
and be more careful with each other.

Like you, I work every day to
live up to what I believe.

-Laura Gamache

The Royal Villa at Knossos, Isle of Crete.
Not actually composed of tiny digital rectangles.

Tikki tikki tembo
no sa rembo
cherry berry muchi
blank blank blank _embo

saw TIKKI TIKKI TEMBO in the window at Elliott Bay Bookstore and said this in response, though the fourth line came out too. (100% true to the page I'm sure.)

And what is my thesis here, students? Love your mind. Pay attention. Who knows what tricks you're going to find yourself capable of if you just keep walking forward? Do what you love, practice what you love, who the fuck cares if you're any good at it? This my dears is none of your dang business, and cut the snickering about the f word.

Tom Waits on the radio (KEXP) yesterday, that great song about breaking up done as a weather report over the blues riffs. So funny and painful. The sky clear, air biting (this is an actual weather report, no subtext.)

Yesterday afternoon we went to see Labarinto del Fauno at the Majestic Bay Theater. I love the Majestic Bay Theater's view from the upper level where the refreshment stand is always closed. I love the brass boat cleat door handles and the extraterrestrial space ships with fiber optics spewing that hang overhead. The movie offered too realistic gruesome war cruelties but that was the point, the way we turn from that, a child turns from that into fantasy.

Morning in the dark house, light just beginning to define the window boundaries. Last night the last night for awhile for the peeled grape moon to brightly brightly break my sleep.

Train horn, not whistle, in the distance. Took a sounds class from David Mahler, former director of the now-defunct Volunteer Park Conservatory Orchestra, who explained the difference.

"It comes to this, that poetry is a part of the structure of reality."
-Wallace Stevens, from his essay
"Three Academic Pieces"

The magnificent cause of being,
The imagination, the one reality
In this imagined world
-Wallace Stevens, from
"Another Weeping Woman"



Like you, I love the sound of pencils
tracking imagination across a white page

I believe words hold truths
beyond their lengths and breadths

that daily and hourly and any anxious minute
we can make language ours and claim our lives

So he says to me again,
"Poetry is your hobby."
"No," I say, "that's not right."
"You don't make any money at it,
so it's a hobby," he says.

I'm doing crossword puzzles now.
If he calls that a hobby
I won't freefall out of my life.

I wear a necklace I wrote into:
"I believe that reading & writing
can save your life."

Sometimes I live it
And sometimes I fall down.

I open my hands and offer
whatever is there:
heart, sandwich, coffin nail.

Nobody will come to the door,
box with a bow
and present me what I need.

Lighten up, there are billions of stars in the sky - Jim Page

Hubble, Hubble!

Ah kiwi canes
ah yesterday's snowfall
Today slushes towards us
like bald tired trucks.

THE BAWDS OF EUPHONY!!!

stolen from Tricia at Emperor of Ice Cream Cakes

contributed to the Wallace Stevens Birthday tribute contest held at EOICC by Harry Rutherford of Heraclitean Fire
on October 11, 2006.

I do a mean impersonation of the bawds of euphony crying out sharply, actually.



and now for a poem by Wallace Stevens, sans additional visual accompaniment, but reader, I may yet cut and paste in tribute:


A FISH-SCALE SUNRISE


Melodious skeletons, for all of last night's music
Today is today and the dancing is done.

Dew lies on the instruments of straw that you were playing,
The ruts in your empty road are red.

You Jim and you Margaret and you singer of La Paloma,
The cocks are crowing and crowing loud,

And although my mind perceives the force behind the moment,
The mind is smaller than the eye.

The sun rises green and blue in the fields and in the heavens.
The clouds foretell a swampy rain.

-Wallace Stevens

Happy Birthday Marie Lorena Moore!

Fiction writer Lorrie Moore turns 50 today - welcome!

I have kissed the cover or petted the spine of each of these books:

Who Will Run the Frog Hospital?
Like Life
Anagrams
Self Help
Birds of America (I have genuflected following the kissing and petting)