Bittersweet Conference

So I just returned with my husband from the 32nd American Indian Science & Engineering Society (AISES) Conference. This year we were in Portland, Oregon. Winds of Change was there in 2000, I had not been back since. This was the first AISES conference that my husband had ever attended. He was a great help during the career fair, helping me run the Winds of Change http://www.wocmag.org/ booth, handing out extra copies of our fall issue and college guide so that we wouldn't have to ship them back. He enjoyed meeting all the Indian people who I have worked with over the last 15 years. The opening ceremony was very moving as usual with a drumming group and singers and the Nez Perce Elder Horace Axtell doing the sacred blessing in his language. We were amazed to hear the powerful speaker Winona LaDuke give the keynote address. An economist educated at Harvard, she deconstructed the amount of money we spend as a nation on food distribution. She used numbers to validate her position that we should all look at buying local. Tony also accompanied me to several seminars that were interesting in their "futuristic" technology that is certainly fast approaching. One such seminar was about early detection of disease using magnetic nanoparticles and GMR sensors.

We also enjoyed the traditional dinner celebration where thousands of scholarship dollars are given out to students who presented remarkable studies, such as: DNA Sequencing of the Large Sub-unit of Chloroplast Enzyme Ribulose-Bisphosphate Carboxylase in Native Plants. And this from a 9th grade high-school student!

But the bittersweet part of the conference was when I received my Sequoyah Fellowship Award. This is a medallion given to me by a sponsor who gives $1000 in my name to AISES and I become a lifetime member. It is a great honor to be smudged with sage and a huge, sacred eagle feather by Horace Axtell. My husband wiped tears away as he took the photos. The ceremony is very moving. It was particularly moving for me because with my illness at hand, I don't know if I will be able to go to another conference. Traveling, especially by plane, is more and more uncomfortable for me. But we shall see. Michael J.Fox had this to say in one of his books: "I decided not to panic and just wait and see what would happen." This is wise advice and has pulled me through some tough mornings when I can barely move.

My managing editor was also at this conference and of course my marketing director. One night, the four of us ventured out on the light-rail that winds through the city and enjoyed a wonderful dinner out at Davis Street Tavern. Sounds weird and boring with a name like that, however, it was anything but! Take a look one of the entrees: Seared Sea Scallops, Roasted Sunchokes, Spinach Puree and Lardon Cracklings

The chef, Gabriel Kapustka, came to our table to ask if we were pleased! You can see more of this awesome food at: http://www.davisstreettavern.com/

And finally, after a day of workshops, we all went to the most precious, peaceful place imaginable; The Portland Japanese Garden: http://www.japanesegarden.com/

If anyone is interested in Winona LaDuke's "buy local" message, visit: http://www.speakoutnow.org/

You will probably have to search the site by her name.

All in all, this was perhaps the most beautiful conference I have been to. It was nice to sleep in a luxurious king-size bed and order room service breakfast! I treat myself to this luxury every year, but it is so much more fun with your lover.

A Jersey Autumn

Comparatively speaking, you could say the East Coast's tri-state area hosts perhaps the gloomiest fall. When I was recently there, a non-stop, heavy rain and a sun that only periodically mustered up enough energy to squeeze itself through clouds, could have kept me pining for a tropic break. But then I would not have allowed myself the patience to witness the performance of a temperamental East Coast autumn. When I woke up the first morning in my sister's house in NJ after a long, uncomfortable 4-hour flight the night before, I pulled back the curtains and breathed a sigh of relief at seeing a gentle, yet present sun stretching out across still-green grass, shimmering over shades of rust-red, orange, and yellow foliage that graced the clusters of weeping cherry, Japanese maple and silver maple trees. The giant magnolia tree and apple trees were green, but there were still sparks of color surrounding this late 1700 homesteaded 5-acre lot. Strategically planted hydrangea, peony, rose-of-sharon, lilac, forsythia, larkspur and clematis, all in different stages of life, made brave showings. Later that morning, walking my sister's dog around the drying corn fields and open space land across from her house, I could smell the wet leaves and the swift Musconetcong River that flows across their land. This was my only day of sun. The other five days were rain-soaked and cloudy. I can't say that I would like this forever, nor could my family, who complained as I eventually did for a reprieve. But on one of those cloudy days when I was home alone, (everyone else working or at school), I absolutely melted into the sound of steady, bountiful rain and worked quietly on my laptop in the office upstairs.

On Olivia's (my niece) day off, we walked around the charming river town of Clinton. We ate delicious deli sandwiches, scouted boutiques and antique shops, sipped tea and delighted in tasting Thai-made pastries, and later, were treated to spa facials, courtesy of my sister. One day, I watched Oliva at English riding lessons. And of course, I was never so happy as when I was experiencing the wonders of my brother-in-law's cooking: his handling of even the simplest ingredients is awe-inspiring. He can turn chard and turnip greens into a feast, not to mention risotto, fish, or pork. I truly pity those of you who do not have such generous and loving relatives and who have never experienced the beauty of a Jersey autumn.

Apology and Poetry, Music, Travel: My Lovely October

I apologize for saying that I did not like G.C. Waldrep. I guess I just didn't "hear" the words. I needed to read them and "see" his words. I absolutely love his poems. I am reading his book, "Achicembalo" which is about music. He stretches metaphors out from musical terms. His poems have titles like: What is a Cantilena; What is a Descant; What is a Bass (my favorite!), which chronicles the months in lines like this: "March is a sere presence.... April in her citron....June in his surfeit, July in her tallow shift...September, September, September who can imagine such a splendid petulance, who can gainsay the scope of his enquiry, who can indemnify, who might crown. October idem.....November a lonely watch, smell of wet wool, a stone cairn at which one tarries and bequeaths. A glacier lake. Pure stream and pines."

I also am really enjoying Robert Pinsky's "Jersey Rain." I was lucky enough to grab a ticket and go with Malinda to see him read in Loveland a couple of weeks ago. He was funny and wise and looked the same as he had when he made his acerbic appearance on the Stephen Colbert Report a few years ago.

As for music, I recently went to a small cafe in Boulder to hear Cayuga Indian, Gary Farmer play his mouth harp with his band The Trouble Makers. He was wonderfully talented. The opening act was a young Indian man who played a variety of Native flutes and the acoustic guitar. We bought pie and tea and every penny went to support the Native American Rights Fund (NARF). I was able to squeeze myself through the crowd of Farmer fans and give him my business card and ask him if I could interview him for Winds of Change. So, I will wait to see what becomes of that. See some of his music here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBgRSgMdkIk

It snowed about six inches last night. I woke to beautiful sparkling white and the excitement of entering a new season. I feel quite fulfilled in having experienced a lovely fall with the many hikes I did with my group up in the park so I am ready to transition to the fresh and startling cold of the winter. Today it was only 23 degrees and as I walked my dog, I covered my cheeks with my wool mittens.

I leave for New Jersey next week to visit my sister. It is still fall there and they have maples and oaks! Then soon after, I will be on another plane to Portland, Oregon. I am writing much in Molly Fisk's online poetry class, flexing my poetry muscles and writing, writing, writing. What joy does a new season bring!

A Poem In the Mountain Gazette

My friend Liz happened to remember a poem I had written awhile back and posted a link to the Mountain Gazette, a kind of rough and tumble journal highlighting where-to-go, what-to-do in the mountains for people looking for kayaking adventures, mountain biking thrills, climbing, etc. But they also have a soft spot for poetry. I sent several poems to them and they were accepted for publication. Not long afterwards, I received word that they had changed editors and my poems might not be published. I was pretty unhappy. Then suddenly, Liz remembered that I had sent this particular poem in that she liked and just out of curiosity I linked to the journal and there it was! It had actually been printed in the August issue. Looks nice: http://www.mountaingazette.com/exclusive/poetry/tasting_pomegranate/

I would be the last person to complain about not receiving a contributor's copy, but I thought that someone on staff might have let me know that it was there! But it definitely made my day.

Reconciling and Lots More

So this past month I have been trying to reconcile the fact that I will no longer be running salons for the literary magazine, Many Mountains Moving http://www.mmminc.org/. I have finally accepted the fact that my illness makes me more tired and that it is progressing, however slightly. Trying to work full-time as an editor, take care of my body with yoga and exercise, spend lovely time with my family and friends and write publishable poetry takes so much energy and I am foolish to think that I can continue at this pace.

Giving up anything, much less my task as salon coordinator for a literary magazine, is devastating to me. Each time I give something up, I feel as though I am creeping closer to isolation. The poetry community has been my panacea. It surely has been a goddess. Getting to know other poets and hanging out with them has been such a gift. I was done raising children and had found my people. Well, so life is cruel.

In a macabre twist on the Hoehn & Yahr Staging test that PD patients periodically take to track their progression, I dreamt last night that a new stage had been added. In the Hoehn & Yahr Staging you can mark 0 to 5 to indicate the relative level of disability. Most of the questions are benign: "Do you have difficulty with balance?" And so forth. In my dream, a new question emerged: "Your acceptance of death has been reconciled." Yes or no. I woke, sweating. Later, I remembered a Celan poem: "Come, we are cutting out/nerve cells/from the/rhomboid/fossae/—multipolar duckweed,/ponds spotlit till blank—/From still-reachable centers/ten fibers drag/half-recognizable things." I read that Celan was interested in the vocabulary of the brain, neurophysiology. He was ahead of his time with his creation of a type of neuro-poetics. So I read him with a black humor bobbing like an umbrella over my head. My disease is not in the fourth ventricle which Celan refers to with "rhomboid fossae." Mine is in the deep, murky middle. Thus, I wrote a poem recently entitled: "Song From the Deep Middle Brain." I entertain myself this way. And there really is elegance in a disease!

I am getting my left foot "botoxed" tomorrow morning. In a bizarre conversation with my insurance company which is not really an insurance company at all but a den of thieves, a rep who explained that my out-of-pocket payment of $1660.00 would go toward my deductible, also asked me if I would prefer the botox be delivered to my house. WTF??? So, we have people tapping our phone conversations and reading our emails, but it is okay to ship one of the most deadly substances known to man to some random woman on the other end of the phone?!

The other night, I attended the Copper Nickel reading in Denver with Malinda. G.C. Waldrep & John Gallaher were the featured poets. I can't say I enjoyed Waldrep. His poems were clever but vacuous. They held no emotional resonance with me. Gallaher's were slightly warmer and when I read them in Copper Nickel's journal, I liked them much more. Perhaps this will be the case with Waldrep. However, I think the host of the salon and publisher of CN is a much better poet. That is my astute opinion.

Other things: I finally finished a full manuscript and will mail it out tomorrow. I haven't a chance in hell to win this particular poetry contest, but it's the principle of the task that matters. I organized. This is a huge step in the new direction I am taking. And it will fully justify my "giving up" the coordinating of poetry salons. I hope. This and the wonderful fact that I am signed up to take an online poetry class with Molly Fisk!

And I am still hoping to go to the Shetland Isles next summer with Scott and Mary Jean. I am also still hoping to be able to obtain deep brain stimulation so that I can cut back on the ever-increasing dosages of meds I have to take each day. You can read about it here: http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/deep_brain_stimulation/deep_brain_stimulation.htm

My closing "prayer "to this blog entry:
Summer Report

No longer crossed, the carpet of thyme
is bypassed instead.
A blank line beaten
through the heather.
No windfall in the storm swath.

Encounters once again with
scattered words, like
riprap, scrubgrass, time.

-Paul Celan

Missouri's Siren Song of Faith & Acceptance

Here it is in September and I am listing beneath a slow ceiling fan, trying to keep the humidity at bay, scrolling through the internet to find the strange wave-like pulsing sound of dog-day cicadas and periodical cicadas. Damn them! They won't shut up! No small wonder that there's enough "Goth" the further South you travel than anywhere else in the U.S. By that, I mean, Southern Gothic writers like Faulkner and O'Connor. What else is there to do but become as stealth-like and annoying as the cicada? And then write about creepy, demented characters. Actually, "The Displaced Person," by O'Connor is one of my favorite short stories.

Here in West County, most of the thick, sticky forest has been tamed and tied back by redundant, red-brick suburban homes, but those cicadas keep reminding you that chaos and the heavy, wet sensuality of September is alive and breathing. They sing amusement too. My mother, enraptured by the Greek Orthodox church, took me to one this morning and pointed out the many female saints that this church recognizes, say, in comparison to the Catholic church, including, yours truly: St. Barbara! And then it behooved her to show me how diverse West County has become by driving me down what I shall now refer to as "Holy Road." On this road, the cicadas song must be quite tongue-in-cheek as we pass first a gigantic, pearly blue & white stone Hindu temple, then a golden-domed Islamic mosque, then a seemingly modest red-brick Catholic church that suddenly startles you with the largest CROSS you've even seen. Really, it is funny. Which shrine shall be the most impressive? But kudos to West County, St. Louis for showing off its relaxed acceptance of every faith while simultaneously ignoring the more worthy acceptance (at least in my opinion) of preserving OPEN SPACE.

Amen

The Agony of Insomnia

I know I am not unique. I know thousands of people who are my age, and even younger, who struggle with insomnia. However, when one has a degenerative brain disease, sleep is really crucial. So I approach each nightfall with double apprehension and anxiety. I find it alarming that I can take all kinds of horrifically strong sleep aids and nothing helps. Also, the L-Dopa I consume inevitably begins it own awful side effects—the painful foot spasms, the feeling that I can't breathe. I do yoga exercises sometimes for relaxation, but the fear that I will sleep forever also creeps into my subconscious and startles me from deep rest. The anxiety medication I take has not yet worked its way into my system so that when I do fall asleep I am in a sort of nether-world where surreal images keep me just on the brink of consciousness. I cannot reach the true, dark nothingness of a good sleep. Of course, this is also when poetry helps. It is times like this, 3-4 am that I can read poetry with such clarity and the words haunt me. Like reading poems from Matt Cooperman's A Sacrificial Zinc: "the moon is your question and answer, you say, the moon/on water from the dark. The broken silver, and your arms, every hair, sparked before the sudden water." This is why I love poetry. So distilled and perfect. It is the only way to conjure a feeling that passes like a breath in, a breath out. Invisible. All your bones must break when you read it. Like when I felt that my brain had become sick. I could never explain it. It was just a shift, a movement that passed, imperceptible, but tangible as well. Something breaking, but perfectly, so simply. No pain.

Yesterday morning as I reached up to pull the cover off the finch cage, I struck a beautiful, blue ceramic pot that had been given to me as a gift. It held delicate strands of grapevines. When it fell to the floor, it shattered into several large pieces. I could almost put it back together. It fell as if in slow motion. I was still drugged from the sleep medications. I stood and watched it drop as though it was human and I could not catch it fast enough. It was exhaling as it fell through the long space between the top shelf and the pinyon pine floor. It was distilling itself.