Lunacy

On my last visit to Seal Beach, California, I walked down Main Street and onto the pier not long after the full moon appeared. Of course the moon rises in the east, but because the California coast is not a straight north-south line, the west-coast ocean became a mirror for the moon's bright light. I wrote this poem when I returned to my little room at the home of a childhood friend.

Large Moon Over Seal Beach

Couples on the pier
strolling, stopping
searching for stars
in each other's eyes.

Tired fishermen
carrying empty buckets
back to the parking lot
poles resting on slack shoulders.

Moon-struck lovers
embracing
oblivious to passers by
cocooned in the sound of the surf.

Lunatic street preacher
wearing a heavy chain
shouting the gospel
reeling in no one.

Children laughing
licking sweet ice cream
beneath the summer night.

Picking up the Pieces

For some, the title of this post may evoke images of something broken, something gone awry, like Humpty Dumpty's cracked and splattered remains that could not be put together again. For me, however, the pieces have always been a source of both challenge and pleasure--and picking them up means that I can rearrange them to create something new. Perhaps that's why I have long been drawn to mosaics and collages, embroidery and poetry--all created from pieces of tile, paper, thread, and words that I can reassemble into humble little works of art. (And making collages means I can use my scissors!)

So, too, my life continues to emerge from the pieces (some fragments and shards, some well-spun threads) into a coherence I could not have predicted, even a few months ago. Here are some of the pieces:

• a new job that employs my skills in writing, editing, teaching....and encourages entrepreneurial endeavors
• workplace projects that engage my "two brains" and satisfy my intellectual curiosity
• a wonderful yoga class once a week, right after work, 5 min. from my office
• every other Friday off to enjoy long weekends with the retired Scientist (and to compose this blog)
• an opportunity to bring poetry into the workplace (stay tuned for that one!)
• continued contact with the Albuquerque poetry community
• a friend who took over my rented office when I no longer needed the space

My years, like my collages, are not puzzles fit together in a predetermined pattern, but the result of piecing together colors, lines, words, images--pulling forth meaning from the disparate elements, letting them speak for themselves in whatever form emerges. Picking up the pieces, and putting them together again.

What would grow?

If My Heart Were Planted....

My heart is like a flower bulb
Dormant, dry, but bold
Waiting to be planted
When the air turns cold.
 
Before the ground has frozen
Beneath winter’s ice and snow
Soil will envelope me
As I’m buried in a row.
 
All winter I will lie
Forgotten but alive—
Warm and safe and growing
In darkness, deep inside.
 
My roots absorb the nutrients
While wrapped in earth’s cocoon,
Feeding on the energy
Inside the Mother’s womb.
 
For months my soul seeks solitude
In quiet meditation
Until I break the soil
With green determination.
 
Tall blades precede my stem
Sensing spring light above
Then this burst of yellow jonquil--
Blooms power, hope, and love.

Her Chimayo Jacket

Her Chimayo Jacket

Thou shalt not covet thy boyfriend’s

mother’s jacket. Oh, but I did.

It hung on cedar in the guest room closet.

I was the guest that Santa Fe summer.

The red wool sleeve said, “touch me.” The

silver buttons boasted, “we’re older than you.”

For some reason, it is okay to covet my mother-in-law’s jacket.

After all, she has already parted with her most prized possession.

She helps me into the styled blanket, smoothing the shoulders.

The heavy Chimayo wool wonders if I can bear its weight.

Two square pockets hide promises and memories.

The red collar turns up tongue-like, whispering secrets.

Her jacket comes home with me, returning along the lines

of its design—Route 66, Albuquerque, Pinon, Flagstaff.

Years later, from the doorway of dementia, she mourns its loss.

My former father-in-law asks, apologetically, for the jacket back.

The familiar red sleeve says, “touch me”; the shiny buttons affirm, “we remember you.”

She wraps herself in the 1940s, once again on that road trip from Kansas to New Mexico.

The Chimayo jacket, returned by her son, now lives in my closet.

Its red and black, gray and white symmetry still speaks to me.

Full Circle in a New Outfit

Almost nine months ago, I said good-bye to my coworkers and voluntarily left the world of proprietary (i.e. for-profit) education, a world I had inhabited for only 15 months before deciding not to pursue full-fledged citizenship on planet ATI. Never before had I opted to resign from a job without having a next step, but the threats to my psyche from remaining in that environment were far worse than facing the daunting possibility of finding gainful employment during a recession.

I decided then to allow myself some time to recover, to reflect, and as my aunt says, to reinvent. Instead of immediately applying for jobs, I tried on other possibilities: Entrepreneur, Consultant, Editor, Writer, Lazy Bones, Long Distance Walker, Blogger, Poet.... It was like the sabbatical year that we lived in student family housing at Fuller Seminary, and I discovered that the large laundry room nearest to our apartment doubled as a "clothing exchange." If something had shrunk in the dryer and didn't fit anymore, just leave it on the table for someone who is slightly smaller. Or if your kids outgrew their school clothes halfway through the year, display them on the table and some other poor-grad-student mother (from Nigeria or England, Arizona or India) will snatch them up for her children. It was the same way with men's and women's clothes--tired of that thrift-store shirt? It will be gone by noon. Check back next week, ladies, and you'll find a dress, just your size, to replace the one you've recently decided is the wrong color, or pattern, or style. My wardrobe underwent substantial change that year, at no cost! What fun to try things on, wear them once or twice, and then trade them in for a better fit (or a daring experiment, like a red knit mini-skirt).

After publishing a book, walking 60 miles, making multiple trips to California to visit family, and concluding that the yoga-business-idea did not fit, I determined that January 2013 would be a good time to start looking for bona fide employment, in earnest. Armed with an updated LinkedIn profile and subscriptions to several good job-search sites, I once again entered "the job market," an arena I'd done battle in a few times.

In brief, here's how it has played out:

• January 15: Apply for Senior Technical Writer/Editor job.
• February 13: Panel Interview
• March 6: HR/pre-employment briefing, but nothing official yet.
• March 22: Official offer and approval for hire.
• April 3: Drug test and medical screening
• April 15: Day One!

(Meanwhile, I also applied in earnest for 2 other positions, and had 2 in-person interviews, and 2 nice-to-meet-you-but-you're-not-a-fit phone calls. I have also given 3 poetry readings/book-signings, tutored for the Albuquerque GED organization, taken a sestina-writing class, traveled to CA and LA*, and done some freelance editing.... the Lazy Bones outfit didn't fit, either.)

In a weird way, this brings me full circle to the same place my father worked in the 1950s when he and my mother were first married...the place that launched his career and enabled him to support a young family.

And so today I am grateful, for the time and space between the last job and this one, for the life the Scientist and I have made together, and for a new adventure. Happy April.

*Note to those west-coasters who think that LA means only Los Angeles, thereby making my statement redundant, review your USPS state abbreviations (or look for New Orleans on a map).

Love Note: A Sestina

Love Note

It’s impossible

not to stop

mid-breath

when you notice

the three deer

in your yard.

Your back yard

offers possible

shelter. The deer

stop

awhile to notice

with alert breath

then settle, breathing

into the quiet yard.

You notice

a fourth, possibly,

a fifth, shadowed, stopping

in this place for deer.

They appear, these deer

listening, sniffing, breathing

bodies stopping

in the yard

to rest, possibly

or to take note.

Like a love note

these magical deer

make life possible.

Breathe,

measure out yards

of love without stopping.

Why stop

to note

this yard

full of deer

whose breath

seems impossible?

The small yard welcomes those who stop

here in possibility, noticing

the deer alive in love’s breath.

© Andrea M. Penner

Scroll down for more blog posts and poems....

Staying Safe in New Orleans

I spent last week visiting my son in New Orleans. We had a great time together--good conversations in many venues, from the First Cup Cafe to the Boulangerie Restaurant, from Jimmy John's Subs to Buffa's Bar. Every time I visit NOLA (this was my 5th, since Katrina/The Flood of 2005), I am impressed by the creativity, the vibrancy, and the pluckiness of the residents. I love the food, the music, the art; the array of eateries and "drinkeries" (my new word for bars and cafes), used bookstores, vintage clothing shops; the charter schools, non-profit organizations, and community gathering spaces.

On Monday, March 4, however, the under-side of New Orleans rose to the surface at the edge of the Broadmoor neighborhood where my son works. Avram stepped outside into the back courtyard to take a phone call; at 2:22 p.m., he heard several gunshots fired, very close by (Google Maps indicates less than a tenth of a mile away). He came inside, told us all, and said he expected to hear the sirens any moment.

Fairly soon we pieced together the barest outline of events with a brief online police report and eyewitness testimony from Will Bradshaw, president of Green Coast Enterprises, who had been on the scene moments after the shooting that left a young man dead on the sidewalk. (Longer, more recent police report here.)

Less than an hour later, my son and his colleagues (who work for a community development corporation) received this email from Will, their landlord and a partner in their development work in Broadmoor. I was so impressed by Will's immediate, empathic, and practical response, that I asked him if I could share his message with y'all. Permission granted:

As you all know at this point, yesterday just after 2 pm, 21-year old Kendall Williams was shot and killed in front of Kajun Express Seafood. We are deeply saddened by this event, all too similar to too many other events that take place throughout our city with shocking and numbing regularity. But this is not regular, and it has to stop.

Already, we have been in touch directly with Councilmember [LaToya] Cantrell and the Mayor's senior staff to aggressively address issues of crime and safety at our corner. 
Working with other area business owners, we have formed the South Broad Business Coalition, and we continue to address safety as a top priority within this group. We encourage you to participate in the next SBBC meeting, the third Thursday of this month at 730 am in the Rhodes pavilion.

But most of all, we thank you for the commitment we have all made to change through our work and with our presence here at Washington and Broad. Every day, through our individual and collective work, we are forging a new path for our city and its people. That is what inspired us to invest here, and it is the thing that gives us hope in the face of self-inflicted tragedy. We will come back tomorrow and fight for better schools, better buildings, better neighborhoods, a better justice system, better lunches for our kids, better healthcare, and so much more. That hope is the light that propels us forward in the darkest of times. Thank you for bearing your piece of that light.

I am currently working on a poem about the murder. I did not know Kendall Williams, but I do know he was a son and a brother, and his untimely death is the source of much grief and sadness for his family, and his community. I also know that led by Will Bradshaw of Green Coast, NOLA City Councilwoman LaToya Cantrell, Broadmoor Development Corporation Executive Director, Santiago Burgos, and Broadmoor Improvement Association President Kelli Wright, the area near Washington and Broad will change for the better, and soon.
Stay Safe.