Poetry & Pushpins

~ The Writings of S.L. Woodford

Poetry & Pushpins

Monthly Archives: December 2014

An Old Orchard and a New Year

31 Wednesday Dec 2014

Posted by poetryandpushpins in Gardening, Pushpins (Daily Life), Romantic Botany, The Creative Life

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botany, grief, human nature, learning patience, Midwest, New Year, resiliency, running

My nose is cold, but every other part of my body is hot and sweaty. Morning runs in the winter-touched, Midwestern countryside will do that to you. With hands on my hips, I turn around and look back at my grandmother’s property. An apple orchard stands at attention on my right and on my left, creating a passageway of arching limbs. These trees were the guardians of my childhood. I played among them, hide behind them, and once, in a fit of teenage romanticism, longed to get married under them. They were already old when I was young, planted by turn of the century hands. Their roots have had a hundred years to expand and grow and thrive, embraced by the rich Ohio soil. And steadily anchored, their limbs, weathered and withered, reach out to one another and to the sky, touched by a century’s worth of wind and rain and sun. Sometimes, the touch was hash, and the grass between the two rows became a no man’s land of branches and bark.

In spite of such losses, they still stand, their branches stretching out before them, towards each other and to the sky. Receptive of whatever the elements will give them next. Yes, they lost branches and bark, and will most likely lose them again. But, they have roots, made strong by the years and the soil that nourishes them.

Twenty-nine is young, at least, that is what my older friends tell me. Yet twenty-nine doesn’t feel young to me. I’ve lived enough of life to know loss—the loss of a parent, of a self, of a significant other, of a much coveted career, of a best friend. And like a harsh wind tearing away a tree branch, the loss strips you, exposing you to the elements in new, unforeseen ways. There is pain and fear in that experience, but there is also power. For the exposed place becomes a surface of possibility. If your roots are deep and the soil you place yourself in is rich, new bark will grow, and your branches will once more reach out to others and to the world.

I do not feel old because I have suffered loss, I feel old because I have seen the other side of loss. That in its wake, come new possibilities and new chances to love. Loss levels, but after all is stripped away, you have the choice to create again. Perhaps that is my hope for you and for me in the New Year: that we become more like these trees, quietly standing to my left and to my right. Rooted in who we are so that we can be open to what we will become.

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Contra Dancing

24 Wednesday Dec 2014

Posted by poetryandpushpins in Pushpins (Daily Life)

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community, contra dancing, friendship, Highland Schottishe, human nature

Outside, the summer rain falls, cool, clean, and sweet. Inside, the air is warm and sweaty, filled with Scottish reel music. I am at a large contra dance, dancing with a stranger. He is tall and his hands are steady as he spins me. Even though my hands are tiny in his large palms, we keep a tension between us that is balanced and supple as we bounce through the Highland Schottische. The dance is spirited with lots of spins and Celtic kicks, but it still retains its Bohemian roots in its stylized patty-cake section. I’m enjoying my time with my partner. It is rare that I find someone who matches my steps and anticipates my body movements so well. But, we link arms and spin each other one last time. We exchange smiles, happy that the afternoon has only started. We shall be seeking each other out for another set. Then I look forward, reaching out both of my arms, palms out, to my next partner. The band is only finishing the first cycle of the tune, I will dance with at least ten more people before the song is over.

I love a good contra dance. It combines a few of my favorite things: traditional United Kingdom music, exercise, spinning, and geometry. I especially love the Highland Schottishe, a dance I was first introduced to at middle school church camp. It is a dance full of marvelous contradictions: it is restrained yet spirited, connected yet independent, proper yet provocative. Perhaps I like it so much because its spirit epitomizes the ways I find myself daily moving through the world. If my personality could be a traditional folk dance, I know it would be the Highland Scottische.

But most importantly, it is a dance of many meetings and partings. You kick and clap and spin your way around the dance floor for as long as the band pleases. Never with the same partner. Not a bad thing when you have a less than ideal partner, but very hard when you meet someone with whom you delight in dancing. But as with life, there can be later meetings and other sets.

Perhaps it is odd that I think of a summer contra dance on Christmas Eve Day. I guess all the rain we’ve had in New Haven prompted my memory. But I also think that writing Christmas cards to friends and family the world over (while planning New Year’s visits in two different states) makes my heart feel like it is at an astral contra dance with those who are willing to connect their lives with mine. I’m glad that my heart is moving in this way. Like a good contra dance, friends, family, boyfriends, crushes, and lovers move in and out of my life. Some I will never see again, but others will return to me in surprising ways. And some, I will return to again and again, hoping that they will dance just one more set with me. And if they say yes, they are the ones that become my life-long partners, willing to move with me through it all.

But, the band stills plays and I still must say goodbye, looking ahead to my next partner, to my next life stage, steadied by the conviction of my two hands reaching out, opening my palms to the promise of new connections, hoping and trusting that whomever lets me rest my hands upon their palms, is worth the dance. And, that they will want to dance with me again.

Writing About Jane…Austen

17 Wednesday Dec 2014

Posted by poetryandpushpins in Pushpins (Daily Life), The Creative Life

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Anne Elliot is the best, Captain Wentworth, fiction, Henry Tilney, human nature, Jane Austen, the creative process, writing

Yesterday was Jane Austen’s 239th birthday and it was a day I observed by joyfully rereading my favorite parts of Persuasion (um…Sophia Croft being a badass lady adventurer, the awesome debate Anne Elliot has with Captain Harville on whether men or women love the longest when all hope is gone, and Captain Wentworth’s letter of reconciliation to Anne…yeah, that book contains some intellectually and emotionally hot stuff. Also, the Regency Era British Royal Navy:  you know there are men of feeling with sideburns present.) and sought out Henry Tilney’s sassiest observations in Northanger Abbey (he really is the best).

Yet on a day when I reread Jane with gleeful abandon, I caught myself being introspective. As I met this fine author again in her sparkling stories, I realized why it is so hard for me to write directly about her in my own work. Jane is too close to me. She has influenced me more deeply than any other author, living or dead (though C.S. Lewis and Neil Gaiman are a close second and third to her magnificence). After all of my blathering about her brilliant narratives, outlandish characters, and smart social commentary, what truly draws me back to Jane again and again is the deep feeling of warmth, understanding, and safety her narrative voice gives me. Yet, though I know these feelings and I feel these feelings, I cannot articulate to you their particular natures.

As a writer, you need to have some distance to get anything done. I find it is much easier to write about things when you are on the outskirts, quietly observing the bustle and struggles of others. I could never have that distance with Jane. I’m too close. Jane is too dear. It was her Anne Elliot that helped a twelve-year-old me feel a little less lonely. It was her keen social observations that helped an awkward teenage and young adult me begin to understand the wonder and giddiness and awfulness of human nature. And it was her own confidence and commitment to her craft that still inspires me today.

No, I cannot have distance from Jane. I never will. Her stories have woven themselves far too deeply into my soul. But, I can have patience and allow time to help me figure out her influence upon me. For walking constantly with someone over time can be just as good as observing that someone from a distance.

Plus, it gives me an excuse to read her more often. Not that I ever needed one.

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Living Christmas Trees

10 Wednesday Dec 2014

Posted by poetryandpushpins in Pushpins (Daily Life), Religious Exploration, Romantic Botany

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Advent, cozy apartment, New England, New Haven

This is the first year I got a Christmas tree for my apartment. After the mayhem of graduate school and locking down a job in New Haven, it seemed fitting to at last claim my rootedness in this space. It’s a live tree—something I’ve always wanted. My family’s Christmas trees were never real because Caspian and Callisto, our family cats, enjoyed climbing branches a bit too much. And the tree smells wonderful: clean and heady, as only pine can smell. Cinnamon spice ornaments and pomanders (oranges studded with whole cloves) further incense the experience. I cannot properly articulate how wonderful it is to come home from a stressful day at the office and breathe in the spicy sweetness of my living room.

And as I inhale, I think about the contradiction of the Advent season here in New England. Its weather is cold but its spirit is warm, it is darkened by early nights and lightened by the soft glow of candles. Yet above all these contradictions, Advent is a time of focusing. Because of the cold and the dark, I think we reach out more intentionally to life, bringing growing things—like Christmas trees—into our homes. Pungent reminders that even in the deathly dormancy of December, there is potential for life and new experiences.

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Friendship and Wrapping Paper

03 Wednesday Dec 2014

Posted by poetryandpushpins in Literature, Pushpins (Daily Life)

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Advent, books, C.S. Lewis, community, human nature

One of my first Christmas gifts came earlier this week. After a lively lunch, a dear friend of mine handed me a long, cardboard tube.

“I had to give you your Christmas present today,” she said. “You’ll see why when you get home.”

And I did.

Christmas Books

Rolled up inside the tube were six sheets of paper, lined with the images of colorful, gilded book bindings—lovely antique visions from the Bodleian Library’s Christmas Book Collection. My friend was right, she had to give me my Christmas present early. As a librarian with a deep partiality for exquisite, old books, how could I wrap my Christmas presents for family and friends in anything else?

I delightedly texted my friend, thanking her for her thoughtfulness. As I hit send, I reflected on just how wonderful a gift it was. Gifts can be rather singular and rather private in nature. A gift passes from you to a friend. If your friend likes it, or even if she does not, your gift will spend the rest of its existence inside your friend’s home, visible to only those your friend permits over her dwelling’s threshold. But that is not how wrapping paper works. It longs to know not just one of your friends, but all of them, as well as your family and co-workers. It wants to chat with others, rather loudly, about the nature of your friendship with the friend who gave you the paper in the first place. For each object that you wrap with the jolly print, becomes an introduction to your other friend when the receiver exclaims: “What lovely paper!” You can then reply: “Thank you, my friend Sally got it for me. She’s also a librarian. You really must meet someday, I think you two would get on well.” 

The gift under the paper may be singular, but the wrapping paper wants to be everybody’s friend and happily wishes that everybody else also wants to be friends with each other. As I hope C.S. Lewis would quip, if he had written The Four Gifts rather than The Four Loves—wrapping paper is the least jealous of the gifts, always ready to extend its cheer and warmth to all.

What a fine way to introduce the wrapping paper giver to others I admire and love. And, what a fine way to start the Christmas season.

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