Poetry & Pushpins

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Poetry & Pushpins

Tag Archives: New Haven

Hawks and Walks

01 Wednesday Apr 2015

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

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C.S. Lewis, hawks, human nature, New Haven, Rowan Williams

My Tuesday morning walk to work kept me more in my head than usual. As I stomped along, half listening to Rowan Williams (former Archbishop of Canterbury) gently drone on about the Chronicals of Narnia and how Aslan is an unpredictable, un-tamed lion, my mind wondered about the details of the coming day, both practical and existential: How would I meet a publishing deadline? How would I manage my typical work duties with a day-long trip to Hartford thrown in for good measure? 

And most importantly, how would I get through this season of change? Yale’s graduation is only two months away, and when it comes, I shall have to say goodbye to people I deeply care about. I don’t want them to go. I selfishly want them to stay, to continue being part of this quirky, intellectual town and my life. I’m not ready to say goodbye. I don’t ever want to say goodbye.

And that’s when I felt an overwhelming need to look above me. There soared a hawk, white and gold in the morning light. It circled overhead and finally perched on the top of a church, a few feet from an empty crucifix.

I again thought of Aslan. Rowan Williams was right, Aslan is not a tame lion—you never know what he will next do. And so it is with life. Daily, we must stare into the unknown. Anything could happen, but you must trust, you must rise above the unsettling details, only if for a moment, and search for the longer, wider scope of your narrative. For no life is measured by a single group of details, it is measured by the whole of them. 

 

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Process Learning and Pavement

25 Wednesday Mar 2015

Posted by poetryandpushpins in Pushpins (Daily Life)

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human nature, making mistakes, New Haven, running

The weather is finally showing semblances of spring here in New Haven, and for me, that means one thing: I can run outside again. Seriously, I’m like an excitable puppy about this–the hills, the fresh air, the trees make me stupidly happy and I never, ever, want to come back inside.

But there is one snag in this joyous transition. And it comes in the form of uneven pavement, located in the sidewalk outside of  the Yale Hockey rink. As usual, my foot caught this bit, and I went flying forward. It took me a second to regain my balance, but I did, and my run continued.

That spot always messes with me. It was the spot where I fell and skinned my knee the week my mother died, it was the spot where I fell and bruised my knee after an article I wrote was rejected. And this spring was no different: it caught my foot, and I went flying forward.

Yet, this time I didn’t fall.

Yes, I was caught off balance, but I didn’t fall. And I think there is a lesson in that.

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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A Rainy Day and A Pot of Kale

19 Wednesday Nov 2014

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

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botany, Bronte bashing, cozy apartment, New Haven

Monday was grosser than gross here in New Haven. It was a dark, cold, rainy day. The sort of day that Emily Bronte would totally have written long-winded, Gothic novels about, complete with horrible characters whose souls were just as dank and dead as the depressing weather they lived in. I was quite surprised Heathcliff wasn’t wandering up and down my street screaming “Cathy!!!!” as he beat his manly chest in fits of dangerous passion. He would have felt right at home with the wet and the chill and the wind.

I have Mondays off, so I didn’t have to venture out into the moist, sucktastic awfulness until much later. I took full advantage of my freedom and spent most of the day working on various writing projects in my flannel-sheeted bed. I also brought my relationship with my electric blanket to a whole new level. Seriously, the only time I detangled myself from its warm embrace was to leave the house for a marathon of evening meetings.

The next morning, I woke up, feeling rather shameful about the amount of time I spent under an electric blanket. But the shame was fleeting, especially when I noticed sunlight filtering in through my bedroom’s curtains. Its soft yellow glow seemed so foreign and new after yesterday’s miserable darkness. I walked to my window and parted the curtains. The sunshine was real and was shining on the large pot of kale that lives on my balcony. I had winterized my garden this past weekend, and out of curiosity, I repotted my healthiest kale plant and put it on my balcony. Since kale grows throughout the winter months, I thought it would be fun to still have growing things on my balcony—a jolly green presence amidst the chill and cold and snow. The plant wasn’t very happy after its transplant. In spite of my valiant watering efforts, its leaves sulkily slumped out and down from its main stem. But after Monday’s downpour, its leaves reached up and out to the sun in a stout and decided manner.

I smiled. Perhaps yesterday’s weather wasn’t that Brontesque after all. It’s dank dampness did encourage life.

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July Birthdays

23 Wednesday Jul 2014

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

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botany, Midwest, New Haven

Short, pudgy, with dark hair falling down my back, I am nine and picking blackberries from the thicket in my family’s garden. It is July 11, my birthday, and I am in the backyard alone. The wind carries the voices of adults, murmuring about life’s cares, to me from the porch. I lift my head to the sound of their voices, pushing my bangs away from my eyes with purple-stained fingers.

“Sarah!” Mom calls, “Come back to the porch. The ice cream cake’s ready.”

And back I go, slowly, to a porch full of adults. I hold my hands up to the sun as I move, studying the purple blotches that cover my palms and fingers. In some places the blotches are a matte purple, settled and dried into the lines of my skin. In other places, the blotches are sticky, slick, and almost black. Being the imaginative child I am, I pretend that the blackberry juice is my own blood. I’ve been wounded in some epic struggle and am returning to hearth and home to reap the rewards of adult dotage and sugar-laden, dairy rich desserts.

My stained hands, and the imagination that they triggered, helped me to be grateful for a celebration that, though well intentioned, made me feel my isolation from other children my age more deeply. This combination of solitude and older company marked many of my childhood birthdays. I used to hate being born in July. All of my peers would usually be off on vacation, so I was stuck celebrating with my family.  It also meant that I would never improve my popularity in the classroom. School was out. That meant my mother never had to bake cupcakes for my classmates to honor my special day. Bringing cupcakes to class—especially if they had pink frosting—would have brought me into the folds of my peers. They would have made me appear normal, given me something in common with my classmates. But, my birthday happened at a weird time, further proving that I, a quiet, book-smart girl, was odd. Not someone to be friends with, but someone to tease.

blackberries

Still short, still pudgy (but far more curvy and muscly), with dark hair cropped close to the nape of my neck, I am twenty-nine and sitting in the back garden of my New Haven home. Blackberries won’t be in season for another month in New England. Now, they are whitish-pink, slowly growing into their violet blush. But, there is still a sort of purple stain on my hands—blueberries, pureed for bellinis, the small, spherical culprits. Around me sit and stand friends, of many ages and walks of life, their conversation and laughter anointed with the sweet tang of fruit and Prosecco.

My phone pings. A text from another friend. She sadly cannot make it, but can she take me out to lunch after she returns from vacation? I obviously reply yes.

Now I love having a birthday in July. As in my youth, many people are still on vacation when I celebrate. But, they make it a point to spend time with me after they return, making my birthday into a month of well-wishes, lunches, dinners, and drinks.

I step inside to wash off my purple-blue stained hands. I examine them as I move. In this moment, colored by company and love, the purple-blue splotches seem less like wounds and more like an outpouring of goodness.

A Tissue, a tissue, a tissue for my Grief

30 Wednesday Apr 2014

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

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empathy, grief, New Haven

And here we are, perched on the precipice of May. In New Haven, that means final exam studying for Yale students, the cherry blossoms burgeoning in Wooster Square, and the one year anniversary of mom’s death.

As April ends, my body seems to be simultaneously remembering and bracing itself for the raw pain and disbelief that occurred in the early hours of a late May morning last year—my brother in Ohio and I in Connecticut, linked together by technology and shock, as we waited for the paramedics to leave and the coroner to come.

That shock, that silence, I experienced last May has quite worn off. Now, for the first time in my life, I am prone to tears in public. Everything from the singing of my mother’s favorite hymn to a flitting memory of a place, a time, an object we shared, brings on an onslaught of silent tears. Snotty, gross, face-pinching tears.

This Sunday was no exception. I attended a friend’s recital, and, as I’m prone to do these days, I thoroughly read the program notes in advance. The final piece, Triptych by Tarik O’Regan, dealt heavily with death and remembrance, i.e. plenty of emotional triggers for me. I breathed a sigh of relief. Big emotions would hit me around movement 2, and I’d be ready.

Except, I wasn’t.

As the choir began to sing about how we remember our dead through all life’s the seasons, both emotional and natural, I began to cry–quietly and hard. I reached into my pocket, looking for a tissue, a soft, white wisp of paper that would make my emotional rawness a little more polite (one should not have snot running down one’s face in public; unless, you are a toddler and do not yet have the proper motor skills to amend the situation). There was no tissue. I was out.

But at that moment, something soft fell on my left hand. I looked down. There was a tissue: white, clean, and from my friend Tawnie. She had also been reading the program notes, figured out that movement 2 would be hard for me, looked over for confirmation, and mercifully threw me a tissue.

I couldn’t help smiling through my tears. There was something utterly ridiculous and wonderful about the whole encounter. Though my body possessed a grief that was raw, deep, and barely controllable, that little white tissue, barely the weight of a feather, freely given, freely thrown, gently answered my loss and pain with love and care. That which appeared to be fragile conquered that which appeared to be fathomless.

 

Texturing Text: Or, Adventures in Web Design

02 Wednesday Apr 2014

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

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New Haven, technology, the creative process

“The Library site is looking great.” I type, in an e-mail to my website designer. “I was wondering if we could do something more with the background? I’m attaching a few photos that may give it more texture.”

We are currently putting the finishing touches on a new website, for the library I direct. It will help our community members and students access the information in our collection faster. So far, I’m enjoying the task, learning a lot about WordPress and web design as we progress.

The new site is clean, balanced, and modern looking, to mimic the building that surrounds the library’s moderate-sized collection. There are splashes of navy blue, a subtle reminder to the viewer of our Yale affiliation. And, if we can do it, there will be a background, rough, warm, and textured.

I was born in the mid-80s. Unlike the students I now serve (especially the college age ones), I remember a time when computers and smartphones were not primary research tools. I’m old enough to remember that learning, that seeking information, has a sensual experience to it. I know how it feels to hold a book in my hands, slowly slipping my fingertips across the paper’s light, fibered surface as I turn another page and learn another fact.

Though students will visit my site and take in information, clothed in svelte text on a smooth computer screen, there will be something else—a little warmer, a little softer, a little different—going on in the background. Their fingers will not touch fiber, but their eyes will feel the presence of a different sort of texture.

A Very Fan-Girly and Self-Centered Review of These! Paper! Bullets!

26 Wednesday Mar 2014

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

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books, England, Midwest, New Haven, the creative process, writing

Last Friday night, I got to once more experience my major high school obsessions—the Beatles and William Shakespeare—smashed together in one glorious rock musical. Because last Friday night, I went to see These! Paper! Bullets!, the Yale Repertory Theatre’s “modish ripoff” of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing.

Sitting in the balcony of Yale University Theater, I felt like I was on the set of A Hard Day’s Night as the Quartros (Ben, Claude, Pedro, and Barth) played their opening song amidst a maelstrom of screaming female voices. Then the music stopped and the dialogue began, sweeping the audience into a wonderful blend of iambic pentameter and Liverpudlian slang. My body shivered in blissful delight as the players delivered the original Shakespearean dialogue with a Liverpudlian lilt, adorning their sentences with words like “gear” and “grotty.”

Hearing the mixing and matching of meters and slang, old and new, reminded me why I succumbed to the siren’s call of Shakespeare and the Beatles as a teen. It was because of their speech patterns. The Beatles and Shakespeare were the first to teach me, a Northeastern Ohio girl, that language could dance. Both Liverpudlian and Elizabethan speech cadences have a light, sing-songy musicality to them. It’s hard to speak in light, sing-songy ways with a Northeastern Ohio accent. Our “r’s” are hard and our “a’s,” nasal. When we speak, we mostly chew our words then spit them out. But thanks to Will and the Fab Four, I got exposed to two new patterns of speaking, very different from what I grew up using. Two different patterns of speaking that helped to expand my imagination as a writer.

If you’re in the New Haven area, I urge you to go see These! Paper! Bullets!. The show is charming, madcap, and so much fun. I dare you to count all of the cheeky Beatle song / Shakespearean references and puns…the show overflows with them!

For a less fan-girly review of the show, I’d like to direct you to an excellent one done by Eva Geertz for the New Haven Review: http://www.newhavenreview.com/index.php/2014/03/a-review-of-these-paper-bullets-by-a-very-reluctant-theater-goer/

And, if you’d like to get a sense of the show’s overall aesthetic, here is a video celebrating the show’s world premiere, courtesy of the Yale Repertory Theatre YouTube channel:

Favorite Irish Folk Songs: The Minstrel Boy

16 Sunday Mar 2014

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

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folk songs, history, Ireland, New Haven, poetry

Today is the annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade here in New Haven. In a matter of hours, the Green will crowd with lawn chairs as politicians, veterans, and Irish step dancers walk the ways once inhabited by downtown traffic. Upon the breeze will dance the sour smell of beer with the gamey smell of porta-potties…

…and bands of bagpipes and fifes and drums will all play the same arrangement of “The Minstrel Boy.”

If you’re like me, you’ll start to feel a berserker-like rage, rising from the depths of your gut, after hearing the same damn version for the twentieth time. In a row. Without any breaks.

No need to give in. Instead, just listen to this lovely and very different arrangement of the song by Irish folk great Tommy Makem. I promise that it will sooth your ear fatigue and refresh your soul! And most importantly, it will give you a chance to hear the beautiful verses, written by Thomas Moore. Many believe he wrote it to honor his Trinity Dublin classmates who participated / died in the Irish Rebellion of 1798.

Enjoy today’s merriment! Tomorrow, we look at a quieter group of folk songs, to help sooth the inevitable hangovers you’ll get from today.

Something out of Nothing: Writing and Advent

13 Friday Dec 2013

Posted by poetryandpushpins in Religious Exploration, The Creative Life

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Advent, Christian community, New Haven, the creative process, writing

Writing can be tough; especially, when I’ve been looking at a white, blank screen for hours. But, there is also a joy and an anticipation in those silent moments. I always hope that something wonderful will soon appear on that empty screen, making the wait worth it.

In my latest piece for HartfordFAVS, I explore the ways that writing, my city, and the Advent season all wait for something to be created out of nothing.

You can read it at the FAVS website here

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