Loose Leaf Notes

At first glance
one looks like the other
but each is unique

And the pattern they make
is the allure of the story
and the body we cling to

Some are held dear
Others hang by a thread

Still others are tightened by knots
that must be untangled in the end

Or chewed off
the way the serpent eats its tail

It distances itself from its birth
and ends up where it starts

He loves me, he loves me not
is the question we weigh as we string

She loves me, she loves me not
Is the chain of days ever long enough?

The childhood ones are as faded
as we know the last ones will be

And all are fragile for better or worse
All are worthy of cherishing

Colleen Redman__________dVerse Poets Pub

At the new Moonlight Lounge in Natasha’s Cafe the apps are wasabi nut brittle, sweet potato fries, BBQ buffalo sliders on homemade buns, crab cake sliders, smoked chicken wings, beer cheese, marinated olives and more.   I filled up on happy hour wine, some Moonlight bites and conversation at the weekend opening.  Look for a story and more photos in this week’s Floyd Press and check them out on Facebook.

After the Lounge opening, and to make the most of the night, I stopped by the annual New Works Exhibit at the Jacksonville Center. What a treat to view the work of artists from Floyd and beyond.  You can read a Roanoke Times interview with the new Jacksonville Center director Jeffery Liverman HERE.

Another weekend night life event involved happily sweating out two dance sets of Time is Art, who I call my new favorite Dogtown Roadhouse house band and describe as psychedelic meets reggae with a Beatlesque twist.  Have a listen to their Do Not Lift the Ban on Mining (uranium) HERE.

It was actually Roanoke City and we were in town to see the Yoko Ono’s Imagine Peace show at the Taubman Museum, which is where the first two pictures were taken.  In the last shot we were laughing at the old school way we had to fold up dollars and stick them into slots to pay for parking.

__________________Shadow Shot Sunday

1. I named one of my chickens Dolly just so I could sing “Hello Dolly,” when I go to the coop each morning to feed the flock.

2. Roosters brag about getting laid and hens brag about laying. Honestly, after they lay an egg they literally crow about it.

3. You’ve heard of Bed Bath and Beyond?  In our house the nighttime routine is Bath first, then Bed and Beyond.  

4. My poor husband used to think I was pushing him away when he’d get too close and I’d back him off because my close range eyesight was going and I couldn’t see him.   Now he’s caught up with me and is pushing me back to see me better.

5. What used to be mining for the gold of the soul is more like fracking now.  I have to go to greater measures to squeeze out the creativity now.

6. Sometimes I sit in moonlight or under the sun to stir up some inspiration: I let the sun start a fire on my lids / turn from magenta to bright red / I imagine it making a freckle / or dropping a spark of inspiration / If I sit long enough in its glow / it might illuminate a truth I am blind to / It might melt a cold grudge / or fuse meaning where there was none.  More from How to Make a Freckle HERE.

7. The Chinese character for “crisis,” which combines the characters of danger and opportunity, points toward a timeless truth that we so often forget: It’s the challenges and obstacles that make us who we are, and often that lead to our greatest joys and successes.  - From Seven Timeless Truths That Words Can’t Describe

8. I think THIS song is as good as anything Shakespeare wrote.

9. THIS woodpecker really does sound like Woody Woodpecker.

10.  And THIS is what a woodpecker drilling sounds like.

11. According to THIS visual personality test I am freedom loving, dynamic and sparkly. How about you?

12. My three-year-old-grandson Liam calls the color yellow “lemon.”

13. A freckle is a sun tattoo.

____________Thirteen Thursday

There’s a danger in looking too long
so I close my eyes

I let the sun start a fire on my lids
turn from magenta to bright red

I imagine it making a freckle
or dropping a spark of inspiration

If I sit long enough in its glow
it might illuminate a truth I am blind to

It might melt a cold grudge
or fuse meaning where there was none

My pupils track its source
like a dream I store for the future

Holding my face up to its brilliance
I don’t worship but I pray

____________Colleen Redman_______dVerse Poet’s Pub

Before blogging there was A Museletter, the homespun print forum that was created by some of Floyd’s back-to-the-land-settlers more than 30 years ago for the purpose of sharing literary/artistic musings and ideas on self-reliance, growing and preserving food, holistic health, peace and justice activism, home schooling and more. There were no online forums back then, only a few owned computers, and the rural miles between us were sometimes many.  We were a tight knit group exploring seasonal celebrations and simple living.  We were raising our kids and patching together ways to make a living, mostly from arts and crafts and part time work.

As a writer, the Museletter has been foundational and formative for me.  It gave me a platform to develop my writer’s voice and was a big part of what brought me to Floyd from Texas via Boston in 1985.  The community reflected in its pages helped cement that this was where I wanted to live. From day one, upon my arrival, I worked on the monthly publication with various groups of people and sometimes on my own, making my name almost synonymous with the Museletter, eventually.  It was a true community hub.

Supported by subscription fees and the Community Education Resource Cooperative (CERC), the Museletter has been described as kitchen table democracy or like making a community pie from scratch every month.  It has always had a dedicated following, but in the last half-dozen years subscriptions have dropped and discussions about its relevancy have ensued.  It seemed that the work and expense of putting it out no longer matched the use.  Still, those that loved it and counted on it arriving in their mailbox each month hung in there and even participated in community brainstorming workshop about it in 2010.

Soon after that I passed the Museletter torch onto Amy Avery, one of the young people we raised who grew up with the all volunteer Muse as part of her life.  Amy made some significant mailing changes that saved a lot of money. She set up a Facebook page, laid it out monthly by computer and made headway into getting its presence online.  Even so, in this month’s issue she announced that March would be the last hardcopy issue.

For years I made and sold jewelry to support myself and my sons while staying at home to raise them.  When my jewelry-making career ended and I went on to work for Wall Residences, providing foster care for an individual with disabilities, I cleaned out my jewelry tools and supplies in one fell swoop.  Not so with the Museletter. 

I recently emptied a large filing cabinet drawer of Museletter remnants that should have been sorted through years ago – old issues, subscriptions lists, letters, clip art and more.   I was amazed at the amount original art and poetry I couldn’t bear to toss and the history told in black and white.

That was one filing cabinet drawer, and not the one upstairs in my office that is home to a fairly complete collection of the entire archive, Museletters named (thanks to Jayn Avery) Apple Crisp Moon, Looney Tune June Moon, Dickens of a Moon, Masked Moon, Bloom Soon Moon and so many more.   

Saying goodbye to the hardcopy Museletter with all its cut and paste charm would be a lot easier if I thought the history in it would be preserved.  If anyone is interested in working alone or with a group to digitize part (the best of) or all of the collection, please let me know or leave a message at the online site floydmuse.org. or send it to CERC PO BOX 81, Floyd VA 24091.  People can send their Museletter thoughts and memories to museletterfloyd@gmail.com for the final issue.

For three decades the Museletter has been there, ready if anyone wanted to reach 150 or so people to announce something, share something, or sell something.  I will miss the feedback I still get from people on the street about something I have written, not in The Floyd Press, not on my blog or Facebook, but in the Museletter.  If the shift hits the fan and the digital world goes down, I hope the skill of homespun cut and paste communication can be revived.

The Museletter has been a beacon for those living in and coming to Floyd for many years.  It has served us well and I think it’s testament to community that it lasted as long as it did.   I’m grateful to everyone that took part.

Nobody went to school or to work.  The drive down the mountain went without a hitch and the new red snow shovel was a big hit.  Five-year-old Bryce promptly used it to shovel off the steps from the driveway to the front door.  A snow plow whizzed by, and he beamed as we made plans to tell his mom and dad when they got home from work that I hired a workman to do the job.

I remember a drawer in the closet of my childhood home where a motley mix of mittens and gloves were kept.  In winter, I would spend what seemed like hours trying to match up a pair of anything, competing with eight siblings for something that fit, only to have it all wet in the first 15 minutes of snow play.

I understood why three-year-old Liam whined when I forced his little fingers into the slots of the red alpaca gloves that I meant to give him for Christmas.  He only lasted about 15 minutes outside before he started fussing again.  “Are your fingers cold, honey?” I asked.  “No. They hurt,” he cried.  I understood.  Growing up in Massachusetts, I was frequently near tears while waiting for the school bus on winter mornings because my feet were so cold they stung.

Hardy Bryce lasted much longer and found new ways to use the shovel.  At one point during our play, the shovel became a sail on top of the blue sled that Bryce, Liam and Hopa took down a hill in the front yard.  In the back yard, Bryce and Hopa set up forts to protect themselves from the hail of snowballs they threw at each other.  Bryce used the shovel to deliver a particularly cold blow. You can watch it HERE. 

I heard that both boys were shoveling first thing the next morning and that Liam insisted on taking the shovel in the car when his mom drove him to preschool.  

I still have dreams about that drawer and the struggle of digging for unmatched mittens. _____________Shadow Shot Sunday

1. There were robots from France, light shows, an aerial performance by Pink, Taylor Swift swinging her head wildly at the piano, a little Beatlemania and a mass wedding of 34 (gay and straight) couples that followed Macklemore & Ryan Lewis’ rap performance Same Love, but maybe my favorite Grammy moment of Sunday night was when Jay Z accepted a Grammy, turned it around and addressed his baby daughter, saying, “Daddy got you a gold sippy cup.

2. For years the Grammy’s ignored the mega-musicians of the 60’s (think Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Cat Stevens, Jefferson Airplane, The Grateful Dead, Led Zepplin, The Who and Bob Marley) and didn’t even have a regular rock category until 1980. A few past Grammy outcomes that shocked me and led one reviewer to say “The Grammy’s have had a reputation as an irrelevant pop awards show for 40 years, applauding the Captain and Tennile’s of the world vs the Velvet Undergound’s: In 1967, New Vaudeville’s novelty song Winchester Cathedral won over the Beach Boys’ Good Vibrations and the Beatles’ Eleanor Rigby. In 1978 best new artist nominee Elvis Costello lost to A Taste of Honey (never heard of then or now) and in 1989 Jethro Tull, whose albums I owned and never considered remotely close to heavy metal, won a Grammy for best heavy metal performance over Metallica.

3. Sometimes it seems that the better I feel, the harder I can be knocked down. Was it a remark I took too seriously? Some feedback I didn’t want to hear? Will I stuff my bad feelings in with the rest of my emotional baggage, or will my bad feelings just wear off in time? If I bury them, won’t they take root and sprout up at some other time? Can I just change my mind and not feel them anymore? Where do bad feelings go?  More from Lost: Sense of Humor HERE.

4. Is outasight the opposite of insight?

5. It’s ironic that there is so much racism against people of color and yet many white people practically kill themselves tanning in order to be darker.

6. Read about my friend Dick’s impressions on meeting Martin Luther King HERE. 

7. The difference between privacy and secrecy -  Private: I got terrible grades in high school.  Secret: I forged my degree.  -  A very interesting Jungian take on the difference between the two HERE.

8.  My women’s dialogue circle:  I’m learning to value my sensitivity to the subtle, to address what makes me shake.  Hits me in the gut.  A cue to speak up.  Risk it.  Progress! Emotional bumps that used to take hours to unravel and process can now move along in about 10 minutes.  I go to dialogue for the insight, the laughter and goosebumps.  I go like my life depends on it. More HERE.

9. Beyonce’s Grammy performance was described in the press as racy and naughty, which is was.  It was well executed, but the song lyrics, Drunk in Love, were explicit and her twerking dance was too much like one you might see in a strip club, so I think she (joined by Jay Z) probably shouldn’t have opened the show in prime time at 8:00, but maybe could have been featured later, like after 10:00.

10. Warming myself at the wood stove is like taking a shower as opposed to a bath. I can’t immerse myself all at once in its heat but have to do it bit by bit.

11. Yesterday I was standing in the checkout line at the Harvest Moon behind a man buying Homestead milk.  It was snowing outside and he joked about buying the cliché snowstorm bottle of milk.  After he left I checked out two reusable shopping bags full of cliché food.

12. Pete Seeger (RIP) was chopping wood ten days before he died (Tuesday at the age of 94) and walked with two canes and in solidarity at the Occupy Movement of 2011.  Funny, I googled him and titled a blog post after one of his songs just days before he died. And his name came up in THIS poem written less than a week ago, but then got edited out.  Read my friend Naomi’s wonderful tribute and memories HERE.

13. Old age has been the best time in my life, a reality that no one ever predicted or told me about … One reason for this happiness may be that I am more likely to follow the will of God because I have so much less energy to resist it.  ~ Robert Johnson

____________Thirteen Thursday

Aka Cold Feet 2. Cold Feet 1 is HERE.

Wordless Wednesday

What happens to the poem
after the climax?

When you have to
re-create the romance?

When you have to gamble
the progress already made?

Invite strangers into
your innermost space?

What happens to the poem
that rolls over and goes to sleep?

The pretty face
that’s gone in the morning?

What about the poem
that’s over before it started?

The one that can’t live up
to its reputation?

The crush with cold feet?

__________Colleen Redman_______dVerse Poets Pub

- The following first appeared in The Floyd Press on January 23, 2014.

Students and the staff at Blue Mountain High School (BMHS) hosted a special program on Martin Luther King Day in honor of King.  Middle school students at Blue Mountain Elementary School were invited to attend the event, which was held at the EcoVillage where the high school is located.  The program included singing civil rights folk songs that the high school students learned in a class called Songs of Social Change, taught by parent volunteer Craig Greene.

Greene talked about how important the songs were to the Civil Rights Movement, saying they helped to instill solidarity and courage in civil rights activists during a time when their activism put them at risk.  BMHS director Joe Klein encouraged students to reflect on their own personal experiences and on ways they could be a voice for justice in the future.   

The program also included a guest talk by retired Lutheran minister Dick Giessler, who was active in the Civil Rights Movement and met Dr. King in the mid 60’s.   Giessler explained that he was on a committee of pastors who invited King to speak at the annual Ohio Pastors Convocation in Columbus.  He recalled that King was small in stature, 5’ 8” like himself.  “He was soft spoken when he was not speaking to large crowds,” Giessler said.  

Giessler spoke of a formative early childhood friendship with a boy of African-American descent.  At the time, Giessler and the boy were not aware of segregation.   He choked up when he recalled that his friend, who died at the age of 12 from Tuberculosis, was not afforded the same rights that Giessler was because of the color of his skin.   “My civil rights education began early,” he recalled.  

As a pastor, Giessler helped integrate parishes in Ohio, Kentucky and Virginia.   He married one of the first mixed race couples in Virginia when it became legal to do so, and his family hosted a young southern girl of African-American ethnicity who came to the north to receive an education. 

Giessler also shared a newspaper letter he wrote after the Birmingham Church bombings that killed four African-American children.   The letter, calling for prayer, was picked up by the Associated Press and appeared in newspapers around the country.

“Service to others, that’s what King was about and that’s how we can honor him,” Giessler told the students.  He also spoke about the importance of friendship, encouraging students to make friends with people of different religious and ethnic backgrounds.  ____Colleen Redman

It’s all Downhill from Here

Boys Just Wanna Have Fun

Taking Flight in Black and White

Where Have All the Flowers Gone?

_______Shadow Shot Sunday

1. Last night I dreamt that Joe and I were at an auditorium event (something like an author’s reading) and at one point the performer came out in a Santa suit and did a wedding ceremony with a couple on stage and the whole audience.  We were being married to prose and, of course, I was videotaping the photo –op.  He kept talking to me from the stage, and said, “You can’t take a video and get married at the same time.”  I wondered why we couldn’t get married to poetry instead of prose.

2. As I type this I’m looking out my window, watching a snow flurry start to fall.  I’m smiling and thinking that the snowflakes are almost as big as cornflakes.

3. Check out THIS amazing snow artist.

4. I knew there was good reason why I bring pens to meetings so I can doodle and bear through them.  People tend to think you are distracted when you doodle, but it actually helps you pay attention.   Read A Higher Purpose for Doodling HERE.   

5. John F. Kennedy often doodled sailboats. Ronald Reagan drew cowboys. Mark Twain and Fyodor Dostoyevsky both were habitual doodlers. Hillary Clinton made news when she was caught doodling at a UN General Assembly Meeting.  She drew a series of spirals, a star and what looked a bunch of grapes, before delivering her speech, according to the Daily Mail.  See HERE.  

6.  I felt guilty about burning what seemed like the equivalent of a couple of large trees to keep warm over the weekend.   Joe was out of town and if he had been home I wouldn’t have felt so bad, which makes me wonder why I don’t feel firewood worthy on my own.

7. As someone that likes to watch movies and not sports (and doesn’t get CBS), I wish people would have Academy Awards parties instead of Super Bowl ones.

8.  Red carpet worthy?  I’d like to see someone at the Academy Awards wear THIS story book gown that was constructed entirely out of recycled and discarded children’s Golden Books.  

9. THIS poem is about my kind of Sunday worship, as well as a tribute to those who made me want to write poetry.  It also has the word snowing in it.

10. I feel like Cinderella trying to get this Thirteen Thursday list done by midnight because if I don’t it will turn into Friday and I might be missing a shoe.

11. Floyd poet Bill Spillman says this: Snowflakes are cobwebs / woven by winter spiders / lost in the wind and catching dreams / before they gather on the ground / to share what has been found /

12. Snowflakes like cornflakes falling into milk HERE.

13. “No one really knows why they are alive until they know what they’d die for.” Martin Luther King

_____________Thirteen Thursday

 
On a lazy Sunday
made for folksingers
for beatniks and people
that read Carl Sagan

I’m fishing for lines
in Pandora’s box
A pink i-Pod
set on Cupid’s station

I’m looking for wells
to throw pennies into
or take them out

I’m waiting for the part
where the harmonica breaks in
and Leonard Cohen meets Suzanne

The part where Yoko Ono
tapes the sound of snow falling

And Richard Brautigan
wakes the fly on his napkin
so he can clean his classes
and watch a pretty girl

I’m waiting for words that sink in
and the silence between them

For the blues guitar solo
that pierces like an arrow
and makes me stand up
for everything true

___________Colleen Redman_______dVerse Poets Pub

We all let our hair down at Dogtown for Anthony Haynes’ birthday.  

The party featured the Deer Run Drifters, Spoonfight, a few numbers by Anthony (on the left) and a special belly dance performance. (That’s Anthony’s wife Jessica to his right.)

I don’t know if I have ever seen the place that packed with people.  We figured there was a winter cabin fever component, mixed with a college semester break.

I always feel it’s a quality way to spend time with others, moving freely on the dance floor with big smiles on our faces.

Check out Dogtown’s upcoming music event listing HERE.  Time is Art is playing on February 7.

A short clip of the dancers flipping their wigs is HERE.

Shadow Shot Sunday

Eye See You Two

1. I was excited to watch the Golden Globes show on TV Sunday night, but I kept calling it the Boston Globes.

2. My friends are finally getting the hang of what I do and some even pose for me when we’re out and about and they know I’m going to blog about it. See HERE.

3. Is hapless the opposite of happy?

4. What about mayhap, mishap, haphazard and perhaps?

5. One of my favorite Golden Globes lines of the night was when co-host Amy Poehler (whose claim to fame that night was a staged make-out session with Bono) welcomed the crowd and then said, “Ladies, kick off your shoes. Gentlemen, try them on and see how horrible they are.”   

6. And I loved the way Amy and Tina Fey kept calling Tom Hanks Tim Hunks.

7. The photograph above is from the Yoko Ono Imagine Peace show that I saw Saturday at the Taubman Museum of Art in Roanoke. The installation, called LIGHT HOUSE, involved prisms reflecting sparkling light on the walls of darkened room. 

8. “If they are hungry, mothers, feed them, without thinking twice. Because they are the most important people here,” said Pope Francis while recently baptizing 32 babies in the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican.  He has said in an interview that mothers should not feel uncomfortable breastfeeding during his ceremonies.  But of course, when this was reported on the nightly news, they showed a baby being fed with a bottle.  

9. THESE kaleidoscope floors really floor me.  (Don’t forget to scroll down.)

10. I think they would go great with THESE ceilings. 

11. Accepting a lifetime achievement award for Woody Allen, Diane Keaton pointed out that 179 of the world’s most captivating actresses have appeared in Woody’s films, which made me think that Allen has his own kind of “Bond Girls.”

12. I do not fear death, as I see it as being akin to a dewdrop falling back into the sea.  Unlike most people, I have identified with the sea rather than the dewdrop for most of my life.  - Robert Johnson

13. “Rather than live in the hearts and minds of my fellow man, I would rather live on in my apartment.” – Woody Allen

_________Thirteen Thursday