Thank you, Mr. Levine

Over the years my parents went to many parent-teacher conferences, after which they would report back to me what the teachers had said about me and my performance. Of all those comments, I remember only one.

I was generally a good and well-behaved student, so there were never any serious problems. Back then grades were either "S" for satisfactory or "N" for needs improvement. (Today's grade/test/number obsessed educators would do well to reconsider this system, but I'll save that rant for another day). My report cards were consistent. Beside every category, except one, was an "S." My one "N" was for penmanship, which remains an area in need of improvement.

Maybe my sixth grade teacher, Mr. Levine, was thinking about my penmanship when he told my parents, "Some people find it easy to be neat. Jane has to work at it." Alas, 'tis true. Over the years as I've struggled to keep my house, my car, my desk, or my life in order, Mr. Levine's words have come back to me over and over again. It's not that I don't try to keep things neat and orderly, it's just that, well, it's a lot of work, and while I'm straightening out the book case, I find  a book I'd forgotten about, and intended to read, and before you know it, the cleaning project is abandoned, and I've put my feet up on the book case, and I'm reading that novel I bought years ago.

So, part of the problem is that I'm easily distracted, and when it's something I'd rather do than create order, I do that, and, truth be told, there are LOTS of things I'd rather do than  create order. But it's not just that. I truly believe there is a gene that makes some people naturally neat. I suspect Mr. Levine had one of those.

Take, for instance, my friend Agatha (not her real name). She is naturally neat. Her house is always in perfect order, her clothes always clean and freshly ironed (I think I remember where my iron is, but maybe not), and her desk is always free from clutter. Now all that may be due to the fact that she works at this, which she does, but here's my argument for the genetic difference. She even sleeps neatly. Yes, sound asleep, no longer conscious of her neatening compulsion, um, I mean habit, she is neat.

Consider the following: Several years ago we were vacationing at a friend's cottage on the Cape. We shared a room with twin beds. At bed time Agatha folded back the covers on the bed she had made with neat hospital corners, slipped herself into the bed, leaving nary a crease in the bed clothes, lay on her back, and pulled the covers up to her neck and fell asleep.

On the other side of the room, I climbed into my bed, which I had made as well as genetically possible, turned over on my stomach and fell asleep. In the morning I woke up in a cocoon of sheets and blankets created by my activity during the night. Maybe I was having butterfly dreams, but before I could get out of bed, I had to unwrap myself, ending up with all the covers on the floor.

Finally disentangled, I stood up and looked over at Agatha's bed where she lay flat on her back, covers neatly folded under her chin, exactly as she had looked eight hours earlier. I was amazed; I never knew it was possible to sleep without moving. It was then that I concluded that Mr. Levine was probably right. Some people like Agatha were just naturally neat, and clearly I was not. 

What a relief! Now I can go back and finish reading that book.

Writing Wisdom from Billy Collins

These are some gems I gathered 

while in Billy Collins' workshop at

 the Southampton Writers' Conference.

• "You have to tell a little lie--that you love poetry more than yourself."
•  "Daydreaming is our [the poets'] job."
•  "Allow distractions, don't shoo them away. They may be knocking on the door of your poem."
•  "Your poem ends when the reader stops reading."
• "It's a kind of compensatory love we're seeking, and it's a kind of neurosis."
•  "Poetry is the displacement of silence."
•  "Your voice has an external source. It lies on the library shelf. You find your voice by reading other poets."
•  "Literary influence is actually jealousy."
•  "Writers are people who have been moved to writing by reading."
•  "Prose is like water. It fits any shape it's poured into. Poetry is like sculpture."
• "The pen is an instrument of discovery."

Remembering Carrie

In my continuing effort to clean out the basement, I came across a box I have looked through before. In  it are papers from my paternal grandmother, Carrie Julia Rose Roberts Schneeloch. There are her two wedding certificates, deeds to their homes, and letters, lots and lots of letters. Evidently Carrie was a saver, and I am very grateful for that, although now I have to decide what to do with the treasures she has left.

Carrie was born in the Merrick section of West Springfield in 1881, the youngest of five children. She admitted to being spoiled by them, but she would have her share of heartache. On the first day of the new century, at nineteen years old, she married the handsome Joseph Roberts seen here. I can only imagine the joy they shared as they looked forward to a future together. Sadly Joseph died just four months later of a ruptured appendix. Not long after that she lost her beloved sister Charlotte "Lottie."

Two years later she married my grandfather, George Emil Schneeloch, and in 1911 gave birth to my father, George Robert Schneeloch, who was to be their only child. When I was born in 1945, I was their only grandchild, My brother Bill was born in 1954, after both our grandparents had died.

I remember both my grandparents fondly. I remember their reading to me out of a big story book, my grandmother's vanilla pudding, the smell of lifebuoy soap in their bathroom, my grandfather's garden. I also remember the smell of my grandfather's White Owl cigars. That I don't miss.

Of course, I remember them as "old." Here they are at our house on Thanksgiving of 1950, just a few months before my grandmother died. I am, to say the least, a bit unnerved when I realize that my grandmother was 69 here, the age I am now.

The letters (don't want to linger too long on that age thing) are interesting from a number of standpoints. First of all, they are in excellent condition for being over 110 years old, although some are hard to read, having been written in pencil. Many are in the original envelopes. Several of the many letters written to Carrie from her mother, Henrietta Spencer Rose, are addressed simply Mrs. George Schneeloch, c/o Kibbe Brothers, Springfield, Massachusetts. Kibbe Candy Company was where my grandfather worked.

More to come....

My Butterfly Quilt

My quilt is not a show quilt, not like those that resemble a painting, where every thin strip of fabric is a brush stroke shading into the next color. It's not one with an intricate pattern with names like Dresden plate or prairie star or cathedral window. Simple green and pink butterflies are appliqued on off-white cotton. The stitching is not perfect, the original colors have faded, the edges are worn, and the very thin lining is leaking out.

Yet I love it because  my mother made it for me. I don't remember her making it. It seems it was always there in my room. I imagine it was in my crib before I graduated to the old spool bed that had been my father's, and which, years later, I am still sleeping in. I do remember being wrapped up in it as she or my father read to me at bedtime, cuddling with it and my cat Patsy on the old red sofa, and dragging it with me from room to room. So when it was finally consigned to the cedar chest, it had been worn thin with love.

I wonder now about my mother's decision to make this quilt. I know she and my father were overjoyed when I was born, not just as any parent would be, but because two years earlier she had carried a baby to full term only to lose her--the older sister Carolyn whom I would never know. Was she making this quilt while awaiting my arrival? Was it an activity to keep her from worrying about another tiny coffin? Or did she make it after I arrived sewing these tiny butterflies in a spirit of celebration.

Whenever she made it, I am glad she chose butterflies for the theme. I have always loved butterflies--their magnificent colors, their emerging from the cocoon, the story of their migration--all of that. Or maybe it is memories of being surrounded by them in the arms of my mother. 

Off Track

I board

this train of thought

and at once

the point of departure fades

the destination disappears

I see no tracks

no conductor

I would blame

my spaghetti brain

so easily distracted

by whim and caprice

but I suspect

even that diagnosis

is a distraction

In movies

train stations

are scenes of

joyous arrivals

sad departures

missed opportunities

As I whizz by

these cinematic moments

I must rely on imagination

to fill in the details for

I am off

to the next thought.

Lasting Impressions

The writing prompt “…that’s the last time I…” sent me on an exploration of lasts. I’ll leave out the shoemaker’s tool for now and concentrate on the more common usages. Last is one of those odd words in English that is its own opposite. It can mean continuing onward and also final, i.e. the memory of that concert will last long after its last note is played. Last can also mean most recent as in the last time I traveled to Italy. I very much hope that last is not final!

      

Certain disappointments or failures can cause me to say, “That’s the last time I’ll ...roll out my own pie crust, drive the length of the Garden State on a Friday in summer, try to meet a man on the internet, take Riley to the groomer who smokes." Of course, circumstances could change, and I could find myself trying a new method for pie crust or stuck in New Jersey traffic, but the intention is that this is a final time.

Other times, the lasts are really final. Sometimes it is a sad occasion as in the last time I visited with my cousin Evelyn, but other times it’s a celebration. That’s the last time I’ll stay up all night doing grades. Sometimes it's said in hope that it is final, as in that's my last cancer treatment.

Tonight I will go to church for Holy Thursday services, marking the “Last Supper,” the last meal Jesus shared with his disciples. Though that meal was their last together, here we are over 2000 years later remembering it—a moment that has lasted. 

"Finishing"

“Writing is a combination of intangible creative
fantasy and appallingly hard work.”

—Anthony Powell

Most mornings include Garrison Keillor's "Writer's Almanac" where today I learn that it was on April 10, 1925, that F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby was published. I am amused and encouraged to learn that even after finally sending his masterpiece off to Scribner's to be published, he wanted to change the title, but Maxwell Perkins told him it was too late, so The Great Gatsby it remained. Later, when sales were poor, he believed it was the title that was to blame.

I cannot think of anything I have written that came perfectly gift wrapped from the muse. Even when there is a rare flash of inspiration that flows quickly onto the page, there are edits and re-edits, doubts about word choice, questions about structure, metaphors that need to be unmixed. Right now I would go back and fix the earlier flash/flow problem, but I'm leaving it in just to illustrate the point. So I am encouraged that even the great Fitzgerald was never totally satisfied. 

When the metaphors mesh, and the rhythm moves with the meaning, and the images illustrate exactly, there is joy in the creation, but nearly always there is a niggling doubt that it could be better, so we revise and re-envision, and finally, either when we can see nothing else to "fix" or when we can't stand looking at it any more, we call it "finished," but it's never quite finished, even if it's gone to press.