Month: March 2022

I wrote a poem this morning, and after a few iterations, I formed it into a shape. That would classify it as “shape poetry”, “concrete poetry”, or a “calligram”.

The inspiration was the used state of my coffee cup, which had six horizontal ring lines in it. After I’d written several drafts, I realized that the poem could have six lines, too. And several drafts later, the shape of a coffee cup emerged.

The name of the poem is Stratigraphy. I didn’t know how to get the formatting to work in Word Press, so I ended up posting a picture of it as seen on my computer screen.

Please find Stratigraphy under Poems.

Last week, before the arrival of an “atmospheric river”, a few hours of sunshine allowed me to spray paint my lawn.

I used pink paint to outline the boundaries between border plantings and lawn and potential locations for raised beds. When the pink ran out, I used blue spray paint to outline a path and to speculate where to put a small greenhouse and a compost bin. I used black spray paint to mark spots where bushes, trees, and rocks could be placed.

Originally, I had asked a landscaping company (essentially a one-man show) for some design ideas. After the initial meeting (the free consultation), he said he would get back to me in a week. One month later, when he returned my follow-up message from the week before, he apologized and said the office had been short-staffed. “We will get you a proposal for the design early next week,” he said in an e-mail to me dated February 25. It is now March 15.

I don’t really know how to proceed here. I was looking forward to his design. Since he spent over an hour walking around the yard and chatting with me about some of my sketched-out ideas, I felt somewhat obligated to work with him to pay him for that time. When he said he would get back to me, I took him at his word. It took some effort on my part to ask a professional for help in the first place. I don’t feel comfortable having to remind him about assurances he gave me of his own accord.

So, I’ve purchased a wooden-handled grass edger and a trench-digger (essentially a narrow shovel), and I’ve ordered some cheap but easy-to-assemble cedar raised beds on Amazon. As soon as the rain takes a break, maybe in about a week (according to weather.com) I might just start doing some yard designing on my own. I have many questions and doubts about my specific ideas. But I also have Google and YouTube videos. So I’ll do what I can and see what happens.

Today is the 6th day of the Baha’i 19-day Fast. From March 2nd to March 20th, adult Baha’is who don’t have significant physical impediments or specific exceptions to do so, refrain from eating or drinking while the sun is up. For medical reasons, I drink water during the Fast, but even with that, it can be challenging for me. Today, for example, I am feeling cold, a little achy, and strongly pulled towards taking a nap. While in the midst of a free-writing exercise this morning, I found myself drifting off into dream-thoughts seemingly unrelated to what I was writing.

This used to happen to me often when I had afternoon classes in high school and college. I remember stints of falling asleep in an after-lunch history class. I would be dutifully taking notes, struggling to stay conscious. When my head would jerk up after a temporary sleep-slouch, I would look down at my notes to see that they either had nothing to do with the history being spoken of by my teacher and/or my written words had gradually become smaller and messier, trailing down off the notebook line they had started on.

Recently I have been reading about Abdu’l-Baha, the son of the founder of the Baha’i Faith, and this morning I was writing about Abdu’l-Baha’s travels in Egypt, Europe, and North America around 1912. He was nearing 70 years old at the time, and the trip was very hard on him, physically. I was just remembering a picture I have seen of Abdu’l-Baha in his aba (a kind of robe-like garment common in Persian culture), and suddenly I was in that same brick-wall-bordered courtyard, dancing in a white robe singing, “I am Mae.” Then just as suddenly, I was awake and thinking, “What was that about?”

When I have had paying jobs during the Fast, I have struggled at times to stay awake. But now that I don’t have an employer, no specific daily tasks that I can’t bypass without consequence, the struggle is even more difficult. Why not give in and let my body snuggle under some covers and submit to somnolescence?

Not everybody struggles with fasting the way I do. I’ve seen people who seem to have high energy and joyfulness even after they have not imbibed food or water for almost 12 hours. In fact, I know many people who have fasted beyond the point of sunset because eating right at sunset didn’t work for their schedule. That’s not me, though. Especially not today.