Finally, Chihuly In The Forest, plus a delightful dinner

First stop on the forest trail

In late October, I packed the car for a 4-day trip to Eureka Springs. BFF Dot-from-Beebe  took vacation days to go along. A poetry "do" was the instigating motive, but I'd discovered that the nearby Crystal Bridges' CHIHULY IN THE FOREST exhibit was still in place. Bucket list!

Parking was a problem and we finally drove to the upper lot and hailed a shuttle. After standing in line for quite a spell, buying tickets, getting directions, we rode down (or up) an elevator that showed the workings of the thing. Finally, we were on the trail. We took our time and stopped to snap photos of the glass installations.

Dot

Pat

We caught the shuttle back to the car and drove back to Eureka Springs to rest and refresh before a drive to Berryville for dinner at Dan and Susan Krotz’s home. Warm hospitality for strangers-cum-friends, a delicious dinner with delightful conversations about all four of us and our creative activities and output made for a wonderful experience.

Once again, back to Eureka Springs for our second night. You know how it is the first night away: not such a sound sleep. But this night, we slept soundly, partly because of how tired we were from all that walking. What a great day. Two--TWO--great experiences in one day. How lucky can one get at our ages???

               

Dr. Seuss had it right: “… and the people you’ll meet”

Photo by Carolyn Hoggard

 

 

When this blog post hits Facebook , I will have returned home from a week in the Ozarks. I go there each April and each October, and bask in the beauty of the place called Little Switzerland. I also attend a 3-day poetry retreat on either end of both weeks’ stay.

Before I left home, however, I determined to take flowers from the yard with me since they would likely be gone by the time I returned. I found the largest container on the place, filled it with water, picked a variety of flora and added stems to the water. Now, how to get it to stay upright for four hours of driving? I spied an old stewpot, placed the vase in the center, laid rolled-up dishtowels about halfway up, then dropped hands full of marbles and colored stones until the vase was solidly wedged in the pot. Voila!

At dinner the day I arrived, I met a needle felter from Chicago. She was ending a two-week residency at Dairy Hollow. Have any of you done needle felting? Do any of you know a person who is a needle felter? I never heard of the phrase/ artistic process. [Google "needle felter": you might be amazed, too.]

This 68-year-old woman who flew into Highfill in North Arkansas, then took Fuzzy’s taxi to Eureka Springs and Dairy Hollow, was surprised to be accepted at, she said, a “writer’s colony.” But the director assured her there were other types of creative activities that happened there. Fiber artists, composers, culinary pursuits—all are welcome.

After dinner, we “toured” each other’s suites, and I was lucky enough to actually see what in the world she meant by different types of “felting.” Not the craft store felt—“that’s crap,” she said. The basic material is actual sheep wool, carded but not spun. It comes in long ropes the size of the old-timey coils some women used to roll their long hair on and fasten around their heads.

After that, we made plans to hike up the rough gravel path to the Crescent Hotel the next morning with the aid of our hiking sticks. I wanted to buy a newspaper. We did, talking all the time except when we needed to get our breaths back.

 She was leaving at one p. m. At her door after our hike, she said, “Wait a minute,” and soon brought out a little plastic bag of six, needle-felted toy balls for cats. “Throw them in the air, then watch the cats scamper after them.” I want to show them to someone before I give them to Greye and Bibbs.

Since I had brought some copies of A Journey of Choice with me, I said, “Would you like one of my books?” Of course, she said yes (what else could she say?). “I’ll read it on the plane back to O’Hare.” Thus, a one-day acquaintance ended happily. We have already been in touch.

Another bit of serendipity about our meeting: My second book, Her Face in the Glass, has a woman from Chicago who moves to the Ozarks to pursue her yen for writing.

Is that not a coincidence?

 

Another week of spring in the Ozarks

 

               APRIL 21- Easter Monday, – Prepping to leave for a week at Eureka Springs – Lucidity Poetry retreat (for two days and three evenings) but living at the Writers Colony at Dairy Hollow. On the road at 9:30 and drove four hours straight only to find the doors all locked at 1:30. Luckily, the other resident was on “his” porch and while he went down for some lunch, I found the keys to my room and came back up for a nap. I unpacked the car then and parked.
             After that, I went outside and wrote.

FROM THE COLONY DECK

Dogwood
as far as I
can see in these mountains.
Settling in to write this Easter
Monday.

The sun
merely a bright
spot behind a cloud bank.
On Easter Monday, the weather’s
still cool.
        
           At dusk, I hear an owl from somewhere down Dairy Hollow Road.

again this year
heartburn follows
Jana’s great dinner.

APRIL 22 – Tuesday. The annual (for 21 years) Lucidity Poets Retreat doesn’t begin till tonight. So I tackle the myriad submissions to CALLIOPE’s poetry file. This is a gratis job (a non-profit writers’ publication), but –despite the general editor’s wishes (“You went there to write!”)—I spread all of them out on the kitchen table and sort them by dates received—some as far back as December. Though a newbie at editing poetry for a lit mag, I try to respond (via email) as soon and as personally as possible.
The opening session of the Retreat brought old friends together (of all the hugging you ever saw: in someone’s coat collar or lapel might be one of my earrings) and a few new folks who quickly became friends.

          APRIL 23 – Wednesday. The honor of leading one of four workshops starting at 8:30 meant my leaving here at 8.  Three Texans, an Illini, and four Mizzou poets had been assigned to the group.  In two long sessions, we critiqued each others’ poems sent in earlier. Lunch at Sparky’s Bistro with Missouri and Mountain Home friends lasted until 1:30, and the next session began at 2. I eschewed that one for a nap. The evening lectures added more information and inspiration. Afterward, we participated in a read-around. I lasted one round, but some of them stayed for two. When the leader called for a 3^rd round, I heard that several called out, “Enough!” By then it was ‘way after 10 pm.

 

            APRIL 24 – Thursday. Another workshop session, another lecture, a group picture, then the afternoon was free. It threatened rain, and I came down with a fresh cold. Sure enough, we had to wear raincoats over our dressy clothes for the final activity.

            The Awards banquet began at 5:30. Dr. John Crawford provided the pre-and-post banquet piano music. Though I was sure my poem would win at least an honorable mention, alas, it didn’t. With a runny nose and sneezing spells, I didn’t feel like attending the usual ritual of goodbyes at the local pub. My sleep was noisy and fitful. Rest was out in the woods somewhere, or in the fields. It certainly was NOT in MY bed.

 

            APRIL 25 – Friday.  After two days of arising by alarm for early workshops, I slept in till rested, arising at 8:05. This day was all mine. Coffee and journal on the back deck, and time to write. And write I did—for two hours. After breakfast, I continued toward my goal of organizing all the Calliope poetry submitted thus far, and trying to get them all a schedule for publication. Turned out to be a complicated procedure that meant emails to most of the poets before I could call myself done. 

          After a sumptuous dinner (provided at the Colony each week night) of salmon “cakes” (I call them” patties”), mashed potatoes, steamed, uncut asparagus, salad and lemon meringue pie, I drove across town to the only local store, Dollar General. I needed more antihistamine, some throat lozenges, batteries for my camera, toothpaste and the most important thing, ice cream. I continued working on the poems submitted until bedtime. The Haagen-Dazs strawberry provided a cooling, sweet midnight delight.

 

            APRIL 26 – Saturday. Another whole day alone—except for the loud folks motorcycling, walking, yelling, playing their car radios loudly—I finally finished the CALLIOPE task with each poem tucked away in folders labeled “Summer ‘14”, “Fall ’14,” “Winter ‘14/’15,” “Spring ‘15” and a couple as far out as “Summer ’15.”

 

           APRIL 27 – Sunday. Sunday. Here it is 9 p.m. and I’ve just now wasted four hours of typing into my website 62 "found" poems. SIXTY-TWO. I could tell the machine or the text editor was getting tired. First, it skipped two spaces instead of one, then three spaces. Once, the screen went completely away, but came back presently. When the 62^nd poem—the end of the ones beginning with F—was typed in and a note as to the date, I looked around for a SAVE CHANGES. Couldn’t find it, so started searching. And, for want of a SAVE, the lot was lost.

         But—after fuming, whining, crabbing, grousing—I decided that this was nothing compared to the destruction and deaths caused by today’s tornadoes.

         Forgive me, Lord, for magnifying the insignificant things instead of the important ones that really matter.

 

Cold week in the Ozarks: a journaling

Bundled up last October; not quite as cold this spring. But still cold--most of the week.

 

by Pat Laster

 

 APRIL 1- Monday, 7:55 a.m. – Couchwood. Sunny and foggy; up at 6:58 before alarm. Prepping to leave for a week at Eureka Springs – Lucidity Poetry retreat (for two days and three evenings) but living at the Writers Colony at Dairy Hollow.

APRIL 2 – Tuesday, 8:14 a.m. At WCDH in the Peach Blossom Suite. Lower floor accessible street-side by stone steps (a death-trap by night without a flashlight) or park-side by a narrow path between the building and the edge of a 6-foot drop-off onto Polk Street. 42 degrees, rainy.
          After the first night, I wrote:

Lighting’s

poor, chair’s too low. 

The heating unit sounds

like a squadron of motorbikes

revving.

 

Coffee’s

good, the décor’s

pleasing and restful, bed’s

comfortable, dresser storage

ample.

          9:42 a.m. –breakfast: an Easter dinner roll spread with peanut butter and dried berries brought from home, almonds (ditto), cold skim milk and coffee from the common kitchen here. A cinquain texted to the roll baker:

Brother
Guy, I just ate
one of your homemade rolls
at Dairy Hollow in April.
Yum, yum!

APRIL 3 – Wednesday, 6:23 a.m., up with alarm at 5:58, 34 degrees!?! A call during the night from Tech Support Simon, who was “tuning up” my 3-week-old laptop, interrupted my sleep, making the alarm seem even earlier.
          Leading a Lucidity poets’ workshop across town that started at 8:30 meant leaving here at 8.  Jottings from the session included: “forensic = law,” a line from one poem, “The dead always want more,” and a reminder that “specifics are better than generalizations.”

APRIL 4 – Thursday. My notes begin at 11:30 with a lecture by our renown and long-standing professor Larry Thomas from Ypsilanti, Michigan, who has traveled this route for 19 years. After this year, he’s bowing out. Past age 80, he deserves to, though we will miss him terribly. Notes: Frost’s quandary can become our own: “What should I do today?”
          In another note the lecturer says, “A poem says one thing and means another.” I don’t agree with that statement, because many of my works are literal, not metaphorical. Perhaps he was talking about GOOD/GREAT poems.

APRIL 5 – Friday. 42 degrees—finally sunny. 10:05 a.m. After two days of arising by alarm for Lucidity workshops at 8:30, I sleep in till I’m rested. Vivid dreams of being back in the music classroom of 7^th graders are thankfully quashed by notification of a full bladder. At 7:20, I rouse, decide it’s too early, so, like a cat, I stretch, yawn, assume my favorite (fetal) position and return to sleep. But not a deep sleep, for I begin building Fibonacci (a new form of poetry for me) in my head. [6 more pages of notes.]

APRIL 6 – Saturday, 7:38 a.m. 50 degrees! I take my coffee outside and a bird seems to greet me. “Sweetie, sweetie, sweetie, sweetie,” with an occasional 5^th “sweetie.” It must know I stand below. [Tee-hee.]
           From inside, I grab a straight-back, slatted-back, caned-seat wooden chair. (Yes, I know there’s too many adjectives, but I want to be specific.) Add a pillow, fetch the oak TV tray that I brought with me “just in case.” (This is the “case.”) Voila! An outdoors writing station! [7 more pages of notes, mostly research about boardinghouse rates and related information.]

APRIL 7 – Sunday, 7:32 a.m.—up at 7:27, 51 degrees, cloudy. DREAM: I’d accepted an interim choir directing job at a local church. After one-and-a-half rehearsals of a difficult but doable anthem, I up and quit. “Lack of respect,” I shouted.
          First inciting event: While I was “teaching,” a man whom I knew talked–not whispered--to his neighbor the entire time. Second inciting event: Four women—two of whom I knew—quit singing and began hand-jiving in rhythm.
          Skip to the end: As I was leaving, the talkative tenor had gathered the group and some Cokesbury hymnals in the choir loft to “pick out something for Sunday.”
          I think I just dreamed a short story!