Today was my second Poetry Pop-Up Shop & they’re so fun, I may keep doing them even when I’m done raising money for Tupelo Press.
I was at the Spring Green General Store today & wrote an ode. It really has been a special place over the years, and it’s one of the main places people know about if they know about Spring Green:
AN ODE TO THE SPRING GREEN GENERAL STORE
Early spring, the flower boxes have funky tulip whirligigs, birch branches and metal insects on sticks, but soon enough the plantings will stretch up, spill over, glow in the afternoon sun. When people ask directions I tell them it’s the only giant blue building on Albany Street, “You can’t miss it.” And really, you shouldn’t.
There’s a chocolate therapy bar that fulfills its promise but also a chocolate chip cookie bar I love even more.
My favorite pants I ever had I bought there: linen crepe, black, palazzo. Too many amazing shirts to list.
They made a set of directions for the burrito that was safe for my son to eat (so many food allergies!) and posted it several places and this gets at the best reason to go— not just food and clothes and jewelry and toys and honestly the best dish towels you ever saw in your life,
it’s a place you can go for company, for community, for care.
I’d love it if you wanted to make a donation to Tupelo as a way to support a good press, to celebrate National Poetry Month, to pat me on the back, to just say, “hey, I really liked this one.” AND there are thank-you gifts! Click here to donate.
I’m continuing to write at least one poem a day in April, for three reasons: to challenge myself, to network, and to raise money for a truly fabulous publisher, Tupelo Press.
Big thanks to everyone who’s donated so far! I’m up to $255, and I want to raise at least $350 (ideally even more). Click here to make a donation.
Here’s today’s poem, “The Force That Thought The Green Good Night.” (I’m second alphabetically so you do have to scroll down a bit.) I feel like I’ll lose that title when I revise, but I don’t mind being obvious that it’s heavily influenced by Dylan Thomas.
One of the ways I’m drumming up more donations is to do what I’m calling Pop-Up Poetry Shop. Starting tomorrow (W 4/24), I’m going to one local business a day from 11-1. I’ll be writing, answering questions, collecting donations (if people would rather give me cash than donate online) and exchanging SWAG for donations. For these local events, a $5 donation gives you a chance to tell me what should be in the ode I’ll be working on for whatever business I’m at (even if that means you want me to include you as a customer!) The other bits of cool stuff you can get is described in my previous Tupelo 30/30 post.
congratulate me for writing 25 poems in 15 days (I’ve been writing two when I can so I’m picking the one I most want to share, not just the only one I have to share),
wish me luck in writing at least 15 more,
support a truly good press
In recent blog posts, I’ve mentioned books from Tupelo that were important to me, and I’ll do more of that, but I wanted to emphasize they really are a press that works to publish women, LGBTQ folks, poets of color, and many nationalities–all kinds of under-heard voices.
And if all that’s not enough, THERE ARE GIVEAWAYS for making a donation:
For any donation $10 or more, you can send me a writing prompt/request. I’ll put all the requests in a hat and draw one for one poem the last week of April [LIMITED to 10 donations]
For a $25 donation, I will send you one of four (my choice) COASTER POEMS. One is featured in the SWAG picture. They are printed on 56 pt matte paper and are ACTUAL COASTERS. [LIMITED to 10 donations]
For a $50 donation, you can be the first person I show a 30/30 #2 poem to. 9/10 days so far, I’ve written 2 poems each day so I can choose the one I want to share. I plan to keep that up. If you donate $50, you can send me a couple of dates and I’ll send you one poem from one of those dates. [LIMITED to 10 donations]
For a $75 donation, I will send you a set of four COASTER POEMS. There’s the sweet one about the good side of drinking wine, a kind of melancholy one about the medicinal beauty of coffee, one in the voice of a coaster/lover who’s happy to be used. NOTE: Those three are available for viewing on the 30/30 daily page. THE FOURTH ONE doesn’t appear anywhere other than a coaster yet, and I promise, it’s the best one, in the voice of a coaster/lover who is NOT happy to be used. Just don’t, you know, get clever and get your own coasters printed with my poems. That’s tacky and copyright infringement, and you know–just support a good press! [LIMITED to 10 donations]
For a $100 donation, I will craft for you a custom/one-of-a-kind quilted, beribboned poem frame for whichever of my 30/30 poems you want to hang up somewhere (or burn like effigy–whatever. For $100 I don’t care).[LIMITED to 5 donations]
For a $300 donation, I will craft a custom sonnet for you. We’ll chat via phone or email and I’ll interview you about what you want, and come up with a sonnet. [LIMITED to 2 donations]
For a $500 donation, you may pick three of the above, regardless of stated limits. [LIMITED to 1 donation]
PROVISOS for all the above–any poem mentioned above is still mine to publish and share as I see fit, and I still have the copyright, including the custom sonnets. When you make a donation, you can write me a note to tell me what prize you want, and how best to reach (mailing address for the physical stuff, etc.) In the event of weirdness or harassment, etc., I reserve the right to cancel a giveaway. But mostly, the stipulation is, I hope you enjoy this as much as I’m enjoying this! Also: a lot of these will get sent along in May because of logistics (especially the ones that require sewing or writing a personalized sonnet!), but my goal is to make sure they’re all sent by the end of May.
Well, o.k. not sure I believe in muses, although the Collected Poems of Ellen Bryan Voigt has been opening lots of poem doors for me the last six months or so. Anyway, as my husband pointed out just now, I’m writing a lot of REALLY UPBEAT POEMS lately. ‘Tis the season. Today’s poem is called “Seasonal” and it features the wreath in the pic. In a rush right now, but I’ll feature more great Tupelo books soon. In the meantime, here’s today’s poem. And here’s where you can donate to Tupelo Press, to support my wild ride and a really good press.
As I mentioned yesterday, I’m writing a poem a day (usually 2!) for Tupelo Press’s 30/30 program. My motives were threefold: push myself as a writer, do some networking, and raise money for Tupelo Press.
My 11th poem appears here today, on the 30/30 page. (It’s called “Walking on Broken Jadeite.” The little bowl and saucer in the picture to the right are family pieces; the cake stand is Martha Stewart’s, to whom I’m not related.)
Why am I happy to raise money for Tupelo? I just think it’s a great press. In my last post, I mentioned Maggie Smith’s book The Good Bones. Today I wanted to talk about an anthology I used to deepen my understanding of Native American poetry: Native Voices, edited by CMarie Fuhrman and Dean Rader. There is a ton of great poetry, and a lot of poets I’d never heard of, but it’s the structure that’s amazing. Poets talking about their own poetry, about poetry they loved–I’d never seen it before.
For any donation over $10, you can send me a writing prompt/request. I’ll put all the requests in a hat and draw one for one poem the last week of April [LIMITED to 10 donations]
For a $25 donation, I will send you one of four (my choice) COASTER POEMS. One is featured in the picture below. They are printed on 56 pt matte paper and are ACTUAL COASTERS. [LIMITED to 10 donations]
For a $50 donation, you can be the first person I show a 30/30 #2 poem to. 9/10 days so far, I’ve written 2 poems each day so I can choose the one I want to share. I plan to keep that up. If you donate $50, you can send me a couple of dates and I’ll send you one poem from one of those dates. [LIMITED to 10 donations]
For a $75 donation, I will send you a set of four COASTER POEMS. There’s the sweet one about the good side of drinking wine, a kind of melancholy one about the medicinal beauty of coffee, one in the voice of a coaster/lover who’s happy to be used. NOTE: Those three are available for viewing on the 30/30 daily page. THE FOURTH ONE doesn’t appear anywhere other than a coaster yet, and I promise, it’s the best one, in the voice of a coaster/lover who is NOT happy to be used. Just don’t, you know, get clever and get your own coasters printed with my poems. That’s tacky and copyright infringement, and you know–just support a good press! [LIMITED to 10 donations]
For a $100 donation, I will craft for you a custom/one-of-a-kind quilted, beribboned poem frame for whichever of my 30/30 poems you want to hang up somewhere (or burn like effigy–whatever. For $100 I don’t care).[LIMITED to 5 donations]
For a $300 donation, I will craft a custom sonnet for you. We’ll chat via phone or email and I’ll interview you about what you want, and come up with a sonnet. [LIMITED to 2 donations]
For a $500 donation, you may pick three of the above, regardless of stated limits. [LIMITED to 1 donation]
PROVISOS for all the above–any poem mentioned above is still mine to publish and share as I see fit, and I still have the copyright, including the custom sonnets. When you make a donation, you can write me a note to tell me what prize you want, and how best to reach (mailing address for the physical stuff, etc.) In the event of weirdness or harassment, etc., I reserve the right to cancel a giveaway. But mostly, the stipulation is, I hope you enjoy this as much as I’m enjoying this! Also: a lot of these will get sent along in May because of logistics (especially the ones that require sewing or writing a personalized sonnet!), but my goal is to make sure they’re all sent by the end of May.
You probably already already know it’s National Poetry Month. I feel really lucky to get to celebrate three ways this year:
First, I am very honored to be awarded an Artist Development Grant from River Valley ARTS.
I’ll be revising a verse play called Impelled, which follows three characters during an ordinary day. I want it to work onstage and as a collection of poems, and it’s KIND OF working as both, to some extent, but not–it’s not there yet. The funds I was awarded will help me get feedback from a poetry editor, a director, actors, and eventually, and audience. More on this soon! Huge thanks to River Valley ARTS and the Wisconsin Arts Board!
Next, I just got my copy of Wisconsin People & Ideas for Winter/Spring 2024. Honored to have my Honorable Mention poem published here! (The online issue should be available soon; I’ll try to remember to post that when it is.)
And thirdly, but certainly not lastly (because you will be hearing a LOT more about this the rest of the month): I’m one of six poets pledged to write a poem every day in April for Tupelo Press’s 30/30 project. I have ALWAYS wanted to do this, but when I was still a professor, it was just impossible. April is not just a busy teaching time, but it is when just about every academic conference convenes, and when every academic committee meets, and last year, for example, my spare time was sucked up planning for the very-epic Richland Road Rallye.
I’ve written 10 poems so far, and you can find them all here (you have to scroll back to find the earlier ones, and don’t just read mine–lots of good poems here & I’ll be highlighting some of those soon). One word of caution–I’m being a really REAL poet here. I promised myself I wouldn’t self-censor or try to put on my public face, even though, obviously, since I’m sharing these, they’re very public poems. Lots of confessional stuff, as in, personal information, but also–I’m inventing a lot and putting it in the poem whether or not it’s “real.” It’s still confessional. Robert Lowell talked about changing details if the poem demanded it. But yeah–there’s a lot of raw stuff here. If you have personal concerns about any of it, message me. I”M FINE THOUGH. Truly. In therapy & meditating a ton, etc.
But I wanted to post a blog to talk about why I’m happy to fundraise for Tupelo Press. Lots of reasons. I might do a Top Ten Reasons You Should Support Tupelo Press. But this is the first one I thought of–you may well have seen Maggie Smith’s fine poem “Good Bones” before. It pops up on social media a lot. It’s a great poem about the state of the world, finding hopefulness somehow, parenting, and it’s done A LOT for the world of poetry by being both easy to read and rewarding to re-read (with lots of layers). Tupelo is the press that published her book, Good Bones. I think that’s worth supporting, all on its own.
But in the event that’s not enough, or seeing me jam out a poem a day isn’t enough, I have STUFF you can get if you donate!
Note: a lot of these will get sent along in May because of logistics (especially the ones that require sewing!), but my goal is to make sure they’re all sent by the end of May.
For any donation over $10, you can send me a writing prompt/request. I’ll put all the requests in a hat and draw one for one poem the last week of April [LIMITED to 10 donations]
For a $25 donation, I will send you one of four (my choice) COASTER POEMS. One is featured above. They are printed on 56 pt matte paper and are ACTUAL COASTERS. [LIMITED to 10 donations]
For a $50 donation, you can be the first person I show a 30/30 #2 poem to. 9/10 days so far, I’ve written 2 poems each day so I can choose the one I want to share. I plan to keep that up. If you donate $50, you can send me a couple of dates and I’ll send you one poem from one of those dates. [LIMITED to 10 donations]
For a $75 donation, I will send you a set of four COASTER POEMS. There’s the sweet one about the good side of drinking wine, a kind of melancholy one about the medicinal beauty of coffee, one in the voice of a coaster/lover who’s happy to be used. NOTE: Those three are available for viewing on the 30/30 daily page. THE FOURTH ONE doesn’t appear anywhere other than a coaster yet, and I promise, it’s the best one, in the voice of a coaster/lover who is NOT happy to be used. Just don’t, you know, get clever and get your own coasters printed with my poems. That’s tacky and copyright infringement, and you know–just support a good press! [LIMITED to 10 donations]
For a $100 donation, I will craft for you a custom/one-of-a-kind quilted, beribboned poem frame for whichever of my 30/30 poems you want to hang up somewhere (or burn like effigy–whatever. For $100 I don’t care).[LIMITED to 5 donations]
For a $300 donation, I will craft a custom sonnet for you. We’ll chat via phone or email and I’ll interview you about what you want, and come up with a sonnet. [LIMITED to 2 donations]
For a $500 donation, you may pick three of the above, regardless of stated limits. [LIMITED to 1 donation]
PROVISOS for all the above–any poem mentioned above is still mine to publish and share as I see fit, and I still have the copyright, including the custom sonnets. When you make a donation, you can write me a note to tell me what prize you want, and how best to reach (mailing address for the physical stuff, etc.) In the event of weirdness or harassment, etc., I reserve the right to cancel a giveaway. But mostly, the stipulation is, I hope you enjoy this as much as I’m enjoying this!
When it was first announced that my sweet little campus would be closing, I was treated very well. The chair of my department emailed right away, and essentially, I could’ve spent Fall 2023 semester teaching at the UW-Platteville campus, or the UW-Baraboo/Sauk County campus, or online, or some mix. Online seemed right at first.
But the more I thought about it, the worse that idea seemed. Not just teaching online (which can be done very well, and which I had done at least competently already), but teaching at all. I was filled with the strongest sense of dread I’d ever felt any time I thought about it. I was writing in my journal at one point and the thought occurred to me, “I’d rather be dead.” Not, as in, I was or am suicidal in any way (I have issues, but that’s NOT one of them), but just–my subconscious trying to let me know DON’T DO THIS.
So I decided to retire and announced it and said right away I wanted a big-ass party. I couldn’t get the kind of party retirees at my campus had gotten in the past, where the retiring faculty or staff member met with the dean’s secretary to sketch out what kind of party, after which people would make donations for the party and the gift(s). Nope, couldn’t do that. By the time the campus was closed, there wasn’t a dean, let alone a dean’s secretary. But dammit, I wanted a party. For myself, yes. As I said in my remarks, any criticism anyone ever had of me as a professor wouldn’t be news to me, because I’m super self-critical as a general rule. Super high ambitions and expectations of myself. But I wanted to end my Richland teaching career with people saying nice things to me. To somewhat balance the scales.
My mother and father very generously funded everything, and the lunch ladies made an amazing spread, and my good friends Gail and Lisa (and Lisa’s whole family) handled logistics so it would just work.
So yes, I wanted it for me. But I also wanted to have at least one final party like the parties we’d had in the past, something people could come to and have kind of a reunion, and that’s exactly what happened.
And I wanted it during the school year, so Richland’s last batch of students could attend. It ended up needing to be in March, because we had two alumni events, spring break, play productions, and awards night taking up other weekends before finals.
Thus, the fact that I’m just now sending out thank-you cards is embarrassing. Tacky. Ridiculous. Awkward. Maybe not worth doing at this point? But I am doing it. With personal cards to people who nicely brought or sent gifts, and then probably postcards eventually to people who brought or sent cards, and if there’s someone on the sign-in sheet that just showed up to wish me well and didn’t bring a gift or a card (or they DID but I’ve lost it, which–I’m kind of a clutter-monkey, so yes, things do get lost, and it has been TEN FREAKING MONTHS).
So, for everyone in the above paragraph–your personal thank is coming, slowly but surely. In the meantime:
That’s the design I made for postcards and coffee mugs. I asked people attending to take a postcard and write a thank-you, not to me, but to someone else who’d helped make Richland wonderful.
If you were there and want to relive it, or wanted to come but couldn’t, or are just curious now, or whatever, it is available on Nova Video’s YouTube page, A Very Marnie Sort of Retirement Party.
I’ve watched it once or twice. I might watch again and transcribe my remarks and do another post with other remarks I considered making but cut because, as my good friend Sarah says, “Never leave them wanting less.”
And maybe that’s a good sentence to remember, when a career ends (just a little) too soon. Feels good when I apply it to my professional English teaching years, 1987-2023. When a much-loved campus closes leaving an educational desert behind, the sentence doesn’t have the same ring to it.
I get that question a lot. Also: Are you bored yet? How’s the job-hunting going?
Not bored yet. Not job-hunting yet (that’s imminent, though).
My activities for the 23 weeks I’ve been retired fall into roughly four categories:
Flurry of activity related to life coaching
Sludge Time
A bajillion health appointments
Flurry of activity related to emerging from Sludge Time
I hired, as my life-coach, the amazing Kelsey Brennan, whom I know first and foremost as an American Players Theatre core company member (and who is currently doing a standout job as the lead in what may be my all-time favorite production @ APT, Proof, which is getting great reviews and selling out fast). She offers a complimentary session as a coach and I found myself so energized after that session, there was no question but what I wanted more. We met four times in April, as I was finishing out my last semester as a professor, my last semester at the now-nonexistent UW-Richland. Then we skipped May–I needed to focus on finals and she needed to focus on getting a new season started at APT. We met four times in June and four times in July, ending approximately on my 58th birthday. I got A LOT done related to that work, but the focus ended up being de-cluttering and making my front porch a useable space. There’s more work to do (PLENTY OF IT) in that regard, but it is a useable space, and sometimes seems almost magical:
I really can’t recommend Kelsey highly enough as a coach. Among other things, she is a Certified Professional Coach through the International Coaching Federation, a title she earned through completing training at UW-Madison. She is energetic and energizing and really, just a fantastic listener and insightful reflector, as in “I’m hearing you say ______” (which sounds kind of corny when I write it that way, but so many times she filled in that blank with things that yes, I was saying, but wasn’t realizing I was saying.)
Other interesting things I’ve done since retiring:
Did a fair bit of socializing on the porch, especially with friends I’ve been meaning to hang out with but hadn’t gotten around to hanging around with much in my always-exhausted/not-yet-retired mode. (I have a list. I didn’t make it very far through the list before it got cold. The inside of my house isn’t as ready for socializing as the porch.)
I’ve been active with the River Valley ARTS board, working on Make Music River Valley and an upcoming silent auction of some works by the amazing Peg Miller. I’ve taken over writing the newsletter for RV ARTS, and you can see the latest edition by clicking here. I also had the fun opportunity to be on WRCO a couple of times promoting RV ARTS programs.
I did the training to become a substitute teacher and may yet do that but am not quite feeling the pull of it yet.
I took my son for his first college tour.
I went two different times to a 5th Sunday Hymn sing, led by my amazing friend Susan Thering at the Little Brown Church, where we end every session by singing “Church in the Wildwood” with the lines, “No spot is so dear to my childhood / As the little brown church in the vale.”
I taught a class on failure and creativity for my amazing former colleague Dr. Valerie Murrenus-Pilmaier, who teaches at the Sheboygan UW campus.
I hung out with two more former UW Colleges colleagues and very much enjoyed talking over good times over good food.
I attended an online chapbook workshop offered by the Wisconsin Fellowship of poets.
I danced to Thriller (see this post for details on that!)
Attended the award ceremony for my friend Gail Hoffman who was awarded the Underkofler Excellence in Teaching Award. Her speech focused on the teaching cohort we had at UW-Richland, how devoted we were to good teaching there. She is currently thriving at UW-Platteville and credited them with being a teaching-first institution, and I think that’s true, but it touched me beyond words to hear Richland remembered so fondly and so accurately.
In between flurries of activity, there has been what I’m calling SLUDGE TIME:
It was kind of depression. Poems I began to write as I was coming out of Sludge Time (titled, imaginatively, “Sludge Time #1” and so on), have the recurring question: “Is this depression?” and then a question that answered that first question and asked another: “Am I still depressed?” Whatever it was, it seems to be done. I knew it was almost done when I started writing a lot. And I’m still writing a lot–I’ve listed several projects for myself for Nanowrimo, including writing poetry. I’ve been writing a poem a day for a couple of weeks now, all post Sludge-Time-Poems.
I think some of Sludge Time was exhaustion and recovery from having taught in a university system that has been chaotic the last 10-12 years. THAT’S A WHOLE OTHER SET OF BLOG POSTS. The recovery isn’t complete. The fury I felt when I learned the UW System had spent $480,000 to come up with a shitty logo was BIG. And the wave of emotions that came over me upon learning two more former UW Colleges campuses are closing was BIG.
Also part of retirement: health care for myself and my family
I knew I’d been going to a lot of appointments for myself and taking my mother to her appointments and going to some appointments for my Dad, but I was a little startled when I totaled them up. 32 appointments in the last 23 weeks. 10 for Mom and Dad (mostly Mom). One for my son’s wisdom teeth surgery. That leaves 21 for me. Five of those are physical therapy for my back (and those are ongoing). Also, x-rays for my back. A physical. Bloodwork. Sleep Clinic. Bone Density scan. Upcoming: MRI to check in on an incidentaloma in my pancreas. My health has not been fantastic but gosh darn it I’m working on it.
What I thought I might have done by now but haven’t:
Sent thank you notes for an amazing retirement party back in March. There’s really no good excuse for that lapse of good manners, but I will say this has been a really overwhelming time, the last year since the announcement that my sweet little campus would be closing. And one might express skepticism given how slow I’ve been, but I do intend to get to those thank yous soon.
Updated my resume/begun to network/started an actual job-hunt. That’s coming–for financial reasons and just sludge time reasons, I need to be working approximately 20-30 hours a week, starting approximately in January. More on that soon!
Finished cleaning out my office. BUT I’M WORKING ON THAT:
Clockwise from top left: UW Bitchland letterhead (UW Bitchland will never close, btw). My office from outside, with the overhead projector transparency of Emily Dickinson which I fully intend to leave in the window. Some Dickinson and Bishop books I haven’t packed up yet (with, I think, a cardboard cutout of Dickinson sticking out from between books). And my paper-thin, cheap regalia, because I was too cheap to spend money on something I’d wear once a year (I never attended my grad school graduations so I didn’t have any). I made a medallion out of gold duct tape because I found the medallions others wore to be (somewhat/very) affected and precious, and I just wanted to be able to point to my chest and say “Mine’s bigger.” Which I did at least four times.
Finally, this is like the creepiest thing I’ve seen in a while:
If you look to the left and downward from the Dickinson pic, you can see the shadow of the transparency on my blinds. It looks like an Emily Dickinson alien ghost. Also of note: the rusty slime that sometimes dripped on the inside of my office (state legislators and the UW System weren’t the only ones neglecting my sweet little campus). I really can’t think of a better image to end things with. Creepy, hilarious, poetic. C’est moi.
I remember when Thriller came out in 1983. I remember going to TJ McFly’s in Carbondale because it was easy to get into without an i.d. I remember the dance floor. I remember where the big TV was. I remember the guy I had a crush on who I met there. I think his name was Rod. I think all of that is true. What I also remember is that my friends and I learned the dance steps for Thriller and that’s how we danced when the song came on.
But now, having started to learn the actual choreography, I think we knew maybe one or two steps. And we probably looked great—I mean, we weren’t 20 yet. We were shaking our booties. We looked fine. But we didn’t look like the Thriller dancers except in my head.
And why am I learning the choreography? Specifically, it was to prepare for today, for an event called Thrill the World. Locally, we did Thrill the World River Valley, and it was a fundraiser for the Spring Green Community Library and River Valley ARTS (full disclosure—I am a board member of RV ARTS).
I do like to dance, and I like to have a few little dance breaks during the day as part of my pomodoro process. But I haven’t GONE OUT DANCING for a long time. I did all through college, and then graduate school.
My favorite two people to dance with EVER were my friends Dennis and Maria. Dennis was like a grandfather clock with multiple sets of arms and legs coming unsprung approximately in time to the music. I loved dancing with him (at a little remove, for safety’s sake) because it was a joyous thing, watching him dance. Then my friend Maria, a lot of times, her dance was kind of just rhythmic surfing. I was just sure between the two of them out there that absolutely no one would be looking at me and my little girlie moves. You know—“dance like no one is watching.” No one was watching. They were watching Dennis and Maria.
But of course, we should dance like people are watching and we just don’t give a fuck.
Which is what I did today. One of the reasons I signed up to be a fundraiser was because—well, it was a fundraiser. And good organizations were set to receive the funds. And I’m a board member of one of those organizations. Etc.
The other reason I signed up to be a fundraiser was to go public with my intention to dance in public and follow through with it. I was worried I’d chicken out (and that’s even before I started watching the tutorials and learned how freaking hard the freaky steps are).
Why would I chicken out? Well. My health is not fantastic. I’m ridiculously out of shape. I have asthma. And I’m in physical therapy for back pain. My spine has an official diagnosis to go with its damages and deformities, but I just like to think of it as having a rickety spiral staircase where all the helpful bones and cartilage should be. Movement wears me out and there’s a particular pain in my lower back I’m very familiar with and sometimes my hamstrings just SEIZE UP. But my awesome PT guy prescribed more activity, and this seemed like awesome activity.
So I did it. I watched the tutorial videos and went to an in-person practice. It wasn’t a stunning success leading up to today. I can free-form dance for 3-5-7 minutes without falling over, and I’ve been diligently working my way up to doing multiple minutes of the official Thriller dance steps, but an hour of mostly standing and repeating dance steps—that I couldn’t do. So I did a lot of from a chair. Which, you know. Not my vision of myself.
But damn it, I did it. Did I get all the steps down and do the whole thing? No I did not. Did I begin the whole thing by writhing on the street? Also no.
But here’s what I did do. I sat in a chair near the dance spot, and by the time the street writhers were standing, I was in line with them. I did the steps I’d learned: I zombie marched. I shoulder stepped. I booty bounced. I swam. And then I (kind of did what I was supposed to) and finally right-hipped and left-hipped and roared my way away from the dancers and into the crowd of people watching.
My son got off from his retail job in time to step outside and watch. He assured me I didn’t embarrass him, and that I wasn’t the zombie LEAST ACQUAINTED with the actual steps.
But even if I’d embarrassed my son, even I had been the zombie least acquainted, I’d still have done it.
And I’m really proud of myself. Grateful to the people who donated to my little personal fundraising page. Grateful to Stef and Phil, the zombie bride and groom. It was their actual wedding day today, and they did this as part of their reception. Too cool.
I’m reminded of Teddy Roosevelt, the “man in the arena” quote. Not that anyone has criticized me to my face, or would, but this part (even with the old-fashioned gendered pronouns) really resonates:
“The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
It wasn’t blood and dust on my face; it was makeup and baby powder to make me look pale. If we do it again next year (and I’m hearing we will), I hope to see more of those folks who were on the sidelines getting out there and booty bouncing along.
(If you want to donate to my little fundraiser page, you still can—I put the deadline down as Halloween. And remember—it’s my little spot, but the funds raised are going to the Spring Green Community Library and River Valley ARTS.)
Zombie eyes. (And my ridiculous hair, which kept just trying to look cute.)
can’t cut much except
for memories
or time
into smaller and
smaller units
and smaller still
if you leap halfway across the stream
and then halfway again
and again
you’ll never get there
tantalizingly close but not
unless your feet are big
If I use nothing
to slice into nothing
I have nothing
but blood
marniere 