Board Meeting of New Directions - Coffeeshop Writers' Group - Poem: How Did I Get Here?

I am so fortunate. I can command myself to get a lot done in a short time. I was up in the middle of the nite getting Sarah's old bedroom ready for the foreign exchange student who will arrive at noon tomro.

The couch turns into a bed. When I have the leisure to read during the daytime, which, like a rare comet, occurs every one thousand years, I read in this wonderful room with its soothing white carpet and white walls. I call this The Quiet Room.

Louis Auchincloss, lawyer, historian, and author died in 2010 at the age of 92. I'm reading a collection of his short stories, which are always about the wealthy. Maybe I'll get some tips. I would love to be wealthy and have my name, like Rosalind P Walter, as a donor to worthwhile causes.

Was at Dan's today and enjoyed seeing



and his sister Grace. What a thrill when she calls me "Bubby."

Sharon Katz, owner of Collaborative Care in Abington, a superb holistic MH facility, and Ron Abrams, a personal injury attorney, attended the board meeting.

I prepared a veritable feast!

with Monterrey Jack cheese by Cabot. When you leave the cheese on the cracker, the cracker loses its crunch.

Never knew dat, did you?

Unsalted, of course!

The incomparable!

AND....

8 cups of decaf coffee. While I was traipsing thru the Internet finding this lovely pic for you, my three beloved readers, I came across the Q: Why is the color orange associated with decaf coffee, you know, on the restaurant coffee pots.

Ah, the world makes sense now.  Astrophysicists you can erase your blackboards and go home to your wives and children. Work on the God question. Ask Rosalind P Walter for funding.

I had about 5 cups of Decaf, hot and steaming and absolutely delicious.

After the bored meeting, I zoomed over to our Coffeeshop meeting. The snow was melting and the day was balmy and made you feel happy.

Thanks for the bookmark, Marf. And also for the delicious soup, a b'day present for moi, 68 on Xmas day.

Wow, this was scrumptious and I've got loads left. She also gave me a second jug of soup.

Marf got the recipe from an old lady about 25 yrs ago. Sauerkraut gives the soup a special ZING.

Marf read a wonderful poem about a relative-by-marriage who took his own life. As did the 32-yo writer Ned Vizzini (thanks to Saul for the heads-up). Jumped to his death from the roof.

Speaking of dying, our Allan Heller regularly reads the blog of his friend Ed Galing, the Poet Laureate of Hatboro. He was shocked to learn the 96-yo poet died this morning.

Allan spoke to him last nite. He frequently called Ed to cheer him up from his many ailments that keep him in the doldrums.


Ed was a very generous man, said Allan, who helped Allan get his poems published.

Allan read three wonderful poems!

Balls - Year's End - and Pearls Before Swine, a biblical phrase - all came in a stream. Balls was quite funny. Hey, I want that for the Compass, which we're working on right now.

Linda, with her poinsettia earrings, wrote Tower of Strength for her brother Richard's b'day.

Does he appreciate your poetry? I asked her.

No, she said.

This woman can toss off a great poem as easily as the clouds roll across the sky.

Donna is quite the chic dresser. Really beautiful sexy lacy top. Can't really make out her nails, which are always beautiful.

Her offering - A Fine Christmas Day - contained the fine first lines:

Bells are ringing
This fine Christmas day



Beatrice! pronounced bee-a- treechie!

Where art thou?

She left early, leaving us The Web of Life, starring these two lines:

Every living thing is connected to others in multiple ways. If you start observing one, you soon begin to see the intertwining, You could pull an invisible string and it will drag numerous others, which in turn would be tangled with many more.

The above photo is from last week's meeting. I was wearing my good clothes from our Board meeting. I was trying to impress a psychiatrist who never showed up b/c he thought the meeting was tomro.

Wore the shirt I bought in Paris with the Father-Knows-Best elbow patches.

Made a start on a short story. The idea came to me last nite. It's about a shopkeeper in New Hope, where my dad owned a head shop. The woman who owns the shop is an Orthodox Jew named Mira. I once knew an Orthodox Jew by that name. She was a beauty!

Why not have her own a carpet shop in New Hope?

Mira sold this very same carpet at her New Hope shop.

This, of course, is the one I bought in Paris.

Here's Brianna, Martha's granddaughter, a truly beautiful 14-yo, who, like most teenage girls, doesn't think she's pretty at all.

Now, a word about my below poem. As I wrote the words about finding a young lover on Match.com, I thought, Ruth, you're 68 years old and always thinking about sex.

Keep it out of your poem.

Then I thought, Well, this is me! Gotta be honest.

Look, the male artists are always thinking about women.

Here's a painting by Balthus. My cousin Mark, an artist, named his dog Balthus.



HOW DID I GET HERE

Well before dawn I awake
and check my clock
the ritual begins
hold up my hands
the hands that have been with me
nearly sixty-eight years
nail polish chipping
no liver spots
I could post my hands on
match dot com
and see if I can find a
young lover

The unwashed burgundy
drapes that mother made
when I moved in
are never opened
if so
they would see me
looking around the room
the painted swirls
on my bedroom doors
still mourning the Little Golden Book
Life on the Farm
I left back at the apartments
on the high closet shelf
tossed, I’m sure, in the trash
by the new renters

I pick up a book
lying in the husband’s space
aiming to read it
I lay it back down
contemplation again
at how good it feels
lying in my own bed
well past midnight
content as a passing cloud.
Always thinking,
as I did as a kid in the pink bathroom,
How did I get here?