I love these people: Our writing group / 2 poems: The Lucky Seven and Juno

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I was wolfing down my lunch and printing out eight copies of my poem Juno and only two copies of The Lucky Seven cuz I knew we probly wouldn't have time for me to present both poems.

More than anything in the world, I care about my writing. I went thru a prodigious poetry writing period sev'l yrs ago and am terrified my new poems are not as good. Practically nothing can convince me otherwise.

I stopped entering writing contests. Too demoralizing. We've gotta take c/o our fragile egos. I sure do.

When I walked into the writer's group, Bob Strange presented me with a gift.

Congratulations, the group said, when I walked in.

Thank you, I said, puzzled. What are you congratulating me for?

For finishing your novel.

Oh! Thanks. Yes, I finished the first draft. We actually had a newcomer to the group who's working on her first novel. I said truthfully to the whole group, If I could write a novel, anybody can.

Carolyn, our newcomer, and a librarian, had written a 25-chapter outline. If you can write an outline, you can write a book. I can't write an outline, but I wrote a book. There are no hard and fast rules, except Get the damn thing done any way you can.

Bob gave me the gift in a Barnes and Nobel bag. I felt it first before I opened it. The feel of it reminded me, I told Bob, of my father's pigskin-covered Merriam-Webster dictionary I took w/me wherever I moved - Goddard College in VT, to my married life in TX - until the thing actually fell apart. I used to write unusual words in the front. When my dad was a kid, he read the entire dictionary. We are word people, the Greenwolds, plus my writer daughter, Sarah Lynn and my blogger son, Dan the Man.

The gift was a brown soft-skinned diary inscribed by each member of the writers' group. How incredibly thoughtful. I love these people. On the cover of the diary are these immortal words from Hamlet which end in:

whether 'tis nobler in
the mind to suffer
the slings and arrows
of outrageous fortune
OR to take arms against
a sea of troubles, and
by opposing end them?

Judy was our group leader. Per Bob's suggestion, each session is run by a different leader. Great idea!

The writing quality is high. Chris Walsh surprised us with an absolutely first-rate self-portrait of when he worked at a Texaco gas station. As Bob said, "It's your best writing, Chris."

Here's the amazing thing. Chris had no idea how good it was. Some of us just don't know when we write well. I'm certainly like that. I was really surprised they liked my two poems.

Here's a rundown of our Saturday group:

Chris, who drives a garbage truck, wrote something that if he continues at his current pace can be a tiny masterpiece of life at a gas station. His characters stand out and the dialog is real. All he needs is a few well-developed "conflicts." (I learned that word in my novel-writing course.)

Linda, who I quoted in my most recent newspaper piece as: leading "the pack in number of poems written, sometimes three per day when not working at the Giant Supermarket," read two poems.

Our group agreed that the second one needed some work. We are not afraid of telling people the truth in a nice way. My comment to her was, "Sounds like a teacher assigned you to write all your thoughts about LOVE in five minutes." Paddy Marie tactfully picked up the strand by saying Linda's work reminded her of a particular writing book, which Linda said she owns.

Paddy Marie, a retired schoolteacher, is the most emotional of all nine of us. Her laughter rings out like a golden chandelier shedding its light across the room. She wrote a moving poem about herself and her siblings, a total of five, "ducklings" all in a row, except for one of them who walked off into the water. He died. It was very moving. It reminded me of We are Seven by Wordsworth.

As always, Judy read a terrific vignette about when she was a secretary. She has a great eye for detail.

Not everyone read which gave me the opportunity to read The Lucky Seven which is about our bipolar support group. The poem is basically true. Names are changed of course. I read it matter/factly having lived the life for so long I take our illness for granted. But to people who don't know about it, they couldn't believe what we endure.

Nurse Barb was there and teaches her students at Abington Hospital about the illness. The poem didn't surprise her. I was recently invited to speak to a class of Christian social workers and will read this poem to them.

I thought I might offer it to the Psychiatric Times to see if they'd publish it. It's very instructive, I think, of the importance of support groups. We did discuss in our writers' group my "panties" comment, whether to leave it in or not. The consensus was Keep it in. Of course, it makes me sound pretty nutty, but I guess you could verily say that about me.

JUNO

I can barely say her name
she is too meaningful for me
the world is written
with her name

once
I wrote a poem about her
pretending all was well
that I wanted her to cut my hair
instead of crying
- s t o p ! –

the look of her is more than I can bear
head chugging forward when she walks
feet shuffling across the linoleum –
pick them up dammit! –
eighty-seven is no excuse for
pretending to be an old lady
and seeming to like it,
the attention,

that was keen
the other night, mom,
when you fell out of bed,
can’t you be kinder to yourself
pretend you love that part of you
that was battered when you were young
- oh, how they hated you -
push your teeth in, bucky,
stand tall like your brother
how you gave it back to me
your first-born

I can’t stand my sentimentality
that still begs to go back:
sit me in the chair, mother
and say this time
I like your hair long, ruthie,
we’ll let it grow
grow down to your feet like a mermaid’s
so I can sweep you up in my arms, my daughter,
my own perfect little daughter.


THE LUCKY SEVEN

We sat in a circle in folding chairs,
the lucky seven,
I was wearing a party dress that showed my curves
forgot to wear my panties, tho, so kept my legs together.

Paul spoke. For the first time I liked him.
Not because he used to be a radio D-J or
his mother was dying in a nursing home
but because he banged his head against the wall
when his daughter hung up on him.

The newcomer was diagnosed two days ago.
He knew nothing about his illness.
He was 22, led the life of a gallant well-
dressed pimp
but now guilt pressed him flat in his chair
- a run-over worm.

I stared at him. Nice contrast of
ebony skin the color of a Chinese lacquer box
and peach-colored palms he clenched
in his lap.

He began his confession,
looking down and talking staccato.
I touched his shoulder. Keep some
secrets for yourself, I said. We don’t need to
know ev-ery-thing.

The dam began to leak and
Harry, who worked for a drug company,
talked about his rampant sexuality when manic,
laughed when he talked about the women he made love to,
the wife taking off with the
house and the kids.

The newcomer nodded.
You mean it happened to you, too?

It happened to all of us, I say.

Harry told about writing fifty pages of
notes
only two months ago during his last mania.
”Hypergraphia,” I said, mouthing the gorgeous syllables of a
new word I’d just learned.
Mine, I threw away after 20 years hidden in the bottom drawer,
useless horseshit.

The newcomer wanted more symptoms.
I handed him a brochure. Everything has a
name, I said. Whatever you did, they’ve already
named it. They’re pretty smart.

Well, if they’re so smart, he said, why can’t they
fix it?

Well, they’re not that smart, I said.

The newcomer was guilt-ridden over his
sexual escapades. Used the word ‘evil’ to
describe himself.
C’mon, I said. Something big comes over us. We
light up. We glow. Arrive with a halo for godsakes.
We’re like lightning bugs in the dark.
We blink.
Think of the evolutionary possibilities if you’re a
man. Populating your side of the island.

Paul, the guy I finally liked, talked about his old
man shooting his brains out.
Oh no, I thought, now we’ve gotta explain
we kill ourselves to the newcomer.

Derek, I said, turning toward him, there’s
something you need to know.

I know it already, he said. I was 9 when I first got
out the rope.

Hallelujah, brother, I said, slapping his hand.
Well, that’s just fine, Derek. You know everything now.
You can relax and start enjoying yourself.

POSTCRIPT: I think Beth Lindsey, my reincarnated psychiatrist, would've liked these poems. What say you, Beth? I'll look out my window for a sign.

Beth - There are signs all over.

Where can comfort be found? The death of a psychiatrist: Beth Lindsey, MD

Admittedly I have a very short attention span. There I was finishing up the odd but riveting Salinger story "Teddy" about a Buddhist child genius and suddenly I get the idea to Google my former psychiatrist. Why? There are invisible threads that tie us to everything else, or everyone else, and - boom! - that invisible cord was pulling.

Beth Lindsey MD, was my psychiatrist for a very short while. Short, but long enough for me to get a handle on understanding my manic-depression and its likely sources. The woman was lavish in her love for me.She told me things I scarcely knew about myself... it was you, she said, who made sure your daughter and your son had the finest education. You did a good job raising them.

Until Beth, I hadn't thought much of myself. Perennial lack of self-esteem. How our relationship raised me out of the slough of despondency.

I referred my friends to her, those who could afford her moderately steep sans insurance rate. We rode the elevator to her hi-rise office in Jenkintown. Tall shelves with New England Journal of Medicine at the top. Commanding view of the cars on York Road. A small bathroom with a cup for the thirsty.

Did you know that if you're getting good therapy you think about it all week long, the journey of self-discovery, the most necessary of all roads.

During those six months of inner growth my brain must've been swirling like cake batter, reorganizing itself like a library where the books are strewn all over the floor, then neatly put back on the shelves, dust-free. My own beautiful library of the mind.

I never needed therapy again.

Until now. Where is comfort to be found now that I have learned Beth Lindsey is no more.

But that's not all. Things happened to her before she died. Causing, perhaps, her early demise.

She died nearly two years ago in 2008 of metastatic cancer stemming from the breast. During divorce proceedings, the judge held her in contempt of court and sent her to jail. I knew about that but hadn't known that during her time in jail she read Buddhist teachings, jail house literature that served to deliver her into her next phase of being.

Knowing Beth, an immensely curious and vivacious woman, I was still surprised to read that she had not only studied Buddhism at a monastery in England, but had became that holiest of beings: a Buddhist nun.

Her photo shocked me on her memorial website. I dug through the intervening years and her new costume and short chemo hair to remember her seated across from me in a winged armchair at the Benson East. I once wrote a poem about the two of us, written on our old Apple computer as I was sitting on the futon in our family room, in which I spoke about our conversation passing like colorful ribbons across the room.

Her desk was a mess. She didn't care about worldly things. Her clothes were not high fashion. Her shoes were comfortable. I adored her and brought her in a poem I had written as a child, proof that my psyche had been buried alive, it was right there in the poem at age 8. She bid me read Drama of the Gifted Child by Alice Miller.

And there I found myself. Who shall I talk to now? Who shall help me bear my grief?

A fantasy I shall not engage in is driving over to the Buddhist monastery in Bensalem since I haven't a rabbi of my own or a priest. But I do have a friend, a faraway friend that I will call when I am ready. Together we will reminisce about the woman who was Beth Lindsey.

This man is a hard worker and.....

he is my boyfriend Scott. He works as an electronics specialist at SEPTA, the transportation system here in the Philadelphia area. He makes a decent wage for his hard work and he loves his job. He's a tough little guy who works out three days a week in his basement gym, lifting weights, jumping rope, and admiring his huge toy train collection. He liked trains even before he went to work at SEPTA. His job is working on the El's.

I hear all sorts of interesting stories about SEPTA workers from Scott. One guy went on a Caribbean cruise. Saved his money all year, then beat the snow storm by driving to an airport outside Washington, DC, only to find that the cruise ship was a victim of uncontrollable waves lashing the ship and jerking it from side to side. Although he didn't get sea sick, he said every minute was a horror.

I'm trying to think of a creative way to write about Scott's job, particularly how he spent last nite, the beginning of the next severe snowstorm here in the Philadelphia area. Let's try first-person.

I kissed my girlfriend goodbye and walked to the train station 15 minutes away. The wind was brutal. I pulled my cap over my ears and trudged through Keystone Screw and onto the main road. The snow hit me right in the face. I walked in the street hoping the few cars that drove by wouldn't hit me. People's trash cans were still on the curb, or what was left of the curb in the snow. They didn't pick up the trash yesterday.

The train was nice and warm. I showed my SEPTA ID card so I can ride for free. When Ruthie rides w/me they let her on free too. I was beat. But I'm afraid if I fall asleep I'll miss my stop downtown. Closed my eyes anyway, then jerked awake.

Downtown, I had to go outside to catch another train to 69th Street where I work. All told, an hour's worth of train rides. I always get there early to clock in. Shoot the breeze with the guys then go to work.

They pull in a train for me to look at. The wind was astonishingly brutal. I could barely see with the wind pushing the falling snow directly into my face. Unbelievable! Damn, I'd forgotten to wear my longjohns. I was freezing. My latex gloves keep my hands warm, though, so I can poke around and see what's wrong. This train, though, couldn't find nothing wrong with it.

When that's the case we pull it into the car house. The birds sing in there. Their crap is all over the place. But at least it's warm. I like being warm.

Plenty of work all night. You never know what's gonna happen. Usually the cold brings out the worst in the trains. On my lunch hour I sat down and ate some pistachios. The sickly sweet smell of Chinese Food (I'm the only Jew that hates Chinese food) wafted over the lunch room.

It snowed all night. When I finally walked home from my final train, the roads were perilous. Cars were sliding all over Davisville Road. And the trash I told you about had spilled out of the cans and was in the street, soda cans rolling with the cars. When I cut through the path to my house the snow was over my knees.

Boy was I glad to be home. Took a hot shower and ate my usual delicious breakfast of granola, a hard-boiled egg, and two scoops of peanut butter. Then I hit the sack. I'm asleep right now. My little room heater is purring away, all is quiet, and look at me, dreaming that Ruthie is writing about me.

You can almost read outside in the dark night

At nine-thirty tonight, I put on my warm jacket and sturdy boots and went outdoors to assay the snowfall. Within seconds I began to shiver. Wet snowflakes came down forcefully, sticking in earnest to everything except my warm face. No one was about. The wind hurried by. My car - this is a neighborhood without garages - began to assume ghost-like proportions as did the lamppost, the birdbath, and the hills that are the lawns of the neighborhood.

No lights shown in the houses. Everyone must be in the backs of their houses, all warm and in the brightness of their family rooms or tucked in bed early like I would be soon. But let me pause, here, I thought, and look at this incomparably beautiful white world that by morning will be nearly impassable from the snow.

I call my client Evelyn to see how she is making out.

Did you watch Anne Frank? she asked me.

Couldn't, I said, but thanks for letting me know. Was it with Millie Perkins?

Yes, she said.

I saw it when I was 15. Great movie. How are you fixed for food?

I ate a lot of candy today but finally pulled myself together and went to Bonnet Lane, she said.

Good. How come I don't hear the TV?

I turned it down.

Have you eaten the rye bread I brought you?

Not yet, but I will. I'll have somebody come over tomorrow and drive me to get some cheese.

Tomorrow we'll be snowed in. No one will be able to see you. You'll be fine. You've got plenty of food. You also have the apples I brought you.

Yeah, I know. When can I see you again?

Next week. Sometime next week. Have a good night, Evelyn.

What dyou spose Obama says in private to his wife about all his Republican opposition on healthcare reform? How smart of Obama to televise the proceedings. Now the whole world can view the nay-sayers who not only oppose all the president's ideas but don't even get the facts straight. The price of health insurance will NOT go up as the Rep. minority leader says.

How can these people look in the mirror? Such hypocrisy. Well, maybe not. Maybe they actually believe the lies the insurance companies are feeding them.

I'm gonna spend the night reading some poetry by Frank O'Hara and looking out the window at the white world getting whiter.

Hello Brittany!

None of the Mallsters showed up today at the Willow Grove mall, former home of the grand Willow Grove Park amusement park where Philadelphians would take the trolley from hot Philadelphia to the amusement park in the early 1900s.

Also left over from those days is a huge boarding house in Willow Grove near the Upper Moreland library. Its huge front porch once housed families who poured out to Willow Grove much as we do now to the Jersey shore.

When I first moved here from Englewood Cliffs, NJ, where my folks lived, I found the amusement park in disarray. No longer Willow Grove Park, it had morphed into Six Guns Over Texas. It was boarded up. Its roller coaster rose lonely and riderless in the air. Stray dogs prowled the grounds. I began to trespass but was scared off by a barking dog and then a security guard.

I brought plenty of things to do at the mall. Novel re-writes, reading another chapter of Salinger's inconsistently good Nine Stories (sorry Jerry, just my opinion). Plopping my things on "our" mall table and waiting to catch sight of the absent Mallsters, I walked over to Clear.com to see what the very attractive lime-green display was all about.

That's how I met Brittany. Let's see. I took their brochure home. It's somewhere in my Vatican bag. I shlep this around w/me, a gift from my son on his honeymoon. His wife Nicole is now - what, Nicole? - 13 weeks pregnant.

I'm to be called "Bubby" if I live that long. That's what Scott's mom is called by her rock n roll grandson. (I happen to be listening to R E M right now. Don't say I don't rock!)

They think I'm all-knowing at New Directions. A newcomer emailed me to help her with her job hunt.

Last time I looked for a job was..... this morning. I called a local paper and asked if I could write for them. I'd never heard of it before - Times Publishing Newspapers - spoke to the advertising dude who covers Doylestown and New Hope. Great cities, we agreed. Told him my dad owned the legendary Now and Then Shop in New Hope. He was shocked. Used to frequent it at age 12. I told him that's where I met my husband. (Ex-husband. Dead ex-husband.)

I enjoyed shoveling the drive, light, airy, beautiful snow, and my sidewalk and 2 neighbors walks. Lemme go check and see if it's sticking. NOT YET!

So anyway this gal is looking for a job. She sent me her resume. They think I'm a miracle worker. I should only get my novel published. Then I'll be a miracle worker.

So I call a friend of mine, Sandy. SHE knows how to get jobs. She tells me. I take notes while I'm eating my lunch (chicken noodle soup with collard greens) and delicious purple grapes. I must've been Bacchus in a previous life.

I take notes and email my product back to Sandy, saying, Feel free to tear it to shreds. And now, if you'll excuse me, I'm outa here. Gonna watch the great French film Jules et Jim by Truffaut. Hope Scott is awake.

PS - Private note to Roberto. Sorry, Rob, can't come to Sam's bar mitzvah. I'll send my regrets to Naomi. Absolutely beautiful invitation! It's the Saturday of our "Get Happy Seminar" at the Huntingdon Valley Library. Darn! I'll miss you. Maybe Marcy can come instead. Marce?

Virtual online tour of Jensen

I was always interested in what goes on behind the scenes. When I was a kid growing up in Cleveland, the best location in the nation, my first grade class toured a Sealtest factory. Perhaps that whetted my appetite for touring. I remember they asked us Who wants to taste the curds of cottage cheese. My hand shot up in the air. I tasted it and gagged.

My dad was the manager of Majestic Specialties, Inc., a ladies' apparel company, w/HQ in New York, where we'd move when I was 18 and in college. He was constantly giving his kids tours of his warehouse. He was so proud of it. I remember when he got a new conveyor belt where boxes of blouses would slide along before being shelved. Majestic shipped to fine stores across the nation which is how I've heard of the now-defunct Carson Pirie Scott in Chicago and the Bon Ton in Washington State and of course Cleveland's own Halle's, Higbee's, the May Company, and Sterling Lindner Davis (with the magical glass elevator doors).

But never, until today, have I heard of Cole Haan, a subsidiary of Nike, founded in 1928 in Chicago, until I clicked on an ad in the Times.

Whenever I start to blog I never know where I'll end up. I addressed an envelope to someone in Norristown, PA today, and misspelled it as Burristown. What were my fingers remembering? Tim Burris, the former naturalist at Pennypack, just about the only naturalist I never had a crush on? I have my reasons. Political differences.

For my novel I'm fleshing in some parts. Our hero Julius is a collector. He's actually a hoarder, like his namesake, Simon, but I promised both of them I wouldn't use 'that ugly word again.'

When Simon lived w/me he had a collection of miniature steam engines. He'd put a pellet in the smokestack, put some boiling water inside, and don't you know that the darn thing would chug away! Very impressive. He'd buy and sell em on eBay.

Reflexively, I look over to the corner of my windowsill where Sy last kept his steam engine. When he moved out, he wouldn't let me keep it as a souvenir of his existence. He'd also bought this useless but pretty white grating which I put in my garden. He insisted on taking that too.

You do want to keep something from the guy. Here's what I have to remind me of him. His signature. He co-signed something with my mother.

In the novel I needed to remember the name of the steam engine company so not only did I find it but I took an online tour of the place. Should you wish to visit the factory out of a garage in Jeannette, PA, you may click here.

Daddypops Diner for breakfast

I parked in my usual spot on a side street. The winter air was crisp and clear. Piles of white snow and gray snow lined the streets. I wanted to see born-to-be-a waitress Mary who's been there 18 years. Would she remember me? I used to go there with Simon who would sit and smoke while I coughed next to him.

I wanted to refresh my memory about Daddypops since a crucial scene in my novel takes place there. At first I named the diner Hotdaddy's but figured it's better to use the real name, just as I'm using the real Abington Hospital and Chandler Hall Nursing Home. I don't say anything too outrageously terrible about any of these places.

A woman slid into the seat next to me w/her son, home from school since today is some school holiday, Washington's birthday. The woman was talking about some tumors she had removed. She was right next to me, talking to the waitress and on her cell phone. Ya know what? I did not feel like talking about cancerous tumors.

You sure eat healthy, she said to me.

It's important to eat healthy, I said, thinking (eating healthy might help your cancer).

Ever had grits? I asked.

Yeah, when I was younger, she said.

They're delicious, I said, smearing the butter over them. My scrambled eggs were wet, just like I asked.

Is Ken in? I asked the waitress.

He'll be in after 2, she said.

I knew Ken's wife, said the lady next to me.

Shame she had to die, I said. She was so young. (Brain tumor)

The lady next to me had a good relationship with her son who's at the same high school my son went to. He works part-time at Wayne's Auto where my sister Donna takes her miserable car. They don't cheat you at Wayne's, we both agreed. They were surprised that I knew it was on Wyandotte Road or that I knew where the Settlement Music School is. Lynn teaches violin there.

Is that at Alverthorp Manor? I asked.

Yes, said Lynn. Most people don't know that.

Hey, I raised my kids here. I should know.

Just then Julius Pulaski walked in the door. That's the main character of my novel. I like to mix reality and fantasy in my blog. Julius comes in, looks around, and clops over to the jukebox in his black cowboy boots and straw hat. He looks at it and calls out, "Where's the classical music?"

Suddenly the diner is filled with the Archduke Trio by Beethoven. Pulaski removes his hat and sits next to me in the empty seat.

I figure I've spent enough time at Daddypops and should go home to work on my novel.