Four Year Retire-versary

Do I now qualify for a college degree in retirement? It has been four years since I left my post at Harris County Public Library. Here are some thoughts on the state of retirement.

1. Call it re-engagement, not retirement. There is much to do and learn and try!

2. Carry on with at least a few professional activites or disciplines from Before Retirement. In my case, I still write reviews for Library Journal, not to mention this blog (though much less often than I used to), and attend the book club I started as a librarian. And for two years I served on a very time-consuming, yet wonderful Texas Library Lariat Reading List committee.

3. Temptations abound. If you like to shop, you may find yourself shopping a bit too much. If you like to eat, watch out. So apply some discipline in these areas. Slow down and enjoy these tempting activities, but don't go overboard. I was able to lose weight after I retired since I became more physically active and used the Lose It app to monitor my food intake. Some of those pounds are creeping back, so I need to rein myself in again.

4. Volunteer opportunities abound, so choose wisely or all your so-called free time will disappear. I like to leave a couple of days a week unscheduled so I can pursue my favorite art, gardening and writing activities. Of course, the tipping point here depends on where you fall on the introvert-extrovert scale. I am an introvert, so retirement offers much more time for beloved solitary pursuits.

5. Exercise is key. I know some people who work out at the gym 5 or 6 days a week. I prefer to go to yoga twice a week and add in a swim session whenever I can. Yard work, walking and cycling also round out the mix. I feel a little off if I don't get daily exercise.

6. Family obligations tend to multiply in midlife. I see this in the lives of many of my friends right now. If I had not been retired these last few years, I don't know how my family would have handled my mother's care. She is 94 and living with my brother and his wife. There have been plenty of health and lifestyle crises. I have worn a beaten path with Southwest Airlines flying so often to New York. It has also been nice to be able to attend a nephew's high school graduation or house-sit for my sister-in-law. A few months ago when my husband had cardiac surgery, thank goodness I was no longer working. He is much better now, and the doctors tell us he has added twenty years to his potential life span.

7. Take advantage of discounts and savings. Change your car insurance to reflect your retired status. Pick and choose through the grocery ads to find bargains, but don't make it into an all-encompassing mission. For sure I spend a lot less on clothing (especially pantyhose!), makeup (hardly wear any now) and gas since leaving the library worklife behind. Of course, in my case, I am spending much more on art supplies than I used to. I do earn some money making art, but I've got a long way to go before it might pay for itself. Therefore, I treasure my Hobby Lobby and Michaels coupons!

8. Some routine is good, but also allow yourself to be spontaneous. I like a mixture of the tried and true along with making it up as I go along. The freedom factor of retirement is magnificent!

Okay, that is about the sum total of my retirement wisdom at this point. It hasn't all been roses. In fact, a couple of weeks ago a freak hailstorm came through Houston and really wrecked my yard. I am still catching up with the damage. It was especially hard to see my eight tomato plants pulverized. A few green tomatoes were sent straight to the frying pan. The storm also fried the AC and affected our Internet and cable tv service. The electric panel of our gas stove was zapped. And so it goes.... "Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans." Cliched but oh so true; what's interesting about this cliche is that it fell from the mouth of John Lennon! And before that, in 1957, it was seen as a quote in Reader's Digest. Go to the Quote Investigator website to read more about it!

collage: Boom Bloom, 2012, by Keddy Ann Outlaw

The Most They Ever Had by Rick Bragg

Oh boy, does Rick Bragg have a colloquial and Whitmanesque way with words! The Most They Ever Had (MacAdam/Cage, 2009) is an oral history/meditation on the lives of those who worked in the Alabama cotton mills, a way of life fast disappearing due to the vagaries of our global economy. Bragg does a real service by capturing the stories of these proud workers, so many dying early due to the lung diseases so common among "lintheads." A few generations ago when cotton began to be harvested by machines, former cotton pickers marched into the cotton mills where they worked their fingers to the bone for pennies. Often they owed money to the company store for food. People did what they had to do to get by, picking up coal from the railroad tracks, eating frogs and weeds. I found myself thinking that this book should be mandatory reading for all Americans, perhaps most especially politicians.

The Most They Ever Had (not much) sings of red dirt and Johnson grass, front porches, baseball, hunger, want and pure despair. Taking the music analogy a little further, this literary treasure of a book is bluegrass, the blues and country music all rolled into one big elegiac hymn. The loud machines that ruled the mill workers' lives are silent now, the buildings in ruins. Bragg captures a lost era just in time; most of the people profiled are near the end of their lives. He worried that no one would want to read this. A friend told him not to worry, saying "Well, it ain't a damn barn dance, is it? It's an American tragedy." I am so deeply touched and humbled by what I read here. Thank you, Rick Bragg. Come to think of it, I feel the same way about every book he has written.

Garden Shots, Spring 2013

That teeny tiny green dot is a newborn lemon! Last year this tree was attacked by leaf miners and lost all its blossoms, so we are overjoyed to get off to a better start this year.

This telephone pole in the corner of the yard used to be covered by an overgrown bush. When we tore out the bush, I felt called to decorate the pole. Now our eyes take in the metal flowers more than the pole.

Herbs including parsley, basil, sage and sorrel.

Belinda's Dream, a rose I prize for its fragrance.

Mostly succulents, in one corner of the patio.

Potted plants everywhere! I have more plants than sense. Every year I say I am going to cut back, but inevitably buy, receive, repot or propogate more.

This spring has been cool for Houston. I had to replant my zinnia seeds in the front yard after a run of cold days because I think the temperature change zapped their germination process. My sunflowers are tiny sprouts. I have trouble with critters eating the young sunflowers, and so have begun planting them in peat pots for a better start. We have about 4 varieties of tomatoes started, among them, as usual the dependable Juliet variety. I wish I had room for more vegetables, but my experiments with flowers tend to fill up most of the space, not to mention the weeds, especially clover. And everyday I find new acorn sprouots to pull up since the oaks produced a bumper crop in reaction to the drought of 2011. They were even sprouting on our roof in tiny amounts of fallen leaves and blown pollen gathered in gables, etc. I love climbing up on the roof, not so much for the required maintenance, but for the views. I imagine one of these years I am going to have to stop doing that and hire help. But for the time being, yard work of all kinds is part of my exercise routine and I am happy to putter away in the everchanging landscapes there.

Walking Home: Growing Up Hispanic in Houston by Sarah Cortez, including a brief interview with the author

Walking Home: Growing Up Hispanic in Houston (Texas Review Press, 2012) by Sarah Cortez is a slim book composed of prose and poetry; thus the back cover tells us it is a mixed-genre memoir. The short prose chapters come first, where the author sorts her memories by colors related to a beautiful stained glass window. Nothing is chronological here. Stepping into her mother’s wish for babies yet to be born, her father’s vivid hopes for a son or her grandmother prayers, Cortez skillfully evokes the family she loves. She imagines their inner lives. Yes, this is a memoir, but in these prose chapters, rarely does Cortez use the first person to tell her story. Instead we plunge deeply into both the myths and inherited memories of her past. Brief as some of these memories are, they have a rich, soulful quality. As for genres, besides memoir and poetry, I was reminded of theater and can well imagine certain chapters morphed into a play consisting of dramatic monologues.

In the second section, the air feels lighter, full of childish delight, awe or disgust. We are in the sure hands of a poet who has successfully strung together a collection of miniatures into a masterpiece. Often the subjects are deceptively simple: costume jewelry, a donut shack, fishing with her father at Hermann Park; yet much is revealed about life and its beauty, its illusions. A few of the poems takes us further into the poet’s young adulthood. And the last poem is one I found hard to close the cover on. “Walking Home” is both intensely personal and achingly collective. This poem softly, wisely reminds us to remember each detail of the past, to “walk yourself home, then back here again.” That is indeed the journey Cortez has made, one I felt privileged to share.

Years ago, I took a writing class with Sarah Cortez at the Houston Jung Center. Then a couple of weeks ago, I attended a lecture she gave and reconnected with her. Later we did a short interview by email:

1. When you wrote these poems and stories, did you know you wanted to use them as a group in one book? Or did you go back and collect them together from a larger body of writing? I was lucky enough to be awarded a position as a visiting scholar in order to both teach creative writing at UH and to write this book. So, I knew the time period I was aiming for in the memoir and wrote poems to accomplish the project.

2. As a teacher of memoir writing, what would you say is the most empowering concept you try to transmit to your students? Yes, I've been teaching memoir for about a decade or more. It's a writing form I adore -- teaching, writing, listening to, and pondering. As a teacher, I love introducing or furthering the student's process of going deep inside his/her own life and finding meaning, then writing that meaning.

3. Have you always known you wanted to be a writer? Almost "always." My mother was an ardent elementary school teacher who began teaching me to read at a very early age. I fell in love with words early on. That love continues.

4. Who are your favorite memoir writers? Patricia Hampl is my hands-down favorite in both the writing of memoir and in the writing about writing memoir. This past year I found Kathleen Norris' work. I admire the memoir writing of Vivian Gornick, Scott Momaday, Donna M. Johnson.

5. What's next for you? Gosh, I don't know. I have several book proposals that are out. Whichever is under contract first will be the next book.  I hope you and your readers will stay tuned to my website for the upcoming book launches of my next two books. One is an anthology of essays about U.S.-Mexico border violence, a timely topic if there ever was one. The title is The Lost Border: Life Amid the Narco-Violence. The second is a book of poetry that is about the work of police officers and firefighters. Its title is Cold Blue Steel, and the publisher is Texas Review Press.

Me Before You by Jojo Moyes

Me Before You (Pamela Dorman Books, 2012) by Jojo Moyes is a heart-wrenching, thoughtful and quirky read. Like much of British fiction, there is an emphasis on class differences. Coming from the blue collar world is Louisa Clark, a former cafe waitress with an eccentric fashion sense. Literature, classical music and travel are foreign to her. Then she takes a caretaker's job with a family on the posh side of town, near the local tourist attraction, an ancient castle. Thus the culture clash begins.

During the first weeks of caring for Will Traynor, a wheelchair-bound quadriplegic, she doubts everything about the job. Will is a moody soul who formerly climbed mountains and made a fortune in high finance. Now he is living in the annex of his parent's house. A medical attendant comes in every day. Louisa takes care of everything else. As Louisa slowly makes inroads with Will's defenses, he begins to take a liking to her. A bit of "My Fair Lady" develops here, wherein Will mentors Louisa, exposing her to many of the finer things about life.

SPOILER ALERT: When Louisa finds out that Will's parents plan to allow him to commit assisted suicide in Switzerland in 6 months, she is aghast. Soon she is plotting ways to inspire Will to choose life instead. This means she must get up to snuff technology-wise, actually go to the library to research all things quadriplegic. Louisa's boring boyfriend does not understand her attachment to Will. Her parents and family meet Will and very much like him. Here the plot begins to thicken. As the chapters fly, Will and Louisa grow closer than ever. You could say they have a mutual inspiration society, each encouraging the other to try new things. Perhaps you can guess where this is going. Will there be a happily-ever-after? I won't tell. These characters became quite real to me. There are also some sub-plots involving Louisa's family, not to mention developments with the Traynor family. Me Before You is quite captivating and unique, sure to make readers ponder some big questions.

I'm Your Man: the Life of Leonard Cohen by Sylvie Simmons

I just spent a whole week with Leonard Cohen -- in book form, that is. I'm Your Man: The Life of Leonard Cohen (Harper Collins, 2012) by music journalist Sylvie Simmons is not some cut and paste celebrity bio. She must have spent years amassing all the information for this wonderful book, interviewing not only Leonard but hundreds of his fellow musicians, poets, lovers and friends.

I first became hypnotized by Leonard Cohen in 1968 as a lowly college freshman. Leonard lived in his native city of Montreal, just over the Canadian border from my college town of Plattsburgh, NY, and somehow that geographical nearness made him seem like a compatriot. I pictured him suffering through blizzards and gray rainy days in his famous Burberry raincoat, the very same moody weather systems I endured. How to explain his elegiac hold on me? I played his first record, Songs of Leonard Cohen, over and over on the portable turquoise leatherette record player in my dorm room in a daily rite of initiation into the mysteries of adulthood. Leonard was not just some rock idol. He'd been a poet first! Cohen is a master of metaphysical mystique and has continued to keep me intrigued and attuned all these years.

I learned so much about Leonard from reading Simmons' book, including that fact that he played many gratis concerts at mental hospitals. Self-deprecating, modest, gentlemanly, almost universally liked and loved, even by his dozens of ex-girlfriends, Cohen suffered debilitating rounds of depression and self-doubt. The things he loved about turning words into poetry and song seemed to dissolve under the pressures of celebrity. He needed his hideaways, be they on the island of Hydra in Greece or in some small metropolitan hotel room. Cohen is a born escape artist. Dozens of times he left women, the music business, even the material world when he entered a Zen monastery, until finally in his elder years, serenity erased at least some of his flight instincts. Influenced not only by Judaism and Buddhism, but also Hinduism, Cohen is both holy man and antihero. His songs speak of pain, euphoria, alienation, love, loneliness and betrayal.

Inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2006, Adreienne Clarkson, former Governor General, had this to say of Leonard: "He gets inside your brain, your heart, your lungs. You remember him, you feel him, you breathe him. He is our connection to the meaning of ecstasy, our access to another world we suspected existed but which he puts into song."

You'd think I might have had enough of Leonard having completed this long book, but now I want to take my fascination further with extensive browsing through the Leonard Cohen Files website. I'd also like to take a look at some of the many documentaries now available. A couple of years ago I did an assemblage in a Valentine's candy box honor of Cohen. It seems fitting to post it today.

                                               L'chaim, long live Leonard!

Forget your perfect offering

There is a crack in everything

That's how the light gets in.

 - Leonard Cohen, from the song, Anthem

Anatomy of a Collage

Here are the first four pieces of a collage glued together but not glued down. Later I will use the green cardstock as part of the background. At this point I have a certain inkling of where I am going, using images from fruit crate labels and old advertising. A theme of peek-a-boo faces is evolving. I have also chosen to cut the pieces in a way that highlights two text fragments. For this collage, I am gluing the foreground together off the final substrata. I will work on the background later.

So this is what the back of the collage foreground looks like. In some places I use little pieces of tissue paper to help the joinery. You can see the purple glue under a piece of tissue paper on the lower left.

Here I have added two more faces and a fragment of a red veiled hat.

And then a much larger face on the lower left.

Time to work on the background. Note the bottom of a face on the lower right. I love the way it will line up with another face on the foreground (see below).

The more-or-less finished collage with a few more embellishments. Gluing the big foreground down to the background is always tricky. I use a brayer to get it glued down flat. It is all attached to the thin green cardstock. I leave it pressed between waxed paper in a thick book for a day or two, just to be sure it has dried flat. Later I may move it on to wood or canvas. For now, I am calling the piece "Have Me".

I just had a long break from my collage practice during the holidays and my husband's heart surgery. He is doing much better now! Whenever possible, I like to get my hands on collage work daily. Sometimes I can complete more than one a day, but often, work on a single collage is spread out over a few days. I usually have two or three going at once, and a small stable of slightly unfinished or problematic collages sitting around that I need to get back to. Starting a collage is the easiest part. Usually I have a few fragments I know I want to get started with. Then as the piece develops, it often takes a little longer to find just the right components to tie it all together into a (hopefully) unified whole. I have collage files sorted by shape, color, subject, etc. I also have boxes of unsorted scraps I am always pawing through, looking for I don't know what, until suddenly I find it. And that's the joy of collage. For me, it is full of surprises, similar in some ways to the art of poetry.

Collage: "Have Me" by Keddy Ann Outlaw