Tender willing

Today the world is full of words. Every line a message, every phrase a faint clue in a map made just for you.

A poem — read at the right time, in the right light, and then read aloud a second time to be sure the magic is real and not some trick of mood and light (but all art, she says, is trick, all timing and tender willing) — plucks a string still so long that just the pull is a motion aerobic in its relief.

It adds ups.

These words float across water like cotton from the tree. They skim the surface of invitation, land lightly in a pose of patient calm.

This landscape of message and meaning, direction and delivery, does not disturb as much as nudge -- just enough -- the root of desire. Calls to you softly, says grow.

For the love of static

I’m freshly restored from a journey to the heartland. The good life was wonderfully devoid of schedules, plans and urgent emails. Going unplugged has become so rare, and is so initially unsettling, that I think I need to do it more often.

Turns out, I’m not alone in my aversion to constant connection.

Following my ‘Goodbye Facebook’ post last month, several people responded with applause. Some had contemplated dropping out, and felt empowered to finally do so. Others admitted they had never joined the flurry and felt vindicated in their wallflower disposition.

As I discover the tech fatigue of others, I feel puffed up with a sort of self-satisfaction (that is sure to bite me back at any moment). Today, I was giddy to find a Poets & Writers interview with Howard Junker, editor of venerable literary journal ZYZZYVA. In this excerpt, the bold emphasis is all mine.

PW: [Were your] values tested when, as an editor, you had to follow the technological advances of the past decade or so?

Howard Junker: At first, tech was my friend. Desktop publishing was a godsend. E-mail was great. The Web started out great, but digital has been totally disruptive. The low-end workhorses of words on paper, like newspapers, are already destroyed. The luxury items, like lit mags, can survive as toys for the rich — Glimmer Train, Tin House, Zoetrope — or as enticements, like stadiums and museums, in universities. But the Twitter sensibility has no room for literate articulation. To read and write you have to enjoy being alone, quiet, and static. That's not what tech fosters. I like blogging as a daily yoga. I post every day, as a personal exercise, not as a marketing tool.

To see

"It is crucial that a poet see when she is not looking — just as she must write when she is not writing," writes Linda Gregg in her essay The Art of Finding. "To write just because the poet wants to write is natural, but to learn to see is a blessing."

The sun broke through the June gloom today. As if obeying stage directions, the coastal clouds parted to shine summer solstice bright.

At Cape Perpetua, I walked from forest to sea. As a new season revealed itself, I joined in its vigor. I was bright-eyed at all I had forgotten: chest-high fern, thick skunk cabbage, and tidepools still but lively. I took photo after photo but could not capture the thin salt layer clearing my head, or the lulling traffic of wave after wave meeting rocky shore.

Though I had seen so much, I could not convey the change of season, the change in me. On this first day of summer, I'm still learning to see.

Goodbye Facebook

It was fun at first. I was found and friended. I delighted in gaining the attention of people I had forgot (old boyfriends, tenuous high school pals, the friend of a friend of a neighbor I barely knew).

But after my year-long stint, Facebook is now too much and not enough. Too much information and not enough substance.

I had to give it up: the status reports, the pithy replies, the clever repartee, the family photos, the incessant checking of other people's quizzes. I didn’t care really, but I couldn’t turn it off. Facebook became my tawdry tabloid, delivered all day, every day. I was an addicted voyeur.

I had real Facebook friends, to be sure. The same ones I telephone and email. For months, we crowded into the Facebook booth instead, sharing the high of fresh quips and bright banter. Just like in real life.

But Facebook glaringly confirmed what I already knew: I’m not a ‘social networker.’ I don’t have a 'platform.'

To be clear, I’m no Luddite. I appreciate and use modern technology. Running my own marketing communications business, I know well the value of modern media tools. In my personal life, however, I don’t wish to live the odd combination of transparent and calculated.

So, today, with reinforcement from a friend (no really, an actual, live friend whom I talk to on a regular basis and — gasp! — see in person), I quit Facebook.

With just a couple of clicks, I slipped out of the party. As with any good gathering, nobody noticed my departure. The party chatter continued as my 75 friends maintained an enviable pace of meandering amusements.

So long, my somewhat social network. It’s late. I’m tired. I’m returning to the antiquities of telephones, emails, and in-person gatherings in which real, live people share actual conversation.

Five years ago, when my husband and I were contemplating a move that would take us from urban center to remote, small town, a friend cheered us on. “Remote,” he said, “is the new luxury.”

With this recent disconnection, I’m going remote again. Accessibility has created a charade of meaningful connection. Within the one-line updates and clever banter, I’ve discovered I don’t really need to know so much about so little.

More fibs

The fibs keep coming!

The six-line, 20 syllable poem has a count of: 1/1/2/3/5/8. While the traditional fib is just six lines, many have opted to expand the form and link the stanzas.

"I promised myself to fib at least once a day," says Auburn McCanta, who regularly writes for the Huffington Post and her own blog. She shares her first fib here.


On Pie Day

Spoon

Bowl

Apples

Cinnamon

Crust with butter dots

The scent of a mother’s lined hands

Soft

Green

Apron

Wrapped like wings

Around small shoulders

Drying off a girl’s cloudy tears

--- Auburn McCanta