Friday, May 29, 2009

Don't Just Do Something --

If I were a Zen practitioner, I'd "let" that title end, "Stand There!"

If only I were a student of Zen.

I would tell you that it rained in the night and that the roses were bowed with water this morning. The sun has come out now & soon they will lift their heads again & perhaps smell a little sweeter for the bump up in temperature that's coming & that will also brown, wilt & kill them as a new crop comes along.

I've been taking w-a-y too many pictures of roses lately. They're in season; before that it was iris, tulips, daffodils. Close-ups. I am bored with Brooklyn Heights & so I've turned my camera on the individual, on the living & the dying, on the things that collect light & rain. On the blatantly sexual. I can't train my lens on the heart of a flower without knowing I'm peering into the Darwinian purpose & honeyed pleasure of life.

I don't know whether I respect roses. They're prissy until they're ready to fade & wilt, their skirts gathered together, their reproductive parts a maze for clever, delving bees. But from sex they cam'st & to sex they shalt return. Only look at that barely visible blood-red center & tell me that this girl is a virgin.

Which is where I could use some Zen.

My manuscript is out of my hands. I've caught up on my other blog obligations at Confessions of a Lab Lady and Psychology Today. I've done some advance cleaning in preparation for my nieces' visit in a couple of weeks. I've returned some emails. Today I have notes for my novel open. But I can't settle down, although getting those notes open is more than I could manage yesterday in terms of what I need to be doing.

I've been poking around psyches instead, always a dangerous business. Car on the Hill is too public to go into details, although I'm dying to because I want those details off my chest & this is the place I dump my brain-junk, so let me quote Mother Goose by saying that I stuck in my thumb & pulled out a plum & said, "What a bad girl am I".

A general mood has been set here, I hope, so in the context of the mood I'm going to say that I don't hide behind other blogs & poke my head out only to comment on them. I want my invisibility as I metaphorically eat forbidden pie so I'm being as obtuse as my accusation/self-justification. Still, can one create memoir without passion dripping off the keyboard in the form of brutal honesty? THAT, I think, you have seen here.

OK, I'm putting on my invisibility cloak again & closing that subject. If you're dying for details, ask & I'll think about responding individually, although only to named correspondents, if you please.

*

The other piece of brain-junk I need to get rid of is a whiny little rant about clothes. It doesn't seem fair to lose 41 pounds (in 104 days of abstinence: just for the sake of stats) & all Big Clothes still don't fit. I have to return a box to J. Jill today & I should be happy to do so: I don't need to spend that money when I have tons of clothes. But it seems to me that my clothes are either egregiously floppy (i.e., the leggings I'm wearing today sag) or ten pounds/one month too big. Where was I that I didn't get properly fitting clothes the last time my body was 229 pounds?

This has to be a general phenom, the righteousness of a serious loss within a weight loss in-progress. "We've come such a long way already," Dorothy protested the Wizard's demand for the Wicked Witch of the West's broomstick. I've traveled the Yellow Brick Road, I guess, but I haven't killed the witch.

& by the time I do, I'll be watching the balloon lift off without me as I lament what else doesn't fit.

"What a brat girl am I."

8 comments:

Unknown said...

Many of the pictures you take are fantastic. Do you mind saying what kind of camera you use?

Frances Kuffel said...

Canon SX100 IS

Laura N said...

Frances your posts seem so full of life lately. I love that.

104 days of abstinence. Wow! I feel you deep in the depths of recovery...I'm not sure how tentative it still feels for you, or if you feel like you've kicked it in the ass & are on top of the world. My guess is, 104 days looks like a big accomplishment, but it's still one day at a time. & every day is so different that some are a breeze, & some are a bitch. I wonder what it's really like.

Your sexual talk sounds very alive. I hope it makes you feel alive, too.

& your flower pictures are gorgeous. Pictures are the only way to keep their beauty permanent---Its early leaf's a flower, but only so an hour.

Hope your weekend is filled with success & peace.

Quilting Martha said...

Frances, I have lost nearly 40 pounds (again), and am wearing clothing from several years ago. Some of it fits oddly. Either I was thinking differently about fit, or my body has changed.

Unknown said...

I love the winy sensuality of your Georgia O'Keefe riff on roses. Gardening is one of the sexiest pastimes I know.

Also: that scene from Wizard of Oz was the cause of many childhood nightmares for me! I had to hide my eyes when the disembodied, terrifying head of the WIZARD appeared in puffs of smoke and bellowing. Eek! :-)

April said...

Hi Frances,
I am coming to NY for the first time. I will be at a conference most of the daytime hours, but is there anything special I should see in the evening (other than WICKED, which is definitely on my "to do" list). I am staying in a hostel off of Central Park (which means nothing to me, other than I assume it is in the middle of the city, since it is called Central Park...). There are T stops near by, so I think I can get anywhere in the city, from what I can tell. I am used to Boston, which is a more human-scaled city and I can walk just about anywhere I want to go. NY seems much larger and spread out and confusing... but it will be an adventure!

Frances Kuffel said...

Cindy, I tried to find your profile & couldn't. When are you coming? Where exactly are you staying on Central Park?

The west side of the Park is the Museum of Natural History and Lincoln Center. The east side is the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Frick, the Central Park Zoo, the Guggenheim.

If you give me more details I can help more!

April said...

Hi Frances,
I don't blog so I don't have a profile. I'd love to hear your NYC ideas. I am staying on 7-th Avenue June 15-19. I understand that it is in the Harlem district. I am booked at a conference in Greenwich Village T,W, TH, but will have time on Monday and Friday to see some sights. And I hope to take in a show one evening ~ probably WICKED! I wonder where to find food ~ a farmer's market, perhaps? I eat a variation of a macrobiotic eating plan, which means no meat, egg, dairy, sugar or flour, for the most part. Fresh is stressed (no processing, if possible). This makes eating on the road almost impossible, so I will have to make compromises, I know. I am hoping that all the walking I will be doing will help with damage control... It is the scariest part of traveling ~ getting away from my planned and organized eating life. I know you are experiencing those fears yourself right now. I am clicking the email box below so we can correspond that way, if you are willing. Thank you, Frances!