Sick again

Well, I seem to blog about being sick again more than I do being well. I hope that changes soon. I have the dratted stomach/sore throat/no voice/dizzy bug going around. My doctor says his office has been filled with it. I've made homemade chicken soup with vegetables and am trying to ignore the fact that I feel I need to lie down all of the time with my stomach poked out like I'm pregnant, and painful.

Today, Scott Owens and I were set to appear on the Jane Crown show. You call in from home but yes, you do have to be able to talk. I have poems from The Nature of Attraction (Main Street Rag Press), our recent poetry collaboration collection,  on audio so if there was any chance of voice, Jane would play the poems and I would use my wee bit of voice for discussion. Her Linnux wouldn't play the files properly and since she was dealing with a mute on this end, she decided to postpone the show. My problem is that I never know when I'll be well, have voice, be able to focus on the task at hand for a new show.

Having a compromised immune system truly forces you to live day by day and not count on future plans. You can't. Last year in November my friend, Margie, of 30 plus years now had planned to replicate our three day visit to a condo on the water in November where we stayed in 2008. This was my second 'away' in 20 years. Margie struggles with her health, too, since having two bouts of lymphoma, complete with chemo and radiation. This past year she was dealing with breast cancer on top of that and a bout of pneumonia from where her lungs were damaged by the radiation to kill the unoperable tumor in her chest. It did do that, thank goodness. I was dealing with a reaction to eye drops that left my vision too blurred to see for two months and a severely injured foot. My husband drives us and watches out for us since, at her best, Margie has neuropathy in her hands and feet from the chemo and frequent congestion from that same lung damage.

We want to have a trip this year. Novemeber rates are good. It's not cold there yet. We won't schedule until the last minute, though. Until we think there's a shot we might make it this year. Having a window of opportunity to do something important and losing it is just too hard.

the bird soars
into a maelstrom...
my daily bread




Prisxxx

Music for a Sunday!

Be sure to listen all the way. The guitar collaboration in the second half will knock your socks off! Dire Straits lead singer/guitarist and Eric Clapton.

sharing a haiku

equinox
a fisherman dips his hands
into the full moon

September 23- Twenty years living with ME/CFS

Last Thursday marked my 20th year anniversary since I awoke with all of the symptoms that were later diagnosed as CFIDS (now ME/CFS). For those of you who don't follow my blog, you can read the 'about me' page on my website for a description of my experience with the illness ( http://www.poeticinspire.com/aboutme.html  This link opens in a new window. All I'll say here is that the first 9 years of this illness were terrifying. I had tremendous difficulty thinking and understanding. Light and sound made me shake. I couldn't read. I couldn't listen to music or watch tv. Never mind do more complex things. I made it through by pacing the house, lying down, pacing again to keep my body going, lying down....when I did pace it felt as if weights were attached to my limbs. My mantra was 'all I have to do is get through the next 15 minutes'. I decided that the POW's didn't know when or if they would be released until it happened and I hoped a door would open for better functioning for me.

That door finally did open. It didn't free me, but it allowed me to begin using a computer, writing poetry, reading very short things, and watching a movie on tv ever so often.

On Wednesday night, I was very bravado. I told myself that the 20 years marked 20 years of survival, that I'd made it. The fact that my mother had died 14 years ago on that same day, too, made it a double whammy but I still didn't think it would affect me. I woke up out of a sound sleep at 3 30 Thursday morning crying and I knew that no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't stuff down the real grief over the losses that day represented. It was important for me to release that as well as recognize my strength in getting this far.

Fortunately, my college friend Marilyn was visiting this week. Even though it's been a rough period for me with the whiplash and lumbar strain from being rear-ended, we managed to drive over by the ocean I love so much for a 15 minute visit. The wind was blowing too hard to comfortably stay longer and I was tired from lack of sleep.

So.....here are a few photos from that day. I look at the photo of me and think what everybody who doesn't know this illness always says....'but you LOOK so good'......

My friend, Marilyn, below:

 A shot of the pier with the waves rolling in:

 Me, trying to keep my visor from blowing off and hanging onto my cushion so IT wouldn't blow away.

Click to enlarge.

Thanks for listening.

Pris

Nights in Rodanthe

I recently watched Nights in Rodanthe again, thinking as I did the first time, that the house with its feet in the surf had to be a movie creation, not a real one since the surf was washing under the steps down to the ocean. I googled and found photos of the house used in the film. Notes said that the hurricanes of 2009 had made the house unsafe but it had been bought and relocated to a safer area about a mile away. As I googled more, I saw more of these beautiful homes, now no longer protected by dunes and vulnerable. Many are condemned now. I wonder if eventually we'll lose them all, just as stilt city off of Biscayne Bay near Miami disappeared.

Some of the movie was filmed here on the Outer Banks and all was filmed in eastern North Carolina, a beautiful area. I sailed through the Outer Banks and can attest to this personally.

I don't usually use my blog to recommend a movie but loved this one and would recommend it highly. Read a small synopsis of the plot  HERE

The house.....

Haiku tribute to Jimmy Laney, good friend, in current Sketchbook Journal

Click on Sketchbook Haiku sequence to read.

To see the whole issue, go HERE. Under collaborative photo haiga you'll also find some work I did with Geoff Sanderson. Great issue!

Pris

A friend's face

When you're almost completely housebound, as I have been for 20 years now with ME/CFS, it's hard to make or keep friendships. I can't go places with friends. I can only handle a certain amount of conversation before I crash and need quiet time before I can talk again. I'm fortunate that three friends from my old life understand this well enough to visit with me and accept that it won't be like before. They've wanted the friendship enough to adapt and for that I feel so very grateful.

My college friend Marilyn drives over from the other side of the state twice a year and would come anytime if I had an emergency and needed her, such as when my mother died and my husband left to go take her ashes up to the Carolinas for the memorial service there and burial beside my father. She arranged ahead of time, knowing mother was dying, to take off work and come be with me during that hard alone time when I knew old friends and family were gathering at the place I wanted most to be.

Marilyn is to the far right in this shot of friends outside our dorm.




This is me during our Stetson years at Daytona, an hour from Stetson, our school. I'm to the left with the plaid shirt.




CLICK PHOTOS TO ENLARGE

9/11 approaching

I'm still only posting off and on and not yet able to read many blogs. The rear-end accident in July has slowed me down more than usual. Readership continues to plummet on all but the most popular blogs, however, from what I hear and read from other bloggers. Everyone is spending their free time on facebook or twitter. I'm not a twitter person but I plead guilty to facebook browsing and posting. The search engines can't get to a private profile on facebook so I can post poems without running into the growing journal rule that 'if found by the search engines it's considered published'.

9/11 is approaching quickly so today I'm posting a link to a very brief page I did after the towers were hit.Go HERE to read it. Turn on your sound.

And let's hope that fool doesn't burn the Koran on Saturday.

Pris

Best of the Net...More good news in

My poem, Invastion, from my Men of the Cloth Trilogy, published in The Dead Mule, was just nominated for 'Best of the Net'. Go to The Dead Mule to read it. It's the second poem down in the Trilogy.

Pris

Brian Campbell recommends Sea Trails

Go HERE to read Brian Campbell's recommendation of my book, Sea Trails. Thank you, Brian. I appreciate your kind words and assessment.

I have only five personal copies left for sale, so if you want a signed/dedicated copy contact me as soon as possible. I doubt there'll be another printing of the book.

Pris

Four Weddings and a Funeral

I recently re-watched this movie and enjoyed it immensely. It stands the test of time, in my book. The Auden eulogy read at the funeral remains one of the best eulogies I've read. The text is here, with a link also to the youtube reading of the poem from the movie.

Funeral Blues

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He is Dead.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the woods;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

W.H. Auden


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_a-eXIoyYA

(No embed code is given on the site)

Three more poems in the Outlaw Poetry Network

Read them HERE. Resizing Norman is from my book, The Nature of Attraction, written in collaboration with Scott Owens. Sales information for the book is in the right sidebar.

I would appreciate any comments on the Outlaw Poetry site if you feel so moved.

I'm getting a mix of clearer days then a swimmy day now after the rear-ending and still can't spend much time on the computer. I apologize that I've not made return visits to those of you who so kindly read my blog. I will again when I can.

Pris

Some exciting news!

I received a letter from Full of Crow last night telling me that the collection of Paul Newman poems I've been writing off and on for a couple of years has been accepted for their mini-chapbook series. Mine is a total of ten poems and will be available probably in December. I'd wanted these poems to appear together rather than scattered across journals, so I'm very pleased.

More when this happens, but I had to share the news now.

On the personal front, I'm still dealing with whiplash symptoms and still not on the blog much but will do more as I can. My apologies for not getting around to visit my favorite blogs in a while.

This Is The First Day of My Life by Bright Eyes

This is a charming video and one I need to see the day after one of my dear friends died. Be sure to watch through to the end. Some really nice shots.

I'm dropping in to post this and will be away again for a while. Thinking of all of you, my readers and friends.





Lyrics:

This is the first day of my life
I swear I was born right in the doorway
I went out in the rain suddenly everything changed
They're spreading blankets on the beach

Yours is the first face that I saw
I think I was blind before I met you
Now I don’t know where I am
I don’t know where I’ve been
But I know where I want to go

And so I thought I’d let you know
That these things take forever
I especially am slow
But I realize that I need you
And I wondered if I could come home

Remember the time you drove all night
Just to meet me in the morning
And I thought it was strange you said everything changed
You felt as if you'd just woke up
And you said “this is the first day of my life
I’m glad I didn’t die before I met you
But now I don’t care I could go anywhere with you
And I’d probably be happy”

So if you want to be with me
With these things there’s no telling
We just have to wait and see
But I’d rather be working for a paycheck
Than waiting to win the lottery
Besides maybe this time is different
I mean I really think you like me