Sunrise at Jordan Lake January 1, 2019 by Doc Ellen. *** The Late Years Forty-EightSeptember 29, 2019 After re-reading Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own Virginia Woolf writes about the androgynous mind, both male and female, and at ease with itself, incandescent, even. All the grudges and spites fired out of it. And my mind? I do see the multiplicity of injustices in this new twenty-first century. Plenty to protest, to fight about, but even at this age, or maybe because of my age, I’m writing what I see, and my vision is clear. I can see through the tricks we play on each other when we’re afraid to be open and brave, but in the long view they’re foolish and no point hammering about it. Let them simmer and take in the truth of their own behavior. Virginia Woolf’s books pointed me this way years ago, toward her mirage of Shakespeare’s sister. For me it became a goal. I could see nearly forty years ago how I had created a world around me, not unlike his Globe Theater. I can look back on how I courted experience: sex before marriage, living alone in New York City, making friends with two little Puerto Rican girls watching me walk by from their third floor window. Now I stop to talk to my friend Tawny, who walks her infant daughter in a baby carriage, with lively Ginger on a leash, and better behaved than when Tawny was pregnant. We both wait for baby’s smile. A room of my own? A priority since I was thirteen. Slam the door and write poems. I’ve lived with and without other people, at home and abroad. Some dearest friends in Finland, Russia, the West Coast. Laughter, confidences, tears together; songs, paintings, poems. All done by women, whose minds are open, free, affectionate. So many imbalances, suffering, poverty of spirit, but I feel in me a tide of Life and Wholeheartedness, the power to transform, if not to cure, anger, hatred, ignorance, and the need to dominate. The earth is warming, shifting, toward Eros, away from so much control, hostility, competition. If floods come, what will they wash away? If we lose face, what do we gain? Maybe we learn to think more clearly, see farther, love better? Isn’t that worth it?
Guest Blog from Mary Susan Heath for September 22, 2019 The Late Years Forty-Seven September 22, 2019 Mary Susan Heath, English Ivey climbing brick wall A Different Reminder: another part of Judy is not fragile. The Ivey planted in the old black wash pot was transplanted from a Christmas arrangement. The wash pot belonged to my mother’s mother, who used it every Saturday on the farm at Powhatan to boil water for the family laundry. It has been re-purposed now to hold the fertile soil that grounds the Ivey under my Mother’s carport—Still useful. Vines. A morning glory vine. English ivey, which is a kind of vine. It climbs and can also act as ground cover, spreading horizontally and reaching 8 inches in height. Judy’s roots run deep. She has lived and worked to create community among writers. There was the poetry journal Hyperion (1970-1981) and the founding of Carolina Wren Press in 1976. She was one of the founders of the NC Writers’ Network (1984) and served as the first President. Lots of shoots that are still growing. Those who speak for the protection of the environment are also part of her entwining circle. Fracking in 2013 and most recently the issue of coal ash shipping by Duke Energy. We’re all in there. Judy gathers us close, covers us with encouragement, and pushes us to climb—even if the wall is brick. Ivey is resilient to cold and drought. At 82, Judy keeps climbing and is, I think, at her best as a writer. Three new books out in 2019 —Baba Summer, Bakehouse Doom, and Fatality at Angelika’s Eatery. Still offering her excellent editing, teaching, and writing expertise. It is my pleasure to count myself among her tendrils. I’m in very good company. Mary Susan Heath Author, Creative Nonfiction https://marysusanheath.wixsite.com/memoriesinmotion *** The Late Years Forty-Seven by Judy Hogan Sept. 22, 2019 There are flowers you have to kill when they sow themselves among the vegetables: violets, honeysuckle, morning glories. I never want to. They look fragile, but they’re tough as nails. At the dam they were poisoned out of existence, gone all summer, but in the waning of hot days, they began all over again. The orange ones run like flame; the blue are coming in fast, too, and the white ones hold their own. I’m told my brain bleeds every so often. I can tell when suddenly I can’t remember my zipcode. Who forgets a zipcode after twenty years? I do, apparently. Then I’m okay again. Mostly I am okay. I prepare for classes on creative intuition, a major lifelong gift if you have it, and on books that delve into human feelings. The whole secret of living is to be yourself. Who else could you be? Why do we even try? Our fate was established years ago, and people help us. Only a few bother to be our enemies. Mostly we’re ignored. Those with hearts whole figure it out, take that leap into speech and joy, know the zest of living well, laughing and yielding to whatever comes.
Doc Ellen Tinsley, morning glories on chain-link fence. The Late Years Forty-Six September 15, 2019 Another reminder: part of me is fragile. “Keep listening to your body,” says my doctor. I do. I sleep more. But some days are too full. I do my best, then rest. I find blue morning glories, then orange, to go with white. The tiger lilies rise above the swarms of small sunflowers. The zinnias, when the wind lays them flat, turn and go up again. Their panoply of colors makes Robin smile. I find okra. Despite chaotic planting, it endured, but our rooster, worried for his hens, chases me off, and I drop the okra. I’ll go find it before I open the coop. My second Russian book will be published–stories so important to me twenty-seven years ago. They still are. I can yet write and think, talk and plan my day. “Keep doing what you’re doing,” says my doctor.
Morning glories in Judy's back yard garden *** The Late Years Forty-Five September 8, 2019 First, I waited for the leaves. There had been–at the very edge– grass clumps, but no hint of morning glories. Finally, here and there heart-shaped leaves. Then a week without rain. I checked for any sign of color to go with green. Then came the edge of a hurricane with wind and rain. Morning glory leaves know how to hang tough. When sun returns, there they are–half a dozen white blooms. What color will show up next? We also have our quiet days when very little seems to happen. Are we healing? Will we live long enough for our wishes to come true? Have we still latent in us a success story? Will that editor choose the next book in my Russian series? He did. Jubilation! Let the world know. Our story, our history is being told, book by book, year by year. Do I have enough years left? Maybe not twenty, as I had hoped, but maybe enough to leave our love
Photo of first zinnia by Tim Hogan in Mom's garden *** The Late Years Forty-FourSeptember 1, 2019 Was it love or simply attraction? Or both? What exactly is it when you can’t let go, even when you try? You know you can’t be indifferent. You see through his poses, his act of not caring, his jealousy not hidden very well, and after he died, you still have him in your life. Funny, how a whole life can hang on a few moments of ecstatic union. His wife, his children, his grandchildren love you because you knew how much his family, his birthplace, his country meant to him. He said you’d have to be divorced. That was after several weeks of tender communion. You ignored the word he was pointing to in the dictionary. It wasn’t possible. He could pretend, but for you it was too late. Did he think he could gesture to the wild forest and say, “Let’s go there and never come back,” and you would forget? Foolish man. Then, in a book years later, he drew that image of a man and a woman walking into the forest. But from the very beginning, he’d prophesied that one day we’d each have a wing and fly somewhere–
