Someone has said to me a time or two, “You’re overthinking this.” Imagine that.

So how much thinking is medium thinking? Regular thinking? Is there such a thing as underthinking? (hmmm…another story there….)

In most things, I’m very decisive. And I mean BIG things. I’ve picked husbands and houses in a heartbeat. But little things? I find myself spending long minutes in front of a display of laundry detergent that comes in so many sizes, scents, and wash strategies that I’m forced to reflect on my entire life as a laundress. Remember the scene in the movie Moscow on the Hudson where Robin Williams, as a would-be Russian defector in the Cold War years, finds his way to the Coffee aisle in a supermarket? Dazzled by choice, he faints dead away. In American culture today, multiple choice has advanced into every product there is. Food. Cars. Cosmetics. Cat food. You name it. Doesn’t it make you weary sometimes?

Robert Frost, in his ubiquitous poem “The Road Not Taken,” describes a walker reflecting on a fork in the path, and the choice, which, in the end, “made all the difference.” We all wish we could look down the long paths at every fork in life to know what the result will be. The choices made by nature itself get even more plentiful. According to some mathematicians and quantum theorists working now, it’s possible that the universe is perpetually spinning off whole new universes with every quirk of a quark!

We have to make a lot of choices in life, and then live with the commitment at whatever level is appropriate. My faith. My friends. My laundry soap. My lunch. I just keep going down the road.
 
 

VILLANELLE FOR THE ROAD
 

The true way may be found, but at a cost.
The dashboard deity presides and judges.
Recalculating really means You’re lost.
 
Is this a bridge that I’ve already crossed?
I wonder as the snake of traffic nudges
between the tollbooths. What’s it going to cost?
 
I have my doubts, refusing to be bossed
by bland advice a nagging voice begrudges,
recalculating how you got so lost.
 
This muse would never suit you, Mr. Frost.
Bear left. Turn right. Take ramp. She never fudges.
The road not taken clearly has a cost.
 
But I’m footloose again, my baggage tossed
behind me. Good-bye, all you drudges!
Recalculating, nothing to be lost,
 
I roll along the road, a stone unmossed,
a stubborn certainty that never budges,
finding my way regardless of the cost,
recalculating, yes, but never lost.
 
 

Barbara Loots
The Whirlybird Anthology
of Kansas City Writers

So God says to Job, “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundations?”

Care to come up with your own answer to that?

Another question that comes to my mind is, “Where will you be when your dust settles at the end of 90 years or so?” (I’m an optimist about longevity.) How much is 90 years in the life of the universe so far? Squat, right? Personally I think it’s kind of important not to “piddle it away,” as my mom might say. But equally important is to have a relaxed attitude about what I’ve accomplished so far and what might be left to do. Pay attention. Keep at it. Things will unfold.

Friends invited us to spend a vacation with them at their timeshare on Kaua’i, one of the most scenic (and relaxed) of the Hawaiian Islands. There, in view of the blue Pacific surrounding my little perch on the porch, I got to thinking about how those islands are really mountaintops poking up out of the water. When did that happen?

How very little time humanity has been a part of this planet. In the light of Earth’s own creativity, I’m less than a blip. Better enjoy everything I can!

 
KAUA’I
 

Underwater Himalaya
heaved up from the ocean floor–
peak, plateau, and sandy playa
leagues from any mainland shore.
 
Human never saw the boiling
lava build these ragged heights,
never viewed the vapor coiling
upward in primeval nights,
 
never felt the urgent rumble
of this island at its birth.
Fragile flesh, be ever humble
in your blink of time on earth.
 
You are not the final reason
for the air, the seed, the bird.
Brief indeed may be the season
of the number and the word.
 

Barbara Loots

One of the great privileges I had as a writer at Hallmark was the opportunity to enjoy visits from some great guest speakers. One of them was the remarkable Anne Lamott, author of, among other things, the advice to writers titled Bird by Bird.

In a Q&A session following her talk, I asked her how she felt about writing truthfully, according to her, about people she knew. Wasn’t it likely to cause disruption in her most intimate relationships, I wondered.

“Don’t worry about it,” she said. “They never recognize themselves.”

My mother used to tell the poignant story of the time her mother died. Doris, my mother, a college freshman at the time, was given the responsibility of buying a dress to clothe her mother’s body for burial. As she told it, the dress she selected was the finest dress her mother ever wore. Needless to say, this story stuck in my head and in my heart. Some years later, I wrote the poem below. I sent it home, as a kind of loving tribute. My father wrote me a surprising rebuke. “It sounds like you want to bury your mother!”

Wait. That’s HER mother! That’s HER story! Isn’t it obvious?

Nevertheless, I seldom write poems about people I know, except love poems not for public consumption. When it comes to family and friends, if the poem is complimentary it sounds sappy. If it’s anything else, it sounds judgmental. Either way doesn’t feel right to me. Even if they don’t know it’s them.

IN THE SHOP
 
For D. S. K.
 
I’d like to purchase a dress for my mother—
Something becoming, not overly gay.
Simplicity is more important than stylishness.
You know I’ll wear it forever, she’d say.
 
I’d like an enduring and elegant fabric.
Price is no object—I’m willing to pay
So friends and acquaintances all may admire her
For once richly dressed for her going away.
 
 
Barbara Loots
Published in The Lyric Summer 1975

Whenever I bend over to pick up a bit of lint off the floor, I think of my mother.

I haven’t written many poems about my mother. But I wrote many letters to her from the time I left home until the time she came to live near me in Kansas City. She was my teacher, my advocate, my moral and spiritual model. I always wanted to make my mother proud of me. I think I did. The letters and clippings she saved will furnish resources for this blog.

My mother had a terror of losing her eyesight. Apart from the potential for grievous loss we all share, I don’t know exactly where she was coming from about this one thing. I only know she spoke of it from time to time. So, when the effects of aging threatened the vision in one of her eyes, and surgery was the option, she faced up to it with both courage and fear.

Post-surgery, she was careful to observe all the restrictions. That is, until the day she spotted a bit of lint on the floor. A bit of lint. Reflexively the tidy housekeeper, she bent over to pick it up. The sudden “pop” of a blood vessel bursting obliterated forever the vision in that eye.

We’ve all done something dumb in an instant. Imagine living with its tragic consequences for the rest of your life. You see it in newspaper headlines every day. Perhaps partly because of her mistake, my mother began a long decline into depression. Her faith was secure, but her fear was real, too.

I wish I could have stood in the way of my mother’s fear. According to sources I’ve come across, the Bible has 365 references where an angel, or some other speaker from God, declares, “Don’t be afraid!” That’s one Fear Not for every day of the year. A friend recently sent me a little card that contains a version of the famous prayer of St. Teresa of Avila. I keep it in my wallet. Here it is for you to hang onto as well.

Let nothing disturb you.
Let nothing frighten you.
All things are passing away.
God never changes.
Patience obtains all things.
Whoever has God
lacks nothing.
God alone suffices.
 
St. Teresa of Avila

I never saw a hummingbird until I started going to the beach at Pawley’s Island. The proprietor of the rooming house where we stayed had a feeder near the porch where we sat rocking of an afternoon. I realized then that hummingbirds were not really the rara avis I had thought. They are pretty much everywhere, as it turns out.

When we go to the island in the summer, we hang up the hummingbird feeder right away, and right away, hummingbirds zero in on it. Usually there are four or five battling for ownership. The same thing happens in our backyard at home.

Hummingbirds provide endless little lessons in living. Here’s one:

HUMMINGBIRD BATTLE
 

Three hummingbirds refuse to share,
though on the feeder hanging there
four equal plastic perches flaunt
the sweet these three extremely want.
 
With rapier beaks and threatening thrums,
en garde in case another comes,
they thrust and feint with vicious skill
to have it all, or no bird will.
 
For hours, the airborne battle spins
in warfare no one ever wins,
and meanwhile sips the humble bee
the bounty given all for free.

 
 
Barbara Loots

Yesterday I was THAT PERSON. I’m sorry. I know my lame gesture of apology didn’t help. Thank you for not honking immediately whenever the light turned green.

I was driving to meet a friend when the phone rang. I guessed who would be calling. She was. It wasn’t a huge emergency. But it sort of was. I shouldn’t have answered the phone. When I did, I became THAT PERSON.

I promise to forgive the next driver using a cell phone who causes me a moment’s inconvenience. Except of course if the cars have actually crunched together.

I’m sorry.

So…to lighten up a little. I no longer commute to work. From my study window at home, I can see–and mainly hear–the traffic on the street I used to travel every day for more than forty years. Perhaps there’s a shift in today’s world towards living close to where we work, to end the necessity of the maddening and time-consuming daily drive. Meanwhile, it happens.

GOOSE SENSE
 

The Canada geese on their morning commute
from the north to the south of the lake
are the crankiest crowd on the aerial route.
What hubbub of honking they make.
 
I’ll hear, as the evening puts on its display,
the same gaggle of geese going forth,
ending their day in the noisiest way
as they flap from the south to the north.
 
The north and the south and the east and the west
look alike to my innocent eye.
This daily commotion may be for the best.
But only a goose would know why.

 

 

Barbara Loots

I haven’t watched television at home for almost ten years. For some people, that’s as inconceivable as not eating bread. (I don’t do that either. But that’s another story.)

When we moved into our new/old house, we brought along a television so ancient that if we set it out on the curb with a FREE sign on it, nobody would take it. We shoved the huge clunky thing into the hearth opening of a corner fireplace we didn’t intend to use. Perfect fit. Last winter, at the Half-Price Bookstore, I bought a DVD featuring a selection of four “real fires.” Let me tell you, when I click on the video of natural logs burning with a lively crackling sound, the room actually feels warmer. There’s considerable comfort to be had from even a fake fire. As the fire burns lower, the logs shift and crunch together. After an hour or two…Presto! The whole thing starts over again. Talk about labor-saving devices!

But I digress.

Our tv is hooked up to some sort of converter box, which enables us to receive via rabbit ears fifteen or sixteen channels that transmit through the air. I figure that these channels provide us, at no cost whatsoever, with about 5% of the opportunities NOT to watch television that we would pay for via cable. Talk about saving money!

We Don’t. Watch. Television.

Imagine. No screaming politicians. No screaming newscasters. No screaming comedians. No screaming commercials. Once you master the MUTE button, the OFF button isn’t a big leap. You won’t miss the latest news. There are plenty of other ways to get it. You won’t miss the buzz. I’m convinced that you can know as much as you need to about Game of Thrones without ever watching a minute of it.

I believe that turning off the television is the solution to most of the anxiety in the U. S. Not watching television is the secret to health and happiness.

I know. I know. You just can’t not do it.

Once upon a time, that was the bumper sticker slogan advertising Pawley’s Island, a strip of sand located north of Charleston, South Carolina. At that time, the island, accessible by a low bridge across the marshland, embraced and celebrated its age, history, and lack of modern commercial development. Many cottages were little more than shacks, and there were no stores or high-rise condos.

In 1989, Hurricane Hugo came along and just about wiped the place clean. I know, because I was there, before and after. I’ll save the story of that hair-raising experience for another time. The 1930s era rooming house, Rice Cottage, where we paid a grand total of $15 a night, was knocked cock-eyed, never to recover.

Last time I crossed the bridge to the Pawley’s Island beach road, I noticed that “arrogantly shabby” had been replaced by regular arrogant. Shacks gave way to beach mansions. Vacation rents soared way beyond what our $15 budget was accustomed to. We found our way to another beach up the coast, one with a laidback attitude, where I resumed my career as a Shark’s Tooth Hunter (another story for another day). However, I will always remember Pawley’s Island as my first introduction to the joy of seaside leisure–the friends we made there, the redwing blackbirds perched swaying on the sea oats, the huge pile of boiled shrimp spilled out on newspaper laid on the porch floor for “peel and eat” dinner, the scent of saltwater and the shushing of the surf.  Year after year, it was worth the two-day drive from Kansas City to the coast.

Life moves on, but thankfully the Muse gave me a way to remember those times.

RICE COTTAGE AT PAWLEY’S ISLAND

 

For once, a few words cannot draw the scene
as well as, say, a watercolor would.
The late sun crosswise of an afternoon
defines the sleepy drift of solitude
here on a slanted porch where windy ghosts
rock in the chairs. Abandoned, the beach gear–
umbrellas, towels, shoes, deflated rafts–
awaits its lively human engineer.
Napping somewhere? Distinctions scarcely hold
in this happy, haunted cottage by the sea,
between the habits of the young and old,
where time lends credence to eternity,
where autumn light defies the written word
like love, or the variations of a mockingbird.

 

Barbara Loots
Road Trip

We’ve just come back from three blissful weeks at Blackwater Lake. We’re already figuring out how to clear the calendar for eight weeks in 2017. That will be the longest stretch of time I’ve spent there since I first began going with Bill in 2008. We were dating then, and he told me he owned an island in Canada. I was immediately dazzled by the prospect of a picturesque cottage with evening cocktails and balcony views.

True love ensued. Good thing, too, as Dickinson Island, when he took me there for my trial run, turned out to be a one-acre pile of rock with pine trees and no plumbing. No electricity. No clean linens. No exit without a boat. Discovering the dead mouse in the water bucket could have been the end of the romance. But no.  

I passed the “test” and eventually married the man. Dickinson Island, it turns out, is where my Muse resides. When I go there, I write stuff. It is a refuge off the grid, where stillness creates big spaces for thought.

SAPPHICS AT BLACKWATER LAKE
 
Early afternoon and the wind goes softer.
Only poplar leaves have a way to whisper.
Somewhere waves are lapping against a rowboat,
thumping a rhythm.
 
Hear it? Here’s the poem you think you came for,
speaking artless syllables. Never mind your
inspiration. Something is making music
better than you are.
 
Song goes deep at Blackwater Lake. The burr of
insects eating into the fallen pine trees,
sparrows, bumblebees in the tangled bushes
back of the cottage.
 
You can hear the hummingbird long before she
swerves in view, a thrumming of small propellors.
Listen. Listen. This is the earth’s own poem
perfect and wordless.
 
Barbara Loots
Published in I-70 Review Summer/Fall 2013

Back in the 70s when I first began publishing poems, I subscribed to a “little magazine,” a poetry journal called The Lyric. I still do. This magazine, now approaching its 100th year in publication, calls itself “An Oasis in an Arid Age”–referring to the fact that it prints mainly traditional poetry, often written by people with other things to do in life, like working as accountants or engineers or medical technologists. No academic stuffiness here at all.

In the pages of The Lyric, I met a poet named Gail White. I wrote her a fan letter–still in the days of snail mail–and received an immediate reply. How many hundreds of letters have shuttled between Kansas City and Louisiana in the decades since then! In recent years, we’ve fallen back on the expediency of e-mail. Too bad, as capturing the “literary correspondence of two poets of the late 20th century” will be made that much more difficult for some future graduate student. Never mind. There’s plenty of material available. Gail and I clicked, as poets and as friends. By now we’ve met in person on a few occasions, and we’re still friends.

In her most recent book, Catechism, published by Kelsay Books/White Violet Press Buy Here , she includes a “joint effort”–a poem created when Gail invited me to add the second stanza to her first.

BROTHER DOG, SISTER CAT

 

Dog is dumber than a TV husband,
trusting as a cuckold in a Shakepeare play,
faithful as a nineteenth century butler,
sentimental as a drunk on New Year’s Day.

 

Cat is cagey as a fortune teller,
loopy as a starlet in a nineteen-thirties role,
sensuous as smoke around a stripper,
elusive as conviction in the soul.

 

Gail White and Barbara Loots

Reproduced by permission

 

You can’t cook up the magical properties of a friendship like this. It just happens. Gail and I have sometimes bemoaned the vagaries of fame (never mind fortune) in the literary community. But we’ve never failed to encourage, enlighten, and entertain each other as we pursued our poetry lives.

So…write a fan letter today. You never know.