an assured completeness

1\  what work is
the past few weeks have been about adjusting to our new schedule as a family. bryan started work at the library, working in the evenings. since i was already the one who did zuzu's bedtime schedule, it hasn't been hard on her but i do miss the time bryan and i were able to spend together after zuzu went to bed. we've been working on being good stewards of our time when we are all home together--putting away the computer, turning off the tv, and heading out to the park or downtown. now that the weather isn't beastly hot we've started going out to stroll by the river, which i had missed terribly this summer.

it has been great for bryan to be back in a regular job. he went a month without anything after what happened with his last church, and he was getting very restless. i love that we're both working for the school and he has always liked working as a librarian.

teaching this semester has been so much easier than it was last semester. its nice teaching classes i've taught before, not everything is so very new. i ended up having six in the class and they are all so talented. i can't wait to see how their work blossoms over the semester.

i'm also co-advising the literary magazine this year. i could've taken it over entirely but i want to take a year to see how the current teacher advises it, so that i can make sure to do it right. our literary magazine is the oldest publication of the schools--its been going since the 1836!--but hardly any students know about it. we're working on awareness, and on building up our staff. i think that the magazine has a lot of potential.


2\ locomotion
we're a one car family now--bryan's explorer bit the dust. its fixable but the car is worth less than it would cost to fix it, so we've got it parked in the clearing (our land is wooded) until we can afford another car to trade it in for. we're thinking we'll just be a one car family as long as we can make it work--hopefully another couple of years. we live close to the school where we both work so on days bryan wants to take zu to the park or something, i'll just walk to work (or maybe get a bike!). right now zuzu is too little to play on the playground much so its worked out ok with me taking the car.

on sundays, tuesdays and thursdays i've started running/jogging/hobbling along as fast as i can (not very). bryan goes in at  five on those days, so i have a few hours before zu goes to bed. no impressive distances or times to report--i'm just happy to be getting active regularly. and zu enjoys being paraded up and down the street.


3\ my formal education
the form class ended this week. i enjoyed it so much, i wish it went on another year. i've written a villanelle, pantoum, sestina, ghazal, and gigan, and also learned about the blues poem, triolet and bop forms. i never had the courage to truly tackle form before i had the encouragement of that class. there is something immensely satisfying about form--an assured completeness that i don't always have in free verse, where the form is my own invention.  i'm so glad that bryan convinced me to take this class, and i plan to do more work in form, particularly the sestina, pantoum and villanelle.

while i'm here i might as well share the happy news--32 Poems accepted my poem "What to Wear"! its not really a poem about fashion even though it sounds like maybe it is. it is a poem that i wrote when i was in a nervous and sad disposition. it was one of those rare poems direct from the muse to the writer--i sat down and wrote it start to end, sent it out, and it was accepted the first place I sent it, 32 Poems.  i wish it happened like that every time--the effortless outpouring straight to the page.