On Poetry (Or, My thing for poets named Robert)

I’ve written many poems in my life, but I’m not a poet. What I mean to say is that I see myself as a writer, a storyteller…not a poet. But I’d like to take this time to share with you two poems that inspired me at different times in my youth. They’ve always stuck with me, for very different reasons.

The impetus for writing this blog today is that I’ve just come across a child’s book of poetry (amongst the many “outgrown” books in my son’s home library), and this book is on the poetry of Robert Louis Stevenson. It has the first of my favorite poems, the one I fell in love with circa age seven, when I appreciated the theme for the simple childhood fancy it was: The Swing.

How do you like to go up in a swing,

Up in the air so blue?

Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing

Ever a child can do!

Up in the air and over the wall,

Till I can see so wide,

Rivers and trees and cattle and all

Over the countryside –

Till I look down on the garden green,

Down on the roof so brown –
Up in the air I go flying again,

Up in the air and down!

Reading that poem now, I think I also like it because of its metaphor for life. Most people compare life to a roller coaster, but in my experience, life is more like a swing – with the beautiful moments never lasting long enough and the terrible moments thankfully disappearing just as quickly. Back and forth I go, up and down, seeing great expansive vistas and then small comforting sights, again and again, on my swing of life.

The second poem of my heart is by another Robert – Robert Frost. I read it in S.E. Hinton’s book, The Outsiders, when I was about twelve years old. By that age, I had become a bit too introspective for my own good and had already developed a heightened sense of sentimentality for the passage of time. So this poem touched me: Nothing Gold Can Stay.

Nature’s first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf’s a flower,

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay.

Need I say more? Even today, reading these words makes my throat tighten up as I get all sappy realizing that my babies haven’t been babies for many years now. I also realize how similar Stevenson and Frost’s themes actually are, which is probably what has cemented them so firmly in my memory.

This leads me to share with you one final poem, which I wrote in high school after being inspired by Frost’s above-mentioned poem. I copied the meter but made this one my own: The Dreamer Knows No Sadness (by Wendy Minsker aka Wendy Ramer).

As the dreamer wastes her day,

Reality far away,

She realizes not her crime

In wasting precious time.

So many things she’ll miss,

Caught in her world of bliss,

Ignoring the truth and madness,

The dreamer knows no sadness.

I still love this poem for all the innocence and wisdom I tried to portray when I wrote it in the heat of adolescence. In one way, I am that dreamer. Sadly enough, in another way I am not, letting pragmatism and reality steal from me what could be beautifully blissful moments.

And sometimes that part of me really brings me down. Because as I swing through my life, I am constantly reminded that nothing gold can stay.

*****
For those who read On Truth or Lies (4/1/10), I just found the picture of me as the temporary maid-of-honor. Check the post to see the annoyed bride and me.

On Childhood Homes (Or, Say What You Need to Say)

The window was too high, so I climbed onto the air conditioning compressor next to the abandoned house. I felt adventurous, though it doesn’t take much at middle-age.

When I peered in the window, I knew I would find the kitchen.

What I didn’t know was how suddenly my insides would tighten and then spring loose, sending a knot of pressure into my throat that took my breath away.

The abandoned house was my house, the one I had grown up in but was forced to leave in 1992 when Hurricane Andrew ripped it apart. I had heard it had since been put back together and occupied by two different owners. Now it was deserted, a torn “Final Eviction” notice still taped to the front door.

Nostalgia is a strong and confusing feeling, even more potent than joy, I believe, and certainly more complex. As I walked around the outside of the house, cursing whoever was responsible for the sunburned grass cracking beneath my sneakers, I peered into all the windows. I felt sad. And angry. My house was so exposed, so naked, so vulnerable. And so dead. I found it hard to believe that anyone had ever lived there, even me.

It was a long time ago that I left that house. It had actually been my parents who stayed there until 1992. That house had stopped being my base years earlier, when I had moved into my own apartment in an attempt to be an adult. But even when the house was not my base, it had always been my anchor.

I peered into my bedroom window, which faced the front of the house, and then turned to look at the white convertible whose engine purred softly in the driveway. It belonged to my childhood friend, Jennifer, whom I had come to visit that day, for the first time in a very long time. Too long.

I had heard the house was “on the market”, though buyers seemed not to be chomping at the bit to pick it up, and Jennifer suggested we drive by to see what I could see. And oh, what I could see.

I saw my purple bedroom walls decorated with a Richard Gere poster alongside my horse paraphernalia. Now those walls were white.

I saw the apple green carpet littered with album covers (Styx’s Paradise Theater, REO Speedwagon’s High Infidelity, Journey’s Escape) as Jennifer and I decided which music to rock to on our sleepover. Now the floor was tiled in beige marble.

I saw my banana-yellow, rotary-style telephone, the one on which I spent countless hours chatting with Jennifer, my other girlfriends, and some of the adolescent loves of my life, all now grown with children who would never know what to do with a rotating phone dial.

As Jennifer sat patiently in her car, the sun beating down on her long wavy hair, she suddenly looked like the sixteen-year-old version of herself instead of the forty-three-year-old mother of teenagers. I realized how much I missed her. I didn’t miss the past. Lord knows – and so does Jennifer – that it wasn’t always pretty. I didn’t even miss that old house so much. I simply missed my friend.

I didn’t say much as I climbed back into the car and allowed Jennifer to take me away from that house, driving me down my street, away from my past. She turned on the radio to a classic rock station, and the song just starting to play was Feels Like the First Time by Foreigner. (I am not making this up; it’s too corny for that.) It was the first rock concert Jennifer and I ever attended, in the now demolished Miami Orange Bowl.

That is when I cried. For what felt like many minutes but was probably less than one, I sobbed for times lost and, more importantly, for missing friendship. Jennifer, to her credit, said nothing while I bawled.

Finally composing myself, I announced very matter-of-factly that she and I had to see each other more often. Jennifer agreed. I then told her that I missed her.

She let out an “Aw”, so obviously trying to hide her own tears that were swiftly being blown away by the summer breeze. “I miss you, too.” Which made me think of a present-day song by John Mayer, who sings that you should say what you need to say.

I’m glad that I did.

On UPS Drivers (Or, The New Stewardesses and Mailmen)

Tanned skin, sexy smiles, lean legs, and such excellent service providers. Those of my parents’ generation might think I was describing airline stewardesses, who were always associated with glamour, sex appeal, and great service in the sky. But as their titles have changed to flight attendants to reflect a more politically correct climate, I dare to propose that their place in American culture has been usurped by those drivers of the brown trucks, in their matching brown collared shirts and coordinated brown shorts. Yes, I am talking about those UPS guys.

The other day, I was looking at a photo of my friend’s son. “He looks nothing like his father,” I commented.

My friend agreed.

“Are you sure your husband is the father?” I teased.

“Well, my baby looks nothing like the mailman,” my friend responded.

“Ah,” I jumped in, “but does he look like the UPS driver?”

She laughed, seeming to share my belief that not only have those hard-working drivers surpassed flight attendants in sex appeal, but perhaps they have also replaced mailmen in their infamy as the cure for the housewife blues.

Before I go any further, I must say that I have never been a victim of such blues, or browns. Nor am I implying that UPS drivers, any more so than other drivers, are busy sleeping with their package recipients.

I also recognize that there are surely female UPS drivers out there, though I haven’t seen any, but I am focusing here on the men because, well, just because it’s fun to be a bit sexist from time to time.

I’ve always noticed, on a subtle level, that UPS drivers seemed to be more handsome than their FedEx counterparts, which makes no statement whatsoever about either carrier’s ability to deliver their goods. But the discrepancy became more blatant to me the other day while sitting at a red light of a major intersection. As I approached my red light, I couldn’t help notice the plethora of UPS trucks. As I drove past one and then another (eventually I counted six, no kidding!), I peeked into the front cabin to see if my theory of the sexy drivers could be proven, rather unscientifically, I realize.

I was not disappointed.

One truck after the other was occupied by a driver so attractive that not even the poop-brown uniform could dull those shiny boys. I wondered what brown could do for me as I drove slowly, appreciating the beauty being presented literally on display. I momentarily questioned UPS’s hiring practices but then turned my thoughts to God. Thank you, I whispered, for creating such beauty on this planet.

At this point, you may be saying to yourself, Wendy is nothing more than a middle-aged woman fawning over young men in uniform.

Well, let me tell you that I am no such cliché. I’ve been told that the 40s are the new 20s, which means I am not middle-aged. As for the men in uniform argument, okay, maybe I have a thing for brown. It is a power color, isn’t it?

What really matters here is that whether or not UPS openly hires based on physical attractiveness (which I would never be able to prove, nor is it a legal battle I would tackle), it’s simply nice to know that the next time I order something over the Internet or am due to receive birthday gifts from around the country, I can look forward to having my package – no sexual pun intended – delivered with the utmost care and with a sexy service-with-a-smile driver.

As a matter of fact, I think I’ll go shopping online right now.