The Circus Animals' Desertion II

"The Circus Animals' Desertion II"

In the first stanza of "The Circus Animals' Desertion," Yeats writes:

I sought a theme and sought for it in vain
I sought it daily for six weeks or so.
Maybe at last, being but a broken man,
I must be satisfied with my heart, although
Winter and summer till old age began
My circus animals were all on show
...that burnished chariot,
Lion and woman and the lord knows what.

Yeats looks back on his former poems with an element of regret. He seems to think that, like a circus, his early work was all for show. Yeats wants to find a way back to the true heart of his work.

My little drawing is of the chariot, the lion, and the woman, as well as a few circus animals. The clownish goat is my favorite, so I will probably put him in every picture I draw in this series.

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On another note: it has been so cold today. Last night, high winds shook the icy trees. All night ice shards were hurled against the house. The dogs were very upset by all the wild noise. I've never seen weather exactly like this before. It has just been a bitter, bitter night and day.

At around 7 a.m. our electricity went out and stayed off all day. It wasn't restored until almost 7 p.m. We heat with wood, so we were fairly warm, although the temperatures continued to drop through the day until it was below zero. The wind sucked the warmth out of this old house and before we knew it our pipes were starting to freeze in the bathrooms. This is not a problem we usually have. We caught the problem just in time.

21/50

Another big snowstorm is on its way, Mojo.

On Tuesday night, Allen and I went to Toledo to see The Lion King. The play didn't start until eight p.m., and by mid-afternoon, it was sleeting. The sleet completely covered our windows on one side of the house. We also had to vote in the primary, so we left the house a little after five.

I don't know when I have seen the road conditions so bad. It continued to sleet well into the evening.

We did make it to the play safely. What an amazing experience. I will always remember the man sitting in front of us. He was probably about sixty. He was enthralled as a child becomes enthralled, his hands up to his face, silently clapping.

The tickets were expensive for us, but they were worth every penny.

After the play, we went to the only place we could find open, a bar named Frickers. We ate big fat hamburgers and drank cold beer. I wept because the play was just so beautiful, just so beautiful.

We didn't leave the bar until after two a.m. By then it was snowing. The roads were completely covered. Hardly anyone was out and about. It was like the whole world was asleep or that almost everyone else in the world had vanished. There were no snow crews scraping the roads.

We arrived home and then got stuck in our own driveway.

Changes

Drama of Life and Death. Theresa Williams. Collage.

I look back at the person I was when I first started blogging and I feel she is very different from the person I am now. Once the blog fulfilled a need I had to figure out who I was artistically. I'd pushed a book out into the world but felt lost about my where to go next with my writing. I was full of doubts. I felt bogged down in my academic work. I was trying to find myself artistically and professionally.

Lately, I've been thinking about quitting the blog. I've been thinking I don't need it anymore. I'm starting to feel grounded in my writing life. My teaching excites me in ways it hasn't for a long time. I have more ideas for stories than I will ever be able to write in a lifetime. I've found out why I write and why I write about what I write about. Many of the friends I started out with in the blogging world have disappeared. Their interests, too, have changed, and they don't come here anymore. I feel a pulling away where I once felt a strong connection to others out there. This place is visited less all the time; the comments are sparse. It may be time for a change. That may mean it's time for me to quit.

On the other hand, I don't want to be a quitter. I need to sort through my feelings about all this.

If I stay, this blog will no doubt change from what it has been. It may become more an academic exploration of subjects I'm interested in, a beginning place for some things I'd like to flesh out. It may become more about my teaching, too, than it once was. I just don't know.

I'm staying for now. I'm thinking it over. I'm thinking out loud. I probably shouldn't mention it, really, but if I don't, then I'm perpetuating a sort of lie and holding it inside myself, and that has never been good for me.

Classes start on Monday. I have finished all three of my syllabi, and there are many new people who will come into my life once again. We will go on a voyage together and hopefully create bonds, and good memories.

I am going to California in September, to Big Sur, to teach workshops at Esalen again. It was overcast today, breezy. The humidity was low, the air crisp and cool. Such days make me feel alive.

I read an entire book this afternoon and evening, something I haven't done in a long time. I've been picking up books for weeks and only been able to tolerate them in short bursts. My thoughts slide away and I have to put the books aside. But I read Ianthe Brautigan's memoir straight through today. It is about how she dealt with the suicide death of her famous father, Richard Gary Brautigan. I ordered the book after doing a short review at a book group at Library Thing called books compared. Doing the review made me curious about Richard Brautigan again. I have always felt a strange connection to him, a connection I've welcomed but that has always made me a bit uneasy, too. Doing the review and reading Ianthe's book, You Can't Catch Death, makes me want to write about the connection I have with Brautigan as an attempt to understand it.

I've met some new friends at Library Thing. I even started a group over there called Art is Life. I've looked in on message boards and groups before and have been frankly appalled at what I saw: a lot of cruelty, sniping at each other, and worthless conversation. I've never seen a group I wanted to belong to. But people at Library Thing are more like I am, I feel. I am at home there.

I'm not quitting the blog yet. I haven't decided yet what to do. That is the truth.

Another Snow Day

Top Photo: The VW sits in a cradle of snow.
Middle Photo: Rock wall, fallen limb.
Bottom photo: Big foot at the opening of the shop door. Allen had to dig out from around the door; all the cats were trapped inside!

BGSU shuts down another day for snow. This is unprecedented! The sun is out today, snow is piled high in drifts, old limbs are down, snapped by the wind.

Snow Day

Top photo: Our blackberry orchard

Bottom Photo: Our snowy field

Because this is snow country, BGSU rarely cancels classes because of weather. I've been at BGSU since 1987 and I can remember classes being canceled only twice, and that was just the evening classes. Today classes are canceled all day because of snow and wind. All told, they say we should be getting 8 to 10 inches of snow. But biggest factor is the wind. The blowing snow makes driving conditions near-impossible. Just a few minutes ago, I asked Allen to step outside and take some pictures of our yard. The storm is just getting cranked up. More photos to follow...

Baby, it's cold outside.

Photo: Our house.

I lived in the South until I was 30. When I lived there, I thought icicles were those silver things people put on Christmas trees.

How Cold Is It?

That is frost on the inside of the window in my computer room.