Occupyeveryskinnytree

A Dwelling

--And in the central valley, 

people were dreaming of peaches.

Starlings at the scalloped edges off new blossoms.

In the night orchards,

the dreamer walked over hot coals with the poems

and made creation seem effortless--there!

What do you fear in a poem?

(I fear the moment of excess, as in March,

when oxalis comes out all in one day.)

What do you fear in the poem?

(I fear that moment of withholding--

especially inside what I thought was free;

and I feared the poem was just like her,

that it would abandon me--)

--So the poem is the story of the writing of itself.

In the white tent of the psyche

or out there in the normal fog:

the mockingbird all spring:

she looked just like a note herself, 

each bit of music slipping past her

till it stopped--

each time one note missing; 

it wasn't exactly a failure on her part,

she just needed something to do tomorrow.

Same thing with the poem. Perhaps

an idea came with it, an idea of fourness, the yellowness

of spring, a certain belief in the completion 

of a plan. Not so now. In your dream

of wholeness, death began.

So, put yourself in the way

of the poem. It needed your willing 

impediment to be written. Remember the lily, 

growing through the heart of the corpse?

You had to be willing to let it through the sunshine

error of your life, 

be willing not to finish it-- 

--Brenda Hillman, from Death Tractates

I just read this article

Poet Bashing Police 

Bob and Brenda have always cared for us this way. My own copy of Death Tractates bears a little inscription from Brenda on the title page: 

"For Abigail--

With many thanks 

for your sequence. 

Best wishes-Brenda 2-1-01" 

What a corny little poem! And in pencil even, in case I should wish to erase it (wince) and thus (gasp) increase the market value of the book...

She gave our class copies of her little collection of pieces about the untimely death of a mentor and then acknowledged that our classwork had helped to pull her out of a writer's block. "I feel like we should pour gatorade over our heads. We won! We won!," She exclaimed in her tiny and potent voice.

So as I read about my dearest Brenda being severely and bodily disrespected, how she told the officers they ought to be at home reading with their children, how Bob described his own bumbling attempts to rescue her... 

Well, the tears just started coming into my eyes and I tried to swallow them but they were just too many for the barricade of reasonable thoughts I tried to pit against them:

"It's not like she's your mother, for Christ's sake! Don't be so attached to the poets, the poems are still in tact..." 

"She has probably been treated worse for less... She probably knew what she was getting herself into. She used to smoke in the shower--only the best of us can manage stuff like that."

"The whole article is about how they both survived the blows and things are going to be just fine. They're up and going to the gym, so that is good."

But each insensitive thought in my mind just endeared the real, annoyingly sensitive me more and more to their sweet faces and genuine kindness, to their impulse to protect and their attempts to fight for the poetic justice they hold so dearly.

I realize I am just afraid to lose their physical presence in the world; I'm afraid I might have to occupy this planet without their bodies 

...and so, of course, I have once again comforted myself with their words.

If you are not in the habit of imbuing everything with ambiguity you may not have yet tried on the idea that Bob's article is quite cleverly titled. Sure, the cops used clubs but Bob and Brenda have called forth a more powerful force all this while: I can't tell you how many times Brenda urged me to "get my writing done." Those cops have another thing coming if they think they can beat Bob at his own game.

I'm taking my emotional response to the idea of beating poets as a sign that I have been trying too hard to dismiss the police brutality against the Occupy movement. I have been trying to keep it all in perspective because I am daily surrounded by terrible abuses of power and the victimization of the impoverished in my midst. I have been so immersed in bringing up the children in the way that they should go that I have not done my best to put myself in the shoes of the protestors, to put myself in the way... 

And all because I was afraid to add to my own already intense sense of powerlessness this new flavor of futility and frustration. What was I afraid my feelings would do?... Have I not yet learned that these frustrations fuel the fire of my best work? Did I forget how much kinetic energy is stored up in my anger?

Good grief.

Since the skinnytree is my way of reaching out and confessing I thought I should send up my little flare of awareness, hoping you will see it and locate yourself nearby... 

I am posting this little piece so as to be held accountable for asking myself again and again about my fears of poems and poets, of losing a mentor and having to put myself in the way when others can not. In the violent times I must not be afraid of my own voice; my pitiful silence may be the one thing I can overcome... and so here it is, tumbling out in lines and circles for everyone to see

I promise I will try my best to put myself in the way of the poem Occupy is writing

for Bob and Brenda and you and me.

It's a funny thing for me to try to understand the Occupy phenomenon.
For the sake of clarity, here is how I see it:
The people who have been ignored would like to take up space in a visible place so that they my hear and be heard as well as see and be seen. If that is indeed the case, then I say every time you remember those folks living in tents in public spaces, punched or pepper sprayed just for being visible, mention them kindly, think of them fondly or even just wonder about what it is they are up to, you have become somewhat preoccupied, if not altogether occupied by their cause.

It took me a little extra time to get on board but now that I am emotionally involved, I welcome your skepticism or praise (whatever you have on hand) and proudly link arms with those hairy wary crazies who are, as one occupykst member put it, "just occupyin' ever'where." 

The skinnytree is officially

Occupied as only it could be,

as the poet said,

"In the white tent of the psyche

or out there in the normal fog:"

I don't often write love songs... usually lamentations

Probably because I am officially and often in mourning when I realize that I have to get up to go to work in the morning whenever I am painfully aware that my birds are growing--they can't help it, even now, as they sleep through the night...

There is always

((a lurch of honesty and the stench)

ketchup in your smile.

You can't wait to tell me the news:

the front page is caught in the arms

of the trees and you are learning the word for branches 

as you learn the words for miracles like orange and autumn and leave.

I am teaching you to blow kisses, to ask for help, 

to refuse forcible apology 

with grace 

as frailties burst forth and limbs fly.

You teach me to 

walk (slowly) and speak (carefully) and to be (sure)

with myself and a song. 

Today

is for you this one page 

in one book is enough;

we will feel the paper of it under our fingers 

chew on the words and then press them out, sending them out 

blowing consonant bubbles into the stillness

seven times (perfectly)

you will finish what I've begun 

and then you will curl and snore a little, mildly, like a wildly exhausted housecat and promise to 

dance when you wake and

morning milk mustaches portend 

muscular strivings to bake a cake of the sand: with ingredients you had on hand

or pry the clothing off a baby doll

and I am ever in mourning that this will not last; 

we will be lost 

to it?

in it?)

tomorrow.

 

we the underpaid: priceless

She said he was a problem.
It's no wonder they call them knitted eyebrows because whenever I knit my eyebrows they tend to be close knit--we're talking an absolutely smartwool sort of knit--because they often hover and cover one pretty damn cold stare.
I didn't care who I was talking to or why; I only thought of the boy. (It was a lot like the day the 5.8 magnitude earthquake hit and I (the cali native) ran inside, past the other adults standing in the doorway for safety, thinking only of the napping 3 and 4 year olds in my care rather than worrying about best thing to do during a DC earthquake).
I ran straight into the crumbling structure of her bias; I was all set to grab this kid and pull him out of harm's way.
"He is not a problem."I said, as if telling her the simple facts. It sounded like I was assuring her he was not allergic to peanuts.
"Well, he has a problem." She was persistent; I'll give her that. She is supposed to be some kind of specialist, afterall.
"I'm sure there are problems. I don't see him as a problem, I don't even see that he has problems. I'm sure there is a problem but it isn't him." We were knee deep in it as though conjugating Spanish verbs.
"Oh, I didn't mean that, I just meant, he's got problems."
And then, thank gawd, some(tiny)one spilled milk or needed a second helping of cheerios and was kind enough to ask for help from me.
+++++
Most of my friends are looking for meaningful employment while they worry their skills are underutilized in service industry positions. I am no exception; I have three very practical master's degrees and the savvy that comes with the nine years I spent working on them them. Still, I am currently working as an assistant teacher due to DC's strict licensure requirements and so find myself among my peers thinking maybe I should have bought $120,000 in lottery tickets instead of degrees. And yet...

I can't help but think maybe, just maybe my cat-like reflexes (cat-like that is when it comes to early childhood advocacy) are not underutilized, not under-appreciated, nor under-rated... by those who need them most.

Maybe, just maybe, it takes a Graduate level certification issued by a California State University system to know the difference between the words "is", "has" and "deals with" when they precede the word "problems". Maybe it takes a Master's level certification in listening to really hear the difference and maybe a 4 year degree in Divinity (though it didn't get me any closer to the divine) has (in fact) prepared me to watch for the opportunity to offer grace in the face of violence, to refrain from hitting a child even when encouraged to do so, to refrain from berating, shaming, or excluding a child at all costs.

If it were easy everyone would be able to do it and if someone were able to put a price tag on it I'd probably be pretty well-paid. It's not easy, it's a rare thing of beauty to have such opportunities to help re-write the story of one little boy. I'm not well paid because the things I am able to do for my little birds are priceless... I've got to remember that. I've just got to. I've got to keep that kind of truth close. I'll go crazy if I don't because it doesn't make sense. (no effing sense). Sometimes the skinnytree is the best way to keep the truth close.

But the good news is this: Just as sure as there is no way these birds or their families will ever repay me for the things I work so hard to accomplish for and with them (thank gawd they won't have to), there is the fact that I reap the glorious and glowing harvest of their affection, trust and respect every day. In all our glory we are everyday pressed-down, shaken together and running over because we are not problems; we are loved. We're open from 7am to 6pm; we're effing here if you need us--especially at nap time.

Call it Pre-K, call it early childhood, call it what you will, but don't call it a problem when we struggle with executive brain functions like impulse control or higher level processing. There are problems we face but we face them together without blame or shame or violence.

And you probably do too. You just have to look very closely, search out the anti-blame, the anti-shame and the anti-violence in you. Follow it's trail the way you watched ants when you were small. When you find a tiny spot of gratitude crawling along your path or defying gravity as it scales the wall near your face (I swear, if you don't see these moments of your own worth you'll go absolutely nuts in this economy and that is a promise).

We the priceless underpaid--sure you're included, welcome aboard--we are not a problem;
we are learning to live
in the problems with patience and creativity. We use our words, not our fists; we apologize a lot and rely on our short-term memories, we drink lots of water and get a nap in if we can.
We are, well, learning to live
in a world riddled with problems all the while assuring each other you are not one of them, I am not a problem either.
We are learning to live
in love, and if you ask me that just means
We are learning to live.

like a bridge...

It was rumored that, at some point, the bridge had railings and so was at least 95% safer than it was looking yesterday. Turns out the railings may have given it the appearance of safety but they would have been misleading...

Months ago we decided we wanted to have some way to mark the transition from the Nursery/Preschool room to the Elementary Age classroom. In preliminary discussion someone brought up a certain concern and I said, "Let's cross that bridge when we get to it." (Jeezee chreezee, I say that a lot. There is a lot of water under my bridges but I expect to keep coming to bridges and crossing them.) She tabled her initial concern and turned the discussion toward a little bridge, a real bridge of wood and woodscrews, somewhere in the attic. "Let's get it down," she said. "Let's use it." The idea was to invite each child to walk across the stage, commencement style. We would add the bridge as an extra element, a simple symbol and have a little fun.

I will admit here and now that if I know one thing about Children's Ministry it is just this: the moment you think you're about to do something just for the fun of it, you've crossed over into dangerous territory. The fun thing usually turns out to be the thing that begins to shore us up with fresh energy with which we actually engage in the event and that is when miracles may be witnessed, amigos. When we look back it is more often than not the fun thing that rises like a flare and explodes with meaning, pointing us back to the moments we ought not neglect.

The bridge was laid of fencing slats, just wide enough for a 5 year old foot to balance upon with space between each slat big enough for such a tiny foot to slip right through. Moreover it was waist high to most of them at its crest. It rose up from the floor in front of the altar like a perfect half circle and they approached it the way they would offer fearful reverence to the ladder behind their new favorite slide. We practiced. They lined up and took turns while their parents rallied amid the pre-service hymnsing.

One bird took off her new orange flower flip flops and left them on the yellow decorative tulle flanking the baptismal font. Earlier that morning she had told her mother this was the most important day of her life. She looked in my face, smiled with her eyes and told me, "I want to do it by myself."
"I'll be here if you fall." I told her and stayed close.

A little boy approached, considered climbing up on all fours. He changed his mind, balanced carefully arms outstretched like the cross behind us and stopped at the top for just a moment. He was suddenly three feet taller and decided to take advantage of this grown up perspective on the sanctuary. When he was done looking around he jumped off, sticking the landing with a thud of sneakers on hardwood.

The next little one took my hand like the daughter of the king and looked down at her feet. She considered where to put each toe and whether it was safe to put her weight down. She stopped before the descent and considered the consequences, should her satin slipper slip. I offered, "I can help you down, my dear." And she accepted by nodding and smiling a smile full of five year old grace and dignity.

Even with the mild chaos that ensued when we invited all their friends, siblings, parents, and teachers up to share the stage they bravely ascended and crossed over to be greeted and welcomed by their elders in faith. I don't know if any of the congregants' blood pressure rose as they watched those little ones carefully, joyously and almost expertly crossing the bridge. I don't know if they were afraid the little ones would fall off and break an arm. I was, at first. But as I watched their little bodies rise on strong legs and strength of will I knew I would not be able to keep them from getting hurt, from falling or failure or anything else in the future.

It's commencement season. And whether you're crossing a stage or not, commencement season is a reminder that circumstances change, people change, life asks us to cross over from one place to the next. We will either go bravely or we won't. We will rush through it, take it all on at once, force ourselves, or we won't. Sometimes we can ignore the meaning in the moments, sometimes we can't. There is no wrong way, but there are choices to make and responsibility to take.
Soon enough I will put on my high heel lady shoes, climb the stairs toward the president, faculty and deans of my graduate school and, even though I told them, "I think I can do this," there is no telling what will happen. I may very well reach out to shake their hands one last time and feel a flood of relief that I didn't have to do it alone.

I've been shaking a lot of hands lately. It isn't easy. Sometimes I just want a familiar face or even just to keep to myself.
Sometimes, just when I am sure I couldn't possibly greet another new face with confidence and a firm grip, just when I think I should be able to be or do on my own, I have to reach out. In those moments I have been reminded that a handshake is a lot like a hand to hold. As soon as I want to shrink back from the forced greetings and scary meetings I have to wonder what good might come if I just reach out my hand. There is a way for the shaking hands to stop the shaking, quaking legs I am standing on... but I don't think I'll ever get to know that way of steady if I can always balance on my own.

Many times I've explained to the families of 5 year olds that it is okay to set expectations a little lower and to take it slow; there are lots of scary things coming up in the near future: torrents of emotion, a deluge of cultural expectations and the raging, rapid influx of adaptations to make or at least consider making... And though I could very well be describing a move across the country, I'm really just describing the first day of kindergarten. There will be lots of bridges and lots of troubled water to cross and lots of times it will be safer to have a friend nearby and take it slow.

My best plan today is to hold hands with friends, shake hands with enemies, and cross the bridges bravely... not all at once but bravely and only as I come to them.

The inte(great)ive project presentation aka: what I look like when I really mean it.

And anyway, if I'm going to be crying on the internets... it might as well show up here too.

Integrative Project Presentations 2011 - Abigail Vizcarra Perez from Mars Hill Graduate School on Vimeo.

The final final

I had one last chance to earn a grade, after five years of working toward my MDiv.
The assignment was called a self evaluation.
It is my best attempt at what the professor required by way of explanation as to how I had interacted with the readings, lectures, classmates.
It turned out much more like a goodbye than I had intended but sometimes a corny title is just the thing for a poem I am proud of.

Saying Goodbye
The birds asked me to dance but
I know they are better suited to fly.
They passed over and told the mountains not to weep, sang them to sleep until
The clouds above them froze
Amply against winter’s invisible edge.
Their pebbles begged to be
carried home—knowing
they are pieces of places
We have been together.
I explain it to the tiniest ones this way:
“You may come to know
It will cost you an ocean,
A species of tree and your old way of listening
To the sounds of rain,
You may come if
you wish to see.”
The dandelions (yellowed teeth flutter) in a southbound wind,
The rhythm of tides beat rocks left to right themselves.
“You may come to find
there are lightening bugs and thunder storms, equally a-fright.
And the grasses grow jealously all year staring
up with the emerald eyes of spring.”
They answer,
Growing is a movement,
and stumbled,
One more salutation.

the question

When you understand,
Do your muscles relax, sinews limpen and skin soften?
Does your heart race, the bow of your smile quicken and quiver?
Do the tiny hairlings on each limb rise up and test
the breeze rushing between us?
Do you knit your brow with needless bewilderment because you are shocked
You finally see what I see and think what I think and
hope that it will fit always as it does right now?

And what do the words sound like, how harshly do they thump against your cochlea, bump against your own,
as they rise from my mouth, worked up and wound round through my bowels, into my throat without getting caught and then sliding between sharp whittled accented tonguing and even sharper teeth..?
Is the intonation atonal or attuned to yours?
What is the nature of being understood and being understanding if you do not understand?
Will we run to meet, across an acre of cultivated crops or spelunk a river bed with stagnant waters alongside,
Are my thoughts and I
A flock of geese migrating,
a pair of bald eagles mating,
one mosquito with malaria waiting,
For you,
For me and you?

Berry picking

Wendell Berry is one of my favorite writers. Sure, he is white, and a male of the species. But there is a tender fight within him that comes shining through on behalf of land and lovers (two of my favorite inventions). So when a man like that has the opportunity to whisper in the President's ear and takes the opportunity to speak well of a woman's love for tending earth, I wonder at all the good that will come of it.

Say what you will about Obama; he is a politician after all. Though I am qualified to accomplish a great many tasks, I am not qualified to cast the first stone upon hypocrites. Furthermore, I know I run the risk of contradicting my previously admitted distaste for folks who take gardening privileges for granted. But Berry's nuanced love for properly tending our land on a grand scale is more closely akin to my concerns than it might seem at first blush.

At the end of an article describing the awards ceremony to honor other artists alongside Mr. Berry, Obama is quoted as having encouraged us thusly:
“We have to remember that our strength as a people runs deeper than our military might; it runs deeper than our GDP — it’s also about our values and our ideals that each generation is called to uphold, and that each artist helps us better understand.”

and I sounded my barbaric yawp accordingly.

You can read the entire article for yourself if you need some good news for a change.

A list for you.

Have I told you about my self-ish theory? It goes like this: The people I experience as selfish always seem to be acting out of a vague sense of what they want and who they want to be. I see them repeat patterns of behavior that infringe on the rights of others in such a way as to assert the fact that they have a self at the expense of those around them. I figure that if these people really had a solid sense of self to work with, they wouldn't have to impinge, infringe and otherwise cross boundaries in unhealthy ways.
I don't know if it will jive with your experience of the world, but it certainly rings true for me.

So in the interest of understanding where my self ends and another person's self begins, or--even better!--where my self begins and another self ends, I have made a little list of lists that anyone might make in order to get to know the self they have, the self they don't and thus be less self-ish (I'm using the suffix "ish" here to delineate dabbling or unfinished: as in, "it's not really brown, but brownish" or "not really nice, only nice-ish"). I for one would much rather have a reliable self, than be only sort of self-ish.

The following is a list of lists I make, sometimes for my self, sometimes all by myself but usually when I feel most self-ish so I can figure out my real self.

things that hurt me
things that heal me
things I know for sure

think(g)s I believe
things I can't do
things I know I can

things that reflect back to me the love I am and have like trees and ladybugs and good stories. Like Jesus cursing the fig tree, giant pancakes and maybe even you)

people I trust and why I trust some things I think about them

Thin(k)gs I need to say and who I'd like to say them to and lastly
if I will.

promises I should have made, and some I wish I hadn't
promises I could have kept and some I wish I didn't

mistakes I'm glad I made and some I wish I had made
but mostly I like to think on things that wake compassion within me and those I love.

There you have it. It's quite a project to get a self, until then self-ish will have to do because I'm not, at the moment, a huge fan of selfless, even though it is highly respected. In my humble opinion it is not often done well and most of the time it isn't entirely necessary and then there are even the times when it is just a disguise anyway...

more poetry for a good cause

I said I'd be here if you need me... and I meant it.
Come hear poems from everyskinnytree at ...

A Benefit Concert for Jackie Stewart Walstead

Jackie Stewart Walstead was recently diagnosed with breast cancer and is undergoing final treatments for chemotherapy. A student at Mars Hill Graduate School, she is completing her final year in the Counseling-Psychology program.

To help her with medical and personal costs, her friends are hosting a concert and silent auction to raise money on her behalf. Please come out and support her as we celebrate her courage.

7:00p-9:30p, February 11th in the MHGS Commons (aka Student Lounge)
There will be a suggested $5 donation at the door.

We are still creating our set list and gathering items to be auctioned.

If you would like to participate, please contact Catherine Golden (catgold123@gmail.com), Grant Guiley (gguile85@gmail.com) or Colleen Barrows (colleenbarrows@gmail.com) for more information.

Performing... Musicians: Holly Grigsby, Robert Deeble, John Hardt,
Poet: Abigail Vizcarra Perez

Partial list of Items to be auctioned:

Jewelry by Colleen Barrows
Photography by Talitha Bullock
2 tickets to the Intiman Theater
Handmade journal by Mike Menconi
Videography by Eratosthenes Fackenthall
Portrait Session by HMJ Photography
Artwork by Chris Ramsdale
Photography by Josh Longbrake