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The Haircut

Lately, I’ve been writing a lot of poetry. Here’s one about my son and his recent haircut.

Yesterday, my son got his hair cut
for the first time in more than three years.
Well, that’s not quite true.
He’s had it “trimmed” several times.

And cut, very badly, once.
But that was only an inch or two.
This time, he had it shaved off
the sides.
And cut short on top.
Almost like the young George McFly but much cooler, I think.
Which I guess means it’s not cool at all because I’m almost 43 and he’s 14.
A pile of hair on the floor of the salon.
How many inches?
6? 8?
Seems like a foot.
That’s how much he’s grown since he’s had short hair.
At first I wasn’t sure if I liked it.
His head seemed tiny, untethered from the mop that made him a twin to Cousin It.
But when we got home and he turned and looked back at me,
standing there in the sun on our deck, I saw
my 4 or 6 or 8 year old son but with a man’s face.
Warm fragments of discarded moments,
the ones that had seemed lost forever,
came rushing back.
Such a beautiful feeling!
But the boy had only returned
to become acquainted with an older self.
A deeper-voiced version
that looks the same, but not quite.
And who doesn’t act the same at all,
except for sharing a similar caring disposition and unflappable spirit
that had grown harder to notice in-between the loud fake burps and
screeches and all that hair.
That thick, long, unruly hair
that covered his face like a mask or a shield.
Gone.
No hair to hide behind.
Now, a face.
Such a beautiful face!
I try not to stare, but it’s hard
not to look and marvel at what I’m witnessing:
time passing.
Then he notices me and stares back,
flaring his eyes and sticking out his tongue.
A boy again, but not for long.

Turning a Running Log Entry Into an Erasure Poem

For the month of April, I’ve been turning my running log entries into erasure poems. First I write an entry about my run. Then, after a few minutes, I reread the entry, looking for words or phrases that stand out to me and then I add in some html (<span class=”erased”>) to erase the words that I don’t want to use. Yesterday’s poem was unexpectedly dark, but revealed some of my ambivalent feelings about running alone in more isolated areas.

I don’t know that much about erasure poems, but I think that they are usually created out of found text written by someone else (a newspaper article or a page from a book, for example). I’m using my own text, but text that was created for a different purpose. It’s amazing to me how frequently these erasure poems reveal feelings, ideas, underlying themes of mine that I didn’t realize I was communicating. Pretty cool.

Hover over the log entry to reveal the erasure poem. For more on this poem, see An Unexpected Erasure.

54 degrees
mississippi river road path north

Ran in the rain. Didn’t mean to. Thought front had passed. It hadn’t. At the start, everything was just wet, still dripping from the heavy drizzle that had been going on all morning. Feeling the water on my nose, thought it was more dripping, then realized it had started to rain again. I don’t mind running in the rain, especially when I have on my favorite baseball cap and a jacket. Then I hardly notice it.

Not too far from the start of my run on the river road path, the walking/running path dips below the road, down to the ridge of the gorge. In the summer, when the leaves have returned to the trees, it’s a sea of green and nothing else. But from late October until mid-May, the trees are mostly bare. You can see how the earth steeply slopes down to a small bit of woods, with a floor of dirt and dead leaves and a worn path that leads to the river and a sandy beach. You can reach this path by walking down some stone steps that are closed during the winter. I remember the first time I finally noticed this section of the path. It was during early spring a few years ago, after the snow had melted but before anything had started to grow again. It was early morning and a fog was lingering on the tree branches. It was eerie and beautiful. A month or so later, my daughter discovered the steps, which had always been there, in plain sight, but I had ignored, and we hiked down them to the river. Now, it’s one of my favorite places. Today, there wasn’t fog there, just a soft, steady rain, but it was still beautiful. The grayish light made the colors of the early spring trees more intense: a rich brown mixed with vibrant shades of light green. It reminded me of some of the illustrations in one of my favorite books as a kid: Oh What a Busy Day! by Gyo Fujikawa.

Mundane things to note from the run: maybe due to the rain, my watch stopped tracking my run 1.26 miles in. My left leg started to feel heavy again, towards the end of the run. I probably should take at least two days off to let it rest. The wind was bad, about 17 or 18 mph. Running north, it was at my back. When I turned around, it swirled around me and then pushed the rain in my face.

The Bumble/bee

Prompted by an experiment from Please Add to this List, my daughter and I composed the following poem “from the perspective of a disjointed bee.”

The Bumble/bee

a story about a bee who lost her bumble but not herself.

The sisters three
have lost their bee.
While flying free
it hit a tree
then took a tumble
and lost its bumble.

What can they do?
They could find some glue.
Crush it with a shoe?

The bee laments:
oh woe is me,
who, flying free,
hit that big tree,
and lost my bee
that is, the bumble
that makes me rumble
and keeps me humble.

Once I fell
I could tell
all was not well
the world was not right
day turned into night.
But, despite my fright
,
I look in the tree
where I hope to see
the bumble for me,
the disjointed bee.

When I took that bad tumble
and lost my poor bumble
I started to mumble,
What am I to do or to be?
Suppose I fly free?
But with no bumble, am I a bee?

Without that fine bumble, am I bee?
Am I flea?
Am I still me?
Oh, how can this be?

Wait,
why look this way?
Oh, you’ve found it. I say!

The oldest sister confidently responds:
I know what to do
just bring me some glue
.
We’ll fix it up quick
.
This should do the trick!

The bee has some doubts:
Will I ever be the same
with this bumble that’s lame?
Can I be called by my name?

The middle sister chimes in:
Don’t worry, dear bee
.
Glue worked on my knee!

The youngest adds:
Well, there’s option two:
crush with a shoe!

Wait! What? Please!
I can swing through the trees.
I don’t care if I stumble
and I won’t miss the rumble.
Just let me be free
as the bumble-less bee!

Fine, fine, the sisters relented
.
And 2 of them meant it.
But the third she did not
and out like a shot
her arm brandished a shoe
and quickly it flew
right at the bee
who was able to flee
because having no bumble
and being liable to fumble
doesn’t matter when you still have your wings.

An Experiment for Class

I’m taking a wonderful poetry class based on Bernadette Mayer and the book, Please Add to this List. Here’s a experiment that I did for it:

Make a work out of continuously saying, in a column or list, one sentence or line, over & over in different ways, until you get it “right” (page 11).

Background: Last summer I was diagnosed with Best’s disease, a form of macular dystrophy. Objects that appear in my central vision often look fuzzy and out of focus. I’ve been trying to figure out ways to describe what and how I see. In January, I wrote about my vision in my running log.

I want to rework the following two parts of the log in a slight variation of the Please Add to this List experiment:

  1. A gray day. Warmish, but gloomy. Days like today make it hard for me to see. It’s not really dark outside, just overcast. But because of my macular dystrophy, overcast feels a lot darker. And it makes everything look fuzzy, like I’m seeing it through a slightly dirty piece of plastic.
  2. I wish I could articulate the sense of disconnection I feel when my sight is fuzzy. It’s as if I’m running in my own bubble.

A Gray Day, Eight Versions

version one: A gray day. Gloomy. Days like today make it difficult for me to see. It’s not really dark outside, just overcast, but because of my macular dystrophy, overcast feels a lot darker. And it makes everything look fuzzy, like I’m seeing it through a slightly dirty piece of plastic or running in my own bubble.

version two: An overcast day. Not dark, but gray and because I have macular dystrophy, gray seems a lot darker. It makes everything look fuzzy, like I’m seeing it through a slightly dirty piece of plastic. I feel like I’m running in my own bubble.

version three: An overcast day. Not dark, but gray. With my macular dystrophy, gray seems a lot darker. Makes everything look fuzzy, like I’m seeing it through a slightly opaque piece of plastic. I feel disconnceted from the path and other runners, like I’m running in my own bubble.

version four: A gray day. Not dark, just gray. But with my macular dystrophy, gray is dark. Everything looks fuzzy, not quite formed and not quite there, as if I’m looking through a slightly opaque piece of plastic. I feel separated from the path and other runners, like I’m running in my own bubble.

version five: A gray day. With my macular dystrophy, gray days make it difficult to see. Everything looks fuzzy, not quite formed and not quite there. And everything in my central vision—the trees, the path, the people running towards me—don’t quite seem real or part of my world. It’s as if I’m looking at them through a slightly opaque piece of plastic, like I’m running in a bubble.

version six: A gray day. WIth my macular dystrophy, gray days make it difficult to see. It all looks fuzzy, not quite formed and not quite there. The things that first appear in my central vision—the trees up ahead, the path, the people running towards me—don’t quite seem real or part of my world. It’s as if I’m looking at them through plastic, like I’m running in a bubble.

version seven: A gray day. With my macular dystrophy, gray days make everything look fuzzy, not quite formed and not quite there. Objects that first appear in my central vision—the trees, the path, the people running towards me—don’t seem real or part of my world. It’s as if I’m looking at them through a slightly opaque piece of plastic, like I’m running in a bubble.

version eight:
A gray day makes everything look fuzzy
not quite formed
not quite there.
The trees, the path, the people running towards me
aren’t real
aren’t really there, 
in my world
where I’m running in a bubble,
watching through slightly opaque plastic.

Who are you?*

*reference to The Who song unintentional but appreciated.

Before reflecting on the question in the title of this post, an update: As usual, I have too many projects going on at once. For me, the danger of doing creative work is that it’s too stimulating. Too many ideas. Too many possibilities. Too many things to read, to write, to wonder about.

My main project is run!. As I train for my first marathon in the fall of 2017, I’m writing about running, tracking and studying as many ways as possible that other runners tell stories/write about running and reading about the relationship between running and writing/creating and running as prayer. As part of this project, I’m also in the final week of an online poetry class in which I’m experimenting with different ways to write while running. I’ve recorded my self reflecting as I’m running and composing a poem while running up a steep hill. I’ve crafted a poem in question form, drawing from details in my running log. And I’ve created 3 erasure poems using 3 of my running log entries. Check the poetry out here: run.sarapuotinen.com/my-running-stories

In addition to working on my run! project, I’m periodically revisiting my teaching portfolio and undisciplined dossier project. As I’ve moved on to other projects, I’ve lost my way a bit with this one. The question that motivated the project was, Am I a Teacher?, with the implied answer: yes, but…in ways that I still need to figure out and that are undisciplined and unconventional. Now, I’m not so sure. I feel more like a writer, a storyteller, an artist (of sorts). Where does that leave my project?

And, I’m redesigning my sites and experimenting with how to use my main site, undisciplined, to highlight my creative projects. Speaking of my main site, I’m working on a new version of the “about me” page that includes my various identities: Sara, undisciplined, ex-academic, storyteller and troublemaker. I’m calling it, “Who are you?,” which is a question partly inspired by Judith Butler and her book, Giving an Account of Oneself. Here’s what I’ve written so far:

Who are you?

I imagine this question as a demand to give an account, but also an invitation to experiment with crafting some answers.

Who do I think I am?*
What have I done?
What am I doing here?

*When I imagine these as demands, I often place a “just” at the beginning of each question.

Who are you?
An accusation and an opportunity
to leave a trace,
to bare some responsibility,
to weave a few stories.

Who am I? I am