Bedtime at the Ballard House

Some Satan worshipper gave Bella a watch as a late Christmas Present today…

Mom its 8:57….Mom it’s 8:59…Mom it’s 9:02…now it is 9:03

and I think the damn thing is water proof so I can’t even wash it by mistake.

 
 

Perhaps my life is nothing but an image of this kind; perhaps I am doomed to retrace my steps under the illusion that I am exploring, doomed to try and learn what I should simply recognize, learning a mere fraction of what I have forgotten.

I myself shall continue living in my glass house where you can always see who comes to call, where everything hanging from the ceiling and on the walls stays where it is as if by magic, where I sleep nights in a glass bed, under glass sheets, where who I am will sooner or later appear etched by a diamond- Andre Breton, Nadja

There was a time when I would have claimed this as my own. I recognize myself, wave to her, as if she is across the room but I no longer have a need to live in glass. No longer consider it that fragile—my ability.

Today oak is a good way to begin. I am ready for the uneven language of trees, the bare floor. I am ready for my wood house, my fire, the orchard and the clutter of children. I am ready in a way I have never been before. It is exciting to be solid and yes, terrifying.

Today: An interesting article in Poetry about Women’s Poetry, it very definition, existence, survival. I will write more when I know more.

Alice Munro’s new book Runaway. The first story made me cry and question—that’s always a good sign.

There are ten white tulips by my bed. A cup of rose tea which comes in a clear packet with rose petals, plum blossoms, sugar cubes. It is Chinese. I cannot tell you where to buy it b/c you do not live here. You just point and smile, the older woman who sells it, will also point and smile. You don’t speak the same language but you both understand.

This is the year where I have said your name three times---

I no longer live in a glass house.

amen

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Recently someone asked me, "What do you look for in an ally, Rob?" Here's what I said: "I favor people who take responsibility for their unripe qualities and don't spew their undigested angst on me when they're feeling low." I think this approach should become a priority for you, Leo. In 2006, you will have striking opportunities to upgrade your relationship to relationships. One of the best ways to do that is to give special preference to connections with emotionally intelligent people who work hard to transmute their own darkness.

Note to self: do not play red rover with girl power class after you’ve eaten lunch b/c you are almost forty (38) and when you run really fast it makes you want to puke. Okay, when you ran really fast at twelve, it did the same thing but it sounds better now.

I am hopefully going out with the dancing blogger boy tonight. You know who he is. I don’t know whether to wear my new cute plaid skirt with black leather boots or my new purple velvet pants. Yes, velvet. My preschoolers are going to go wild when I wear them to teach. I know it’s wrong to wear your dancing clothes to work but I can’t help myself.

So if you are in Minneapolis tonight, if you see some wild poets (one wearing black boots, another wearing a hard hat) well say hello and join the party.

 
 

girl power

I have been teaching girl empowerment workshops all day. Sometimes I really think I should be paying them and not the other way around. I mean, I get to sit in a room with twelve girls and discuss all the great things about being a girl, about personal truth, private space and every topic is a big post it note in my head: Trust yourself Teresa

Today I played the girls a Dar Williams Song, I was a boy and the song Popularfrom the Wicked C.D. Both are brilliant songs. We discussed what the word strength means, how some people call girl strength “boyish.” When truly each being has their own inner power and it has absolutely nothing to with gender.

Did you know the highest point of self esteem in a woman is statistically nine years old? How incredibly sad? So I am marking these girls in the desert. I am saying wow, you are right you are amazing. Set the stone here. Paint here. Learn to write so you can remember and don’t give away your little post it note so easily.

Random Excuses from Ballard

To the clerk at Barnes and Noble: I’m sorry I snorted when you did not know who Anton Chekhov was and gulped sweet jesus when you asked me, what orchard?

I was not trying to be rude but I kept waiting for the big hand with the hook to come down from the ceiling and pull you off the stage.

And to my poor dear X-sister-in-law who keeps making oily crosses on my nephew’s door b/c he is a wonderful gay man who sometimes forgets, to shut the window of porn on his laptop while home on winter break.

I’m sorry that I tried to explain this to you. I am sorry I said “sex” out loud seventeen times. I am sorry I used boy and sex in combination with other verbs. You may make a cross on my head.

Last night I dreamt you kept telling me to place my head in the lion’s mouth like a circus act. Trust me, you said, go slow and my cheek was touching the sandpaper of his tongue and I could not see you, only hear your voice.

Happy New Year

On my 25th New Year I was in Bergun Switzerland with five friends in a bar. I was the only girl. I didn’t love any of them and they didn’t love me. We decided after a few pints of beer to take a train higher up into the Alps and ride a toboggan down the trail. Ben had read earlier in the day, in some flyer by the museum, that the trail was lit at night. We thought it would be a wonderful way to start the New Year.

I don’t remember being afraid, I don’t remember thinking that I should be. I know that Henry told me the sled could reach speeds of forty to fifty miles per hour and I thought that was slow…IN A CAR.

I wanted to go alone. I knew I wanted to drive myself, my two feet on the runners. I wanted to beat the boys. The first light, the big lamp over my head was a moon, the mountains felt like water. The first light was my only light. Once you begin there’s no way to stop, once you begin the only way down is to continue.

To the Swiss lit meant one light at the top of the trail and one light at the bottom. It was three miles of flying, of trying to see the curves ahead, of bending your body low, anticipating the path, leaning in the direction opposite of the one you needed to go. You forget after the fear stays in your throat, that you want to live. There’s no way to stop, no path to walk down.

Henry said he wet his pants before the first hundred yards. I ran over Ben after the second mile. I lifted into the air, held on. I know my body. I know water even when it is cold. I have strong legs and a great need to survive.

I wish I could explain the way it felt flying over the small bridges, of looking up and seeing the stars, how the trees huddled together and how sometimes when the incline straighten, when I looked below it was as if I was looking into a dark mirror, the nothing and endless miles of falling.

I remember thinking of my parents in Maine, asleep in their beds, safe and not dreaming. I remember missing the ocean, of feeling so strange in the Alps--the world didn’t go on, it somehow stopped here, with me. One girl, no one could imagine. No one could say I know Teresa Ballard, and this is what she is doing. This is how I think she will die.

When I reached the last curve I saw the light. I saw the small houses in the village, unlike the mountians from where I had been, so in need of order. I saw shadows walked across the orange light. I began to see other people. My body stretched out, relaxed. The land widen, the trees separated. I didn’t want to stop. I bent myself in half so I could keep going so I could find another place to take off.

 
 

Olivia says I cannot call us, THE GIRLS OF WONDER AND LIGHT anymore in public places like: hotel lobbies, elevators and on top of the water slide. She rolls her eyes and says, you’re a weird mom.

I tell my girls to look for what they love, mark it, remember. Today I took Bella to her first indoor ice rink. It was horribly romantic with its glass ceiling, piped in music. Bella tried to skate backwards first, I told her we might want to focus on straight ahead. No, she said, I want to go this way, I want to twirl.

Every time a girl would spin around us, she would be disgusted. I tried to explain lessons. I tried to explain practice. Bella would have none of it. She fell A LOT. She told me if you fall on your hands and lick your fingers, it feels better. Today Bella twirled and when I put her in the car tired and wet she said, I found it mom, the thing I love.

I talked to Liz about nomadic culture today. I told her in the desert the women carry the stones. They do these patterns with rocks so they know where they are, because in the desert everything looks the same, it’s easy to become lost. Sometimes, it even feels like you are in the same place where you began—it’s important to mark your way.

I am carrying the rocks in my pocket. Truth is, I always carry things in my pocket but I will not be like Virginia and walk into the river. I will put them down. I will mark my way.

 
 

I am contemplating running away with the moose, he is solid. He doesn’t talk much. I have been on vacation with the girls. If I owe you proofs, recordings, emails, new poems I’m sorry. I am coming but the moose and I are taking our time. We need to catch our breath.

When I was a child my father would take us camping in the Maine woods. My dad and three children under the age of ten, in a leaky boat watching moose come down to the water, on their small spindle legs, their heavy heads. They’re not smart. They’re not beautiful but they are lovely in the way things are strong, not light, not water, nor wind just solid.
 
 

be mindful

 
 

Ballard's morning notes.

I woke up this morning to quiet. My thing for the New Year is to find my silence, the room inside myself and try to begin with it, before I start the day. I am returning to the first writing teacher I ever had, Madeline L’Engle. I blame her for ruining me for all other workshops and teachers, b/c she always told me no one could ever teach me how to write. No one could teach me how to listen to myself. That’s pretty powerful knowledge at 17.

Sometimes I loose my way. Okay, I loose my self a lot. A few years ago I met a teacher who told me Teresa, you need to invent your self as a writer, create your image as a poet--market, connect. He, honestly is probably the most financially successful writer I will ever meet and he’s damn good at this. I am not. Or maybe I am, sometimes I get lost in my own stories, which I’m sure is how Hansel felt when he tried to return home following a trail of bread. No one expects the birds.

Chekhov : you must once and for all give up being worried about successes and failures. Don’t let that concern you. It is your duty to go on working steadily day by day, quite quietly, to be prepared for mistakes, which are inevitable, and for failures.

Dialectic Number One: I spend a great deal more time thinking about what kind of writer I want to be verses actually writing.

Dialectic Number Two: Writing and thinking is key to my survival as a being. It frees me and entraps me, sometimes simultaneously.

When my sister’s son died four years ago I was there, when other people were throwing up in the bathroom or crying in the waiting room, I was rubbing her back, telling her stories b/c even though he was dead she had to give birth to him. When the nurse, took me aside and told me the baby might be born in pieces, that I should be prepared. I wrote myself a story. I said, here I am, I will write my way out of this someday, I will forget. I have never forgotten.

The stories (poems) we keep writing are the things we may never be free of. I know every detail of that room, his foot print on paper. I know you can enter a place, thinking you can be respectful of someone’s grief, enter into their pain b/c you love them and yet it’s a goal you can never attain. I also understand sometimes you can become trapped. There are rooms in love you cannot enter. Places you cannot be.

Pay attention to the dialectics. Be mindful of the birds.

 
 

They were up at 7 am, my little wonders. This is a year of first: Olivia shoveled for two weeks to get enough money to buy everyone their own gifts. It was very cool. I now have lotion that makes me smell like cinnamon cookies. Oddly, it’s incredibly sexy.

My favorite thing though was Bella’s note cards in purple crayon…I hope you love your prosite. I read it about five times thinking she was trying to spell prostitute. Thus the whole present time was filled with Merry, Merry prostitute and if you need help with your Christmas prostitute. Please yell. I saved each and every note so when she grows old I can sell them back to her.

We the Girls Of Wonder and Light, wish you a very Merry Christmas.
 
 

Oh and this is me with flower hands