Got purpose? Got pockets?

Morning routines and more about texture

Check in

Three words for this week:

Remember

Remember who you are. Remember where you’ve been. Remember all the good you bring to the world.

Persist

Remain unapologetic. Don’t be afraid to take up space. Know deeply that you come from a place of authenticity.

Forgive

I’m always saying this. I always find it difficult. And the hardest one to forgive is me.

Maybe during this week, you can think about these words. Massage them. Roll them around in your psyche. These are three more reasons to know that you are loved.

Purpose

Our assisted living relationship guru, David Molko, invited us to speak to purpose.

“What is your purpose?” he asked. “Why are you here?”

It was something I haven’t thought about in those terms, ever.

But if you think about it, if you are a certain age, you realize that your purpose is not static. It has morphed throughout your life.

For all of us, it started with survival, howling our way out of the womb. Then it was the natural selfishness of childhood, getting our own way, wanting.

Then, as we aged, purpose turned to others. We had a vocation, we pursued love, we raised children.

Now as we age, purpose often means survival again: surviving the ravages of our failing bodies, disease, gravity.

But through it all, we are awakened by another purpose: creativity.

It was there all along: we created our personalities, our jobs, our children.

We remember. We persist. We forgive.

We create.

Morning routine

Writing about morning routine is a huge subject that I plan to tackle in pieces.

Today, let's start with a very early example, from the meditations of Marcus Aurelius (121-180), the Roman emperor who was also a Stoic philosopher. In Book 5, he writes (in the Martin Hammond translation):

At break of day, when you are reluctant to get up, have this thought ready to mind: “I am getting up for a man’s work. Do I still then resent it, if I am going out to do what I was born for, the purpose for which I was brought into the world? Or was I created to wrap myself in blankets and keep warm?”

So, once you unwrap yourself from those warm blankets, what you do then, that is your morning routine. My routine resembles a messy pincushion with things sticking out of it haphazardly. But more of that later.

In My Morning Routine, Benjamin Spall and Michael Xander interview various folks about how they start their day.

At one point, they suggest that you not look at your phone on waking.

The moment you open your email you enter reactive mode, and you begin working on someone else’s agenda rather than your own. . . . Be proactive in the morning, not reactive. You’ll still be getting email when you’re dead.

That’s really good advice. Even if I’m not dead yet.

More texture

~I just couldn’t resist~

I had so much fun with texture last week, and so did you, dear readers, judging from your likes and comments. And then I found some more photos that illustrate texture in new ways.

I jumped out of the car to take a picture of the mailbox outside the US post office on Southeast Seventh Avenue in Portland. Besides the fuzzy, plush texture of the monkey, there is the brick of the building, the mottled leaves of the shrubbery, and the smooth blue enamel of the mailbox itself. The dirt on the label has texture. There’s even an interesting pattern in the shadow of the leaves on the pavement. Eventually, you will get good at noticing an entire scene like this. Or perhaps you do already.

Fran Gardner photo

The Imperfect Foods company sent me a pair of googly eyes and asked me to make a picture out of a piece of ugly fruit. I love the texture of the surface that I set the peach down on, too, a well-used cutting board.

Fran Gardner photo

And sometimes, texture is just a pretty picture. That’s a Meyer lemon.

Fran Gardner photo

Pockets

Many years ago, when my older daughter was attending Oregon Episcopal School,* someone decided to change the school uniform. I must have gone to a committee meeting. I was asked if I had any ideas about the uniform.

When I said the girls’ uniforms should have pockets, people looked at me as if I grown a second head. Pockets were not a consideration. As far as I recall, the new uniform did not include them.

I grew up in an era when clothing manufacturers did not put pockets in girls’ clothing. I’ve never understood why.

Even today, women’s clothing often doesn’t have pockets. Jeans, yes. Sweatpants, usually. Yoga pants, no.

I was talking to somebody at breakfast today about pockets, and she said she and her friends were working on a business that would provide pockets for women didn’t have them in their clothing. As they are all in their 80s and 90s, ideas about how to do that were sparse.

I understand that some garments might be constructed to accentuate a slender silhouette, but mostly women these days wear comfortable clothing,

So why no pockets?

The internet is full of theories, everything from the evils of patrimony to—my favorite—the handbag industry. The thinking is that if there are no pockets, women would have to buy purses.

That doesn’t explain the dearth of pockets in little girls’ clothing . I think that’s just general cluelessness on the part of designers.

I have a little collection of small zippered pouches on with long straps that can go over my shoulder and hold maybe a cell phone and a hankie. When I was walking more, they had an annoying tendency of shifting to the front, just over my bellybutton, and bouncing with every step. So, not the best solution.

Pockets you can wear over your shoulder. Fran Gardner photo

Some other solutions to the pocket problem: cloth bags and zippered pouches. I’ve made a lot of the latter from old silk neckties.

The first site that pops up in a Google search for “pockets women’s clothing” is Pockets for Women — in Britain. The blogger scrounged the Web for vendors who make clothing with pockets.

There’s only one way to fix this, ladies, and that’s to buy clothing with pockets and to boycott clothing without them.

*Because people commonly referred to the school as OES, Lyza thought the name of the school was Oh, Yes!

Cigarette Man

~A very brief bus story~

This was on Trimet’s*  No. 56 route.

Friends of mine encountered a guy with a large baggie of cigarette butts. He was breaking them open and harvesting the tobacco to make his own cigarettes. The whole bus reeked of stale tobacco.

*For those of you who don’t live in Portland (and why don’t you? Great climate, liberal politics, generally friendly people) Trimet is the transportation  service for the tricounty area, Multnomah, Clackamas and Washington counties.

Sprung rhythm*

It’s spring, have you noticed? Little buds, red and green, stipple branches once held bare by winter. The rain has become more gentle. Green things are coming out of the ground. Squirrels are eating the last of the buried acorns.

I’m reminded of a little ditty.

Spring has sprung
The grass has riz
I wonder where
The flowers is.

And only recently have I learned the rest of the song, also in N’yawkese:

The little boid is on the wing—
Now, ain’t that absoid.
Everyone knows
The wing is on the boid.

While checking versions online (I didn’t see any I liked better than mine), I found this:

I saw a birdie flying high,
It dropped a message from the sky.
And a I wiped it from my eye,
I thanked the Lord that cows don’t fly.

*Not really sprung rhythm. That was invented by Gerard Manley Hopkins (my favorite poet). Wikipedia says: “Sprung rhythm is a poetic rhythm designed to imitate the rhythm of natural speech. It is constructed from feet in which the first syllable is stressed and may be followed by a variable number of unstressed syllables.”

An example from “The Windhover”: “shéer plód makes plow-down sillion shine.” Sillion is plowed earth.

Looking back

I’ve been posting on Substack for six months and more. Here are some of the highlights:

“Synchronicity in Poetry and Song,” my first post, from September 2022, is still my favorite. I wrote about an iconic Russian melody and a poem called “September,” with asters in the brook. Plus there’s an iconic photo of my granddaughter, Willa.

Other posts I particularly like:

First lines of poetry (memorizing poetry, Dec 26)

Hymns written by Arthur Sullivan, along with internal rhyme as exemplified by “Lydia, the Tattooed Lady,” Feb 6. (Down the rabbit hole.)

Looking for patterns everywhere, March 4

A long poem broken into a series of meditations, March 11

Mangoworld, Nov 21

Advice from Carolyn Hax and “The Shooting of Dan’s Guru,” Nov 14

Encounters with Bezos, Royko and Packwood Nov 7. Also that week, being drunk with color.

Sabbaths and how to spend them, Dec 12

How to play the violin, Dec 5

Actually, I like most everything I’ve written, and I invite you to dip in and make your own discoveries.

Meanwhile, I’m tired of looking back and want to be writing forward.

Like this:

Childhood

I have a confession to make: I’ve never watched a cat video. I don’t watch YouTube much at all, except for the occasional how to quilt video or the Russian guys sitting outdoors and singing soulfully in the “Synchronicity in Poetry and Song” post.

So please indulge me for embedding this video.

The song is “Hoppípolla,” by the Icelandic band Sigur Rós. I love it because old folks get to act like children.

Dressed in Icelandic knits, some of them with eyepatches or a colander for a helmet, they wield wooden swords and play pranks like ringing doorbells and running away. Again and again, they splash through rain puddles. Hoppípolla supposedly means “hopping in puddles” in Icelandic.

What is age, what is play? It just feels good to watch.

You may recognize the hypnotic melody line. It turns up from time to time in ads and trailers for various movies.

Again, another

Here is a poem. It’s been awhile since I posted one.

God Within Me

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. —Psalm 51, KJV

God within me,
St. Patrick’s prayer*—
He was surrounded by angels.
Finding God in all corners
To comfort and restore him.

Trust Spirit.
Know that the clouds
Just mist, of no substance
Will yet sustain you.
You cannot fall.

Trust wisdom.
Older than time,
Love tempered
To unbearable brilliance.
You cannot fail.

Trust truth.
Your heart knows it.
A brave little flame—
No gale can blow it out,
Yet a sigh could end it.

But mostly, trust love.
Sweet goodness surrounds you.

*This is the version of St. Patrick’s prayer that is part of a long hymn called “St. Patrick’s Breastplate.” It’s in the Episcopal Hymnal.

Christ be with me, Christ within me, Christ behind me, Christ before me, Christ beside me, Christ to win me, Christ to comfort and restore me. Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ in quiet, Christ in danger, Christ in hearts of all that love me, Christ, in mouth of friend and stranger.

Return of the fiddle

~Ave, old friend~

Robert brought my violin back this week. I had him take it away because it had become so difficult to hold with my left arm. Scoliosis is twisting that side of my body. I don’t know what causes it. Exercises are slowing the drift, but it is still progressing.

But I let the instrument go too soon. I had certain expectations, and when the playing did not go well for a few days, I gave up.

Anyone who plays an instrument will notice that there are days when the playing is easier and sounds right on. Tone and pitch fall into place. Other days, the player struggles to get the sound right.

And indeed, when I got the fiddle back, I thought I sounded pretty good.

One simple song

I really wanted the violin back because I kept thinking about an Irish tune called “Down By the River Side.” It is not the spiritual gospel hymn with a similar name. You can find it in O’Neill’s Dance Music of Ireland.

In this tune the first few phrases end on a half note that is a high C. And the way I play the song is I ease into that note. There is a room for a little pause, a half-breath before I sound the C, and the other half-notes as well.

I wish I could play it for you. But I am not that confident.

Check out

~Again with the writing~

In the spirit of springtime, a couple of other Substack writers are offering journaling companionship.

In Illustrated Life, the supremely talented Amy Cowen is working with a small group exploring Julia Cameron’s Write for Life, a six-week course involving writing every morning upon arising. We also go on walks, work on a writing project (mine is poetry), and schedule a weekly “artist’s date,” an exploration of a place that feeds our creativity.

Cameron is well-known as the creator of The Artist’s Way, a wildly successful 1992 book that introduced the concept of Morning Pages, free writing to start the day. For many of us, writers and non, free association at dawn is the ultimate morning routine.

Cowen, an artist who just recently started writing on Substack, has been recording her Creativity Matters podcast since 2006. She’s up to No. 485, and each is as fresh as the first episode.

Another group

My friend and former Oregonian colleague Merle Alexander, now living in Atlanta, is participating in a 30-day Art of Journaling workshop with Suleika Jaouad, whose Isolation Journals is a popular site on Substack.

Here’s how Jaouad describes it:

Together we’ll enter the journal’s dreamscape of possibility and explore all the wonders it can contain, from morning pages to travelogues to a Frida Kahlo-inspired art journal.

More than that I can’t really describe, as the workshop prompts and encouragement are available only to paid subscribers.*

*Hey, you could be a paid subscriber to Becoming. It’s a way to support what I do here each week. Tap the subscribe button, even if you are already a free subscriber, and you can choose a paid plan.

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