Tuba or not tuba
Closing out the year with a raft of poems and images and a milestone birthday
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New Year’s goals
Well, here we are at the end of another year.
I find it amazing that, battered as we are by everything that is spinning out of control, we’re still eager to see what comes next.
In past years, I’ve come up with a set of 12 goals, one for each month. Then I forgot about them. So I’m not going to try that again.
I do like the recurring January goal, though, and will try to keep it. It is to buy nothing for the entire month. Essentials such as food and medicine and bus fare are exempted.
It is liberating to hover my finger over the “place order” key and then just—don’t.
I hope you will try it. Start the new year off lean.
Does goal-setting work?
This month, I thought I’d get a jump on 2025 by coming up with a goal. A Substack I subscribe to has lots of encouragement for setting a goal for 2025 and working toward it. Forms are available to download and print to track my progress.
Silly! I can’t even settle on a morning routine. How would I ever find time to think about how I’m working toward some abstract idea, then fill out forms to follow through?
I’m going to fall back on how I always operate. Deadline stuff first: medical appointments, the weekly Substack posting, dinner every night. Whatever happens in the interstices of those activities, well, it happens.
Somehow I seem to find time to make some quilt blocks, shop for groceries, keep up with my accounts online, and have the occasional coffeeshop cappuccino. I make time to enjoy nature, see my friends, listen for birdsong and read books.
Those are my goals. Here’s to a messy 2025, business as usual!
Tuba Christmas poems
At the Tuba Christmas event in Portland’s Pioneer Courthouse Square on December 21, I offered to write poems—for free. This is the second year I’ve written at this event.
Several people approached me. Here are their poems.
—Jennifer asked me to write about the times
The times are changing
The sun turns a corner, The days get longer— Not fast enough. Holiday concerts, tubas en masse Santa hats and candy canes, Maybe some antlers in your hair. Pigeons are massing, too, Diving for popcorn, their Christmas feast. They are easy to please.
—Myrtle asked for a poem about rain
Rainy days
Gray skies, deep and mysterious, Gravid with moisture, ready to pour. All of us humans ready to be rained on, Rushing toward warmth from frigid outdoors. Welcoming crowds now After months spent away. Not one umbrella— Let the rain come and play. It’s been a dry season. We wish for wet earth. Thirsty for meaning, Twisting toward birth.
—A family: young Leighton wanted butterflies; her sister, Hadley, favored cats; and their dad, Blake, asked me to write about daughters.
Butterflies
Once upon a caterpillar— Less green now, more yellow— Wet wings are stretching, Antennae start to twitch. Monarchs feed only on milkweed, Other bugs eat mulberries. Resting on tree trunks, hidden in ivy, You have to be alert to see butterflies.
Cats
Sometimes cats stretch, Sometimes they yawn, Sometimes they purr, Sometimes they scratch. Stretch, yawn, purr, scratch, Say those four words fast, now! Which way that cats move Is the one you’ll try next?
Daughters
Those of us with daughters Know a special secret: Sure, hearts and butterflies, But also great power. Learning to live in a world sometimes grieving, Learning to sing when tears get in the way. Seeing the world full of wondrous enchantment, All new and precious through their father’s eyes.
—Shane said I could write about anything. It turned out to be music.
Music on the square
Life is precious, we know, Gray skies and rain, Flights of brave pigeons, Music in the air. Here, crowds of lovers Swaying to tubas; Music unites us, Makes us more than we are. Every day music brings us together. Yet more than today, I know this forever: Music is prayer. Music is prayer.
—Carrie has suffered a major loss. I didn’t know how to write about that, so I let the Universe do it for me.
Walking with grief
The wide well of sorrow, So deep, so dark . . . No place for crying No time to think back. Back, the way things were, Never, not ever to be that again. The music, uplifting, The sorrow, a downdraft. No understanding, No explanation, Living with—I can’t think How living can happen. A place for a life, A thing that was then: Put a finger on the penny. Remember that prayer.
—Joshua has a pit bull named Pepper
Pepper
Is a dog a pet? Or something more? Pepper, your companion: Does she understand you? Can she be a comfort? Dogs live in dreams, Twitching in sleep. When you look in her eyes— Pure love. Treasure that.
—Ravi’s topic was community.
Community
Culture unites us And tears us apart. We love one another, But only for a season. We’re all good, if only for a day. We’re all special, if only to our mom. Look beyond yourself, scan the horizon. Life holds its breath, waiting for you to be.
Another poem about culture
I promised a poem to Alana, a young woman who answered my Craigslist ad offering a free SCOBY* to brew jun. Jun is a type of kombucha made with honey and green tea. A SCOBY is the disc-like growth that ferments the honey.
*Symbiotic Culture Of Bacteria and Yeast
Alana asked me to write about culture. It called for a sonnet. This one is in Shakespearean form.
Culture
In the Petri dish of life we find our place, The tropes, the times, the foibles that we are. Our shuttles set, as weavers we embrace The warp, the weft, the vision near and far. Our wretchedness and all the ills that fester Under the skin, our fragile bones at rest, Are then redeemed by truths that we request, for Culture is as culture does—the best. All the things we humans do so well, Goodness or ill depending on the day. We yearn, we love, we try, we never quell Our essence; we remonstrate, we pray. All things together do a culture make— Many the strands to weave for humans’ sake.
It’s my diamond birthday!
On New Year’s Day, 2025, I turn 75. That’s next Wednesday.
Was I the first baby of the new year in 1950? Yes! On the whole north shore of Lake Superior. I was born in Duluth, Minn.
My family lived in International Falls but my parents traveled to Duluth for my birth because the OB in I-Falls was on vacation. Probably someplace sunnier and warmer.
January 1, 1950 was a Sunday. As the rhyme goes:
A child who’s born on the Sabbath Day
Is wise and fair and good and gay.
The adjectives vary from source to source. I like these words. 75 things to do before 75
Amy Cowen, who writes the Illustrated Life Substack and records the Creativity Matters podcast, came up with a list of 50 things to do before she turned 50. “Fifty Before Fifty” is podcast #365, from 2019.
What a swell idea! I was inspired to make my own list: 75 things to do before I turned 75. I’ve done almost all of them.
1. Have children 2. Learn another language 3. Make baklava 4. Visit Europe 5. Write a book 6. Walk a labyrinth 7. Finish a quilt 8. Knit 40 socks (that’s 20 pairs) 9. Eat calamari and sushi 10. Read the Iliad and the Odyssey 11. Buy a really good knife 12. Find a great massage therapist 13. Brew espresso in my own kitchen 14. Make a difference 15. Keep a sourdough starter going 16. Sew a pinafore 17. Sing in a production of “Pinafore” 18. Memorize lots of poetry 19. Grow my own crabapples 20. Read Vanity Fair. The novel. Twice. 21. Learn to sing the tenor line 22. Play bluegrass violin 23. Play second fiddle 24. Visit New England in the fall 25. Milk a cow 26. Ride a bike 27. Pick wild berries 28. Smoke a cigar 29. Drive a stick shift 30. Volunteer 31. Smell a peat fire 32. Coach soccer 33. Cook on a wood stove 34. Vote 35. Learn a computer language 36. Play the organ 37. Make a kite and fly it 38. Love my neighbor—no exceptions 39. Identify birds 40. Take care of my mother 41. Buy a flute 42. Play a didgeridoo 43. Breastfeed 44. Paint a room 45. Read a book in French 46. Solve a cryptic crossword 47. Have a house built to my specifications 48. Learn to appreciate dogs 49. Identify trees 50. Build a bookcase 51. Make a chicken roast by rolling the boned meat in the skin 52. Figure out the iPhone’s camera 53. Take my wheelchair on the bus 54. Attend a pow-wow 55. Cook greens with pot liquor 56. Ride the train to Seattle 57. Try the keto diet 58. Read wisdom literature 59. Have a wish come true 60. Watch a sunrise 61. Get close enough to crows to photograph them 62. Find my soulmate 63. Organize my fabric scraps 64. Make bone broth 65. Grow an herb garden 66. Attend the Ashland Shakespearean festival 67. Ferment sauerkraut, kimchi and kombucha 68. Go to college 69. Pray with others 70. Heal my MS 71. Grow kiwis 72. Learn to crochet 73. Make quilts for my grandchildren 74. Write sonnets 75. Start a Substack
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Parting image
The spears of a railing outside a Southeast Portland mansion point bravely skyward as winter clouds roil and roll. This photo is full of movement.
—30—
Until next week
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Happy early birthday, Fran! This is a wonderful list. I love knowing you tended a list … I hope there are new lists to be made, too.
A delightful mix of content in your final post of the year., Fran. Interesting that this past year, which in my eyes was so full of political drama, wars and human suffering... is not reflected in this or others posts. I too enjoyed reading through your list of 75 Things, perhaps I'll be inspired to create my own list but it will by necessity be longer! It's a pleasure to open your posts week after week!