Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer

Words Sought in the Ether (a seeking work-in-progress)

Like an aging granny, I spin tales to Jeb about the ‘old’ days when I was a child.

“Back then, there weren’t even cell phones!  In fact, most of the my time growing up, there were only land lines and they had cords attached to the wall!  You had to sit by the phone.  You couldn’t walk anywhere when you called someone.”

This isn’t quite like the tales of walking to school in snow, uphill (both ways!).  But I see the wheels turning in Jeb’s imagination as he listens, not able to picture my world of curling cords and rotary phones.

“You know, there wasn’t even an internet.  When I was a kid, if you needed to learn about something, you went to the encyclopedia.”

I remember the leatherish bound encyclopedia set on our living room shelf, representing all letters of the alphabet.  Pages edged with a gold-colored coating, promising entry into all things of the known universe that began with the letter ‘A’.  ‘A’ was a book, maybe two inches thick.  For anything A-related, not listed, that was further research in the stacks down at the local library.

courtesy of Shishberg

Back then, should you have opened up ‘G’ (it may have been combined with ‘H’ or ‘I’), you would not have found an entry under “Google.”  These days at our house, it’s a standard phrase.  If Jeb asks me questions I can’t precisely answer (“how is dry ice made?  what makes lightning?), he simply says “Let’s Google it.”  In two clicks we have a plethora of answers.

In all my granny glory, I shake my head, cluck and sigh with amazement:  “Oh, the times have changed…”

Instead of pulling down a two-pound bound edition from the shelf, the fingers of answer-seekers are weightlessly flying over keyboards, typing any phrase imaginable to find clues to their queries.  Oh, the things that you can find on this new-fangled internet thing!

What are people looking for?  And where do their searches take them?

Believe it or not, some of them find me.  So intrigued I’ve become, I am introducing a new page here on the Archives called Little Engines that Search (see left sidebar, under About, and click).  With WordPress tracking the phrases browsers use, I get a glimpse into the words that trace them here.  Fascinating, indeed.  So I’ve dedicated a page listing some of my favorite phrases that have brought people to the Archives.

Who would have thought that “highway grass”, “stirrup chairs” and “does anyone sell banana leaves in fresno county” all would have funneled cyber-surfers to this very ethereal locale?  Inspired by these phrases, I’ve played around to create my own search term poetry.  You never know, maybe this is the next big thing.  So profound it could be published.  Maybe into a hard-bound book to sit on a shelf…full circle!  I can see the title now:  “Words Sought in the Ether.”  I’d definitely want the pages edged in gold.

WORDS SOUGHT POEM I (BEAUTY)
inspiring word
butterfly cocoon unravel
morning sunlight through my bedroom window
bottle french wine
who calls for the waters of the sea and pours them out over the face of the land
rainbow colored honey
rock texture moss
desktop ocean
beautiful toes
barrel of love
wave tossed in the ocean
the honey peace of old poems
robinson jeffers
how do you know? Love
snakes of coastal bend
scary wave wipeout
succulent pocket
osho zen the lovers
chrysoprase stone
moons in our solar system
shroud of turin
desktop water love
a banana leaf miracle
vast

WORDS SOUGHT POEM II (JUST PLAIN QUIRKY)
klmit
hafiz you have been invited to meet a friend
spelling sentences
goat in heat charging
does anyone sell banana leaves in fresno county
highway grass
california safe tent camping
lone ovary
the anatomy of a compost pile
rumplestiltskin edward gorey
solar system for kids
fetus at week 23
how to cut down a banana tree
stirrup chair
red toenails
hornier neck lift
airline rush luggage tag images
charts and graphs on insomnia in children
screen saver crazy
uterus
kermit the frog

Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer · 2 Comments

Bridging Fire

As the morning light comes on before 6am these days, I’m finding myself scrambling to keep up with time.  Yesterday I may have walked leisurely on a plush red carpet, but that was Sunday.

Monday morning I’m back on the highway, my day scheduled until nightfall.

Still I remind myself to breathe.  Come here as a gesture, if nothing else.  That this life is still mine.  This half an hour before breakfast can be my place for words, thoughts and feelings.

I can quickly type out a moment from last night’s Beltane fire.  No amorous running through the woods or sightings of the May Queen (unless she was peeking from the nearby garden).  Just time with friends around a back yard fire, built by Jeb with our neighbor.  We each fanned the flames in our own style.  Added twigs under the stars.

I calmed my nerves to open and let Jeb jump across the blaze, not once but probably at least ten times.  His belly full of post-Easter jelly beans, he was wild with the passion.  Excited but intent, leaping with plenty of clearance.

After a series of jumps he came to me to whisper all of his wishes.  His warm, moist words heaving dreams inside my ear, coating my cheek with sugar-sweet, seven-year old desires.

They fell from his mouth in delighted sighs:  “I wish that I could be a ninja…that the world was made of candy…that I could speak Japanese…I wish that the sky would rain hot dogs…and I wish that you would live forever and never die.”

As the evening came to an end, the fire was left to burn alone.  Before heading home, I wandered to the embers.  Let the warmth of the coals fill my hands.  Looked up at the stars.  A wind chime in the hibiscus sounded individual notes with deep resonance, as the slightest breeze played a slow and deliberate song to the night.

I thought ahead to Fall, when I would be living the harvest time.  Days reaping the intentions of what this season sows.  I could imagine my hands warming by an autumn fire in a different place and time.  For a moment I was the bridge, glowing red-orange heating my palms.  Two fires in two times, two places.  And me, the in-between.

I may not know exactly where I’ll be.  But come Fall, I know there will be a moment, as I stand before flames, the weather colder, the days shorter.  And I’ll remember the wind chime’s song on the first night of May on a tropical island.  There at that future fire, I will consider all that has transpired.  Reflect on what was sown.  Know more of what has grown.  I hope to live that moment.

These rituals rely on future.  My human way, can’t help it.  Pretending that I will live forever.

Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer

Sunrise Reserves in the Kimono

It’s been three weeks of complete solo parenting.  Jeb’s dad, Rex, has been off-island working and I’ve not had the relief of any real ‘me’ time these days.  Typically, Jeb will spend one night a week with his dad and I can relish in 24 hours of space, where I rejuvenate and remember this self of mine.  Touching in on a world beyond addition flashcards and Lego guys.

Effects of ceaseless parental duty seem to be subtle (at least to me, confirmation would need to be made with friends in my immediate vicinity).  But one distinct shift I’ve noticed is less creative inspiration in the past few weeks.  If I have words to express, they are fewer and more private.  As though I have reserves that must be rationed.

When nighttime falls it’s bedtime at our place, 8pm sharp.  As soon as Jeb is asleep, all business will have to wait.  I’ll cherish a moment of quiet with the crickets in low light.  Sit with myself and feel the inner folds of emotion.  Realms that pulse steadily somewhere inside my chest, waiting to be rediscovered.  Like fingertips on brail, I reach to trace dimensions that have lived all through the bustle of the day, only now given the space to be recognized.  Journal paper and a sharp pencil lead.  Or maybe just my feet propped on the ottoman with a moment to let my mind wander.  To feel.

These evening sessions nurture me, but I’m finding that they do not necessarily produce anything.  If I am a writer, then my product would be words.  And I’m finding as of late, my word production factory has been high on feeling but low on inventory with little time to stop and take stock.

I refuse to write about not being able to write (well, that’s probably a fib, I most likely have done this at some point – I seem to write about everything).  My point being that I have no desire to read about someone’s writer’s block and I certainly don’t want to read or write about my own.  Besides, I do not have the dreaded “writer’s block.”  There is no block here, unless it’s a building block, and in that case I’ll use it as a foundation for a structure, or turn it into stairs.  Maybe stow it in the back of the factory warehouse and add it to the inventory.

The pressing, most immediate question is this:  what essence is there to be captured and shared on this morning at 5:24am?  What is alive as I sit in my grandmother’s turquoise kimono while roosters stir with the faint sound of surf hitting cliffs in the distance?

Jessica Dofflemyer ~ all rights reserved

Why am I here?  What compels me to rise from bed at 4:45am in order to try to tap letters to this screen?  I am compelled to touch that essence of a feeling.  And one needs to be feeling in order to have a sense of this essence.  Essence needs space to be felt.  Space to digest, distill and inspire.

As a mother, I’m asked to carve out this feeling space in unlikely moments – cutting celery sticks or emptying the pockets of Jeb’s jeans before a wash.  Or take the option of waking long before the sun and steal away an hour of pre-sunrise feeling time.

I’ll reach for my own deep interior during these random snippets, but there is no red carpet rolled out before me.  No sanctuary of serenity set with incense or sounding gongs.  I’ve got to ring in my own presence in the midst of chaos.  Discover that mini Lego light saber in the folds of Jeb’s jeans and let it slice away just a moment for me to feel this living.  Use it as a token to remind me of the sense of an essence that is more than laundry.  More than mom.  But fueled by all of these mundane tasks, at the same time, too.

Dedicated to continue this practice of following a thread, asking questions, writing words to the Archives, I’m coming here this morning, perhaps, exemplifying confusion.  Showing that I’ve had 21 days of non-stop parenthood and this isn’t always conducive to clear trains of thought.  This makes people goofy.  This makes writers meander aimlessly.

I see light, though.  Rex comes back today.  Jeb will be with him tomorrow night.  I will have my respite.  And now, it appears I’ve created quite the set up for myself.  Confessing to you and then waiting to see if my theory is correct.  That with just a little time alone, no Legos, no school lunches, I may find a wellspring of words that touch some universal truth.  That some masterpiece may now finally emerge.

I’ll give my disclaimer now:  if there is some “piece”, it’s me.  And I’m just a baby with the blocks, still learning how to build and master it.