Please don't go, Dairy Hollow

 Back in 2012 I wrote the following words as I prepared to leave the Writers' Colony and this morning my heart still connects with the sad song of departure with grace and gratitude:

I will follow you back to here, right here where we first met and I will hug you longer than I ever have. As I pack my car with all we have done together--the joy of making poems, the blues of shredding the imperfect ones only to remember memorable lines from them, watching the sunset and then rushing in to write about it. We sat in the dark with the window open listening to the raucous sound of night creatures. I watch you in my rear view mirror as you move away behind me and disappear as I drive around the Spring Street bend just beyond Grotto Springs---

Stress-Less

During this stay at the Writers' Colony, I am beginning to catch on to how to live with less stress: get plenty of sleep; do what you want to do, even if it is tasks that must be done; live simply; don't expect other people to bring you happiness; don't expect the world to make you happy; live where you want to live--the rest of your life will follow; recognize your passion; know what you love to do and where your creativity lies--just do it, don't give a hoot whether it makes sense or not. Do not judge yourself or others; live in your own kindness; get rid of your TV but find some way to watch movies and baseball; read the books that speak to you ("read me"). Go to a beautiful hotel with someone you love; eat brunch; notice when you smile with your head up musing; say "Yes" more often; take walks; find independent bookstores; do Yoga.

Tulip Time

 the best
 the most valuable moment
 an earthling can have happens
 when waking to this new day
 excited to live it full stop
 no spaces to fill
 no holes of sorrow to trip into          
 just a soft dry sponge ready to soak it all up
 to experience what comes
 and to be okay with what does not
 the day does not end       until
 I say  thank you       until
 you know how very special you are and
 how wonderful it is to meet you here   
 within the layers of a dogwood spring   
 as cream  and  pink  blossoms  float  in  place
 within the green                  within the brown
 woods     of
                 a    dairy hollow      evening.

Carnegie Library

This lovely library sits on the edge of downtown Eureka Springs. Andrew Carnegie, a Scottish-American donated the money to build libraries throughout the world including about 1,689 in the United States (what I learned today). Since I hurt my knee and knew my walking the town was going to be curtailed this trip, my goal was to walk the 1/2 mile to this library from the Writers' Colony. Today, I made the journey and as you can see it was worth the effort. I strolled around the library with my phone camera and took several photos. It was such a thrill. I told the librarian there that I was taking these pics because it has been a long time since I have seen a library with real hard backed books and paper pages. They even have a new book shelf . . . the books are still being added to the collection. This was such a boost to my book loving librarian self that I took "Small Victories" by Anne Lamott off the shelf and sat in one of the rockers by the fireplace (un-lit at this time). Tomorrow, I'll explore the mezzanine. Oh, I wish everyone could have the experience of visiting a place so dear to their hearts as I had today by simply visiting this library. Thank you, Mr. Carnegie and Eureka Springs!

Scenes of Dairy Hollow

[Afternoon]

It is warm and bright and wind scrapes
branches of the dogwood
against the gray limestone mountain wall
and plucks leaves off the magnolia sending
them tumbling down Spring Street
as motorcycles roar slowly by following
necessity of “Steep and Crooked” hillside roads.
[Late Afternoon]
Sunlight bends shadows of the oak tree backwards as I look to
the east from my study window and in
the wooded hollow, light and shadows
constantly vie for attention bringing a
sharp edge to the peeling bark of the
river birch and emphasizing
the dark of the shadowed rock cave halfway
up the mountain’s east wall.
[Evening]
Just a moment later, as the sun begins to
drop, I can hear coyotes calling to each other
in a native language of hunger.
[Night]
Always here, night
reveals the velvet darkness
of her soul.

Thunder and Mountains and Baseball

Good Morning! Oh, happy day, Friday! My phone is charging so I don’t know if the sun comes up or goes down. I don’t know if it will be cloudy or sunny or somewhere in between. I don’t know if it will be cold or cool, going to rain or going to sun. But, I do know now and now the weather is a storm with lightning followed by thunder that rolls through the hills and valleys before becoming soft as it travels on – the rain is pelting and the holly bush by the front porch sways and bends under its pressure. I just made coffee and turned on the lights in the study.

Across the street is the beginning of the mountain at the top of which stands the Historic Crescent Hotel. The mountains here begin not with a gentle rising of the earth but with native limestone walls headed straight up. So straight that buildings and houses are built almost flat against the dependable sturdy rock. The mountain is so mightily strong that an upper level of town sits on top of it where the rock becomes flat and succulent ground cover flows across the top. There are gardens and spaces for wild flowers to appear and amazingly giant oak trees and birches with silver bark flourish.

The rain is letting up and the lightning and thunder have moved on. Birds begin to catch-up on their morning conversations. The sky is still dark gray, the mist continues -- it is time for a second cup of coffee and writing by lamplight.
I yearn for nothing more except to tell you that the Royals won a rather raucous game last night. A game I stayed with in spite of a static filled reception from the small radio I brought from home – I fell asleep in the middle of the 10^th inning and awoke at 3:30 to check the score -- Hosmer "smokes RBI double for lead in the 13th" and I smiled and fell back to sleep as the rain began in earnest outside my cozy writing studio with the 2 turquoise wicker chairs.

Dairy Hollow 2015

I am here. It is April and I am here. Here is watching the sunlight travel across the oak floor. Here is looking out the study window and seeing young  pink dogwood blossoms float in the breeze and the last of the candy stripe tulips lose one petal at a time. Here is like being at home being a guest. All is familiar but not mine; the two wicker chairs I love - not mine; the turquoise desk with five drawers - not mine; the gate-leg table and cream glass lamp - not mine. Rather than a denial of possessions I am treasuring those I brought with me to Dairy Hollow: the ream of white paper; the accumulated early poems I want to make new; the plastic container showing the fine-tipped markers never used; the old spiral sketchbooks next to one untouched sketchbook; the new book of J.Ruth Gendler's poetry; the retirement journal of Carl H. Klaus. These are my home things, my possessions, and I will fill the empty paper with words; the spiral sketchbook with images; the time with reading and musing. This is my get away to get into. I am in the Hollow and I am beginning to open on the swaying branch of a new spring.

Eureka Springs 4th of July

Happy 4th of July! This is the duck who lives on Spring Street and I pass him every day on my walk downtown. For this I am thankful. I have the freedom to walk downtown in the quiet, fresh air of Eureka Springs. This is the last day of my trip to the Writers' Colony. It has been a wonderful, productive time. The writers who come hear are supported by the entire staff, fellow writers and the artistic appreciation of the community. For this I am most grateful.  I have the freedom to write poems and share them with others. Freedom and happiness: what the 4th of July is all about.

Little Bird

I feel like a migrating bird who yearly travels to one glorious spot and stays only a short time. All my instincts are with this travel. Each time my wings have grown out a bit more and my words and art are different in some yet unknown way. Today my breath catches when I think of the moment my art and I will see each other as we are. I cannot spill out my fears, cannot tell my hopes. The dignity of art must stand as it is.

Nothing

I can smell the air of Eureka Springs. By that I mean the aroma of nothing. Perhaps it is the scent of clear green and I am unable to put a name to what this green is. I suppose I should just leave it alone — not try to figure in the botanical reference. Go back to the beginning. Know that I know nothing of something. Pull up a chair and sit and try to know nothing again.

The sound of writing

Slowly, solitude comes -- like it wants to be sure we are really alone -- but I sense it, the sound of pen on paper. I suppose if I focused on the sound of each letter I'd have a new language, perhaps unnecessary but certainly of interest to me. I can hear the formation of soft turquoise letters on creamy white paper and it is its own music. Would a soundtrack of me writing inspire me to write as I sit with a blank sheet of paper? Possibly.

Dairy Hollow 2014

Well, you'll never guess -- I am here -- the Writers' Colony at Dairy Hollow. I have dreamt about this moment since the last moment I was here. Dairy Hollow is my writing home - my soul lights up like a firefly in June and my heart beats like Tinkerbell's when the whole audience believes. Someone I don't know left me a letter in the desk drawer. "Hi Lissa!" it began back on January 26, 2014 and today is June 26, 2014. She was reading this blog and discovered the entries on
Dairy Hollow and had "a taste of the writer's life" she said. She was here, this room six months ago and now we meet. Casey, you have brought me a cup of joy and I do drink it in gratitude and now this is my return letter to you. Isn't life sometimes simply grand?

Goodby Dairy Hollow

Words fail when I think of thanking you for this visit to your exquisite writers' colony. All, most all, of my time here has been spent in the company of words. I have been starved by the lack of them and smothered by the quantity of them. In the silence of the hollow I have known my own words. I pull to leave and they say, "No, it is not time yet. It cannot be time to leave. Wait, just wait 'til you see what we have planned for tomorrow." They don't know that they are coming, too. With me. All my words or at least that is the way I think it is. But, if some decide to stay in order to finish their word business who am I to say no? Some say Eureka Springs is a ghost haven. Perhaps, also, it is a place to hold all the words that writers leave behind. What a vision that puts to mind. A word here, three over the ridge, seven in the Iris grove, eight up the steep hill that leads to the ghostly hotel. But never mind, that. This is possibly, merely a farewell until next time. Yes. Next time I will catch those exact words and those left by others. Then I plan to start with a mishmosh of good hardy words to write my . . . what? We'll just have to wait and see. Wait until next time, Dairy Hollow. I'll not forget you surrounded by your collection of the finest of writers' words.

The next breath

From the Culinary suite deck

The day after the day of losing files and then recovering files is a good day. Eyes see sunshine and ears hear bird song. Inside as I begin again this writing of poems and making of images hope dwells full of possibility-- not the crossing of fingers. Life stands again as worthy and I know gratitude-- my computer now purrs like the new Subaru left on while I did the marketing. Today bodes calm like my sleeping Border Collie as I tiptoe to an evening glass of wine with feet up. Wouldn't it be grand if my brain could reset like the memory and life force of the red computer? Today I imagine my computer and I walking hand in hand while noticing the significant moments of this day that fall into a poem conspiring us to write and rather than losing our breath we are given the next breath.

A Poem Flew

Thank the muses that a poem flew into my heart

this morning. Whenever I am the target of these
arrows of fancy I write gratefully and fastly. I
witness the pen moving and the ink--
this time the color brown--
flowing onto the page as the sun
sometimes sparks off the wetness
and then--like when the coffee maker
makes its final spurt--it is done. My hand stops moving as words drip to an end and the mind ques quiet and I earnestly read what has transpired in this attack of physical words in familiar hand on the page that is now full. For a moment my body is calm, my mind at rest. 

[Note: this is not the poem that came to me in a flash--that poem, over there, was written in blue and this, as I've said before, is of brown ink with an occasional spark of sun.]

Hello Dairy Hollow!

So, this is day 2 of my stay at the Writers' Colony and I am slowly acclimating to being alone with my

creative self although, she is still hiding in the bedroom. Last night she was peeking through the closet door watching me read Natalie Goldberg's new book, "The True Secret of Writing, Connecting Life with Language." Today she may step out of the closet. You see she doesn't think she belongs here--says she's a fraud and no one really likes her poems or her silly old art. Now, isn't this ridiculous when there is no "no one" here? It is only Creativity and me in a wonderful soft blue-green writing studio. But I think she may come out today in here where I am writing in 28 colors. Oh, what fun I'm having using all of the colors--even brown and mustard, fuchsia and black.

A place at the table

Is this the beginning?

I want to write a poem but what do I say? I have nothing to add to the conversation. No springtime celebratory words. No weather reports of approaching thunderstorms with dangerous lightning and high wind. I seem to have forgotten how to feel the inner joy of writing a tragic poem. Writing artful words plays perhaps within the top 4 or 3 or 2 favorite things to do each day forever. The land that I play on is dry. No sprouts of words or paraphrase. No droplets of iambic pentameter falling into a couplet or two. Dairy Hollow I'm coming to you. Save a place for me at the table. Feed me and give me rest, but please, expect nothing.

Don't Cry for Me Dairy Hollow

Please don't go Dairy Hollow for I will miss our time together. Getting up at 8:30 and fixing coffee so we  could sit together on the loveseat in the writing room to look out on Dairy Hollow Street through the spruce and cedar and fir and magnolia and dogwood and sycamore. Please don't go for you will miss my goings to town and my comings in with treats to set out and look at like "made in America socks" and sterling silver earrings with Hungarian glass beads hanging down and the tie dyed skirt from Granny's. I will follow you back to here, right here where we first met and I will hug you longer than I ever have. As I pack my car with all we have done together--the joy of making poems, the blues of shredding the imperfect ones only to remember memorable lines from them, watching the sunset and then rushing in to write about it. We sat in the dark with the window open listening to the raucous sound of night creatures. I watch you in my rear view mirror as you move away behind me and disappear as I drive around the Spring Street bend just beyond Grotto Springs---

Dairy Hollow Window

I have returned to keeping a journal in a sketchbook. Stories become tactile to be smudged or sharpened on page inviting playfulness in the retelling of my day. Analysis begins to jump around and twirls out on a ribbon of color---I can't hold back the desire to draw the shadowed window separating me and the serpentine cedar as seen through glass panes above the writing table in the Peach Blossom Suite at Dairy Hollow.