12.30.11 My New Home: Will It Fit Me Like A Glove?

I have lived on Nicollet Island for three months now. It is the only inhabited island on the Mississippi River, whose waters it divides just a snowball's throw from Northeast Minneapolis and a bridge's span from downtown Minneapolis. I and the woman I've lived with for the past 28 years had wearied of being homeowners, and in what many might interpret as a capricious or impetuous decision, chose to leave the house where we had lived and raised children for the past 11 years in favor of a 600 square foot apartment on this peaceful yet urbanly situated island. Our children had already flown or been gently nudged from the nest, and we were free to do as we pleased. So we did what our hearts told us to do, and after residing here for three months, I for one can say that the impulse of my heart has not yet revealed itself as folly. I believe my companion feels likewise.

I think that from the very first moment our decision to move to the island became a reality, I knew I would be writing about the experience of moving and living here. But during the first three months, consumed with the many details attending the relocation process, I simply lacked the tranquility required to look about me, to observe where I was and what I'd done, and to write about it all in a thoughtful and unhurried manner. Now, however, I feel sufficiently tranquil. I feel unhurried. And, as I have begun a daily ritual of walking the perimeter of the island (my daily 'constitutional'), I am progressively more thoughtful concerning the world as I observe it both on and from the island. Since I have been (and remain) between work assignments, I have been free to practice oil painting, write poems, compose and record songs, and otherwise obey the promptings of my inner voice, indulging in those pastimes that bring me joy and pleasure and fulfillment. For my life is all about how I pass the time, which is all I have. My life itself is a pastime, and if nothing else, this new setting in which I have placed myself, has already deepened and enhanced my appreciation for the time that is mine, the content with which I may fill it, and my ability to choose the nature of that content.

Today, my morning consitutional resulted in the following poem:

Minneapolis, in Winter

I don’t know about other places
But in Minneapolis
You needn’t go very far
To find a lost glove or mitten,
Never your own,
But one yet retaining
The traces of another being,
a scent or a hair or even
a lingering warmth
from the hand it so recently held

I saw two just this morning,
Before I’d even walked very far,
Lying palmate at the roadside
As if to give a friendly wave,
As if their former owners
Were reaching out to me,
Letting me know that they’d
Walked where I was walking
And felt the same cold that I was feeling
Here in Minneapolis, in winter.

Over the past year or so, I have found myself more inclined to writing poems than ever before. And so, I have been indulging from time to time, as inspiration strikes. Whether my poems are any good or not is for others to decide. For me, it is enough to write them, to indulge this strange passion of mine for arranging words on a page in ways that my instincts tell me are elegant, expressive, and possessing of--to some degree--truth or beauty. If these island surroundings do not inspire poetry in one's heart and mind, then no surroundings ever will.

Tomorrow is the last day of the year 2011. Maybe I should have waited until New Year's Day to begin this blog, but I believe that when the time is right to begin something we usually know it, and can feel it, and should act upon it. So that is what I've done.

Life flows on, in and around us--wear it like a glove and ride it like a river.

D.E.S.