Cemeteries and Death

Posted by Melissa Baumgart
Cemeteries represent death.  Right?  Isn't that the first thing you think of when you see a cemetery?  I do.  But then again, I might think about death more than the average person.  I used to absolutely obsess about it, in fact.  Not a day went by in my early 20's that I didn't think I was going to die.  From the distance of age, those thoughts now seem completely illogical.  And yet, at the time, they were as real as anything else in my life. 

I couldn't even pass a cemetery without thinking that seeing it meant that would be the day I would die.  I couldn't drink Rogue Brewery's "Dead Guy Ale."  Or even hear that "American Pie" song on the radio.  Everywhere I looked, there was some symbol indicating that the end was near.  Those days were exhausting.

Somewhere, between having children and becoming a mother, I grew out of those days of panic.  I no longer see death lurking at the end of every exhale, feeling my relaxed body floating up to the heavens; and shaking myself back into the tense comfort of my living body.  I still fear death, though.  I still do not want to leave my family, my husband, my kids.  As much as life sucks sometimes, I have no desire to release it for the unknown.

Nobody really knows what happens after death.  There are stories of people that have "come back", beliefs grounded in faith, and the flat thought that nothing exists after life.  Like the expansiveness of outer-space, the unknown of death is just too much for me to ponder.  The discomfort it brings isn't worth it right now.  I have so much life to live, so many goals to achieve, so many earthly questions to answer. 

But someday, I can see myself sitting and pondering the great unknown. 

Let's Get Hammered!

Posted by Amy Baranski and Melissa Baumgart

Welcome to Do-It-Yourself (DIY) Month at Good Luck With That!

Watch out!  This month could be dangerous.  With glue guns, hammers and nails, and dare we even touch a saw?  This month we are tackling DIY projects around the house.  So far ideas range from building furniture to sewing napkins.  

Have you been wanting to shoot yourself in the head with a glue gun lately, I mean, build some furniture for your home?  Do you have any great ideas for DIY projects?  We'd love to hear about or see any projects you have been working on.  Upload a picture of your project on our Facebook page.  At the end of the month we will pick a random winner and we'll send you one of our incredible DIY creations! 

This month was inspired by one our favorite months of last year, Urban Homesteading.  We really enjoyed making everything from scratch and are hoping to expand on that idea with bigger projects around the home.  Here's to the same success story with less exhaustion.  

DIY or DIE!!!

If you're new to this blog, check out what we do, why we do it and like our Facebook page to stay up to date and participate.

I knew everything would be alright in the end

A sweet smelling rose down the street this morning.

posted by Melissa
Juliet:
"What's Montague?  it is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man.  O, be some other
    name!
What's in a name?  that which we call a
    rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd."

What a love story, Romeo and Juliet.  Consuming, ardent, tragic.

Back in 1998, when Jamie and I were figuring out our life together around being at the University of Washington Medical Center 12 hours a day, we made a few small attempts at being a couple.  Mostly we tried to be parents to a child born 3 and a half months early, weighing less than 2 pounds.  We didn't know what being a parent meant.  We were so young ourselves, barely over twenty.  We fumbled through the life of a premature baby that we lost, and truth be told, are still picking up the pieces at times.

One of those heartfelt attempts at being a couple showed up as a date to the movies.  We saw "Shakespeare in Love" and I felt my heart swell as I held Jamie's hand in the dark movie theatre, I thought that I knew everything would be alright in the end.  But, when is the end?  Is it when your baby dies?  Is it when you have your next "first" child?  Or is it each time you revisit the perceived hurts of how each parent goes through that experience differently?  Is it when you get married?  Is it when you choose forgiveness?  Is it 15 years later?

No.  The answer is at each point, a resounding "No."  There is no end, you keep learning and living together, and loving each other as best as you can.  It may not be a Romeo and Juliet kind of love story, but it is one filled with life and yes, sometimes tragedy big and small, but one that continues everyday because we choose to keep working on ourselves and with each other.

Last night, in the interest of Poetry month, we had a viewing of "Shakespeare in Love" with Amy and later Bob, at apartment #4.  It is quite a lovely movie; emotionally moving, passionate, funny and refreshingly ends without the typical "Hollywood" ending.

During one of my incomplete commitments to memorizing I intended to take this sonnet to heart, until I realized it is in a man's voice and I had second thoughts.  But still, I love Shakespeare's voice and word choice; and his romantic passion.  Although I am told I lack that in my own life.  Yet, I probably won't choose this one for my classic poem to memorize.

CXLVII
My love is as a fever, longing still
For that which longer nurseth the disease,
Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,
The uncertain sickly appetite to please.
My reason, the physician to my love,
Angry that his prescriptions are not kept,
Haft left me, and I desperate now approve
Desire is death, which physic did not except.
Past cure I am, now reason is past care,
And frantic-mad with evermore unrest;
My thoughts and my discourse as a madmen's
    are,
At random from the truth vainly express'd;
   For I have sworn thee fair and thought thee
      bright,
   Who art as black as hell, and dark as night.

Or maybe I will.
-Melissa

internet poetry foraging: found 1 mushroom

Posted by Melissa

Amy, holding her first mushroom specimen.

Amy and I were sharing dinner and wine together after our PSMS Mushroom ID class this past Thursday night, and as usual, we got to chatting.  Our conversations roamed through life and death, the fallible nature of humanity, and of course, mushrooms.  The night was edging on as the hours grew larger in number, and when I realized it was 11pm, I sadly had to call it a night and get to my studying for Algebra and Chemistry.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I should have left earlier." Amy obliged.

"Whatever.  I love hanging out and talking about all this stuff.  Anyway, I have been getting up super early and doing my work while everyone else is in bed.  So, no worries."  I volleyed back.

"You know," Amy shared, "Sylvia Plath use to get up early and write her poetry when she had kids."

"Yeah," I laughed, "but didn't she drown herself in a lake? Looks like it didn't work out too well."

"No, head in the oven. Virginia Woolf went in the lake, pockets full of stones." Amy corrected me.

I kept thinking of those words "head in the oven."  So blunt, so evocative.   I kept seeing my own head lying in my filthy oven, pink kitchen walls cheerily in the background.  In my vision, I must have been there for quite some time because I looked confused as to why nothing was happening.  Finally, I raised my head and shaking it while rolling my eyes with a huff.  The black chunks of burnt food fell from my dirty cheeks that were marked in lines from the oven rack.

Kneeling awkwardly, still over the oven door, it dawns on me...I have an electric oven.

***

As I sat down to write my post mushroom class blog post, I kept thinking of that ironic scene in my imagination and feeling strangely connected to Sylvia Plath.  I studied poetry in college, but I didn't remember any of her writing.  So, I got sidetracked searching for her works on line.
Serendipitously, I came across this poem.





Volunteer Park mushroom find on 4.8.11.

I'd love to dissect this poem, key it out so to speak, to use the terms of mushroom identifying.

Anyone have any thoughts as to what she is alluding to?

Anyone know of any other great mushroom poetry?

Do you think I should use this as one of my poems I memorize?

Leave me a comment below.  I would really love to hear what you think.

-Melissa

maybe you are exactly where you need to be

posted by Melissa

Are the birds always chirping early in the morning?  Or is it truly only after we set our clocks ahead and lose an hour of sleep...as if their sweet delicate sounds are our consolation for that one less hour of sleep.  Works for me.  I can hear them now as I type, the rest of the house still asleep...coffee by my keyboard, laundry started, birthday cake ordered (yes, I am not making Lily's birthday cake this year, so, now you know I don't milk my own goats and I am not making my 11 year old's birthday cake.  But I usually do.  Let go, Melissa)...the sun is sorta peeking through the trees and I have time to blog.

Not my backyard, but a photo I took at Seward Park.  Sun and trees

The math test is done.  I scored very well on the Pre-Algebra, and so-so on the Algebra.  Someone I talked to said I placed as high as I could, but I am left to wonder if that is true after looking at the nursing program's prerequisites.  I have a couple meetings today at the school to see what is what.  I can tell you, I am feeling hopeful.  Cautiously optimistic.

A couple Saturdays ago we were watching that advanced tai chi class up on 15th Ave.  As the students began to show up and begin their intimate "pushing hands" warm up, I got this sense that I knew them.  Everyone looked familiar.  It happened again this past Saturday at the tai chi open practice I went to.  Does that ever happen to you?  It's like a deja vu, but different.

I used to think that it meant I had a "soul contract" (something I learned about in my astrology classes) with these people.  And while a soul contract can be a positive thing, meaning we choose before we came here to the Earth to work things out, fall in love, or be a mother to certain other souls.  Only I interpreted it as a message that we were all going to die together.

I used to think about death a lot, and yet it scared me.  I spent years of my life, in a panic that I was about to die at any moment.  So,