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How Othello reminds me what I can do

When we returned from an extended trip in our travel trailer, our welcome home present was a broken float in the swamp cooler and a hall ceiling that drooped down around (yes, DOWN around. That’s a long way hung.) the light fixture. A dried puddle evidencing several rings lay on the floor with a curled up edge of one of the planks of laminate. Ah, yes. Welcome home.

Insert story of restoration crew pulling down ceiling that looked like graham crackers too long in milk, my not even 18-month old floor ripped up (with some molding yanked as well), and a month of waiting for the insurance company to hand over bucks to the repair guys.

So as of last night after dark, they have refloored the, well, floor. If one day to do three rooms and a hall sounds like a short period of time and not much work for me, let me assure you there was MUCH sweat and grunting and unbolting and bolting a Select Comfort bed and grumbling about too many shoes–not mine–and gulping icy water and thanking God BIG TIME for Louise and Becky. Girlfriends to the rescue.

So then…

I moved to purge mode. What if–tingling sensation creeping in– I don’t put it back? What if I don’t really need it and give it away to a convenient friend who is having a yard sale in three weeks? And who will let me take it NOW over to her garage? My office closet, without doors since the new floor doesn’t allow crummy bifold doors to return to their previous location, beckoned. Purge me. We’ll both feel better.

Out went school curriculum I’ve never used that I bought myself. Out went the curriculum my mother sent me when she retired, cough, um, a long bit ago. Out went copies of worksheets for classes I don’t teach anymore. Writing books I’ve never read or finished reading.  A yard sale pile. The pitch into the trash.

Then I found it. A dusty notebook with REAL yellowed pages. A poetry notebook from 1975-77. Handwritten. By yours truly.

End of purging. Time to travel back in time. What have we here…?

Senior year English class. We read Othello. I wrote a poem. What startles me now is not that it is particularly good poetry (it isn’t), but that I could work in a creative form other than my strength. So, if I could do it then, what else can I do creatively?…whoa.

A nice encouragement from purging a closet. I love living startled!

What? Oh, you must read it? Well, okay.

Othello & Desdemona: A Different Glimpse

DESDEMONA

Hours pass, alone am I

Staring blankly at the sky;

Words are whirling in my head

I wish to God that I were dead.

The things Thou said, the names Thou threw

I cannot think of what to do;

Thou were so cruel, I cringed with fear

Thou weren’t the man that I held dear.

Thou gazed at me as to despise

Me for that look from a soldier’s eyes.

I never did Thee any wrong

My love for you still burnest strong.

I remember with averted face

The Thou stormed out from the place

Where love had died and hate had grown;

The seeds of doubt that had been sown.

My soul is full, my heart is sore

I only wish to shut the door

On all the dreams and hopes and fears

Of us as one, in yesteryears.

OTHELLO:

My mortal heart doth break in pain

The agony drives me near insane.

My sweet wife she has done the deed

That maketh me swoon, maketh me bleed.

She did indeed a soldier woo

She must be made to ever rue

That fateful morn on which she birthed

She is but mud be turned to earth.

I cannot put my mind at rest

I must keep striding, ever, lest

I recall with love our times of joy

But no, I see her writhe, be coy

In a post of love that truly reeks

Of lies and scum and dark deceit.

I will this night before cock crow

Slay this whore afore she go

Leapeth yet into another embrace

A different knave, a difference place.

And yet my soul feels heavy blessed

with gloom, I have not had a peaceful rest.

Oh, strumpet fair, with heart so black

I thought thou chaste but thou did lack

A stroke of love for me this knave

Whose heart so carefully didst though enslave.