Royal Wedding and Scrabble

I admit it: I got up at 330 and watched the Royal Wedding. Totally unimportant in the grand scheme, but I have to say that the sermon preached by the Archbishop of Canterbury was a piece of genius. Words to live by if you are married, considering marriage, or put off by marriage. Inspiring to hear that and hear it in his deep rumble of a voice too.

I spent the day thinking about relationships and love and what it means to make a commitment to another person. I though of all the love I have in my life, husband, kids, grands, friends, fellow poets. I thought a great deal about the disappointments that love has brought. On balance, love wins. I am in the midst of a poetry project right now, a collection of poems about love, The Boyfriend Project. This has evolved out of finding (in some cases SEARCHING) lost loves from my younger days. I am excited about this work, a departure in a way from what I have been doing the past 5 years. I get to recall these boys and their impact on my outlook toward love. I can close my eyes and see them, imagine backwards if you will to the days of dancing in my parents dining room, kissing lessons, the scent of the beach and tanning oil. It has turned into much more than nostalgia though. I have found that it is healthy to know where people go after love. I found one beau in the nick of time, weeks before he died of cancer. We spent an amazing afternoon together, I got to meet his wonderful wife of 37 years, and had the chance to tell him how very important he was to me. My high school "sweetheart" is in my life again too as a result of my searching. We have had lunch recently (December) and hope to introduce ourselves to our spouses this summer. We both want to meet the persons who made our lives happy lo these decades since we were "in love." I treasure this guy. He me.

So how can I not write about this discovery process? I have to do it. My writing group is my first line here, looking at the poems as I write them and advising me on what to fix, what to scuttle, what to keep. They are invaluable to the process.

So, off that topic and on to Scrabble. As a footnote to yesterday's royal laziness on my part, I played in a Scrabble tournament locally. It was a bit frustrating due to some rules that did not make sense. But it was a charity event, raising money for the Literacy Project. So... how did I do? WON it with my teammates, AJ, Katherine, and Diane. I had never met these girls before, but we hit it off well and obviously DID well. We beat out 7 or 8 other teams by more than 300 points over the closest competitor. Whoo hoo! The prize was tickets for two to a Bay Chamber Concert on the 8th of May. Nice prize, nice people, good time had by all. Thanks to the Lincoln Street Center for hosting.

What to do now that poetry month is ending? Get back to work on the work at hand and do a little gardening. Oh yeah, maybe some actual SPRING CLEANING... that's all for now.