“Stay committed to your decisions, but stay flexible in your approach.” – Tom Robbins

Have you ever noticed that whenever you commit to a change, the universe rushes in –no, not the universe, your kids, all the significant others in your life — as if to test your resolve? Are you sure, they seem to ask. Do you really, really mean it?

That’s what a number of my students experienced on the first day of our experiment to change one thing. And, I have to admit, I got pretty busy, too. Crazy busy. It would have been easy to put it off for one more day.

My goal is to add fifteen minutes of writing to my afternoons or evenings. At my desk or at home. Fifteen minutes. That’s all (though it’s okay if it turns into more).

The excuses began immediately.

Fifteen minutes isn’t enough–what I really need to do is retire from teaching and write full-time.

My desk is too messy.

I already write in the morning.

I need to grade student papers.

I should go for a walk instead. I’ll set a new goal.

You get the idea. But what can it hurt? It’s only fifteen minutes. What if I developed a habit of dropping into my work in the afternoons, the way I do in the mornings? Wouldn’t that be a good habit? Why don’t I give it a try?

Yesterday was “Poem in Your Pocket” Day, and I was fortunate to be invited by David Horowitz to read poems with four other poets at the Edmonds Bookshop, where I sold four books, and bought two.

Here’s a poem for your pocket from Jane Kenyon:

The Thimble

I found a silver thimble
on the humusy floor of the woodshed,
neither large nor small, the open end
bent oval by the wood’s weight,
or because the woman who wore it
shaped it to fit her finger.

Its decorative border of leaves, graceful
and regular, like the edge of acanthus
on the tin ceiling at church…
repeating itself over our heads while we speak in unison
words the wearer must have spoken.

(I found the image at http://www.etsy.com/listing/56781815/simons-sterling-silver-victorian-thimble)

It’s been a week of wounds, great and small, which somehow makes the idea of retrieving this artifact from under a woodpile additionally comforting.  My uncle died on Saturday after a long illness, a friend wrote to me about her grandbaby’s unexpected death. Boston. Waco. Everything in between.

Over at Wait! I have a Blog?! Kathleen Kirk put up a poem yesterday for Boston. I hope you will have a chance to drop by.