Ollie’s email informing me that Nancy, a Peruvian friend of my daughter’s, who I had never met, would arrive late. A kind gesture from a Delta flight attendant for a weary traveler who did not have a US cell phone.My response
And the rest of the story…
Ollie responded to my email. He said the Wharton quote really hit home with him. He shared I Simply, Smile, a poem he wrote in February 2012 on his first night in the hospital after he was diagnosed with stage IV brain cancer. He had three brain surgeries, radiation and chemotherapy and was pronounced in remission. His adopted life motto is: Watch me live! (Don’t watch for me to die..watch how I live, abundantly!)
I Simply, Smile
Barren of leaves,
This windblown tree.
Withstanding Winter’s toll,
Firmly planted in the security,
Of this gentle river flow.
Let your violence buffet, howl.
And bring your bitter snow.
You’ll succeed to only dig in my roots,
To fertile soil below.
Your deepest threat,
Your fear…dark and grave,
Your empty, hollow chide,
Evokes a smile, in my resolve…
Exposing this passion that resides.
Your power to take, Is taken away.
Your plan revealed futile,
For as you scheme to strip away,
Fruit finds production…
And mocks you…
All the while.
So bring your winters’ harshest,
Though I tremble,
Though I quake,
And this fullness of life,
This exuberant dance…
Is found here in your wake.
Full beyond containment…
I simply, smile.
Ollie thanked me for the encouragement. He said, “No matter what, I will reflect light!” You see, on Tuesday Ollie started chemotherapy again. Another tumor has formed. He wrote, “My purpose in life is to show love to everyone and to encourage everyone to live a full life. I believe we can change the world by showing love to the world…that’s my ‘crazy idea.'”
I’m crazy about Ollie’s crazy idea idea of showing love to everyone.
Please join me in sending some healing love Ollie’s way. I, like Ollie, simply smile. I have been touched and am filled with gratitude. Thank you Ollie for sharing your poem, light and love.
Where’d You Go, Bernadette, Maria Semple’s novel started off my summer reading list. Remember childhood summer reading programs, when we would read a set number of books to earn a prize and a certificate? Now, for me, reading is the reward. And yes I have been reading much: spiritual books like Seven Thousand Ways to Listen-Mark Nepo, Immortal Diamond-Richard Rohr, How the Light Gets In-Pat Schneider, a few memoirs like Pieces of Someday-Jan Vallone and Life after Death-Damien Echols, one of the West Memphis Three who was wrongly accused of murder and released after years on death row, which can’t be confused with another book I read, Proof of Heaven-Eben Alexander, a neurosurgeon’s near death experience. I rediscovered Jamaica Kincaid, author of “Girl,” which I happen to think is one of the finest examples of a single sentence, about 350 words of poetry and a complete story, at a public library reading from her new See Now Then: A Novel. And I have had the honor to read a dear friend’s complete memoir manuscript and poems, writings, blogs, book chapters and more written by writers in the two weekly and one biweekly writing groups that add much to my life. I can’t wait to read Terry Tempest William’s When Women Were Birds.
The other day, someone kindly asked about me and my blog, “Where did you go?” Hmmm…it’s July 20. There’s morning fog, so much fog that the white cloud is visibly pouring by my condo window. And I can’t see the red tip of Alexander Calder’s Eagle, six tons of marvelous twisted steel in the Olympic Sculpture Park, a place, actually my front yard, that keeps me grounded and uplifted. A good day to pause, reflect on “Where did I go?” and blog. Oh my! My life is so much more than reading and writing-so much more because of reading and writing.
Here’s the mid-summer report.
1. Memorial Day officially kicked off summer with a week-long memorable Gardner gathering in the Mt. Hood, Oregon area where all three of our children, two who happen to live on other continents, and their loved ones, and my husband’s two brother’s families were present. Twenty three of us celebrated family and honored my mother-in-law Chris. We hiked on the Salmon River, sort of did yoga led by our son’s girl friend who really leads real yoga, ate, played games, visited, soaked in the hot tub, but the vivid memories are the Peruvian Pachamanca celebration where our son-in-law and daughter prepared their first earthen meal for us which was followed by sharing poems, songs, stories, memories and even a “Grandma Chris Jeopardy Game.” We took the highlights to Grandma Chris who resides in a memory care facility in Sandy, Oregon on Saturday. With her diminishing memory and body, she seemed to enjoy our shared time. The blessing that we all received from her was that she seems peaceful like she’s in a Zen Buddhist kind of space. Maybe it’s disease, drugs or a state of just being before non-being, but what an everlasting gift the time was to us all.
2. I returned home to begin summer writing groups at Mary’s Place and a sizzling summer WritersGathering, really an amazing group of writers who hold each other and each other’s words beautifully. All June I worked on a memoir about my relationship with my mother-in-law. Our gathering gave me plenty of material.
3. Did I mention the hours I spent trying to get our fiscal house in order after someone was able to make charges from our checking account? Now closed.
4. Celebrated graduations. Bainbridge Graduate Institute’s graduation is the best. Amazing program and people who are changing and will change this world for the better. In full disclosure, my husband works for BGI. His work matters.
5. A June bike ride to the Ballard Locks for one of their every summer Saturday and Sunday afternoon free concerts introduced us to the Eastside Modern Jazz Orchestra.
6. Helped to celebrate by cocreating and acting in a “Curves skit” for a friend’s 70th birthday party. We all met at Curves, a place I still try to get to work out at three or four times a week.
7. Did I mention the toothache that turned into excruciating pain which was relieved with the application of some miraculous product used by my dentist? She said it may be just buying time before a root canal. So far so good.
8. Seattle is a great place to visit from mid-July through mid-September. Thanks to friends who feel the same, we get to be tourists in our own town. A friend from Missouri came at the beginning of July. We strolled along the waterfront to Pike Place Market, watched the Salmon joyfully leap in the salty waters of Puget Sound on the west side of Ballard Locks before they struggled up the ladders to get into Lake Union. Our visited culminated by celebrating the Fourth and our freedom with fireworks at Lake Union. A dear friend who lived well and battled cancer for years died early as the day began. Through colorful bombs bursting and tears, I remembered her, our brief friendship and shared writings, her life’s ending and freedom from pain and her new soulful adventure with life after bodily death. Did I mention that John and I have been working on our Last Will & Testaments? We haven’t decide what to do with our bodies after death and haven’t taken the document to be witnessed and notarized.
9. A month after seeing our children in Oregon, Elie and her husband Oscar, both photojournalists in Peru, continue to discuss the possibility of going to Jordan (they are already studying Arabic); John(ny), after some tough beginning days battling Lyme disease, is improving with antibiotics and plans to join his girlfriend’s family in Hawaii at the end of July; and our daughter and son-in-law who live in Lausanne, Switzerland are traveling the continent of Europe. I think Kate’s working on the Mediterranean Island of Ibiza, Spain today. If not, my question is “Where’d you go, Kate?”
10. Another little, really big, thing I love about Seattle is the giant red Popsicle sculpture on the southwest corner of Fourth and Blanchard which I make sure to include on as many of my daily walks as possible. It gives me joy even on cloudy days. Someday I may stop and take more than a photo, maybe a lick. It’s that delicious.
11. On July 6, we headed to Oregon for the first grandniece’s or grandnephew’s (unidentified gender) baby shower. Nephew Zac and Erica are going to be awesome parents. It was held in the lovely garden apartment of Jesse and Tiffany, another loved nephew and wife. We are so lucky to have awesome nieces and nephews on both sides of the family who live close. Three nephews, two wives and a grandniece and grandnephew live in the Seattle area. After the shower we rested at Skamania Lodge on the Columbia River Gorge where we watched kite surfers, windsurfers and took a light hike.
10. Did I mention the perssitent sore throat and lymph glands and that I have spent more time dealing with another fiscal mess someone created for me to clean up, someone who made charges on our credit card? Card closed.
11. I spend too much time, almost daily, playing WORDSwithfriends, Scrabble and getting glimpses of moments in friend’s lives on Facebook thanks to the iPhone. And I’ve managed to squeeze in some walks, talks, coffees, lunches and dinners with friends in Seattle.
Dancing to Violin (or Fiddle) music on the roof of art installation at Seattle Art Museum’s Olympic Sculpture Park
12. Friends from North Dakota came for a six day weekend last week. Took them to the quintessential Seattle places I went to with my friend from Missouri but added the Bill & Melinda Gate’s Foundation, Seattle Center, Museum of History and Industry to the itinerary and we attended Seattle Art Museum’s Summer at SAM kick off at the Olympic Sculpture Park. We enjoyed the bands Art of Jazz and Comfort Food and a violinist (or fiddler) and dancer on the roof of the summer installation of art, “Western Oracle: We Will Tear the Roof off the Mother.” Really, it was a tear the roof off kind of evening. Food trucks, a picnic, friends, sunshine and a sailboat regatta. Remember this is my front yard, home of the Eagle’s red tip which I can now see along with Bainbridge Island’s long green line across the waters of Elliot Bay and the Puget Sound. Fog lifting. No sun or Olympic Mountains visible-yet.
Raven at Hurricane Ridge National Park
13. On Saturday we took the ferry from Anacortes through the San Juan Islands to Sidney, British Columbia and enjoyed a night stay at a fully appointed and not too expensive hotel, The Oswego, in Victoria. We sauntered around the harbor and city. On Sunday abundant and colorful flowers at Butchart Gardens exceeded my expectations. I swear the begonias were on steroids. Sunday evening we took the Coho Black Ball ferry across the wavy Strait of Juan de Fuca which induced mild motion sickness to spend the night in Port Angeles. On our way home Monday we drove to Hurricane Ridge and Sequim spotting some lavender fields. That night, when I wrote with others in my awesome summer WritersGathering group, the black ravens flew into my writings as crows.
14. Did I mention that my energy is low and throat and lymph glands settled into another sinus infection and I had to go on antibiotics and steroids, again? The good news is that I don’t have mono.
15. My brother is holding is own after the loss of his father-in-law and a medical event; another brother celebrated his 50th with a big margarita, maybe more; another brother is enjoying his family, exploring ancestory.com with his son and anticipating a family mission trip to Guatemala; and one of my sisters is dealing with chronic pain; another has returned home to her small Kansas town after years of working in Washington, D.C. and seems to be in her bliss making pies; and another sister is weathering the wicked summer storms in New Mexico as she wickedly beats me in Scrabble. Where’d you go, Bob and Jackie?
16. On Thursday I had to cancel my day with friends on Vashon Island because the sinus, face and head pain made for a sleepless in Seattle night for me. Too bad it wasn’t the movie.
Paul McCartney “Out There” Tour July 19, 2013 Seattle
17. But last night, I rocked on with Sir Paul, as in the Paul McCartney, at Safeco Field’s first held concert. Three hours, 39 songs, complete with two LED screens and more projecting artists, instruments, the crowd and artful images accompanied music, lights, fireworks and smoke. Three Nirvana members joined the show towards the end for what a critic has called Sirvana. Wow! So many highs. “Blackbird” which was written by McCartney as a reaction to the USA’s escalating 1960’s racial tensions moved me to tears as he sang and played guitar solo while artful images of the moon, a blackbird on a wire above a rooftop on a mostly blue background were projected. The contrasting images and music illuminated the personal pain I am fighting and the shared pain we, in this country and throughout the world, are holding as we all struggle to be free or to live freely with the all of life.
18. On the nearly two and a half mile walk home with the moon nearly full and our hearts and souls full, which gave me the ability to ignore my waning body but not my need to pee, my husband and I stopped at a Taco del Mar in historic Pioneer Square. We ordered a bottle of water, a beer and chips and guacamole as we visited reliving the concert, McCartney’s life, the Beattle’s lives and ours.
19. On August 7, 2013, John and I will celebrate 37 years of marriage. Last night we remembered a July 19 Jesse Colin Young, The Beach Boys, and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young concert we attended 39 years ago at Royals Stadium in Kansas City. It was so hot I fainted before the 1974 concert. I was in lust with John and beginning to learn about love. Oh my! After nearly 40 years, we are learning to love. “Something,” another song McCartney sang last moved me to tears last night, and thinking about it now is making for watery eyes, evoking feelings. But more than feelings. As I held hands and shared stories and memories with the man who I have loved, sometimes not so well, since I was 15 years-old, I know the answer to the song’s question, “Will my love grow?” There were hints in the song, “believe” and “stick around.” We’re doing that and our love keeps getting better. He’s scrubbing the toilet now. After going to bed at 1:00 AM and living fully for the first 55 days of this summer, it’s time for a midsummer night’s dream, the life I’m living. Today, that means a day to rest, heal, pause, and write.
So, to answer the question “Where’d you go, Julie?”, I am here fully alive in the Pacific Northwest. I am currently reading John Wood’s Creating Room to Read A Story of Hope in the Battle for Global Literacy a man who did what an earlier book was titled, Leaving Microsoft to Change the World. All of the board members of VoiceFlame are reading and finding inspiration for our work empowering girls and women, right now in Malawi, through writing and creative expression. I envision us creating Room to Write, but why stop there when there is A World to Write? I imagine a world where everyone’s voice and stories matter and are respected and honored by others. I want to live in that world. I must begin by fully inhabiting my life even if it’s in my bathrobe, reading and writing. It’s 5:01 PM. I am living fully and happily with fatigue, pain, stories and healing.
20. The fog, my fog has lifted. The sun is parting the clouds. The world, the Olympic Mountains which I can now see, and the cruise boats departing for Alaska beg me to come out and play. I have not left my condo today. I write. I will rest and I will read which brings me back to me.
Epic summer making for an epic blog post breaking all the rules. It will likely be the only blog post until September. I invite you to send me your writings and I will post them. Today, I begin a mid-summer at home retreat. I must rest. On the first day of August I’m off to California for a Napa anniversary with my husband, time with his cousin(maybe a San Francisco Bay sail), a week long writing class with Pat Schneider founder of the Amherst Writers & Artists method (the method I use in my writing groups after attending training in 2011), a reunion with the people I traveled to Malawi with and a VoiceFlame board meeting. Living, reading, writing, writing, reading and living fully. Gratefully. I am here. I wish a full life and reading and writing for everyone on this planet.
Today is Father’s Day and I want to honor my father Robert Edward Abare. I love the picture of my dad in his Marine uniform. I call it his “stud muffin” picture. I never knew him when he looked like that. The Dad I knew had already suffered polio, was partially paralyzed on one side of his body, had a tracheotomy scar which he called a “war wound,” had lost most of his hair and drank a few too many screwdrivers.
The Dad I remember made sure we, all nine kids, were sheltered and fed. He worked his entire career for the L.S Starrett company, a precision tool manufacturer since 1880, based in my Dad’s home town of Athol, Massachussets. Dad never graduated from high school, but he was an arm chair philosopher. As I reflect and honor my Dad today, this is the one of the biggest gifts he ever gave me. My dad always had time to sip a cup of “joe” with me, to tell jokes or stories (often whoppers), and to indulge me in conversations or debates about the true color of the clouds and the sky. For years I tried to learn more about his military service, his polio days but he always stayed in the present. Only now, I realize what a gift staying in the present is. Then I felt like my dad was withholding, hiding his true self. Funny, he was there all along. Dad had this uncanny ability to change the questions and the conversation in such a way that I was forced to examine myself-not others.
Today I am grateful for my Dad sitting at the table with a cup of “joe” or a vodka and orange screwdriver. Once I gave my Dad a rock with these Satchel Paige words, “Sometimes I sits and thinks, and sometimes I just sits.” I wonder where the rock is today. I will sits and thinks, and just sits today to honor him. Though my Dad was not the type to push his faith on anyone, he often told me to “keep the faith.” Khaled Bentounès, a Sufi Master, said, “Despite the materialism of our modern century and the infernal noise of its mechanical, industrial, nuclear and military power, there still exist a few representatives of that superior type of humanity who in silence inquire, meditate and pray.” My mother showed me how to belong to a community of faith. My father showed me, without words, how to sit in silence, inquire, meditate and pray. Today I pray that both of my deceased parents can feel my delayed and overflowing gratitude.
Today, I’m taking action. There are so many things we commonly say or write that do not seem to be carefully thought about. Sometimes they’re not considerate towards others rights and feelings. Some of the things I hear, find myself saying or writing, come from my family-of-origin’s and culture’s language.
Language, for the purposes of this post on considering language, refers to a systematic means of communicating ideas or feelings by the use of conventionalized signs, sounds, gestures, or marks having understood meanings. Each day I find myself with a growing list of things I want to stop saying, stop writing. Maybe it’s a pet peeve, something writers and counselors pay attention to, or maybe it’s time for all of us to enter into considering our language.
A few examples follow.
“Shoot me an email.” Shoot sounds violent to me. Reconsidering, “Send me an email,” or better yet, “Please send me an email.”
When someone is looking forward to someone’s arrival or an event, often we hear, “I’m so anxious to see her.” Anxious? Really? It may be accurate when one is expecting someone who they have a stressful relationship with or for persons suffering with agoraphobia. Usually that is not the case. Reconsidering, “I’m so excited.” Or why not share some joy and happiness? “I’m so happy.”
Maybe you have some expressions that cause you to pause. You are invited to share them. Lets have some fun reconsidering language. Who knows? We could create a Reconsidering Language Dictionary working towards a world where we say what we mean and mean what we say – for a kinder more authentic world.
And, if you’re wondering why I chose considering, with an ing instead of considerate, it’s because I believe language should evolve along with humans and the world – ever considering and ever changing. Do we still have insane asylums? Do we dial up people on the phone? Geez, we rarely call someone. We text, tweet, have blogs, Facebook post (like and comment). Thank you.
My mother died on November 1, 1999 at the age of 72. Always, she is with me. I see her in ocean waves and yellow forsythia, hear her when someone chews gum loudly or belts out the hymn “Jesus Christ is risen today with a long drawn out Alleluia,” smell her in Coppertone sunscreen and violet water bottles, and I taste her in guacamole and rice pudding with raisins. And touch, well, touch is a little more complicated.
My mother wasn’t the touchy-feely kind. In fact I don’t have many childhood memories of hugs or “I love yous.” They did come later. My mother’s mother died when she was an infant. Her sea captain father remarried but was often away leaving my mother’s Bible banging stepmother to raise her. Needless to say my mother’s childhood was void of touch and “I love yous.”
We both have had to grieve losses and learn how to love, touch and express love.
I’ll never forget the last time I was with my mom. It was an idyllic (except we knew she was dying) week at the seashore. One night, Mom was tired and weak so I assisted her bathing. When I rubbed apple scented body wash on her wrinkled arms, I expected them to feel rough. Instead, I found myself melting into my mother’s soft skin, baby bottom soft. Through tears Mom told me something she had never told anyone, “My father died of syphilis. At least your father never cheated on me.” Oh my! What a cleansing ritual.
My parents separated off and on during my adolescent years and divorced when I was in college. My dad later married a woman named Barb. After he died, my mom and Barb became friends. In fact Barb was with us that week. I never referred to Barb as my stepmother. She asked us to call her “frother,” a combination of friend and mother. And she was a frother.
The greatest gifts my mother ever gave me were with us that week, are still with me. My mother showed me how to suffer, heal and forgive, how to be there for others and how to let others be there for you, and how to enjoy life from eating lobster with a bib to weeping at sunset.
In Mom’s last Christmas letter which was read by her spiritual adviser at her funeral Mass, she wrote, “Now, I am entering into eternal life and I want you to realize my joy! I am now to meet the Author of Life, He who created me and He who redeemed me and He who sanctified me.”
Those words just made me cry more. How could I feel joy? At the time, eternal life was there where Mom’s body was, not here with me. I could no longer touch her. She could no longer touch me.
I still wonder about the Author of Life. Is it a He or a She? Or a He/She, more like a Oneness? And redemption and sanctification make me swallow hard.
But eternal life seems to have staying power. It seems my mother continues to touch my life. She is ever present.
In response to last weeks’s invitation to readers to submit their writings to TheCandle or the Mirrorblog, I am delighted to share “No Expiration Date” by Kansas City area writer Ann O’Connor Waters.
In a book, I read “there’s no expiration date on motherhood” and was immediately transported back to my mother’s kitchen—a time I was home from college just visiting with my grandmother and mother. Mom, who was in her late 50s at the time and very familiar with her kitchen, went to use the garbage disposal. Her mother said, “Watch your fingers.”
I thought “Wow, I guess once a mother always a mother.”
My grandma never had a garbage disposal on the farm and she lived mentally sharp till the end at age 88. My mother has not been as fortunate. She will be 90 years old in June. I have read the statistics about a growing number of people living with the affliction of dementia. Now, it’s personal. My siblings and I often find ourselves mothering our mother. Growing up as one of eight children, all girls except one boy, wasn’t always easy.
As a teenager I wasn’t terribly patient with what I perceived as Mom’s flaws. Now, when she thanks me for something I’ve done for her, I tell her I’m just paying her back for all the grief I gave her as a teen, she says, “I don’t remember you giving me any grief.” Why am I reminding her?
Mom’s frugal nature played a large part in my Dad’s success in building his own business. He started his insurance agency when they already had four children and Mom was pregnant with the fifth. I can still see Mom looking through the grocery ads and making her list of where to go for the best prices. Usually that meant multiple stores. A phrase that often came out of her mouth, “save it,” might have been in regard to some freshly baked cookies, or anything that had to be stretched between all of us. Dad credited Mom with helping keep the family afloat. No doubt her practical ways played a large part in enabling them to send eight children through Catholic schools and college. I must confess, when I make chocolate chip cookies I delight knowing I can add as many chocolate chips as I want—and eat what I want. We don’t have to save them.
In our large family multi-tasking was strongly encouraged—ingrained in us. If you were on the phone for example, you were expected to be folding laundry. For years I was convinced my obituary would read something like “she died blow-drying her hair while in the shower.”
Now with my mom, we do one thing at a time—very slowly.
Growing up, I always felt closer to my Irish Dad who was more comfortable showing his emotions and sharing mine. He seemed to say the right thing at the right time. Mom never quite had that knack. For example, when my boyfriend (now my husband) and I broke up, I was sobbing melodramatically across my bed when Mom came in and pulled out every cliché in the book. “There are other fish in the sea…” Her hands didn’t soothe me; instead she dusted my room. I ended up feeling sorry for her and said, “Gee thanks Mom, I feel so much better.” She gladly left the room.
When I was in the hospital in labor with my second son, perhaps in an effort to make conversation, Mom looked at the fetal monitor and asked, “Do they worry when it’s a flat line?”
One time, hoping to get insight into her feelings, maybe looking for a warm fuzzy word, I said, “You couldn’t have been thrilled every time you found out you were pregnant?” She paused and answered, “Oh I just figured, what’s one more?” For Mother’s Day I sent her flowers with a card saying “Thanks for not stopping at five.” I was the sixth child.
Now, when it comes to communicating with Mom, I try to remember Fr. Mike’s words, “Meet people where they are.” In some ways, dealing with her is very similar to dealing with a toddler. My siblings and I find ourselves distracting her when she obsesses on one subject, being firm yet gentle when she resists something like showering or getting ready for bed and occasionally we bribe her. The other day when I was taking a shirt off over Mom’s head, I said, “Let’s skin the rabbit” just the way she did when she undressed me as a little girl. As Mom struggles to do things like getting into the car to go on a drive, she says “I can do it” with the strong willed voice of a two-year-old. At church, rather than let a lay minister bring communion to her, something they gladly do for many, Mom insists on walking up the aisle leaning on one of her children’s arms.
Things have come full circle: I think of how she watched us grow; now, we’re watching her shrink (She wonders why her dresses are getting longer.); she taught us to drive; we had to take her driving privileges away; she will sometimes repeat the same story over and over; and I remind myself that I begged her to re-read my favorite story when I was a small child. The woman who taught me to cook can’t remember how to scramble an egg. Although Mom still seems to know my siblings and me, she sometimes refers to us as her “friends” or “those nice ladies that come to visit me.”
Mom has mellowed considerably. I hope I have too. I spend every Thursday with her cherishing our time and learning lessons from dementia: selective memory is not a bad thing; multi-tasking is over-rated; perhaps we should treat our family members at least as well as we do our friends; and slowing down and leaning on a loved one’s arm can be a pretty good way to walk through the world.
Thank you all for reading and commenting on the posts I’ve written on the blog – known as the Candle or the Mirror –during the past three weeks. The Facebook, blog and email responses have been so touching and supportive of my work. Some of you have shared how my writing has inspired you to write. Thank you. It’s an honor to be trusted with your truths and to be able to trust you with mine. To inspire and be inspired is a gift! Thank you.
Now, you are invited to be the candle. What this means is I welcome you to submit a poem, story or anything you’ve written. Other readers and myself will be able to comment using this Amherst Writers & Artists (AWA) guideline: From what you read, what stays with you? What did you like? What was strong?
When you submit a writing and/or a comment, they are not automatically posted. I have to approve them before they go live. Following the AWA guidelines and the need for me to approve submissions and comments should keep this forum safe and supportive for all.
So, please, give yourself and readers of this blog a May gift, your light and words.
If you need a prompt to get you started try one of these:
“My mother birthed me and now I am birthing…”
“The gifts my mother gave me…”
“Mother, I forgot…”
I try to post once a week, so please send your words by Saturday, May 5.
“All that we are concerned with is turning your attention to the real things outside.”
John C. Merriam, 1925, Founder of the Yavapai Point Museum, Words found on a museum plaque
This week my husband and I traveled to Sedona and Grand Canyon, Arizona. I suggest you make the trip yourself sometime because my words or photos will not capture my or your experience.
For now, I invite you to practice John C. Merriam’s words: turn your attention to the real things outside. Just take a mini vacation right where you are, wander or wonder for awhile, then return to read.
For me, I am back home in my one bedroom condo in Seattle. There are piles of mail, newspapers, catalogs, clean clothes, dirty clothes, and dishes, all shorter than yesterday. I am sitting in my black desk chair; my posture is poor so I shift to a better position to continue my work. Out my window there are layers: snow white mountain tips, shorter darker mountains in front of them, and the closest layer is the greening of Bainbridge Island trees across the Puget Sound. It must be windy as there are white caps and no boats on the water. When I lean forward I can see the sail boats at Elliot Bay Marina and the red steel tip of Alexander Calder’s Eagle sculpture in Seattle Art Museum’s Olympic Sculpture Park. My breathing is relaxed and I feel happy.
Back to what’s going on inside my head, I must: get to those piles; get ready for tonight; tend to banking details and finish this post. My shoulders are getting tighter. The day after my husband and I left for vacation the Boston Marathon bombings happened. With all the beauty and inspiration we were experiencing, we could not forget the few images we saw on the news, in papers or on Facebook. At times, I chose to give the news no attention. Large flags flying at half mast, standing straight out in the strong winds, would not let me forget.
I gave my attention to the real things outside: the flapping flags and the grandeur of the Canyon. In doing so, I found that I was better able to deal with the real things going on inside. The inevitable pain and struggle we humans experience is not unlike the Grand Canyon. Uplift. Erosion. Colliding. Drifting apart. Relentless forces of moving water. Beauty. Inspiration. It will always be a changing landscape.
After hiking much of the South Rim and with little daylight left, we decided to take the shuttle bus to Hermits Rest on the west edge of the South Rim. I was a bit tired and queasy, but wanted to see the river along the way – all I could in a day. I was on the wrong side of the bus to see the Canyon during the drive, so my attention was on the baby in the seat in front of me. Her curious eyes landed on the the silver bar of the bus seat and widened. She reached. The mother shifted her body so her baby could touch the bar. The girl looked, struggled to reach, and when she finally did touch the bar, she smiled. She continued to explore with her pointer finger and then her entire hand, tried to lick the shiny bar, went back to touching, smiling and squealing with delight. The silver bus seat bar was her real thing outside which she attended to for the entire 40 minute ride.
This baby girl reminded me to wonder, to take regular moments to wonder wherever I am, whatever the real thing outside is. Someday it may be the silver metal bar of a hospital bed, walker or wheelchair. If so, I hope I can still wonder, return to whatever the real thing inside is – my breath.
Today, I woke early, full of joy and gratitude for life, for all!
Fifty-five years ago I was the fifth child of nine born to Marion and Robert Abare. I never learned about the horse chestnut or the Buckeye State. I was just a sleeping baby when my family moved from the place I was born, Cleveland, Ohio. In my treasure box I keep a buckeye to keep me grounded in where I come from: creation, stars, my parents, and Ohio.
The ocean and the California Poppy helped me to have faith when the skinned and scabbed knees from roller skating and heart break moments of my childhood introduced me to doubt. Once in a moment of anger, my mother, a peaceful spirit-filled women, threw a glass of ice tea at my dad uttering words we were forbidden to say. I can still hear the glass breaking against the wall and see the brown splash and stain.
Childhood sanctuary
One night my dad came home drunk, tripped over my brother’s bike. I woke up to see my brother being flung from the bunk bed above me into the closet while my dad hollered, “This will teach you to park your bike in the garage.” I didn’t sleep the rest of that night. I can still hear the thud of my brother’s body up against the wall. Once, when I was sad after visiting people, including children my own age, at the State Hospital, I was told, “You’re too emotional.” And, when my first poem, “Camp” was published in the Orange County Daily Pilot, I imagine I must have been filled with 11-year-old joy and possibly pride when I likely taunted my siblings with my prize Kennedy half dollar. What I remember was being told, “Get off your high horse.” I dismounted. It has taken me years to put my feet back into the stirrups, to write the poem. I no longer have the 50 cents or the taunt; I still have the poem. I still have the poem.
He loves me, he loves me not
Like most beings, I set out to heal my wounds, wounds not yet visible to me. I wanted to love and be loved and married my high school sweetheart when I was 18. After 33 years of marriage, I am no longer madly in love. Each day I say, “I do.” I love my husband John madly and joyfully. And, he adores me. He loves me differently than I love him or I love me. Yes, finally, after all these years, I love me. I have learned until we love ourselves, we can’t really love others well, but in trying to love others well we learn to love ourselves. It’s a great heart mystery I’m no longer trying to solve, just trying to live and love fully into.
Perhaps our sole purpose on this earth is to learn to love and to love to learn, in that order. For years, I did it all in my head. I do think and believe in my heart that world peace could be achieved if we all learned to bring our heads beneath our hearts, bowing to each other and the earth. I still love the beauty of a single daisy, but I have outgrown the myth, the story and game of picking the petals saying, “He loves me, he loves me not.” We are loved into being, made visible by love, even messy love.
The silent daughter of hope becomes a flower with a voice.
“…It is the secret in the seeds, in the smile of the rich soil, eager to welcome the silent, daughter of hope, hidden in little nasturtium seeds.” These words from Joyce Rupp brought me home to my soul. She moved me to share some of my life secrets: the faith and doubt planted in my childhood; the love, imperfect but infinitely perfectible, I’ve given and received; and the silent hope that can no longer remain silent. I am a fully blooming flower with a voice. I look forward to sharing our stories, our gifts, our faith and love to touch each other’s lives and the lives of others. It gives me so much hope. I am awake and grateful for life and life-giving words. You are invited to share your stories.
“There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.”
– Edith Wharton
When leading WritersGathering, this quote often comes to my mind. This blog will be a place for me to do just that, a place for me to share light and inspiration, and a place to reflect the light and words of other writers. You are invited to share your inspiration and your words. I call this blog The Candle or the Mirror. I look forward to being both.
When leading WritersGathering, this quote often comes to my mind. This blog will be a place for me to do just that, a place for me to share light and inspiration, and a place to reflect the light and words of other writers. You are invited to share your inspiration and your words. I call this blog The Candle or the Mirror. I look forward to being both.