All hallows eve. The VA, Halloween 3 years ago. Cub flyers announcing flu shots whipping around the cold parking lot. Dad up on a high floor where the sky was both dull and wild. Calling Lou from there…upset or with an update…I don’t know.
Back in the sunroom again. It’s nearly 7 and there’s no distinction yet outside the window.
On my way to work yesterday, getting off the freeway and beginning the drive to the country, there was this patch of fall trees, all different colors in a row: yellow, magenta, goldenrod, rust, and it was one of those moments when you can be nearly overcome by the multitude, every little leaf colored so different, and each one either moving, falling, swirling, or waving. So this memory of one of our last family trips to Georgia comes to mind. Wish I could still say exactly how it went but it went something like this.
My mom and little brother (about 7 years old) are in back sleeping, dad driving, me keeping him company. Dad was a truck driver. He loved to drive. I do too. It was late. The song “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough,” comes on the radio (remember that one?) And I get inspired to ask my dad for contact lenses.
This was not something one usually did. Big purchases went through Mom. Dad was, in her words, “cheap.” He was cheap on practical matters, generous on the frivolous, or with the “good times” money. I was a vain fifteen-year-old who wouldn’t wear my glasses.
Who knows what it was – the drive or the song – the got him to say yes.
A month or so later, with my new contacts in my eyes (the hard kind they gave you back in the 70’s), I took a walk to my neighborhood park where I walked so much it was like my second home. I had this feel for the place, sort of like I do now for my woods, maybe because it was where I took my emotions for safety (even if it wasn’t always safe). And that’s what the fall leafs along the highway reminded me of – how I walked into that park that day and could not believe what I was seeing or what I’d been missing. The details! The singularity! The abundance of each thing when seen with clarity. All was crisp in a way it hadn’t been in so long. Crisp and clear, dazzling, dizzying.
I was so grateful to my dad. I was getting tears in my eyes with that gratitude, and thinking how I’d tell him about it, about my walk, and about how stunning it was, and knowing he’d appreciate it. He’d think the money (and it was a lot then), was worth it. He wouldn’t chide me that I could have seen it all along if I’d only worn my glasses. He wanted me to look pretty as much as anyone.
I get to my client’s home and he’s not there. I call the office and they suggest that I walk down to the shed. There’s several sheds, and a big barn and a boat house, a patch of roto-tilled soil as richly black as any I’ve ever seen. The ground is almost boggy with moisture, clods of dirt everywhere. Raise your eyes a moment and your foot gets snagged as if by seaweed. Swollen fruit is hidden in the tall grass, and droppings from big animals laced with corn, and along the sides, abandoned cars, and up the hill tall pines. I call out a few times and then fall silent and follow the trail around the barn and out into the field. Coming back, I leave the trail and climb the hill beneath the house, feeling as if I’m walking where no one’s walked in years. I call in to the office to report and head back a different way.
When I hear a car on the gravel drive I return to the house. I tell my companion what a lovely walk I had and how grateful I am.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Thursday, October 29, 2009
The Wild Things
This morning, Angie is at Mia’s helping her pack for a weekend move. I went off to work and left Donny to get Henry to daycare. I half expected they’d still be here when I returned. They’re not. I have the house to myself. I have the house to myself for the whole day unless Donny comes home unexpectedly. I thought of running out to turn on the heater in the cabin, which I did yesterday only to never get there, and with the house empty, I don’t really want it. I want to be here in my quiet house alone. I can’t hardly believe that I am here in my house…alone. Praise be.
Outside this window, the day is awash in colors. Henry’s plastic play house with it’s green roof and red swinging door. His climbing cube: orange slide, with yellow and blue and green side panels. His swing, hanging from the arbor, in the middle of the path to the woods: red seat, yellow tray, blue connecting straps. The glass topped table and green chairs that go with it. The green grass full of yellow leafs. The golden wood of the cabin becoming visible through a break in the foliage. It feels like a wild, wonderful day.
I am here in my house alone.
The only animal moving in the yard is a lone squirrel. First on the ground, then up the tree, then sitting on top of the bird house. Gathering with a frenetic energy. That is what I’m like. This is the necessary balance. Ah.
Raise my eyes to the sky and it is the opposite of colorful: dull, no color, no movement, no clouds, no sun. A winter sky. A bit of rain has fallen. The street sweepers are out in force. A before-winter clean-up has begun.
Driving out to visit my client there are dots of “settlements” amidst the wild country. The settlements are flat, or at least leveled, and groomed. The streets are paved, the houses are neat, there is order. In the wild country no such taming has occurred. The hills rise and fall. A deep depression becomes a watering hole. There are sheep and cows.
A sign at the athletic center near the open fields announces, “No horses allowed.”
In my gentleman farmer’s driveway there is a gallon jug of Tide stuck to the top of a street cone. It is the reflector that announces the split in the driveway, the turn to the house. It reminds me of my dad. His reflector was a gallon milk jug. The jugs announce: this is where the wild things live. Don’t need to buy our reflectors at Menard’s. Don’t need to worry about the neighbors thinking we’ve got eye-sores in our driveway, junk piled down the hill. Plastic chairs toppled by wind and left where they lie. Towels over the stair rail. Black garbage bags split open serving as well as tarps.
This is “making-do” land. This is my yard, my dad’s yard, the wild yards.
Someone once said that manicured gardens are restful to the mind. I think the wild things are restful to the heart.
Outside this window, the day is awash in colors. Henry’s plastic play house with it’s green roof and red swinging door. His climbing cube: orange slide, with yellow and blue and green side panels. His swing, hanging from the arbor, in the middle of the path to the woods: red seat, yellow tray, blue connecting straps. The glass topped table and green chairs that go with it. The green grass full of yellow leafs. The golden wood of the cabin becoming visible through a break in the foliage. It feels like a wild, wonderful day.
I am here in my house alone.
The only animal moving in the yard is a lone squirrel. First on the ground, then up the tree, then sitting on top of the bird house. Gathering with a frenetic energy. That is what I’m like. This is the necessary balance. Ah.
Raise my eyes to the sky and it is the opposite of colorful: dull, no color, no movement, no clouds, no sun. A winter sky. A bit of rain has fallen. The street sweepers are out in force. A before-winter clean-up has begun.
Driving out to visit my client there are dots of “settlements” amidst the wild country. The settlements are flat, or at least leveled, and groomed. The streets are paved, the houses are neat, there is order. In the wild country no such taming has occurred. The hills rise and fall. A deep depression becomes a watering hole. There are sheep and cows.
A sign at the athletic center near the open fields announces, “No horses allowed.”
In my gentleman farmer’s driveway there is a gallon jug of Tide stuck to the top of a street cone. It is the reflector that announces the split in the driveway, the turn to the house. It reminds me of my dad. His reflector was a gallon milk jug. The jugs announce: this is where the wild things live. Don’t need to buy our reflectors at Menard’s. Don’t need to worry about the neighbors thinking we’ve got eye-sores in our driveway, junk piled down the hill. Plastic chairs toppled by wind and left where they lie. Towels over the stair rail. Black garbage bags split open serving as well as tarps.
This is “making-do” land. This is my yard, my dad’s yard, the wild yards.
Someone once said that manicured gardens are restful to the mind. I think the wild things are restful to the heart.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Thinks Change
It’s a minute before 7 and still dark on the ground even though there’s a tint of sepia behind the treetops. I’ve had the heater on long enough that I could turn it off. The chill is out of the room. A blanket is around my shoulders. A candle is lit.
There are advantages to my sunroom office. It is warmer. I can get a fresh cup of coffee a lot easier. The bathroom is just down the hall. And the windows still look out.
It’s Monday morning. Friday the carpet was cleaned. Saturday, putting furniture back in its usual places, I liked the look of the flat dusted surfaces so much that I didn’t put back every nicknack. I took down the dads shrine. Sunday, my nephew Tony, who rents out at Dad’s place (still called that even though it’s ours) had a party.
Dad’s driveway was lined with cars and lights were shining brightly in the early evening dark. We brought Donny’s mom, Katie, and as I walked slowly up the path to the door behind her I could see Pam and Gloria in the window and others gathered around the table. Once inside, there were camps, as there usually are. One family was in the living room. Another in the kitchen and dining room. We were having spaghetti. Donny brought the meatballs.
I said, “It’s nice to be here for a happy occasion.”
Later, Angie brought Henry, and still later, we played on the stairs as the family kids have done. Dad would sit up a few steps from the bottom and bounce down with them.
When the house got too full of noise I told Donny I was ready to go. It didn’t take so long as usual, and we came home to our quiet house, where Donny unloaded the drum set that was moving from one family’s basement to ours. Henry came in shortly and banged, then bathed, and then screamed to be allowed to return to the drums rather than go to bed.
He went to bed. It quieted down again.
I had a sense, as I took down the Dads shrine that it was about more than nice looking wood and neatness. It went up after Donny’s dad died. Just a collection of pictures, and the ribbon from the funeral bouquet that said, “Dad.” After my dad died, I added his pictures and ribbon, petals from his flowers, a candle with his picture on that the funeral home had made, and a small blue statue of the Blessed Virgin I found out at his house. All of this sat on a chest of drawers under the wall of old family photos: grandparents and great-grandparents on both sides.
At Dad’s, Angie asked if it felt odd. I said, “No, it feels good.”
Donny said, “Things change.”
There are advantages to my sunroom office. It is warmer. I can get a fresh cup of coffee a lot easier. The bathroom is just down the hall. And the windows still look out.
It’s Monday morning. Friday the carpet was cleaned. Saturday, putting furniture back in its usual places, I liked the look of the flat dusted surfaces so much that I didn’t put back every nicknack. I took down the dads shrine. Sunday, my nephew Tony, who rents out at Dad’s place (still called that even though it’s ours) had a party.
Dad’s driveway was lined with cars and lights were shining brightly in the early evening dark. We brought Donny’s mom, Katie, and as I walked slowly up the path to the door behind her I could see Pam and Gloria in the window and others gathered around the table. Once inside, there were camps, as there usually are. One family was in the living room. Another in the kitchen and dining room. We were having spaghetti. Donny brought the meatballs.
I said, “It’s nice to be here for a happy occasion.”
Later, Angie brought Henry, and still later, we played on the stairs as the family kids have done. Dad would sit up a few steps from the bottom and bounce down with them.
When the house got too full of noise I told Donny I was ready to go. It didn’t take so long as usual, and we came home to our quiet house, where Donny unloaded the drum set that was moving from one family’s basement to ours. Henry came in shortly and banged, then bathed, and then screamed to be allowed to return to the drums rather than go to bed.
He went to bed. It quieted down again.
I had a sense, as I took down the Dads shrine that it was about more than nice looking wood and neatness. It went up after Donny’s dad died. Just a collection of pictures, and the ribbon from the funeral bouquet that said, “Dad.” After my dad died, I added his pictures and ribbon, petals from his flowers, a candle with his picture on that the funeral home had made, and a small blue statue of the Blessed Virgin I found out at his house. All of this sat on a chest of drawers under the wall of old family photos: grandparents and great-grandparents on both sides.
At Dad’s, Angie asked if it felt odd. I said, “No, it feels good.”
Donny said, “Things change.”
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Doing The Days 2: Transition
I’ve really wanted to finish Andrew Harvey’s book “The Hope” and maybe write a real review of it. I promised myself one, more or less, when I began it. I was highly hopeful. So far it’s been good in that way I was anxious for it to be. It’s got a lot of Andrew Harvey in it. But other things break in like the smell of Earl Grey tea. Like grief. I guess I’m not quite done with either of them yet.
I’m fully stuck on my old-friend book “Early Morning,” now, but before that it was "The Dialogues," and then the feeling of needing to read a snippet or two of Elizabeth Lesser’s “Broken Open.” Today I remembered that I wanted that book for hearing Elizabeth say on the radio that she loves grief. It came back to me in that same way grief-related things have been doing. The last few days.
The last few days.
When I put down Andrew Harvey’s book he was talking about suicide, a sort of living grief that makes you want to die, and the danger it can be to the activists who come to know too much about suffering. It’s one of the reasons he chose to add “sacred” to activism – the idea of being really grounded in the sacred before you take on too much. If you take on too much without that grounding you can grow bitter, angry, despondent, or just plain hurt too much to go on.
The thing is, when a wave of grief hits you almost three years later, about a year-and-a-half after everything started to feel less raw and tender, you wonder more about it and if it has something to do with the present.
You wonder, What’s going on inside of me?
That kind of question can get too heady, almost like a means of escape from feeling what you feel. “Let’s root out the source. Let’s understand it and be done with it.”
Maybe I’ve already done some of that. Maybe I’ve said enough or too much. It feels gentle though, and I say that because of a letter I got today: a Course of Love reader asking me how you know. How do you know your feelings as they are? Without thinking about them? I said, in that way that surprises me sometimes, (as if I’ve found the right thing to say by accident), that you can tell by the gentleness.
A feeling like grief can feel awful and still be gentle…even when you’re thinking about it.
So I’m re-visiting grief. Or it's re-visiting me. Gently. That’s what I’ll say. We're sharing a visit. And I’m aware that we're visiting for a reason. I don’t know what it is, (even though I’ve had some clues) but I’ll accept that I don’t know.
I hope the grief doesn’t have anything to do with the fights I’ve had with my daughter the last few days, but it might. How do you know (when you don’t know)?
We suffered a loss the other day because of our general financial situation. Our finances seem all intertwined and that gets to you for one thing. But a loss is a loss. My husband, with more Course of Love-like language than me, says it’s no loss. My daughter doesn’t see it as much of one either. Me, the perennial worrier – the “spiritual” person who shouldn’t be this way – is feeling the losses.
Transition
So tonight “The Dialogues” joins the list of signs (or whatever they are). Doing another day of the 40 Days, what do I notice? All the talk about transition.
At this point, all I can say is that “transition” sounds a lot better than change and loss. We go through what we go through for bigger reasons than appear to be. This much I know.
I’m fully stuck on my old-friend book “Early Morning,” now, but before that it was "The Dialogues," and then the feeling of needing to read a snippet or two of Elizabeth Lesser’s “Broken Open.” Today I remembered that I wanted that book for hearing Elizabeth say on the radio that she loves grief. It came back to me in that same way grief-related things have been doing. The last few days.
The last few days.
When I put down Andrew Harvey’s book he was talking about suicide, a sort of living grief that makes you want to die, and the danger it can be to the activists who come to know too much about suffering. It’s one of the reasons he chose to add “sacred” to activism – the idea of being really grounded in the sacred before you take on too much. If you take on too much without that grounding you can grow bitter, angry, despondent, or just plain hurt too much to go on.
The thing is, when a wave of grief hits you almost three years later, about a year-and-a-half after everything started to feel less raw and tender, you wonder more about it and if it has something to do with the present.
You wonder, What’s going on inside of me?
That kind of question can get too heady, almost like a means of escape from feeling what you feel. “Let’s root out the source. Let’s understand it and be done with it.”
Maybe I’ve already done some of that. Maybe I’ve said enough or too much. It feels gentle though, and I say that because of a letter I got today: a Course of Love reader asking me how you know. How do you know your feelings as they are? Without thinking about them? I said, in that way that surprises me sometimes, (as if I’ve found the right thing to say by accident), that you can tell by the gentleness.
A feeling like grief can feel awful and still be gentle…even when you’re thinking about it.
So I’m re-visiting grief. Or it's re-visiting me. Gently. That’s what I’ll say. We're sharing a visit. And I’m aware that we're visiting for a reason. I don’t know what it is, (even though I’ve had some clues) but I’ll accept that I don’t know.
I hope the grief doesn’t have anything to do with the fights I’ve had with my daughter the last few days, but it might. How do you know (when you don’t know)?
We suffered a loss the other day because of our general financial situation. Our finances seem all intertwined and that gets to you for one thing. But a loss is a loss. My husband, with more Course of Love-like language than me, says it’s no loss. My daughter doesn’t see it as much of one either. Me, the perennial worrier – the “spiritual” person who shouldn’t be this way – is feeling the losses.
Transition
So tonight “The Dialogues” joins the list of signs (or whatever they are). Doing another day of the 40 Days, what do I notice? All the talk about transition.
At this point, all I can say is that “transition” sounds a lot better than change and loss. We go through what we go through for bigger reasons than appear to be. This much I know.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
In appreciation of rain, stones, and people
I’m writing with my hood up for the first time. The keyboard has a definite chill. I may have to draw the line at gloves.
It’s raining. When I first walked out the rain was very fine. I had the yard light on and I saw it in the one brightly lighted spot, a thousand needles of rain. Each drop looked shiny and sharp, so I put up my hood and hurried through it. When I got to the woods, the leafs were luminous in the dark, wet, light. I smiled, hurried on, unlocked the cabin, turned on the light and the heater, and turned around.
I brought back two cups of coffee this morning. I thought of a thermos, but by the time I get through two cups I’ll need to go in to use the bathroom anyway. Coming out the second time the rain had already changed. It had grown bigger and more ploppy. Who needs a yard light on when you want to enjoy the dark, so I wasn’t so much seeing it as hearing it. Sam came with me. The cats stood at the door but decided against it. They’re not fond of rain.
So I get sat down with my hood still up and I notice right away I feel a lot warmer. I can see my reflection in the dark windows. What a stitch. Hood, glasses, indistinct nose, lips. It’s already warmed up to 52 degrees and the heater blows the air up inside the hood. This is good.
The hood made me think of my nephew, a spoken word artist who wears all the hip rapper clothes, and how I’ve always thought of having an in-depth conversation with him but never have. I’ve had my difficulties with the groups that grow out of resistance to the culture and then all dress alike, but it’s not the worst thing in the world. What’s your uniform if you’re my age? Probably jeans, like mine. I used to think a good-fitting pair of jeans was the most comfortable thing in the world. Now I prefer sweats.
The girls and I went on a rock- and jewelry-buying trip to Arizona once when we still had the shop. There were tons of old ladies in sweats and jewelry – aqua sweat suits and tennis shoes with big strands of turquoise or lapis beads, silver finery. I told my daughters, “That’ll probably be me in a few years.”
“No way! Don’t even think about it.”
I’m sure they thought I’d keep the jewelry and not pick up the sweat suit, but it’s turned out the opposite way. Not that I don’t still have my rocks.
Now Henry knows all the stones: rhodocrosite, carnelian, malachite. I’ve got a box full here and a tin there, and a group in a small fountain that sits on the back of the toilet. Since he’s potty training, he spends a lot of time with those. He even knows that the shiva lingam came from a river in India. Before he knew that he called it a penis. It looks a little like one.
I’ve also taught him that Obama is president. He gets Joe Biden and Joe Mauer (Twins catcher) mixed up sometimes though.
The naming of things has begun. Can’t really do without it. We have a bag of letters I cut out from some blue packing material and we work with those too, but the stones probably interest him the most. It comes partially from them being tucked away and my insistence that they stay where they’re tucked. He knows they’re not toys. I make a big deal out of how not one of them is the same. Shape, color, size: all different. One looks like a whale. Another like a penis. Within the category of agate, how much more variety could you find?
I hope it translates to an appreciation of people. I think it will.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
When That's All There Is
I look out the window at the fire pit, with its empty red box of pampers lying under the most recent addition of twigs, and some kind of palate beneath, the limb that fell in the last storm – not yet broken and placed there – but nearby, and I know there’s more leafs covering the ground and that they’re brown, and that fall really is here and in two months or two weeks it’ll be winter. But today it’s sunny, and the leafs are still green and some yellow and dazzling, and definitely hanging on. There’s still a canopy.
It’s not like this grief stuff didn’t really happen, or like I didn’t have this feeling today…once again…as if it’s a continual kind of thing that I don’t often notice, and that I may be grieving the “old life” as a way of moving into the new.
There’s a lot of change going on. How could there not be when everything is in flux and you’ve moved into a place with your whole family, and at times it seems like with the whole world, where you’re aware of it. That’s the thing. You can go through so much of life acting as if things don’t change when they are always changing. Like your life day-to-day will stay the same when it never does.
Then you hear yourself say things.
“How is everything?”
“Uncertain.”
Okay.
Sometimes I’m glad for the awareness. Sometimes I wish like hell it would go away…or that something really stabilizing would appear out of the mists. It seems natural enough to me.
I walked out here in the dark this morning to turn on the heater and the light. There was a bright star hanging over the freeway fence. I went back in, made my coffee, my peanut butter and honey sandwich, fed the cats. When I came back out, the star was nowhere to be seen. But on my second walk, there was a light in the cabin window and I was filled with joy and hope and all things peaceful.
I guess what I’m saying is that being aware that change is here and coming and all of that doesn’t have to be like it was last week in the storm and wind and cold.
You need a break. You don’t need it in your face. And sometimes, when you notice a star, or a light in the window, or when the sun is shining…that’s all there is.
It’s not like this grief stuff didn’t really happen, or like I didn’t have this feeling today…once again…as if it’s a continual kind of thing that I don’t often notice, and that I may be grieving the “old life” as a way of moving into the new.
There’s a lot of change going on. How could there not be when everything is in flux and you’ve moved into a place with your whole family, and at times it seems like with the whole world, where you’re aware of it. That’s the thing. You can go through so much of life acting as if things don’t change when they are always changing. Like your life day-to-day will stay the same when it never does.
Then you hear yourself say things.
“How is everything?”
“Uncertain.”
Okay.
Sometimes I’m glad for the awareness. Sometimes I wish like hell it would go away…or that something really stabilizing would appear out of the mists. It seems natural enough to me.
I walked out here in the dark this morning to turn on the heater and the light. There was a bright star hanging over the freeway fence. I went back in, made my coffee, my peanut butter and honey sandwich, fed the cats. When I came back out, the star was nowhere to be seen. But on my second walk, there was a light in the cabin window and I was filled with joy and hope and all things peaceful.
I guess what I’m saying is that being aware that change is here and coming and all of that doesn’t have to be like it was last week in the storm and wind and cold.
You need a break. You don’t need it in your face. And sometimes, when you notice a star, or a light in the window, or when the sun is shining…that’s all there is.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
The Thread
Couldn’t think of much of a way to finish off the theme of the last few days: Peace and grief. Most posts I don’t need to finish anything up. But you know, when you write raw, you figure you should say you weren’t too much the worse for wear in the morning, sort of like if you’d reported on an evening of drinking and need to mention the hang over. There’s a bit of that feel to an episode of grief. A remnant remains.
So I was thinking of this thread of events that ran from the memories of the peace event to the grief, and the way I didn’t, at first, see the line that was forming so that the wave that hit me was a surprise. It’s the way grief comes. A wave of grief. A wave of nausea. Like that.
The wave also had something to do with a movie my daughter invited me to watch with her. I didn’t think it looked like a very good movie, but the invite was sincere, and so we cuddled up on the couch under a quilt and watched “P.S. I Love You.” I left that part out but it was the emotional whammy. I always hate to admit it when movies affect me. But this one did. It was a movie about grief.
The progression then, was memories of the peace event, the return of the book “Early Morning,” the movie, the grief, and finally the way that my love affair with that particular event took a twist as I connected with Kim Stafford’s grief and began wondering if the quality that had made it so remarkable in the first place came from that precious place. Maybe even that all poetry and peacemaking does. Grief just doesn’t stay confined.
Then I opened my just returned copy of “Early Morning,” holding the dear old friend lovingly, and found the first of many poems laced through Kim Stafford’s memoir of his dad.
That’s the way the book strikes me. It’s a memoir. It’s about the memoirist’s dad.
Here’s the poem as printed in “Early Morning,” which is, as I thought I remembered, a Graywolf Press book (a name I misspelled when I mentioned it two posts back, something that I did when we had the coffee shop too. Funny how memory works. The misspelling reminded me of the calendars I used to print with “Latte’s of the Day” named after the various businesses on the block. It was a little embarrassing, me being a writer, when the head of Graywolf, a lovely woman named Fiona came in, and said, “You know you misspelled our name.” If you’re out there, Fiona, I apologize again and hope I have your blessing on posting this poem.)
This invisible thread propelling the action.
The Way It Is
There’s a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.
William Stafford
So I was thinking of this thread of events that ran from the memories of the peace event to the grief, and the way I didn’t, at first, see the line that was forming so that the wave that hit me was a surprise. It’s the way grief comes. A wave of grief. A wave of nausea. Like that.
The wave also had something to do with a movie my daughter invited me to watch with her. I didn’t think it looked like a very good movie, but the invite was sincere, and so we cuddled up on the couch under a quilt and watched “P.S. I Love You.” I left that part out but it was the emotional whammy. I always hate to admit it when movies affect me. But this one did. It was a movie about grief.
The progression then, was memories of the peace event, the return of the book “Early Morning,” the movie, the grief, and finally the way that my love affair with that particular event took a twist as I connected with Kim Stafford’s grief and began wondering if the quality that had made it so remarkable in the first place came from that precious place. Maybe even that all poetry and peacemaking does. Grief just doesn’t stay confined.
Then I opened my just returned copy of “Early Morning,” holding the dear old friend lovingly, and found the first of many poems laced through Kim Stafford’s memoir of his dad.
That’s the way the book strikes me. It’s a memoir. It’s about the memoirist’s dad.
Here’s the poem as printed in “Early Morning,” which is, as I thought I remembered, a Graywolf Press book (a name I misspelled when I mentioned it two posts back, something that I did when we had the coffee shop too. Funny how memory works. The misspelling reminded me of the calendars I used to print with “Latte’s of the Day” named after the various businesses on the block. It was a little embarrassing, me being a writer, when the head of Graywolf, a lovely woman named Fiona came in, and said, “You know you misspelled our name.” If you’re out there, Fiona, I apologize again and hope I have your blessing on posting this poem.)
This invisible thread propelling the action.
The Way It Is
There’s a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.
William Stafford
Friday, October 16, 2009
Tender man and gentle boy
I don’t know how we live through grief, I really don’t. One of these days, maybe even today, I’ll get a picture of my dad posted. I’ve got one of him when he was a boy, and I swear, you never saw a gentler looking kid. The look on his face is sheer kindness. The other one in this room of mine is a blow up of one of those square black and whites with scalloped edges. It’s framed over my bookshelf. The garage of our old house is in the background, my dad’s shirt is hanging over the clothesline and he’s bending under it, or maybe under my weight. I’m about three years old and my body’s slung over his back and my head’s laying on his, and my chubby fist is beneath his chin. I’m wearing a dress with puffy sleeves and he’s got on his work pants that always hung low on his hips, and a wife beater undershirt, and he’s pointing at something off in the distance and I’m looking where he points.
It was just a favorite picture before he died but after my daughter blew it up for me the Christmas after, and all the minutest details were revealed (the clothes pole in the background, the cyclone fence, the vines growing up the side of the garage, the kitten on the narrow sidewalk beneath our feet) and that finger pointing — mainly that — it grew into something more. He’s pointing. I’m looking. That whole way-shower thing. Someone who might tell you to do exactly what you want to do. He was like that.
But what do you want to do? What do you want?
Of course, that’s not what starts the grief on a night when your dad’s the furthest thing from your mind and it opens its jaws like a shark and bites off one of your limbs, not swallowing you but leaving you feeling like you’ll drown. And then like every happiness is still touched with bittersweetness. And you just want to say “this is what grief looks like,” and you don’t know why or what you’re saying, or what you look like.
I don’t understand my grief. Can’t say why I feel it. Don’t mind when it comes really. Don’t mind when it’s gone either.
It’s just that when it comes it feels so big and broad, as if it’s totally about my dad and more total than that, and like there’s nothing more total than that. Than death.
I didn’t think of him when I wrote about Poets for Peace this morning. Didn’t think, “Dad was still alive then.” He’s gone almost three years but I didn’t think of that when it came to mind – that it was before Dad died. I was being my usual self. Irritated over a small thing. Or so I thought.
Later in the day I retrieved one of the books I bought that night from the friend I borrowed it to – Mary. I lent it to her after her dad died. It’s called “Early Morning.” Kim Stafford wrote it after his father William died. I didn’t have it this morning so I’d pulled out the book of poetry, “All Wars Have Two Losers.” I opened it. Under the heading Editor’s Note I read:
“In editing this unusual book, I have chosen in many instances to represent my father’s unpublished writings exactly as he penned it in the early morning, alone with his thoughts. The language is sometimes very compact, the thought line intuitive, and the effect both intimate and challenging. The poems are represented as revised and published them, and most of the interviews he had a chance to review. Some of the Daily Writings, however, were never revised, and they live here with you in their native form. I invite you to read these as they were written: attentive, deliberate, in a spirit of welcome as thoughts come forth.”
Was that it? Was that both what it was that night all those years ago when I was moved to feel so lucky to be there? Where the poets read for peace and Kim read his grief? Was it the heart of a son still mourning his father? Saying the words, “My father” as if he was still alive? That tender heart of his? Did it fill me then like a prescience of the broken heart of grief and of the child, so innocent in it, and so ripped open?
So that this morning I did not know that tonight I would be awash with grief again?
May I Never Solicit
A few years ago, I attended one of the most classy (in a good way) events I’ve ever attended. By classy, I think I mean generous, gracious, hospitable, and also deeply touching. I’m certain it was free since it’s been so long since I’ve paid for events, but I bought a few books that night. It was not only classy but a first-class, five-star event, (sorry for all the clichés), I just mean to say it was one of those events where you can’t believe afterwards, that you were lucky enough to be there. It was called Poets for Peace and it celebrated a publication by a fine small nonprofit publisher, Milkweed Editions, and if I recall correctly was co-sponsored by Grey Wolf Press, another fine Minnesota press that happened to be housed down a few doors from our coffee shop. Kim Stafford was the host and the new book was “Every War Has Two Losers” by his dad, William Stafford, who has since become my favorite poet. I have extensive notes on the evening somewhere, but the memory of it will suffice for now.
I went alone. The affect may have had something to do with my attentativeness and the way each small part of the evening felt as it seeped into me.
There are about 65 things that come to mind that I could write passionately about off the memory too. Now that’s a good event. Senator Eugene McCarthy was there, and the soft voiced poet Wang Ping, and Mel Duncan.
But here’s how I got to thinking of it. I got an email from Nonviolent Peaceforce that said on its subject line: Honor Mel Duncan and David Hartsough. Without my notes I can’t say for certain if he read poetry or, if he did if it was his own. But honoring him…hell…I’d honor anybody who’d been at that event.
The e-mail’s opening paragraph read as follows:
I come to you with a unique and exciting opportunity to honor two visionaries of
peace while expressing your own commitment to their dream.
A decade has passed since David Hartsough and Mel Duncan forged the partnership
that gave rise to Nonviolent Peaceforce. Their steadfast support of the cause of
unarmed civilian peacekeeping created what has been called "one of the most visionary
and realistic alternatives to war in the world today.”
What flashes through my mind is, “Okay, he’s retiring, they’re going to have an event,” and that’s what pulls forth all the memories of the Poets for Peace. Then I find out it’s a solicitation.
I don’t mean to be unfair. I can imagine just about anybody stepping down from a cause dear to their heart saying “Skip the hoopla,” and even “Send money” instead. They’d rather you support their cause than honor them. I get it. But drats if it wasn’t a disappointing buildup and double-drats that they’re missing the opportunity to feed the souls of peace loving sorts. A really good event can inspire you to action you’ve never taken before and still be having effects years down the road.
There’s something that happens when you get people of good heart together, when you get peacemakers together, and you’re not soliciting anything but the feeling of togetherness and passion and compassion. The book-selling in the hallway comes like a gift afterwards. You can’t wait to read that poetry, know more of what’s in the hearts of these people, and you somehow know that their book is going to give it to you.
Of course, I’m thinking of all this too because of having a book coming out. It’s hard to imagine creating an event that does what that one did. But what you hope for is that what’s in your heart speaks to another person and that what you do might feel generous…and that it will never be an act of solicitation.
I went alone. The affect may have had something to do with my attentativeness and the way each small part of the evening felt as it seeped into me.
There are about 65 things that come to mind that I could write passionately about off the memory too. Now that’s a good event. Senator Eugene McCarthy was there, and the soft voiced poet Wang Ping, and Mel Duncan.
But here’s how I got to thinking of it. I got an email from Nonviolent Peaceforce that said on its subject line: Honor Mel Duncan and David Hartsough. Without my notes I can’t say for certain if he read poetry or, if he did if it was his own. But honoring him…hell…I’d honor anybody who’d been at that event.
The e-mail’s opening paragraph read as follows:
I come to you with a unique and exciting opportunity to honor two visionaries of
peace while expressing your own commitment to their dream.
A decade has passed since David Hartsough and Mel Duncan forged the partnership
that gave rise to Nonviolent Peaceforce. Their steadfast support of the cause of
unarmed civilian peacekeeping created what has been called "one of the most visionary
and realistic alternatives to war in the world today.”
What flashes through my mind is, “Okay, he’s retiring, they’re going to have an event,” and that’s what pulls forth all the memories of the Poets for Peace. Then I find out it’s a solicitation.
I don’t mean to be unfair. I can imagine just about anybody stepping down from a cause dear to their heart saying “Skip the hoopla,” and even “Send money” instead. They’d rather you support their cause than honor them. I get it. But drats if it wasn’t a disappointing buildup and double-drats that they’re missing the opportunity to feed the souls of peace loving sorts. A really good event can inspire you to action you’ve never taken before and still be having effects years down the road.
There’s something that happens when you get people of good heart together, when you get peacemakers together, and you’re not soliciting anything but the feeling of togetherness and passion and compassion. The book-selling in the hallway comes like a gift afterwards. You can’t wait to read that poetry, know more of what’s in the hearts of these people, and you somehow know that their book is going to give it to you.
Of course, I’m thinking of all this too because of having a book coming out. It’s hard to imagine creating an event that does what that one did. But what you hope for is that what’s in your heart speaks to another person and that what you do might feel generous…and that it will never be an act of solicitation.
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Doing the Days
Practicing Acceptance?
Had to follow up on my last post and give a new weather report. The snow came today. October 10. Doesn’t beat the earliest snow I remember (September 30, year somewhere near 1962), but it beats most first-of-the-year snow falls by about a week. Besides that, it stayed all day, even though it was only a dusting. Donny went out and picked the rest of the apples off our trees and when he came in said he’d remember that – how cold it was as the snow fell on him each time he pulled one.
I knew I had to write about the snow but then I realized I had something else I needed to add, a sort of additional addendum to my last musings on complaints.
I’ve got a few e-mail buddies and one of them is a woman who wrote me after seeing an article I’d written that had one sentence in it on solitude. She wrote saying she wanted to hear more and we’ve been friends ever since. It’s been nearly a year now.
Recently Chris wrote that she was starting the Forty Days of The Dialogues and wondered if I’d “do the days” along with her. I said I would. I’m pretty sure it was the 9th day when there was this one paragraph about acceptance that really spoke to me in a new way. I knew all about it (ha ha!) for having written the thing, and more by way of it being among my favorite ideas – one that says acceptance isn’t about accepting the way “things” are, but about accepting how you are – how you feel in the present moment.
It was after that when I got this startling idea that complaints might just be about accepting the way you feel. Try that one on for size, I told myself. Oh, I know that when you feel wonderful you’re not going to call it a complaint. I, at least, don’t have too much trouble accepting my wonderful feelings. I’ve got that down pretty good.
But I don’t always feel wonderful. I’ve got things that bug me. And they’re not all like the early fall of snow that you might complain about while secretly enjoying. Some of my complaints are about how I feel when I’m not secretly enjoying something and just grousing for the sake of grousing. These complaints usually get admitted amongst friends. “Man, when that happened, I really felt…lousy” or troubled or worried or frustrated.
If you’ve ever done what you call complaining and then felt like you shouldn’t have complained, try my idea out for yourself. What if you’re practicing acceptance?
Had to follow up on my last post and give a new weather report. The snow came today. October 10. Doesn’t beat the earliest snow I remember (September 30, year somewhere near 1962), but it beats most first-of-the-year snow falls by about a week. Besides that, it stayed all day, even though it was only a dusting. Donny went out and picked the rest of the apples off our trees and when he came in said he’d remember that – how cold it was as the snow fell on him each time he pulled one.
I knew I had to write about the snow but then I realized I had something else I needed to add, a sort of additional addendum to my last musings on complaints.
I’ve got a few e-mail buddies and one of them is a woman who wrote me after seeing an article I’d written that had one sentence in it on solitude. She wrote saying she wanted to hear more and we’ve been friends ever since. It’s been nearly a year now.
Recently Chris wrote that she was starting the Forty Days of The Dialogues and wondered if I’d “do the days” along with her. I said I would. I’m pretty sure it was the 9th day when there was this one paragraph about acceptance that really spoke to me in a new way. I knew all about it (ha ha!) for having written the thing, and more by way of it being among my favorite ideas – one that says acceptance isn’t about accepting the way “things” are, but about accepting how you are – how you feel in the present moment.
It was after that when I got this startling idea that complaints might just be about accepting the way you feel. Try that one on for size, I told myself. Oh, I know that when you feel wonderful you’re not going to call it a complaint. I, at least, don’t have too much trouble accepting my wonderful feelings. I’ve got that down pretty good.
But I don’t always feel wonderful. I’ve got things that bug me. And they’re not all like the early fall of snow that you might complain about while secretly enjoying. Some of my complaints are about how I feel when I’m not secretly enjoying something and just grousing for the sake of grousing. These complaints usually get admitted amongst friends. “Man, when that happened, I really felt…lousy” or troubled or worried or frustrated.
If you’ve ever done what you call complaining and then felt like you shouldn’t have complained, try my idea out for yourself. What if you’re practicing acceptance?
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