There is beauty in agony.
The angle of the fading sun spotlighting horses on a hill
The absence of pain between excruciating contractions
The way the air is sucked out of the room as the ailing takes her last breath
The chances, possibilities
no reason to take risks,
Only a stasis that lured us into settling.
There is no proverbial gain without the pain.
Acute, clarifying, sharp —
We never want it, but would stay the same without it.
A round face filling the angular doorframe
Which should be empty at this time of morning
The five elements releasing the flow of tears
A field mouse frozen to the driveway,
its tail nudged by my toe
A frantic whoop
An anguished cry
I won’t pick you up
Brush off the snow and move on
How quickly we forget the culture of death that pervades our lives.
Until we are surprised again.
I have to start taking my camera to the bus stop.
Pine needles etched in white relief against the soil.
Green mossy mountain peaks capped with snow.
Peaks and valleys of meadow grass filled with frost.
A large oak leaf the color of cowboy boots, its stem pinched between pink mittened fingers, the snow crumbling and peeling away in the wind as it bends.
But then there are the things that can’t be captured with a lens.
The great rushing of wind through the treetops.
The force of it demanding spine erect, shoulders back.
A tingling of the checks, a tear in the eye, a crisp, fresh burn
that makes life seem new,
the morning full of possibility,
the body full of life.
* On an somewhat related note: I found many gorgeous pictures of frost on moss by many talented photographers. I, however, did not have the heart to steal them, though they would have accompanied my musings perfectly. I also learned a lot about BFFs Sadie Frost and Kate Moss.
Head vs. heart
Exhaustion vs. anxious energy
Joy vs. misery
Difficult situations rolling like water from a duck’s back; simple acts eliciting freak-outs
Distraction/perseveration
Longing, lacking,
cup overflowing
Confusion, crystalline pain
The grounding grasp of tiny clasp,
The constricting clutch of oh-so-much
Synergy, synthesis, integration – somewhere out in the ether.
I’m dying to meet Her.
The country road I drove down this morning looked magical.
A feathered path down its middle where the few cars had passed.
A vortex of flakes pulling me through the windshield.
Boulders, trees, leaves touched by a light dusting.
The magic messed with by industrial orange dump trucks spewing their salt,
but reemerging in a parking lot, of all places.
A perfectly formed star pulled from the sky and placed on the fleece forest of my glove.
Another and another.
In relief against the black rubber strip of my car,
the honey colored curls of my daughter,
the harsh, manipulative world we live in.
A tiny reminder of
the awesome, wondrously made world we sometimes forget we live in.
I am a late convert to the school of Shel Silverstein. While my peers cut their literary teeth on his silly and sentimental poems, I had never read them. My mother hit all the other required lending from the library – Dr. Seuss, Sesame Street, Richard Scarry – but I had never cracked the spine of Where the Sidewalk Ends.
Until my first grader came home singing its praises. Her teacher had read it aloud to her class and she was hooked. A week or so later when we signed her up for the summer reading program at our local library, she went straight to that book as the first she’d ever check out with her own library card. Her nose stayed in that book like a bloodhound to a trail – except when she’d call me over to read a particularly silly poem or look at a contorted pen and ink drawing that she found equally funny. And from there, she guffawed through Runny Babbit, onto A Light in the Attic, and Falling Up.
It blows my mind to be here at the exact moment when my child becomes an obsessive, voracious reader. I know I’m one, but I can’t even say that I remember exactly when it happened (though it was most likely on my mother’s lap at bedtime). Where the Sidewalk Ends is her gateway drug.
Harry Potter hit at the outset of my teaching career. Then and many times since, I’ve heard people disparage its literary quality (which I don’t necessarily agree with), but applaud its ability to get kids hooked on reading. I am not drawing parallels that bring Mr. Silverstein’s work into question, but having never been privy to the mania surrounding his work myself as a kid, I can’t say I understand it. But, hey, it has lit that part of my child’s brain that makes her interested in an author, a genre, amassing a body of knowledge – it’s literary gold as far as I’m concerned.
And tonight, I mined for gold even further when I held up two books for she and her sister to choose from for bedtime reading, one of which was The Giving Tree, knowing full well which one they would choose (her sister is also becoming enamored with the idea of Shel Silverstein just by hearing big sis talk about it all the time). The Giving Tree is actually the only Silverstein book I’m familiar with, having received it as a gift for the girls (no doubt by one of my contemporaries who has fond childhood memories of biting into it) when they were smaller. I remember reading it in a hormone-induced haze and choking through my words at the end of it. Man, it got me.
But the simplicity of it got me even more tonight. And the message that it has for all readers – young and old alike.
I was reading it with a different eye, tuned into the words in light of the poetry my daughter has been reading. Spread across multiple pages, the beginning is actually an extended stanza. I could see the line breaks and hear the cadence across the creases. But then the boy grows older. And things get more complex. There is an up-tick in language. A problem. Discussion. Back and forth. A one-sided decision. And the tone of the story remains at this elevated level until the boy returns as an old man, weary of the world and its ways, and ready to embrace what he already knew as a young person.
So, tonight, as a thirty-three and seven-eighths year-old woman, I learned a lesson from reading Shel Silverstein; one that I couldn’t possibly have learned had I encountered him for the first time in first grade. By keeping things simple – our language, our needs, our desires, our interactions with others – life is more enjoyable for everyone. It is only when we want more, we expect more, we demand more, that things gets muddled and more difficult, especially when we look for those things in inappropriate places. Being totally appreciative of what we have and honoring those who help us get it is a place to start. And perhaps we wouldn’t be so very tired at the end of it all if we remembered these things.
Who would’ve thought that I would’ve learned such a profound lesson by reading a bedtime story to my children? Certainly not I. So a big shout out to Shel Silverstein tonight, wherever you are – for opening my daughter’s eyes to the wonders of reading and giving me new eyes to see.
Laminated beam
Delusional whirlpool
Hopes, dreams, wide-plank oak flooring
Traffic and toilets
Heat and defeat
Moist, blueberry deliciousness
Love, support, rapport
Light, bright, lofty air
Gorgonzola, lobster croquette
Bulkheads, bitten-off leaves
Tiny hands on steel support poles
swirling in never-ending circles
We look outside ourselves for distraction, rather than inside for peace.
We look to diversion rather than rest.
We fill our minds to avoid distinct thoughts rather than focusing on one that truly matters.
What would happen if we slowed down . . .
to meditate
to pray
to sleep
to stare
to breathe
to think in slow, meandering paths
to sit
We’d be happier
calmer
friendlier
more patient
more peaceful
better people, more attuned to our purpose here in life
I am a bruise
A soft spot on your skin that it hurts to look at
A navy hoodie with black sweats toasty warm from the dryer
An ache so familiar it’s almost comfortable
That vulnerable appendage inviting confrontation
from door jambs and jolly bitches,
pointy corners and conscientious offenders
Apply pressure until I turn green and purple,
puce and chartreuse
A mere shade of who I am
Sore and tender,
when will I be at ease in my own skin?
Chopping Potatoes 