Posted in Bones, Dreams, Life, Love, Photography, Poetry, Practice, Wake Up, Writers, tagged Archive 365, haiga, keys, letting go, Letting Go of What Cannot Be Held Back, life lessons, pensive days, reflective, Royal typewriter, senryu, the practice of poetry, the writer's life, turning the key, vintage typewriters on March 2, 2013 | Leave a Comment »
Royal – 152/365, Archive 365, BlackBerry Shots, Minneapolis, Minnesota,
February 2011, photos © 2011-2013 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.
Midwestern writer
pretending to understand –
what love left behind.
-posted on red Ravine, Saturday, March 2nd, 2013
Posted in Animals & Critters, Body, Bones, Death, Gratitude, Holding My Breath, Life, Love, Personal, Practice, Relationships, tagged Anne Lamott, Elizabeth Statmore, Fromage, holding space, letting go, loneliness, love & loss, love of animals, mourning pet loss, the difficult work of grief, the power of love, the practice of writing, the space between, transitions, Trash Night, writing as healer, writing through grief on July 12, 2012 | 2 Comments »
By Elizabeth Statmore
I wanted to find that Anne Lamott essay on their dog’s dying, but it’s in another book and I don’t have time to find it right now.
This is the first work day without Fromage, and I can already tell there are going to be a lot of awful firsts like this — first Trash Night without him, for example. Trash Night was Fromage’s favorite holiday. Lucky for him, it came every week. Tuesday nights, after dinner, we would bring the trash and recycling and composting down the front stairs and haul the wheeled cans to the curb — black for rubbish, blue for recycling, green for compostables.
David would wind him up as I started gathering the bags in the kitchen. “Trash Night!” he would exclaim to Fromage. “Trash Night!” And Fromage would start to dance around the room excitedly, wagging his tail hard and barking.
“Trash Night! Trash Night!”
Bark! Bark! Bark!
Being descended from a long line of working dogs and shepherds, he would herd me with our bags toward the front door, barking as if to yell, “Hurry up! It’s Trash Night, dammit!”
As far as he was concerned, the best nights were the ones when we needed to make the trip to the sidewalk more than once. He would dash up the stairs and bark down at me, urging me on. While I dealt with the carts and the bags, he would amble over to lift his leg and pee on a nearby sidewalk tree. it was his holiday — and now he is going to miss it forever more as we are going to miss him.
This hole in my heart feels bottomless, and it makes me wonder if I will ever feel whole again. I miss him with an ache and an urgency I can’t describe with words. This is my life now.
***
8:00 p.m. insight — Fromage does not want us to be lonely. He wants us to adopt another dog who can watch over us.
He loves us and doesn’t want us to be lonely.
He stayed as long as he could, but he just couldn’t do his job of taking care of us any more and he had to go. He’d dragged himself through sickness and dying, and it was time for him to leave us.
But he doesn’t want us to be lonely for too long.
He loves us and wishes us the best. It’s not a betrayal of him for us to love a new dog.
About Elizabeth: Elizabeth Statmore is a San Francisco-based writer and teacher of writing and mathematics. She is a long-time practitioner and teacher of Writing Practice, which she learned from Natalie Goldberg. A frequent contributor to KQED-FM, Elizabeth’s last posts for red Ravine include Seed Starting, a piece about writers as gardeners, and Writing The “Remembering Grace Paley” Piece — a step-by-step tutorial on how she turned a raw piece of writing into a finished radio commentary. Elizabeth was also one of our first guest writers, contributing the post Abandoned Is… Fromage was her dog and spirit guide of almost fourteen years.
The Gifts Of Trash Night is Part II in a series of three Writing Practices about the love and loss of Fromage. Part I is titled Long.
Posted in Animals & Critters, Body, Bones, Death, Dreams, Family, Gratitude, Growing Older, Holding My Breath, Life, Love, Obituaries & Epitaphs, Personal, Practice, Relationships, Wake Up, Writing Practices, tagged Accept loss forever, animal spirit guides, caring for chronically ill pets, courage, dogs, Elizabeth Statmore, Fromage, going nuts for a while, letting go, Letting Go of What Cannot Be Held Back, losing pets, love & loss, Mary Oliver, Mother's Day, mourning pet loss, peaceful warriors, pets, precognitive dreams, the difficult work of grief, the practice of writing, writing as healer, writing through grief on July 9, 2012 | 8 Comments »
By Elizabeth Statmore
Fromage died on Saturday, May 12th 2012 at 11:30 p.m. at All Animals Emergency Hospital, surrounded by us and our love. He was dehydrated and disoriented, with a temperature of 105.6. Normal temperature for dogs is 101-ish, with 102 being in the high fever range. So Fromage had a raging fever, probably from a combination of a brain tumor (or nervous system tumor) and end-stage kidney disease.
We knew it was serious when he couldn’t do anything with a Beggin’ Strip — his favorite treat in the universe. And I’d dreamed Wednesday morning that he died. I knew it was a precognitive dream, but I didn’t know how or when the end would happen.
He did his utmost to stay alive for me — to support me and love me through this disorienting chapter of my life. He showed the same heroic courage and love he had shown us all his life. He was an impeccable warrior to the end, but in the end it was time to let him go.
It was the night before Mother’s Day.
It’s the little things that really punch me in the gut — the moments that interrupt my conditioned habits, such as automatically tucking the newspaper bags into the plastic bag collection next to the front door, only to realize that I don’t have a need to save dog poop bags any more.
I put his sterling silver tag on a chain and started wearing it around my neck last night as I went to bed.
He was the only being who has ever called me his mother. On our first Mother’s Day he bought me a pair of dog socks.
He was the dog of my life.
He was the dog of my heart.
I somehow left my favorite fountain pen at school on Friday, but I was too stressed-out and worried yesterday to deal with it. But this morning, all I wanted to do was write, so I drove down to school and back to retrieve it.
When we got to All Animals, Fromage had a fever of 105.6. This was a raging brain fever. He couldn’t even walk down our front stairs. I carried him in my arms down the thirteen front steps — all 60+ pounds of him. David carried him into the car. He was dehydrated and disoriented and scared. He was dying.
I held him in the back seat while David drove. He lay quietly on the back seat, watching where we were going.
He had kept himself alive so he could support me. And now I knew it was my turn to support him by letting him go and by easing his passage into the next world, into his next life.
Fred always said that Fromage was my spirit guide.
Now my heart just aches. David’s too. Fromage loved David so much, even though David felt hurt that Fromage was always so freaked out and demented these last few years. David hugged him and loved him too, even though there was so much dog hair. By last night, no one cared.
I can’t put away his old beds or mats yet. I am still processing the fact that he is gone. There is a giant Fromage-shaped hole in my heart — one with one stand-up ear and one flappy ear. The stand-up ear is his right one. It has a bite taken out of the tip. My lips and fingers know the shape of that missing spot instinctively. Completely. Like a fingerprint.
He’d been staying alive to get me through this tough time. On Wednesday night I got the word that my layoff notice had been rescinded. He went downhill fast from there.
I loved that dog so much.
He loved me more purely and wholeheartedly than I had ever been loved before. It was a healing kind of love. He healed me. He made me whole.
When Crystal and I saw Mary Oliver the first time at the Herbst a few years ago, Mary had recently lost her longtime partner, Molly Malone Cook, and had been writing about it for some time. A woman in the audience asked how she’d gotten through the devastating loss. “Well,” she said, first you go a little crazy. You go nuts for a while.” That thought comforts me now. I am going to have to go a little nuts for a while while I grieve.
The loss feels cavernous.
It’s also tinged with fear and shame that I might not be experiencing appropriate gratitude for the gift of his life. I *do* feel a bottomless gratitude for his life. It’s just that right now, this is the part where I have to take in and let out the hurting — the loss and the groundlessness of impermanence.
In legal terms, I rescued him, but the emotional truth is that he is the one who rescued me.
He was a magical dog, a magical creature. In mythical terms, he was my magical helper-being.
“A dog lives fifteen years, if you’re lucky,” Mary Oliver writes in one of her dog poems. In so many, many ways I’ve been very, very lucky. Fromage was in good health and good spirits until this very last week. He enjoyed long walks and Trash Night and giving David five and ten and eating Beggin’ Strips until the very last day of his life. He watched for my return through the glass in the front door every single day of our life together.
As we left the hospital room after it was over, I kissed him behind his flappy ear — where, even in death, he still smelled like a puppy — and I whispered to him, “Okay, Puppity, guard the house.”
Then we left the treatment room and closed the door behind us.
I did not look back.
Fromage at the Dog Garden, Dog Garden, San Francisco, California, April 2004, photo © 2004 by Carlos Hillson. All rights reserved.
About Elizabeth: Elizabeth Statmore is a San Francisco-based writer and teacher of writing and mathematics. She is a long-time practitioner and teacher of Writing Practice, which she learned from Natalie Goldberg. A frequent contributor to KQED-FM, Elizabeth’s last posts for red Ravine include Seed Starting, a piece about writers as gardeners, and Writing The “Remembering Grace Paley” Piece — a step-by-step tutorial on how she turned a raw piece of writing into a finished radio commentary. Elizabeth was also one of our first guest writers, contributing the post Abandoned Is… Fromage was her dog and spirit guide of almost fourteen years.
Long is Part I in a series of three Writing Practices about the love and loss of Fromage.
Posted in Family, Gratitude, Growing Older, Holidays, Home, Life, Love, Personal, Place, Relationships, tagged a father's love, childhood memories, excavating memories, Father's Day, fathers and daughters, forgiveness, kinds of love, letting go, love & loss, memories of my father, My Three Dads, the power of love, unconditional love, writing about fathers on June 17, 2012 | 5 Comments »
Father Love Joy, taken the day before Father’s Day, Casket Arts Studio 318, Minneapolis, Minnesota, June 16th, 2012, photos © 2012 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.
Many Father’s Days pass with a card, a note, a phone call. It’s easy to forget that Father’s Day can be somber for those who have lost fathers to war, illness, death or divorce. I don’t know what it is this year, but Father’s Day sticks to my heart. Maybe it’s the letter I wrote to my biological father last year after 50 years of no contact. Or the way my step-dad from South Carolina drove over 600 miles to see me when I was in Pennsylvania visiting my brother after his liver transplant. Or maybe it’s the way I can feel connected to my step-dad from Pennsylvania by checking in on Facebook when he winters in Puerto Rico.
I’m looking back; I’m looking forward. Back to the things my dads have taught me. Forward to the gratitude I feel that they are a part of my life. Over the years, I related most to the matriarchal side of our family. But the bond between fathers and daughters is inescapable. I ran from it in my twenties; I was trying to stand alone, be my own person. I humbly step back into the circle. It is unbroken. Fathers are the other half of the sky.
Some feel that divorce leaves children alienated and confused. That kids are too young to understand the nature of adult relationships until they have lived through a few of their own. How complicated and emotional and painful they can be. But children are resilient. And the truth is that adults go through many relationships over the course of their lives. Hopefully, insight follows pain. Understanding is born from love and loss. Wisdom comes from forgiveness and learning to love again.
I have a biological father I have not seen since I was six. I have a Southern dad who lives in South Carolina and was a big part of my life from the ages of two through eleven. I have a Northern dad who lives in Pennsylvania part of the year, the other part in Puerto Rico. He was a father figure from the ages of twelve through eighteen. I carry little pieces of each of these men into late adulthood; they are all part of me.
I am a better person for what I learned from my three dads.
I learned to ride a bike in Tennessee. It was my dad who unbolted the training wheels, held the back of the seat until I was steady, then let go the moment I felt balanced. I learned to slip together model train tracks, drop liquid smoke into the stack to make steam (oh, that smell!), let the transformer cool off after a few hours. On Christmas morning, my dad would get right down on the floor with us and assemble model cars, toy blocks, and Easy-Bake ovens. He gardened, cooked and cleaned when Mom needed the help, tore apart car engines and taught her how to put them back together, and worked two jobs to keep us afloat. From my dad, I learned the meaning of generosity of spirit, of honesty and doing the right thing, of standing up for your beliefs and challenging those who take advantage of others.
In Pennsylvania, I grew old enough to drive. It was my mother who sat next to me in the Buick while I learned the ropes. But my dad who taught me how to slip the clutch on the red Austin-Healey Sprite we towed from my grandparent’s garage. The vintage racer belonged to my uncle and had seen a lot of wear. He said he’d give it to us if we could figure out how to tow it home. That Sprite became my first car. Mom added the shag carpet; my dad fixed up the engine and got the little spitfire running after hours of labor—a great gift to me.
From my dad, I learned to build a scale model guillotine for an 8th grade English project on A Tale of Two Cities. The blade was sharp; Mrs. Juarez was impressed. My dad taught me the first chords on the guitar I received for Christmas that first year of college. He always had a couple of guitars and an amp around the house when we were growing up. I also learned a little about politics and community from his dedication to workers rights through union organizing. I learned that change is possible if you are willing to fight for it.
From my biological father, I learned what a child learns from absence. There is a wondering that goes with a parent who is no longer present, a do I matter to them? I wonder if they ever think about me feeling that stays with you into adulthood. His family was lost to me; his parents, my paternal grandmother and grandfather, were strangers. But I did reconnect with my aunts after 50 years. They welcomed me into their families. From that experience, I have learned forgiveness and unconditional love.
There have been painful moments, too, times of disappointment, times when I felt invisible. But on this day, Father’s Day 2012, I focus on the richness I have gained. To my three dads — thanks for all you have taught me. Most people only have one father. I am blessed with the gift of three.
-posted on red Ravine, Father’s Day, Sunday, June 17th, 2012
Posted in Animals & Critters, Body, Bones, Culture, Death, Family, Gratitude, Holding My Breath, Holidays, Life, Life In Letters, Love, Nature, Obituaries & Epitaphs, Personal, Photography, Place, Practice, Relationships, Seasons, Wake Up, tagged black-eyed peas, December, end of the year rituals, fathers, glass half full, historical places, hope, James J. Hill House, Kiev, letters as healers, letting go, Lily & Hope, looking back, looking to the light, making light of the dark, Mr. StripeyPants, Phoebe Snow, pre New Year's, Riverview marquee, Riverview Theater, Ruth Stone, say goodbye to tungsten lights, shadows & light, the things I carry, the things I leave behind on December 31, 2011 | 12 Comments »
Say Goodbye To Tungsten Light, Golden Valley, Minnesota, December 2011, photo © 2011-2012. All rights reserved.
I burn the Christmas lights long after the day has passed. The soft warm glow of tungsten soothes me. I grew up on film photography, old school, and loathed florescent and LED. Say goodbye to tungsten; the last 100 watt bulb rolled off the 
assembly line in December 2011. We lost poet Ruth Stone in 2011 and singer-songwriter Phoebe Snow. They leave behind a rich legacy–their poetry. We lost Hope, the world’s most famous black bear, to the long arms of a Minnesota hunting season. Did they choose their lives, or did their lives choose them?
Goodbye December, January awaits. I look forward to the New Year. In setting goals for 2012, I can’t help but think of the things I will leave to 2011. I never heard back from my father, yet I feel glad I wrote the letter. It is one less thing I have to wonder about. Mr. Stripey Pants had surgery on Monday, December 12th. Bone rubbed on bone in his lower jaw when he chewed his food. We tried to be upbeat that morning, saying he was on his way to breakfast at Tiffany’s (the name of his surgeon). A few weeks later he is almost back to normal. The scar tissue that had formed around a puncture wound near a back tooth has been removed; it was not cancerous. I am grateful for good vet care and the resources to pay for it.
Minnesota leaves behind the 86 inches of snow from last Winter, an unfair trade for the tawny grasses and 50 degree days in the Twin Cities last week. I don’t miss the shoveling, but wonder how the Art Shanty Project will take place on Medicine Lake in January. Where is the frozen Minnesota tundra of 2011? I leave behind a broiling sweaty Summer where I did little gardening. The cedars look limp and brown. Fall 2011 was 
one of the driest on record. Rain, rain, come and play, don’t wait another day. I have grown to miss the rain.
I leave behind a year of no travel, unusual for me. My large extended family lives in Pennsylvania and Georgia, so I often plan vacations around flying back East. I missed visiting with them. In 2011, I attended no out of state writing workshops. I did not take a vacation outside of Minnesota. There was one trip to North Dakota, but not for pleasure (though it had its moments). I leave behind all the angst and sorrow created by the greed and selfishness of others. You sometimes learn the most about people when things go awry. It’s not over yet. The law requires patience, and the resources to carry through over the long haul.
Dear December, there were days you left me nostalgic and somber. But I vow to enter 2012 with optimism and gratitude. 
I will long carry the joy of my brother’s visit to Minnesota the week before Thanksgiving. I carry two healthy cats, Kiev and Mr. Stripey Pants. I carry the love of a caring partner, close friends, and family. I carry excitement at the prospect of celebrating Liz’s birthday in January, and a trip to Wisconsin for a self-propelled writing retreat in February, what used to be the dead of Winter. I leave behind anger, resentment, regret; I release what is no longer helping me be the best person I can be. What people, places or things do you leave behind?
The pantry is stocked. The black-eyed peas soak in the pot, ready to bless the place I call home with good luck and cheer. I am grateful for those who stick with me in times of uncertainty. I am grateful for those who come to the aid of all 
sentient beings in this world, not just humans. I am grateful that we do not inhabit this planet alone, that there are ancient burr oaks, Southern live oaks, slithering snakes, hairy spiders, playful black bears and white winter squirrels. I am grateful that the decisions that matter most are not left in the hands of humans.
December, I say goodbye to you tonight with gratitude and anticipation. I am thankful for your rituals. It’s the night before the New Year. What will my yearly practices be? It will be around the last fire of 2011 that I choose goals for 2012. Thank you, December, for having the courage to let go.
-posted on red Ravine, New Year’s Eve, December 31st, 2011
Posted in 13 Moons, Dreams, Gratitude, Life, Practice, Seasons, Silence, Skies, Spirituality, Structure, Things That Fly, Wake Up, tagged Bear Energy, celebrating Winter Solstice, December Full Moon, end of the year rituals, letting go, Lunar Eclipse, Mercury Retrograde, positive spin on Mercury Retrograde, setting intentions, the creative practice, the power of Introspection, the value of introspection, Total Lunar Eclipse, Winter Solstice, Winter Solstice Full Moon Lunar Eclipse on December 10, 2011 | 12 Comments »
Celebrate The Moon, on the way home, Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, December 2011, photo © 2011 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.
Snow is falling on red Ravine, and the temperature rises from zero to 25 degrees under the morning’s totally eclipsed Moon. It’s Saturday, December 10th and the total Lunar eclipse was exact at 6:36 am Pacific time. Last year the eclipse occurred right on Solstice (for more about the meaning of the Lunar Eclipse see Winter Solstice — Total Eclipse Of The Moon). According to Celestial Timings, one of the features of a total Lunar Eclipse is how it squeezes the 28 to 30 day Moon Phase into three to five hours. Time appears to speed up, accelerating the manifestation of the intentions we hold.
Tonight, we will attend an early Winter Solstice celebration with friends. By a blazing fire sparked by last year’s Yule tree, I will let go of what is no longer working and set new intentions that I hope to move from the dark of Winter into the light of Spring.
What are your intentions for the New Year? I seek more clarity with my creative goals. I have built a good practical infrastructure around my creative life, but the dream feels muddled. It will be good to redefine what is important to me and let the future unfold. In the silent spaces, I can let go of trying to control.
Coinciding with the Lunar Eclipse (and a subtle reminder that we are not in control), Mercury is in retrograde which I associate with breakdowns in interpersonal communication and technology. Here is an article that flips that notion on its head, redefining Mercury Retrograde as a time of increased right brain creative activity. It’s refreshing to view Mercury Retro with a positive spin!
Though my Cancer Sun sign keeps me tightly tethered to a love of history and the past, Winter Solstice is the time of year when I set strong intentions for the future. I look forward to the quiet hibernation of Winter, and the introspection of Bear. Happy Winter!
-posted on red Ravine, Saturday, December 10th, 2011
Posted in 13 Moons, Bodies Of Water, Body, Bones, Culture, Dreams, Holding My Breath, Holidays, Labyrinths, Life, Life In Letters, Nature, Place, Practice, Relationships, Seasons, Secrets, Skies, Spirituality, Structure, Things That Fly, Vision, Wake Up, tagged ancient rituals, celebrating the seasons, change of seasons, clarity, eclipses, Fourth of July, healing rituals, Independence Day, July 4th, July Thunder Moon, June 30th Solar Eclipse, June solar eclipse, letters as healers, letting go, Midsummer, Midsummer Night's Dream, New Moon, New Moon In Cancer Solar Eclipse, paying attention, rituals, slow walking, solar eclipse, summer in Minnesota, Summer rituals, the Heart of Summer, the value of introspection, the value of process, Thunder Moon, transforming old patterns & routines, transitions, walking the labyrinth on June 30, 2011 | 10 Comments »
Walking The Labyrinth, Droid Snapshots, Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, June 2011, photo © 2011 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.
The July Sun boils. Tomorrow may hit 100 degrees. It’s the heart of Summer in Minnesota, when deep Winter dwellers finally allow themselves to emerge from their cabin cocoons to frolic in the grass and spend intimate time with family and friends. The shadow of the July Thunder Moon will rise at 3:54am on July 1st. This New Moon Partial Solar Eclipse in the watery depths of Cancer offers an opportunity to enhance and transform relationships, and release outdated emotional patterns that might be holding us back. This is especially true of family relationships, since the sign of Cancer is rooted in home and family ties.
The partial eclipse also opposes the expansiveness of the planet Pluto, emphasizing the need for transformation of old patterns and routines. The Midsummer eclipse is a time of healing wounds, and setting intentions that allow us to work with old habits in new ways. There will be surprises that will jolt us awake and leave an opening for the clarity we need to move forward.
Be safe and have a good July 4th Holiday. Venus transits into the sign of Cancer on July 4th, calling out the feminine. Walk a labyrinth. Pay attention to the Sun, Stars, Moon, and Sky. The Earth will love you for it. Here’s an eclipse ritual I found in Llewellyn’s Sabbats Almanac. I thought it might be a good way to dive into the eclipse of a Midsummer night’s dream.
∞ Cancer Eclipse Ritual ∞
Think of a particular relationship or issue from the past that has been lingering or holding you back. Write a letter to the person (or people) involved that relays your honest feelings and emotions. Describe how you would like this situation or issue to change and what you need to feel better about it. Then, on the day of the New Moon, go to the ocean or find a stream, lake, or other body of water where you can be relatively private. Read your letter aloud to the spirit of the water and ask this spirit to help guide your message to the right place to allow you to heal, transform, and be free of these feelings that you have been holding on to.
-posted on red Ravine, Thursday, June 30th, 2011, Eve of a New Moon in Cancer Solar Eclipse
-related to posts: ode to a crab — haiku & mandala, Mandala For The 5th Element — The Role Of Ritual In Our Lives, World Labyrinth Day, Winter Solstice — Total Eclipse Of The Moon, winter haiku trilogy, November Frost BlackBerry Moon, Winding Down — July 4th Mandalas, Squaring The Circle — July Mandalas (Chakras & Color), The Shape Of July — Out Of Darkness Comes Light, Here’s To Rain On The 4th Of July
Posted in Body, Bones, Culture, Death, Dreams, Growing Older, Holding My Breath, Jugular, Life, Love, Nature, Poetry, Seasons, Topic Writing, Wake Up, tagged clear sight, Death as a new beginning, don't be tossed away, healing powers of poetry, honoring death, keeping on, letting go, Letting Go of What Cannot Be Held Back, life & death, National Poetry Month, one foot in front of the other, poems about death, red Ravine Guests, Sacred Circles, Sacred Destinations, Susy Crandall, the energy of Death, the power of poetry on April 18, 2011 | 27 Comments »
sometimes keeping going is the only thing to do.
just put one foot in front of the other
even when all you want to do is
STOP
and jet off, uncoiling this mortal coil, snapping the cord
that holds you here on this
terrestrial ball
sometimes I have felt myself leaving
when I look up
at the stars or sun and moon.
after all, I have been there before
looking out over the backside
of the moon at Orion.
it’s nice up there.
still something keeps telling me “No, not yet—
there is much left to do and have
and let go of,
so it will be awhile.
but when I learn to make each day
one long song of Praise,
when doing what I don’t like to do is
Sacred
even if it’s nothing but lying flat on my back
staring at that ceiling in that nursing home
making a complete Heaven of boredom
finding God in smaller
and smaller things
till this body becomes translucent with age
and evaporates into
living through my death and death
And deaths after death.
besides, the more of me that dies
the clearer my sight becomes
and beauties I never saw before I see now,
the soft-shelled turtle a foot wide
that lives in the ditch,
or the coyote crossing the road at dusk,
that sandy haired cousin
of Baryshnikov,
or the colors in the clouds.
when I could leave, I wasn’t grounded
but neither was I finished being made
and now I know I’ll never be finished
so, “No,” I say to myself
when I’m really down and out and
I want to leave.
“Not yet.”
let’s just see what’s left,
what’s left waiting to be born
out of this piece of death
this peace of death
till the last breath whispers “Now,”
and I am ready to go
birthed into death
and gone home to my love.
_______________________________________
About Susy: Itchin’ to write, to scrape the painfully unexpressed off internal organs and lay it out in fresh air and sunshine to heal, where sharing fractionates pain. Scrubbing out the last of my angst cabinets to fill with love and light to live, a worker among workers, a friend among friends.
-posted on red Ravine, Monday, April 18th, 2011
-related to posts: WRITING TOPIC — DEATH & DYING, Does Poetry Matter?, and Tortoise Highway
Posted in 25 Things, Body, Culture, Dreams, Family, Growing Older, Holding My Breath, Home, Life, Love, Memoir, Personal, Place, Practice, Relationships, Seasons, Topic Writing, Wake Up, tagged childhood memories, circle of life, cleaning rituals, excavating memories, family memories, grandmothers, handing over the job of remembering, holding on, Judith Ford, keepsakes, letting go, Letting Go of What Cannot Be Held Back, life lessons, mothers & sons, mothers and daughters, parents & children, red Ravine Guests, Rites of Spring, rituals, seasonal rituals, Spring Cleaning, spring rituals, the things I carry, using lists to capture details, what's left behind, Wheel of Life, writing the details on March 3, 2011 | 20 Comments »
My grandmother, who was Dutch, did an incredible job of spring cleaning, every March, every year she was alive. No object and no surface was spared a scrubbing. Rugs were taken out and beaten within an inch of their threaded lives; walls were washed with a hard brown scrub brush. Curtains taken down and washed. Every closet emptied, every sheet and towel bleached and washed. Everything dried outdoors on a clothesline. In March, Wisconsin is still cold so things froze out there, pillowcases transformed into wrinkled boards. Socks turned into twisted sculptures. She washed every dish and pot and spoon. Then when it was all done and everything set back in its proper place, she’d cover the sofa and chairs and lampshades in the living room with plastic covers. She’d lay a plastic path from doorway to living room couch and into the dining room. When I was around 11, I asked her, finally, who she was keeping everything so clean for and when would she remove the ugly plastic. (I didn’t say the word, ugly, I’m sure). “The plastic keeps everything ready for company,” she replied. “But, “I protested, “Aren’t I company?” I had never once seen her living room without plastic. “You,” she explained, “are family. Not company.” She didn’t need to add that I, being a rather messy child, was one of the reasons she protected her furniture.
My mother didn’t do spring cleaning. She did like to open up all the windows on the first day the temperature rose over 50–to air everything out. I always loved that, coming home from school for lunch and finding the windows all wide open, the house looking like a toothless, eyeless caricature of itself, the air sweet and chilly. My mother hated being a housewife and did not cotton to cooking or cleaning. She did the minimums and stuck to the 50’s schedule that most of her friends observed: Monday clean and do laundry; Tuesday iron; Wednesday, volunteer work; Thursday, groceries; Friday, light cleaning (a lick and a promise, is what she called it); Saturday was the night my dad cooked burgers and Sundays we went to my grandparent’s house for dinner. My mother did what she felt she must but mostly without joy and often with many sighs. She did seem to enjoy ironing (which I so don’t get) and would sing while she ironed, in a voice like Ella Fitzgerald. Singing over the ironing and walking in the mountains – those are the times I remember my mother at her happiest. Not cleaning. Never spring cleaning.
Well, it’s sort of spring now and I am sort of spring cleaning. I’ve been putting hours in every week to clean my attic. It has to be done. We’re selling the house and moving to the country.
I’ve lived in this house for 28 years, married husband #2 after living alone here with my daughter for 5 years, moved that husband and his daughter in, had another baby, raised these kids until each one grew their feathers and flew off. Also raised a cockatiel, a parrot, four dogs and numerous gerbils and hamsters in this house. Can you imagine the debris? My attic had become a combination museum, closet (huge closet), and file cabinet. Treasures and cast-offs that have trickled down to me from three generations and two family lines. The leftover objects include outgrown clothes, games, books, and life directions. My very first poem, written at age 10. A couple of Jessie’s baby teeth, nestled inside the newborn bracelet she wore in the nursery: “Baby girl, Marks-Szedziewski, 2-19-78.” An envelope containing a curling wisp of very blond baby hair, Nic’s first haircut, 1988, a battered and faded pink pair of tiny toe shoes (mine, from 1955, I think; although they might be my aunt Jeanne’s). A hair curling iron (great-grandmother Nettie’s, late 1800’s). Aunt Jeanne’s bracelets from the 30’s. So glad I didn’t throw those away. Hundreds of notes from Jessie and from Nic: I Love You, Mommy. Mommy don’t tell anyone but I love you best. Thank you for being my mommy, You are the best Mommy, Next time you go on a trip, take me too. Mommy, I hate camp. Come and get me out of here, please!please!please! Nic’s version of Jingle Bells, written at age 4 with a few backwards letters, words scrawled across the page, Jingle Bells Jingle Bells Jingle all the way, Oh What Fun on Al’s True Ride, On the One on Holken Slay. Jessie’s school trophies, soccer and swimming, her camp and sports t-shirts, Nic’s academic medals for top scores in the state on the ACT and SAT at age 9 and 10, his IQ testing done at Northwestern U when he was 5.
The way I wept when the tester called me and told me the test results.
I wish I had known more back then how to feed his ravenous brain, his wonderful mind. So much I wish I could do over for him.
I will be 63 in a month. The past is truly the past. There are no do-overs and no time left for holding on. Time, instead, for letting go. For boxing up, and throwing away, for going to UPS to send Jessie her soccer and swim team t-shirts, to send Nic his Pokemon card collection. Handing the keepsakes over to my grown-up kids, handing over to them the job of remembering.
In the process of this sorting and cleaning, I’ve had to remind myself again and again to let go not only of the objects but the feelings. I’ve laughed, I’ve cried, I’ve longed to have my children back in my arms, on my lap, longed for one more night of reading in bed with Jessie at age 7, one more night of long conversation at bedtime with Nic when he was 10. One more chance to see each of them for one hour during each year of their growing-up – one more chance to drink in the sight of them, their wispy hair, freckled faces, braces and missing teeth, to listen to their piping little voices more intently, memorize each one of them even more completely.
I had expected that cleaning out all this old stuff would help me clear the decks for this next chapter of my life, and yes, I guess that’s happening. I had anticipated reminiscing. I hadn’t anticipated the wave upon wave of memories to be so visceral, so wrenching, so expanding and swooping and full of love. I am not only clearing the decks; I am also rejuvenating both myself and the attic. Am going through some kind of death and resurrection here. Turning myself inside out and right side out again. Right side out and I must admit, a little trembly.
Spring cleaning is a piece of cake compared to this.
About Judith: Judith Ford is a psychotherapist and writer who lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She was red Ravine’s very first guest writer, with the piece 25 Reasons I Write. Judith’s other pieces on red Ravine include lang•widge, Mystery E.R., I Write Because, and PRACTICE – Door – 20min. Spring Cleaning is based on a 15 minute Writing Practice on WRITING TOPIC — SPRING CLEANING.
Posted in Body, Bones, Growing Older, Life, Personal, Practice, Seasons, Structure, Topic Writing, Writing Practices, tagged cleaning house, cleaning products, cleaning rituals, cleaning windows, letting go, old cleaning remedies, seasonal rituals, Spring Cleaning, writing about spring, writing about spring cleaning on February 23, 2011 | 14 Comments »
Spring cleaning. Where to start. It’s quiet, late in the evening. I’ve barely scratched the surface. I remember window washing, vinegar and newspaper. I remember dusting with Pledge. The smell of Lemon Pledge, etched in the nasal cavity. I remember Johnson Paste Wax, the rotating discs on the buffer. I remember sand and sandspurs, tearing at my toes, clinging to bits of rug. Spring cleaning is symbolic. A ritual of letting go. It doesn’t have to be deep cleaning. Just the letting go.
The rugs that get hauled out to the clothesline. The rug beater, a wooden stick. Puffs of dirt from the prairie. Not my home. A little house somewhere I can’t remember. I don’t think houses are as clean as they were when I was growing up. Times have changed. Roles have changed. Both parents need to work for a living. And still it’s hard to make ends meet. Spring cleaning leads me to a sunny destination after a long Minnesota Winter. Spring cleaning leads me to Spring.
Cleaning the deck windows until they are crystal clear. Power washing the wood. There is something fun about power washing. This year we will need to replace the trim on the south windows. Weather and woodpeckers have stripped them raw and full of holes. I am fond of the woodpeckers. But they can be destructive. Have you ever watched birds do their spring cleaning? Grabbing bits of feather, lint, moss, and making a nest. Preening their young, mites and ticks. Cleaning rituals are not only for humans.
Spring cleaning means tidying up the garden space, uncovering the rosebush, gathering the old brush and weeds from the end of last Fall and tossing them to the back corner. Spring means transplanting the two pines that have sprouted near the coneflowers, watching the dogwood stems turn beet red with sap, waiting, waiting, waiting for the bloom of the peony. A whole year must pass, that’s how long I wait for the next peony to bloom. Underneath the ash, grubs, a few mice and voles. The white winter squirrel, I haven’t seen her this year. What happened? Maybe a hawk or an owl found her to be easy prey.
Another 18 inches of snow last weekend. I shoveled the driveway hill and raked the roof. I am ready for Spring. In a few days, it will drop to 10 degrees again. The wind will kick up from the North; I’ll zip my jacket a little tighter. All that after a day of sunshine at 32. It’s dangerous to wait for Spring, dangerous to wait for the future to arrive at your doorstep. When all you have is right now.
-Related to Topic post: WRITING TOPIC – SPRING CLEANING (HOMEMADE CLEANING REMEDIES). Also related to posts: WRITING TOPIC — CLEANLINESS, and Wanda Wooley — The Lean Green Clean Machine.
Posted in 13 Moons, Art, Bones, Doodling, Dreams, Photography, Practice, Relationships, Structure, Vision, tagged altered journals, Art House Co-Op, building community through the Arts, deadlines, in-process art, journal art, journal as art gallery, journals, letting go, Letting Go of What Cannot Be Held Back, Liz Schultz, Moleskine art, Moleskines, The Brooklyn Art Library, the creative process, The Sketchbook Project, the value of the Arts on January 13, 2011 | 23 Comments »
Confidential (Open), Things That Changed Other Things, The Sketchbook Project, Musk Ox Moon, pages from the Moleskines of Liz Schultz & QuoinMonkey for The Sketchbook Project, January 2011, photos © 2011 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved. Medium: Portfolio Brand Water-Soluble Oil Pastels, Prang Metallic Markers, Uni-ball Signo 207 Rollergels, Letter Stamps, Ink, Caran D’Ache NeoColor II Swiss Made wax crayons, Black & Silver Sharpies, digital photo, gesso, sticker, water, Moleskine.
Liz and I signed up for The Art House Co-Op Sketchbook Project months ago. This week we are working furiously to put the finishing touches on our Moleskines. We’ll postmark the journals by January 15th and they will be on their way to a permanent collection at the Brooklyn Art Library. But that will be after touring the U.S. with all of the other 28,835 artists from 94 countries around the world who submitted their journal art. The tour starts March 2011.
I snapped a few in-process BlackBerry shots but they don’t do justice to the vibrant colors or feel of the original pages. Tomorrow night I’ll get out the Canon and document every page, because the journals won’t be returned. It’s a lesson in letting go. One recent addition to our art materials (thanks to ybonesy’s detailed post on journals) are the Caran D’Ache NeoColor II Swiss Made crayons. I like mixing them with oil pastels. They work well with a brush and water.
Liz and I chose different themes for our Moleskines. I am working with Lights In the Distance; she chose Things That Changed Other Things. Photography lends itself to light, so I included original light-related photos and a series of Moon sketches. Liz worked with original photographs, poetry, and collage. She helps motivate me to experiment with new materials. It’s been a long time since I kept a sketchbook, so it’s been fun to work on this project together. Though I wish I had not waited quite as long to finish up the details. Deadlines motivate!
Rabbit Ears, Dragon Moon, Life Is Short, Art Long, pages from the Moleskines of Liz Schultz & QuoinMonkey for The Sketchbook Project, January 2011, photos © 2011 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved. Medium: Portfolio Brand Water-Soluble Oil Pastels, Prang Metallic Markers, Uni-ball Signo 207 Rollergels, Letter Stamps, Ink, Caran D’Ache NeoColor II Swiss Made wax crayons, Black & Silver Sharpies, digital photo, magazine pages, discarded faxes, gesso, sticker, water, Moleskine.
-posted on red Ravine, Thursday, January 13th, 2011
Posted in Body, Bones, Dreams, Gratitude, Great Places To Write, Holding My Breath, Holidays, Home, Jugular, Life, Love, Mandalas, Personal, Place, Practice, Relationships, Seasons, Silence, Vision, Wake Up, Work, Writers, tagged Beginner's Mind, collaboration, continue under all circumstances, courage, creating mandalas, embracing the unknown, endings, fear & fearlessness, finding humility, Happy New Year!, hopes for the New Year, letting go, Letting Go of What Cannot Be Held Back, make positive effort for the good, new beginnings, not being tossed away, overcoming fear, red Ravine, sit-walk-write, sit-walk-write-fly, the creative process, the practice of art, the practice of red Ravine, the practice of writing, the work of blogging, writing friends, ybonesy & QuoinMonkey on January 1, 2011 | 39 Comments »
Mandala For A New Year, BlackBerry Shots, Golden Valley, Minnesota, January 2011, photo © 2011 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.
A Downy pecks at the suet feeder. Black-eyed peas simmer in a vintage crock-pot in the kitchen. Temperatures hover around zero; it’s 3 degrees and windy. Gifted with unexpected time alone on New Year’s Eve, I wrote in my journal, checked in with the Midwest Writing Group, worked on a mandala, completed the BlackBerry 365 practice, made plans for the New Year. It felt positive to me, this forward thinking.
I am one of those people who mines for specks of gold in old and burly mountains, drags silvery threads of the past forward. Lineage. Writers, artists, photographers. Process. Birth, death, old age. What makes something work? Like The Fool archetype in Tarot, it is with great humility that I embrace the unknown and begin again. Beginner’s Mind. I will miss ybonesy and her free spirited and vibrant creative fire on a daily basis at red Ravine, but I know I have to face forward. It’s one of the things she taught me — take risks. Move into the future. When you collaborate with a person who strikes a balance, one who possesses the qualities you lack, it’s easy to become complacent about that which needs strengthening inside.
I need a strong back, flexible muscles. I will build on the Bones of red Ravine. I have so many dreams I want to pursue; they have not gone away. I will have to be diligent. Courageous. Disciplined. It takes courage for ybonesy to leave to spend more time with her family; it takes courage to stay. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t scared. There are days when the work of blogging feels like it needs a whole army of writers and artists to move it forward. But I believe in the mission and vision of red Ravine and am excited to steer her in a new direction. The winds may be stiff; I will follow the structure we put into place—teacher, practice, community—and see where red Ravine takes me.
I am forever grateful to Roma who walked up to me in Mabel’s dining room after one of the silent retreats, and asked if I wanted to write together. I would be returning to Minnesota, she to Albuquerque, 1200 miles between us. The Turtle in me had to give it some thought; not for long. The seed for red Ravine had been planted. Now this space is Home, a strong cottonwood by the Mother Ditch, in her adolescent years, still growing. But nothing can thrive without nurturing, play, attention, and time. I have to plan carefully, regroup. Thank you for standing by me.
I am grateful for the 5 years of creative collaboration with ybonesy. She is a strong, gifted woman, a dear friend. I am grateful for a community that keeps coming back. I feel supported. I’ve committed to keeping red Ravine alive through another year. It’s one of my practices. I draw on what Natalie taught me: Continue under all circumstances. Don’t be tossed away. Make positive effort for the good (adding under my breath, Cross your fingers for Good Luck!).
Back to the moment. Time to feed Mr. Stripeypants and Kiev. Liz will be rising soon. We spent part of New Year’s Eve watching Lily and Hope on the NABC 2011 DenCam. They aren’t worried about such things as red Ravine. They are busy being Bears. I focus on my new practices for 2011: (1) a daily Journal entry 365 (2) a BlackBerry collaboration inspired by Lotus (one of our readers) (3) a year-long Renga collaboration. I’ll write more about these practices in coming posts. Happy New Year, ybonesy. Happy New Year to all red Ravine readers. Happy New Year, red Ravine. New Beginnings. The Promise of Spring.
-posted on red Ravine, Saturday, January 1st, 2011
Posted in Art, Bones, Dreams, Gratitude, Great Places To Write, Jugular, Life, Love, Personal, Relationships, Silence, Structure, Taos, Work, Writing, tagged collaboration, collage, embracing the unknown, endings, fear & fearlessness, Gratitude, letting go, Letting Go of What Cannot Be Held Back, Mabel Dodge Luhan House, new beginnings, red Ravine, saying Goodbye, self-expression, self-image, self-portrait, Taos, Taos New Mexico, the creative practice, the work of blogging, writing friends, ybonesy & QuoinMonkey on December 28, 2010 | 38 Comments »
Letting Go, one of the themes at the Natalie Goldberg silent retreat in Taos, December 2010, collage made of magazine paper, wax crayons, and pen and ink in Moleskine journal, image © 2010 by ybonesy. All rights reserved.
It was strange to find myself sitting in the zendo at the Mabel Dodge Luhan House in Taos, our teacher Natalie Goldberg urging us to Let Go. I had just a few weeks before made the decision to leave red Ravine, although QuoinMonkey and I had agreed to wait until the end of the year to make the announcement. Though not intended as such, the week in Taos could be a test of how ready I was to let go of this special virtual space that had inspired and sustained me for so long.
It was in Taos, after all, that red Ravine was born. The year—2006. QM and I, having already written together for some time, are both participating in a four-season Intensive with Natalie Goldberg. This Intensive is part of a bigger plan I have for myself, a wannabe writer-and-artist withering away inside the body of a corporate manager and breadwinner for my family of four. I am bored and unhappy. I want to write and do art, but I can’t seem to motivate myself to do much with either except to dream about it. QM and I and a couple of others hatch red Ravine over intense working sessions in Taos and through the phone lines while back at our respective homes. Setting up a blog is hard work, but it is also real. For the first time, I am motivated to do more than fantasize about writing and making art. red Ravine promises to be the impetus to actually producing.
Those first two years of creating red Ravine, QM and I worked our butts off and had a blast doing it. The blog was a perfect outlet for the deep, low creative growl that the Intensive seemed to unleash within us. Some days we posted more than once, and often we had to make sure that we weren’t publishing over one another. For my part, I was making art like crazy. After years of being fearful of the lack of control inherent in a brush (as compared to a pencil), I took a workshop at Ghost Ranch and learned to paint. My corporate job changed around the same time, too. I landed an assignment that took me back and forth to Vietnam. I bought myself a slew of different colored inking pens and began using the long trips back and forth as opportunity to take on a doodling practice.
QuoinMonkey and I worked surprisingly well together. We were both committed to the idea of a creating a space where we would each be inspired and where we might inspire others. She brought to red Ravine and to me her strong values around Community and Giving Back. Her thoughtful and thorough turtle complemented my quick and often irreverent spirit. (What animal am I anyway? The brown bird, I guess.) We found ourselves in synch whenever we wanted to try something new or make a change. We pushed each other to do our best.
what I learned
One of the things I love about Taos and Mabel’s place is how they never seem to change. Here I am, early December 2010, and I’m crossing the same flagstone patio that I walked those years ago back when red Ravine was still an infant. Over the past several years, I’ve brought my daughters here, and my husband. I bring my father back each year after we clean his parents’ graves in Costilla, 42 miles north. One summer he laid some of these very flagstones,when he was about 16 and living on Morada Lane in a house with a storefront.
It doesn’t matter what I have accomplished, what roles I have taken on in the years since I’ve been back. Inside the zendo, Natalie reminds us to Let Go. For me this means letting go of my responsibilities, my ego, any self-assigned self-importance. Here, in Taos, I am zero. In my raw, stripped-down state I feel my sadness. It is deep inside me, under everything else I carry.
My heart breaks open.
Letting Go in Taos means being able to clearly see that red Ravine was, in fact, the catalyst for change in my life. It means being grateful for everything I’ve learned as a result of opening up to others. Because of red Ravine, I’ve had a place to publish my writing, to experiment with and share my art, to meet other writers and artists. red Ravine has been Muse, sounding board, supportive audience, friend, family, mentor.
I started a fledging business because of the creativity that flowed out, thanks to red Ravine. Because of this blog I’ve learned to commit to and follow through with my practices; to make jewelery; to turn unpolished writing into finished pieces; to put my creative self out into the world. I used to think I couldn’t finish anything; it took having this blog to realize that I’m an actualizer at heart.
Of course, there are downsides to setting and realizing intentions. Jim long ago gave up complaining when I’d spend hours socked away in my writing room. But I don’t take for granted any more, not since April of this year when he collapsed on the bed clutching his heart, that he will always be there waiting when I need to take a break. And my daughters—full-fledged teenagers! Just today I accompanied my oldest for nearly an hour while she drove us all around town, adding experience under her belt in preparation for graduating from learners permit to drivers license. I don’t have much time left to influence their lives.
letting go
At the December retreat, we walk the dirt trail out at the morada, just down the way from Mabel’s place. Natalie often takes her students there. The day we go, boys and men from Taos Pueblo run past us in the cold air. I feel alone and sheltered in my layers of warmth, and for a moment I am homesick for family and our traditions.
My parents are old now. They’ve passed from the stage of old-yet-mostly-healthy to being old-and-frighteningly-frail. I visit them every Sunday. All year long I struggle to keep up with everything I have on my plate. Some weeks it feels impossible to eke out even the simplest of posts.
QM is a rock. Her posts are—like her—consistently high-quality, thorough, and deep. I am honored to have worked with her for this long.
A good friend of mine who a few years back started up his own blog had this to say when I told him I was thinking of leaving red Ravine: ”Blogging has no exit strategy.” Which is another way of saying that unless you’re getting paid to do it, blogging is a labor of love. This particular labor has born much fruit.
It has so much more potential, so much yet to become. I’m going to be here, on the other side of the screen, cheering on QM to keep moving it forward. I know I’ll always be proud to say I was a part of creating it.
Thank you for everything you’ve done, QM. Thank you to the friends I’ve met here. So long for now. See you in Comments. 8)
Self Portrait, December 2010, collage made of magazine paper, wax crayons, and pen and ink in Moleskine journal, image © 2010 by ybonesy. All rights reserved.
Posted in Body, Bones, Culture, Death, Holding My Breath, Life, Personal, Practice, Relationships, Spirituality, Topic Writing, Writing Practices, tagged Be impeccable with your word, circles, don Miguel Ruiz, Don't make assumptions, letting go, Letting Go of What Cannot Be Held Back, Miguel Ruiz, spiritual agreements, The Four Agreements on June 6, 2010 | 7 Comments »
It’s hard not to make assumptions. I make general assumptions about the way I think people should live every day. I expect honesty, forthrightness, that people are generally good. I expect people to honor their word, and want to believe they are telling the truth. These are all assumptions. Then I start thinking about values, how assumptions are made according to the values we hold. People assume that everyone is straight. At least 10% of the population is not, probably much more. When I think about it, I can’t really afford to make assumptions — if I don’t want people to make assumptions about me.
Finding the courage to communicate clearly — that takes some doing. It’s easy to chatter through the day, talk, talk, talk. People love to talk. But what about when it really comes down to it. To life and death situations, to a need to get one’s affairs in order, to ask for help, to talk about what’s hard, to deal with the things we don’t really want to face. I might dash off into my head, get brooding or quiet. That’s the way I process. Tapping away at words. Words are meaningless without the ability to communicate clearly. I am lost on this Topic.
Maybe Don’t Make Assumptions is connected to Be Impeccable With Your Word. On the assumption end, you are focusing on the other person, on believing that their world doesn’t revolve around you. Let that go. On the impeccable end, you are trying to make sure you can live up to your word, to the agreements you make with other people. Sometimes they are small, like following through on emptying the trash or changing the cat litter, washing the dishes. Sometimes they are big, like legal contracts, paying the mortgage or your rent, or showing up to work on time. What does it take to be there for your family, your friends?
I have not been focused this week. My thoughts scatter when I try to make sense of life events that just don’t make any sense. Who was it that said things would make sense? They don’t. Sometimes I wonder if the things I fear the most have to do with death, abandonment, being left behind. I don’t feel like I have my own affairs in order. Not yet. And there is still so much I want to do. But I don’t have control over how long I will live. Or how long those close to me will survive.
I can’t assume I will live a long life. And neither can you. That leaves this moment. And whatever’s happened in the past. To come to terms with the past, I study history. At the global, local, and family level. To make sense of the present, I write. I take photos. I mull things over. I try to be true to my word. I am not always successful. The agreements, for me, are more what I learned in Writing Practice. To make positive effort for the good. To continue under all circumstances. To not be tossed away. These are spiritual agreements, like the Four Agreements, like the Golden Rule. They are words to live by, impossible to follow, necessary for survival, tools that make relationships sing.
The people I respect the most stick their necks out for others, take risks, show gratitude, learn to live with the criticism of imperfection. Eleanor Roosevelt, Amelia Earhart, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Martin Luther King, Sitting Bull. This practice is all in the abstract. I cannot name names or even explain what I really mean. My eyelids are heavy. I said I would post this Writing Practice. I am sticking to my word. Perhaps my heart really isn’t into the writing. The rain washed away my sadness. But not my worry. I dreamed of a freshwater lake the size of the Moon, concentric rings forming a circle that wraps around. Unbroken.
-Related to Topic post: WRITING TOPIC — THE FOUR AGREEMENTS
Posted in Bones, Nature, Personal, Practice, Topic Writing, Wake Up, Writing Practices, tagged assumptions, don Miguel Ruiz, Don't make assumptions, letting go, making assumptions, Miguel Ruiz, The Four Agreements on June 5, 2010 | 9 Comments »
I’m sitting on the patio, the last of the cool morning air hanging on here with me. I listen to the energetic gurgle of two waterfalls in the pond. Notice that I don’t make assumptions about nature. I don’t assume anything about the water in the pond, well, except that it’s not potable. The mosquito fish must be getting big by now. I hope they’re eating all the mosquito larvae that float on the water’s surface.
I don’t make assumptions about the heat, don’t assign malintent to the place on the thermometer where the mercury hovers. It’s going to be a scorcher, an early June heat stroke in the Southwest. I assume it’s cooler here than in Carlsbad or Phoenix. I’d rather be here than there, although I’d rather this heat stroke not hit at all.
Just like I’d rather the Gulf oil spill not be happening. That’s an understatement. I can’t look at the pictures of oil-soaked pelicans, their watery eyes helpless behind layers of crude—CRUD—and not cry, not feel my stomach turn. I feel so helpless here, far away. I can’t imagine how the people of the coast feel. Ads featuring that British Petroleum CEO are playing these days, causing Jim to snarl at the television, “Oh shut up!” I don’t make assumptions or not make assumptions about that CEO. He is what he is, who he is, and like us all he is living a hell right now every time he thinks about what’s happening in those waters and beaches and reefs.
Assumptions. What is that saying—What does ASSUME mean? It means You make an ASS out of U and ME. How long ago did I first hear that and who told me? Was it Dad during one of our many fights when I was a teenager? We fought about my friends, my habits, his strictness, his expectations. I once got so mad during a fight that I threw a bottle of nail polish at Mom. Cooley and slowly capped the bottle, in my mind’s eye I looked at my freshly painted pink nails, blew on the tips of my fingers to make sure they were as dry as could be, and then I reeled back my arm, took aim, threw.
We made a lot of assumptions about each other then. I assumed my parents were out of touch, old-fashioned, incapable of understanding me. Now that I am the mother of a teenage girl, I wonder what assumptions, if any, she makes about me. I look at the assumptions I make about her. Surely from this writing practice I can take away that this is one place where I have to take special care to not make assumptions.
The pond still gurgles. It gurgles in spite of me here, in the waning cool. I think the scale has tipped, the day is officially hot. I wish it were that easy for me to tip the scale, to move from the place of making assumptions to the place of not making assumptions. I’ve never liked it when people label me. I don’t like to be distilled down by others so that they can better understand me. It’s not real, after all, those assumptions we make about one another. Not real, not like the heat of this day is real, nor the sound of water.
-Related to post WRITING TOPIC — THE FOUR AGREEMENTS
Posted in Personal, Life, Relationships, Photography, Practice, Love, Family, Topic Writing, Growing Older, Jugular, Holding My Breath, Writing Practices, tagged letting go, red Ravine Guests, mothers, motherhood, Judith Ford, sons, growing up, mothers & sons, the practice of writing, fear & fearlessness, acceptance, being yourself, symbolism of doors, writing about doors, images of doors, doors, walking through doors, walking into life, child prodigies, Mathematics geniuses on February 5, 2010 | 13 Comments »
By Judith Ford
Image by Jude Ford, July 2009, in front of the Mathematics Building, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, photo © 2010 Jude Ford. All rights reserved.
This is my son, at the door of the math building at the University of Michigan. A month after this picture he’d go through that door to begin his life as a math PhD candidate and as a college teacher. He’d discover the frustration of trying to teach calculus to a bunch of freshmen who wouldn’t give a damn. Who wouldn’t share one drop of the passion he feels for his subject. Years before this photo, he’d told me, with tears in his eyes, that he wished more people could see how elegant and beautiful math was.
Despite the beauty of math, it was never enough.
My son started grad school a month short of his 21st birthday. He was overly ready and not ready at all. He’d had a summer of brutal awakenings, realization upon realization of all he missed out on by being a child math prodigy. Not that he could have avoided being who he was. He was blessed, as much as cursed, with an unusual mind, shunned by children who thought he was showing off, trying to make them feel stupid, when all he was doing was using the language and thoughts natural to him. He had a 30-year-old’s vocabulary by the time he was in first grade. I’m not kidding.
He and I had a conversation just a week ago, about his intellectual differentness. He pointed out to me that he’d met a lot of really smart people in the honors math program at the U of Chicago, from which he’d graduated last June. “There are a lot of people out there who are way smarter than I am,” he said. “I don’t think I was all that unusual when I was a kid.”
I disagreed. “Yes, dear, you really were different. It was obvious by the time you were 2. You learned things in big huge gulps. At a rate that wasn’t usual, that was, frankly, a little scary. And you didn’t know how to play with other kids.”
“I still don’t.”
“That’s what was scary to me when you got tested and those scores came back so freakishly high. I knew you were going to be lonely.”
“I don’t remember ever not being lonely.”
“Kids your age were intimidated by you. By third grade, they’d started avoiding you.”
“I thought they all knew this secret thing that I’d somehow missed out on. I thought math could make up for that. I thought it would solve everything. I was pathetic. I never learned how to be a human being.”
“How brave of you to see that,” I think I said. “So now what do you need to do?”
“I don’t have a clue,” he answered.
There’s ivy growing over the top of this door, up at the right hand corner. Brings to mind the academic cliché of ivied walls and the idea that this door, being partly occluded, is yet another incomplete solution, leading to an unknown and no doubt imperfect path. Math, a career in math, still won’t solve my son’s life or end his loneliness.
See the way he holds his arms and shoulders. His uncertainty and discomfort are obvious. And that he’s trying to be patient with me as I take his picture. He squints at me. He frowns. He knows I’m doing a mom thing that, for some reasons not clear to him, I need to do.
Does he know how my heart hurts for him? How much I wish I could soothe away the pain in his face with something as simple as a hug and a bedtime story. How these things, too, are mom things that I can’t help feeling. He doesn’t need to know. I don’t tell him and I try not to let him see.
He tolerates my hug when I say good-bye. He doesn’t hug back. He doesn’t hold on. His gaze, over my shoulder, already fixed on that door.
It’s trite to say that when he walked through that door he walked into the rest of his life. But I want to say it. So I am. He did. He walked into his adult life without a clue. Which is the only way possible to walk into one’s life. And interestingly, the only way that is, in fact, a kind of solution.
Judith Ford is a psychotherapist and writer who lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She was red Ravine’s very first guest writer, with her 25 Reasons I Write post. She joins ybonesy and QuoinMonkey in writing about Topic post WRITING TOPIC — DOOR. Judith’s other pieces on red Ravine include Mystery E.R. and a writing group practice I Write Because.
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