The spectacular moment -- The World as It Is (Carolyn Miller) and Crossing the Loch (Kathleen Jamie)

I know, I've been a little slow the last few weeks.  But, I'm feeling really good.  Several talks are done, medical school graduation was seamless and lovely, I am going to a poetry and care-giving conference at Duke this weekend and taking my daughter to see some schools near Duke, and, and , AND........

this lax mom is ECSTATIC about Will's team beating a division 1 team (they are a division below this based on school size, etc) that they have never beaten, ever before--today, just now, wow.  Yes, it was 50 and raining.  Yes, the crazy lax parents were out there with layers on screaming their hearts out.  I  had on, just in case you wanted to know, two long-sleeved t-shirts, one fleece US vest, one US football sweatshirt with Gilkeson on it, a black and maroon wool US baseball cap, and finally, the US lacrosse windbreaker--all pilfered out of Will's closet an hour before the game.  I looked good.

 Ok, so we were down most of the game--by 2 goals, 3, 1, 2.  Half-time comes and goes and the Preppers pick it up a little.  We're a goal down and we're deep into the third period.  We score to tie the game!  Ok, the fans are jumping up and down (all 30 parents and a smattering of die-hard girlfriends and the occasional  god-parent).  Ugh, they score again: 9 to 10-- fourth period with 4 minutes to go.  Well, the boys had a flawless 4 minutes and scored three more times to pull it out, and Will had the last two goals!! The crowd went wild!!

 This was a huge win and now they're on to the state championships. I was following my advice in a talk I gave on resilience,  and being in the moment, being present.  And it  was one of those spectacular moments we'll all remember.  How much fun is that, I ask you??  Ok, I'm going on too long.  I have been collecting a few good poems that are really all about a particular moment in time and focusing on this particular time or event; detailing it, being present to it, making it present for us.  see what you think.  I'll report back about the state tournament over the next two weeks.

The World as It is (Carolyn Miller)

No ladders, no descending angels, no voice
out of the whirlwind, no rending
of the veil, or chariot in the sky—only
water rising and falling in breathing springs
and seeping up through limestone, aquifers filling
and flowing over, russet stands of prairie grass
and dark pupils of black-eyed Susans. Only
the fixed and wandering stars: Orion rising sideways,
Jupiter traversing the southwest like a great firefly,
Venus trembling and faceted in the west—and the moon,
appearing suddenly over your shoulder, brimming
and ovoid, ripe with light, lifting slowly, deliberately,
wobbling slightly, while far below, the faithful sea
rises up and follows.

Crossing the Loch (Kathleen Jamie) Remember how we rowed toward the cottage on the sickle-shaped bay, that one night after the pub loosed us through its swinging doors and we pushed across the shingle till water lipped the sides as though the loch mouthed 'boat'? I forgot who rowed. Our jokes hushed. The oars' splash, creak, and the spill of the loch reached long into the night. Out in the race I was scared: the cold shawl of breeze, and hunched hills; what the water held of deadheads, ticking nuclear hulls. Who rowed, and who kept their peace? Who hauled salt-air and stars deep into their lungs, were not reassured; and who first noticed the loch's phosphorescence, so, like a twittering nest washed from the rushes, an astonished small boat of saints, we watched water shine on our fingers and oars, the magic dart of our bow wave? It was surely foolhardy, such a broad loch, a tide, but we live—and even have children to women and men we had yet to meet that night we set out, calling our own the sky and salt-water, wounded hills dark-starred by blaeberries, the glimmering anklets we wore in the shallows as we shipped oars and jumped, to draw the boat safe, high at the cottage shore.

Waving Goodbye (Wesley McNair) and Yes (ee cummings) to it all

Really, does it get any better than this?  A perfect night, the girl who holds your heart, all your buddies together all night, your senior prom.  I think back on it, and I don't have quite the same memory.  In fact, I cringe when I think of the creamsicle-colored, polyester gown my mother made me wear....  Oh well, I spent about an hour with all the other parents (boys' and girls') taking pictures and truly just watching the parade of these beautiful kids having such a wonderful time being together.  Many of Will's buddies had on their crazy lacrosse rings, which are about the size of a bread box, requiring that the boys  hold their fingers apart all night, but no matter.  They look cool!

All the parents stayed behind after the kids left, and I think we all felt the acute weight of these kids in our lives, and how much we will feel their absence.  For me, a great deal of this feeling comes from this vast web of people he has woven into our lives---friends, girlfriend, sister who so loves the girlfriend, girlfriend's brother who loves the boyfriend, girlfriend's parents, friends' parents--this whole cast of characters and connections are such a part of our lives and will be sorely missed.  There we all were watching the kids drive off wondering where the last 18 years went.  Actually, I found the evening so comforting because we were ALL feeling the same way.  So, we turned on the Kentucky derby and had a drink and laughed.....so incredibly therapeutic.   I highly recommend it under similar circumstances.  This poem is a little sad, but mostly bittersweet; which is just what I'm feeling--sadness, and in the same moment, gratitude, deep thanks, and excitement about what's coming.........  I also include a lovely piece I think I may have sent over 2 years ago about gratitude.  (This was hit home again today at this wonderful little church in the bulletin. I KNEW I liked this place.)

Waving Goodbye by Wesley McNair Why, when we say goodbye at the end of an evening, do we deny we are saying it at all, as in We'll be seeing you, or I'll call, or Stop in, somebody's always at home? Meanwhile, our friends, telling us the same things, go on disappearing beyond the porch light into the space which except for a moment here or there is always between us, no matter what we do. Waving goodbye, of course, is what happens when the space gets too large for words – a gesture so innocent and lonely, it could make a person weep for days. Think of the hundreds of unknown voyagers in the old, fluttering newsreel patting and stroking the growing distance between their nameless ship and the port they are leaving, as if to promise I'll always remember, and just as urgently, Always remember me. It is loneliness, too, that makes the neighbor down the road lift two fingers up from his steering wheel as he passes day after day on his way to work in the hello that turns into goodbye? What can our own raised fingers to for him, locked in his masculine purposes and speeding away inside the glass? How can our waving wipe away the reflex so deep in the woman next door to smile and wave on her way into her house with the mail, we'll never know if she is happy or sad or lost? It can't. Yet in that moment before she and all the others and we ourselves turn back to our disparate lives, how extraordinary it is that we make this small flag with our hands to show the closeness we wish for in spite of what pulls us apart again and again: the porch light snapping off, the car picking its way down the road through the dark. And by e.e. cummings: i thank you God for most this amazing day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything which is natural which is infinite which is yes