When a Woman Feels Alone (May Sarton) and Lovely Early Summer

Well, the day has finally come and gone.  Our myriad, often complicated connections to University School are forever changed as Will takes off his US tie for the very last time.  How could we possibly be sad when the graduates were so joyous with their cigars and hugs and wonderful friends and family all around?  I ask you, does it get any better than this?  Maybe, just maybe if they'd been able to win the State Championship game the day before....but even that couldn't stop the flow of good cheer-- no, delight--that poured out of Will and all his friends as they said goodbye to high school.  We all had a wonderful time too just watching the love fest!  Also, having my sister there was wonderful too; she too has had a long, complicated history with US.  But I think we both felt some closure and joy being on those grounds we know so well with a boy who so audibly and visibly loved it there.

So, I've had some time to think, as I recuperate from toe surgery (and have to sit around and wait to be driven places-yuck).  Now that all the excitement is done, KT is off on a trip to Africa with her school, Will is off working or hanging with the boys, and Chip is being Chip and working until he drops, and I seem to have some quiet time to write and think and begin to enter the silence around this lovely place in this lovely early summer time. Maybe I'm just getting older, but  I think I need more quiet time now than I ever have before--maybe it's age, maybe I just understand more about what I need and want--I'm not sure of the reason, really.  But silence is something powerful, I think.  My wonderful writing group and teacher are exploring the theme of silence without me this session, but I love the topic, and I've tried to keep up with the writing.  Silence can be incredibly noisy sometimes, depending on how one might define "noise".  most of the noise I struggle with is my own inner noise--you know, "you aren't a poet, you can't put two words together, time to do the laundry, how old are you?", you know what I mean.  Well, I'm working on controlling my noise, as I work on wrapping my arms around how I change my relationship with my son when I'm not waking him up every morning and sitting down and talking to him every night.  And how do I embrace getting older and beginning to bump up against this large birthday that is looming.  The loss around all of this still feels imminent, but maybe not, maybe we adapt and enjoy watching the growth happen, I don't know...but I have some time to think and write about it.  If I come up with anything pithy, I'll pass it on.
Try this lovely poem by May Sarton

When a Woman Feels Alone (May Sarton)


‘When a woman feels alone, when the room
is full of daemons,” the Nootka tribe
Tells us, ‘The Old Woman will be there.”
She has come to me over three thousand miles
And what does she have to tell me, troubled
“by phantoms in the night”?
Is she really here?
What is the saving word from so deep in the past.
From as deep as the ancient root of the redwood,
From as deep as the primal bed of the ocean,
From as deep as a woman’s heart sprung open
Again through a hard birth or a hard death?
Here under the shock of love, I am open
To you, Primal spirit, one with rock and wave,
One with survivors of flood and fire,
Who have rebuilt their homes a million times,
Who have lost their children and borne them again.
The words I hear are strength, laughter, endurance.
Old Woman I meet you deep inside myself.
There in the rootbed of fertility,
World without end, as the legend tells it.
Under the words you are my silence.