Last night, we went to hear Chanticleer, an all-male vocal
group that many of you have heard of.
They performed in the new atrium at the Cleveland Museum of Art. By the way, anyone who hasn’t seen this most
astounding change at the Art Museum will be amazed, when standing within it,
that he or she is still in Cleveland. Or
rather, congratulations Cleveland on a truly outstanding renovation!! The atrium and other renovations at the Art
Museum now invite art and song from across the globe. Needless to say, Chanticleer, singing without
instruments in the atrium to a sold out crowd, was one of the most spectacular
events I’ve been to lately. Their voices
are so clear and crisp—we were completely mesmerized. And I have to tell you, I didn’t think much
could get past Priscilla Queen of the Desert: the Musical. I ask you, what could be better than
fabulously sung 70’s and 80’s music done in full drag??? We were howling and dancing in the
aisles. Run do not walk if it is
anywhere near you. I think it might even
be better than the movie (if you haven’t seen it, find it. 1994)
Ok, now that I’ve done my morning pages within my blog, I
can get on to other things. After having
low platelets as I described previously, I got a few week reprieve from chemo
and decided to join dear friends in St. Simon Island, Georgia. Mrs. Friend has been coming to this part of
the world (Sea Island and St. Simon Island) all her life to spend summers in
her family home here. While this home on
Sea Island has been sold and a major upscale renovation has occurred to the now
very fancy Sea Island resort, nearby St. Simon Island remains a wonderfully
low-key, family-oriented, gorgeous-beach-containing place. Our friends have been asking us to visit for
all of our married years (that’s when we met them, and ok, that’s about 26
years now). Guess what? I finally made it.
In the short 3 full days I had there, we had many adventures
and time to be with each other and talk while greeting the sun every morning
with a prayer and a walk on the beach (ok, does it get any better than that?),
a simple, delicious meal made by our own hands, and an outing or two. I was delighted to see Mrs. Friend in her
element. She grew up here and in
Atlanta, and she somehow knew everyone and their sister, barber, waiter, and
friends. The deep, deep connections just
kept coming. I’ll stop soon, but we had
one set of experiences I want to talk about.
Mrs. Friend had met a woman (B) at a wedding in Atlanta, who had a farm
for abused horses on St. Simon Island. My
first morning, Mrs. Friend called B and said that we’d like to come and visit
the farm. After getting lost (ahem, Mr.
friend) on a beautiful tract of land with those incredible live oaks dripping
with Spanish moss, we found the place.
Now I may not be able to write this as perfectly as this
happened, but we got out of the car and were greeted by B’s daughter N. Mrs. Friend told her of all the connections
she had with B, and N, who we will talk more about, found her parents and
within moments, these deep southern connections were discussed, laughed about
and we were treated like family and given a most remarkable tour. Over time, the farm has acquired 17 horses who
have either been abused, abandoned, or literally deposited on their
doorstep. The farm is also home to 16
cats, as many dogs, some chickens, and a particularly hilarious sheep named
Tounces who followed us around the whole time awaiting a head scratch. After all that writing, what I really found
so remarkable about this place were the people, and the clear-as-daylight
calling they each had for this work.
I was especially struck by the daughter, N, who has a fine
arts degree from Columbia, etc, but who has come back to this little island in
Georgia where her parents and her roots are.
Her ancestors were big plantation owners right here on St. Simon’s with
slaves and the whole bit. She clearly feels
that she is in the place where she was meant to be, working with her parents,
and using her gifts with people and animals to create this incredible farm. She had recently helped the farm become a
501C3 nonprofit organization, and as she described how she would like to reach
out to children and have the farm be a living classroom, etc. if I didn’t know better, I would have said she
was glowing. Not only that, we met her
again at dinner, where she earns some cash doing the books. Dinner is another great story, but suffice it
to say that we had dinner with a couple who were connected to both the Friends
and N and B, and to the black waiter who sang spirituals at our table
(amazing). But N was now spending time
with her friend the waiter, whose people had been slaves on N’s family’s
plantation, and they were thinking about writing, filming, or doing something
with their intermingled stories.
When you see someone doing exactly what they were put on
earth to do, you can’t help but notice.
I noticed. A lot. Clearly money was not a goal here, but the
money to support the farm and N’s projects will come because the energy,
creativity, and excitement just flow from her and from the whole place; it was
incredibly infectious. I think the
Friends and I would have stayed on the farm until someone declared us missing,
if we hadn’t had to move on to another adventure.
But what an amazing lesson!
So that is what it looks and feels like to be doing exactly what you are
supposed to be doing. Funny, I look at my
little artist group, and I see the same flow of energy and excitement. Art saves, no doubt about it, and it also
helps us get closer to recognizing what we were meant to be doing in the world;
it reveals. Art helps us discern.
I am slowly realizing that this blog feels entirely right to
me; it energizes me and helps me move through the world. I think I was meant to share my stories and
encourage people to read poetry. I know
doctoring was in the “meant” pile for me too, but as my life has shifted around
this disease, I needed to shift as well. I loved the Dean thing too, I really
did, and it felt right for so long, as I helped students along their way. But as I have had to shift again leaving the
Deaning behind, I feel clearer about and
closer to that complete feeling of rightness, of what I am meant to do (or
maybe there are several things we are meant to do in our lifetimes). Truthfully, I’ve been pushed to change due to
health issues, but each change, no matter how hard, has helped me get clearer
and clearer.
But I feel a bit naked these days as I work to figure out a
schedule for this new phase of my life.
I’m trying to learn how to hold some cleared space for myself, to make a
clearing to be present in, while the crazy world goes on around me. As Mark Nepo says, “it’s like taking the path
of our aloneness deep enough into the woods so we can reach that unspoiled
clearing.” I have to accept that some
days I’m just not going to feel great or get anything done, while other days I
want to fix, clean, and do everything in sight instead of holding space for me. I won’t ever be perfect at balancing the
forests and the clearings in my life, but even a little clearing of time and
space goes a long way. So, I’m trying to
get to that clearing every day by writing, doing art, and reading poetry (and
really great fantasy/sci fi novels). How
lucky am I?
I am on to chemo tomorrow, week 2, round 4. I feel good, but can’t always tell where
those slippery little platelets are going to be, so we shall see. Had another scan this week to help us
untangle my weird left-sided neurological symptoms that don’t seem to be
explained by the small right-sided tumor I had.
All those right-sided symptoms are much better after radiation, and that
is good. So now we wait.
In the meantime, let’s get to some poetry. I love the idea of a clearing. A friend sent me the Martha Postlewaite poem,
and I love it. I also like how the other
two poets (love them both) use the image
of a clearing to distill their longing or to recognize how to live on earth….see
what you think. And go clear “the dense
forest of your life and wait there patiently”, and see what happens.
Clearing (Martha
Postlewaite)
Do not try to save
the whole world
or do anything grandiose.
Instead, create
a clearing
in the dense forest
of your life
and wait there
patiently,
until the song
that is your life
falls into your own cupped hands
and you recognize and greet it.
Only then will you know
how to give yourself
to this world
so worthy of rescue.
A Clearing
(Denise Levertov)
What lies at the end of enticing
country driveways, curving
off among trees?
Often only
a car graveyard, a house-trailer,
a trashy bungalow.
But this one,
for once, brings you
through the shade of its green tunnel
to a paradise of cedars,
of lawns mown but not too closely,
of iris, moss, fern, rivers of stone rounded
by sea or stream,
of a wooden unassertive large windowed house.
The big trees enclose
an expanse of sky, trees and sky
together protect the clearing.
One is sheltered here
from the assaultive world
as if escaped from it, and yet
once arrived, is given (oneself
and others being a part of that world)
a generous welcome.
It’s
paradise
as a paradigm for how
to live on earth,
how to be private and open
quiet and richly eloquent.
Everything man-made here
was truly made by the hands
of those who live here, of those
who live with what they have made.
It took time, and is growing still
because it’s alive.
It is paradise, and paradise
is a kind of poem; it has
a poem’s characteristics:
inspiration; starting with the given;
unexpected harmonies; revelations.
It’s rare among
the worlds one finds
at the end of enticing driveways.
The Clearing
(Jane Kenyon)
The
dog and I push through the ring
of
dripping junipers
to
enter the open space high on the hill
where
I let him off the leash.
He
vaults, snuffling, between tufts of moss;
twigs
snap beneath his weight; he rolls
and
rubs his jowls on the aromatic earth;
his
pink tongue lolls.
I
look for sticks of proper heft
to
throw for him, while he sits, prim
and
earnest in his love, if it is love.
All
night a soaking rain, and now the hill
exhales
relief, and the fragrance
of
warm earth. . . . The sedges
have
grown an inch since yesterday,
and
ferns unfurled, and even if they try
the
lilacs by the barn can’t
keep
from opening today.
I
longed for spring’s thousand tender greens,
and
the white-throated sparrow’s call
that
borders on rudeness. Do you know—
since
you went away
all
I can do
is
wait for you to come back to me.
