In the Middle (Barbara Crooker) and Sky in September (WS Merwin)

I am sitting here in a huge, sterile hotel outside of Chicago on the eve of my 50th birthday feeling just a little sorry for myself as I begin a four day board recertification course. Ok, it was my poor planning, amidst other things, that is mostly to blame for this slightly depressing scenario, but at least I won't have a lot of distractions....AND, my wonderful friend here in Chicago is strapping on her purple party shoes and taking me out on Friday to celebrate! So, I have a remarkable opportunity here to contemplate how I feel about turning 50 without many interruptions, as the sun goes down on this beautiful fall day. Guess what? I feel pretty good. I find that a bit remarkable, but true. Our son is thriving and blissfully happy at college (hopefully he is going to class..), so we are hard-pressed to be too sad. He even communicates occasionally and he will be home now and again. The girl left behind has taken to her third floor hideout, and we are being diligent parents and trying to put the spotlight on her a little more than she would like. What we find, as we begin to see her without her brother around, is an incredibly funny, intelligent, thoughtful young woman with a biting wit who makes us want to either fling her out the nearest window or howl with laughter. She is exhausting, but well worth the effort. Chip and I have found joy in our new patio and in each other as we all come out from under the big personality of our son and the constant presence of his many large friends. Chip is well and improving slowly but constantly from his back surgery, and I am feeling pretty good, managing the new oral drug regimen with just blisters on my feet on week 2 and a bit of foot pain--but somehow I feel more able to handle it, even if I can't walk too well for a short time. My waist line is certainly suffering a bit, but I don't seem to be. Maybe 50 is ok. Maybe I can believe the wonderful pastor of my fab new church when she emailed me and said that 50 is the biblical year of Jubilee when all debts are cancelled, the past is forgiven, and liberation lies ahead. Now how about that! Liberation! Maybe I should stop telling my husband that I want my own house... Bottom line here is that this stage seems to be ok. Maybe a few more aches and pains, but maybe a little more ability to take time to appreciate what's right in front of me--a devoted, adorable husband, a remarkable, infuriating, fascinating, hilarious 16 year old, a wonderful old nutcase of a dog who has been with me through all the thick and thin (at this point, it is a little hard to know if it was our thick or her thin), and a wonderful group of friends and family that keep us laughing. I have babbled on a bit too long tonight, as I have few responsibilities in this hotel, but how about a few poems. A dear friend sent me the first poem about time and aging, and the second wonderful poem about September light is from our new poet laureate. Check them out.
Cheers

In The Middle (Barbara Crooker)

of a life that's as complicated as everyone else's,
Struggling for balance, juggling time.
The mantle clock that was my grandfather's
Has stopped at 9:20; we haven't had time
To get it repaired. The brass pendulum is still,
The chimes don't ring. One day you look at the window,
Green summer, the next, and the leaves have already fallen,
And a grey sky lowers the horizon. Our children almost grown,
Our parents gone,it happened so fast. We must learn
Again now to love, between morning's quick coffee
And evening's slow return. Steam from a pot of soup rises,
Mixing with the yeasty smell of baking bread. Our bodies
Twine, and the big black dog pushes his great head between;
His tame is a metronome, 3/4 time. We'll never get there,
Time is always ahead of us, running down the beach, uging
Us on faster, faster, but sometimes we take off our watches,
Sometimes we lie in the hammock, caught between the mesh
Of rope and the net of stars, suspended, tangled up,
In love, running out of time.

Sky in September (WS Merwin)

In spite of the months of knowing
And the years
Autumn comes with astonishment
Light held up in a glass
The terrible news in a haze
Caught breath in the warm leaves

In spite of the gathered dust and the vast moon
The day comes with a color
Its words cannot touch
So it is when I see you
After the years when the ailanthus leaves
Drifted unnoticed
Down the gray wall

They have disappeared and nothing is missing
After their rocking and clinging
They have vanished with the thieves and shuffles
And the words of the dealers
Taking nothing
They have fallen like scales from the eyes
And at last we are hearer together
Light of autumn
Clear morning in the only time

Fall (Edward Hirsch) and At Blackwater Pond (Mary Oliver)

Yes, we are back from taking our son to college for the first time, back from a week basking in the glory of being waterside in Maine, back from paper plates full of the tenderest lobsters, back from rocky coasts disappearing into Vermont hills, back to a house turned upside down with one child gone and another moving upstairs leaving a swath of destruction in her wake! We really thought we would feel so unbearably sad when we dropped him off, but the reality was quite different.  When we finally, finally arrived (after 900 miles or so), the boy was so excited, so happy, so READY, that we could do nothing but laugh, share his excitement, hug him and skedaddle.  Now we are home and it still feels ok....so far.  I am sure that his absence will make itself a nice little hole in our hearts, but for now, he is so delighted with his new found home, that it just feels right.  Maybe I have figured one thing out--here it is:  our bond with this boy has not been severed by his absence.  In fact, perhaps we're even more aware of it now that it feels so precious.  Anyway, we are doing fine so far. Oh, and I wanted to recap a part of our trip home because it was just the perfect ending of a glorious week.  we spent our last night on the road at the house of a dear friend in Rochester, NY.  Now I was born in Rochester because my father was the headmaster of a little co-ed private school there called Harley School.  This was his first headmastership, and I was just a little thing when we lived there and I have little memory of the place (dad was there from 1959-1963).  Anyway, our host told us that Harley School was about a minute down the road, so in the morning, Chip and I walked into the school (which was not yet in session), and asked whether they had pictures of old headmasters on the wall somewhere.  The woman said that they certainly did, and then she asked me why I wanted to know.  We told her about dad and how much my parents had loved Harley, that I had never been here, and how much we just wanted to see his picture and look around a little.  Well, people came out of the woodwork to welcome us, give us a tour, meet the headmaster, and shower us with t-shirts and sweatshirts and bags with Harley emblazoned all over them!  This was one of the sweetest 45 minutes I have ever spent.  There is just something about a school....and perhaps something about an old headmaster too.....  lovely all around. Well, I'm feeling a little sad that summer is drawing to a close, I am always struck by how much I love the subtle change in the light and the air and the smell as autumn comes.  There is something exciting about this time--I will miss football games, but I will revel in Will's new love for all things Maine, and I'll know that he is experiencing a crisp, gorgeous, full-throttle Maine fall.....lucky boy!  Now we can focus on the other kid, even though she is hoping that we won't!  Too bad honey, here we come, and the third floor won't stop us!   Here are a couple of poems that capture something of my favorite season.  enjoy! FALL (Edward Hirsch)
Fall, falling, fallen. That's the way the season Changes its tense in the long-haired maples That dot the road; the veiny hand-shaped leaves Redden on their branches (in a fiery competition With the final remaining cardinals) and then Begin to sidle and float through the air, at last Settling into colorful layers carpeting the ground. At twilight the light, too, is layered in the trees In a season of odd, dusky congruences‐a scarlet tanager And the odor of burning leaves, a golden retriever Loping down the center of a wide street and the sun Setting behind smoke-filled trees in the distance, A gap opening up in the treetops and a bruised cloud Blamelessly filling the space with purples. Everything Changes and moves in the split second between summer's Sprawling past and winter's hard revision, one moment Pulling out of the station according to schedule, Another moment arriving on the next platform. It Happens almost like clockwork: the leaves drift away From their branches and gather slowly at our feet, Sliding over our ankles, and the season begins moving Around us even as its colorful weather moves us, Even as it pulls us into its dusty, twilit pockets. And every year there is a brief, startling moment When we pause in the middle of a long walk home and Suddenly feel something invisible and weightless Touching our shoulders, sweeping down from the air: It is the autumn wind pressing against our bodies; It is the changing light of fall falling on us.

AT BLACKWATER POND (Mary Oliver)
At. Blackwater Pond the tossed waters have settled
after a night of rain.
I dip my cupped hands. I drink
a long time. It tastes
like stone, leaves, fire. It falls cold
into my body, waking the bones. I hear them
deep inside me, whispering
oh what is that beautiful thing
that just happened?

Let Evening Come (Jane Kenyon) and When I Am Asked (Lisel Mueller)

Once again, I have taken too long to return to my blog, but here goes.  I learned very recently about the death of a dear college friend's husband. My friend had been keeping a blog about her family's journey through cancer's diagnosis, treatments, and weights since April, and I went back and read much of her writings.   In addition to the great sadness she and her family were feeling, there was something else vividly reflected in these writings.  I believe I would have known who the writer was even if the names had been removed, even if I hadn't talked to this person in many, many years. I remember meeting her in college and wondering if she could truly be as upbeat, energetic, and fun as she sounded.  I learned over the 4 years of her depths as well.  Her writing sings such a beautiful song of praise-- to John,  to her teenage children,  to their lives together, to dear friends, to life. It is truly remarkable.  I am awed and inspired and deeply saddened, but I am also full of hope for them.  I think a  strong marriage and a close family takes work and nurture and love and more work; but on the flip side, they are rare jewels;  things of great beauty and strength.  It is so clear in my friend's writing that she had a remarkable marriage, and that she has a family that loves each other fiercely and will support and comfort each other and hold John's memory close.  I have been searching around for some pieces that might lend some solace.  Here are a few that move me.

Let Evening Come (Jane Kenyon) Let the light of late afternoon shine through chinks in the barn, moving up the bales as the sun moves down. Let the cricket take up chafing as a woman takes up her needles and her yarn. Let evening come. Let dew collect on the hoe abandoned in long grass. Let the stars appear and the moon disclose her silver horn. Let the fox go back to its sandy den. Let the wind die down. Let the shed go black inside. Let evening come. To the bottle in the ditch, to the scoop in the oats, to air in the lung let evening come. Let it come, as it will, and don't be afraid. God does not leave us comfortless, so let evening come. When I Am Asked (Lisel Mueller) When I am asked how I began writing poems, I talk about the indifference of nature. It was soon after my mother died, a brilliant June day, everything blooming. I sat on a gray stone bench  in a lovingly planted garden, but the day lilies were as deaf as the ears of drunken sleepers and the roses curved inward. Nothing was black or broken and not a leaf fell and the sun blared endless commercials for summer holidays. I sat on a gray stone bench ringed with the ingenue faces of pink and white inpatiens and placed my grief in the mouth of language, the only thing that would grieve with me.

Perhaps the World Ends Here (Joy Harjo) and Cherry Tomatoes (Sandra Beasley)

Oh my, has it really been a month since my last post?  Anyway, so much has been going on, I'm not sure where to start, but start I will.  Well, again the theme of loss seems to loom, but not without a good smattering of good things too.  Chip had back surgery three weeks ago, and is now up and walking, which is a significant improvement on the hunched over, painful gait he had for the 6 months prior.  My foot is recovering from bunion surgery and a first joint fusion, and after 6 weeks, I am beginning to walk.  What, I ask you, was I thnking?  I spent a week at the CSU Imagination Writer's Workshop trying to learn something about poetry.  I think I did, but it wasn't always without pain.   But, the workshop leader was wonderful and helpful and encouraging.  So, here we are. And just last week, my wonderful, hilarious, incredibly sharp-witted college roommate came to town last weekend.  She and her sister brought her aging parents back here where they lived for most of their adult years before departing for Chicago.  Unfortunately, her father is suffering a bit of short-term memory loss, and he hadn't been back here for many, many years.

Do you know what it feels like to be suddenly caught in a moment where you are no longer participating in what is going on around you, but observing every detail and recognizing that this is a perfect moment, that things could not be any better than they are right now?  Well, I had one of those moments last Sunday.  Betsy, her sister, her parents, our old landlords and an old friend were having dinner in our old landlords' wonderful carriage house, and there it was.  A moment of such joy that these incredible people were together laughing and talking and sharing as if they had not been separated by years, and years and years.  We stumbled over our future landlords just before we were married.  We had no idea that my room-mate had been born in their house, that they knew my dear friend Betsy from birth, that we would become life long friends of theirs and drink their wine for the next 23 years of our married life, etc, etc, etc, connection, connection, connection.  Life is a wonderful thing when it gives us these moments even amidst painful backs, changing therapies, sore feet, evil demon teenagers, a dog with a tumor, aging parents, and perpetually green tomatoes. Time for some poems!  The first from a poet I love about connections, and the kitchen table.  The second is one from my workshop leader, Sandra Beasley.  See what you think.

Perhaps the World Ends Here (Joy Harjo) The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live. The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the table so it has been since creation, and it will go on. We chase chickens or dogs away from it. Babies teethe at the corners. They scrape their knees under it. It is here that children are given instructions on what it means to be human. We make men at it, we make women. At this table we gossip, recall enemies and the ghosts of lovers. Our dreams drink coffee with us as they put their arms around our children. They laugh with us at our poor falling-down selves and as we put ourselves back together once again at the table. This table has been a house in the rain, an umbrella in the sun. Wars have begun and ended at this table. It is a place to hide in the shadow of terror. A place to celebrate the terrible victory. We have given birth on this table, and have prepared our parents for burial here. At this table we sing with joy, with sorrow. We pray of suffering and remorse. We give thanks. Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table, while we are laughing and crying, eating of the last sweet bite. CHERRY TOMATOES Little bastards of vine. Little demons by the pint. Red eggs that never hatch, just collapse and rot. When My mom told me to gather their grubby bodies into my skirt, I’d cry. You and your father, she’d chide – the way, each time I kicked and wailed against sailing, my dad shook his head, saidYou and your mother. Now, a city girl, I ease one loose from its siblings, from its clear plastic coffin, place it on my tongue. Just to try. The smooth surface resists, resists, and erupts in my mouth: seeds, juice, acid, blood of a perfect household. The way, when I finally went sailing, my stomach was rocked from inside out. Little boat, big sea. Handful of skinned sunsets. cheers to all! Lissa

Designed to Fly (Ellen Waterston) and Wait (CK Williams)

So summer is here, and we have all been feeling the sweet  languor of it.  Especially me, I think, since I still can't do much of anything with this boot on my de-bunioned foot.  Will has been working  a little and hanging with his buddies as they enjoy each other and the bittersweetness of their last summer before college. I can almost watch him mature in front of me.  He went off to a friend's house tonight, and I was sorry to see  him go.  I must have shown it as he sent me a text asking me if I wanted him to come back home and hang out.   Ok, what does one say to all that goodness?  I said no, of course, but how nice for him to offer.  Katie too has been away in Tanzania having a wonderful time doing good works, so it has been quite here.  All of this is soon to change as the new medical school class comes in at the end of next week and all the craziness starts again.  But for another few days, there is still some lovely peace around here.  We have put a new patio on the back of our house, and I realize that we have an entirely new room and a brand new view into the back yard.  We have never been able to do this, and even in the inner ring suburbs, we have a deep, wooded lot with so many wonderful trees whose leaves make constant music that is lovely and loud.  A mating pair of cardinals claim our yard as their territory, and I have begun to recognize their call and response.  And many days in the last several weeks, a deer has been lying at the very back of the yard, just lying there in the sun.  Our wonderful dog is getting old, and her cataracts must be significant as she didn't even see her or smell her somehow.  Finally, as I was sitting on the patio on Sunday, a huge owl flew right by me and perched in the huge evergreen in the yard and stayed there for several hours.  Wow, a back yard full of grace, how lovely!  Now if I could just slow the time down a little and lean in to all of this for a few more....years...but no!  That I cannot do, and I will enjoy the new excitement of the students, but I could wait another month.  Oh well.  I'll enjoy it all anyway.  Here are a few poems I have come across recently and really like.  see what you think:



Designed to Fly (Ellen Waterston)


After ten hours of trying
the instructor undid
my fingers, peeled
them one by one
off the joystick.
"You don't need
to hold the plane
in the air," he advised.
"It's designed to fly.
A hint of aileron,
a touch of rudder,
is all that is required."

I looked at him
like I'd seen God.
Those props and struts
he mentioned, they too,
I realized, all contrived.
I grew dizzy
from the elevation
from looking so far
down at the surmise:
the airspeed of faith
underlies everything.
Lives are designed
to fly.

Wait (CK Williams)

Chop, hack, slash; chop, hack, slash; cleaver, boning knife, ax—

not even the clumsiest clod of a butcher could do this so crudely,   

time, as do you, dismember me, render me, leave me slop in a pail,

one part of my body a hundred years old, one not even there anymore,   

another still riven with idiot vigor, voracious as the youth I was   

for whom everything always was going too slowly, too slowly.

It was me then who chopped, slashed, through you, across you,   

relished you, gorged on you, slugged your invisible liquor down raw.

Now you're polluted; pulse, clock, calendar taint you, befoul you,

you suck at me, pull at me, barbed wire knots of memory tear me,   

my heart hangs, inert, a tag-end of tissue, firing, misfiring,   

trying to heave itself back to its other way with you.

But was there ever really any other way with you? When I ran

as though for my life, wasn't I fleeing from you, or for you?

Wasn't I frightened you'd fray, leave me nothing but shreds?

Aren't I still? When I snatch at one of your moments, and clutch it,

a pebble, a planet, isn't it wearing away in my hand as though I,   

not you, were the ocean of acid, the corrosive in I which dissolve?

Wait, though, wait: I should tell you too how happy I am,

how I love it so much, all of it, chopping and slashing and all.

Please know I love especially you, how every morning you turn over

the languorous earth, for how would she know otherwise to do dawn,

to do dusk, when all she hears from her speech-creatures is "Wait!"?   

We whose anguished wish is that our last word not be "Wait."

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.

To My Son at Eighteen, Optimism and The Envoy

I was going to talk about the poetry and caregiving conference I went to at Duke, and the wonderful reading and master class with Jane Hirshfield, (who I think is wonderful by the way), but I think I have to talk about something else, too.  Will found this picture in plain sight in our study, and put it on his senior page.  I hadn't really looked at it in many, many years.  I know Chip, my husband, took it and has always loved it, but I hadn't looked at it--really LOOKED at it-- in years.  You know how it is, the picture goes on the bookcase and we never see it again.   In these few days before high school is done and we all start a different way of relating every day to our son as he goes away to college, I can't seem to take my eyes away from it.  I guess it justt captures that breathtaking (or so I think) bond between mother and child so well.

Oh, the boys are still in the championship race!  They have a very big game tomorrow that is in no way a guarantee.....but, if they win, they are on to the State Championship on Saturday just before graduation on Sunday.  Very exciting around here!  Hope for a little sun...or at least no rain!!

I have included three poems.  Two from Jane Hirshfield that I love--"Optimism", and "The Envoy", and one of mine that I am working on about that picture.  I think Jane H's poems also capture a great deal of what I'm feeling these days.  Both the feeling that some huge emotion keeps raising its head that I can't always name, as I contemplate Will's leaving, and my hope to be resilient through all of this and able to embrace all this resinous, unretractable change!  Enjoy!

To My Son at Eighteen

I didn’t think I knew how to hope

for the man you have become

when this picture was taken.

Then I looked at it again,

all these years later.

We are both so young here,

You’re must be two, I’m in my

early thirties, and I’m holding you

naked against me, your thumb

as usual, in your mouth,

your heart to mine. 

We are framed by grey stairs rising

above us, a palm trunk at your back,

a beam of the stairs at mine.

The lush Florida world stays

slightly out of focus behind us,

soft light except on my shoulder

away from the camera,

a patch of brightness drawing the eye

into the circle our bodies make.

The white of your baseball cap

turned backwards on your head

and my white shirt parallel

again the rising steps,

and focus the scene on our

faces, inches apart.

My hair touching yours,

colors matching perfectly,

we seem to whisper the world

to each other;

our silent language loud.

In the intervening wash of years,

Time has tumbled us like white water

over pebbles, flinging us forward,

driving us into a rock or two,

releasing us changed and gleaming,

But in this photo we are anchored

forever in this mute moment

together.

As I look, I can see the man you are now

so clearly in your boy eyes. 

I can feel your goodness and wisdom,

even pain in the heft of your body,

and somehow you’ve always known mine.

As if we knew then what we know now.

As if we have always been telling each other,

that through it all,

I am here.

Optimism (Jane Hirshfield)

More and more I have come to admire resilience.
Not the simple resistance of a pillow, whose foam
returns over and over to the same shape, but the sinuous
tenacity of a tree: finding the  light newly blocked on one side,
it turns in another. A blind intelligence, true.
But out of such persistence arose turtles, rivers,
mitochondria, figs--all this resinous, unretractable earth.

The Envoy (Jane Hirshfield)

One day in that room, a small rat.
Two days later, a snake.

Who, seeing me enter,
whipped the long stripe of his
body under the bed,
then curled like a docile house-pet.

I don't know how either came or left.
Later, the flashlight found nothing.

For a year I watched
as something -- terror? happiness? grief? --
entered and then left my body.

No knowing how it came in.
Not knowing how it went out.

It hung where words could not reach it.
It slept where light could not go.
Its scent was neither snake nor rat,
neither sensualist nor ascetic.

There are openings in our lives
of which we know nothing.

Through them
the belled herds travel at will,
long-legged and thirsty, covered with foreign dust.