Mellowing

Rosemary: Desire’s Course September 30 2009


I watch my grandsons, marvel at their hot desires --

“ I must have it now, or die.”

The little face contorts in pain.

The shoulders and the knees sink in.

The voice wails its shrill distress.

We think of childhood as sweet and lovely,

But it’s often purest Hell,

With pain as sharp as ever poets cry.

Desires stab us to the core.



Our lives are courses in desire :

How it feels to get – or not -- all that we may want;

How to lie both to ourselves and others

Thinking no one truly knows our pain

Or sees our ruthless search.



Finally, we may discover wisdom, and with it peace.

Our bodies may be battered then, our energy decreased.

But when we learn to see beyond ourselves –

When desire’s tide has turned back out toward others --

We find, at last, the fount of joy. We’ve learned to live.



Reflection: To Ellen

Your damaged arm dominated your whole life, till the last few months. When you were a child, your family coped the best they could – massaging your arm several times daily, in the vain hope that somehow the nerves would regenerate; helping you to function when, after surgeries, you were in a body cast for months, immobilized from the waist up.

Your own inner drive required you to learn to do everything for yourself, to overcome. At four, you figured out how to tie your shoes with one hand. You wanted your parents to know, but feared their reaction, and asked your older brother, your protector, to tell your mother.

In school in the hospital, you skipped ahead grades, because you learned so quickly. By the time you were in high school, your peers felt you were on another plane, the smartest student, and even the best athlete. You were apart, even when succeeding -- never included, always "marginalized."

 In Brooklyn in the early and mid 1940s, baseball was a major preoccupation, and kids would gather at Prospect Park to play. When you arrived, you pitched, with one arm to use, figuring out how to stash the glove in the armpit of your paralyzed arm while you were pitching, then quickly slipping it on to catch, slipping it off again to throw a player out – all with your left hand. You were the best pitcher, both in the park and on your school team.

 For fun, you read the New York Times every day. One year, you won a city-wide “current events” contest, based on your avid newspaper reading. Your English teacher taught you Latin, to challenge you, asking you to write all your compositions in that language. Your brother said that you had graduated from Tilden High School with the highest average ever achieved by a student there.

You once said that you hadn’t felt disabled during your youth, and I can see that it was because you could direct your unquenchable energy and intelligence to figure out how to do everything better than everyone else, fearing all the while, deep inside, that others pitied and looked down on you because you were flawed.

Your father, compassionate, and aware of the suffering you would endure all your life, told you once on Yom Kippur that you already were destined to suffer enough, and would not be obliged to fast and atone as you otherwise would have been.

Your drive and energy were extraordinary, and – yes – even you eventually mellowed, after a lifetime of struggling and excelling.

Ellen: 2008

I wish still that it were otherwise,

That my right arm had not been torn over my head when I was born,

That it had not been paralyzed, atrophied, helpless, a prop, a hook to hang things on --
Not a hand that holds a bow or presses keys-- never making music.

For seventy-five years I have wished that it were different.

Today I realized that it never would be,

In fact, never could be.



Years of aching heart, envy, jealousy, self-pity for something that could never change,

What a waste!

It took seventy-five years to know this.

Adrenaline

Home September 28 2009


We made a home together,

A place where we felt good --

Welcomed, loved, content.

I don’t know how to do that by myself.

The house feels empty.

It needs conversation, laughter, friendship,

Human energy and joy.

How many other single people

Feel lonely every night

In solitary burrows,

However grand or lovely?

How do people make a home alone?



Reflections:

Coming back to daily life after a wonderful trip seems to involve a period of deflation --- a few days of funk, of disappointment, of loneliness. It’s the contrast. I know it’s possible to get addictively “ high” on excitement and adrenaline. I’ve been susceptible to this temptation all my life. Being somewhere different every couple of days, with different people creates a sense of liveliness greater than that within my own ability to maintain as a single person.

I feel as if I’m on one of those bicycles I’ve seen in science museums. Most of the time, I’m pedaling hard, on the verge of breathlessness and fatigue. My efforts barely generate a dim, flickering light. Then I get a huge boost from outside, and for a few days, the light is brilliant, the warmth of company fulfilling. When the boost goes away, I’m back to my solitary pedaling and meager output.

I can see how people cope with loneliness and aging by travelling incessantly, to get that external boost, and feel the light and warmth more consistently. I know that my sense of letdown comes from a lack of satisfaction with who I am and what I can do on my own. Genuine happiness, in contrast, comes from loving myself, my life, my circumstances – from knowing the greater power of the divine as part of my own life, even when I’m living alone – from feeling the bliss of unity with the greater creation, defying solitary appearances. Travel and excitement, though enjoyable, aren’t the essence of a good life. They’re glittering temptations to diverge from the simple Truth that – no matter what it looks or feels like – loneliness is an illusion. I’m one ray in the spectrum of divine energy – the ultimate harmonizing light – soul-satisfying chorus of love.

And, yes, I want to go back to New York and get another adrenaline “fix”!



Entropy September 29 2009

Things fall apart; people slow down.

We live with entropy.

Ineluctably, all changes.

How to cope?

It’s a challenge of our older years,

As energy becomes more gentle, less intense.

Acceptance, laughter, helping others

Become the heart of wisdom.

Our lives, like those of children,

Focus more on our own needs –

Though, unlike children, we’ve also learned

That tomorrow or tomorrow will be soon enough.

We Are Not Our Bodies

Rosemary: Body Self September 27 2009



I sat today, waiting for a delayed bus,

With a tiny, fragile-looking woman who had come alone to church.

As we sat, and talked, and waited,

The strong and vibrant lover of adventure

That she is poured forth. I felt her soul.

Her wispy stature and her hesitating steps

No longer mattered.

She is not that body. Nor am I mine --

Our bodies just clay vessels that we borrow from the earth.

We met in spirit-space and joy.

We saw what’s real.



Reflection

Our bodies challenge us endlessly, as they suffer injuries, ailments, weakness, flaws, and aging. We think they’re us. But we’re wrong. They’re vessels made of clay, urns for our spirits to inhabit while on earth.

Your lifelong challenge, my Love, was to transcend your body’s weaknesses – especially your paralyzed arm. You often said, bitterly, that nothing was possible. You could will your torn arm to move all you wanted, and it wouldn’t happen. Therefore, you did not believe in possibility.

Yet one lesson you provided to us all – inspiring us -- was the demonstration that it is possible to manifest whatever one wants in this life – except moving a paralyzed arm. Your body stymied you. But you were not that body. You transcended it.

Because of your injury, you learned that doctors can provide hope and support to suffering people, and you chose to become a doctor. You spent many months at a time at the Episcopalian Hospital of St. Giles the Cripple, in Brooklyn. You found, in the 1930s, in that small, specialized hospital, the doctor (Joseph Episcopo, MD) who still, historically, ranks as the world expert in treating Erb’s Paralysis, the condition you suffered as a result of your torn arm.

As a young patient in a charity hospital for crippled children, you experienced the excitement of medical discovery, through multiple surgeries amazingly creative and advanced for their time – transplanted muscles and tendons, for instance, and mapping the neurological system of the brachial plexus; also turning your paralyzed hand so it no longer lay turned out, backwards, by breaking your arm and then resetting it so that your radius and ulna healed grafted onto each other with your hand turned in the proper direction.

You always said you were a much better doctor because you’d learned compassion from your long experience as a patient.

You described beautiful experiences while in the hospital. Although from a Jewish family, you learned and loved the great Christian classical pieces of liturgical music, and enjoyed the beauty and excitement of Christmas. You described how the children helped each other – those who could walk getting things for those who couldn’t, and those who could do things with their hands reaching, fastening, and doing for those who couldn’t.

You went to school in the hospital; you flourished amid teachers who understood that physical disability did not define the child, and who allowed your brilliant mind free range.

This in contrast to your public school experiences where the teachers assumed you were mentally as well as physically disabled, and where you felt desperate to get your snow suit, boots and mittens on so that all the other children wouldn’t leave you behind when it was time to leave for recess or to go home at the end of the day. You had devoted all your energy in Kindergarten and First Grade to learning how to get dressed and undressed twice as fast as normal, so you wouldn’t be the last child, isolated and disdained. In the hospital, you could catch up intellectually and learn without fear.

Our life stories are our history of dealing with the vicissitudes of the bodies we have inhabited. These stories are very real in our minds. But, paradoxically, the stories are only a means – a context -- for our spirits to reach their full potential in this lifetime. Transcending your disability, accepting your body -- knowing that you weren’t your tortured body -- was your life's challenge. When you had achieved that enhanced awareness, you were ready to leave the body behind and move into a higher life.

Ellen: Making Change at the Supermarket



She puts the change and the receipt in my left hand,

[The only one that works.]

What to do?

How to separate them

Without putting them down.

How to put the money in my wallet

Without spreading it on the counter

To pick it all up again,

With one hand.



Behind me on the line the others wait ,

Watching me will the coins into my purse.

Fearful lest I take too much time,

I silently order the bills to be in sequence,

I pray that they will align themselves easily,

So there is no need to sort them.

My will cajoles them into my wallet

Lest they notice, enraged,

That my little right arm is still, paralyzed, ashamed.

Ellen Scheiner- Feb. 19, 1991

Rev. May 21, 1996

Lonesome Days

Rosemary: Loneliness September 26 2009

A desolate gray, misty day –
Familiar lonesome feelings.
I arrived a little late.
As I watched the group involved in work,
I felt a well known sense that I should not disturb --
Unworthiness? Perhaps.
It stopped me as surely as a wall,
Left me in my old, accustomed place,
On the outside looking in.

Then, seeking company, I found a café,
Grabbed some lunch.
A big party was going on – laughter, chatter, happy friends.
I sat at a table large enough for four.
People came over, and we both smiled.
Then, instead of sitting down,
They politely carried off the empty chairs, one by one,
To enlarge surrounding groups.
I felt forlorn on the lone remaining seat.

Leaving there, I walked into the shop next door, and purchased
Lovely flowers, a scented candle, and some yummy cookies –
The hints of beauty standing in for cheer and comfort.


Reflection
I suddenly realize how beautiful surroundings and sensory pleasures increase in importance as one feels more alone. I think of you, my Bubbe, and your gorgeous loft when we first met. You had lavished abundant energy on creating visual perfection. I know you also felt intensely alone in the world. You had expressed the love in your soul in your surroundings, much as a bower bird pours all his energy into building the largest, best, and most beautiful home for the mate he wishes to attract. The loft was indeed a most exquisite, nurturing nest for our relationship.

Ellen: An Epiphany of Radishes (1992/1998)

I sat all Saturday morning.
Feeling flatness,
The abyss,
Emptiness,
Nothingness.

I walked to the Greenmarket.
Round red bunches of radishes in a row.
Glistening with the water that had washed them.
Reminded me that there was a world that sparkled.
Phalanxes of radishes.

Reminding me that there was grace
In experiencing them.
The void fills with their plump redness
And they keep me company.
And I am not alone.

Ellen Scheiner

Ellen: One-Handedness

Ellen:

One Hand Clapping 9/27/84

The sound of one hand clapping.
Since I have only one hand to use,
Never applause.
Only inner sounds.
Silence.

I want to clap, shout, scream out
My rage, my passion,
My visions, my pain.
My wild, crazy, insane energy, my joy.
Silence.

But I understand it.
I know its anatomy with precision.
Others' silence speaks to me.
But where is my voice.
What is my sound?


Rosemary: Reflection:

January, 1932. A breech baby, large, arriving fast – too fast. You arrived face down. You said you still saw – etched in memory – the black and white floor tiles and green walls of the delivery room. As you were born, your arm was torn over your head, destroying forever its supply of nerves. You were bleeding from the agonizing injury. Death was near. In 1932, they had just started performing blood transfusions, but still knew nothing of blood types. They laid you on your mother’s stomach and transfused her blood into you. Amazingly, you lived.

Your arm, paralyzed, would shape your whole life. You learned early the shame of feeling defective. You knew, an infant, that your family worried whether you would be mentally normal. You couldn’t crawl. You remembered the relief in your aunt’s voice and your mother’s face the day you, at 18 months, took your first steps: “The baby walked!”

All your life, you felt marginalized, shamed, disabled, other. You were always acutely aware that you had only one hand to use, that you had to measure up regardless, that there were many things you would not ever do in this life, though you longed for them. You explained to me how different it was to be disabled from birth – never having experienced “normal.”


Ellen:

But no

2/16/91

I hear, see, touch, taste, smell the world,
In that order.
Above all, I hear.
Words ought to be my way, my royal path
to the [un]conscious expression of me.

Or music- I mimic with my diaphragm, in my body,
The singer's control over her breathing,
Her taut way of making a sound.
Mahler sings in me.
But since I have no voice, no one hears.

My eyes caress the rectilinear solidity of the bricks across the yard --
Their mortar stripes connective tissue for their structure --
Trying by the act of perceiving to create them.
But no.
One handed people cannot lay bricks; certainly not make them.

My cooking, to be tasted and smelled, a tour de force-
Clean trim chop with your mind.
With one hand.
Concentrate..will the carrot not to roll.
A discipline, but no way to let me out.

Autumn Solstice 2009

Turning Point September 23, 2009


Day and night are even.
Summer turns to fall.
Time to reap, and time to sow.

Reflection:


As we enter the time of year when night gains on day and dark on light, I’m taking stock of my recent trip and anniversaries. They, like the solstice, marked a turning point.

The trip was a chance to try out my new self – the one that has been emerging as I have been rebuilding my life, observing a different balance in my reactions to known situations. I react as often as Ellen would have, as I do the way I would have before meeting Ellen. I feel that we entered into each others’ souls while together. We each became a new person. As Ellen always said – “not one, not two.” From her death, I emerged as a different person than I had been; it's like being reborn.

As I balance at this point, I’m sowing seeds for future relationships, interests, ways of defining myself – as a leader, teacher, healer, friend, spiritual mentor, artist, person.

I’m beginning to realize the legacy of Ellen’s and my relationship. It’s rich in many ways. On this side, it’s up to me to consolidate its riches – to reap -- and to sow them so that they continue to enhance the world in which I’m still living. On the other side, I’m certain that Ellen is with me still, helping me every step of the way to become all that we, together, had it in us to become.

TUMBLED ROCKS 11/14/08


Our hearts and souls deeply united –
Sharing insights, observations, love of words,
Discovering the path to wisdom hand in hand, soul to soul.
Nine years of transformation,
Tumbled rocks polishing each other, revealing hidden value, brilliant hues, greater love,
Smoothing away rough spots and dull coatings,
Sparking over trifling differences and embedded gems,
Transforming each other forever, revealing the divine.

PRISMS NOV 22, 2008


You survive now as a prism,
Pieces scattered, in me, in friends, in family,
In places we’ve shared --
Shards of memory,
Kaleidoscope of tumbling moments,
Chiseled glass parsing rays of love in rainbow tints.
I recognize you in a phrase, a moment, a chance event;
But long to hold you whole, to feel your warmth, your breath,
Your kiss.

Coming Home

Re-entry September 22 2009

Reflections:


Home again. It’s good to see friends and animal companions. It’s also hard to get my head back into a southern rhythm and to fully inhabit my own life again. It was so wonderful to be with friends. My life on my own is still lonely – even more so with the kids not yet back from their trip. It takes a long time to re-invent a life and repopulate it with close friends. I feel a bit as if I’ve been space traveling, and have now landed again on my home planet.



One interesting aspect of being away from home for a while, visiting many other homes, is to see my own living space as if for the first time, as it were. On this trip. I have found it fascinating how people’s homes reflect who they are and what’s going on with them at a given moment.



Homes September 22 2009

I’m home again, after staying in several people’s homes while on my trip.

Homes today are often storage bins and staging areas.

Everyone’s got stuff that narrates their life story.

Some houses bulged with souvenirs –

Little items saved from this event or that voyage.

Those people live cocooned in memories.

Another house had nothing anywhere:

Only stark modern furniture. It looked like a museum where no one lived.

They clearly spend a lot of time outside their home.

Appearance there beats comfort and relaxing.

Others saved things just in case – things without inherent value, that could be just what’s needed –

Soothing constant fear of lack. .

Still others have been overwhelmed by stuff that’s coming in, so that stacks and piles,

Boxes, cases, bags and folders cover every horizontal inch of floor and table --- chest-high.

Some homes were perfectly maintained, and others had their stains and tatters.



We get used to the environment we make, and live within, unconsciously.

Now, seeing my home again after being gone, I’m pondering what it says of me –

My attachments, my occupations, my fears, my sense of order, my ability to keep abreast.

I’ve chosen how and where I’ll live, and now I see anew what I've created. Do I approve?

New York Resonances September 21 2009

Riverside Park September 21 2009


Sunny, peaceful New York September Monday –

I walked out. stepping up the street, to purchase flowers.

Coming back, I strolled along the wall,

Looking down a steep incline, at Riverside park,

I’m amazed –even parks here stack up vertically.

Standing in the treetops, I breathe deeply—

Enjoy the freshly renewed air – gift from the leaves.

Far below, an idyllic scene:

Cyclists and runners speed along the river;

City dogs, released from leashes, frolic,

Yipping gaily, tails sweeping to and fro.

Young children likewise leave behind their prams and srrollers, now toddling or running through the trees.

Down a narrow stair topped by a padlocked gate,

Some kind soul has fed the feral cats and left clean water.

The Angelus is tolling at a distant church to say it’s noon.

Up above, the city roils around me,

As I gaze down into the park below.



Reflections:

I’m beginning to make New York mine. The first couple of days, I took taxis everywhere, to get my bearings. How far north, east, south, and west were various destinations? Once I began to get that sense, I’ve actually found myself using the buses and subways like a native, and beginning to develop an appreciation for the unique characteristics of each small New York neighborhood I encountered. Seems the bigger the city, the smaller the neighborhoods.

Finding a delightful park along the river’s berm, and observing New Yorkers at outdoor play, letting out the little child within themselves, added immensely to the city’s believability as a good place to live. In New York, I believe firmly, people readily live in indoor conditions no one would tolerate anyplace else, in exchange for the pleasure of the city's excitement.

After my little walk, it was time for me to leave New York. That was hard. The weather still was glorious, and I was having such a great time. But it was time to head back South, to “home.”

In NC, I have a place, know people, have built a life – but New York feels much more like “home.” I have found Ellen embodied in her friends, her spirit lurking still in her favorite urban haunts, her speech, her interests, and her manner echoed in the ways of those around me. I realize once again that you can “take the New Yorker out of New York, but you can’t remove New York from the heart and soul of the New Yorker." It’s an astonishing illustration of the power of nurture vs. nature.



Legacy September 21 2009

As I was leaving New York today,

The large, jacked up red van

Cut into traffic just in front of us.

Its license, at eye level, began with “ELN.”

At once, you were in my mind,

With all your loving presence.



While in the city that you knew and loved,

I’d claimed my legacy:

Good and loving friends,

Memories of places we’d enjoyed together,

Electrifying link with New York’s pulsing energy,

A sense of coming home.

I'd found you there –

In people’s faces, in their way of speaking,

And in the quickly shifting restless conversations --

Words like rays of sunlight bouncing off

Distant towers' windows --blindingly reflected.



I absorbed New York from you.

This week I felt your coming home.

I felt you all around me, and missed you deep within my soul.

Rosh Hashanna

Rosh Hashanna, New York, 2009







Rosemary:


Creation Story September 19 2009

A New Year

To celebrate creation –

To understand that after dust and water came to be,

They were patterned into everything we know –

From Adam to a diamond to a colored snail shell

Or a fragrant rose – all just clay and water.

It’s through this connection –

Earth substance with an added spark of spirit–

That we all are one --

This whole amazing world and all it holds

Are made of dirt and water, and unbounded love.



Reflections:

I was privileged to attend a New Year service today at Town Hall in Manhattan, with a couple of thousand others. The service was beautiful and touching, playing on the whole range of human emotions. As the old year ends, we mourn those we have lost since the last New Year, and I did – as always, with copious tears. Then we turned to celebrating creation and the start of the New Year. Not only the texts, but the universality of the liturgy and the feelings it touched, made it clear how we all, of all origins and traditions, share the same awe about this incredible universe and the creative energy that underlies it – how the earth and all its varied substances and creatures are, indeed, one. It was a transcendent experience, for which I was grateful.



Ellen: A Recognition Scene 8/20/84


Tonight an extraordinary thing happened on the Broadway bus.

I got on, sat down, far right.

A short, stocky Japanese man sat in the back.

Several shopping bags, neatly pressed blue jeans.

An older man.

A face of beatitude, near Buddhahood.



He recognized something in me,

I in him.

He smiled at me.

I smiled back.

Our smiles got broader,

Eyes crinkled.



He said "Lovely day."

I said "Beautiful day."

We laughed silently

And bowed our heads formally.

After a long enough time

We looked away.



I heard a Beethoven Quartet in my head.

I do not know what he heard.

I got up, went to the exit door.

We glanced at each other.

I waved at him.

He waved back.



I left shivering and laughing.

Museum Afternoon

Museum Walk September 18 2009


The Metropolitan, on a holiday eve.

Teems with viewers of all ages.

I walk with no map through the different halls –

Moving easily from ancient Greece and Rome

To Medieval Europe, then to chairs by Breuer and van de Rohe.

As I watch the art, and then the people,

I see the subjects and the models strolling.

Adonis and Irene embrace beneath an ancient Roman sculpture.

Live madonnas stand before me at the entrance to the Renaissance.

As I contemplate a Hopper painting,

A man beside me could have sat upon that empty stool.

Among the modern art, a chic young matron,

Thin, with long blond hair tied back,

Wearing high platform shoes and a

Shiny orange duster over her short skirt,

Studies an Eames chair, as if she’d like to sit.

I came here to enjoy the art,

Not knowing that my fellow viewers might provide a bonus!



Reflections:

New York requires miles of walking. That impresses me each time I’m here. I’d quickly get more fit if I lived here. No lazy getting into a car to get to where I’m going. Instead, New York imposes long walks to bus or subway, followed by stairs and miles more underground. New Yorkers are a restless bunch – always on the move, going here and there. Since I’m not a New Yorker, after a day and an evening out, I have very sore feet and a back in spasm. Being in New York resembles in some ways visiting a place of great natural wonder. There’s the need to work hard to see what one wants to see, and also the plenitude of marvelous sights and unique experiences, one after the other – a whirl of new impressions to assimilate and enjoy. I love it, and also I’m longing to regain my cocoon at home, to once again become a homebody who meditates and enjoys quiet, peaceful moments.



New York Contrasts September 18 2009

New York swirls incessantly.

People, taxis, buses, cars -- noisy --  ever on the move;

The panorama’s always changing -- ,

Like falling leaves rustling, eddying, as they scud before a wind.

Then I enter the museum.

Guards stand stoic, distanced, static, faces wooden. .

People stand or sit before a work of art –

Still, Watching, Absorbing.

Silence reigns.

It’s like passing through a magic door into a different land.

New York Experience

New York Experience September 17 2009



Ellen: City Spring

Searing lilac skies.

Glass panes blue, gold, soft silver.

Razor sharp shadows.



Reflections:

Ellen was a native New Yorker, and I learned to love New York in loving her. New York City has a unique pace, energy, flavor. I haven’t been here in five years or so, and the traffic has worsened, reaching total gridlock most of the day. There appear to be many more private cars in the traffic mix. Restaurants have gone and come. “Cheap eats” are suddenly “Chic eats.” I’ve seen endless ads for gourmet hot dogs and premium pizzas. Neighborhoods still function as multiple small towns, each with its own constellation of delis, diners, cleaners, gyms, people greeting on the street, and ethnic groceries. Apartment buildings tower over pedestrians, who all – no matter their age or ability – seem to stride with long, quick steps. I walked 20 or so blocks today, beside a stooped woman with white hair using a cane – and had to really march along to keep up., even though other walkers going in the same direction flowed by us on either side. Taxi drivers and buses vie for every inch on the street, apparently without so much as a skipped heartbeat. Even simple storefront restaurants offer food more savory than I’ve tasted since I was last in a large city.



Rosemary: The Kindness of Strangers September 17 2009

Penn Station. I get off the train with suitcases,

And stand on the platform, midst the swirling crowd,

Looking for a redcap. There are none in sight.

We’re deep underground.

I trudge along the platform weighted down,

Don’t see any elevator, don’t know where the exit is..

I guess I look the way I feel – bewildered.



Suddenly, a tall, genial man walks up and smiles, and asks if he can help.

I ask him where to find a redcap.

He laughs and grabs the bags out of my hand,

Motions with his head and strides off,

Saying “Follow me”!

I do.

We go up three lengthy escalators,

Crossing swarms of people hustling to and fro

At every station level,

Like ants around their colony.

He keeps making sure I’m with him,

As he leads me out an exit, to a taxi stand,

And says “You’re on your own.”

I can barely stammer “thank you” before he

Turns back and disappears again inside.

I can’t believe my good fortune.

Was he an angel, sent to help me?

It sure felt that way!

Making Memories September 15 2009

Making Memories September 15 2009


On the beach in Padanaram, MA, where Ellen and I married in 2008, I got a chance to walk with my grandson, finding various kinds of shells (clams, mussels, oysters, scallops, snails); examining the mother-of-pearl inlays inside different ones; talking about gulls dropping shells so they break and the gulls can eat the clams; finding a delightful plenty of hermit crabs scurrying around the shallow bottom in the water inhabiting a riotous variety of little snail shells;  touching and smelling different kinds of seaweed; watching the tide go out, then – rapidly – come back in; feeling how the wind changed with the changing tide; reassembling the scattered skeleton of some kind of large fish -- skull, backbone, tail, fins; watching the rotating bridge opening every hour on the hour to let sailing boats pass in both directions, into and out of the harbor. What a marvelous shared adventure!

I also got some “alone time” to just be, enjoying the beautiful sunshine, at our wedding spot.
I’m really glad we had a chance to create new memories for ourselves at this spot that seems to have such momentous resonance in my life – from childhood, from our wedding, and -- now – from a delicious day spent with my beloved family.

We left Padanaram around 4, and, not wanting to be caught in traffic going back to Providence, went down the coast, past New Bedford, toward Cape Cod. We found a lovely town beach at Mattapoisett. The beach was deserted, though the bright sun created a seductive warmth on the sand. The kids flew a kite and built sand castles, a single gull tenaciously wading near them, unwilling to give up its peaceful afternoon to noisy kids.

It was a memorable and thoroughly enjoyable day that will provide beautiful memories for many years in the future. A day like this is a treasure, a feast of love and deep peace, to be savored over and over.

Day at the Beach September 15 2009

A day at the beach – perfect as a dream:

Warm and sunny -- with a light, cool breeze

And fluffy clouds against an azure sky --

Clear expanse of sandy September warmth all to ourselves.

Wavelets lap wetly at the shore, as the tide goes out,

Then -- quickly turning -- rushes back, with shifting winds.

Hermit crabs, each wearing a unique and borrowed shell,

Scurry underneath the warm, clear water – exploring.

The kids fly their kite, then build a castle in the sand.

A lone gull sits, his shadow growing longer as the sun descends.



We’re in a seaside painting –

A joyful time to harbor in our hearts, forever.

Familhy Gathering

Basics September 14 2009


Family gathering. Several generations.

Little kids run, scream, cry,

Playing hard, Interacting.

Everything’s immediate – right now.

It reminds us of the basic rhythms

Of sustaining life –

Eating, running, learning, eating, napping,

Changing, running, laughing, crying…

In a way, it’s soothing – always in the present.

Actions come and go at warp speed,

Followed always by another, and another.

Yet I miss the grown up chance to

Meditate, reflect, converse, consider -- get outside myself.

Each time of life has its own needs and its rewards.

That’s another necessary basic rhythm.



Reflections:

Yesterday, we attempted a family reunion – trying to get all five of us and our families together in one place at one time, since both I and my daughter’s family would be in New England together – something that hasn’t happened in a long time. Those who came had a wonderful time. We did manage to recreate the exuberant sense of extended family that had marked several annual multi-generational gatherings during our childhood – winter and summer. Those get-togethers from long ago have provided me with a wonderful lifelong sense of family, of belonging. We wanted to relive that excitement, and also to share it with our children and grandchildren. Although we succeeded, still we felt sad that not all of us had made the effort to attend. We missed those who didn’t come, as we missed those who are no longer with us in this life.



The passage of time that creates holes and new stitches in the family fabric is bittersweet. Now, instead of being the exuberant children racing around, being asked to perform new skills to show them off to older relatives, getting acquainted and enjoying seldom seen cousins, we were the old ladies, the grandmas, grandpas, great-aunts and great-uncles. There is also the joy of watching the next generation just beginning their lives – the sense of belonging continues, even as it falters. A family gathering is a major achievement – one to be savored intensely as we get to experience it.





Sisters September 14 2009

As children, we were proud to be five sisters –

The “Hyde Girls.” We seemed a well knit set.

We felt special.

But as we’ve gotten older, differences outrank our sense of kinship.



We held a gathering this week with some not there --

The close knit rows and stitches showing holes,

Like an ancient cardigan, unraveling.

Life Cycles

Life Cycle September 12 2009

Today, a stunning sight –

Outside a deserted house --large seedy yard --

Forests all around --

A sick red fox, at height of day,

Lies there, watching us watching him.

Above, a dozen vultures circle hungrily.

The fox stands briefly, but he cannot walk.

He stays, atop a rock, fully visible.

He has lived – he’s beautiful.

Now his time has come to die.

He patiently awaits his fate –

He who’s eaten many other creatures

Will soon, in turn, be eaten.

Life proceeds in cycles.

Like the fox, we, too, live, and then we die.

Inevitably.



Reflections:

Today, I visited places I haven’t seen for more than 50 years. Two were particularly striking:  the giant building where I had spent three years training to become a nun, and the island city of Newport.



Right after high school, I entered the convent. On this trip, I was staying near the place where the novitiate had been, and we drove there this morning to see it. This was the first time I’d seen it since leaving in 1959. In the 1950s, it had been a prosperous place, bustling with people. Twenty five or thirty young women became postulants every year, so there were close to a hundred in the three year cycle of preparing to become nuns. The convent and novitiate occupied an imposing, brick, three story building the length of two city blocks, on a massive forested rural property big enough to hold several farms.

The novitiate program was supported by a whole staff of nuns. The novitiate was also the location for the order’s regional administrative officers and staff. The Mother House was a very large, white, 1920s bungalow just across the way from the novitiate, and it, too, bustled with activity.

I knew that today the novitiate and convent building were being used as a nursing home. I was not prepared, though,  for the aura of abandonment that I found. As I drove up to that formerly imposing building and saw its present state of disrepair, I realized that nothing much has been touched in the last 50 years. The cement columns are crazed with cracks, and the paint around windows is cracked and peeling. Some hang slightly askew. Grassy weeds grow between slabs in the walkways leading up to the side entrances. The former chapel has been demolished, and nothing was built in its place. A ramshackle fiberglass tunnel leads across the place where the chapel’s basement had been, providing access to the basement of the remaining building. Now crumbling steps behind the building leading up a steep slope gave us access to the fields and hills above, places to play and socialize.

The former motherhouse across the way is also abandoned – sitting amid splendid woods and fields, but empty and achingly uninhabited – except by the dying red fox sitting outside. I realized that the time I remember being there had marked the pinnacle of the place’s prosperity and usefulness. It was as if it was aging with me and my long-ago classmates. Shortly after I had left the novitiate without taking vows, Vatican II and the abandonment of traditional convent dress and rules had decimated the number of young women who felt called to become sisters. The novitiate as we had known it had not survived for very long after that time.



Newport provided a striking contrast. When I had been there, while in college, in 1960 and 1961, most of its old building stock was suffering late stages of decay. Wooden Georgian houses from the 1700s were missing window sash and trim pieces. Many historic waterfront buildings had fallen down or were in the process of doing so. Exploring the old streets had felt like visiting an archeological site. Today, it has all been refurbished or rebuilt, and is lively with tourists and shoppers. A building here and there caught my eye, remembered from decades earlier. Much of it, however, was a modern recreation of what might have been there before – now created whole from the imaginations of architects and developers.

The whole day provided a sobering example of the transitory, cyclical nature of experience – life and death, prosperity and decay, memory and imagination.

Commemoration

September 11 2009



One Year Later…


Ellen:


“Betrothed” March 20 2001

I cleave unto you as I cleave unto my soul,

A pure shining light

Which never has failed me.

Reflections:

One year ago today may have been the most joyful day of my life. My bubbele and I were married, on a small beach on the South Coast of Massachusetts, before a Justice of the Peace. It was a consummation – after intense years together, loving each other, growing in spirit, and dancing the cancer vigil. We never knew when death would come, though it was hovering; we enfdeavored to live what each moment brought without always being mindful of the threat of separation looming over us.

Today, alone, drenched to the skin, with rain dripping down my neck despite the thin protection of a nylon hood, I stood in our marriage spot, alone. It was a moment of mourning, of acknowledging deep loss.

I performed two small ceremonial acts, in honor of the love Ellen and I shared. As we had 10 years ago when we first knew that we were meant to be together, I threw two stones into the water with a pledge of undying love. When the tide turned so it was going out, I laid a bouquet of two beautiful, fragrant, coral colored roses tied together with baby’s breath and ferns – a lovely bridal bouquet – on the water, and watched as it, like our life together, receded into the distance, floating out to sea. I had thought of this day as a commemoration of our love. It was that. It was likewise – like the bouquet given to the sea -- a moment to let go, to start looking forward to the end of this sad transition – to whatever my next life stage will bring. This is the challenge of widowhood.

Rosemary:


Remembering - September 11 2009

2008:

This day dawned fair and mild –

Perfect weather to reflect our deep and loving joy,

As we came to this spot, to marry.

Our hearts overflowed with love.

We radiated with delight.



2009:

I come back to “our” beach with you in spirit.

Gray skies hang low.

Gulls, instead of soaring, huddle silently against the cutting storm.

Wind-driven rain beats, sharp, against my face,

The drops cascading down with my own tears.

I stand right where we stood a year ago,

To pledge undying love.

In memory, I throw two stones into the water,

Then slowly, weeping quietly,

I turn and walk away – alone.

Home Ground

Reflections:


I had a fascinating day. I had an errand in the North End of New Bedford, where obviously I’d been as a kid (I recognized the church by name from several blocks away – must have seen it before) – but it wasn’t a hangout. What an intense, vibrant neighborhood that physically hasn’t changed in at least 100 years! The streets were lined with old triple and quadruple decker houses, with no front or side yards. It’s now a Portuguese neighborhood (everything was written in Portuguese), --very lively, with lots of people on the streets and sidewalks. I think it was an Italian neighborhood way back when – similar energy.

Then I figured I’d drive back to Dartmouth via the place where my sisters and I went to school at Holy Family, in midtown New Bedford . There, too, the preservation is virtually perfect – these houses were probably around 150 years old. Narrow streets, granite curbs, huge sea captains’ homes three or four stories high, crowned with Widows’ walks. One of my friends from grammar school lived in one of the captains’ houses on that main street, and it was odd to drive by it now, so many years later. Being inside that vast house was a memorable childhood adventure for me.

The schools are still there. The elementary school where two of my sisters went is still in use as a Catholic grade school, and as I passed by, I could see where the kids used to line up in front, grade by grade, to go into school.

The high school is there as well, but boarded up. It obviously hasn’t been touched, maintenance-wise, in decades, but seemed in decent shape nonetheless – a two-story, solid, square, brick building with “Holy Family High School” engraved in granite over the peeling, double front doors. I studied it from across the narrow street and knew, with assurance, which teacher occupied each “home room.” The little store and lunch counter where we went for lunch every day is also still there – a square, one- story brick store 90 or 100 years old. It hasn’t changed a bit outside, and the part of the store occupied by the candy case, lunch counter, and soda fountain is still intact, with all the same furnishings. It’s still a breakfast-lunch diner, but obviously Mr. Goggin, who was the proprietor in the 1950s, is long gone.

So much was unchanged – as if preserved in amber. One late 19th century house that was on the corner of the high school block has been torn down and is now a parking lot, but everything else has obviously been there for a very very very long time – It never occurred to me as a high school student to wonder how long things had been there – they just were. It’s strange to walk in the same places over 55 years later in yet another century – the same person in a very different emotional place and body. Back then, I couldn’t possibly have imagined this happening. I feel as if I’m revisiting a very distant former life. The streetscape is the stage set; the live play, as if it happened yesterday, dwells in my memory.

I don’t know why New Bedford isn’t on every tourist itinerary as an incredibly well-preserved example of New England industrial history.

I also spent a little while at Apponagansett Beach. The weather was gray and chilly, with an extraordinarily cold, strong wind, so it wasn’t comfortable staying there very long. I’ll go back tomorrow, hoping for nicer weather. I plan to float two roses in the water, and throw in two pebbles, to recognize and commemorate Ellen’s and my wedding last year. I’ve got to find out when the tide is going out!


Sea Shore Haiku (Ellen, September 20, 1995)


Lacy sea spirals
Blown aloft by Fall blusters,
Wind-pressed, turgid sails.


Gulls (Rosemary, September 10, 2009)


Gray and white, they crouch against the wind,
Feathers skewed like tousled hair, riffling with each gust.
They walk stiffly, like gnarled old men --
Mincing steps, no neck -- nothing moves above their hips.
They gather, gossip, gang together, argue.

The walks are strewn with shells they’ve dropped from soaring flight,
So they could eat the quivering mollusks that had lived within.

The gulls are here since long before we humans came.
Eternally, they’re one with tide and rocky shore.
They carry on, supreme, as if they’re here alone,
Using what we’ve made – entitled.

What's Real?

PARADIGM SHIFTING January 9, 2009


In your first e-mail to me,
You stated you had
“No fixed ideas how things should be”—
Creative spirit, you spoke truth.
Together, we thought easily, solved problems quickly.
We shifted paradigms with glee.
It was exhilarating, sometimes frightening.
Arm in arm, matching strides,
We changed our lives, moved, married, bought, sold, remodeled,
Learned, shared, taught, traveled, healed –
Forward steps with few skipped beats.
Decisive. Sure. Eager.
Like children still, despite our years.
You even died decisively, with grace.
As I live my grief, I can change focus,
Move on with energy,
Rejoicing deeply --
Or remain cheerless.
Or both.
Joy can survive with sadness.
We can proceed together,
Still celebrating love.

Reflections:


I really wanted to come back to Dartmouth, to where I had grown up and we had married. It seemed important to be here on our anniversary, to spend the day mindful of the great blessing we experienced a year ago, finally, to marry each other.

Today, I drove up the Rhode Island coast, from Connecticut, toward Dartmouth, arriving here tonight. Route 1 was slow, with a lot of traffic. I passed towns with wonderful, tongue-rolling names, each of which resonated from childhood memory as I read it and knew how to pronounce it with certainty and a sense of pride: Meshanticut, Wampanoag, Apponagansett, Padanaram…

The couple of times I stopped at a store, or paused to ask directions, my ears reveled in the rapid pulse and tight, flat vowels of Rhode Island speech. It hasn’t changed, amazingly, in 70 years – who knows how much longer before that? Once upon a time, I also spoke exactly that way. I’d wondered, for years, before coming back home last year, how I had sounded as a young woman. Now, I’ve heard that speech enough, recently, to know the answer.

Strangely, these childhood resonances have seemed more real this time than my memory of our four days here last year, to apply for a marriage license, wait the required 3 days, and then be married, before a justice of the peace and two witnesses, on Apponagansett Beach in Padanaram.

We had come, oxygen machines and cancer medications in tow. But you didn’t feel well after the trip, so we spent our waiting days resting at the hotel. I was concerned how you would be for the wedding. That day dawned bright, warm, and sunny, and, fueled by adrenalin, we both felt marvelous. It was a transcendent experience.

Being here again now is pressing home to my consciousness, however, how transitory is the glory of past moments.


Tricks of Memory September 9 2009


Just last year, we came here, you and I,
For our joyful wedding day.
I’m here again, commemorating.
Driving past the now familiar landmarks,
And, now, in the hotel we shared 12 months ago,
It feels strangely as if last year happened in a dream.

I have the pictures with
Our beaming faces, radiant smiles.
Who were those happy women?
As I now see how quickly time
Erases even deepest heartfelt moments,
I once again become aware
How what is present now is all there is –
All else is make-believe.

Can I go back home?

New England Seaside September 8 2009


As I breathe deeply of the soft and sultry air,
My skin and lungs recall the kiss of salt.
A white gull soars low above the houses
With their always peeling paint –
Houses dating back to early days,
To earthen paths and ox-drawn carts,
To farmers working mightily to
Stack the many granite stones into high walls.
I look out across the estuary to
Admire colored houses lined along the distant shore,
And feel that I’ve come home again.


Reflections:


The flight was calm. I remember Providence airport when it was a 30 foot by 30 foot waiting room with two doors opening directly to a tarmac apron. Planes taxied right up to the door, and passengers came down steps, opened the waiting room door, and came in, to be embraced by waiting loved ones. I would be met by my dad, who, upon picking up my suitcase laden with books, would exclaim, always: “What do you have in here – rocks??!!”

Every time I travel, I think of him and that question. My suitcases have not lightened in the intervening 45+ years! Today, Dad would have to wait in Baggage Claim, and the concourses, as at other airports, are hundreds of feet long, with many gates, pulsing with people rushing in both directions. I do not feel as if I am arriving in the same place. The world has changed! Yet when I emerge into the rose-tinged light, see the sandy soil and struggling trees and shrubs, hear the cry of gulls, and breathe the salt air, I know I have come home again.

Now, as I rejoice in sensing that I am attached to earth in this place as in no other, I am also realizing how time and life have swept me past the wedding I remember here a year ago with such poignant pleasure. I feel sad, knowing that this visit will show me how I have already let go joyful memories, how I have moved on away from that deep happiness of wedding my Bubbele, how my life has carried me on alone.


Sweeping forward September 8 2009


Such a strange sensation –
A long trip with no one waiting at the other end.
No one knows I came, or where I went.
I feel disconnected from this world.
I guess I’m seeking the impossible –
To find again a moment from the past replete with joy.
But that trip was then, and this one’s now.
Now – past joy appears in sepia – a keepsake memory.

Same Sex Marriage -- A Long Journey

A Year Ago… We Got Married… A Same Sex Couple


Co-Creating November 29 2008


Two minds, two hearts, three hands..
One spirit, Creating one life for our time together.
Two houses, two kitchens, two histories , two professions
Unified in us, in our space, our aura.
We were Not one, Not two –
Instead something other, beautiful, hopeful, more --
We lived the love that humans long for in their deepest hearts.
Now you are there, and I am here – Still united.
We sit astride, one foot on earth, the other where?
I wonder how to be in two places.

Reflections


A year ago tomorrow, you and I flew to New England for our “real” wedding – the one recorded in a town hall, with a marriage certificate.

The wedding, whose anniversary we’ll celebrate, on that same Massachusetts beach, on September 11, was the culmination of a series of vows we made, privately and publicly, to have and to hold from now forward… to be spouses.

It’s hard to get married, though, as a same sex couple. We tried repeatedly. Our love demanded it.


Our first ceremony took place October 11, 1999, at Stinson Beach, in California. You always loved the ocean, and gravitated toward beaches. We walked out toward the water, in the stiff wind, together. We each threw a pebble, picked up on the beach, into the great Pacific Ocean; facing each other and holding hands, we pledged our forever love. That was the first page of our long search for identity as a couple -- not just "housemates," not just "friends" or "companions." We were soul mates -- spouses.


Why Gay Marriage? January 17, 2009


We were committed.
From the start, we knew we were The Ones.

1999:
We vowed eternal love, tossing pebbles into restless waves,
Private wedding rite at Stinson Beach –
Only ourselves, the gulls, and beach strollers to witness.
But, though no one understood,
We were in fact a couple --
For better or worse, in sickness or in health.

Though both women, we weren’t just housemates, lovers, “friends”;
The body’s gender doesn’t always match the nature of the soul.
How to get this point across? How to tell others?
Without “married,” we were silenced, mute.

2002:


Trying to shout the truth, we held a ceremony and reception,
Pledged undying love before minister, family, friends, and neighbors.
The people there understood our goal, but we were still Outsiders.
A commitment ceremony was separate, not equal.
We could not be considered “family.”

2004:

We learned that Oregon now welcomed same sex couples.
We went and were married;
We were joyful, finally accepted.
But the next year, our marriage, with thousands more,
Was ruled an error, involuntarily annulled.
We felt violated by the court.

2008:

Years later, at last, not long before she died,
Trundling oxygen and cancer meds,
We were recorded legally -- married, at last, in Massachusetts.
In our hearts, we thanked the people of that state.
Finally, we counted -- no longer on the outside looking in.

Why did we try so hard for marriage?
Why need the same rights as others?
Because then everyone could grasp we were a couple.
We were mystically wedded, forever bonded, “not one not two,”
Married, we could simply say the truth, be who we were, and people knew.

Man in the Moon?

Moon Threads September 5 2009

The moon is full,
Its craggy shadows beaming down at me.
I gaze upward, thinking of you "up there."

Then I wonder why we think
Of God and spirits peering down.
Spirit's everywhere -- within, around --
Universal source, thread of life,
Fabric of creation.
Even if I think you're looking down at me,
Peeking from behind the clouds,
You're also woven into every fiber of my being.
We're entwined, forever, everyplace our souls may roam.

Packing

Travel Puzzle July 4 2009


When I’m leaving home to travel,
I always wonder what I’ll pack.
My suitcase yawns upon the bed,
Waiting to receive its load –
It always gets too quickly full and heavy.
Then I wonder what I’ve packed to make it so,
And why I need to take so many things.
So I take things out, rethink, and pack again –
With the same results.
Those few things absolutely couldn’t weigh so much!
How can some people travel without luggage?
What if it gets too cold, and I feel freezing?
What if it’s decidedly too warm, and I can’t stand it?
What if I get a stomach ache, a cold, a bruise, a rash?
What if, what if, what if??
What if I just wore the same things for a week – would anybody notice?
Would it make a difference?
I don’t know the answers, but I ponder often on the question --
What do I really need?


Reflection

I'm in packing mode again. I ponder New York City -- it's too far ahead for a weather prediction -- warm, cold, raining, daytime, evening, going out, what will I need? I don't know. I pack black -- it's safe. Now I understand -- for the first time -- why you had so many scarves! They liven up black!

I also do not know the answer to the deeper question of what I really need -- undoubtedly much less than I think I do. I tend to ignore the value of inner resources and lean too heavily on "stuff."

Life Keeps Changing

Changes September 3 2009

In childhood, we court the new and different –
Longing for each next step until we’re grown.

Then we tend to lose our forward thrust –
We keep wanting to hold on to what we have, what we’ve achieved --
And can’t keep moving forward, heavy laden.

Despite us, things keep shifting -- baffling, causing pain --
Until we learn to relax and then, at last, let go.

We can no longer clutch at what we’ve been and done,
But --- eager, joyful -- trusting in transcendence –
Must let go all outward show,
And move into our spirit self to rediscover love.


Reflections:

As I think of your last weeks and months, my Love, I can see this process of transcendence. I had seen it previously in the last few months that my friend Rand was alive. He seemed to move out of his body. He was living more and more in the life beyond. You did the same thing. You gradually accepted and moved beyond perceiving your ailing body. You forgave those who had seemed to wrong you. You joyfully embraced a sense of wonder and peace. We experienced awe and beauty in being with you.

You seemed transformed. You were glowing. We thought your health was improving. What we were really seeing, without recognizing the fact, was your soul preparing to be reborn into another kind of life.

As I experience my own aging, I realize that I don’t want to bog down in regret, or stagnate, focusing on what I’m in the process of losing on the physical plane. I want to experience the joy and excitement of moving forward, of becoming more fully my whole self.


Trying Gold September 3 2009

To become more pure,
Gold is heated many times,
Melted, then transformed;
The rarer liquid, each time, gains a Karat.

I don’t want to think of being melted down repeatedly.
I shrink away, try to refuse.
Yet I also want to lose the dross and be authentic --
Let what’s purest gold in me shine forth.

A Matter of Perspective September 1 2009

Today is pleasant, with a refreshing breeze.
As I walk, I think about that breeze—what it can mean.

Looking at myself, a woman, age 70, walking down the block,
I can appreciate the wind’s cool brush against my skin;
I’m happy on a sunny day, grateful that we’ve had some rain,
And now the summer heat’s abating.

But I can also look at me as spirit,
An eternal soul who dwells in earthly space today.
In that form, I perceive the breeze as universal love that’s always present,
And rejoice at being one with the Creator and creation.

I smile and reflect on picking the perspective of the moment –
It’s a lot like choosing
Whether I should use my indoor or my outdoor voice!


Today’s Reflections
One of the most striking changes in my life since Ellen -- my Love -- died is discovering how many dimensions make up “reality.” As a child, like most children, I had an active fantasy life. Also like most children, I learned that only physical reality counts. Only one thing is possible at a time, and that has to fit within the bounds of “reality.” We learn to think that our little box is all of life – so high, so wide, so deep, ticking along in a line, second by second.
But how do I account for love, for dreams, for wishes, for the obvious division between different feeling states? How can I feel one moment that life is black, that nothing will ever be good again – then 10 minutes later find a ray of joy in a friend’s smile or a child’s enthusiastic greeting, as he runs toward me waving the picture he just drew – arms outstretched to hug me?
Obviously, real reality has many, shifting possibilities. What if there were more than I could ever imagine? It’s possible. What if grief were just a facet of joy, of love, of energetic discovery?
Actually, it is!

A FLY’S EYE SEPTEMBER 2 2009

I’m trying to picture seeing like a fly,
With all those prisms -- each a different view
Of the same thing.
How does its brain put them all together?
What does that dimension feel like?
Clearly it’s very different from our
Tripartite way of knowing.
The world we know with senses is a box –
High, and wide, and deep.
But that’s not all the world there is.
At times we know things not encased within those measures.
In fact, in mind and spirit, we can conjure up
An endless plenty – possibilities and feelings.

As I traverse this part of life,
I discover an infinity of understandings.
I can choose my way of being now –
Like the fly, I can see through many lenses;
All show what’s possible, and real.

Sudden Change

Widowhood August 8 2009

The widow walks a long and lonely path.
Like a twin who’s shared a heart and brain,
She’s sundered through
And struggles to keep on as one
Where there were two.
She straggles,
Tries to recover, rediscover,
And redraw herself.
She may move forward,
But she never leaves behind
The love she’s lost.

Life will never again be the same. The differences that evolve, however, will have their own sources of joy.

A friend today sent me a description, by the author, of the book, "Moving to the Center of the Bed." What a fantastic title to describe what one must do when suddenly a close relationship has changed forever: instead of being half a couple, one is suddenly forced to stand alone. ("Moving to the Center of the Bed: The Artful Creation of a Life Alone" by Sheila Weinstein, Moving to the Center of the Bed Publishing, $15.95)

Ms Weinstein writes of her experience as her husband's dementia deepens, "At the age of 62, it was terrifying to suddenly find myself alone. At times I thought that I would surely die of the pain and loneliness. But I didn't. Not because it wouldn't have been easy to give in to depression and despair, to say goodbye to life rather than stand up and fight for it, but because I am a determined woman. I needed to know that I could make it on my own and that my life did not depend on another human being for its meaning or its duration."

When we first commit wholeheartedly to a relationship, we build, painstakingly, a new way of being.

When the relationship ends, that part of ourself also ends.

We grieve our loss of the other. We also mourn losing who we had become. It's like moving house. We used to know where to turn automatically to find a sheet, a glass, a spoon. When we stand at the end of a relationship, we used to know what to say, what to think, how to be in the world. Now, we have no clue. Nothing works as it used to. Who are we? How will we live?


Habits NOVEMBER 21 2008

Habits are comfortable.
We enjoy routines – getting up, stretching,
Brushing teeth, showering,
Smelling that first warm morning cup.

Our movements are precise – two steps here and three there.
Get a glass and dish on the way by.
Turn left, grab a spoon, no need to look --
Choreographed --
A fluid, graceful sequence --
Steps well-learned, entwined.

Now, as if waking from a dream, I’m suddenly alone.
The dance has vanished.
Like a disconnected marionette,
I turn aimlessly--
Right, then left; forward, then back.

I wonder, confused:
“What now?”
“Where’s that spoon?”
“What comes next? “