Category: Pondering Quietly

Some deep thoughts in the shallows of my mind, some shallow thoughts . . . somewhere else.

letting go

I wrote the following yesterday.  It doesn’t have an ending that I am satisfied with; however, the week will only get busier.  So, I’m posting it today.  Perhaps some ending will come.  Perhaps not.

An online friend suggested we keep our expectations low. Which ones? The expectations that I usually hold close are diminishing, falling like leaves after the first frost.  Truth be told, I’ve always juggled such a plethora of hopes and dreams, long and short term goals complete with due dates, many expectations, many hopes for possible futures.  I have lived for long periods of time holding expectations as a nervous bride clutches her bouquet.  But today, after a year away from my old Wisconsin home and loving community, after 10 years away from the love of my life, after 17 weeks of quarantine, I bear witness to an increasing number of plans, goals and expectations dramatically dashed upon rocks or quietly slipping away. If there be a life lesson here, it must be that living in the present is what is essential.  Life can be, at times, gently shaped, tended more like an orchid than a row of sturdy marigolds.  

Continue reading →

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chasing & choosing

“Joy does not simply happen to us. We have to choose joy and keep choosing it every day.” ~Henri M. J. Nouwen

I don’t agree. At least, in part.  I remember a time when moments of joy were effortless—falling in love, singing into a mike with a tight spotlight, making it to 20 weeks pregnant, arguing Roe v Wade with Professor Dworkin, cooking a first meal in my first house.  As I write these moments, there are dozens more I could include.  Oh, I didn’t include Italy—Siena, Venicia, Torino, Frascati and my friend Sylia. There was a time when joy—near effortless joy— was liberally sprinkled through life. Those were times of purpose—some very grand and pretentious, some as simple as well baked biscotti. Continue reading →

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peace of a day

A rain storm is coming in.  Slowly.  I sit on our front porch tapping on the laptop. It was cool, sunny and breezy this early morning and I checked the weather when I woke up.  Giving Julia the choice of a morning bike ride or walk, she chose the ride.  

Biking has been a very long process for Julia.  It took a long time to learn to pedal, and then to balance, and then, even after balancing, it has been years of practice to get her to the point of riding steady enough to do it in the street.  Our shut down lives have yielded a bonus of empty streets.  Julia is riding on quiet streets, and occasionally rides on streets that get a few cars often.  She is finally steady enough to be able to ride on smooth, wide sidewalks.  In Madison, we had the benefit of being close enough to a small bay to ride around.  Fortunately, this year I think she is ready for streets. Continue reading →

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feral days

Written on Monday for Wednesday’s Awakening Joy workshop:

We live in “the hard knuckle of the year.”  Those words from Crooker’s poem spelled themselves out in neon when I opened this file and I’ve carried them, close to my chest all week.  

Day 47 in this house, alone with increasing challenges, on another dreary, wet, cold day. Fully conscious of my privilege, I gingerly step round pits of self-pity and despair. I hold on tight, white knuckles on the safety bar of this roller coaster.  Disneyland’s Space Mountain, a dark roller coaster, feeling faster than fast and terrifying because no one sees what comes next.  In these Space Mountain days I search for gratitude.  I find an hour of sun on the otherwise gray day; a zoom call with creatives in captivity; still fresh greens for a salad and reading James’ words to get ready for this workshop.  That has to be enough. Dayenu. Continue reading →

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independence day

How did it get to be the end of April?

Setting: rain and 40 degrees.  The house is dark.  This is a day for the potato leek soup that is in the fridge and a book and a cozy chair and throw over legs.  Maybe it is not a day for momentous accomplishments or even folding the wash.  

Time: Monday morning.  That time when online school work comes streaming in and students are supposed to get organized for the week.  In this house, it is the time to wrangle Julia to help me organize her work. This morning, Julia has a check in with her case manager and a speech group.

Back story: Last week, I advocated for support from school to get school work done.  Two weeks ago I advocated for her speech services to resume.  The weekly plan came back this morning with no more help than last week.  There is a speech group meeting this morning.

Character: Increasingly, Julia lives and talks in a fantasy of teen sex and anime violence.  Lots of blood and boys obsessed with her.  She talks to herself.  More and more often.  She resents being pulled into the reality of our lives (which, at least to me, is not so bad at all).

Plot: Julia is declaring independence today.  She doesn’t want me to have anything to do with her schoolwork.   Continue reading →

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surviving

My April plan was to remain curious, survive, grow compassion and nap.  Today, I feel ok about those goals.  I’ve been meeting some of them.  Monday was a different story. Julia was difficult and I saw no end to her behavior or this time of quarantine, no break away from her, no respite to replenish myself.  I wanted a few hours, the length of a school day. We can, at times, get out of each other’s line of sight, but unless we are whispering, we cannot avoid each other’s sound waves.  Ironically, I am picking up something from Julia’s physics class studying waves. 

Tuesday was better and Wednesday started well.  I am using every ounce of organizational skill and discipline I have to keep us on track. School is a moving target with classes, office hours and services changing at least every week if not a number of time during the week. I fill in calendars, mine and hers, and then change them often.  As school changes, time with counselors and therapists need to be rescheduled.  There are daily lists of educational work and home tasks to be accomplished and I make sure Julia is taking appropriate breaks.  I am teaching a weekly class and attending a weekly HILR class on musicals.  Sometimes it feel as if all the zoom meetings are little wooden balls that are shaken up in a box.  Balls get scattered on the floor, zoom meetings missed.  Sometimes the balls are damned slippery. Continue reading →

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day 12

Opening my eyes at 5:10 and rising at 5:30 to get dressed to hit the grocery stores with a list at 6. Someone in a zoom group said last week, “Who the hell is going to buy lettuce at 6?”

Umm.

The last time I was grocery shopping was Saturday, March 14. Ten days ago. We could go a few more days before we eat the last of the apples, carrots and celery. We are out of milk and bread and coffee and have been for a few days. And Julia’s favorite tea. Two apples, 3 oranges and two onions and a mostly full freezer. If I restock now, I could keep out of stores for two weeks. These last 10 days have made our dependence on fresh food so clear. Shop the outside aisles of a supermarket. My pride (okay, admittedly I don’t think about it much at all) at packing Julia healthy lunches and keeping us away from junk food has given way to ice cream in the freezer and two kinds of cookies in the cupboard. Julia longs for noodle lunches and chocolate chip cookies. Not hard to please our hungry souls. Continue reading →

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last day

047A3341-766A-4372-A048-2DE15559C17EIt is 6:40 am and completely dark outside. Oh, this winter cocoon time. I can still be surprised by its intensity as it comes to take a huge bite out of my desire for complacency. It is not as cold outside as it usually is this time of year in Madison, although my Madison peeps are posting hiking and bike riding pictures. Yesterday in Newton, a storm gifted us damp, chilly rain, hail, thunder and lightening.  We ventured out for food shopping, and that only because it was necessary.

I started writing in bed and moved to my leather writing chair in the dining room.  I move about the house in the dark, a habit from when I shared a bedroom and did not want to disturb my sleeping mate.  I pull on my heavy pj pants and grab the shawl from Madison friends–blues and purples and memories. Tangible memories from friends punctuate my days—a Madison dish towel, knitted dish clothes, a bag of very fine cocoa mix, even the reusable bags I carry my groceries in.  In the lonely and trying moments of the last six months, these things have bought solace.  Continue reading →

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living into questions

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Cheshire coxing for a senior boat at Head of the Charles.

Believe it or not, I have been journal writing a lot this month and yet I’ve been unwilling to bring anything to the point of posting and publishing.  

Just interesting.

I read a poem every morning curtesy of Joe Riley  and his email list called Panhala.  (I can’t find a working link for the site but a subscription request might be here: panhala-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.).  I took up this habit about 8 years ago because I never liked reading poetry and it seemed that all the work I was doing and the people that I was working with valued poetry and always had something inspirational to read to begin meetings.  At that time, I also remembered that I had promised myself to read poetry (and also Proust) in my old age, assuming as I did when I was very young and callow, that deep understanding would be mine by the time I reached oldladyhood. Somehow I came across Joe Riley’s work of sending out daily poems and I subscribed.  I deleted many without even a read when my email inbox got overwhelmingly full and I stopped in the middle of reading many times because I just didn’t get it; however, little by little, over the years, I have come to some understanding of poetry.  And I now envy poets, like painters, who can say so much, move so deeply with a minimum of words.  It is not my talent, as this long paragraph attests to, but my appreciation grows with every verse I read.   Continue reading →

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right here

A short note on grief: To anyone who has silently complained about a friend grieving too long, or who has wondered WHEN their own grieving would cease and themselves back to their old self, I have learned that grieving is a process without end.  You grow the rest of your life around it, it doesn’t disappear.  At some time, you will or you might do everything you would have done before losing your beloved.  You might do more than your pre-grieving life could have imagined but at any moment, the everyday round can side swipe you.

Today, a Mary Oliver poem popped in my inbox and I read:

“It is
your life, which is so close
to my own that I would not know

where to drop the knife of
separation.  And what does this have to do
with love, except

everything?”

Nine years disappeared and I was right there wondering about the me who considered myself so independent through out all of my marriage and who found breathing almost impossible after David stopped breathing. 

And it is with so many feelings, including gratitude, that I find myself back there.  Or rather, right here.

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