What do root canals, sink disasters and grown children have in common? There’s a sense of helpless cleaning out, of loss and hope and repair, of “replacement flooring” and a shiny new tooth. I am not entirely certain I understand this life. I’ve made a good shot at it for nearly half a century (Did I just say that?), but the damnedest thing is, after all my worry and strife, it would appear indeed that there is a God above who pours out love in magnificent measure.

Slate. We are thinking about slate for the floor that was ruined by the sink disaster. It comes in beautiful variant shades of blue and grey and gold. It is soft and not exactly recommended. Its shape is irregular, impractical. It flakes. Like my life.

The sun blazes low as I sit outside, away from the industrial drying fans that have turned my kitchen into the Arizona dessert, away from the children who must find their way without me. Music plays as an unexpected breeze brushes away the stress of so much unknown. I imagine God imagining me, long ago when the layers of myself were locked deep within the side of a mountain.

By those God-hands I have been hewn. Hemmed in, chosen, polished and squared. Lifted from the mountain and set with intention in a place to be seen and enjoyed.

I do not know what the future holds except more unknowing, radically spent.

Evensong

One sip, two

glasses, three

hours and I melt into

what is; the gift of the vine.

Cup tipped, the cotton

of my shirt shifts

against my skin;

I live stories

of days past

and yet to come

without pain.

Though I am too

small to be a tree,

too temporary

to know,

I sway to the song

of supper

at the open window:

children calling,

music playing,

husband chasing

dog on the lawn.

Time slows as I

sip from the glass

on the grass,

wait for the fruit

to fill the fractures

I have yet to know.

Like air,

like space

in a balloon,

between boughs,

over curb,

under roof;

in the pot

before broth,

in the cup

before wine,

between us

and the sky;

like air,

like space

on the moon,

between

then and now,

waiting in silence,

wishing to be

words with

something,

anything

to say.

Second Birth

I carried them

buried in the depths

of my body, grew them

from the fibers of my flesh,

pulled them pulsing to my chest

and fed them suckling

from my breast.  And now

they leave anew, stretch

from where they sprang,

screaming out again.  Again

their exit drives a fierce

full rend of flesh, a tearing

clear of spirit, a second birth.

the christmas tree still stands, twinkling, fat, and it’s sort of cold outside (for florida). my husband is playing in a golf tournament today.  my youngest flew to my brother’s house, up where it snows.  my son swings in the hammock on the porch with a couple of friends.  one daughter has left for her fiance’s and another is curled up with her beau in front of a movie.  i sit in the dusk and try not to cry for the nest about to be emptied.  well, actually i did cry, and caught myself in the mirror.  my mouth was as crooked as a movie star’s.

we had a lovely christmas.  everyone was here…all four of my kids, one fiance, my hubby and even his parents. it was simpler than many.  fewer gifts, not so many surprises, no magnificent shrieks or yelps. and yet satisfying in its own way.  this year i moved from provider to supporter; turns out i am not the provider of joy, or the santa of the day.  just mom.  just loving, supporting mom. even in the silence of one son’s break-up.

it’s times like these – where fundamental, internal shifts occur – that i am amazed.

“the glory of the lord shone round about me and i was sore afraid.”

I seem to have given up stories but not quite

Words.  I don’t know

If my spirit is bent

My mind tilted or

My body tired but the words

Seem entombed within me or not

Even there.  I

Sit on the patio,

Distract myself with the world wide web,

while words escape

Me.

so our edlest daughter is getting married.  it’s only been a few weeks but the plans have begun – lots to talk about, consider, decide on…and lots to let go of for me.

yesterday i was a ball of nerves – i felt awful – stressed, unhappy, ready to take my anxiety pill at only 10 am.  i talked to a friend on the phone and slowly began to realize that i was afraid. that was all – just afraid.  afraid i would so something wrong, hurt someone’s feelings, mess up the wedding, damage my sweet relationship with my daughter or her fiance.

as i sat in my car outside the nail shop i decided that scared was a fine reaction to be having.  there were many things i did not know, many things i had never done.  there was certainly good to be found in taking seriously the relationships surrounding this wedding.  fear was telling me something and i needed to listen.

so i cried a little and then i went in and got my toes painted thanksgiving red and while they suds and painted i allowed myself to be a scared little girl. not terrified mind you, just garden variety, afraid of what she couldn’t possibly know.  and wouldn’t you know it, by the time the suds had passed, so had my hyperactive-worked-up-anxious-stress.  all tht was left was a little fear and direction for where i wanted to pay attention, what i really wanted to care about.

anger, sadness, fear, delight these are just emotions, given to us by god to show us what is actually happening inside.  how easily i forget.

the gift of yesterday was that i stayed in the present and i listened and i watched and i allowed myself some room.  i was gentle with me.

this morning the words below came in my email subscription from Father Rohr’s “daily meditations”  and i had to laugh.  it sounds so fancy, but i was a mystic over a pedicure:

sometimes the beauty of life makes me ache.  certainly the pain does.  a dear friend battles cancer.  my brother-in-law fights for his life. and yet in the same moment my eldest daughter gets engaged and my children come home for thanksgiving – one with her first love.  my life is a flurry of stuffing recipes and wedding plans and who sleeps where.  yet for all that commotion  most of my days are full of sunday mornings alone with my husband and sitting in the sun.

art…acting…writing…these were once what sustained me.  that energy i could not live without.  now real life, made up of in-my-my-own-skin experiences,  takes precedence.

i miss my art, my stories, the pouring out of my spirit onto the page in the form of imaginary people that talk in my head, but i am also so full of the real people in my life.  my husband, four children, their significant others, inlaws, parents, siblings, friends.  so much.  all of us  - every one – chock full of stories.  so many stories before me, without imagining, that i cannot find my way back into that world of wonder deep within my mind.

and so i live, today, in what is.  i relish the beauty of who i am with.  i ache with the pain. and wonder if my days of storytelling are over.

here’s something i’ve been playing with…i think it might be a story, since i am really a fiction writer.

but i wrote it down as a poem this time:

They Called Her “Mamma”

If I sit real still, I can feel

The yesterdays stringing along like

Tin cans behind a wedding car.

*

Even though she had no children they called her “Mamma.”

Saturdays she sat at the drugstore counter

Facing out, speaking out, turning out

Advice.  The rest of us sipped

Sodas, ordered pie, ate ham ‘n’ cheese

While Mamma talked to the town in her little church hat.

She’d been there,

Fat thighs spread across a red chrome stool,

Since before I was in school.

Patting the counter,

Laughing,

Slapping her knees.

She knew things, Mamma did,

Like which kid shot out the window,

Or who failed the fifth grade,

Or who wasn’t married to my daddy.

My daddy came into the store

On Saturdays too -

In his suit shirt and tie -

And shyly bought

Me and Virgil a treat.

(We lived up the mountain with our mother,

he lived in town, with

a pretty wife and two little girls,

in a house made of yellow gables)

Like a soda can on a string I remember back, unable

To untie fat Mamma from the bumper of those days.

Those days, those Saturdays, that we came into town, holding

our heads high, bringing Mamma gifts;

A pie, a bushel of beans, a two-dollar bill,

While our mother smiled in her worried way

And me and Virgil got cokes,

Our secret safe for another week.

perhaps i am a brat.  i consider housework and politics a poor use of my time, effort and energy. frankly, they are beneath me.  i want to be free to imagine and create, to craft words and stories, to make art; i dont want to get bogged down in toiletbowl rings or ridiculous arguing over whose philosophy of governance is best.  there isn’t enough time in my day, or spirit in my life to waste on vacuuming dog hair or deciding which power-hungry man should be trying to get parties of other power hungry men (and women) to run the great america.

leave me alone and let me write.  my freedom as an american is not challenged in this election, merely my hope for a prosperous future. and since the future cannot be known, this is a small argument that does not capture my attention.