On Mother’s Day

May 13, 2012 By

Dublin Grave, Polaroid Transfer with Water Color.The ois

I wrote the following poem years ago when I was visiting Ireland, once a year, loving the peace and quiet of County Mayo.  I rambled through cemeteries, many forgotten and uncared for, learning about women’s lives by reading the few words on their headstones. Their lives were not easy.   Mrs. Heartwell shows up in many of my poems.  She can be a goofy clown, naive, sad, and joyous, but she is also very serious and filled with compassion.

on mother’s day

the light shines within us
like a candle
an eternal flame

reciting inscriptions aloud
mrs heartwell studies rows
of weathered stones
ponders praying angels
the one with broken wings
guarding tiny patrick

died in his mother’s arms
he was only three

beyond a drooping cedar
blood red roses
scent the path
where the queen of heaven
her tranquil face
etched with lichen
extends her arms
blessing sarah golden

brave soul entered
eternal rest
november sixth
eighteen hundred and ninety four
the mother of eight 

stumbling through thorny weeds
she finds
a rotting cross
bits of broken glass
rosary beads scatter
as she tries to keep
from stepping on
mary shepherd

gave her life 
for infant sophie

jzr

To all mothers out there, Happy Mother’s Day
from me and Mrs. Heartwell!

Filed Under: family, Life, love, Poetry, stories, Travels, Writing Tagged With: , , ,

Seeking Balance

March 17, 2012 By

My growing garden.

 I was feeling blocked, unable to unplug the movie I’d been screening in my head.  Writing a memoir is difficult work, especially since I’ve spent most of my time for the last month reliving parts of my life that were less than pleasant.  I needed a break from the past.

This week, the days were in the mid-seventies and eighties, sunny with a few clouds, but only a drop of much-needed rain. It was almost perfect gardening weather. I did a tad of pruning and pulled weeds. I bought four gorgeous hellebores in full bloom and this morning tucked them in the ground on what was once a bank of nothing but Ivy.

In Charlottesville, as in most regions of the state, there is more Ivy than any other kind of plant. It can easily overtake a stonewall and bring it crashing down. It can kill trees, shrubs and any plant that decides to take it on.  Last fall I hired a man to pull up all the Ivy on that bank and we built a small patio on top of the rise. This spring my project is to fill the empty garden space with shade loving plants. Hellebores that often bloom in late January, ferns, and hostas are the most likely candidates. But there are many others that will not be overlooked. Since doing my daily memoir writing was not happening anyway, I figured it was a good time to start.

The garden is a perfect place to come to terms with what’s bothering me. Among the plants and the promises of spring I can do some inner weeding.  When I spend time outside with plants, allowing my hands to dig in the soil, my mind and heart opens, awakening to earth messages and spirits sent at this time of year to heal the land and its creatures after a long, dark winter.

Here in Virginia, the winter has been a warm one. The two snowfalls we’ve had are the joke of the season. Now the land is alive with trees and shrubs that usually begin blooming in mid-April. Today we had our lawn mowed. It no longer looks like a typical hayfield in late July. I’m anxious to go off to the nurseries and find more plants for my garden.  Spring officially arrives early Tuesday morning and I’m ready to dance into the new season.

My hands and fingers are happy that I’ve dipped them in the warming soil. But now they again itch for the keyboard. My heart and mind are clear, ready to process the next part of my story. I will gently place the words on the blank screen that awaits them, and this time I will try to be continually mindful of the state of my emotions so that the wall that I ran into a few weeks ago doesn’t stop me from moving forward.

For me, balance is the key.  I am not like the tightrope walker who gracefully dances her way along the wire while balancing her umbrella on the tip of a finger.  I need stops along the way where I can take the time to recompose myself.  The garden is one of those places.

Hellebores planted today.

Filed Under: Gratefulness, Life, Matters of the Spirit, Memoir, Navigating Through Life, stories, The Garden, The Seasons, Writing Tagged With: ,

Lunch At Marco & Luca’s

March 2, 2012 By

With only time for a quick lunch between appointments yesterday, I decided to treat myself to the best fried dumplings in town at Marco & Luca’s on the Downtown Mall.  Six to-die-for dumplings in a luscious soy sauce/concoction for three Dollars is the perfect light lunch when I’m on the run. Though they may not be the best things for me to eat, I don’t do it very often.  And today as I often do, I promise myself I’ll have an apple when I get home to try to balance out my food sins. It’s way too chilly for gelato at Splendora’s, so no worries about totally caving on my food plan there.

I sit on my usual stool in the window looking out over the Mall and start diving in with my chopsticks.  I’m a klutz with these crazy eating tools and almost always end up picking the dumplings up with my fingers taking dainty bites. The sauce begins covering my once clean fingers, leaving them too sticky to pick up my glass of water. When I pick up the paper napkin it sticks to my hands and I have to peel it off.  So I dip my fingers into my water and using a paper towel provided at the tray station, clean myself up.  It’s a messy, indelicate and embarrassing way to eat if other people are watching.  But if I don’t get somewhat cleaned up right then and there I’ll be unable to pick up my purse and jacket and make a beeline to the ladies room where I can do the job right.

Half way through my first dumpling, I notice a young man standing in the middle of the mall, with his adorable West Highland Terrier. They appear to be waiting for someone.  Out of the corner of my eye, I see another man approaching with his own dog, a large, mutt that towers over the terrier.

Both dogs wag their tails and lunge at each other trying to get into that nose to butt position that dogs do when first meeting.  But both men pull their pets back and the man with the large dog continues on his way up the mall, leaving the first man and his dog behind.

The terrier looks frustrated and tries to follow the big dog, but his leash is held too tightly.  He looks up at his owner’s face then lifts his little leg and pees on his man’s shoe.

I’m laughing so hard I almost drop my second dumpling in my lap.  It’s not an out loud laughing.  I’m laughing to myself. From behind it might look like I’m having a seizure for all the shaking I’m doing.  But nobody notices. I watch the guy suddenly feel something warm and wet on his foot.  He bends down, feels his shoe and sock. He looks down at the dog who looks back up at him with tail wagging. The man looks around as if to make sure nobody is watching, then bends down and starts rubbing the dog’s nose on his shoe.  He is saying something to the dog, but since I’m inside, I can’t hear what I imagine is a tirade about where one shouldn’t lift a leg. It all reminds me of an old slapstick movie.

My inner laughing and shaking revs up a notch as I pick up my third dumpling. When I pierce it with my teeth, it explodes sending a stream of warm sauce up in the air and on to my glasses. I now look out through dripping, brown lenses. Everything is blurred and sticky.  I’m in a state of shock.  Did anyone see this happen? I’m too embarrassed to look around. With dripping fingers I grab a paper towel, dip my glasses into my glass of water and clean them off.  When I look out the window again the man and his terrier are gone. The last laugh must be on me.

Lesson Of The Day:

Don’t laugh too hard at other people’s follies, lest you become a folly yourself!

The Carousel outside of the Discovery Museum.

Filed Under: Life, stories Tagged With: ,

Books

February 23, 2012 By

There is no friend as loyal as a book.
Ernest Hemingway

I love books.  You might say I’m addicted to them.  I have a long list of books at Amazon ready to be purchased.  Right now they are mostly memoirs and books on writing.  I try to order only three or four at a time, but that’s very difficult for me.  They are as tempting as my favorite locally made chocolates or a quart of freshly picked, June strawberries from the farm down the road.  I often tell myself, “I’ll never have enough.” or “I’ll buy it now, because I REALLY NEED it. ”

I also tell myself that my addiction is harmless because books aren’t narcotics or contain alcohol. I’m not into buying diamonds, furs, or private jets.  I don’t need those things and I don’t have that kind of money.  If I did, I’d probably spend it all on books, with a healthy dose of traveling and clothes thrown in.

I’ve been told by those who frequent AA meetings that thoughts like that are called, “Stinking Thinking.” Well, I’m guilty.  And though I’ve known that I’m a bookaholic and do a lot of stinking thinking for a long time, I am in the middle of confirming it as official. We moved to this house almost two years ago.  In the frenzy of the move, my husband and I got rid of a lot of books.  I can’t speak for him, but for me it was difficult.  I chose books that I remembered as not being engaging … that no longer drew me and/or that obviously for one reason or another,  I never should have bought in the first place.  After the move and unbeknownst to me, Bill asked a friend who was helping us to unload all of the boxes of books onto our bookshelves.

I discovered a problem a month or two later when I was looking for one in particular, a favorite poetry book.  All of my books had been unpacked and in some cases packed in such a way that they were all mixed up and out-of-order. You might think I’m a bit anal, but I’ve always grouped genres of books together.  Poetry, Gardening, Nature, Novels, Memoirs, etc.  The only ones I keep in alphabetical order are the poets. There are too many to do otherwise.

So, as wonderful as it seemed to have all of my books unpacked for me, it was a nightmare. I had my work cut out for me.  Just after Christmas, Bill and I decided to finally get our downstairs “Tornado” room put together and unpacked.  It’s underground, where all of the bookcases are located, along with a TV, puzzles, games and a fireplace.  It’s cozy.  Warm in the winter, and cool in the summer.   A perfect place to ride out any storm.

It’s where one night last summer, while Bill was having a meeting of associates, we made everyone go when a tornado warning came across on our emergency weather radio, telling us to take shelter immediately.  We flew to the basement, glasses of wine and crackers and cheese in hand. We sat amongst unpacked boxes and moving rubble for about thirty minutes waiting for the tornado to hit or move on.  One friend laughingly realized she was a “Tornado Virgin,” never having gone through a warning before.   Thankfully, the tornado passed us by and we were safe. No damage had been done, except for the embarrassment of having everyone see the mess and the boxes still needing to be unpacked.  We swore we’d get the room organized.  Reshelving the books was mostly my job since most of them are mine.

Since Christmas I’ve been working a little bit at a time to get my precious tomes in order.  First, I did poetry.  Then came gardening, cooking, and books on using herbs as medicine.  I’m now at work on my books on religion and spirituality, which are many.  I know I could get it all done in one day, but I’m enjoying the slow pace.  Books feel good in my hands.  They smell um, booky. They are filled with wisdom and some actually seem to glow.  No, not like a kindle. Like a real book that’s offering itself to me.

I have discovered that I have many books that I bought and have never read.  As I place each one onto it’s new shelf, I flip through a few pages and immediatley want to sit down and read it from the beginning. There are others I consider to be “old friends” that I’d like to read again or that I simply could never part with.  I started out making a pile of books that I wanted to read for the first time.  I gave up.  There are too many.  And there are three more on their way through the postal system that will be added to the stack by my bedside.

I’m trying to be honest with myself.  I am an addict.  I need to get my problem under control.  Someone suggested that I start going to the library instead of buying books.  That’s all well and good for some, but I like to write comments in books and I’m afraid that wouldn’t do if it belonged to the library.  Maybe I just need to read faster.  Maybe if I stay up later than I normally do and get up earlier I can get them all read.

And just maybe I shouldn’t buy any more until I’ve read the ones I’ve already got … Ah yes, books.  They’re a problem.

Filed Under: Addiction, Books, Life, Memoir, Poetry, stories, wonderings, Writing

Writing Mishap Turns To Blessing

February 12, 2012 By

Today my brother Reid would have turned sixty.  A few weeks ago I found a letter I had written to him, but never sent. It was a rant about stuff that I was angry with him about eleven long years ago.  I thought, “Hmm … maybe I can use this in my memoir.”

As a first step I rewrote it to make it clearer and more understandable. Maybe I could include it as it was. But reading it to Sharon, who is one of my best “reader/listeners,” we found it didn’t work.  And it didn’t work the second time I rewrote it either.

After returning from Florida and getting caught up on the “to dos” that pile up when I’m away, I pulled it out again. Rereading it for the hundredth time I started fiddling with it in a new writing program (Scrivener) I was trying out. It suddenly disappeared. I tried everything I could think of to find it.  I checked the trash.  I checked my documents to see if I had tucked away another copy for just such an occasion, but never found it.

I spent five minutes muttering nasty words and feeling victimized by my *&?##!% computer and then it slowly began dawning on me that it was okay … it wasn’t working anyway… what’s the big deal?

I opened up a new file and began thinking about the letter and what I had been trying to say. My fingers started moving across the keyboard and the words began to flow.  I began listening to my frustrated self of eleven years ago. She expressed what was happening in her life that made her feel so bad and the things she was afraid of.  It started a whole stream of thought that had been missing when I’d written that letter trying to blame Reid for all that was wrong with the world.  Sure, he’d played a role in it, but he wasn’t the devil-incarnate I’d been making him out to be.

I’m glad I never sent that letter to him.  Right now I can see him sitting on the edge of a cloud, laughing at me.  Oh well, better late than never.

The story I was writing that started out as a vicious letter, is now unfolding in a much more truthful way. Things that I was having difficulty connecting are suddenly falling into place.

That doesn’t mean that I won’t stop accidentally deleting things or making other foolish mistakes.  What it does mean is that if I do, it isn’t the end of the world.  Sometimes the Muse has to step in when I’m being stubborn and not listening to her.  It is my story I’m involved in telling, but I’m not really the one doing the writing. I’m just taking dictation and occasionally trying to have my way with it.

Happy Birthday, Bro’!

Filed Under: family, Memoir, stories, Writing
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