September 10, 2011

Tomorrow is Sept. 11. It is a date that is indelible in my mind, in all of our minds. Where were you when the twin towers were hit, when the U.S. was attacked? The burning question, but there are many such questions in my like; where was I when President Kennedy was shot? Where was I when the 1965 earthquake hit? Where was I when the space shuttle exploded? Where was I when Martin Luther King was shot? Where was I when the Berlin Wall came down? Some of these questions have an answer—I was at school when Kennedy was shot. I was in the bathroom during the 65 earth quake. But some are a blur, a memory of the event, with nothing particular to reference it to. But 9/11 was such a momentous occurrence, one that rocked the entire world, that everyone who has memory will remember what they were doing the day four jets changed the way we fly forever. For that matter, those four jet planes changed the way we look into the sky, the way we observe others, the way we notice articles left unattended, the way we feel as planes prepare for landing. We notice planes in the air now, because for a week of our lives, there were none.

And it changes how we, as Americans, see ourselves in the greater world. We are players, we have been included in the terror that has been going on in the world. We can no longer feel safe inside our boarders. Now, we must pay attention to the plight of the rest of the world.

We once were a great nation, but now we are a country that struggles to find what it lost on Sept. 11, 2001. We lost more than buildings, we lost more than lives, what we lost on that fateful day was our innocence. As T. S. Eliot states in Gerontion,

After such knowledge, what forgiveness? Think now
History has many cunning passages, contrived corridors
And issues, deceives with whispering ambitions,	35
Guides us by vanities. Think now
She gives when our attention is distracted
And what she gives, gives with such supple confusions
That the giving famishes the craving. Gives too late
What’s not believed in, or if still believed,	40
In memory only, reconsidered passion. Gives too soon
Into weak hands, what’s thought can be dispensed with
Till the refusal propagates a fear. Think
Neither fear nor courage saves us. Unnatural vices
Are fathered by our heroism. Virtues	45
Are forced upon us by our impudent crimes.
These tears are shaken from the wrath-bearing tree.

We are responsible for our actions. We reap what we have sown. We suffer with the world, and in doing so we should become compassionate, empathetic, generous, and heroic. Those who died on 9/11, died heroes, but those of us who are here now, reflecting on where we were during those historic hours, need to pause and wonder, “What does America represent?” Are we a country of hope or despair? I don’t know.

the waste sad time

A poem for the death of my mother.

Childhood is the Kingdom Where Nobody Dies
Edna St. Vincent Millay (1937)

Childhood is not from birth to a certain age and at a certain age
The child is grown, and puts away childish things.
Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies.

Nobody that matters, that is. Distant relatives of course
Die, whom one never has seen or has seen for an hour,
And they gave one candy in a pink-and-green striped bag, or a
jack-knife,
And went away, and cannot really be said to have lived at all.

And cats die. They lie on the floor and lash their tails,
And their reticent fur is suddenly all in motion
with fleas that one never knew were there,
Polished and brown, knowing all there is to know,
Trekking off into the living world.
You fetch a shoe-box, but it's much too small, because she won't
curl up now;
So you find a bigger box, and bury her in the yard, and weep.
But you do not wake up a month from then, two months
A year from then, two years, in the middle of the night
And weep, with your knuckles in your mouth, and say Oh, God!
Oh, God!
Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies that matters,
-mothers and fathers don't die.

And if you have said, "For heaven's sake, must you always be kissing a person?"
Or, "I do wish to gracious you 'd stop tapping on the window with your thimble!"
Tomorrow, or even the day after tomorrow if you're busy having fun,
Is pleany of time to say, "I'm sorry, mother."

To be grown up is to sit at the table with people who havd died,
who neither listen nor speak;
Who do not drink their tea, though they always said
Tea was such a comfort.

Run down to the cellar and bring up the last jar of raspberries;
they are not tempted.
Flatter them, ask them what was it they said exactly
That time, to the bishop, or to the overseer, or to Mrs. Mason;
They are not taken in.
Shout at them, get red in the face, rise,
Drag them up out of their chairs by their stiff sholders and shake
them and yell at them;
They are not startled, they are not even embarrassed; they slide
back into their chairs.

Your tea is cold now.
You drink it standing up,
And leave the house

The fire and the rose are one

In fashion then as of a snow-white rose
Displayed itself to me the saintly host,
Whom Christ in his own blood had made his bride,

But the other host, that flying sees and sings
The glory of Him who doth enamour it,
And the goodness that created it so noble,

Even as a swarm of bees, that sinks in flowers,
One moment, and the next returns again,
To where it labour is to sweetness turned

Sank into the great flower, that is adorned
With leaves so many, and thence reascended
to where its love abideth evermore.
The Divine Comedy, Paradiso: Canto XXXI Dante

The sky is robin's egg blue today. It won't stay long, as clouds cluster on the horizon and the promise of rain is in the forecast. But for now, the sun is shining and the leaves are vermilion, bursting forth and erasing the memory of winter. On these kinds of days, one can feel hopeful standing under a forever blue sky. But right now, the cool spring air is tinged with long ago memories, with sad thoughts, the scent of hyacinth is punctuated with the faded sent of roses from long ago.
Roses were her favorite scent, but she was not very good at growing them. We had spindly rose bushes in front of our house. They were planted by her mother, who loved to garden. But she was not a gardener. She loved gardens, and flowers, but did not like to fuss with them. So our planter box was used primarily as a cat box, and our front garden beds held those spindly roses but not much else.
But, in the back yard, behind the house, were the fruit trees. Pear trees, Macintosh apple trees, cherry trees, one planted at my birth, and one at my sisters, and a plum thicket created by one plum tree and many dropped plums. At the end of summer we always had a surplus of fruit. One year, she canned all the pears, and to be creative, dyed them pink and blue and green. Another year, it was my sister's and my job to sort the cherries,which were dumped into the bathtub, and look for worms. I hated this job and didn't look too closely, which resulted in canned cherries with a little extra protein. And then there were the plums or specifically, Italian prune plums. Thousands, given away in large paper grocery bags to anyone interested, canned into glass jars, and just eaten. I loved the plums the most.
Then, one year, the pear tree, overburdened with too much heavy fruit, lost a large branch. She thought it was a omen, that a member of the family was going to die. Her mother died that year. She was very conscious of omens, signs she felt were from God, preparing her for sad events. Her mother's clock, with the beautiful Westminster chimes, stopped at the exact hour shewould die, one week before. It still does not run.
Now, on this lovely spring day, a few days from Mothers Day, I wait. Her time is fading. The lilacs have not bloomed yet, and the roses are just budding. I know that this transition will hold many things; closure, sadness, regret, release and in some ways, peace. It will reunite her with my father, her mother and those whom left so long ago. It will complete her in her Lord, it will heal her and bless her. Roses, when they fade are said to first be full blown. In that state, the fragrance is the most intense. Her life was a full blown rose, full of beauty at its peak.

In the Dark of Winter

Christmas day and it is grey and raining. The quiet hush of the electric fireplace and the soft glow of the christmas tree lights give the room ambiance. It is the moment before the rush, the pause before it is all over. As the day progresses there will be much paper rending, bow ripping and present admiring, and then with christmas wrap strewn across the room and the cat festooned in bows, it will be all over. There were hours spent in preparation, days spent in search and purchase and much money spent in general, for this to be over so quickly.

It is the anticipation that is the most gratifying; sitting with the cat at 3 am on the sofa, candles burning and all the packages stacked precariously under the tree and the hush of a dark night.

And Anticipation is what Christmas is about; the waiting for the advent of God on earth, the hoping for unification, salvation and meaning. Deep in the darkness of winter, there is a bright light, shinning in the wildness of our existence, gathering us, for this moment in time, together, under the banner of love.

Merry Christmas....

I will wear the bottom of my trousers rolled

I grow old. Everyday there is some reminder of this over arching fact; a creak in the knee, a bad tooth, the slowness of my metabolism, the longing to be able to run and jump like my grandson. I will never be as thin, or as energetic as I was at 20 or even 30 for that matter. I am on that down slope, that steep hill that you have climbed, gone over and are now careening towards the bottom of. The last thirty years have flashed past and I find myself in a bit of a panic. If the next thirty years go as fast, well then, I am as good as dead already.
I don't want to fade out, to drift away like so many of the women in my life have done. They did not live vibrant lives, they withered and fell away. I don't want this, I want to find that vibrancy, that explosion of passion and creativity that as of yet, has eluded me. I feel it, sometimes, a tingle that says there is still time. But it is like gossamer, or soap bubble, hard to grasp hold of.
The desire for success has not been strong enough in my bones to push me towards anything. But now, as I am in that hazy shade of winter (or am I still in Autumn?) I find a longing inside me, a sadness that was there when I was 18, and now has returned. Inside my head I am still that 18 year old who longed for so much. But then it was all ahead of me, all waiting. Now it is mostly behind.
One thing I regret is how much time I wasted, and energy, on falling in and out of love, or being all dreamy and pie-eyed about it. I had no idea what love was, I just liked the feeling it gave me. I was a girl stricken with a bad case of Bovarism...like Emma Bovary, I wanted out of the hum-drum, longed to be somewhere else. I should have used that energy to create something lasting.
I do not regret my children. I would and do live and die for them. And I am so blessed to have beautiful grandchildren. But I cannot just ride on the laurels of birthing great kids...I have to do more, I am compelled to do more. What life I may have left I cannot waste, I shall not fade out.
I want to explode into the sky... a super nova. Quiet little thing that I am, I long to make a stir, leave a mark, contribute to the greater dialogue. Subtly of course.

Mankind cannot bear too much reality

The flesh and blood world around me is difficult to decipher and separate from the cyber created world of information and superficial connection. I grow weary of it all sometimes. There is so much out there that is falsified, exaggerated and modified that finding the truth and trying to live by it can become a challenge. Trying to be in the world but not of it, yet loving this world so much creates a precarious balance. But, while weeding my way through the trash, the tedium, while working my way towards truth, there is a need to just pull out, to rest, to have that dark night of the soul.

Having been through a serious illness, and watched the ones dearest to you go through hell and back, and feeling helpless to do anything, leaves you breathless. I wake at night, feeling like I am suffocating, gasping a gulp of air as I come to consciousness. It is metaphorical, of course, but I still have the need to take a deep breath, as if this will convince me that I can and will keep breathing.

I am learning to let go. Like a tiny young swimmer clinging to the edge of the pool, I want to hang on and just kick my legs. But in doing this, I get nowhere. I need to let go in order to move. It is difficult, as my bent is to hold on fearfully, thinking that if I let go, the world as I know it will cease to be. But letting go is true freedom.

I listen for the calling, the voice that speaks softly, gently and most of all calmly. I listen for this voice and no other, as others scream, rant and lash out, accusing and not listening themselves. This still voice, I have learned, is the truth, the sanity in all the chaos, the savior in the midst of the storm.

I am healing, coming from that place of fear, coming to the calm, the silent world that I know. It is a beautiful world, tainted with terror and pain, but with amazing possibilities.

Between being and unbeing....

There are two things I can never seem to get control of in my life: time and toast crumbs. Both overwhelm me. Time is obvious, everyone has some sort of conflict with time; either they manage it too well and run every aspect of their lives with it, or (like me) they find it a daunting adversary who steals way the waking and sleeping moments (ah..there it is again) of our lives. Toast crumbs, and for that matter dust, are also aggravating arch enemies, the more I try and subdue them, the more they taunt me and scatter. I could make a correlation between dust/toast crumbs and time; the effort it takes to try and subdue either is wasted in the energy you expend in a fruitless endeavor, but it would take up more time.
Time, being what it is, a measurement of everything, will always be a problem. It ticks away when I am not looking, slipping off and aging me without even asking and leaving me older and more frustrated. I try to order it, place it in nice manageable chunks, but to no avail. I look back and see the time wasted. Oh, how guilty I feel. But, I find it the most fascinating when I attempt to analyze what it is or what it is not.
And what it is not is what is so interesting. It is not the sum and total of who we are, yet we live our lives as if it were. We are (cliche alert) slaves to the clock, measuring out our daily tasks by the minutes on the clock. We all agree that when we are enjoying ourselves, time moves quickly, and when we are bored, time moves like molasses. But what if we never looked? I know, chaos would ensue...but we would also appreciate more of what is around us, allowing ourselves more time to enjoy it. There is always something to do, some creative thing waiting to be tried, yet, we, who are time-bound are so tethered to its demands and restrictions, we miss opportunities and let time become our task master. I realize, that in our culture, there is no way out of time, except if you moved to an island or out into the woods or far away from cities, towns or strip malls and grew your own food, and read lots of books. You could not shop anywhere but at 24 hour stores (but there, time is involved somehow) or watch television (program times) or pretty much interact with any of the outside world. But, you would have some control, or better, rebellious opposition to time as a measurable thing. Granted, you would still grow old, still have vegetables rot, and still sleep when it is dark and wake when it is light, but you would not be in servitude to every second that ticks by. But, for most of us, this is not a realistic option and so we plod along, shaking our fist at the clock...tic..tic...tic.
One of the most disturbing episodes of the 1960's classic t.v. show, "The Twilight Zone" was with Anthony Burgess as a meek bookish man with coke-bottle glasses who just wanted to read, who lived to read and who by his job, and his shrew of a wife, was not allowed to. All he wanted was time; time to read his beloved books in peace. Then...as he was down in the vault of the bank he worked in, the big one was dropped. An atomic bomb and a nuclear war knocked out all of humankind, and he emerged a sole survivor. He had access to the library, where the books were untouched, he had all the time, peace and quiet that he needed. He was elated. But, then...as only Rod Sterling loved to do, his glasses were knocked off his head and somehow crushed...he could not see anything, blind as a bat. Oh..the irony...oh the way that episode burned into my elven year old brain. I felt the fear of all that time with no way of passing it, the overwhelming gravity of loneliness, not even to have books as companions. (Follow this episode with the one with the fellow who has a stopwatch that could stop time and people, and then he accidently broke the stopwatch and was trapped with frozen people... and you have the angst of the 1960's completed...isolation and annihilation.)

Toast crumbs and dust will preserver, I will never be able to control either, and they will coat the counters and bookshelves (respectively) of my world. As for time- I need to somehow live within its perimeters, at least until the kronos is overcome by the kairos...when time is timeless.