Tuesday, October 9, 2018

Departing

(In process reflection) An ambient rumble similar to the forewarning of thunder accompanies the entire train ride. It comes from beneath us. Us, the occupants of dual seats occupied auspiciously by individuals attached to appliances unless sharing seats with family: mom and child, brother and sister, guardians and youngsters. To my surprise, appliances are easily powered by seat side plugs.

I depart for the 1st time on a train from the Wallingford Train Station. In little time at all the first stop 'Meriden' is announced. The stop is across from the renovated downtown green space making it convenient for future rendezvous with destiny.

Before the Berlin stop, I decide to see what someone without a phone might do and discover the magazine Made in America. It is full of concise articles that boast adventure, bourbon, spies, former Presidents and Poet Laureate Tracey K Smith and has an abundance of for-profit college ads. The is much to graze upon as I wonder who is the target for the ads. 
The poem is commissioned. Again I wonder who the poet wishes to reach.


 My destination is the Capitol. A rally in celebration and renewal of, and commitment to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I should be early. It is expected to be a walk across Bushnell Park based on the maps. I am notoriously directionally challenged. 

Monday, October 1, 2018

Saturday, September 8, 2018

Measuring by silent standards

It always comes down to not knowing what you do not know. Choice, be it the horse or the cart be it in-or-out of a box, sets a path on which to deploy tools & skills with experience and possibilities: the scientist or the artist.

In my A.D.D. I attempt both. I achieve occasional ha ha moments, random scribbles (like this blog) and most things left at 80 percent done. If no one is looking it matters not. If it matters not, then why do anything at all? The circle comes back around to choice and the immensity of the unknown.

As we begin to forget more than we know it becomes clearer that what holds us to our own meaning is the stories we choose for our  narration.

I have come to realize I have abandoned much of my story. There is a trail of names; generic (Sullivan) and pseudo names (Adele Houston) wherein anonymity provided me with a perception safety.

Suddenly, it feels urgent to make right choices, to be resurrect from the scraps of recall and seek a fuller self-knowing. Is it here that the nexus of science and art can be achieved?  Or will the 1,000 words begot by an image yield noise rather than understanding?

Tonight I wanted to sit and talk with Dag Hammarskjold about futility in devoted death; and 'Markings'. The Congo is full of babies groomed in rituals of illusion. Peace keepers have been among the people since his plane crashed in 1961. Murder is a rite of passage to a kingdom of peace. Futility loudly claims this timeline in the name of Allah, not oil.

'Destiny will be measured by courage.' echoes as the standard by which silence & evil will be overcome.  I always saw silence as a dance partner with evil yet I indulged in it often to survive.

My personal irony is that self-doubt did fuel courage. Acts of resistance happen but my memories are so shredded that I can barely scribble my markings.

Kindled by --- VICE Terror in the Congo HBO

Sunday, July 1, 2018

eXplore happenstance

Feeling like I had little time to explore and be creative I took a misguided picture of mostly a thumb print and transformed it over and over again into images that appeal to me as mysterious and enlightened and imbued with happenstance.

Then I share.


I sipped Pinot from a paper cup
acidic and crisp 
naturally left over from fallible
encounters of a communal kind.
It began here
stories lavishly threaded engagement and ...
the goods landed on available ears.
Open, prepubescent-ish
reflection
rolled into the next 
embrace with knowing, what
I had yet to know

Time shared.
To network.
Unleashed clouds to rain 
what exactly?
Only the future can reveal ...
the limits of availability.


Saturday, May 19, 2018

Wash Rinse Repeat

Gray Hair Announces Me: Senior Citizen Medicare Eligible

I have been told I am courageous to have long gray hair. 

A Silver Sneakers friend asked "Is there a method to combing hair that long?" As I reflect I realize it is the same as life. Having the right tool is best. Start from the bottom in small sections (chunking). Other life lessons from living collaboratively with long hair is that an occasional trim of frayed ends refreshes the whole. Do not wash too frequently; it needs its own grittiness for full health. Most importantly ignore the marketing but learn from it and find your own authentic Wash-Rinse-Repeat.

Medicare Enrollment (Decisions to Make)

Medicare Enrollment marketing of me to me is constant. This birthday I will be 65. It is a culturally sensitive benchmark. I have a real life benchmark. As of March 2018 I reached my 40 years of 40 hours a month commitment. A secret goal, it became a way of life, a constant often anonymous commingling of life and service. Much of it has not been glamorous. Some of it has been risky. Much done with family. It continues each day. 


I know it is best to make goals public to get a support network of cheerleaders to help you get the win. But honestly I do not think I would have had cheerleaders until I became a mom. It was a long game, and my life cycled through many variations with this one constant. In many ways it centered me when other things were in flux.

Without knowledge of this unstated goal my immediate family in all its iterations were by my side because "It was just stuff we do.In retrospect, my unilateral decisions collaterally impacted family. I believe there-in there was good all around. 


As family, there were seven years of either Thanksgiving Day or Xmas Eve welcoming visitors at Goodwill Fantasy of Lights, nineteen years of being the Prison Chaplain Helpers, several community clean-up days from 4-H to local parks, and serving meals to homeless even on holidays. The list is endless. For me there were countless hours on mission statements, bylaws, policy, strategic plans and procedure documents. Then there was coordinating and/or covering events. And advocacy: preparing and giving testimony on housing, prison reform, capital punishment, gun control, recycling, energy conservation, voting rights, educational reform. Much of this in the six years as League of Women Voters (LWV) of New Haven President.


Why share now?  Partly, because I wonder if I had been more transparent, could more good have been done? Partly, to thank two people who were steady partners in good works: my son all thirty three years from in-womb until now and twenty years with my husband. Partly, to say I am going to refocus a bit so what you expect of me may get a new twist. But mostly to say having it be " ...just stuff we do" has been a life giving gift to me. Thanks to those who shared this with me. 



Some Back Story 


I did not keep a written log. The first two years were working full-time in VISTA assigned to New Haven, CT. I do not count the 7 years as a foster mom as service -- that was joy. The last 5 years were contractual as full-time Executive Director of WPAA-TV

The most challenging time to do this was during graduate school at age 50. I did my best to make this self-investment be deeper by leveraging school projects into community service. Example of leveraging were designing, deploying and maintaining the 7TownTV.org website. While this alliance has not been retained by those who succeeded my leadership in the scheme of things that does not matter. When it worked, it worked well.

During foster parenting years, I was in roles such as church treasurer and chairman of an all-volunteer TV station in a small town. Looking back, I cannot imagine how it all got done. There was always the more-than full-time job to do too because I was, as they say, the bread-winner. 


Many seniors add or find less family-centric ways to serve their community. It is no longer about coaching their kids sports or participating in PTO fundraisers. It often takes on a more universal flavor. Some start new non-profits or fulfill lifelong ideas of making a difference come to life. Some find stipend work to supplement SSN. Whatever the reason it is enriching lives including their own. I am proud to be an ally. 


For me service is going to remain one day, one engagement at a time wherever serendipity takes me. Why change now?




Inclusion must

In the noise we collectively must choose to speak and enable the voices of others to speak for justice to prevail. 

The breaking of barriers must not get lost in noise or systematic frameworks. Our myopia created by our unique lens of our personal circumstances is a formidable barrier to carving a path for others like ourselves or unlike us, together. 

We must find our own accountability and speak unmasked to those in leadership.

Monday, May 14, 2018

Rest

When I take time-out 
slow down
I see the the dust balls, laundry and piles 

piles of books
piles of notes
piles of incomplete

and rest deepens
into depression

I tinker with these posts
for which I took time-out 
before today.

I fill in some. I modify the punctuation.
I find scraps of me.

The clock ticks 
Task to-be-done.

Embrace the day.



Friday, May 11, 2018

Gathering with poets

What gathering with poets reminds me.

  • We have something shared that is both similar and dissimilar.
  • Listening opens us to new places within ourselves.
  • Discovery is central. Some take pleasure in the scaffolding of form or the tease of puzzling within it. Others take flight abandoning form completely. Others pick'n choose what to punctuate. 
  • Why poems: To express. To find. To Tear. To laugh. To become more whole. 

The prompt: 
Write a poem from what instantly connects with you in this poem


Of nature and seasons
only gardens and weeds and the amber of Queen Anne cherries in drops of rain and in the thorns of roses...Frozen forsythia yellowed. If streams mumble ... and grass snakes disappear
into thickets
with soft ferns, boundless fields of summer, lances of trees —of poplar and ash, green armies of burdocks     at dawn when dew gleams snails converse about eternity     pure as a peach 
Of spirituality
Dedicated to the Almighty the cathedral rises ... as straight as Sunday The bells pealed ... the cornets of nuns ... the Jesuits baptized plants Orthodox church’s silence without Mercy.          Why must every city become Jerusalem and every man a Jew?               I’d resurrect them so singly; the New Testament.  
Of metaphor
Like soft signs, fainting maidens, schooners near the theater ... dew gleams on a suitcase ...within frontiers not just in my passport ...murmur of each stone, scorched
 Of change
Converse. Breathe aloud. Burst. Overflow. Expect. Laugh with lighting. Express in haste. ALOUD for eternity. Encore. Encore. Cut the censors that they might go breathless.

Thursday, May 10, 2018

Whirrr is what we do

That moment you comb memory but are oh so stuck in muck.
That moment you find your missing glasses perched on the crown of your head.
That moment you smell burning, not boiling, water. Damaged Diamond.
That moment you wake to what you had forgotten.

That moment someone-else's priority distracts.
That moment the voice in your head interrupts "This is something ..." 
That moment good writing feeds you an unforgettable line. More insight a Google away.
That moment you ignore pause, rewind, replay to be present.
That moment you wake in drool. Missed it. The very thing you stretched your day for.

That moment you inhale Spring, lungs compressing for life itself.
That moment you think "Is cardio class over yet? Again. Again. And again. 

That moment you can not hold the laughter back and splatter your joy into your drink.
That moment you lean in to a hug.

That moment a question alights that you know will not be answered, so you do not ask.
That moment you stop reading to read again.
That moment you realize this person has become a friend.
That moment you realize being a mom is something you just do.

That moment you lost another poem. 
That moment you read another poem and your heart goes whirrr 
transports you back over 50 years
It went "Zip" when it moved
And "Bop" when it stopped
And "Whirrr" when it stood still
I never knew just what it was and I guess I never will.

~~~~ 1st draft -- the bones of it ~~~~
That moment you wake up realizing what you had forgotten.
That moment when you stop reading to read again.
That moment you hear a story and the voice in your head says I must remember that line.
That moment you are interrupted by someone-else's priority, distracted, maybe never to return to your moment.
That moment the good writer of a TV drama feeds you an unforgettable line which in trying to be present with the story, you do not remember well enough to Google. The value of replay if you have the moments.
That moment you walk into the gym and inhale the clean of it thankful, but lungs compressing for life itself.
That moment you think is cardio class over yet. Again. Again. Again. 
That moment you can not hold the laughter back and splatter your joy into your drink.
That moment you want to find a date for in your memory, but are oh so stuck in muck.
That moment you want to ask a question that you know will not be answered, so you do not ask.
That moment you realize this person has become a friend.
That moment you realize being a mom is something you just do.
That moment you lost another poem. 
That moment you read another poem and your heart goes whirrr 
transports you back over 50 years 

~~~ related ~~~
Don't Allow the Lucid Moment to Dissolve by Adam Zagajewski   

Thursday, May 3, 2018

Eating Ants


From The Body's Question: Poems Tracey K Smith US Poet Laureate 2018


Ants love sweets. I relate. I relate.
Crave is me.
Save the colony, are they.
Alone in my honey ...
Swarms about my crumbs ...
My home in their planet.

He chides. More Protein.
Eat more insects, scientists say. 

I am without their predictability
a persistent pheromone informed calculus 
I am tornado like shadowing above them 
in my fear of itchy contamination. 

It is in my head: automatic negative thoughts.
Bait them, slow to the queen they go. 
No.

Voices in my head;

I'd rather not kill the ants but I do want to be rid'f 'em. 
What of an Option B?

Mock (giggle)

Eat ANTS.

Chorus

We need ants.

Refrain 

There is science! 
Yuck surfaces from my gut's own microbiome.


I am not at the ready to extinguish life
to partner with residual guilt
I am open to sharing space with planet savers
oblivious to true knowing

It is in my heart: be mindful
seductively resilience comes among the pharmakon
vinegar and cinnamon.





Notes: 
This poem evolved from a satirical exchange about real life ants in the kitchen. While writing I encountered nudges on this poems' purpose as I try to wedge into my life more time for poem-ing. 
After a chat with a local poet I seek and find again the inaugural reading by Tracy K Smith. I scan and listen soon to hear the poetic reference to ants and purpose and reach Joy and poem such that "The body is memory"
In my next attempt to squeeze in some writing time - I listen with some disappointment to Dr. Daniel Amen reading of his children's book
Distracted from life-balance again by tasks at the intersection of me and work [In chunks it appeared on my LinkedIn while posting my 5th anniversary search for collaboratorsI click; nudged by prior knowing through Community TV curation and a friend who often connects me to a world bigger than my box. I take time to listen to informing promotional videos by Adam Grant and Sheryl Sandberg about the nonprofit Option B which just so happens to be more on what to do about ANT specifically when beset by trauma.

And as I revel in the puzzling of words, word usage examples play along
mindful eating will allow you to savor your food and eat more intuitively rather than emotionally
and end in a surreal wrap-up with the term pharmakon (Jacques Derrida Plato's Pharmacy) and inference by David Foster Wallace 
The self-conscious appearance of unself-consciousness is the grand illusion behind TV's mirror-hall of illusions; and, for us, the Audience, it is both medicine and poison




Monday, April 23, 2018

Sips

when one opens
doors passed by in bygone days
inhales 
up-close a fragrance of Prosperity Roses 
teeters on that edge
a foothold in now

sips
a wine nuanced with bourbon barrels
being neither wine nor bourbon
being other
assertive by review and outcome

when one opens
doors in policy of equal chances
rising to the top
sinking to the bottom
flocculating peradventure
intimate and forgiving
carnality
a privilege 
stamen defunct 
musky with age a short blush 
decades rooted 
thus extroverted and demoded 
desired consequences flower
peak masterfully
among seductive
sips

It is the talk that lingers.

~~~~
The poem began as this .... Did it evolve or devolve with a day of attention.

when one opens
doors passed by in bygone days
sips
a wine nuanced with bourbon aged barrels,
being neither, being other, assertive
by review and outcome

doors, in policy of equal chances,
desired consequences
peak masterfully
among seductive
sips.

It is the talk that lingers.



Friday, April 13, 2018

Reprise

Here is where
a suffocating numbness of noise
collides into a

limitless vacuum of silence


again and again and again
Here is where
trending , Heade
yields to observation


Exotic painted
He returns
Hummingbird in Brazil
cacophony and orchids


Touching eternity
within brush strokes
Here is where
He returns.


Reprise

Here is where
limitless bewilderment
displays in lines

drawn - cross - poem
trend in fleeting noise
painted beauty
observed.


~~~

It is poetry month. I try to observe this with more listening, sharing and (with provocation) writing. Two things I often cherish, collections of responsive media and Found Poems, were referenced at a reading in a manner that created a distaste. Thus, a provocation. A poem.  



Saturday, April 7, 2018

Eternity Made Visible



Upon reading Merton’s elegies
To Hemingway, Thurber and the Monastery Barn
In days closer to my ashes
I appreciate the container – eternity, formed in words.

My Mom tells her Doctor
I am the last. There are no others. I lost my brother.
In this moment she does not belong to the remaining quintet of her children, broken                        two decades before when she lost a son, her favorite.

In this moment she is wandering an eternity made visible, in skies undiluted by humanity.              Her captcha distinguishes her soul from the involuntary carrying-on of her heart.

In this moment her face lightens as if a Spring sun just reminded her of a new season, or                  her one good ear heard the caterwauling of their youthful mischief.

My Mom tells her Doctor
My brother did not know his present. He would not have known                                                                                                     I was not there.
My Mom tells her Doctor
They said "He had a smile on his face." Me too.                                                                                                                                  When I remember.
In this moment I kiss her brow and we carry on.

Monday, January 1, 2018

Poetry Lesson now 25 years old: Eagles Can Walk

POETRY LESSON

The fragile journal had a title and an austere story. It starkly sketched the conditions of a prisoner in war; deprivation, fatigue, the unknown about how long the prisoner’s life could be and if that life would last longer than the war itself. It was a walk to somewhere-else in a log of days, steps, and crumbs.

A baseball styled hat perched on the head of a quiet, prayerful man – had ‘Stalag 17-B‘ embroidered within it. “I bet there is a story about that hat” was met with a nod. The following day at morning Mass a WWII Prisoner of War Journal passed into the hands of a curious poet. 

The face beneath the cap was full of lines – and lines, the mortar of poetry, captivated the poet. The poet read the gentleman’s journal but found no poetry inside.  Even though the title on the journal “Eagles Can Walk” was profound, there was no poetry inside the journal’s own words.

Hungry for understanding of the title and the march to what was expected to be to death; the journal is read over and over. A somberness lingered but little else until the poet decided to learn more about eagles.  

Long before being a prisoner, the soldier had dreamed of being a pilot soaring with eagles. The walking prisoner was not infantry – he was Army Air Corp.  He was an Eagle, but not soaring has he had dreamed. 

Eagles, solitary birds, are elegant fliers that soar far above the earth.  They can walk but their powerful wings make walking clumsy and awkward.  Much like a hungry, tired soldier an eagle must want to live to walk.  An eagle walks only courageously making it’s weakness -  it’s strength.

From stretching, all that the poet learned became a poem that crossed decades from the dream of flying to the dream of living to the unintended consequences of change.

Stretch your imagination for a moment and you can --- soar on the wind, build a nest, tumble & not fall, reach summits, protect your offspring -- walk to freedom and become a prayerful older man with a simple story that captivates a poet and stirs the imagination of a poet’s son.

Stretch your imagination for a moment, and you can!

eagles can walk         
dedicated to I. J. Mills & the courageous survivors of Stalag 17B
that began a walk to what became freedom (4/8/45)

Stretch your imagination for a moment
and you can soar on the wind
with the eagle bald and brave;
a young man at the edge of war
decides to serve ,  Army
Air Corps Eagle 1943

Stretch your imagination for a moment
and you can build a nest that will last forever
in lofty places it will be your castle
torn inside out by the needs of all who
inhabit, molding  traditions
American family 1953

Stretch your imagination for a moment         
and you can court the world in magnificent
flight, talons clasping in earthbound tumbling
capturing the imagination,  grow up to be
president, reaching the pinnacle
Dallas profile 1963

Stretch your imagination for a moment
and you can see what the world cannot see
chooses not to see,  talons firmly into the rock
facing the sun, the summit reached
a generation in a quest beyond
Roe vs. Wade 1973

Stretch your imagination for a moment
and you can capitalize on the white tail
waving with passive strength, across nations
protective, baring up the babes
on wings until they are strong
Soviet Union 1983

Stretch your imagination for a moment
and you can imagine your weakness
as your greatest asset, to be called upon 
often in a world that needs to hear stories
of courage, a W.W.II POW remembers
eagles can walk 1993

Stretch your imagination for a moment
and you can rendezvous with destiny
aircraft, weapons, and technology deploy
Into the Cradle of Mankind; we remember
It is the soldiers, liberating
Screaming Eagles 2003

Stretch your imagination for a moment
that we might adapt to unknown offerings of
ceaseless change, and threats undetected
capturing the wind, unintended
consequences, colliding with mortality
eagle conservation 2013



                                                                                                      
EAGLES BORN TO WALK CAN STILL FLY

                The only word capable of capturing his essence is wonder. He was born different in a world that has too many expectations for imperfection. Like an eagle born with broken wings, he was at a disadvantage. He was born a god child. God stripped him of sight, sound, and communication, yet gave him so much more. Soon after my parents told me I would be sharing my room I met him for the first time. I was only six. I had been praying to be a big brother, but at 6 feet tall my new brother towered above me. He came to the family to grow and learn, they said.  Little did I know that in the end I would be the student, my simple brother Nathan, the teacher.
Growing up I loved having Nathan around because when I was with him I was the big brother. This was a great feeling for a little brother. At night we slept with the lights on because Nathan didn’t like the dark. In the dark he was truly blind. I think that scared him. As long as I knew him, Nathan never said a word, just used sign language for the basics and improvised with the rest.
            His two inch too thick glasses enabled him to make out colors and shapes, grasping the world he could not clearly see. He would hold something as ordinary as a yellow crayon close to his eyes, color with it for hours (until the crayon was gone) and then start again. Then paper filled with color was given to me as if it was as priceless as pure gold.
Nathan spent most of his free time with his face pressed against our front door window, watching the cars fly by on the highway outside our home. Colors and speed appeared to amaze him. Neighbors driving by became accustomed to him sitting and watching, and waved to him. I wonder if he saw them wave or if he understood this gesture. How desperately did he want to understand everything he saw?   

There is one thing about Nathan I will never forget:  his Amadeus laugh, a joyous cry of laughter could make me happy in the worst of times. There is only one person that I have grown to love more than myself. I am proud that person is Nathan. He taught me that a weakness can become a strength. God took away almost everything from Nathan, but he gave him the gift of love. Lucky for me, God gave me the gift of Nathan. I suspect Nathan dreamt of flying. Gifted by love, my brother could soar higher than the rest. And, I will always leave my light on for him so he won’t have to fly in the dark. Nathan showed me eagles, born to walk, can still fly. I believe my brother will fly forever.

Stories from a dry well

early morning pour
a scribbled journal entry
down to the bone style
no reflection
~~~


Will you listen?
Be with me in my telling
discovery. The place.
The people. The why
of remembering
fractured images
black & white, once color
and visceral. Real.
Will you listen ...
eyes alert with curiosity
nods of I am with you
emotive urges of go-on
tell me more

The dry well of stories
Replenished with our tears
Teller. Listener.
Touching in our now-ness
Full facing

The rain. The rose. The romance.
The play. The spacious house. The mom.

Return in the telling
My story. Your story,
Heard. Happened. Here.

~~~
The Community Leadership Program experience. Getting to know strangers. Learning to listen better. Become more whole together.