Author Archives: Mare Martell

An Exception

We are taught all our lives that there are norms.

Ways to behave and how to perform

We’re punished if we color outside of the lines

cinching our spirits to fit the confines

removing authenticity, forcing conformity

but we’ve done a disservice in all its enormity

Take exception from those “laws”

Run around naked with all your flaws

Be who you are without any doubts

Experience the joy! Scream and shout!

You’re validly beautiful when you’re true to yourself

You weren’t made to be perfect, stored on a shelf.

You were meant to experience life at full throttle

To demonstrate to others, to be a role model

Life is too precious to indulge what society thinks

Be the exception to the world, not a lip-sync

TAMP: Abbie

Abbie is a dynamic human. I truly admire how she rolls with whatever comes her way.

She walks into a room in a hurricane of glittery animation

Energy pumping through her space

like air so rich it almost feels obscene

Pigpen from the Peanuts,

surrounded by dust,

has nothing on the confetti of joy

that explodes around her with distracted purpose

Sticky notes are posted everywhere

so she doesn’t forget, but

sometimes she does

When that happens,

she merely pauses before redirecting

her vision, her drive, her day

She is a tempest of radiant inspiration

enraptured in her creative personality

Discarded Poem

Every word was engrossingly sincere,

examined almost to the point of microscopic ingenuity

Thesaurus opened, riffled, reflected upon

A collagulation of themed ideas

distilled into a rhythmic chorus

whose intention was to spark

depths of emotion, connection, and understanding.

It was a labor of ultimate love, tenderness,

A hybrid beauty without flaws.

“It’s good. I like it.” He said flatly;

returning to the video game without pause.

TAMP: Sharon “Shern” Crane

Me reprising the Christmas Kiss on Miss Shern’s cheek

A long, long time ago, I watched colored lights pass my studio window. Every night, they paraded across the parking lot of the apartment complex I lived in with my family. I decided I wanted to meet this alien.

A few evenings later, I had the great fortune to meet Miss Shern. (Her accent is very Tennessee which causes her to say my name like MAY-ore.) She and I got to talking about life, the universe, and everything becoming fast friends. She wore the battery operated Christmas lights so that people could see her as she walked her dog, Candy. Candy was a fat beagle who was well loved; sweet as could be.

As time passed, Miss Shern and I would commonly seek out each other’s company. She would come solve the problems of the world at my kitchen table with a good pot of coffee and sometimes some sweets.

A different friend of mine gifted me a feathery charm to hang over my doorway to keep evil spirits out.

After spending several hours with Miss Shern, she was heading out my door when the feather adornment caught her eye.

“What’s that for?” She asked.

“It’s to keep assholes out.” I replied without missing a beat.

“Does it work?” She prodded.

I looked her dead in the eye, “Apparently not.”

We laughed about that harder than we should have. We still tell that story.

She is the kind of person you could ask anything of, talk about anything with, and she has a clunky sort of grace that is truly sincere. She gives selflessly to various causes having served 30 years with the Red Cross (I think it’s more, but I’m pretty sure that’s the number), decades at The Holiday Bureau which supplements families with holiday decorations, gifts, and other such things. She raises money for gifting snacks and drinks for the Police, Fire, and EMS. She volunteers at warming centers in the winter time. She serves on the Oak Ridge Housing Authority Board.

She is quick to laugh. She explores the world with the wonder of a child and the wisdom of living. She’s an avid reader. She’s taken up caving and hiking. She goes to classes at The Oak Ridge Senior Center to expand her vast knowledge. She is impressive as a human.

I have a lot of favorite people, typically it’s for one reason or another, but she…she’s the whole enchilada. I adore her, her heart, her passions, her compassion, her emotional bumpy-bits, and her laugh. This world is a better place with her in it.

Growing Myself

My ancestral wisdom is tangible in my sunburnt skin, tasted on my compassionate tongue, washed in glorious joy, baptized in horrific sorrow. I am spirit ever expanding, heated with a desire to be loved, buried in the beaches of hourglass sands using a cracked red plastic bucket and a too small yellow shovel. I’m thirsty for knowledge, recumbent in peace. I am decayed by grief with only a mildly offensive odor. I have rebuilt myself, my life, my dreams with non-stock aftermarket replacement parts out of every past me I’ve ever been.

#2699

Darkness when I close my eyes. Pinpoints of light flare and fade against the backs of my eyelids like constellations. I imagine myself walking along …

#2699

“But our past selves are a kind of ancestor too, I realize.”

I’ve packed up my old selves.

Some are in cardboard boxes

Not neatly arranged, but haphazard

Strewn about through my ages.

Some are neatly painted wooden heart-shaped chests.

There are broken pieces of sharp wood and rusty nails scattered about

If you peek inside the ones with the missing pieces;

Lids askew,

You’d see a lot of damage on the remnants of me in those

But if you put on the complimentary rose-colored heart-shaped glasses

You’ll know my intentions were true, even if theirs were not.

Some are in disco 🪩 balls sending spectrums of reflection outward

Loud, frantic movements, jutting hips and ruby painted lips 👄

But who I’ve become is more than those but still the sum

Healing Hugs

I hugged shame

I loved disgrace

I encouraged peace

To the weeping face

I heard confession

I felt mercy

I held his hand

Told him he’s worthy

Removed the prison

Of spoken word

Showed him value

By actions served

He sobbed for relief

From a god he doubted

Regret his badge

His sight; sin clouded

Visible pain

ached his soul

But his words dictated

Desperate control

Will he surrender?

Forgive his heart?

Remember his humanity,

That is tearing him apart?

I can’t fix him

Or make things better,

Just let him feel loved

Releasing the debtor

For Us All

When I say I pray,

I pray for us.

I take my knowing of your Spirit as it has met mine

Reminded that we are of one heart; one people

Faith turned inside out as a beacon of compassion;

kindness gifted a mortal coil

Our lives are bountiful with profound joy and excruciating sorrow

Both, in their own way, unspoiled sweetness like honey

Both archaic and newly birthed

My tears are as salty as yours,

my blood as red

Our grief shatters our hearts wide open

but so does the ecstasy of awareness

of abiding love; ever expanding

A welcomed blessing imprisoned in prosaic words

An offering of obedient relationship with one another;

with the interactive chaos of the world

Let us be a harbor for one another

in the turbulent, roiling depths of uncertainty

So when I say I pray,

I truly pray for us.

Who knew?

I have a client whom I’ve been with for over 8 months. I companion care he and his wife three times a week. He is extroverted, claims he hates people while socializing, laughs with his entire body, and is charmingly impish. She is quiet, speaks when spoken to, defers to her husband, but is sweet and expressive when she feels it.

I was doing a normal Thursday visit. He was in rare form. He declared himself indomitable then laughed when myself and his other visitor cheered his word choice. It was a grand celebration of friendship and excellent conversation.

The following morning I received a text that said things had taken a turn for the worse and he was in dire straits. Could I go visit? Absolutely.

Dire straits is an understatement. Although no fever, he was having a health crisis not experienced before. The secondary visitor of Thursday was informed of the situation and they also arrived. It was crushing to know that what we experienced the day before had done a 180. His stats were critically low, but being on hospice, comfort was key.

We prayed.

Okay, I confess, I thought prayer, like funerals, were for the comfort of the person attending to their love. Positive vibes and all that. I prayed to the Universe that peace would prevail, that the highest good would be met, and that his children would arrive in time to attend the final hours. He was put on several prayer chains, of which, I’ve also been skeptical.

For four days he knocked on death’s door. He wasn’t eating or drinking. He couldn’t swallow. He was doing a version of Cheyne-Stokes breathing (It’s kind of like a fish out of water. Because they can’t swallow, the mucus that normally goes down remains in the throat causing a “rattling” sound) He knocked hard, but…nobody was home?

Tuesday he was awake and aware of visitors; even speaking.

By Thursday he was sitting up in his chair, conversing, demanding, agitated that he couldn’t exercise “to stay fit.” He ate more than he had all week. He drank hot tea. He was cranky, but alert and responding to input.

Okay, so let me explain why this struck me as unusual. I honestly believed, as did the nursing staff, that he was going to die. His body showed all the signs of that coming up quickly. The children (my age and better), were told to prepare. But, what changed?

I’m sure there is a scientific reason for his sudden turn-around. I’ve seen and experienced people doing a “rally” (That’s when the dying person suddenly has a burst of energy that can make them seem competely “normal” again. They may want to eat their favorite foods, or drink, or talk with their loved ones. It happens surprisingly often.) Four days of awareness is unusual.

This particular set of events has really forced me to confront my views on prayer, on my own experience, and honestly, I feel like a bit of imposter. However, I’ll take the guidance of my fellow guest and roll with the grace that has been granted with this incredible occurance. I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to be wrong, yet I want so badly to understand.

The next few days, other family members will be attending to him in conjunction with his children.

I will continue to pray. I am baffled, feel awkward in my Unitarian Universalist faith, curious as all get out, and willing to laugh at myself for thinking I knew enough. Do we ever?

Big Emotions

I eat big emotions with a ravenous hunger

gnawing on skeleton bones from my closet

just in case I missed a bit of sinew or gristle

making sure the osteology does not reassemble

into overwhelming feasts of horror

which must be returned with a clean plate

Where tears get sopped up with the bread of life

blood gets drained from the cups of my history

Scars and scabs are filleted into thin slices

childhood terrors served with wooden-spoon whipping

cream gone sour, bitter, painful to swallow.

I dig through my closet of deconstructed moral injury

dab my satiated lips with a crisp linen serviette

closing the door behind me.